4000 Miles Later

Well a lot has happened in a month.  We now have a new house and an extra 4000 miles on our car.

We thought we had the move to our new house all planned out.  The truck was rented, the closing date was set, and Aunt Claire was coming into town to help take care of the kids for us.  Aunt Claire came and she was a godsend to us.  She is the only reason we were able to move our whole house in one weekend.  She took care of the kids by day and helped me clean the new house by night.  The kids were super excited to have her back again and they have been planning a trip to go see her ever since she left.  Although Henry has decided to postpone his travels a few years until his teeth grow back.  Apparently where she lives is so posh they require all teeth to be in place.  She was put to work even more than we had anticipated because we had to use a smaller moving van than expected.  I had rented a 24' truck weeks prior.  Upon going to pick up the keys, they said the 26' truck had a flat and to just come back in a few hours while they changed it.  Uh....no.  So I left with a 16' truck.  Todd and I filled it up (fully) three times and we could really have done a fourth trip, but I was sort of over the whole moving van thing.  So we took an additional 3 car loads (each).  But we are in and we love the house.  

A little over a week after moving, the kids and I took off for Virginia.  Instead of traveling the usual southern route, we headed north and visited family and friends along the way.  Our first stop was in Arkansas.  I hadn't realized it at the time, but google maps gave us two routes to take.  I chose the one that skipped Dallas thinking I could avoid big city traffic.  What I did not realize was I had chosen the scenic route.  It was very beautiful, no doubt, but definitely not the route I would have chosen with three small children and a tropical storm to contend with.  We left a day late thinking we could stay behind the tropical storm, but we only stayed behind it for the first 90 minutes of our drive, then we drove with it for two days.  So I was driving up and down mountains in Oklahoma with sheets of rain coming down.  Not the wisest move.  And who knew Oklahoma had mountains?  I always thought it was flat.  Not so.  The kids, however, did excellent.  Josiah was super helpful in the car.  He could open up food packets for Henry.  He drew pictures and Henry would color them in.  They worked very well together and it was a very pleasant drive from that stand point (and Caroline took two naps).  We spent the night at my aunt's house in Arkansas.  The kids were bonkers for her cats.  They cannot wait to go back and visit "Ticket" and "Mystery Cat" as Henry dubbed the second one that wisely hid during the entirety of our visit.  During the next stage of our trip both boys drew many pictures of the cats.  

The next leg was to Tennessee.  I had never been through Arkansas or Tennessee before, but they are both very beautiful states - lush, green, and mountainous.  We spent the next night with some friends I hadn't seen in nine years.  It was great to catch up and Josiah loved their two small dogs.  Henry and Caroline, not so much.  We are super grateful for all the family and friends who put us up this trip.  It made it so much nicer to travel knowing our destination was not some random hotel in a random city.

Day three had us traveling to Virginia.  The wee travelers were growing a little weary on this leg of the drive, but they still did well.  In the mountains of Virginia we hit a massive storm.  The lightning was so close I thought it would hit the road.  The rain was coming down so hard I could only see three of the dashed white lane lines on the road at a time.  Of course, this was the time that Henry told me he had to go pee.  Really?  I asked him to wait a little bit for the storm to let up because the last thing I wanted to do was take all three kids out in this downpour.  This was totally against my M.O., to ask any of them to wait for the bathroom.  But when the storm was not letting up, I finally decided that the next overpass we went under I would just stop the car on the side of the road and let him go from the car.  This was not usually something I would consider doing either, so that was how hard it was raining.  But then I saw a sign for Chick-fil-a and decided that we could try that.  They have the cleanest bathrooms by far.  While approaching the exit, I asked Henry if he still had to go.  "No," he said.  "Really?" I asked.  "Yes. I don't have to pee."  he said.  I did not totally believe him, but let it go and planned on stopping at an exit further down and hopefully with better weather.  So we passed the exit when Henry piped up, "But I really have to go poop."  Oh child.  A little while later, we exited the storm and found a rest stop.  We were all relieved.  

We finally made it to Grandad & Nana's house late that night.  The boys decided to tell them everything they missed for the past 6 months all in one night.  The next day we drove to the beach, but only after I decided to keep things interesting by locking my keys in the car.  AAA to the rescue.
This was Father's Day, so a shout out to a great dad right here.  We all missed him a lot on the trip (we won't leave without him again).  He was a beast in moving the house, too.

It was really great to see Grandma and Grandpa again at the beach.  They were brave and took the boys to the bookstore to pick out two books each (up from the one book each that was set at the beach house).  Of course Josiah's "book" was a 5-book boxed set.  He knows how to work the grandparents.
  

A snippet of a day at the beach: 

Josiah loved the water still.  He loved pretending to surf in/on it.  He is a beach lover.  

Henry loved to sit under the umbrella, in the shade, on a chair, eating goldfish, and sipping on a Gatorade.

Caroline loved to get a bucket of water from the ocean, bring it up to the beach, dump it out; hit repeat x50.  She also enjoyed flattening any sand castle the boys attempted to make.  

The boys loved the putt-putt golf place.  On our first visit, I spent the first four holes attempting to show them how to hold their golf club properly and how to hit the ball so that it went in the hole with the least amount of shots.  Then I realized it was fruitless and just let them play.  Henry got a par 2 on every hole.  He would hit his ball initially, then he would pick it up and move it to within an inch of the hole and push it in.  Josiah averaged 10 shots per hole.  He at least showed improvement from hole 1 to hole 18.   

Aye, Matey.

From there we traveled to see Great Grandma and got to catch up with her.  Josiah told her that when they woke up in the mornings that he would teach her to draw.  And so he did.  They drew the Cat in the Hat the first morning and then Pete the Cat the second.  What made this humorous is that Great Grandma is an artist and has been painting for many, many years.  But she was a very good sport.  

We even got to spend a day with their cousins who traveled all the way from Africa.  They played really well together, too, until Caroline used a golf club to clonk one cousin in the head.  It was an  uplifting day - we really enjoyed being around family.  

Finally we made it back to Nana and Grandad's and spent a week with them.  The weather was perfect for the first four days or so and the boys loved playing baseball & frisbee outside.  They climbed their "climbing tree" a lot, and even Caroline fought them to get up it.  They got to eat pancakes and bacon for breakfast every morning and their favorite pork chops for dinner.  Nana got a lot of praise for her cooking.  (I make some pretty skimpy meals in comparison down here.)     

We even got to spend time with friends playing at Blue Bird Gap Farm.  Josiah always calls it "Blueberry Gap Farm," so of course, Henry calls it that as well.  Upon arriving Josiah could read the sign with it's actual name and noted that they had printed the wrong name on it.  He was so excited to see friends again, he probably scared them a little jumping up and down while making giddy sounds.  He saw friends at church as well and later we got to spend time at a friend's house.  They were thrilled to spend time with everyone (as was I).  

Finally, we got some pictures made with the wonderful Ms. Ginny.  I don't know what got into Henry, but he all of a sudden decided that he wanted to streak across the grass.  He's never been a streaker at home and I don't know where he got the idea, but there he went trying to pull all his clothes off, laughing his head off.  It was funny in a confusing sort of way, at least for a moment.  

We drove back the southern route.  Not quite as pretty as Tennessee and Arkansas, but we could do it in two days instead of three.  All-in-all the kids did super well on the drive.  I used to complain about a three hour drive to the beach every summer when I was a kid.  It felt like forever.  Now when I tell the boys we have three hours of driving left, they get excited that it's almost done.  They have a totally different perspective.  We even did it without electronics in the car which was an achievement for me.  I'm holding off as long as possible for them.  We are very, very blessed that the boys like to draw because it keeps them entertained for a long time in the car.  Caroline will look out the window and suck her thumb for a lot of it, too.  We are blessed she has that thumb.  :)  That and a children's CD set on repeat.

We are glad to finally be home.  Let the unpacking begin!

     

  

     

  

Henry's Teeth...or the Lack Thereof...

Well, Sunday evening did not go quite as planned.  Todd was taking apart the boys’ bunk beds in anticipation of our move at the end of the week.  I had gone in the room to take pieces of bed out to stack elsewhere.  While stacking a piece of bed, I hear Henry come crying towards me.  It is clear his mouth is bleeding so I take him into our hall bathroom and turn the water on at which time I see a tooth in his hand.  The bleeding is also much heavier than I anticipated.  So we move to a different, better equipped bathroom, and it becomes clear his lip needs more expert attention.  Also, in the transition from hall bathroom to master bathroom, Todd says he found his other tooth on the living room floor.  I could not believe we just had our second child knock out two teeth. 

So we quickly get ready to go to the urgent care place up the road.  We get there, go in the back immediately, and as the nurse practitioner looks at it, she hems and haws and finally says that we need to go to the ER because he would probably need to be sedated to get his lip stitched up (and they do not do sedation there).  I get directions from her since we’ve never been to a hospital here, and fortunately it’s not too far down the road.  (And on a side note, there are hospitals everywhere here.  I have never seen so many, so I had to know to which one she was referring.)

At the ER we walk through a heavily packed lobby, check in at the desk, and are immediately taken back.  I’m loving the not having to wait part.  They do quick vitals on him and bring us to an exam room.  A doctor comes in immediately, quickly asks what happened, takes his teeth, and puts them back in his mouth!  I was not expecting that or I would have put them in milk.  Having been through this before, I was under the assumption that they didn’t put baby teeth back in.  She says that it’s best to put them back in and that we have to go to the ER in downtown Houston that has a pediatric dentist on-call 24/hrs a day to get a bracket in place to hold those two teeth in place.  She says the lip will heal on its own and doesn’t need to be stitched up.  Again, not what I was expecting!  I played my, “I’m not from around here” card when it came to asking directions to the next hospital.  She left and said she’d take care of all of that.  And she did.  She printed out google maps for me and wrote down the most direct route for me to get there.  Then she said, “The worst is over.  Drive slowly.”  J

So we were on the road again.  The next hospital was on a road that had many, many hospitals.  Baylor has their own hospital, University of Texas has their own, Texas Childrens’ (not our destination), Kelsey-Seybold, on and on.  Huge, towering hospitals to the right and left.  It felt like New York City for a few minutes, but every building was a different hospital.  Her directions were great and I was praying the whole way there to not make any wrong turns.

Henry had been a very quiet and cooperative patient up until now and had fallen asleep on the way into Houston.  We made it to the parking garage, level 2 (like suggested), and amazingly found the pediatric ER.  I carried Henry the whole way because he remained asleep at that point.  You could tell the adrenaline was pumping because he weighed in at 45 lbs at the first ER and we walked for quite a distance to get from the parking garage to the second ER.  This ER was also crowded, and this time we waited. 

Watching the Disney Channel (which had horrible shows!)

Finally back in a room, the ER doctor says, “They put his teeth back in?” with a sort of eye-rolling like, “why would they do that?”  They called the on-call dentist.  He arrives and is VERY good with Henry.  Henry would not communicate with anyone.  He would not speak and would only barely nod or shake his head at questions.  This doctor worked up a rapport with him to where Henry would answer his questions (nodding/shaking) and even give him “five” when asked (albeit weakly).  Henry was also scared to swallow so he was constantly having to have his gauze changed out from the drool.  He was quiet, subdued, and mostly just observant to what was going on around him.  It was also 10:00pm at night and he was quite tired.  

They took an x-ray of his mouth to make sure no other teeth were fractured and fortunately there were no other problems.   They also said they were going to sedate him so that they could take out his teeth (that were barely holding on anyway) and stitch up his lip.  And that’s what they did.  They only gave him half of the sedation medicine, though, because he was already acting so sedated on his own.  They kept asking me if the other ER gave him any pain meds (no).  They quickly took the teeth out with their medical instruments (which really I could have plucked them right out of his mouth they were so loose in there).  Then when the other doctor started to stitch up his lip he put up a bit of a fuss.  I’m thinking it was then that they wished he had been given the full dose.  J  But really it was fast and he doesn’t seem to remember it hurting or anything. 

Drinking juice after it was all over.

So finally it was all done.  They had to monitor him for 30 minutes since he’d been sedated before letting us go home.  We were there for much longer than 30 minutes.  I started to get worried they were going to call the cops to see how he “really” hurt himself.  Finally they came in and took off the dreaded blood pressure cuff on his leg (that really bugged him), took out his IV, and the post-ox thing on his finger which he liked because his finger glowed red.  We made it to the car after looking out of several windows that showed a crane outside resting on the ground.  Henry was fascinated by this at midnight.  Paid our $10 parking garage fee and got home at 12:45 a.m.  Henry didn’t move a muscle when we put him in bed. 

So, this is the story that I told all the ER docs that we encountered.  The story of what we were told had happened (since neither Todd nor I witnessed it).  It was simple.  The eldest told us that Henry was running in the living room, fell/ran into the ottoman (a soft ottoman), fell to the floor, and boom, his teeth fell out.  We didn’t suspect anything different since we are constantly telling the kids to not run in the house.  Also, Henry seems to injure himself frequently because he just doesn’t pay attention to where he’s going.  Since Henry wasn’t talking that night, he didn’t say anything about it.

Then, Monday evening, Todd asked Henry what happened, and Henry freely told him.  He didn’t just fall to the ground; he was pushed.  By the eldest.  Henry just said it matter-of-factly to Todd.  So that changed things.  We clearly had to do something with Josiah.  We decided to make him use his money to buy Henry the only foods he could eat – bananas, sliced cheese, pudding, jello, ice cream, applesauce, etc.  .  I spoke with him about it and really got nowhere.  Just a circular conversation.  No remorse; just anger over the punishment.  Todd talked to him.  I don’t know how their conversation went.  But I took him to the grocery store Monday evening and had him pick out the foods, give his money to the cashier, and I spotted him the $2 that he went over.  In the grocery store he was much more positive talking about the foods he was going to get Henry.  He even said that the next day he’d have to draw a lot more pictures to sell so he can earn more money again.

Poor Henry has to take a very bad tasting antibiotic three times a day (12.5mL which is a LOT to get down) for a week.  He gets a bowl of ice cream for breakfast, lunch, and dinner to get it down.  At first I thought that there was something in the medicine that was making him hyper because he would just start acting crazy after taking it.  Then it dawned on me that I was giving him a bowl of chocolate ice cream with it.  But it helps the medicine go down, so we’re going to continue that trend for the week.

The next day.

He’s three full days out from the accident and already his gums looked like they’ve healed.  The holes have closed up and they are still bruised, but they look sooooooo much better.  The doctors said that the gums are the fastest healing tissue in the body.  I remember that with Caroline’s teeth/gums, too.  His lip still looks pretty bad.  I think the problem is he has a lot of dried blood hanging from it (sorry for the gross image) and it looks bad.  But the swelling has gone down a lot. 

For the most part, he’s back to his old self again.  Talking constantly, except now he spits when he talks.  I even have to tell him to stop running in the house 10 times an hour.  I am beyond excited to move to our new house on Friday and not have hard ceramic floors anymore.  Hardwood floors have got to be a little more forgiving. 

I never in my wildest dreams thought I’d have two children knock out two teeth each.  These are going to make for some lovely family pictures the next 4-6 years…

Kindergarten Completed

Monday night, we went to bed with a big storm outside.  The lightning was constant and the thunder was the loudest I've ever heard.  It felt like the house was shaking with the booms.  Amazingly the kids slept through it all.  The next morning all of Houston seemed to be flooded.  We were very blessed that our neighborhood seemed fine.  Todd saw the roads he needed to take to get to work on the news, saw that they were clear, and so decided to venture in.  He said the highway had very few cars that were moving on it.  He passed several abandoned cars.  He made it to work and found an empty parking lot.  15 minutes into his workday, he received a text and email that his school wouldn't open until noon that day.  He stayed and stuck it out until 3pm when the 85 degree temperature inside was too much (plus the threat for more rain and flooding).  On Tuesday, Todd was looking at the weather in our area and it had an emergency alert for potential flooding until Saturday!  Not just a few hours, but 4 days.  It is so sad that many have lost their life to the flooding.   

We have been without a dishwasher for a month now.  We have sort of grown used to it, but I will be very happy to be in a house with a working dishwasher again.  I do not do all the dishes at once, they are done in spurts sporadically throughout the day.  This is because of my helper.  Whenever she sees me with the kitchen faucet on, she runs to get the step stool while saying, "I help you. I help you."  She scoots right beside me, climbs up and immediately goes for a cup (plastic, thank goodness).  Then she says, "Bubbles." so I squeeze some bubbles into her cup.  She then fills the cup with water from the running faucet, proceeds to dump it, and then says, "Bubbles." again.  Hit repeat 25x (or forever if I let her.)  When I dare try to rinse my own dish using the faucet, she pushes my arm with her arm and says, "My turn."  And this is why each dishwashing session ends a little quicker than desired.  When said dishwashing session ends, she turns to clean the countertops.  She gets a big kitchen towel, and moves it back and forth on the countertop.  If the crumbs should hit the floor, that's a win because the countertop now looks clean.  She also picks up all items on the countertop and says, "What's this?"  Sometimes in addition to towels, she'll use the remaining number of napkins in their holder one at a time to clean the same countertop.  Sometimes, Henry tries to help with the dishes as well, but Caroline isn't too keen on sharing the step stool with him and she is quite vocal (and physical) about it.  

cleaning

We did have an incident this week which made me glad that she sticks up for herself.  At the library, Caroline always likes to play at the lego table.  It is not a very big table, square, so it fits four kids.  She went to an empty side and started playing.  A bigger boy, who had been on one side, moved next to her and tried to take the legos in front of her.  She just sort of looked at him and kept trying to play.  But then he used the side of his body to try to push her out of the way.  I was watching from a couple of feet away to see what she would do before intervening if necessary.  She looked at him, pushed him right back with her body, and he went back to his side of the table.  :)

Watch out Lynda Carter

Caroline has been quite difficult with her sleeping for weeks now.  At night, she'll get out of bed, put on this pathetic looking face, cock her head to the right so that it is resting on her shoulder, and say, "belly hurt." Or she'll say, "Not feel well."  We have serious doubts about the validity of the statements, since she is copying Josiah verbatim (in broken-English-toddler-speak).  The reason we doubt them is because she always asks for applesauce, or "sauce" as she likes to call it.  At the point she's gone to bed, she's probably already had at least two packets of her beloved squeeze applesauce that day, so the answer is always "no, go back to bed."  More pathetic face.  More cocking of the head to the right.  She's bound to give up on this method soon, since I'm not sure we have ever given into it.  Not only that but she's been waking up anywhere from 4:50 a.m. to 5:30 a.m.  With all three kids sharing a room here, we can't just send her back without waking everyone up.  That'll be the first thing we do at the new house - send her back to bed in her own room.  :)  

We made a cake this week, because we're trying to use up all our food before we move, and cake seemed like a good thing to use up.  The idea was to top it with Cool Whip and then decorate it with strawberries and blueberries.  I had the idea to do the American flag because of Memorial Day.  But the idea of Captain America's shield won out.  The boys did not want to help me decorate it, so upon eating it for dessert one night, Henry sees it and says it would have been better if we had done the Hulk.  Josiah doesn't like Cool Whip (or even the whip cream that sprays out).  Some days you just can't win around here.  Todd and I thought it was delicious.  So that Caroline is not always left out of desserts, Todd found her allergen-free frozen blueberry muffin tops.  She has never been a big fan of baked goods the few times she's had them so I was not expecting her reaction of pure delight.  She was eating it before Todd got home from work (she ate early that night) and I told her to tell Daddy that she liked it when he got home.   The second he walks through the door, she says, "Daddy! Daddy!  Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Like.  Uhhhhhhhhhhhhhh.  You got. Uhhhhhhhhhhhhh. Bread."  Then she kept asking for "more bread."  

Josiah has been drawing and tracing pictures from the Mo Willems books all week.  He is trying to draw all the pictures from several books, so the stack of pictures is quite large.  On Friday, he got the entrepreneurial spirit about him and decided to sell his pictures.  To Todd and I.  The going rate for me was 15 cents a picture.  He told me that Daddy would be charged more because he had more money than I do.  Finally, when Todd got home that evening, we both managed to pay five cents per picture because he was having a half price sale.  (We haven't learned fractions yet.)  We were told the next day the pictures would cost $20 each, so really it was a steal.  He now has 55 cents to his name, plus the pennies Henry earned and didn't feel like keeping.  Caroline "earned" 2 cents because she insisted on having two coins.  She must have two of everything - especially cookies.  I did like that Josiah said he wanted to save up his money to buy a new lego kit.  We are all about him saving his money to buy something he really wants.  We've had a hard time trying to figure out ways for him to earn money, so I appreciated his art sale.

drawing...

...and selling

Saturday was spent celebrating Josiah's completion of kindergarten.  He was very excited to learn he was now a first grader.  He chose Sweet Tomatoes to celebrate, which is a favorite for all of us.  However, we weren't sure we were going to make it to a table to actually eat.  Once you walk through the door, you make your salad from a long buffet line before paying.  Todd had both boys plates on his tray at the boys' request.  They fussed and whined about half the things Todd put on their plates.  Henry even tried to remove certain items by pushing them off the plate onto the floor.  We were ready to hang it up and leave before we even got to a table.  We attempt to use it as an opportunity to try different vegetables that they don't normally get at home.  Yet, after all their fussing, they liked most of what they got.  They'll eat butternut squash, dried beets, quinoa salad, celery, and other vegetables if they are cut up in a fancy way (julienned?) and at a restaurant.  Caroline was eating all of my shredded carrots and sunflower seeds.  She even ate an entire sweet potato that I put on my plate to share with her.  Josiah made himself sick in the end.  His poor belly was aching after the salad, soup, bread, muffins, and ice cream sundae.

Rising 1st Grader!  Last Kindergarten activity...sorting cups by weight.

They wanted to see what was in the cups and discovered one cup had marshmallows.  

This is an exciting week coming up for us.  In the span of two days, we'll pick Aunt Claire up from the airport, close on a house, and move all our belongings into it.  Clearly we have the right crew to move our house:

The best part is Henry's Batman symbol is covering up his other label, "Librarian."  Don't mess with his library!

Before Caroline got WW, Henry gave it to Todd.

Henry literally taped this mask to his head.  

All About Mo Willems

I've heard on the radio recently that at this time a couple of years ago this area was going through a drought.  It is hard to believe because it has rained nearly every day for a couple of weeks now and the forecast has it raining every day for the next week as well.  The oddest thing is waking up to thunderstorms.  We've always been used to them in the evenings, but these are starting even before it gets light out.  This week we decided to embrace the rain instead of avoid it.

It started out with the boys wanting to act out their favorite Mo Willems books.  The two characters in many of them are an elephant named Gerald and his friend Piggie.  They acted out "Should I Share My Ice Cream?" first.  Naturally, they had to eat ice cream cones to act it out.  Henry, aka Gerald, was supposed to have his ice cream melt and fall to the ground while deciding whether or not to share his ice cream with Josiah, aka Piggie.  Henry, left the script behind and licked his ice cream cone instead of letting it drip all over the ground.  Good man.  After the ice cream cone story we had a decent rain storm and the boys wanted to act out "Do You Want to Play Outside?" in which the elephant and pig go outside to play and it promptly rains.  The boys started out just playing nicely in the rain, talking in their Gerald and Piggie accents.  Then Josiah's shoe broke, so he took off his shoes.  Henry followed suit.  After his shirt got soaked, Josiah asked to take that off as well, and of course Henry followed suit.  Then they decided to pick the weeds out of the driveway.  That was followed by throwing them at each other which devolved into a mud slinging fight, but a happy one.  At the end they were thoroughly wet, dirty, and happy.

Today Josiah set up a library for Todd and I to visit.  He and Henry were the librarians and Josiah read us a Mo Willems book for story time and then taught us how to draw the characters from the book as our activity.

We went to the real library on Thursday and got about 10 of these books.  Upon checking out, Caroline noticed a Gerald and Piggie poster hanging up in the children's area.  She shrieks, "Piggie! Piggie! Piggie!" over and over again.  Josiah said he needed to have a quiet time in our room so he could read his books.  He ushered all of us out and closed the door.  Since he doesn't know how to read silently yet, he read the books out loud, and quite loudly.  Todd gives the characters accents and Josiah tried to follow that.  Gerald gets a bad British accent and Piggie gets a high-pitched sort of voice.  Josiah's had a lot of practice with British accents because of his Thomas trains, (which have had a resurgence in interest this week).

When not reading, Josiah taught Henry how to climb door jambs.  Henry can get up a bit and just stay in place.  When he tries to do actual climbing, he falls immediately.  However, he is quite proud of himself.  

The master and his student

Caroline has already discovered how to annoy her brothers.  Often, when Henry tries to talk to me or ask me a question, she will get next to him and start yelling with a smile on her face.  He, of course, gets super mad and frustrated which only encourages her to do it more.  Where did she even learn this?  This has never been in the boys' wheelhouse of things to do.

She is also working on her upper body strength by vacuuming the same strip of floor for 15 minutes straight.  She wants no help vacuuming, but she doesn't have the strength to move it around the room in different directions.  So she just goes back and forth.  It looks painful after a while, she has got to be building up some biceps.  Every time I take the vacuum back it becomes a struggle.  She has her opinions and she is not afraid to share them.  One big accomplishment we've noticed this week is that she recognizes the letters, C, D, H, J, & M.  She knows for whom each letter stands as well (Caroline, Daddy, Henry, Josiah, & Mommy).  She is starting to learn colors slowly.  Henry always likes a "green egg" when he eats them.  So Caroline has started requesting green eggs as well.  I used to think that colorful eggs were sort of gross to eat, but at this point I barely notice it anymore.

And in other food news...  Broccoli used to be a favorite for all three kids.  Now Josiah doesn't like it anymore, Henry will only eat the "fur," and Caroline devours it - we have to cut her off for fear of her diapers the next day.

And in other "green" news... Henry spent all of Monday pretending to be the Hulk.  He referred to himself in the third person all day.  "Hulk want lunch." "Hulk play with legos."  and his favorite, "Hulk Smash!"  The threats of taking away super heroes is real around here.

We should have a busy week ahead of packing up our house.  They kids can't wait to have a house with stairs.  I am hoping that they will learn to sleep in a little better at the new house.  This past week, all three of them (in a line) walk into our bedroom at 5:30/5:45 a.m.  This is very normal for Josiah, and not so much for Henry and Caroline.  I don't know what's going on, but it'll be nice to separate them again.  Josiah should finish up his kindergarten work this week as well.  We are counting down the days for our summer plans to begin!

Stuck Indoors

It has been a rainy week here.  We don't have small spring showers, we have massive downpours with thunder and lightning.  I enjoy the storms, but I think we're getting a little stir crazy some days.  After church today, the boys and I went to play in the driveway.  I rode to the end of the driveway on my scooter, and could barely make it back to the garage unsoaked as it started to rain exponentially harder with each passing half-second.  The boys have had numerous injuries this week due to running, wrestling, and jumping off of furniture.  It can be very hard to be sympathetic when one of the boys comes up crying because he injured himself jumping off of the arm of a chair.  "Was that a good decision?"  I remember doing the same thing myself as a child, so I understand the fun of jumping off of furniture, but it's still in the "unacceptable behavior" column.  Plus, when I did it, I remember myself being much more graceful in my landings than the boys.  :)

With all the running around indoors, Henry works up a sweat rather quickly.  He does not like having a "wet" head, so he often takes the kitchen towel and rubs it over his head to dry it.  When he's done, he puts it back on the refrigerator handle.  This just serves as a warning for anyone visiting us.  Use the paper towels after you wash your hands.  We've used all our kitchen towels up this week on sweaty heads, instead of drying dishes.  In fact, our dishwasher is still broken and we get the gut feeling that it's not going to get fixed before we move out.

One big indoor activity has been the boys' tent.  It's the old go-to rainy day game.  We put up sheets to cover bottom bunk and then that's the "tent."  We had a few (pretend) picnics on the living room floor.  The boys even slept in the tent one night.  Well, Josiah slept.  Henry came to our room around midnight and that was the end of his camping experience.  Even Caroline slept in it for one of her naps.

With all the rain we're not getting enough of the kids' energy out, so I think it has affected their sleep.  Henry and Caroline have woken up just about every night and have come to visit us at varying times.  One night, as I was carrying a sleeping Henry back to his bed, I stepped on something in the hallway.  It felt like laundry on the floor, but I usually do not keep piles of laundry in the middle of the hallway.  Turning on the light, I discover Caroline sleeping on the hall floor with blanket in hand.  I have no idea how long she'd been there, and she didn't even flinch when I stepped on/near her.

While staying indoors, we've also played a few more card games.  Uno has been the game of choice for the boys and I.  Henry wants to be the dealer most of the time, but he has a lot to learn about dealing cards.  I hand him the shuffled cards in a nice stack.  He always manages to put it in his lap which makes them spread out everywhere (because we play on our bed).  Then he picks up a card, looks at it first (to make sure it isn't a card he wants), and then hands it to Josiah or I.  Over and over again.  Then he takes requests.  Josiah always wants a "Wild" card or two, so Henry will go searching for it.  Of course, Henry wants "Wild" cards and "Skip" cards.  Then he gives me the regular number cards.  Because of this, I play to win.  No let-the-kids'-win-to-boost-their-confidence playing around here.

Our last indoor activity was to make pigeon books in the style of Mo Willems.  The boys love all the Mo Willems books and Josiah suggested we each make a "Don't Let the Pigeon..." book.  Josiah's was "Don't Let the Pigeon Eat the Donut!"  Henry's was "Don't Let the Pigeon Eat the Hot Dog!"  I made one as well called "Don't Let the Pigeon Drink Coffee!"  I thought I had made a cute book with decent illustrations, (insert Todd rolling his eyes), but then we watched an "Interview with Mo Willems" in which he said he wants all the main characters in his books to be easily drawn by a 5-year old.  So, that popped my bubble.

"Don't Let the Pigeon eat the Donut"

"I bone" - Josiah thinks this is very funny...

"Author (backwards) Henry" pigeon with a hot dog

fat pigeon after eating the hot dog

last page

Henry had a very observant Saturday.  While sitting on the couch reading to the boys, Henry reached over and put his fingers around Josiah's arm.  He said, "You have skinny arms Josiah." Then reaching to his own body, he said, "Mine are wide."  So, we paused at that point and talked about how God made each of us differently with different sized bodies and we're all special in our own way.  At dinner, Henry observed to Todd, "Daddy you don't have any hair." (to which Todd will say it is because his hairdresser shaves it all off).  I got out of the room quickly at that point before he could make any astute observations about me.

Caroline is talking, talking, talking.  I can usually pick out a few key words to figure out where she's going, but she's talking in complete sentences that only she understands.  My favorite new word from her is "boys."  I call the boys the collective, "boys," all the time and she has definitely picked up on it.  She will ask me all the time, "Où boys?" She likes to throw a little French in there.  She has somehow picked up on making funny faces as well.  The type in which she pulls the skin of her cheeks down to make her eyes look funny.  Then she makes an "uhhhhhhhhh" sound.  She finds it all hilarious.

Caroline has shown us she has the gift of finding each and every playground in the Houston area.  While we drive around, she will sit in her seat and say, "Playground! I play?" She says this at every school we pass, every jungle gym she notices in people's yards, every swing, every slide, every pool that has a slide, even if she just sees what appears to be the top of a playground in the back of someone's yard, she will still shout out, "Playground! I play?"  Last night she and I took a walk around the block and at every house she pointed to it and said, "Who's dat?" To which I'd reply, "That's our neighbor."  And she'd walk towards the front door, "I go?"  Clearly, stranger danger is a topic of conversation that she could use a little of.

We are getting excited about the impending visit of Aunt Claire again and a future trip back to Virginia.  Lots of exciting things ahead!

Banned!: Light Sabers & Home Tours

With Josiah's pink eye and ear infection we were forced to stay in on Monday.  He walked around almost all day in Todd's pajama shirt pretending to be Yoda.  Henry would usually play along as different characters - Luke Skywalker, Dark Vader (as he calls him), and other Jedi.  Josiah hums the Star Wars theme song nearly 12 hours a day.  He even hums while he eats.  It's a gift really.

Luke Skywalker

Yoda

When they are not pretending to be Star Wars characters, they spent their time pretending to be Fred & Ted from the story books.  They are two dogs, Fred is tall and wears a green shirt, Ted is short and wears a red shirt.  Since red and green are their favorite colors, it was obvious that Josiah would be Ted, Henry would be Fred.  They wore their shirts backwards and Josiah got out masking tape and taped their names to their shirts.  It was pretty funny to hear Josiah call Henry, "Fred," since that is a common name from my house growing up.

Josiah was no longer contagious by Wednesday, so he was able to make it to his Awana award ceremony.  He was very happy to get his ribbon for completing Book 1.  When he finishes all three books, he gets a plaque, so he is eager to earn that as soon as possible.  After the award ceremony, the kids all went outside and got to throw whip cream pies in the faces of three adults.  I'm not sure how that coincides with teaching them Biblical principles, but they had fun.  The fun abruptly ended for Henry who walked through some rose bushes (which are still very small plants) and not only got scratched, but got a thorn stuck in his leg.  It is amazing the healing power of bandaids.  I think that may be my new go-to baby shower gift - just a bag filled with boxes of character/theme bandaids.

Henry's night

Josiah's night

Our house hunting continued this week.  We saw a massive house earlier in the week.  It was our third house of the evening and usually by the time we make it to house #3 the kids have used up all their good house hunting behavior.  This house had a really big carpeted room upstairs and all three kids danced and ran around it, singing, rolling all over the floor.  Josiah kept saying to me, "May I have this dance?"  All three kids left with red cheeks and sweaty all over.  And that was the last house we allowed them to tour.  Since then, Todd and I now go into houses separately while the kids stay in the car.  This means that the boys like to get in the front seats of the car, push all the buttons, and say they are a space ship all while humming/singing the Star Wars theme (at the top of their lungs).

This evening, Josiah wanted to call Grandma.  He went to his room to talk to her and after the phone call I asked what he talked about.  He said he told her all about Star Wars.  We are living and breathing it around here.

One thing I have noticed about parenting is that if the house is clean when Todd gets home from work, it's usually been a bad day.  On Thursday, when Todd came home, I had the dishes done (our dishwasher is broken this week), laundry almost all caught up, and all the white floors mopped.  You know if the floors were mopped that it was a bad day because that means the kids were all sent to their room affording me the opportunity to mop without interruption.  Part of our issue has been light sabers - the use of them almost always causes injury to some party.  I have banned light sabers several times this week.  The boys like to play me for dumb and say, "It's not a light saber, it's a sword." Guess what else is banned then?  Their schedules have been thrown off a lot as well.  We house hunt in the evenings causing them to get to bed later than normal.  

One parenting success this week has been in bug training.  The boys scream like school girls when they see bugs - spiders mostly, but we've had a few roaches.  Caroline was starting to copy them and I was thinking, we cannot have all the kids scream at bugs.  So, I taught her to step on the bug since she is usually always wearing shoes.  She doesn't usually get the bug, but it gives her something to do other than scream.  For the boys, who are usually barefoot, I taught them to get the dustbuster and dustbust those spiders up.  It's helped a little.

Caroline is also Miss. Independent.  She is constantly saying, "I do it." She wants to dress herself, put her own shoes on, put the straw in her juice box all by herself, everything really.  "I do it. I do it."  Even when we were playing outside, she got on the boys' bike and said, "I do it." and there she sat because she can't pedal the bike, but she sure tried.

Mother's Day morning, the boys started the day with a song and dance number.  They told me they had practiced their "routine," but it appeared they were both independently singing and dancing to their own individual songs.  Although, I do have an untrained eye when it comes to song & dance numbers.  Todd got doughnuts which always makes for a happy morning.  On the way to church, Henry said he was glad I was his mom because I have warm arms.  He was wishing for a mom with warm arms.  Then he said he wished he had three moms with warm arms.  He likes the inside of my upper arms - the highly sensitive skin that doesn't often get touched.  He is obsessed with touching it.  He is always reaching up to touch it all day long and especially if I snuggle with him in his bed at night.  Josiah has his puppy that he sleeps with, Caroline has her blanket and her thumb, Henry has my warm arms.

This week we are focusing on speaking to each other with a kind voice. We really need to work on this. We have some voices-with-attitude coming out of little mouths around here. (Big mouths, too, I suppose.)

Pride & Pink Eye

We started off the week with some pride and shame.  Great Clips was having their annual half price sale on haircuts, so I took that as an opportunity for Josiah to get a real haircut as opposed to my meager attempts at cutting his hair.  Over the years my skills have improved by itty bitty baby steps, so I was interested in what a real haircut would look like on him.  After it was cut, he and I were both smiling with pride because he looked so handsome.  There was also a huge dose of shame at his "before" hair.  He was smiling all day and he loved it even though it technically is shorter than he wants me to cut it.  Then I got the silly notion that it'd be great to see what Henry looked like with a real haircut as well.  So, on Friday, we headed back to Great Clips on the last day of their sale.  Henry had mentioned that he didn't want to get his hair cut, but we talked about it and I thought he'd do fine.  The hair dresser called his name, and upon hearing it, he decided to go limp and lose all sense of walking ability.  I tried to carry him to the chair, while he hit me several times and then scratched me (with an angry/scared face).  He went limp again and refused to sit in the chair at which time the hair dresser said, "I don't think he's ready today."  So, I swallowed my pride and we walked out of the store slightly embarrassed.  When we got home, Henry felt bad and drew a picture of a heart showing me how much he loved me.  He said he only wanted me to cut his hair.  Poor sweet boy.  One day he'll want his own real haircut, too.

 

I was so proud of Caroline earlier in the week by showing self control with her blanket.  She loves her blanket, she carries it around all the time and sucks her thumb.  She's our Linus.  However, it drives me crazy to see her dragging it around across the dirty floor, or leaving it near the shoe rack (probably the dirtiest area in the house), or just leaving it on the floor in general for the boys to step on (which they do).  So I would take it from her and tell her I was going to put it "up high" to get it off the floor.  Well, as the week went on, she would hand me her blanket and say, "up high" asking me to put it up high.  I was so proud that she was willingly allowing me to put her beloved blanket up high.  What self-control she was showing to not need it every moment.  Then the days went on and it became clear that she wasn't showing self-control at all, she was totally manipulating me to put her blanket up high so that she didn't have to walk it back to her room.  Every time I asked her to put it in her bed, she'd say, "No, up high." which meant I had to stop doing what I was doing to put it up high.  She's a smart little one.

When she is not carrying her blanket around, she is swinging and climbing from all the furniture.  This week she learned to hold onto top bunk and swing from it.  She definitely has a gymnast living in her small body the way she throws herself around.

On Wednesday we went strawberry picking with another family from our CC group.  It was perfect weather  - only 75 deg. instead of the usual 85 degree days we've been having.  They had long rows of strawberries and Caroline loved to walk ahead of me down the row.  One time I looked up after hearing her fuss and it looked like she had fallen and gotten her hands dirty, but she wouldn't move.  So I casually walked down the row to her, at which time I realized the row had turned muddy and she had gotten stuck in the mud.  She was literally stuck and couldn't move her feet.  I pulled her out of the mud and you could hear her shoes suction out.  The kids all had a lot of fun and afterwards we all went to church to visit the Awana store.  Josiah spent all his points on a plastic slinky (now bent out of shape), a plastic billiard set (with half the balls now missing), a small bouncy ball (nicknamed "Patchy" due to its patchwork pattern), a parachute guy (since lost?), and another spikey ball thing.  He totally skipped over the unsharpened pencils which were only 5 points each.  How is he my child?

Caroline

muddy shoes

Henry

Josiah

The next morning, Josiah woke up with one eye sealed shut.  We initially thought it had to do with being outside at the strawberry patch, with all the pollen and such.  That evening, Josiah told me to come to my bedroom, he had to talk to me.  I get in there and he says, "It is un-inppropriate to say that your son has disgusting eyes."  I had used that not very kind word to describe his eyes to Todd.  What Josiah doesn't understand is that I cannot handle eye problems.  I am very blessed to have good eyesight because I could never handle contact lenses or anything to do with eyes.  Then Friday morning, he woke up with both eyes sealed shut.  The same for Saturday.  I had hoped to wait until Monday morning to take him to the doctor, but when he woke up with both eyes sealed shut on Sunday morning, I figured we better take him in.  Pink eye in both eyes and a right ear infection.  Thank goodness Todd was able to do his eye drops (every 3 hours!) all day today.  I am going to have to buck up tomorrow and do it myself.

Josiah's reading has really improved.  Now when we go out driving, he will read as many street signs as possible.  He loves to tell me the speed limit now.  I remember reading "clicking" with me when I read a gas station sign and afterwards reading every sign I could, so it is very neat to hear him read signs when we're out and about.

I am still teaching the boys about gratitude.  On Friday, I let them pick out two wrapped gifts each from a box.  They were to open them and find a way to express gratitude for the gift.  I knew Josiah would go for the biggest, heaviest gift.  He opened it up to find a can of sardines.  So we talked about how he could say "thank you for thinking of me" and how he could share them with his Daddy who liked them.  Henry unwrapped his gift and found a plastic fork (a "to go" fork from Jason's Deli).  He immediately came up with the idea that he could take it in the car and eat food with it while we were driving.  Even when they couldn't think of something, they could always say, "Thank you for thinking of me."  It is always amazing how quickly they pick up on these character traits.  Sometimes I get frustrated that they aren't showing gratitude or being polite, but when we actually take the time to teach them these concepts they pick up on it surprisingly fast.  And its not that I want them to show me gratitude all the time, but I do want them to be boys/men who show it as part of their character.  

Of course, it is always a work in progress.  The other day Henry suggested we take a walk around the block.  His words - "a walk around the block."  He rode a two-wheel bike (with training wheels) which was a big step for him.  He usually always rides the tricycle.  He made it 3/4 of the way around the block before he started in on me about what a bad idea I had to take a walk.  Why were we doing it?  He was thirsty and wanted to get a drink of Gatorade.  Why-oh-why would I make him walk around the block.

Henry was also my house hunting buddy today.  He went to two open houses with me.  The kids are not much help though, because they are ready to buy any house they see as long as it has stairs.  That's their vetting criteria.  Stairs.

Our craft of the week was to make pictures in a style somewhat resembling Ezra Jack Keats' books. We ended up doing tissue paper pictures and while they do not resemble Keats' books, we still had fun.