Be Nice or Be Quiet

We have had many grumpy mornings since school has started.  I have told the kids, you can be nice or you can be quiet.  Apparently this was asking too much and my lawyer child wanted to argue that some days it is impossible to be nice or quiet.  And so started a 45 minute heated argument.  That argument ended with me stating, I am not a lawyer you can argue with, I am your mother, and you can either be nice or you can be quiet.  It needs repeating on the daily.  

In the middle of the week, my boss came in and observed me.  We get observed every quarter.  She said she would observe me from 8:00 - 8:30 a.m.  I planned my day accordingly, and had a craft project saved just for this day that I was sure would take a good amount of time.  My group of three-year-olds love crafts, but they did not get the memo that day.  They flew through every lesson and every project I had planned for the entire three hour day while my boss was in there.  I was sweating.  That mosaic butterflies project made from the letter "B" where I envisioned the kids carefully placing each piece of tissue paper?  One child crumpled up all her tissue paper pieces, dropped them in the "hole" of the letter B, and said, "I done."  What??  No!!    It was a very long 40 minutes.  (She stayed longer than anticipated...probably not a good sign.)  When I picked our kids up from school that afternoon, they had not even closed their car doors before asking, Did you get fired?  Quite the vote of confidence.  I told them my boss was meeting with me the next day.  That meant when I picked them up the following day, I was again greeted with, Did you get fired?  No.  Not today....  My boss did give me some very good suggestions and I will do every single one of them.  

Henry had a cross country meet Thursday evening.  It was a tough meet because everyone was tired from their day at school.  It was at the same YMCA course that he did last Saturday.  This time it was sunny and a bit hot.  He cut his time by about 30-40 seconds from the rainy Saturday race.  Because it was much hotter, we stood in a shadier spot to cheer on Henry.  That meant after he passed us for the last time, we casually walked towards the finish line not realizing he would get there about the same time, so I never got a video or pictures of that.  

This evening, the boys met some school friends at our pond out front.  The friends were fishing, but then they biked and ran some as well.  

This kid went from this...

...to this. 

His head must feel a lot lighter.  

Correction.  He says his head does not feel lighter, it just feels cold.  

Barrier Island & House Camp

Before the kids headed out of town, we tried out Culver's.  It's a Wisconsin chain, so Todd ordered the cheese curds.  According to the kids they taste like fried mozzarella sticks.  

The kids left for the second half of the week with their school groups.  The 6th and 7th graders, Caroline in tow, took a four hour drive out to Barrier Island, SC.  She had learned about some of the things they would do before the trip.  The mud pit got the most talking points.  Caroline did not want to do the mud pit.  Not at all.  When her group was approaching it, she asked if it was a mud run or an obstacle course.  Nope.  It was literally a mud pit.  They got in and sat.  I asked her if she crossed her arms with a Hmph! as she sat.  

Her favorite part was the nature walk.  That day her friend clocked 22,200 steps, with their hike being a large part of it.  Caroline said she talked to the naturalist guide the entire time and kept asking her Would You Rather questions.  She also named the alligator.  Andy.  

One day they went seine fishing (net fishing). They had divided the kids into two groups - peanut butter and jelly.  Caroline was peanut butter.  She was told peanut butter was not getting in the water.  When they got to the place for the fishing, the peanut butters were sent in the water first.  She was not happy because she was wearing sweat pants that day.  It wasn't that the sweat pants would get super heavy in the water that made her upset, it was that she wouldn't be able to wear her comfy pants the rest of the day.  My girl likes her comfy pants.

There were other elements of learning.  They took a night walk on the beach and talked about the moon and the tides.  She learned about bugs, insects, and nocturnal animals.  There were rec games played.  Some food was good like the waffles.  Overall, she said she would do it again (which was good because she'll go back next year).  

The boys had a shorter drive to House Camp.  It was just over border in North Carolina, up in the mountains.  The road to get there was quite windy and the first question out of everyone's mouths as they exited the cars was, Did you throw up?  Apparently at least one person throws up every year from the windy roads.  This year was no exception.  The upper school is divided up into four houses, sort of like Harry Potter.  They compete in games all year to earn points. 

The first day they played Mission Impossible.  It was teachers against students.  The students each had a piece of paper.  The object was to get across the field, get it hole-punched, and get back to the other side untouched.  Along the way were teachers with pool noodles whose sole object was to take them down.  If you got hit, you had to rip up your piece of paper.  If you got hit on the way back or if you got hit twice then you were sent to math jail.  Henry said he got sent a lot because his competitive streak came out and he played to win.  He also enjoyed math jail.  It was manned by the math teacher and you had to answer a question to get out.  Josiah decided to beat the system.  He put his whole piece of paper in his pocket, picked up a ripped piece of paper and got to the other side (and back) five times before they figured out his whole paper was in his pocket.  Apparently that was against the rules, but it was a good try.  During Mission Impossible, one kid somehow jumped off a cliff.  The details were a little sketchy as a lot was going on at the time.  Details like, how far was the drop? how did he fall? The kid was part of the cross country team and showed up to the meet on Saturday with his arm in a sling, so he's fine otherwise.

When the boys talked about their food, the chicken and waffles dinner was a big hit with everyone.    

Henry's cross country meet was at the place where they have their Saturday practices.  It is a YMCA sports complex and they designed a cross country course as part of it.  The course itself is quite hilly (as is everything around here).  The hill we walked just to get to the team tents was intense.  This race was wet.  It started raining right before the first race of the morning and did not stop until the very end of Henry's race.  Todd and I talked to a few of the parents and they all asked us if we were Henry's parents.  Apparently he has a reputation.  He's funny.  He's polite.  He's competitive.  We told Caroline and Josiah and they definitely agreed with the third.  Everyone's times seemed to increase by a minute compared to the last race because this one was much hillier, but he did well.  He's supposed to have another meet at this same course on Thursday.  

Last night, Todd tried a magic trick with Benson.  He showed Benson a crumpled up piece of paper, then made it disappear with a sleight of hand.  Benson was fooled every time and it was hilarious as he looked around for it.  

Caroline then tried the disappear-behind-a-blanket trick.  He was alert and walked to where she should have been, but he did not venture further mostly because he sticks to carpets in general.  

Benson's a cutie.  

And so goes another week.  

Running, Biking, and Dancing

Henry began and ended his week with birthday parties.  Two of his classmates celebrated this week.  The first was a wiffle ball party and instead of gifts, the kids all brought sport drinks.  The second was last night at a trampoline park.  All of Henry's classmates were invited, but when the only other boy in his class was unable to make it, Josiah got to go so Henry would not be the only boy there.  They arrived at Sky Zone during the evening so they could be part of the Glow Party.  Almost as soon as we got there, they turned off all the lights and it was a blacklight sort of night.  Henry made it up the ladder climb several times.  They had a Wipeout game with giant rotating arms - one arm they had to jump over and the other they had to duck under.  Then the arm changed directions on them.  That was an exhausting few minutes.  They both had fun. The girls in Henry's class are not the shy type, so they all ran around and had a good time.  

Caroline finished out her week well.  She did very well on her Latin test - dropping a hundred.  She also scored well on her speech in ELA.  When the speeches were finished, her teacher said she got most improved. Caroline told me, That's what happens when you bomb the first speech.  Whatever works.  She also told me to keep these grades in mind when she gets her science test back on Monday.  

Josiah started out his weekend making a Dead Pool video including a little dance number from *NSYNC's Bye, Bye, Bye.  I was his videographer and took short segments of video for him.  He gave me very specific directions on where to stand, what to focus on, panning left and right; he knew what he wanted the final product to look like.  I was amazed when he showed me the finished video.  The kid can edit.  I told him to make sure I got videographer credit for when he makes it big one day.  

Saturday morning, Henry had another cross country meet, the Eye Opener.  His meet last week had 10 teams.  This meet had 150 that came from all over the state, and some from Georgia.  It was held on the campus of USC-Upstate and it was packed.  The colleges competed the evening before.  Henry's group of JV boys had 844 competitors, so it was a lot of kids running a 5K all at once.  He came, he ran, he got the t-shirt.  

Today, Josiah fixed up Henry's bike so Caroline could ride it.  Her bike is pink with streamers and she was not about to set foot on it, even though I reminded her how excited she was when she originally picked it out.  They rode around our pond.  When they stopped their bikes on the other side of the pond, the ducks immediately went over to them - they're used to people stopping and feeding them.  This was the first Sunday in a long time where no one was fishing at the pond - the game warden was parked at the end of it.  

In food news, Caroline made herself quesadillas with our Texas tortillas.  Benson, too, missed the tortillas and wanted just a sniff.  

Josiah made homemade chocolate chip cookies.  He picked a highly rated recipe that had fancy steps like separating out the egg yolks.  When it came time to cooking them, Josiah mentioned that he hoped they turned out well.  Instead of 1 1/4  teaspoons of cornstarch, he put in one teaspoon, forgot the measurement, and put in a second teaspoon.  Then instead of mixing all the dry ingredients separately, all the wet separately, mixing them together, then adding the chips, he just threw everything in the same bowl at the start.  They turned out delicious and we were very grateful for the homemade bake.  He can bake for us anytime.  

Henry did very cool city scene on Etch-a-Sketch. Hidden talents...

This coming week the kids have a short week of school.  The boys are going to House Camp in North Carolina and Caroline is going to Barrier Island on the coast.  

First Race, Final Belongings

Josiah spent one afternoon fixing up his bike.  He hasn't ridden it in quite a long time.  Years probably.  He has definitely grown out of it, but it is all we have at the moment.  He pumped up his tires.  He fixed his seat.  It has been messed up for just about the entire time he's had the bike.  Every time we tried to fix it, it would just go back to a very angled position.  He used to ride the bike standing on the pedals.  But this time, Josiah broke out the regular wrenches and the Allen wrenches and got the whole bike where it needed to be - the angle and the height.  He's ridden around the pond in front many afternoons this week.  

Josiah showed us his math quiz.  He got a 93 on it which was excellent, but the best part was the picture he left for his teacher.  He drew his whooperio and wrote "fingers crossed."  Very Josiah

We've enjoyed peaches from a local farm lately.  They have a stand near the kids' school and I finally stopped one day to check it out.  They sell the Oh Henry variety.  They were amazing and I went back for more.  We made a few peach cobblers along the way.  

This past weekend, Henry had his first cross country meet.  Todd counted about 10 teams represented.  The varsity boys team ran first and they had to wait for all of them to cross the finish line before they would start the next race.  Next were the varsity girls.  Again, all had to finish before the next group began.  The ladies were taking a bit more time than expected, so instead of running the JV boys by themselves, they grouped the JV boys and girls together.  Todd got a few good pictures of Henry, the last was him sprinting to the finish to cross before a lady.  It was good for Henry to get the experience so now he knows what to expect.  I was sad to miss his first race.

The reason I missed it was because I was heading to Texas once again.  Mid-day Friday, I got off work, checked my email, and discovered Penske had cancelled my moving van.  That was not okay.  So began the scrambling.  Moving trucks were easy to find.  Moving vans were a different story.  I finally found a Uhaul van a few towns over.  When we went to pick it up, the guy mentioned that they had just gotten the van back.  From the police.  Because it had been stolen.  When I got in the driver's seat to leave, I was overwhelmed with an incredibly foul odor.  It was not just moving van smell, there was something else to it and since it had been stolen, the possible sources for the smell seemed endless.  Josiah rode with me on the drive home and he, too, inhaled the funk.  We tried to roll the windows down to get the smell out, but for whatever reason that seemed to make it worse.  Early Saturday morning, I was back on the road to Houston.  Sunday was spent traveling to four friend's houses to get our stuff from their garages.  I also headed to the local grocery store to pick up fresh tortillas for the kids.  By Monday, I was back on the road to South Carolina.  We now officially have all of our things.  The house is an even bigger train wreck at the moment, but one day we'll get it all done.