Pirating? Not Gonna Do It.

I spent hours and hours and hours getting the school room back in order this week.  The first day all I did was clean up the kids stuff.  Three bookshelves full.  I went through every single paper they had and by the end of the day I had a full trash bag and a very full recycling box.  Another day I went through all their old stuff from last year and got it all boxed up.  Curriculum was next - picking what to do this year and who does what.  Finally I created our school calendar, with breaks included, all set for the whole year.  I've always been bad at adding in official breaks, so this year it's all in there.  It's going to be a lot of work with three kids in elementary grades.  One thing I've added for us is a Character Trait to work on each week.  We'll discuss it Monday morning, what it means, and brainstorm examples of it.  We'll keep it up on our white board all week to remind them of what to work on.  The first week is going to be Responsibility.  They all need to take responsibility for their work, to complete it all, and to do it to the best of their ability.  They all have a checklist of what needs to get done each day and they are responsible for it.  Currently the room is ready for tomorrow morning when school officially starts.  The kids have come in to admire the cleanliness and organization of the room.  Good.  Let's keep it that way.  I've said that before.  The kids have been amazing all week while I was working in the school room.  I was usually in there 3.5-4.5 hours a day and they played so well together.  I didn't have to break up any fights or anything.  It was a huge blessing.

2 out of 3 good kids.

My cleaning ended each day because we had to go to swim lessons.  Since the boys passed their last session, I thought we'd do another session since they were amped up to be green swordfish.  This was a short session - only 4 days long.  The boys absolutely loved their green swordfish coach.  Caroline was originally happy to stay an orange clownfish, until she discovered two girls were in her class.  She didn't want girls in her class.  No explanation.  I think she really would have preferred a class to herself.  On the fourth day, the kids all got their evaluation cards and they all passed.  They were each genuinely surprised.  It was really cool to hear their excited voices.  "I passed!"  The boys' coach left them with these parting words, "Keep playing Minecraft."  Henry, especially, has taken that as a direct order.  We went to our neighborhood pool on Friday and Henry was showing me how he could swim freestyle to the wall, then do a somersault, flip around, and start swimming backstroke.  It was so cool.  I tried to somersault in the pool and got water all up my nose.  Every. Single. Time.  Todd and I have said the kids have definitely passed our swimming abilities.

We are trying to finish up all the summer reading programs.  We went to Half Priced Books and turned in their July reading logs to get their $5 book bucks.  Josiah went immediately to the CD section looking for The Beatles, Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band Album.  God was looking down on me with favor at that moment.  While they had many Beatles albums, they did not have that particular one.  We are still all Beatles all the time around here.  He ended up with a coloring book and another Dav Pilkey book (the wonderful man who wrote Captain Underpants and other books of similar nature and humor).  Caroline walked into the store and picked up the first thing she saw - a white board map with the U.S. on one side and the world on the other.  She was really happy with her purchase.  She asked if she could use it for CC geography.  Henry got a Minecraft and a Pilkey book.

Henry and Caroline asked for trash cans in their rooms, so we finally got them some.  They were just cheap white trash cans, so we said they could decorate them with Sharpies if they wanted.  Caroline has enjoyed decorating hers.  She's been into the "birthday party" theme with her drawings.


Despite all the work we have done this summer moving furniture and painting rooms, the kids have all asked to sleep in Josiah's room every night this week.  The first night they all wanted to sleep on top bunk together.  They actually slept all night long in their little 2'x3' areas.  I really expected them to wake up super cranky the next morning, but they didn't.  It was a little weird.  However the afternoon after the scrunched sleeping, Caroline took a two hour nap.  She would have slept longer, but we had to go to swim.  After that we made them all sleep on their own mattress, so the three of them brought Henry's mattress to Josiah's floor.  Now they have both bunks and the floor on which to rotate.

While Henry and I braved the tax-free weekend and went school supply shopping, Todd stayed home with Caroline and Josiah.  They were watching Ninja Warriors on TV, when during one of the commercials they talked about one of the upcoming evening news stories.  It was about Porch Pirates.  People who follow the UPS/USPS/FedEx trucks and steal just-delivered packages off of people's porches.  It's a very common thing in this area (hopefully not our neighborhood, but just this area in general).  Caroline asked Todd what porch pirates were and when he explained it, she asked him why they did that.  Todd went into a moral lesson about stealing and how that's wrong.  She listened and asked questions like, "How do they know what's in it?  What are they going to do with it? What if they don't want it?"  Then she followed up with, "Can we do it?"  Steal people's packages?  No!  "What if you let us do it?"  I won't let you steal!  "But what if you let us?"  No.  God help us with that one.

Todd made an early morning run to Home Depot (sorry Grandpa) to get a piece to fix a leaky faucet this weekend.  He came home with Whataburger breakfast for the kids.  After handing out the food, Todd asked, "Who loves you?"  All three spoke at the same time.  Josiah, "Daddy!"  Caroline, "God!"  Henry, "Mommy!"  That's right son.  ;)  It's hard to earn points around here.

Henry had a special lunch after church last week.  It was for the rising 3rd Graders, because they are all going to "big church" now.  Before they had children's church for 1st & 2nd Graders.  (Caroline gets to start that next week.)  The Pastor told the kids to do three things in big church: 1-Sit up.  2-Bring your Bible. & 3-Draw (related to the sermon/Scripture passage).  That way they can stay focused and alert and not get bored or distracted.  Next week is Promotion Sunday, so we'll put these three tips to the test.

Tomorrow school begins.  It is hard to believe the kids are already in 1st, 3rd, & 5th grade.  We pray it goes well!