Eating the Wall

Josiah had his 12-year well check at the doctor's office this week.  He is still holding strong in all his categories.  He comes in at less than one percentile in weight and the seventh percentile in height.  When they showed us the growth curve, his weight hovered right at the bottom, just below the very bottom line.  But, as always, he's proportionate.  Josiah not only likes his slenderness, but uses it as his finest weapon.  His sharp elbows can jab his siblings in the blink of an eye.  

We had a break in the cool weather and had a few warmer days this week.  Josiah had no interest in playing basketball with the other neighborhood kids, so he got back to his chalk art outside.  The first is a picture of the Lone Star State.  The second of a frog character that he created.

When he got his chalk in the garage one day, he noticed that his Halloween pumpkin had finally folded in on itself.  He dragged it outside, leaving a trail of pumpkin goo all down the garage floor.  It 'sat' on our driveway for a few days as a memorial to its life according to Josiah.  After the celebration of life, he was forced to scoop it up into the trash.  

In school, I always assign the boys books to read.  Typically, I make them read two chapters a day depending on the book.  Caroline decided she was ready to be assigned chapter books and asked to forego reading aloud with me to reading by herself.  It feels like a really big step forward and, at the same time, a closing of this chapter of homeschooling.  She's an independent reader.  The Bears on Hemlock Mountain is her first chapter book.  After she reads a chapter, she has to give me a synopsis so I can make sure she's understanding it.  She is growing up!

In CC this week, we learned about Georgia O'Keeffe in fine arts.  We were tasked to replicate her painting of purple petunias.  We really didn't think it would be super difficult, but we were humbled by her seemingly simplistic giant flower paintings.  It was much harder to blend the colors and do the shadowing than we originally anticipated.  Henry's painting turned out really well.  Josiah said he hated it.  Not a fan of Georgia.  Caroline got frustrated a lot with the mixing of the paints and trying to blend them on the paper.  

In science we learned about density.  We did an experiment that showed an egg floated in saltwater, but sunk in freshwater.  We also made density jars which were really cool.  From bottom to top, it was honey, Dawn soap, water, oil, and we tried to do rubbing alcohol on top, but that didn't always work.  

The kids had Crazy Hair Day at Awana.  Our boys were not the only ones to show up that evening with the unicorn hair-do.

On Saturday, the day we said we'd make our weekly dessert, Todd and Josiah made a pumpkin angel food cake.  It was a real, from-scratch cake.  Josiah separated 12 eggs and then whipped the whites into a meringue.  He sifted the dry ingredients and helped fold it all together.  He did a good job on all the steps, however he noted after it baked that it didn't get a good rise.  The British baking show judges would probably call it stodgy.  However, he still made the cream cheese icing and we enjoyed it very much.  Though dense, it still tasted really good. 

Next week, Caroline is baking Benson a birthday cake.  It is hard to believe we are coming up on his first birthday.  This week we have started to transition him to adult dog food.  When we first got the new bag of food, we put just a little on his puppy chow.  Instead of going to eat where his bowl typically sits, he just sat next to the bag of adult food.  He stared at it and sniffed it.  Finally I brought his bowl of food over and he somehow managed to eat only the new food and left all his puppy food.  We were pleased he seems to like it.  Unfortunately that wasn't the only new thing Benson decided to eat this week.  He has been eating our wall.  We have had a tiny dent on our wall in the stairwell (for years).  It was in the same area that Benson typically lies down.  For some insane reason, he decided to stick his teeth in and make the hole larger.  He did it at night, so the next morning I filled the hole with spackle.  A day went by.  Then we caught him eating the wall again.  This time he had eaten all the spackle and made an even deeper hole.  (See the teeth marks in the picture!)  I spackled this hole, which was much larger.  I had planned on letting it dry, sanding it down and doing a second layer.  Those were my plans until this morning when he had dug into the hole again.  Not cool, dog!  The hole is now inaccessible to him.

And since he probably had moved on from his morning gnawing quicker than we had, we gave him a Frosty Paws ice cream treat this afternoon.  Some dog-friendly frozen treat.  He loved it.  He wisely pushed it into a corner so he could maximize his licking.  

The squirrel in the backyard has gotten bold this week.  He still chitters at Benson from the top of our shed roof, but now he's taken to standing on top of the fence, leaning over, shaking his tail, and chittering from a closer distance.  He's also been caught on our lawn and when we let Benson outside, he gives chase.  It's provided us with a lot of entertainment.  I just hope the squirrel is as fast as he is bold.   

Picasso Paintings

Red & White Bands

Monday morning, Josiah had his orthodontist appointment.  Since Todd had the day off work, he escorted Josiah to the appointment.  We were so, so proud that he had made it all eight weeks without breaking a bracket.  Then, in the process of taking off the old rubber bands and wire, the orthodontist, himself, knocked off a bracket!  They had to wait about an hour before it could get fixed, so they killed time by going to Smoothie King.  Not a shabby morning for them.  He chose red and white rubber bands for Valentine's Day.  Unfortunately, Josiah's afternoon was not so hot.  He was in pain from the tightening of the braces and he was angry that he had to do school.  Caroline had finished all her work while he was gone for the morning.  Henry was sick and lying on the couch, so Josiah felt he was the only one doing school that day.  

Henry was under the weather last weekend and the beginning of this week.  He spent a lot of time on the couch resting.  Every now and again he'd get a burst of energy and instead of having him walk all over the house touching everything, which was his preference, I told him to do bicycles.  He pedaled the air like it was nobody's business.  His primary symptom was a sore throat (no cough, no fever).  I set him up for a doctor's appointment Tuesday afternoon to get it checked out.  Strep came back negative, and since we live in a covid world, they tested for that as well.  Negative.  That was Tuesday.  Wednesday he was clearly on the mend.  We kept him home from CC to give him another day of recovery and by Friday he had more energy than everyone in the household combined.  

Doing bicycles.

Caroline and I finished the Laura Ingalls Wilder series this week.  We started reading Little House in the Big Woods last spring at the start of the pandemic and read all the books through the summer, fall, and winter.  Caroline enjoyed the stories.  I loved them.  They were way better than I remembered them as a kid.    

At CC this week, we learned about Picasso and the kids used black crayons to outline facial features and then watercolors to color it in Picasso-style.  We were surprised to see Picasso's earlier work - he painted a portrait of his mother when he was 14 years old.  It was soft, incredibly realistic, and very  normal looking.   But for class we painted in his Cubist style.  

For their presentations, Josiah read an original poem.  Caroline presented on her karate certificate.  The funny thing was, she was holding the certificate to show her class.  It had a date of November 2018 on it, but she spoke about doing karate in the present tense.  She even demonstrated kicks and punches.  

Benson has been taunted all week by a squirrel.  This squirrel built a nest at the top of a tree in our backyard.  We watched him do it a few months back.  Usually he jumps from our shed roof to the tree where he has his nest.  Or he'll jump to our neighbor's tree or to our other neighbor's roof.  But lately he's been standing on the edge of the shed roof chittering at Benson and waving his bushy tail all around.  Benson goes crazy and barks his head off while jumping high in the air.  Every day.  Every day.

Josiah has been practicing his art skills by copying the great comic artists.  He's worked on several Garfield's.  He has also gotten into The Far Side comics lately, so he tried his hand at one of those. 

And Caroline's completed Picasso.

Turning Twelve

Last night as eleven.

Josiah wanted to spend his last night as an eleven year old sleeping downstairs on the couch with Benson and me.  We stayed up and watched Goofy shorts from the 1940s.  At 10:00 p.m., Josiah was still wide awake, but I was barely making it.  I fell asleep while he took out a book to read.  I have no idea when he fell asleep, however I do know when I woke up.  2:20 a.m. Benson.  I took him out, he did his business, and I put him back in his crate.  At 4:18 a.m. the dog woke me up again.  He didn't have to go outside, he just wanted out of his crate.  The same crate he naps in all day long, he needed out at 4:18 in the morning.  I let him out and at 4:24 a.m., Josiah woke up.  Josiah was so excited for his birthday and that he couldn't fall back asleep.  Excitedly he looked at me and said, "We can talk til 6:00."  Well, we could...or we could go back to sleep.  I had to apologize, telling him that I was excited for his birthday, but still hoping to sleep til 6.  I went upstairs to get that extra 90 minutes of sleep.  The poor kid.  He had asked everyone the night before to be up by 6.  Henry didn't wake til 6:30 and Caroline not until 7.  I was somewhere between their times.   

He was blessed with gifts by so many.

Despite our not waking up on time, he had a really good day.  He chose doughnuts for breakfast, although he chose pre-packaged over fresh, which I think he regretted in the end.  He had to forgo the sugary cereal this year because of his braces.  Most cereals are too hard for him and we're not taking any more risks with his brackets.  After filling himself with sugary doughnuts, he spent the morning putting together his Lego kits.  

For lunch he had requested Domino's pizza.  We picked up the pizza and his favorite friend in all the world.  They spent the afternoon playing video games, having light saber battles outside, and playing his new game Apples to Apples.  He really loves this game.  We played the game a few times this past week, but always during the day.  Then Todd wanted to play in the evening with us and he, of course, read the rules.  As is always the case, we had not been playing correctly.  Now we do and it is even more fun.     

Josiah's choice for dinner was his favorite pulled pork from Costco, BraziBites (little cheese puffy bready balls), and plain corn.  Ever since he got braces, Josiah has been eating frozen corn kernels.  He typically pours himself a bowl at lunch each day, straight from the freezer, and eats them One. At. A. Time.  

And then came the cake.  Josiah loves mint chocolate.  He especially loves Andes mints.  He wanted to make a cake that looked like an Andes mint candy.  We baked his cake in two loaf pans, stuck some mint chocolate chip ice cream in the middle, and called it an Andes.  He took some cream cheese icing, dyed it green, and decorated the top with the Andes logo.  (He did not want any more icing than this - he is not a fan of icing.)  After the word was written, he added mint M&Ms and a few Andes mints.  We sang and then he wanted to slice it for us.  He cut giant slices, which he instantly regretted once all five were sliced.  Half the cake was gone.  In the days that followed, he had me cut much slimmer slices to make it last.  

And now we have a twelve year old.  It is hard to believe.  

Henry had a good week at jiu jitsu.  His gi came in and it is very nice, a very thick fabric, a sturdy gi.  He got to pick the gi - the color and style.  They had a bunch of colors to chose from, but Henry chose white.  His reasoning, "because my blackbelt will look better against a white gi."  He gets right in there during class and really enjoys it so far.  It's a good martial art to learn for self defense.  

We have had a really chilly week.  Benson has learned to find the sun throughout the day and he likes to nap there when it is feasible.  One day he caught the sun on the stairs.  We saw him there and thought it was so cute.  Then we went back to do our school work.  Twenty minutes later we heard him fall off the stairs.  Poor dog.  He went back to his soft crate after that.  

Benson was also gifted a paw print ornament for Christmas from Grandma and Grandpa. How many humans does it take to get a dog to put his paw on some clay?

This week begins with an orthodontist appointment for Josiah.  He made it these past 8 weeks without losing a single bracket.  We were so relieved!  

Breathing Hard

We started the respiratory system in science.  The first day we measured how many times we breathe in a day by counting the breaths we took in one minute (x1440).  Josiah had sixteen breaths, Caroline eighteen, I had fifteen, and Henry had thirty-five.  Since we all did it at the same time, I asked him if he counted breathing in and breathing out as 1, 2.  He said he didn't, but offered up that he likes to run around a lot and that makes him breathe more.  (The average for kids is 18.)  Okay.  Let's keep an eye on that.

Henry asked to read the blog, so we let him start back at the beginning in 2014.  After he read the first post about driving cross-country from Virginia to Texas, he got upset because dogs scared him back then.  He was worried that he had hurt the dogs' feelings by being scared.  He was genuinely, teary-eyed upset.  We reassured him he had not scarred any dogs emotionally and that it was normal to be scared of dogs at age 3.  Since then I've been trying to read ahead of him to make sure everything is sound.  It has brought back some really great memories.  Kids are incredibly funny at ages 5, 3, & 1.  

The kids each hung up their 2021 calendars in their rooms.  Before that they got together and wrote in everyone's birthday and all the holidays.  They even discovered when the official Children's Day was and marked that down.  I told them that every day was children's day. Then a day or two later, Caroline got mad at Josiah.  Really mad, apparently.  When I went to say good night to her that evening, she had changed all of January to "Just a Day."  Josiah's birthday had disappeared from the month.  She also added in Snapes' Birthday.  He is the Harry Potter character that Josiah does not like.  Double burn.

Josiah is really getting excited for his birthday tomorrow.  Today we baked his cake together.  He wanted a cake that was in the shape of an Andes mint.  He loves, loves the flavor of chocolate mint.  So we made a chocolate cake in two loaf pans, put mint chocolate chip ice cream in the middle and Voila, an exceptionally tall Andes mint.  He is planning on piping 'Andes' on the top before we light the candles tomorrow.  

Since this counts as his birthday weekend, Todd took Josiah out to a comic book store Saturday morning.  A place they both enjoy.  Todd let him browse to his heart's delight.  Josiah came home with an Archie comic from 1972, two books, and two Lego figures - Ringo Starr and Ghost Rider.  He was glad to get Ringo, because it was the last one.  He hopes to go back some day and get Paul McCartney (they were sold out).  

Our CC group does not start back up until next week, so we had a full week at home.  For spelling, I make the boys write their words three times a day and they are supposed to write a sentence at the bottom of their page using their spelling words.  Henry went for short and to the point with his sentences.  (I'm bored. & Later.)

The kids also did their reading with Benson.  Benson now lies and naps in the sun during the afternoons.  The boys sat beside him to do their reading.  From our perspective today that sunshine looks really nice.  It is currently 36° outside and it has been raining all day.  We were so close to snow.  We did have freezing rain at points, but none of the white stuff.  This feels like the coldest winter we've had since moving to Texas.  It's been chilly for quite a few weeks.

Tomorrow is bound to start early.  I cannot believe we will have a twelve year old!

Restaurant Ratings

Henry started Brazilian Jiu Jitsu this week.  He's only had one class, but he liked it a lot and he liked the instructor as well.  Todd was looking for a martial art that was geared more towards self defense as opposed to competition and scoring points.  This one is a lot about leverage, so the size of your opponent doesn't matter.  Henry got right into it on the first day. (Henry's in white.)

We decided to close out the year by using up restaurant gift cards that we have had for quite a while.  The first place we went to was the Cheesecake Factory.  The kids had never been before and as we sat in our booth, it dawned on us that we had not sat inside a restaurant since our trip to San Antonio last March.  Henry was impressed with the cloth napkins.  He was even more impressed by the amount of grease and mess he had made on his napkin by the end of the meal.  Since we were using a gift card, we got to tell the kids they could order whatever they wanted.  We got an appetizer, five meals, and four cheesecakes.  We left with very full bellies and seven containers of food.  The kids were super impressed by the fanciness of the cheesecakes.  They were quite good!  Surprisingly, when their cheesecakes were placed before them, all three kids immediately ate their whip cream first.    

A few days later we used up more gift cards.  This time to Cracker Barrel.  The kids were familiar with Cracker Barrels because we've used their restroom facilities during our car trips east.  And once, during the quarantine, we got their food to-go.  This was the first time, however, the kids had actually eaten in the restaurant.  Josiah won with his observation of the Cracker Barrel star system.  He informed us, "The waiters have stars on their aprons to show their ratings.  I feel sorry for our guy.  He only has one star."  Josiah ordered the biggest meal of any of us.  He got Momma's Breakfast, an adult meal that consisted of three large pancakes, two scrambled eggs, and a good amount of bacon.  He also got Todd's side of macaroni and cheese because he had wanted to try that.  When we got home he weighed himself because he was certain that he had gained a few pounds.  Nope.  Not Josiah. Still hovering where he's been for a year.  

Of course, we had to get the obligatory picture on the rocking chairs.

And with all the eating out, I've been trying to hit the reset button with our/my eating at home.  After all the Christmas cookies and candy and heavy foods, I've been making celery soup nearly every day for lunch.  It is literally just chopped up celery in chicken broth.  I like it a lot, but it is the most basic meal in the world.  When Henry sees that I've 'made' it, he always asks for some.  He's dubbed it, Amazing Celery Soup.

Benson was scared of the fireworks this go round.  He mostly slept through them for the 4th of July, but this time he sat alert for hours and hours New Year's Eve.  The fireworks started as soon as it got dark and they were still going strong by 1:00 a.m. when we finally went to sleep.  We were hoping to take him outside to use the bathroom, but he stubbornly refused to budge.  At some points he was shaking.  He barked a lot.  But mostly he sat at alert.  

We made Shrinky-Dinks one day this week.  The kids learned about them several years ago at a Children's Museum in Illinois.  The museum was three stories tall and while I was with the boys on one floor making Shrinky-Dinks, Caroline was on a separate floor with Todd and missed out.  The Shrinky-Dinks they made became Christmas ornaments and every year since then, Caroline has reminded us that she missed out.  So we bought Shrinky-Dink paper and got to work.  We drew pictures and then baked them in the oven.  The bigger pictures didn't always make it - sometimes they folded over on themselves in the oven and never folded back flat.  We learned that the smaller the picture, the better they turned out.  It was fascinating to see them in the oven and watch them transform.

We have a few resolutions/goals for 2021.  We are going to continue the kids cooking once a month.  I'd be a fool to stop that!  Added to it, we are going to take away daily desserts.  The kids have felt that they are owed dessert after every lunch.  Mostly it's just annoying that they're eating to get something sweet instead of just eating their meals and enjoying them for what they are...not what they'll get.  So, we're going to make a real, from scratch dessert on Saturday and then we can eat it for however long it lasts and then we're done for the week.  We've been watching The Great British Bake-Off on Netflix and the kids always want to try what they're making.  This way we can learn some new techniques and enjoy our desserts more than before.  Now we pray for patience to make these baked goods...

One last resolution, we are determined to teach the kids the difference between 'much' and 'many.'  They basically use them both wrong and it's become a top pet-peeve.  

Josiah said that when the clock struck midnight, ushering in 2021, that COVID would be gone.  It was just a 2020 thing.  Sorry kid.