Card Carrying Member

The kids have been reading the blog for a while now.  Henry started at Day One and has made it all the way to the most recent date.  Caroline is still in 2015, which makes it fun when she rereads what they did as little ones.  But, because they read it, Henry noted that there were no pictures of neither Josiah nor him doing the Filipino stick fighting.  So, behold:

Josiah and Caroline like hot chocolate.  If we get the giant box at Sam's or Costco, they'll drink hot chocolate every morning for weeks.  It's not really great to start every day with a mugful of sugar, so we stopped buying the big box and now just get one small box occasionally at the grocery store.  The last time we bought just one small box, Josiah hid it high in the pantry.  Then, he not only hid the box, but he took the packets out and hid the individual packets.  Caroline, the super sleuth, found them.  Daily.  There was a bit of arguing about how many packets they each got, so this past week when I went to the grocery store, I bought two boxes and put their names on them.  Then they took it a step further and made sure there was no question as to the ownership of each box.    

Josiah had to get some sealants on his back molars.  The dentist always tells me that I have 'deep grooves' and that they're always checking them for cavities.  Josiah has inherited my deep grooves, so he gets sealants every couple of years.  While he and I were at the dentist, Henry stayed home with Caroline.  She had not yet finished her math, so Henry helped her.  Pulling his vocabulary from his writing curriculum, he texted me, "Caroline ruthlessly finished math.  It was grueling." I feel you, buddy.

We made it through CC this week, but by that evening, I was losing my voice.  I ended up having laryngitis and could only speak in a whisper for 3 1/2 days (so far...it isn't back yet).  It's been kind of nice because when I speak in a whisper, the kids often answer in a whisper.  And when they yell for me from a different floor or room in the house, I cannot answer - they have to come find me.  Of course, they try to milk it for all it's worth by cancelling school til my voice is back.  No bueno.    

Saturday, the boys played with water in the front.  While they were playing, Todd and Caroline went off to the library and she signed up for a library card.  The boys each got their cards when they were 8, so it was time for her, too.  She checked out four books that day and has since gone online and put 10 books on hold (the maximum allowed).  

The kids also did the pogo stick this weekend.  They were trying to best their old records.  Henry jumped 225 or so early on, so I told them how I remember getting up to 500 jumps in a row when I was a kid.  We got a lot of practice at my Grandma's house.  That's all the motivation Henry needed.  On his next turn, he jumped 649 in a row.  Josiah got a personal best of 38 and Caroline hit 6.  I told her it is just like riding a bike.  She has to find the balance on the stick and then she can go the distance.  Josiah likes to jump really high so he bounces high and moves the stick around a lot.  Henry keeps it quick and tight.  

Josiah has been staying up at night drawing Super Mario Bros in his own Whopperio character form.  

Also, we bought a big shoe rack for the garage.  Each child gets a shelf.  The kids and I do not share the same vision for the shoe rack.  Me: orderliness.  Them: Easy access.

Filipino Stick Fighting

Tropical Storm Nicholas turned into Category 1 Hurricane Nicholas.  It was on course to be a direct hit for Houston.  All the schools closed early on Monday and remained closed on Tuesday.  Todd worked from home on Tuesday.  We had some rain on Monday (not a ton).  It was quite windy overnight, but there was very little rain on Tuesday.  The storm seemed to hit the east side of Houston more than the west, which worked out well for us.  

Since we were all home on Tuesday, with all our activities cancelled, we cooked dinner together.  Whoever coined the phrase, too many cooks in the kitchen, they were on to something.  It started off with Todd cooking fajita meat.  Henry wanted to cook the tortillas (we bought a new kind that had to be cooked).  Caroline was shredding cheese because she and Josiah wanted quesadillas.  When the cheese was ready, Josiah squeezed in to cook the quesadillas.  Caroline, however, wanted to put the cheese in the tortillas.  It was a lot of little bodies around a lot of hot pans.  It was a good meal, though.  No burns, so that was a bonus.

The kids are all feeling better as evidenced by a return to fulltime wrestling.  One evening, Caroline wanted to read her book aloud to me.  As she did so, Henry tossed the football to himself while diving on the couch to catch it.  Then Josiah came downstairs and it became tackle football.  Meanwhile, Caroline continued to read, unphased by it all.  

The kids saw the dentist this week.  She told Caroline to go home and wiggle her three loose teeth because she could see the adult teeth already coming through.  Caroline is not a wiggler.  She likes her teeth to literally fall out.  I have a feeling the dentist may have poked at one tooth, though, because it fell out that evening.  Henry was informed that he has officially lost all of his baby teeth, so getting braces has moved up to 'sooner' rather than 'later.'  He's not too thrilled about that.  

Caroline earned her red stripe in jiu-jitsu this week.  The next step is a new belt, so she's counting down the number of classes til that day.  

To go along with the jiu-jitsu, Todd taught the kids how to do Filipino stick fighting.  He had learned it in the seminar from a  few weeks ago.  He taught Caroline the pattern using just their hands and they had practiced it every night before bed.  But this week, he pulled out the real sticks.  I don't think the boys were too happy that she picked it up much faster than they. 

We made it out to the pool this weekend.  We only have a few more weekends in September before they close the pool, so we were trying to get our time in.  Plus, the kids wanted Todd to make his annual trek to flip them in the water.  The water was really cold this time.  Even though it was 91° out, the water had definitely cooled from its August feel.  

The kids have flipped a switch sometime over the past few weeks or months.  We used to have the early-to-bed-early-to-rise sort of kids.  Now, all three are staying up til 10 p.m. every night.  It was one thing for them to stay in bed, get caught up in a book, and read til 10.  But now they're coming downstairs, asking what we're watching, asking if it's appropriate, can they watch it, too.  They're down at 8:45, 9:00, 9:15, 9:45.  Different kids, different times.  I don't think they understand the need for a recharge time.  One evening, Josiah had been quiet upstairs, and at 10 minutes til 10:00, he came downstairs to show us the shirt he'd drawn.  It was Willy Wonka.  He has gotten back into Roald Dahl books lately, and this week he read Matilda, James and the Giant Peach, and a few other shorter books.  He likes Quentin Blake, Dahl's illustrator, so he's been painting and drawing in that style.  

We have a pretty regular week coming up.  

And a few pics of Benson sleeping.  He's so cute curled up with his blanket. And he also likes to squeeze into tight places for a nap.

Silhouette Art

We followed Henry's plans to rearrange his room and got it done just before he fell ill this week.  He was sick all week with a sore throat, headache, stuffy nose, and ear ache (both sides).  You can tell when he's sick because on a normal morning, he walks downstairs, eyes barely open, goes straight to the school room and gets all the books he needs that day.  The whole stack.  Then, with his eyes still barely open, he'll get started on math.  He's been encouraged to eat breakfast and be fully awake before starting mathematical calculations, but that's just what he does.  This week, he got out only his math and handwriting books, did the lessons, and then laid down for a few hours.  That was all he had the energy to do.  Within a few days the other two kids had come down with similar symptoms.  I was worried it was covid because of the symptoms.  We had him tested for covid and strep, but both came back negative, so it was just a regular old virus.  We stayed home from CC and everything else this week.  Caroline recovered very quickly.  Josiah has had a lingering unwell feeling, but few symptoms anymore.  Henry was feeling pretty crummy until Saturday afternoon when all of a sudden he was Mr. Energy again.  Fortunately, this coming week is a break week for CC, so we'll have additional time to recuperate.  

And his room.  Before:

After.  He wanted his desk under his window like Josiah.

Josiah tried to do CC through Zoom.  It was difficult to follow in-class discussion over Zoom, but he toughed it out.  He was able to read his paper on invertebrates, which made him happy.  He chose to write about beetles, of course, and drew them rocking out to The Beatles.  Science may be one of his favorite subjects this year because of the artwork that goes along with it.  Josiah cannot understand why some of his classmates print out pictures of their animal/plant/etc.  Drawing is the best part!

This year Josiah has been studying Latin.  I had been negligent and had not bought the answer key, which meant I had not corrected any of his work.  For four weeks.  This week I finally bought the answer key and then went to correct his workbook.  That was when I discovered many blank pages and quite a few errors on the completed pages.  At first I wasn't too happy about it (mostly the blank pages).  But it wasn't all his fault given the fact that I hadn't corrected it.  So, we sat down together and worked on some of the blank pages.  It was really hard.  I discovered how much time Latin really takes.  Instead of translating the 10-15 sentences they had in each section, we did 3-4.  After 30 minutes my brain hurt from learning how to figure out the declensions and conjugations and word order and noun cases.  I had a lot more empathy for him and we'll do Latin together from now on (til it clicks a little faster).  I am very grateful for the break week so we can get a little caught up.  

Saturday, things were turning around for the kids and everyone seemed to be feeling a bit better.  Todd and I did yard work and after we finished, the kids asked to play with the water.  This time they did silhouette art which I thought was very clever.  Josiah was the poser.  Caroline directed him on his stances, and Henry controlled the hose.  You have to use 'flat,' not 'jet.'

Henry said these two are him.

They also carried out an election for House Protector.  Benson was running for this position, though there was uncertainty whether he had an opponent or not.  Josiah was his Campaign Manager and VP-elect, and he had drawn up posters to beef up his voter base.  Henry was assigned Secret Service detail to protect Benson on the campaign trail.  Caroline was a grassroots voter who wore a sticker, "I voted for Benson."  The final vote count was in.  1-0.  Benson won.  

We tried out new donuts at The Grove again.  This time, no-shirt-Josiah ordered Oreo cheesecake, Caroline chose Smores, and Henry picked the bacon, egg, and cheese sandwich with a donut bun.

Caroline has figured out how to pause video.  She finished her school work early on Friday and made 25 "I love you so much" videos.  She says she teleports to different locations in the house to make them.  

 

It looks like we have a tropical storm headed our way, so it should be a very wet week.  We feel sorry for Benson already.

Scientific Drawings

Each week, Josiah has to write a science paper and present it to his class.  These are short papers, so they are required to have only two sources.  On one page is the short paper, while on the other side they are to draw whatever the paper is about.  So, if the paper was about Mars, they'd draw Mars.  And when the paper was about Venus Flytraps, as Josiah's was this past week, he was to draw an actual Venus Flytrap.  But Josiah likes to take great liberties with his drawings.  It's closer to An Artist's Interpretation of a Venus Flytrap.  Where is the Venus Flytrap?  It is the wee little plant that doesn't belong with the rest of the picture.  However, he does seem to be doing a good job with his presentations.  He's not one to make it boring and he enjoys an audience.  

We also had our family presentation at CC this week.  This was our 8th family presentation so we (I) were running short on ideas at this point.  We brainstormed through other family's past presentations and chose to steal an idea from a family that is no longer in our group.  A few years back they each dressed like a different family member.  They got lots of laughs, so we thought we'd give it a try.  It started off as excitement - who was going to dress as who.  What will we wear and say.  But then, when we got into the actual practicing of the presentation, certain siblings were not happy with the way they were being portrayed by certain other siblings.  The day before the presentation I was ready to scrap it!  After a few threats (and not just from me), we pulled it together and were ready to present.  I think it turned out pretty okay.  Henry, who was me, started us off.  He said he loved homeschooling his three exceptionally talented children, enjoyed math, reading nonfiction books, and rowing.  Josiah was Caroline.  He said he was a princess, loved playing Barbies, did jiu-jitsu, and played a certain game on his phone.  Caroline was Henry.  She said she did Brazilian jiu-jitsu and had a grey-white belt, she loved reading Encyclopedia Brown books and playing Minecraft.  I was Josiah.  I loved dressing in a suit for church each Sunday, I was in Challenge A, did jiu-jitsu, sang/hummed Beatles songs all day long, and drew with a fountain pen all the time.  Then it was back to Henry.  He had changed into Todd and said that he woke up at 4:30 a.m. every morning to walk his kids' dog, he loved reading fiction books, and he did statistics and data analysis for a living.  And last was Josiah who had dressed as Benson.  On all fours, he said he liked walks, naps, and playing ball.  

Nearly each week in Essentials, Henry plays Number Knockout.  Basically someone rolls three dice.  They have to use the three numbers to 'knock out' the board which has the numbers 1-36.  So, if the numbers are 3, 4, 5, they can do 3+4+5=12.  They're allowed to use parentheses, exponents, square roots, addition, multiplication, subtraction, whatever they need to knock out the numbers.  Henry sits next to his friend and the two of them are incredibly competitive.  As soon as those numbers are rolled, they're off.  They typically get 5 minutes for each set of numbers rolled.  

A few years ago, I noticed that I was holding things further away from my eyes to be able to read them easier.  So, I did the most logical thing and bought the lowest strength of reading glasses at Costco.  I tried them on and found they were way too strong.  So I put them on a shelf and years went by.  Until this week.  I noticed that I was starting to read at a funny angle again.  I dusted off the glasses and this time the words were amazingly clear and slightly larger.  It was both wonderful and horrifying at the same time - my perfect 20/20 was no more.  The kids were not a fan when I wore them.  Lots of "Ohhh.  Those look soooo bad.  Your eyes are huge!"  They're not coke bottle glasses!  I officially feel old.  Thanks.  

Our church does Wednesday night activities.  We haven't done any of them since before covid, but Josiah asked to try the KSM this week (student ministry).  I dropped him off (ah! he's so old!) and picked him up when it was over.  He came out with a big smile on his face and said he'd like to go again next week.  Yeah?  I asked him what he did and he said it was a Bible study.  Yeah?  I've never seen such a big grin from a Bible study before.  He was happy to sit with friends and chat.  He is a brave kid - always willing to try new things and he typically always enjoys himself.   

This has been a very laborious Labor Day weekend.  First, I had maxed out on Josiah's room being a mess.  You could not see a single square foot of carpet.  Legos, papers, art supplies, stuffed animals, lots of random boxes, clothing.  I could not take another day.  And since he does have a daily cleaning schedule to keep his room clean, one that he very clearly ignores, it was time to get back on track.  If only for my sanity.  So he cleaned for most of Saturday and Sunday (periodically with helpers).  It took many hours, but then about halfway through he said he wanted to rearrange his furniture.  That was great, because any furniture rearranging would require an even deeper cleaning of his room.  By Sunday evening, we were debunking his beds and vacuuming his carpet.  And the minute we finished that two day fun fest, Henry drew up plans to rearrange his room.  Fortunately he keeps his room quite neat, so all we have to do tomorrow is put his furniture on sliders and move it around.  That'll round out our Labor Day.

While Josiah was cleaning his room Saturday, Todd and I were sawing limbs off one tree in the backyard.  It was the tree that already had three broken limbs hanging down.  It also had two to three other limbs that were completely horizontal and needed to be taken down (they were brushing up against the house and shed).  We never did count how many were taken down, but it was a lot.  Then came the task of breaking them down and bundling them for the garbage men.  We were able to get half of the limbs broken down.  We need our backs to heal before finishing the job next weekend.  

A few other of Josiah's science pictures.  In case it's not clear, we have Mars and Obsidian.

I saw these memes this week and this is our life.