Bayou Wildlife Zoo

The kids are moving on up in jiu-jitsu.  Last weekend, Caroline earned her first jiu-jitsu stripe.  Then a few days later, Henry earned his second stripe.  Caroline refused to smile for her picture and remained fairly stoic.  Not Henry.  Henry was proud.  Caroline is not always aggressive when she spars in her class.  She likes to know exactly what she's supposed to do before she does it, so sometimes she'll just wait around until the coach gets to her to help her.  We've tried to tell her to just try the move.  Even if you get it wrong, just try.   After one class this week, the coach came over and told her to pretend that all her opponents were Henry because she fights Henry.  They are only together in the lunch classes, though, which is why Caroline prefers those.     

Josiah has been into sculpting clay.  He has sculpted out a few of the comic characters he's created, the Whopperios (Whopper-eye-o's).  He started out with four regular characters, but when we did Great Artists at CC, he added Rockwell-io, Lichtenstein-io, Picassio-io, and Wyeth-io.  They have all made it into his comic stories.  After sculpting the bodies, he broke up toothpicks to paint their pens, pencils, paintbrushes, and other supplies.  He has really enjoyed the clay a lot.  Well, he enjoys the creating.  We're struggling with the 'where do we put all of these.'  The last batch he made sat on our kitchen countertop for a few weeks.  I put them high on top of a shelf to see when he'd notice their absence.  It's been a few weeks and he's yet to ask about them.  So we'll see how long this latest creation sits on the countertop.  

He has also gotten into JFK recently.  We read about him in our history book which lead us to watching videos about him, his death, and legacy.  Josiah read a book about him that he got from the library.  Saturday, he drew his portrait on our driveway.  It doesn't come out very well in the picture, but if you could see it in real life, he blends the colors with his hands so you can see the shadows and lighter sides of the face.  He has chalk skills.  

The kids also had a really good Saturday morning.  Our library has finally opened up again.  We can browse the shelves.  We haven't been able to browse the shelves for a full year.  The kids were so happy to have that freedom back.  We left with 50+ books all because we could.  It was great, though.  We got home and all the kids were silently reading in the living room.  Heaven.

And then there was the big thing we did this week.  Friday morning we drove out to Bayou Wildlife Zoo.  We had to leave our house at 7:15 a.m. to get there on time as it was over an hour away.  The kids were really excited to go.  I was not looking forward to it at all.  This was the type of place where the animals stick their heads in your car and eat from your hands.  I had seen enough America's Funniest Home Video clips to know that I did not want some animal to reach his head in to eat food off my lap/out of my hands.  I always vowed to never, ever, ever go to a place like that.  Not my thing.  But, since EVERYTHING got cancelled this past year due to COVID, I felt like we should take any field trip we could get.  Even horrible ones.  (I did not tell the kids that I was not looking forward to it.  I didn't want to quash their excitement.)

We went with our CC group and there were 30+ of us.  They stuck us in two open-air trams pulled by Jeeps.  Every single person was given a bucket of feed.  It seemed like a whole lot of food to me.  Our tour guide spoke to us the whole 40 minute ride, however I don't think we heard anything he said except, "Hands and heads inside" when we went through narrow passages.  He took off, showing us a few alligators (fenced in) and then some endangered animals (fenced in).  All was going well.  At this point, Caroline even complained that she was in a middle seat and couldn't see as well as those on the ends.  I didn't say anything to her because I knew what was about to happen.  We turned the first corner and right away we had two llamas walking swiftly towards us.  Caroline freaked out.  And I mean FREAKED OUT.  The animals hadn't even reached us yet before she was standing up, half-crying, half-scared, high-pitched saying that she wanted OFF the tram and wanted NO animal to touch her nor get within touching distance of her.  And then the first llama reached us.  There were many screams from our tram when that first animal arrived.  Excitement.  Anxiousness.  Fear.  Curiosity.  All the emotions.  Lots of screams.  It reached Henry and his friend first, who had their buckets at the ready.  The llama ate from them and then worked it's way down the tram to graze a little from all the buckets.  The second llama came and did the same.  Caroline remained firmly behind my body.  Then, who should come next but massive bulls and water buffalo.  They came on both sides of the tram so Caroline felt very unprotected. There was one named Ferdinand that was beautiful.  He had beautiful blue eyes and his hair was so smooth and brown and clean looking.  I still had no desire to touch or feed him, but I did appreciate him from behind the camera.  The boys had a grand time feeding every animal they could.  They loved it.  

Confidence.

About 2 minutes later.

Ferdinand

Caroline stayed firmly behind my back the whole time, but had calmed down enough to look at the animals safely behind my shield.  She enjoyed the turtles in their pond.  The deer that were too skittish to come up to the tram, so she looked at those.  The ostriches were really funny to watch.  But then we reached the camels.  She freaked out all over again because 'camels spit.'  They had two camels, Olaf and Igor.  Olaf ate from our tram and then allowed us to move on while he walked back to the second tram behind us.  But Olaf stayed with that second tram for a really long distance.  We kept looking back as we went on to different animals and Olaf just walked alongside that second tram enjoying the food.  From our perspective it looked really funny to watch him follow along.  Yet later we learned it was not quite so cool from their perspective.  Josiah's tutor was in that tram and she said the camel kept coming over the top of her head from behind and it was not pleasant.  

One of the last animals we saw were the zebras.  We were warned that they were aggressive and to watch our buckets.  They were bucket thieves.  Henry did his best, but one zebra did this up and down motion and cracked his bucket in two places (to the point that the bucket would never be used again).  Another in our group had their bucket knocked out of their hands and we drove away as all the zebras ate the food that had fallen on the ground.  

One of everyone's favorite parts were the two dips in the trail.  To be able to get up the other side, the driver had to go fast down the hill to gain enough speed to get back up.  The first dip was very fun, but on the milder side.  The second dip was like a roller coaster.  This was the time we all listened to the driver's instructions.  He made sure all hands, heads, and buckets were in the tram.  He stopped it slightly over the top of the hill, facing downward.  Then he counted down and floored it.  It really felt like a roller coaster.  All three kids loved it.  We actually had to do this dip a second time on the way back and that time Caroline lifted her arms in the air.  

Back at the barn, we exited the trams and saw two giraffes and several prairie dogs.  We walked to a second barn and saw pigs and goats and porcupines.  Caroline had zero problems getting into a pen with 10 goats.  She pet them and laughed and thought it was great.  

As we were walking back at the end of our time there, another adult asked Caroline how she liked it.  She just stared at them and remained tight-lipped.  They asked her if she would want to go back and she said, "No!"  She did not like it.  The boys, however, as soon as we exited the tram asked to come back again.  Sure.  With your father.  

Spring Break

We had a nice spring break week overall.  We gave the kids $50 from the stimulus money to buy whatever they wanted.  So far, Henry has saved his and doesn't quite know what he wants to buy.  Caroline spent $5 on a Magic Ink book.  And Josiah.  Josiah has $8 left.  And even that is burning a hole in his pocket.  He bought a CD and two small Lego kits.  He also had his heart set on a $5 table-top drum set so he could be Ringo Starr during his concerts.  (They were sold out when we went back to buy it.)  Caroline was more interested in the total amount of stimulus money we got.

Caroline - How much did you get?  

Todd and I - You get $50 to spend on whatever you want.   

Caroline - Yes, but how much did you get total.

T&E - You get $50.  You can buy whatever you want!

Caroline, frustrated - But how much did you get.

We finally told her, but also told her that the new refrigerator and the week at the beach used almost all of it.  Adulting.

Caroline had her well-doctor's appointment this week which confirmed she's still tall.  91st percentile in height.  She has consistently been over the 90% in height her whole life.  I am quite curious to see how tall she will be full grown.  Clearly she does not get her height gene from me.  

On Monday we ventured out to Half-Price Books because Josiah was looking for Sgt. Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band CD.  He was very excited that they had it and has been listening to it all week.  In fact, our Beatles Concert Series Tour has been either practicing or putting on a show every day since then.  Sometimes there are two shows in one day.  You would think he would be exhausted, but the kid has stamina!  Josiah used his Napoleon costume to look more like the Beatles on the album cover.  

Jiu-Jitsu was fun this week because the kids learned how to flip each other.  They had to lift their opponent up and pop them over their shoulder (using the strength from their hips, not shoulders).  We went to the lunch classes both days. The first day, Henry and Caroline were the only two kids there.  They got a lot of practice in and quite enjoyed flipping each other.  They also learned two different chokes, which they again practiced a lot.  They got in so many reps that Caroline's neck hurt by the end of class.  She was not keen on going to the evening class and having her peers choke her, so we skipped the evening classes this week.  After jiu-jitsu, we got milkshakes.  That was on Caroline's spring break list.  Check.  

Caroline choking out Henry.

Henry's spring break list included playing soccer in the backyard.  All of us.  Todd and I were not exactly gung-ho as we walked out back, but it ended up being a fun time.   It was Todd and Henry against Josiah, Caroline, and me.  At first, Henry's side was whooping up on us.  But we made a comeback and even got the lead.  Todd said once we got to 15 points we would stop.  Josiah, Caroline, and I made it to 15 first, which Henry could not handle, so Henry quickly said we were playing to 20.  He and Todd ramped it up and beat us 20-19.  

Another food request for spring break was McDonald's.  So for St. Patrick's Day we had a very Irish McDonald's lunch.  The only thing that could have made it remotely St. Patrick's Day was to have a Shamrock shake, but they didn't have those this year.  For dinner we had the traditional corned beef, cabbage, and potatoes.  It is one of Josiah's favorites - corned beef.  

Another day the kids spent a lot of time out front.  Poor Benson sat by the garage door and just whined for them.  For a really long time.  Unbeknownst to me, they were cleaning the garage.  Henry swept the whole garage and they made the far, unused side into the Cool Kids Clubhouse.  They lined up their beach chairs, lined up their bikes and water guns.  Everything was nice and orderly.  They proudly showed it to me and then said they were really hot.  It was not a hot day by any means, but they were determined to play with water.  They donned their bathing suits and got the hose and water guns ready.  They had fun, and then laid on their towels in the driveway to soak up the sun, dry off, and warm up.

Aunt Claire sent the kids a Christmas/birthday package which they were super excited to open.  Josiah got watercolor paints and watercolor paper (super thick paper).  After a quick pose as Bob Ross "and now I'm going to give it a friend" he got to painting his own Beatles-inspired pictures.   

Henry showed off his new socks while eating Claire's pizzelles and looking at his new sketch book.  These kids and their poses.  

Henry also got a new version of Minecraft.  He was allowed to make five characters with it and he chose to make our family.  Afterwards he showed us our avatars.  Every time the kids "make" Todd, he always comes out as an old man.  Apparently 'distinguished silver hair' is not a feature, but 'old man white hair' is.  Henry's all about safety first, so our characters were all wearing face masks.  

And, since Henry wanted to finish out spring break on a sour note, he suggested we play Monopoly Sunday afternoon.  He set up the game on the dining room table.  I told him I needed to finish folding some laundry before I would play.  In between the time it took for the laundry to dry and get folded, the whole game got completely scrapped.  Henry had everything set up: the game pieces were in place, he had counted the money out, and he had assigned everyone's seat.  He was ready.  Caroline and Josiah meandered into the dining room and sat down.  Not in their assigned seats.  And things quickly deteriorated after that.  Henry was yelling at them to sit in the right place.  They didn't budge.  Then Josiah and Caroline were playing with the money.  Henry was not amenable to that either.  What set it over the edge was Caroline blowing the money which caused one $500 bill to fly to the floor where Benson picked it up and ripped it in half.  Henry immediately kicked both siblings out of the game.  Josiah protested that he had done nothing wrong.  More fighting ensued and Henry shut down the game for everybody.  I was just finishing up folding that one load of laundry and it had all gone up in flames.  I'm not totally disappointed that I won't have a Monopoly game on our dining room table for the next month though.  

 Then Caroline sealed the deal of sourness.  For dinner tonight, Caroline was given her plate of food.  She brought it to the table and said, "This is an unfortunate dinner."  What?  "I mean it's an awkward dinner."  No explanation.  Nothing.  I do not know if we're ready to start school again tomorrow.  It might be a rough beginning.   

Probability and a Bruised Knee

On Monday, the Fence Man came back and worked all day on our side fence.  He and his partner took off all the panels of fencing.  Then they took down the posts.  For most of the posts, all they did was bend them back and forth a few times before they snapped off.  They were horribly rotted at the bottom.  I think out of all the posts they replaced, only two had any cement connected to them.  These guys did really good work and they were incredibly thorough.  They even went through all the extra fencing behind our shed, hauled away the rotting wood, and then set the good wood on cement blocks so it wouldn't rot.  We were really appreciative of all their effort and we love our upright fence.  It is very strange to see it upright since it had been leaning for so long.   Benson, too, is happy to have his backyard again.  It was a rough few days for him being stuck inside.  

Henry had his visit with the doctor this week - his 10-year well check.  They, of course, measured his height and weight and Henry discovered he is about ½ inch away from being able to get out of his booster seat.  He is determined to grow that ½ inch as quickly as possible.  He has been asking to be measured on a daily basis.  By the time we head east this summer, it is quite possible that all three kids will be riding on the regular seats.  They are all within an inch of 4'8".  

In jiu-jitsu this week, Henry was paired with a new girl in class.  She showed up in Caroline's class earlier in the week, but it was clear even in the warm-ups that she was vastly ahead of Caroline's class in terms of skill level.  So she stayed for Henry's class.  She was pretty much ahead of their skill level as well.  Typically the coach pairs the kids up by height and then by skill level.  Henry got paired up with her for both evening classes and it has been a bit of a humbling experience.  She is this very slender, young lady, but she methodically submits every opponent seemingly with little effort.  We have had to keep reminding Henry that it is good to work with kids that are better, because he can learn so much from them.  He agrees, but he'd still like to win a few more matches.  Caroline missed her second class of the week because of a bruised knee.  She came downstairs Wednesday morning and said her knee hurt.  When I looked at it, I was shocked.  The whole knee was purple.  It was a massive bruise.  She said she had hit it on her desk chair.  From what height?  She gave no further explanation, but she did her school work on the couch that day with her knee iced and elevated.  It looked a lot better the next day and she was fine by this weekend.  Tough cookie.

In CC this week, Josiah sang With a Little Help From My Friends by the Beatles for his presentation.  His tutor said that it made her happy to hear him sing.  He took that to heart and said he was going to sing a song for the remaining five weeks of CC.  All Beatles tunes.  He's been practicing a lot of different songs, but Hey Jude, Get Back, and You Never Give Me Your Money are the current top contenders.  He practices them all day long.  Non-stop.  Literally.  And when he's not singing the lyrics, he'll hum the tunes.  All day long.   

We've moved on from chemical reactions in the science portion of CC, and these last six weeks all the kids learn probability.  For this introductory week of probability, we flipped coins.  Caroline's class really enjoyed flipping the coins.  In the 108 flips, her class had 58 heads and 50 tails, which was a pretty good result considering there was one kid that wasn't totally sure how to do tally marks and another kid who finds it funny to mess up experiments.  

Also, Caroline's class had a relay race during their Review Time.  They ran to collect Solo cups after each review question, then for the last five minutes each team had to build a cup tower.  The wind was not their friend and they may have not picked the most suitable outdoor building technique.  But they had fun trying.  

Then it was Friday.  The last day of school before spring break.  I told the kids to finish well.  Finish strong.  It was the longest school day ever.  We were still working at 4:20 p.m.  At that point I tiredly begged of them, Just finish.  Please.  Finish.    

On Saturday we watched two kids whose parents had to go to a funeral.  One is Caroline's friend from CC, and she's seven.  But we also had her three year old little sister.  It has been a long time since we had a three year old around.  I forgot how MUCH they do.  After they were dropped off, we went to the playroom and then it was on.  We played Don't Break the Ice, Twister, we lined up Matchbox cars, we played with little figurines, we had a snack, we played chalk outside, we played in Caroline's old Minnie Mouse tent outside, running races and scooter races outside, then Legos, Barbies, Polly Pocket, dollhouse fun, Squiggs, Zoobs, dinner, and back to the playroom.  Three year olds are little Energizer bunnies!  But this kid is so fun and has an incredible sense of humor.  It was a good time.  

This week is spring break!  Yay to a week off of school.  

Celebrating Caroline

At the beginning of the week our new refrigerator was delivered.  We had used a little dorm-size fridge for the past two weeks, which has been fine, but it was pretty nice to get a big one again.  I think we missed the water and ice machine in the front the most.  Benson had definitely missed our ice machine.  When we had the old fridge just sitting there all dead and warm, Benson would sit in front of it and whine.  It was his way of saying he wanted ice.  We'd look at his sad eyes and tell him, Sorry, buddy.  No ice.  He now has his ice back.  He loves to chew on it.

For CC this week we finished our study of Great Artists by studying Roy Lichtenstein.  We painted in his Pop-Art style using Benday dots.  It was a fun project to finish out the quarter.  Now we move onto orchestra for the last six weeks.  

Henry's on top, Josiah's on the bottom.

Caroline's

The day before Caroline's birthday, Josiah had a "Tribute Concert" in her honor.  He serenaded us with many Beatles tunes.  After a while, Caroline went up and sang with him.  Concert season is strong around here.  We attend several a week.  

Caroline turned eight this weekend.  As always, she got some great gifts.  She was gifted many crafts, which she loves, and she started nearly all of them in one form or another.  She played with her new Barbie set.  Henry helped her put together her new Lego set.  But the one gift that all three kids played with all day long was the singing machine.  When we bought it, I was under the impression it came with songs already loaded.  That wasn't the case, but it did come with different voices.  They had a radio voice, chipmunk voice, robot, female, and the one the kids liked the very most, the male voice.  The kids thought they sounded hilarious.  When Todd spoke into the microphone, it made his voice sound incredibly deep.  When the kids did it, it sounded male, but more like an I'm-still-going-through-puberty male.  Now Caroline wants to find some karaoke apps so she can sing along.  

For her meal selection, Caroline did not have an international affair as did Henry, but firmly stayed in the south.  She chose tacos from Taco Cabana for breakfast.  She likes the bean and cheese tacos as well as the bacon and egg.  They make their own fresh tortillas, which are really good.  For lunch she chose pigs in a blanket.  Then for dinner she solidified her southern roots and had crispy chicken, cornbread, and black-eyed peas (her very favorite vegetable/bean).  

She had very specific plans for her cake.  She wanted it pink-purple-pink-purple (so that when she cut her birthday slice, she could have both colors of frosting).  She wanted "Happy Birthday Caroline" written in alternating colors around the side of her cake.  She wanted the number '8' with sprinkles around it on the top of her cake.  I wasn't sure she realized the lack of cake decorating skills I possess, but we got to work.  She helped every step of the way.  We baked the cakes, which of course had sprinkles in the batter.  I asked a baker friend from our CC group for a frosting recipe, so we made a real buttercream frosting.  According to Caroline guidelines, we tinted half of it pink and half of it purple.  Todd got the pink one just right.  We had a tougher time getting a bright purple.  I attempted to make four triangles on the top with the icing.  Fortunately Caroline is not a professional pastry judge and thought it looked great.  Then it came time to pipe the words.  I put the frostings in two separate bags, but I cut the holes slightly too large, so the words came out quite fat and 'rustic.'  Caroline did the '8' on top and she thought it was fabulous.  And what could we have with this very girly cake?  Unicorn Swirl ice cream of course.  Because that's a flavor.  

 

Benson spent Caroline's birthday whining at our back door.  Nearly all day long.  He did not have freedom to be in his backyard.  Our backyard neighbor's nephew came to fix the fence posts on the shared back fence.  Because of that, they needed to take down the fence and rebuild it back up the right way.  We were thrilled that he was able to do it, because the fence has been leaning for some time.  We were not keen on replacing the whole fence, however, because it was just the posts that were in bad condition.  It was a huge blessing to us that he was able to fix the posts.  Also, he works in soils so he knows the horrible soil we have here and how to combat it.  He finished the back row today and is coming back tomorrow to fix our leaning side fence.  Fences here are incredibly frustrating.  They require wooden fences in the neighborhoods, but with the humidity and the sinking soil, the fences rot so quickly.  It feels like a constant battle to keep them in good shape.

With the fence taken down behind our shed, the opossum that had been living there moved up toward the front of our shed.  Fence Man saw that she had 6-7 babies on her.  We knew we had an opossum.  We did not know she had a big brood of babies.  After the fence was put back up, she continued to stay near the front of our shed.  However, I did not know just how close to the front she was when I brought Benson outside after Fence Man left.  He went right up to her and got in her face and she furiously hissed at him, showing her teeth.  It was quite the scene.  I kept looking back at her to make sure she wasn't going to strike at me, and then back at Benson trying to shoo him away.  And then furiously trying to find something to block her in/block Benson out.  I hope she moves back toward her original home in the back of the shed tonight.  We like having her around because of all the bugs she eats.  

Now that birthday season has ended around here, we feel a bit like this: