Smoking & Slip-n-Slides

Tuesday morning, the kids and I headed out to Henry's tutor's house.  She proofed Henry while I hung out with the other five kids.  We had never been to their home before, so there was a warming-up period for the kids.  And what did the kids choose to play?  Monopoly.  Not just regular Monopoly, but the electronic version that we had never played before.  After Henry's proof was finished (he passed!), I left to go proof one of Josiah's classmates.  Meanwhile, all six kids stayed with Henry's tutor.  It seems there was no trouble warming up after I left.  They played on their trampoline, ate pizza with brisket on it (which they talked about nonstop on the drive home), and when I came to pick them up, Caroline was dancing to Just Dance.  It was such a relief to complete this proof.  We stopped by Dairy Queen on the drive home to celebrate.    

The following day, Josiah asked for a haircut.  I think starting jiu-jitsu prompted the request.  When he was on the mat sparring, his hair was actually getting in his way, covering his eyes.  We had told him that if he wanted to keep his hair long, he had to take care of it (e.g. washing it regularly... which has not been a huge priority at this stage in life).  There was also a fine line between shaggy-cute and 1970s-not-so-cute.  I think it is the length of the sideburns.  We went to get his hair cut by professionals, and Henry said he wanted his cut, too.  I thought he'd just want a trim, but Henry asked for a short cut.  

 The kids had Awana Store this week.  It is their biannual "shop" where the kids can spend all the points they've earned at Awana for the semester.  They love it.  Josiah brought home glow-in-the-dark chalk.  He chalked up our backyard fence, but we never could see it in the dark.  

Saturday morning, Caroline came downstairs mad at me because of what I had done in her dream.  At dinner, she wanted me to relay the dream to Todd.  I told him that she dreamt I was smoking in the house.  In her dream, Todd came home from work to see me sitting on the couch, smoking, but he wasn't mad because, as he told the kids, I was teaching them that it was not okay to smoke.  

Todd, to Caroline - Was she coughing and looking sick while she smoked?

Caroline - No, she was [and then she demonstrated what I was doing - Caroline held her head up high, face to the ceiling, eyes closed, what appeared to be a fake joint in her hand given the fingers she held up, and she was exhaling fake smoke with a strong look of pleasure on her face].  

I laughed out loud.  She would not recreate it for a photo, but that's probably for the better. 

This evening Josiah had his last LifeGroup get-together.  He's been going to his leader's house every Sunday evening along with eight other 6th grade boys.  They have Bible study work to do throughout the week, then they get together on Sunday evenings to go over their lesson and have a lot of fun.  Tonight was their end-of-year party and they had a big inflatable slip-n-slide along with pizza and ice cream.  Not just ice cream, though, Josiah made himself a large banana split.  Then he froze until Todd came to pick him up.  A wet body, eating ice cream, after the sun had set, made for a cold little man.

We have a busy week up ahead.  We have our last CC day of the year (yay!!), there are parties in all their classrooms, and the boys are going to give their Faces of History presentations.  Tomorrow, Henry has his last proof for Memory Master as well.  It's the Director Proof and he's doing it over Zoom, which makes it nice and easy.  No driving involved.  :)  I think we'll all crash Thursday night when this is all over.  I know I will.  

Josiah Takes Over

 

Good evening, this is the moment I’ve been waiting for!

I am Josiah, the first born. My mother has told truths and non-truths about me. This version I get to write. So, I am just going to say, I am twelve and if you ever meet me don’t expect a mature twelve-year-old.

I am average but I love art and I am an artist. I am not a good speller. Braces aren’t really a problem, but they hurt sometimes. I am funny, nice, helpful, and apparently, I am very hospitable. I have 37 stuffed animals (last I checked) and there’s Al Dente. He is, well uh, if I must admit, very selfish. At the time I write this, I am taking Benson out. Why is the fellows middle name Dog? Because it is the treasured name of my first stuffed animal, the only poor guy I couldn’t find a name for, a dog. He has probably photobombed on my birthday sometime. He means SO SUPER MUCH TO ME!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

He is kind of the reason I am well me! Yes, I recently started Gracie Jiu-Jitsu. It is great except that Caroline keeps pushing me around because she’s “more experienced then me. “

Overall, I’m what I’m described like.

Now I thought it would be fitting to write a few poems. Oh, and I still am the guest of honor (from am old poem that made its way here).

Benson barks,

Squirrels chitter,

Possems play dead.

 

If Benson runs like a cheetah,

He’s supa hard to beatah!

 

The Fence

I stand tall,

I have a ball,

I get leaned upon,

I get peed upon (by the dog),

I get rained upon,

But I can’t talk.

 

That’s it for now.  See ya’ll soon.

 

 

San Jacinto

Henry made it through his peer proof for memory master Monday morning.  It was not an easy proof.  Instead of going through the material in date/week order, the tutor who proofed him skipped around to random weeks and even within the week, she asked him things out of order.  It was all perfectly acceptable, but Henry wasn't expecting it.  He did well and got everything at 100%.  His only trouble spot was a fact in timeline that he just drew a blank on.  She finally hummed the tune for him and he got the words right away.  (We can't hum it for him in the tutor proof, but he was allowed mistakes in the peer proof.)   I told him that if he could pass that proof, the tutor proof this coming week should be a breeze.  His next proof is Tuesday morning.  This is the big one in which he's allowed zero errors.  As a celebration for passing the peer proof, we stopped at Chick-fil-a for lunch and milkshakes on the way home.  

Josiah has been expressing interest in trying out jiu-jitsu for a few weeks now.  He has watched the warm-up exercises often enough that he started doing them at home.  Sometimes he'd do them by himself and other times all three kids would exercise together.  This week he asked if he could do a trial class.  He only wanted to try out the lunch class because it is vastly smaller.  Tuesday he did just that.  He was paired up with another kid who is very experienced, but is also a good teacher.  At every water break, Josiah came back to the bench and said how much he loved it, then and he would add, "and I'm really good at it."  So, Tuesday evening, Todd went back with the boys and signed Josiah up for class.  He did class that evening and loved it still.  We weren't sure if the other kids would overpower him with their mass, but Todd said Josiah was like a spider monkey - fast, agile, and able to get out of tight spots.  The boys are constantly practicing on each other.  They push the ottoman up to the couch to make a fairly big square of soft material.  Then they go at it.  Until I yell at them to stop.  Someone's going to get hurt!

Caroline sparring with Josiah at lunch.  (Henry in the background.)

We had a week off of CC so the kids could work on their memory master as well as their Faces of History reports.  It's a welcome break week in the midst of a lot of year end work.  We didn't exactly have a break day, though.  We spent the day with our CC group visiting the San Jacinto Museum and Monument.  It is way on the other side of Houston next to the ship channel.  After passing through Houston, we entered a very industrial area.  All steel and metal facilities with pipes and exhaust.  It did not look like we were on the road to a museum.  The kids were happy, though, because they got to ride in their friend's car.  San Jacinto is the site where Santa Anna surrendered to Sam Houston, which gave Texas its independence (we had previously been under the Mexican government).  The monument has a very small museum in the bottom of it.  Really it is just two hallways of artifacts, but they had old uniforms and money, swords and pistols, rifles and jewelry.  Interesting articles to read when we could.  The kids favorite part was their discovery of the computer screen showing all the security cameras.  They figured out that there was a delay, so they could walk to the opening foyer of the exhibit, dance around, then get back in time to the computer screen to see themselves dancing.  It was half-funny, but also not good museum etiquette at all.  (We did put a stop to it.)  One-half of the bottom of the monument is a museum and the other half is a theater where we watched how Texas won its independence.  It was a good film, but a little long (35 minutes).  Caroline's interest waned.  She asked me to braid her hair, what was for lunch, how much longer, these seats are comfortable, when is lunch, is it almost over?...  Separating the museum from the theater was their one, lone elevator.  We were able to travel to the top six at a time.  It was 489 feet up and it went fast.  They actually had a window in the elevator so we could see the stairwell next to it, which also showed us the speed at which we were moving.  At the top we saw the ship channel, Houston in the far distance, and mostly just wetland type area.  We had a picnic lunch and took lots of group pictures.  Visiting San Jacinto had been on our list of things to do for a few years now, so it was good to check it off.  Unfortunately, the USS Texas, which was onsite, was not open to the public.  It is under renovations, so we'll have to go back and visit that when it's completed.  I made sure to purchase some commemorative pencils on the way out.    

I found it interesting that the monument was made out of this concrete (with all the shells) - it seemed very susceptible to erosion.  It was also quite a large monument, which I think the picture on the right captures.  

Caroline has been asking for a haircut for a while now.  She wanted to go to Great Clips instead of me cutting her hair because Great Clips does it faster.  I told her that was because I took my time to do it right out of love.  All she wanted was a 4-inch trim, so I let her play on the iPad while I cut her hair.  After it was cut, she asked a billion times, "Is my hair still long?"  It's medium length.  "Does it look good?"  I think it looks very nice.  Wait two minutes and repeat.  

Caroline was also insistent that we take Benson for a walk this weekend.  We obliged and did some more leash training with him.  He did very well.  After our walk, the kids each took a turn around our cul-de-sac so they could work on getting him to heel by their side.  Benson did pretty well with them, too.  I know we need to walk him a lot more than we do.  I just have to get through the next week and a half and then things will be much freer.  

Josiah finished out his weekend going to the dollar store with me.  He wanted to buy paint and a canvas.  He has been into George W. Bush a lot lately (as well as 9/11).  He has read Bush's speech to the nation on September 11, 2001 many times this week.  He drew Bush with a pencil while looking at a portrait of him.  Then later in the day he painted him.  

Possums, Playgrounds, Pizzelles, & Proofing

Over the past two weeks our trees have filled out with new leaves.  Every year, there always seems to be a branch that hangs a bit lower than the others.  And every year the kids take advantage of its low height to swing like Tarzan.  

Another backyard adventure occurred this week.  Benson got a possum.  It was still early morning time.  We were just starting school and I looked outside and saw Benson trotting around with something in his mouth.  A baby possum.  Oh, no.  Todd had stayed home from work that day, so he was sent out to wrangle Benson inside.  Benson dropped the possum, but he had no intention of being caught by Todd.  He raced back and forth all over the yard.  After a good bit of time (and a lot of frustration), Benson was in.  Todd looked at the possum and it was dead.  Not playing dead, but dead-dead.  When he went to dispose of it, Todd thought it looked like it had drowned.  So, we're not sure how it met its demise.  We did keep an eye on Benson all day though.  He seemed fine.  Next year, I surely hope the possum mother finds a new shed to shelter under despite the fact that I love their eating bunches of bugs.  

Josiah has been asking to go to a playground for a while now, so we decided to make a day of it on Saturday.  We went out to eat, browsed Half Price Books, and then headed for the playground.  We ate at Willie's Grill & Icehouse.  Our table was outside and from her seat, Caroline could see the sign at the front entrance.  She read icehouse and was excited because she thought it meant they had ice cream.  I don't know about ice cream, but they do have a wide variety of beer.

We didn't need any ice cream anyway, because we've been making pizzelles this week.  I mixed up a batch of anise flavored pizzelles mid-week using Claire's recipe.  As soon as I made the mix I thought it smelled quite strong, but the dough had a good consistency, so I figured it must be right.  Then, when I tried a bite of the anise pizzelles I thought they had a much stronger flavor than Claire's.  I reasoned that it must be that they lose some of their flavor when she ships them cross-country to us.  I finished making them, all the kids and Todd were eating them.  I cleaned up the kitchen and had gone on to another task when it dawned on me.  I put in 5 tablespoons of anise extract.  The recipe called for 5 teaspoons.  So they were strong.  Today, Josiah helped make mint chocolate pizzelles.  They turned out well.  They are a fun dessert to make because each batch cooks for only 42 seconds, so it is a really quick process.  There are never any left over either.  Henry is our lawman and counts out how many there are and how many everyone gets.  Our favorites are the soft ones when they first come off the press.  

At the playground, the boys discovered that they had no trouble crossing these monkey bar wheels that twist as you try to climb across.  This used to be something they really struggled to cross, but they've gotten a lot taller and stronger since we were last at this playground (pre-COVID).  Caroline enjoyed the climbing wall and Josiah went down the slide very slowly many times to get his hair all staticky.  He has entered into a no-hair-cutting phase.  Right now it looks like a very '70s style. 

We had perfect weather this weekend.  Benson got a bath.  We got some yardwork down and the kids came out to play with Henry's new water balls.  After a while they asked to wash the cars.  There was water, there was soap, and there were three kids.  By the end, the cars were halfway clean (maybe?) and the kids were mostly dirty.  

Henry is in the midst of his CC end of the year proofing.  Each year the kids have the opportunity to go for Memory Master.  It entails memorizing 24 facts in each of the six subjects as well as singing the Timeline song (which has 161 historical events mentioned).  The proofing typically takes about 90-120 minutes so it is a lot of memorizing.  Henry passed his parent proof this week with six errors.  Tomorrow he has his peer proof in which he's allowed one error per subject.  Next week is the Tutor Proof in which he is allowed zero errors.  Typically Todd has done the peer proof in the past, but this year another mom asked if we could peer proof each other's kids.  So tomorrow we're going over to their house to do so.  This is Henry's good friend from CC, so he's pretty excited to be able to go to his house.  Too bad he'll be hanging out with his mom for an hour and a half reciting memory work.  

Benson's Friends

This has been quite a week for Benson.  He has found the baby possums and they are as interested in him as he is in them.  They are about 8 inches long or so and seem fully functional in that I don't see them with their mother anymore. He is constantly sniffing around the bottom of our backyard shed where they make their home.  I've gone over to make sure he cannot get under the shed or dig under it (he cannot), but as I was looking around I saw a baby possum nose peeking out from under it.  They just sniff at each other and he barks.  A lot.

Another day, it was 6:00 a.m. and I was out in the back with Benson again.  It had started to rain so I went back inside.  A few minutes later, he started barking very aggressively.  I went out to investigate and he was barking at the garden area.  I looked and saw a baby opossum on the other side of the wire fence.  It was quietly staring back at us.  I tried to catch Benson by his collar, but he was having none of that.  In the process of trying to get Benson, I noticed another baby possum just a few feet away from me curled up dead (in the backyard area, not the protected garden area).  In the chaos of trying to get Benson, I really thought the baby was dead.  It was curled up and very dirty (whereas the one behind the fence observing all of this was 'clean').  I totally forgot that they 'play possum.'  Finally I was able to get Benson inside.  I kept checking outside and when the sun finally came out I noticed that both babies were gone.  

On Friday, Benson got his possum friend.  Literally.  I was sitting out back, enjoying the day while Benson did his usual sniffing around the shed.  And then Benson took off, knocked over the gate that was blocking the back of the shed and in seconds he had a baby possum in his mouth.  I ran over yelling at him.  Drop it!  Drop it!  Drop it!  He let go of the possum, then ran further behind the shed and sniffed at another specific spot.  He came tearing back and picked up the same baby possum that he had before.  I was yelling at him, kind of freaking out.  He dropped the possum, picked it up again, dropped it.  The possum was, of course, playing dead, but it was still freakish looking.  It was curled up and had its eyes closed, but it kept its mouth open showing its teeth.  He finally dropped the possum for the final time, but then I couldn't catch Benson to get him inside.  I couldn't move the gate to cover up the back of the shed, because if I did, Benson would get the possum again (because he had moved it closer into the yard).  Finally Todd came outside.  Help!  Benson kept darting back and forth so we couldn't catch him.  Finally, I let Todd focus on Benson while I moved the gate back to block the shed.  When I moved the gate, the baby possum sat up and calmly walked under the shed.  The gate now has a huge cement block pushing against it to keep it in place.  It was a lot of chaos for a few minutes.  

The two baby squirrels have resurfaced as well.  This time they came with skills.  They climb all over the tree limbs while Benson watches their every move.  They definitely try to play with and instigate Benson.  At one point, one of the babies fell from the limb onto the ground.  Before Benson could even get to him, his sibling was on the ground as well running every which way.  They both darted back up the tree which excited Benson even more.  He was barking up a storm at them and chasing their every move from the ground.  They've messed with him over several days now.  Benson now spends a good portion of his days staring up at the tree limbs or sniffing under the shed.  

My car hit 100,000  miles this week.  It took slightly over eight years because we got the van the week before Caroline was born.  We were happy to 'catch' it.  It's been a really good car, very low maintenance save the ridiculous number of tires we've worn through in the south Texas heat.  Caroline calculated that she would be 16 years old when we hit 200,000 miles, 24 when we hit 300,000, and 32 when we hit 400,000.  I don't know if she's still planning to live at home at 32, but we'll see.  

Josiah is doing long division and multiplying five digit numbers in his math now.  Basically that means his math takes 100 hours a day and we go through a lot of graph paper to keep all our columns straight.  I try to do all the problems with him, so that if he gets an error we can compare all our rows and find the miscalculation.  (Instead of having to redo the entire problem which adds another 50 hours with grumbling and complaining.)  

While Josiah and I do his ridiculously long math problems, Caroline often takes the iPad and announces that she's going to do DuoLingo.  One day this week she did just that.  Oh how wonderful that she's learning a different language.  Time passed.  A lot of time passed and she hadn't resurfaced from her language lessons.  I went looking for her and she was curled up in bed, sucking her thumb, and watching Netflix.  Uh, uh little girl.  

Henry has two speeds.  Full-on energy, cannot stop moving, running, jumping, throwing a ball, wrestling, throwing his body on the couch, etc.  And his second speed.  Lying on the floor with the dog.  This kid smells like dog every day.  

Probability Pizza Toppings

CC was a bit rough for one child this week (not necessarily the child pictured).  For their presentation, they were going to read a funny poem.  However, when they got up to read it, they decided the funny one was too short, so they flipped the page over and read a longer one about the months.  It wasn't funny.  It wasn't exciting, and so they read it as fast as possible.  Then at the end of each presentation, the kids are supposed to say, "Thank you for listening to my presentation.  Any questions?"  But this child of ours said those closing words and then promptly slid under the table to get back to their seat.  As they were doing so, they said, "I don't take any more questions."  To which the tutor replied, "Oh yes, you do." and made said child come back to the front of the room.  Then this child crossed their arms and was quite angry for the remainder of CC.  I don't know what got into them, but we had a nice long conversation at lunch about it.  It was actually a really good productive conversation.  They were mad that they were not being challenged in class and were not being called on as often as they preferred.  We also talked a lot about showing respect.  And humbling ourselves and apologizing for our behavior.  We both walked away from that conversation feeling much better.  And then said child went out to recess where they got in a fight with their brother over the game of tag.  They swung their jackets at each other and smacked each other's neck/head at which point I gave each of them a broom and they helped me sweep a classroom and the hallway.

Since CC was April Fool's Day and CC days are very long and tiring, Todd and I didn't plan anything for that day.  When I put Caroline to bed that night she said it was the worst April Fool's Day ever.  But she didn't know we had something planned.  The next morning, Todd and I left to drop his car off for an inspection.  On the way back we picked up breakfast tacos at Taco Cabana.  But the kids didn't know that we had filled up an old Taco Cabana box with socks wrapped in foil to look like the tortillas.  Breakfast Sock-os.  So when we came home, left the real food in the car, and brought in our fake box. We got a lot of grouchy "Come on!" from them as they opened them all.  I thought it was funny that they still opened them all.  Like they had a glimmer of hope. They did clue into the fact that Todd had a bag of fresh pico de gallo that we had gotten that morning with the real food.  To get me back Josiah insisted of making my coffee.  He not-so-subtly put a packet of hot chocolate where the coffee grounds go, but he mistakenly used two filters so the water just got stuck and didn't brew.  When I told him I had to dump it because it wasn't brewing, he said in not uncertain terms that he was going to make my coffee.  I watched him put heaping spoonfuls of coffee into the basket.  He tried to make it crazy strong.  Little does he know my penchant for caffeine.  You can't beat me at the coffee game.   

The kids tried to get Todd by putting lemon juice in one of his tea bottles.  But they were too obvious that they had done something because they kept hanging around to see if he would drink it.  He grew suspicious that they had done something to his food, so he stopped eating and drinking.  I told them that they just have to let the joke play out.  Next year...

Todd did a good deed this week.  One of our neighbors was driving around asking anyone she saw to help her.  She had no hot water in her house.  She was thinking her pilot light had gone out in her hot water heater.  Todd climbed in her attic and got it lit for her.  Four Stars. 

And today was Easter.  We watched church from the couch again this morning.  It was a very good service.  Caroline asked if they were going to sing the whole time because there were so many songs.  Do you have a problem praising the Lord?  Other than church, it was a very light Easter celebration.  We didn't even dress up.  Egg hunts don't count as 'celebrating Easter' in my book, but boy we had a lot of them this year.  They can either be light-hearted and fun, or a slightly greedy 'how many eggs can I get before the next person finds them.'  First, there was an egg hunt at Awana.  Then on Saturday, Josiah and Caroline went over to a neighbor's house because they had an egg hunt.  On Sunday afternoon, Josiah went to a different neighbor's house for their egg hunt.  (Henry did not want to participate in either of those.)  And we had an egg hunt at our house.  We literally just finished our Halloween/Christmas/Valentine's candy.  I was trying to stay away from so much candy by getting the kids non-candy gifts.  (We got Josiah an Etch-a-Sketch, Henry some water balls, and Caroline a doll outfit.) But somehow the candy crept back in.   

April is a tough school month.  We have a lot of final projects that have to get done by the end of the month.  So the next four weeks are going to be very intense.