This is Your Brain

In science we are studying anatomy and physiology.  We started with the skeletal system and this week we learned about the role and importance of bones.  One experiment, to demonstrate the importance of the skull (and cerebrospinal fluid), involved an egg, a plastic container, water, and intense shaking.  Each kid received an egg and put that egg in a small container.  It was pretty much the 80s TV commercial revisited.  This is your brain.  The container was their skull.  

Brains in skulls.

Then they were told to run around and see what happened to their brain.  Henry and Caroline's brains turned to scrambled eggs fairly quickly.  Josiah had a smaller container and his lasted a while.  He had to get some pretty intense running in while violently shaking his container to get his to explode.  

We washed their containers out, then filled each of them to the brim with water, then put in another egg.  This represented the fluid between the skull and the brain.  Again they ran.  They were determined to get these eggs to break, too, so they were really shaking their containers.  Not a one broke, which was pretty cool.  There was a lot of effort in getting them to crack.  Our skulls and fluids really protect our brains.

It was an off-week from CC, but several families still got together on CC day to go to a playground.  We've been trying to do a new playground a week to try out different ones.  The one we went to this particular week was not just nice, but was surrounded by beautiful, huge pecan trees and lots of grass.  Very picturesque. There were four families and we were all having a good time.  About the time we were wrapping up, Caroline came screaming towards me that she got stung by a wasp.  She tried to tell me what happened, but it was unintelligible through the sobs.  Another mom gave her some ice and we walked quickly to the car.  As she calmed down, she was able to relay the story.  She was climbing up the slide and as she clutched the side, she grabbed a wasp nest.  Every time she retold the story, she always said, "And then there were wasps in front of me and they were like a distraction to the ones that were stinging me."  Clever wasps.  She had four stings on her fingers - two on her index finger, one on the middle finger, and one on the ring finger.  She also had a sting on her back.  Henry, too, had a sting on his shoulder.  He had shown it to me right after he was stung, but it hadn't swelled up yet, so I wasn't sure what had gotten him.  Looking at it when we got home, it was definitely a wasp sting.  So, it was a rough evening.  Her hand hurt for a good 24 hours.  Now she talks about how she broke her left arm and got stung by wasps on her right hand.  

Henry's new puppet arrived with the arm rod intact.  Meet Officer Frank.  The kids named their puppet show, The Playroom Players.  However, we've yet to see the show because their rehearsals have continually turned into arguing matches.  Typical of the drama types.  

We got dinner to-go from a restaurant this weekend and on the drive there, the kids held their puppets out the windows and waved at passing cars.  Every time they got a wave or smile or even the slightest acknowledgement, they screamed, "I got experience points."  Henry proudly boasted that his puppet received 23 experience points on that car trip.  

Awana was done through Zoom again this week.  Henry is really liking doing it on Zoom.  Sometimes he can be such a homebody.  This week, after doing the lesson, they played a game of Reverse Charades.  One of the leader's walked out of earshot while their spouse told all the kids the 'word.'  Then when the leader came back, all the kids had to act out the word while they guessed it.  Both boys had a lot of fun with this. 

In Benson news, he's never dull.  Earlier in the week I fed him his dinner and he got bored afterward because all the kids were upstairs.  To entertain himself, he took his Kong toy, walked up the stairs to the landing, dropped the Kong so it would bounce down the stairs, and then chase after it.  I thought he was so clever.  He did this for 20-30 minutes.  Up and down, up and down.  Then he stopped.  Then he threw up his dinner.  We brought him outside where he threw up the remainder of his dinner.  Then we spent the next three days trying to keep him from returning to his own vomit.  I hosed the whole area down, put rocks in the dirt where he puked, covered the rocks with sticks and chairs.  Still he was drawn to it and tried to dig there and eat whatever he could find.  So disgusting.  After three days I gave up keeping him from the spot and prayed his stomach acid was strong enough to kill whatever he ingested.  

Benson has also become quite comfortable climbing to the second floor.  We really don't want him up there, so we keep all the doors closed.  He walks around with nowhere to go and then will just lie down in the hallway so he can be near whoever is up there.  It's sad to have all the doors shut on him, but at the same time it's like protecting a baby from tiny things they could choke on.  

Then this morning Benson got bold and jumped up on our couch time after time after time.  He'd jump and lie on it nearly simultaneously.  Not cool dog.  Not cool.

We have a regular week coming up.  Most nights Caroline asks me what we're going to do the next day.  Often I reply, breakfast, school, lunch, school, chores, and then dinner.  She's not impressed.