Hot & Humid in Houston: 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.