Walking Through Platform 9¾

In jiu-jitsu this week, the kids learned how to fight the sport of jiu-jitsu.  They set the class up tournament style.  In Caroline's group, they had six girls.  They rotated between being: Athlete 1, Coach 1, Referee/Score Keeper, Athlete 2, Coach 2, & audience.  They were learning how to score the match and how to watch it from a wider lens to instruct the athlete on what their next move should be. Caroline tied in her first match, but she was so close to winning. 

The next day, Caroline earned her third white stripe.  Best part, Smoothie King.  

Josiah's diet has changed somewhat since he's had braces.  There are foods that have been too crunchy for him to eat with the braces (carrots), so he's had to change some of his fruit and vegetable choices.  For a long while he ate frozen corn kernels.  Not the best, but better than nothing.  However, green vegetables have always a necessity in my book.  One night we put a salad on his dinner plate.  It was a measly portion of salad because I knew there would be resistance.  Even still, he was told to not leave the table until it was eaten.  Your growing body needs it!  You'll thank me later!  He was made to go back and finish it quite a few times.  Finally, at the end of the evening, he said he was done.  I checked the trash later to find a few lettuce leaves on top.  I took a picture and texted it to him.  That looks like salad.  He shot back, Looks like cilantro.  

Caroline was finally able to bring some cookies to her class to celebrate her birthday.  It was a little late because there were a few March birthdays as well as a going away party, so we waited til a free day.  She was very happy to bring in a treat.

April Fool's Day snuck up on us.  It always seems to do that.  We changed out all the photo frames with Tom Holland's Spiderman.  Unimpressed, Josiah noticed them and said, "Tobey Maguire is a better Spiderman."  The kids also noticed that Tom Holland was either stretched out long or squeezed short.  Yep.  I took one picture and manipulated it.  Todd decorated their caricature pictures.  All day, Josiah kept asking, "Is that it?"  Were there any more tricks?  I kept telling him, sorry, there wasn't any more.  I couldn't tell if he was disappointed that we didn't do more or he relieved for the same thing.  So, since we were unsure, we did one more trick.  Before bed, Todd went upstairs and squeezed mustard in each of their toothpaste tubes.  If anything, it told us who was lying when we asked if they had brushed their teeth.  

Surprisingly, we had successful dentist visits this week.  Yay for no cavities.  

This weekend started with a hefty dose of complaining and talking back.  I combatted that by writing up a chore list for each child.  Part of that included some outdoor work  We all raked and mowed, mulched and swept.  After working in the yard, we emptied the garage and swept it out.  We found the source of that awful smell from a few weeks back.  Considering it didn't smell anymore, the deceased rodent was in a pretty gross state.  Following that, our garage had the pleasant smell of bleach.  After much needed showers, the kids gave themselves rides around our circle on the dolly.  

We finished out the weekend on a really high note.  Josiah has started volunteering in the church nursery every other weekend.  So far he has been assigned to help in pre-K classrooms.  This morning, as we were leaving church, a woman said that she could not have done class without him.  She said he was a really good helper and thank you for raising him right.  Without skipping a beat, Caroline sarcastically said, "We'll see about that."  That was really awesome to hear (about Josiah).  He's a good kid and a very good helper.  About 30 minutes earlier, a different woman came up to me and said that she was walking outside when three boys ran past her into the building.  Henry was with them, but stopped to hold the door open for her.  Such a gentleman.  In talking to Henry about it later, he said that he held the door, #1 to be nice, but #2 because when he holds open that particular door, it reflects the brick on the glass.  He pretends it's like Harry Potter going through the brick wall on Platform 9¾.  So there was that.