Science Fair

Henry had a rough start to his week.  Of the three kids, he seems to get more colds.  Caroline wins for most serious illnesses.  Henry wins for most frequent minor illnesses.  It was mostly congestion/sinus issues, but he laid around for a lot of Monday and Tuesday.  Wednesday he started feeling a little better and kicked it into high gear to complete his science fair board and presentation.  He practiced his presentation that he was going to give the judges.  He did a good job of explaining everything, but as always, I told him to slow down when he talks.  He made me ask him the questions that were listed in his guide to prepare for questions from the judges.  Science Fair day came.  Each student in his class had to stand alone in an empty sanctuary to present before a panel of four judges.  Just him and the judges.  It was a touch intimidating.  Later, Henry pointed out things he did well and things he wished he had done better.  Then he relayed, Guess how many of the questions they asked me from the Guide?  

-How many?  

-None.  

They asked him how he measured the acidity of the drinks. (He didn't, but boy, that would have been easy if we thought of it.  We were focused on color and sugar, not acidity.) That was the only question he could remember them asking.  They did say he covered all the questions they were prepared to ask.  

There was one student who wasn't able to come because she was sick, so she'll present next week and then we'll finally get the results.  Henry is quite happy to be done with Science Fair.  Next up he learns (and draws) all the body systems.  This week is the respiratory system.  

At lunch, the younger kids were encouraged to ask each science fair participant a question about their experiment.  If they asked a question, they got a stamp.  If they filled up their card with stamps, they got a prize, so there were a lot of kids walking around asking questions.  (I did overhear one kid ask a student who studied the salinity of the Dead Sea if she played Fortnite, followed by her stamping their card.  So not all questions were relevant....)

Caroline's class painted in the style of Georgia O'Keeffe this week.  She did amazing with her flowers - I love the depth she got.  She looked at one of O'Keeffe's paintings for the pink tulip, but the other two flowers she did on her own.    

Josiah's class had their Individual Events this week.  It had to be a 3-5 minute memorized speech/poem/passage of Scripture/etc.  It was opened ended on what they memorized, but it had to be published and it had to be fully memorized.  The two main skills were memorization and delivery.  Josiah chose to memorize The Beatles' Free As a Bird.  He started his presentation with some background information about how the song came about and then sang it to his class.  

Our oven was giving us some fun this week.  Mid-week, I was cooking (Not. Burning.) chicken in the oven.  Halfway through the cook, the fire alarm started going off.  We noticed smoke in the house as well, so I taught the kids how to use a cutting board to fan the fire alarm.  (Works very well.) With windows open and a big fan running, we got the smoke out.  Clearly it was something on the bottom of the oven that was burning.  (The chicken really was fine - we were making chicken noodle soup since Henry was under the weather.)  That evening, I started the self-clean feature for the oven hoping to fix our little fire alarm problem.  And 15 minutes into the self-cleaning, the alarm was going off again.  That was fun knowing there were 3 hours and 45 minutes of self-cleaning left.  It did fix our problem though.  

Mid-week Caroline showed her chops again.  I had let Benson out in the backyard a little after 8 p.m.  It isn't all that unusual for him to go out one last time around then.  I did not hear it, but all of a sudden Caroline jumped up and ran outside after Benson.  She heard a commotion and animal sounds.  Before I could get my shoes on to go out, she came back in holding Benson by the collar telling him sternly to Get inside!  Then she said Benson had gotten the neighbor's little white dog.  Well, that made my heart sink because I did not want to have to go knock on our neighbor's door.  How another dog could get into our backyard was unclear, but I figured it wasn't impossible.  It's a pretty small dog.  I got a flashlight and went to inspect the situation.  At this point in the week, it had been raining for three days straight - hard raining.  The backyard was half pool, half mud.  I saw the animal curled up, dirty white fur, not moving, and as I approached it I let out a huge sigh of relief when I saw the long opossum tail.  Thank! Goodness!  He was clearly playing dead, but overall looked fine - no blood, nothing seemed bad.  I gave him time to 'wake up' and checked back outside an hour later.  He was gone.  Caroline will just walk up to any situation and grab Benson out of it.  No fear, this one.  

Caroline finished out her week with some good news.  She had a follow-up with the ENT who did her sinus surgery.  She is not a fan of these visits because they shoot a solution up each nostril to prepare the area for a scope. They tell her to swallow it, but it tastes like hand sanitizer (and smells like hand sanitizer), so she hates it.  It burns her throat as well.  He used the scope to look all the way to her sphenoid sinuses and said they both looked good and normal, they were draining properly, and she could discontinue her Flonase.  She was a little disappointed about that because of her two routines, she prefers the Flonase.  The sinus rinse, which shoots a stream of salt water right up her nose, was recommended to continue her entire life.  She was thrilled to hear that tidbit of advice again.  Big eyeroll... It sounds like she is not one to have chronic sinus issues and we only have to go back if she experiences problems.  (And this doctor has an ENT friend in SC, so we're set for that, too.)

At Awana this week, it was Fashion Disaster night.  Caroline chose not to participate because she likes fashion and was not about to mess up her style just to earn one extra point for the Awana Store.  That's my girl.

The kids have all asked to have birthday parties this year since it will be the last year with our Texas friends.  Josiah wanted to incorporate his CC friends with his church friends, but couldn't figure out how to do it.  What he came up with, was a jam session.  He invited his musical friends from church and CC and they got together at our house Saturday evening and jammed to the Beatles.  There were keyboards, a ukulele, a trumpet, drums, and voices.  They all thought it went well and are geared up to do it again.  I told them to take a picture in case any of them becomes famous one day.  They can always say, "I used to jam with them in high school."  

Josiah did not play the ukulele, but it did make me reminisce of his ukulele days.  

Meanwhile, Henry also had a friend over Saturday evening.  They didn't jam, but they did play several board games together.  Caroline played a few with them before hiding out in her room.

It's another busy week ahead.  Same story, different week.