The Grey-White Flip

It was a big week for Henry.  He earned a new belt at jiu-jitsu.  He had to earn four white stripes and one red stripe on his white belt before advancing up.  Henry worked it out to 72 classes (which equals 72 hours).  One of the perks of earning a new belt is that the Instructor flips you.  It's a special thing. 

Henry was quite proud of himself and on a new-belt-high for a few days.  Big smiles.  To celebrate his achievement that evening, we had some homemade peace cobbler.  Caroline was our baker and it turned out delicious.  But the real celebration was this weekend.  The kids have it in their mind that one particular barbeque restaurant is really good.  Todd and I feel that it is one of those sticky feeling restaurants, but the saving grace is their bread.  The staff walks around periodically with fresh, steaming-hot, fluffy bread which is pretty wonderful.  So this weekend, we went out for the big celebration.  We all got the sausage because that tends to be the juiciest meat on their menu.  We also discovered they have some really good fried okra.  Really good.  So, maybe we can handle the stickiness.  

Josiah had a big growing week.  He randomly weighed himself one day and discovered he had gained seven pounds since his birthday.  To see Josiah's growth charts and poundage increases over the years, this was a very significant leap.  With the weight gain, we measured his height as well, and he has grown 1.5" since January.  We were all quite happy for him!  Of course Henry and Caroline wanted to weigh themselves and measure their height as well.  They're all officially over 4'8" though Caroline and Josiah sometimes still use their booster seats because they like riding high.  Not Henry.  He ditched that thing the second he hit 4'8".  

Josiah had his first assessment in his class.  They were given a time limit and they had to draw Canada with all the provinces, capitals, as well as Greenland.  He was happy to report he was the first one done.  Well....  It's not a speed test.  It's an accuracy test.  But he did well.  He got them all in there.  Now he's onto drawing the U.S. with all the states and capitals (while continuing with Canada and Greenland).  

This past week, I had to help with the afternoon care at CC.  It is only two hours.  Usually, we have a paid nursery worker, but she wasn't able to be there this week.  There were 12 kids and the noise level was crazy.  I asked a somewhat quieter kid if this was normal.  She looked at me, sighed, and answered in the affirmative.  Ten minutes before parents came to pick them up, I had the kids clean up and introduced them to the Quiet Game.  There is a 'picker' and they have to pick the quietest, most still child standing against the wall.  Then that kid becomes the 'picker.'  That's it.  That's the whole game.  They played it for ten minutes straight.  It was glorious.  And God bless that nursery worker.    I was not in our kids' classrooms this week, but other parents took pictures of the kids, so here are some of their CC pictures.

Caroline was not interested in dissecting a lima bean:

I see it...

...and I refuse to touch it.

Henry in his class:

And today.  Henry changed his church name sticker from 'Henry' to 'Hey.'

Meeting Kiza III

Henry finally picked up his summer reading trophy from the library.  He read four very long books this summer, The Mysterious Benedict Society series.  He needed twenty books to get the trophy and he filled in the remaining slots mostly with Encyclopedia Browns.  The kids get a lot of their reading in at bedtime.  They ask why their bedtime is so early 8:00/8:30, yet they all read til 9:45 most nights.  We know because they like to come downstairs to check on us.   

Josiah earned his third stripe in jiu-jitsu this week.  The kids like to earn their stripes on separate days because Todd will take them out for Smoothie King for every stripe earned.  Whether they earned the stripe or not, all three get a smoothie.  So there is incentive to triple their smoothie goodness.

This was a big week for Henry and Caroline as they started school full time and CC.  5th and 3rd grades!  We didn't get the official first day of school photos, but we did get a first day of school picture.  Apparently Caroline was doing her math out loud.  Hence, the noise-cancelling headphones.   

    

In CC, it just worked out that Henry is in a class of all boys (nine of them) and Caroline is in a class of all girls (eight in her class).  I think they are happy with their classes.  They both have new-to-them tutors, which is a good change.  Henry's first presentation was on The Mysterious Benedict Society.  Just the first book.  He's said that each book will get its own week.  Caroline brought in her karaoke machine for her first presentation.  She liked showing the kids the voice changer.  It has robot voice, chipmunk, boy voice, girl voice, radio voice, and regular.  When Henry got to his afternoon Essentials class, he remarked, "This is all so familiar."  Ahh, relief.  They do the same program for three years in a row, but each year they get a bit more in depth with the grammar material.  His writing portion goes along with our CC Cycle 1, which is Ancient History this year.  So all his papers will be on some sort of ancient historical figure/event.   

Josiah had a good day in Challenge, but the long days are exhausting to him.  He lays down for the whole car ride home.  He is spent!  This week he handed me a progress report from his director.  She went through all the subjects and evaluated his level of participation.  Fortunately, he's a participator.  Check!  For math, the kids are often at different levels, so each week they bring in one problem to solve.  They go to the board and either ask for help solving it or they teach the class how to solve it.  Josiah was able to go up this past week and he took the role of teacher very seriously.  He'd ask his class a question about the next step in solving it, then he'd call on the kids based on their clothing, "Yes, you, young man in the fish shirt."  He had fun, maybe too much fun.  He also has to write a short report in science each week.  This past week, he wrote about the planet Mars.  To keep up their presentation skills from Foundations, they present these papers to their class each week as well.  In cartography, he has learned how to draw Canada for the past two weeks.  He has to draw it freehand from memory, as well as label the provinces and capitals.  By the end of the semester or the year (not sure), he has to draw the whole world freehand from memory and label every country, capital, as well as all the U.S. states (and maybe capitals?).  It's a lot, but I love that he learns geography.  So far he's got Canada in the bag.

Josiah is doing his Latin tutoring on Fridays.  This week, we drove Josiah and his friend to the tutoring.  On the drive home, Caroline took the opportunity to verbalize her curiosities about houses.  "Is that a big house?  Is that a big backyard?  Is that a big house?  Is that a big backyard?"  It was a 45 minute drive home.  We passed lots of houses and lots of backyards.  For the record, most neighborhoods around here have bigger houses on smaller plots of land.  So there was a lot of, "Yes, big house.  No, small yard."  For 45 minutes.  

Caroline had asked me if the kids could switch places Friday night.  Not the switching where the kids are the parents and the parents are the kids.  But she wanted the kids to be able to stay up and watch TV while the parents went to bed at 8pm.  So I clarified it with her:

You want us to go to bed at 8:00 p.m.?

    -Yes.

 And we cannot come downstairs?  

    -Yes.

And you cannot disturb us?  

    -Yes.

Uh, that sounds fine with me.

So they did.  I actually had a meeting that night, but was shooed off to bed as soon as I got home.  Todd and I fell asleep with them still downstairs.  We knew what we had in store for us on Saturday.  Crankiness.  We couldn't even ask them what time they went to bed without them arguing about the exact minute they went upstairs.  Certain children had a heftier helping of crankiness than others.  However, due to said crankiness and not speaking so nicely and certain kids pushing certain other ones, we decided to make things even more pleasant by making it a Clean the House Day.  Keep those hands and bodies busy in different parts of the house.  If they weren't in the same room together there could be no pushing/dirty looks/mean words under their breath/etc.

Todd finished Saturday evening with a movie night.  He found a movie about a summer camp for kids that did magic.  After they watched the movie, they were all gung-ho to do magic tricks.  So they had a 15 minute pow-wow and then came back with their tricks.  Caroline disappeared behind a falling blanket and Josiah appeared in her place.  Josiah made a plastic rat turn into a stuffed animal using the falling blanket trick as well.  Henry tried his hand at cards.  

Todd's office had a picnic on campus this evening.  He said they were "encouraged" to attend.  Any opportunity for someone else to make dinner is a welcome opportunity for me.  They had hamburgers and hot dogs with all the fixings, chips, and giant cookies.  The kids got their food and then picked the most antisocial spot to eat at.  They just saw tall chairs and a bar.  But the bar faced a wall that they could not see over, so we just stared at a wall while we ate.  (No complaining from me.)  The provost came over and talked to Todd for a long time so the kids and I skipped outside to the games.  After playing long enough to get sweaty, we saw HBU's mascot and got a photo with her.  It is Kiza III, a Siberian Husky, which is the craziest mascot for Houston, TX.  There is a small group of students who take care of Kiza, called the Mushers.  The dog lives with them in the dorm.  She definitely smelled our dog on the kids.  She licked Henry's hand a lot and sniffed Josiah's shorts like crazy.  Caroline was impressed with the softness of her fur.  Free food.  Free entertainment.  Not a bad way to close out the weekend. 

Enjoying the wall:

Josiah dressed for the occasion in all his HBU regalia:

First Day in Challenge A

Josiah went to the orthodontist early in the week.  He picks his rubber band colors based upon the holidays that will occur during the 8 weeks his bands will be in.  The only holiday the next 8 weeks is Labor Day, which has no official colors.  So Josiah decided that he would do the Dude Perfect colors of lime green and black.  We have tickets to go see them this fall if covid allows it to happen (it's already been rescheduled twice).  Josiah is also coming up on a year in braces.  He is a firm believer that he will only have them for two years and not a single day over.  He is literally counting down.  

We tried to go to the pool mid-week.  We were in our suits, suntan lotion on, only to arrive and find out they were only open on weekends from now til the end of September.  The public schools started this week, so there go the pools.  In the two minutes it took to drive home, it started pouring rain.  The kids just stayed outside in their suits, had a water balloon fight, and then played with the hose when the rain subsided.  A little later that afternoon they were able to swim in our neighbor's pool, so it all worked out for them.  And we did make it back to the pool this weekend.  The kids continued their Ben 'Lympics with many competitions: best cannonball, tallest splash, widest splash, smallest splash, best jump and twist, swimming races, on and on.  I got to judge them all, which is not a fun job for me because someone was always mad that they came in last.  Henry won the competition for most-likely-to-dispute-the-judge's-decision.  He'll make a great lawyer some day.  

In anticipation of CC starting, we got the boys haircuts.  Their hair was getting in their eyes which was bothering even them.  I told Josiah's hairdresser that he likes it shaggy, so he just wanted a trim.  She said, Okay, and then took out her electric razor.  I think it looks really good, but he'd prefer a bit longer on the sides.  Henry went short again.  When we went to get the haircuts, we left Benson free in the house for the first time.  He was in his crate as we were leaving, but I told the kids to leave the door to it open.  Caroline was a little untrusting of Benson's freedom, so she closed his crate door, but did not latch it.  Benson did not know the difference and when we got back home, he was still in his crate.  So we tried again later that same day when we went to jiu-jitsu.  This time he was walking free when we left and when we got back he was very excited to see us.  We tried it a third time this week.  We left, waved to him as he watched us through our front window, and when we got home he had gone back in his crate to sleep.  At least he's not getting into trouble.  

Josiah started Challenge A this week.  7th grade!!  Eek!!  We dropped him off in the morning and picked him up 7 hours later.  He was exhausted.  He said he's never sat for such a long time.  It was a big change for him, but he did like it.  He enjoys his director and classmates.  This year, and for the next three years, he studies Latin.  Since we are not well versed in ancient languages, we quickly took the opportunity to have a tutor.  So the following day, he and five classmates were tutored by the older sister of a family in our CC group.  She is a college student, but graduated from CC several years ago.  She's incredibly personable and very fun, so Josiah had a good time at tutoring.  

While Josiah was doing his first day of Challenge A, Henry, Caroline, and I were on a bunch of Zoom meetings.  Both Henry and Caroline had Meet the Tutor meetings with their classes.  Henry's was first and I noticed he identified himself as "Henry who is wiser than JJ"  I looked at the screen to see if he was the only one who gave himself a 'funny' name.  If they were all normal, I was going to make him change it back.  I checked it out and JJ's name read, "JJ who is wiser than Henry" so I left it alone.  When it was time for Caroline's meeting, she asked, "How do you spell, great?" "Caroline the Great" has joined the meeting.

Josiah capped off his week of Challenge A with a pool party.  A family opened up their backyard to all the local Challenge kids (which is 7th-12th grades).  Our campus went out in full force.  Josiah was able to drive with a friend (yay me).  He said the house was a mansion and that he thought the pool would be as big as the lake in front of the house!  From the picture it looked big enough!  No one was allowed on the grass, though, because they had chiggers which would imbed themselves in your skin.  They said if you had any holes in your skin to cover them with clear nail polish to kill the chiggers!  Crazy.  

Todd went to a Filipino self-defense seminar this weekend.  The instructor was former military police.  As it started, the instructor sized up the audience and picked Todd as "closest to his size."  So Todd got to be the person who was hit and kicked and punched and slapped all morning long.  Todd said he didn't hold back and it all hurt.  At lunch, Todd said he signed up to be an observer, so he got the afternoon off.       

Caroline had her last day at Kid's Church today.  We took a photo to commemorate the event.  She's wearing her "Sunday outfit."  She wears this dress just about every Sunday.    

Caroline made this rock at VBS several weeks ago.  It had been in the car all this time.  They were given rocks and I guess they were able to draw whatever they wanted on them.  She colored hers as a pancake with a pat of butter on top.  I love it.  

School for all three begins tomorrow.  Prayers appreciated.  I told them it was a fussy-free year.  No fussing, no throwing fits, good attitudes only, subtraction will not kill you.  Sometimes I think they would all enjoy math if there was no subtraction.

Finishing Out the Summer

Caroline had her last week of swim lessons this week.  It was five days a week this week.  Each day she'd tell me, "I love swim."  Just matter-of-fact like.  She did really well.  She's worked on her stamina with freestyle and backstroke to get further across the pool.  I think sometimes curiosity beats out stamina because she likes to stop and see how much longer she has to get to the wall. This week she had to learn the breaststroke kick, which she was not a fan of.  She said it was too hard.  The coach also taught her how to use the swim team clock to leave the wall at specific intervals.  She enjoyed that and really enjoyed her lessons overall.  I wish this organization did swim lessons year round, but most of the coaches are high school and college kids.  Friday was her last day.  As soon as we got to the pool, we heard thunder.  Her class was essentially cancelled.  They told us we could hang around and they'd fit her in the next class or the one after it.  Caroline wanted to swim, so we hung out, but it just kept thundering.  After an hour and a half of waiting, we finally called it a day.  She was really disappointed, but she'll be back next summer.  

Caroline was freaking out a little because there was a giant duck waddling behind her.

The kids have been doing their own Olympics this week. They've dubbed it the 'Ben 'Lympics' because they say Benson is the judge.  Their competitions have included tennis, hurdles, track, cycling, vault, shooting, drawing, pogo stick jumps, and who could climb the door jamb the fastest.  One day they got their CC memory master medals out and used those for gold, silver, and bronze.  In this event, Caroline got bronze.  She was not a proud Olympian.

The kids also wanted to learn about conjoined twins.  After telling them how it happened and looking at pictures of some on the internet, they decided they'd be the first set of conjoined triplets.  

This weekend Todd and I exhausted ourselves with yardwork.  We spent 5+ hours on Saturday cutting down tree limbs and then breaking them down.  We have to have everything bundled in certain size bundles here or the trash guys won't take them.  We were completely spent by Saturday afternoon.  We showered and celebrated with Tex-Mex for dinner.  Sunday, we had to chainsaw the big limbs into smaller pieces.  The kids were all hands on deck to get in on the chainsaw action.    

After church on Sunday, Caroline had a special New In the Pew lunch.  She is entering 3rd grade this fall, which is the age the kids at our church transition from kid's church to 'big' church.  They had a pizza lunch and then walked them to the sanctuary where the pastor talked to them about what it would be like.  The music pastor spoke as well, and had them sing a few songs together.  They are great guys and gave some good advice.  Sing it out.  Stand up (when the parents stand to sing, you stand, too).  Take notes.  While we were there, Todd took the boys to the James Coney Island hot dog place.  Their menu consists of many styles of hot dogs and one hamburger.  Henry got the burger.

We went to a lunch class for jiu-jitsu this week.  The lunch classes tend to be nicer because there are far less kids, so each kid gets in more reps and more individual instruction.  This particular day, they got through everything and we still had 10 minutes left of class.  The instructor decided that each kid could fight him.  He started from sitting position and the kids had to get mount (sitting on top of him in a dominant position).  He went down the line and the kids gave it their best.  Josiah fought first:

Then Caroline:

Then Henry:

After that particular class, the kids washed the car.  There was a bit of car washing and a great deal of slamming their washing mitts into the bucket of soapy water.  Repeatedly.

This is a big week for Josiah.  He starts Challenge A/7th grade.  Last week, he had a Zoom session with his class that they dubbed Week 0.  His director told them what they needed to do before class.  They went through all the books together and she showed them where to find everything.  The kids were all cautiously excited.  Here's to a good start to the school year!