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.