Future Rockette

Henry's week did not start off well.  He woke up Monday morning having had a bad dream.  He relayed it in full detail.  He was outside playing.  He decided to dig near our fire hydrant in the front and dug up Roosevelt's bones (I did not ask which Roosevelt.  It didn't seem polite to interrupt.)  It wasn't just his bones, but his intestines were present, too, which he described as really gross.  Then Henry kept digging and found Roosevelt's maid buried with him.  He knew it was a maid based on the clothing over her bones.  There was a book with them that he picked up and brought inside.  He didn't go into detail about the book, but after he finished his story, Caroline and I both asked, Why did you bring the book inside?!!  Gross.  In the end, he refused to play out in the front yard for two days because he couldn't get the dream out of his head.  

Henry did learn how to make his own breakfast this week.  He has cooked eggs in the past, but this week he took it to a whole new level.  He does the entire process completely on his own.  As he was cooking his first egg of the week, he asked me how to flip the egg. When I explained how I flipped mine with a spatula, Henry meant he wanted to flip it like a chef.  And then he did.  He just took the pan off the stove, held it in the air, and flipped.   No fear.  It flipped, too, because that's Henry.  He's done that several days this week.  He definitely has an independent streak in him.  

Caroline is ready for Christmas.  Actually she has had an outfit sitting on her dresser for two weeks now.  I asked her about it wondering when she was going to wear it.  She is saving it for Christmas and she hopes it's cold for Christmas because it is a long sleeve shirt, long pants, and gloves.  We are actually supposed to have one of the coldest Christmas's in a decade around here, so she should have her wish.  We were supposed to be in Virginia for Christmas, but the spike in COVID changed those plans.  However, the forecast there indicates they may see snow, so the kids are doubly disappointed.  They are desperate for snow.  Especially Caroline.  

Caroline may see more snow than she can handle if she follows through with her new career choice as a Rockette.  We watched the Rockette's Christmas special on TV and she said she wanted to be one.  I looked up the requirements and was surprised to see they had to be between 5'6" and 5'10.5" (and a bunch of other things).  I expected them to be taller.  Now she wants dance lessons to increase her chances of making it in New York.  

Clearly I never could have made it as a Rockette.  Not just the height requirement, but I don't have the looks either.  This was an observation Caroline made one evening.  

Caroline, "Mommy is pretty...."

Todd, "She is."

Caroline, "...-ish.  I don't think she's that pretty."  

[Me, exiting the room and unwrapping all her Christmas gifts to return them to the store.]  

Josiah is living it up on his winter break.  He seems to feel that the world is his oyster when he doesn't have to do schoolwork.  He casually goes from room to room and says he can disappear and play Legos whenever he wants for however long he wants.  (He may have had issues disappearing on school days to go play Legos...)  He has been spending a lot of his time on art.  He has taken several of his white t-shirts and markered them up.  He created a new comic character and drew him, Nathaniel Narwhal, on his shirt one day.  (Again, he has zero cares for spelling words correctly.  I think he does it to passive-aggressively frustrate Todd and me.  )  The black is in Sharpie, but the colors were washable.  Another day Henry and Caroline wanted him to wear a red shirt.  He came downstairs wearing a white t-shirt with "Red Shirt" written on it in red marker. 

I have had boards in our garage for some time now.  Originally they were bought so we could make string art pictures.  I have great plans to make a cactus one.  Josiah has been itching to use those boards.  He asked to use one to make a family Christmas present.  He painted a Welcome sign for outside our front door.  The word, Welcome, was made blob-art style so it was good he did it a week before Christmas.  It may need that much time to dry.  On a different day, he was outside with Henry and made blob-art/splatter-art pictures.  He invited me outside to see their finished work.  I was happy to see those, but then he wanted to demonstrate how it was created and I cringed and bit my tongue and told him it was more than I could handle.  They squirt out giant blobs of paint on their cardboard box squares, then either use a paint brush to move the paint blobs all together, or they picked up the square and moved it around (not too carefully) to mix them up.  It was all very abstract and very messy.  

We had a Christmas concert Saturday evening.  Josiah's puppet, Al Dente, was the only storyteller that evening, as well as the only soloist when it came time to sing Christmas songs.  His back-up singers were not happy that they were not showcased as much as they'd like, so we have been told there will be more concerts in the future.  With singing.  

Here is how I plan on spending my few days before Christmas.  ;)