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.