morning.

My family is so disobedient. I don't know how many times I've told Steve that he may not have Pepsi for breakfast. Doctor Moody lost his glasses again! And he's trying to drink from his sippy cup with no lid on it- he's going to spill it all over. Pirate Peach was up so late last night that he is falling asleep at the table. Agh! These kids!

(btw- Pirate Peach got his name because when he was new his tag read "Pirate- peach" as opposed to the pirates of different skin colors.

Oh, and he sailed the sea seven.)

I'm writing a book

(Well, I started writing a book. Then I asked the boys to help me.)

The title of my book was Jacob's Bear. It begins with a young boy who goes to bed and while lying in the dark, he hears a growling in his closet. He goes into his closet to investigate and slowly his closet turns into a forest...

I never said it was original. At the time, Jacob was afraid of bears, so much so that he was anxious about camping several months away. My goal was to write a story to educate him about bears and ease his worries.

Crack!

      ...he held himself perfectly still. There are many frightening creatures hidden in these trees. Tigers, snakes,

gasp! ba-ba-bears!

Any one of them could have heard the twigs snapping under his feet. Any one of them could pounce at any moment. With a deep breath, he whispered, "I...am...brave." and he trudged on. Bravely. But quietly- just to be on the safe side.

Then one night while putting the boys to bed, I said "Let's make up a story." I thought it was a mistake, but it turned out to be quite an adventure. The story has the same beginning, but now the boy is named James, and he has a pet mouse (that he met inside the volcano) whose name is Wilsom. He has many adventures that I could never dream up on my own.

Here is a sample- James travels to a clearing where he came across a lake. Boom! Boom! What could it be? Cannons? Maybe it's a ... crash! A pirate ship crashes onto the shore.

Jacob "If it crashes onto the shore, how do they get it back into the water?"

Me "They don't. It's too heavy to push back into the water."

Joe "Then how to they get boats into the water after they build it? Oh, I know, they build the bottom part, then they push it in the water, then build the rest in the water."

"How does something so heavy not sink?"

"Can we get back to the story? Ugly, mean pirates crawled off the ship, and they were so hungry..."

"They bended down at an ant pile and started eating ants."

"Were they red ants, or black ants, or yellow ants?"

"Which ones are worser? Red, black, or yellow, which ones do you think?"

As you can see, James doesn't get very far. But I am asked often, "Hey remember that thing we did with the story we made up, remember? Can we do that tonight?" 

One night, James was in a pyramid. They knew that pyramids were in Egypt, so they jumped up and found Egypt on their map. "There! He's right there!" So after he escaped from the mummies, he found himself at the Red Sea. Now he's on his way to Madagascar. We have turned our story hour into a geography lesson. James currently is trapped in a Baobab tree in deep in the forest of Madagascar, with his friend, Tojo the cannibal, that he picked up on his way. Hyenas surround the tree. Oh, no! What will he do?

As I tell the boys at the end of our story, "to be continued..."

Science for 6 year olds

Photo by Courtney

Me, reading from their science book- "In addition, crustaceans have two distinct body parts."
Jacob- "They have two body parts, and day stink?"
Joe- "Mammoths are distinct, cause they all died."

Pledge of Allegiance

You B

This morning, I crawled out of bed waaay too early. Joshua decided it was time to get up and that was that. So we went downstairs but I curled up with a blanket on the couch. Grace joined me. We snuggled, face to face, talking about all kinds of very important matters, when she said "You b."
"What do you want me to be?"
"You B."
"Be what?"
"Cause me an A."
"Oh, I'm a B and you're an A? So what do I say?"
"Buh."
"And what do you say?"
"Ah."
"OK then. Buh, buh buh. Buh buh? Buh, buh buh."
"Ah, ahh, ah? Ah ah ah."
This conversation went on for a while (we had a lot to say) until she rolled her eyes, sighed and said simply, "Nuff."

Josyow

Jacob- "Mama, look! I wrote Joshua's name on the note and look where I put it. I put it on his walker so we know who he is!"

Something to ponder

I took the boys outside to try to regain control of my garden.
(I lost)
but we had fun trying. We yanked out most of the weeds that had completely taken over. Jacob pulled out the wild grasses but was careful not to touch the morning glory because it's his favorite flower.

While wandering around, sniffing the flowers and pretending he was helping, he posed this question...

"Do we make Morning Glory seeds from moth wings?"

So if anybody has any insight in this, inquiring minds want to know.

Now something fun from Joe.



Playing with the Banana gram tiles. We tried to play the actual game but it was little too advanced for them, so they just made up silly sentences. That was more fun anyway.


"The cat wared (wore) undies to dance." of course.


BUT WAIT! THERE"S MORE!

Typical Gracie.This picture pretty much sums her up.

I took out a bag a trash to the dumpster. And when I lifted the lid, the top bag was covered with maggots. Yuck! I slammed the lid back down, thankful it was trash day, and headed back to the house. Hmm, I wonder if the boys have ever seen maggots? This might be a good opportunity for a little science lesson.
I asked them when I got back into the house, "Hey, guys, have you ever seen maggots?"
"Yeah, sure. I've seen them." said Joe.
"No, what are they?" asked Jacob.
"Oh, you know," Joe answered, "They're the things you stick on the fridgerata."

Big Sister, Little Brother

"Miwall, miwall, Ja!"
(Smile, smile, Josh!)

"Tay!"

You always know when Gracie's getting into trouble. She will come and find you, give you a real serious look, point her finger at you and say "tay!" (stay)

We picked a bunch of strawberries this week and they were on the table. They weren't off limits, I had them on the table for a reason. I wanted everyone to enjoy them.
But Grace, I guess, thought they were forbidden. She came into the living room, with strawberry juice dripping down her chin, pointed her finger at me and said "tay!" then ran back to the kitchen where she stole a few more berries. She came back in to see me, rubbed her belly, smiled and said "Mmmm!" then got real serious. "Tay!" and back to the kitchen for more. She must have done this ten times.

She really thought she was slick. I know, I know, I should not have let her think she was getting away with being disobedient, but she was so stinkin cute.

"Papa!"

It does look a little like him.

Creativity

It's a fire truck and a burning building. See the hose in his hand and the flames on the roof?



"Joe ate a grumpy bar today. When you eat a grumpy bar, you look like this."

Bobo

An old nickname that came from a book about a monkey named Bobo that was looking for a hug. When he found his mother, he cried "Mama!" and she cried back, "Bobo!". Jacob loved this book, and we read these lines enthusiastically.
He would surprise me throughout the day with a huge hug and a "Mama!" and I would return with a bigger hug and a "Bobo!"

Grace has trouble with Jacob's name. So she just calls him Joe. So the girls started the nickname up again because it's easy for her to say.
And he doesn't seem to mind. It's better than being called Joe.





While working through some math problems the other day, a question was raised.
"How do you make a kiloliter into a liter?"
Jacob answered from across the room, "You just take the K off."
___________________________________________________________
Jacob - "You have 7 kids in this family but you didn't born one of them. Know who it is?" (Holding a stuffed monkey, named Bobo of course, behind his back)
Me - "Um, let me guess, Bobo?"
Joe - "Nobody borned Bobo."
Jacob - "Yeah, somebody borned him. A monkey borned Bobo.
Then somebody shot him.
Then they took the meat out of him.
Then they stuffed him with fluffing.
Then they sewed him back up.
(long pause, in deep thought)
...is that how they make toys?"

If it was, we would have a lot less stuffed animals in this house.

Jacob-isms

"Was I borned when Noah was building the boat? I didn't see that flood. Was it in New York?"

When discussing how many languages there are with the boys, I was giving them a few examples... like French...and like German...
"Oh, I don't speak any of those. I just speak normal."

"How does the moms have babies and how does the dads get bigger because the moms born the dads?"

While they were sick, I pulled out our Bible Stories book to read to them.
"Does one of the Bible stories tell about what to do when a 6 year old boy needs a hydrated?"

"Mama, can you cut these dots out for me?"



Writing practice...
I wrote the first line, then asked the boys to copy. I thought I was being funny. Jacob copied his sentence first and never even commented on it. Then it was Joe's turn. But he didn't think "great" was the right word to describe me. Well, "good" is OK, too. It could be worse.



Now, can you figure this one out?

So weird

Yeah, it's a pickle. Can you see the face? He sings, too. His name is (was) Mr.. Pickle.
We'll miss him.

Dade

"Mama, let me show you what I love."
Then Joe wrote "mom" on his paper and handed it to me.
"Oh, that's so sweet."
"Now let me show you what else I love."
He wrote some more and handed me the paper again.
"Dade?"
Sigh - "No, here, let me fix it."
Then he added a line over the E (to make it a long E)
"Oh, oh, I see, Daddy!"

Tiny Talk Tuesday

"Oh! It's a blista (blizzard) outside! Mama, is it gonna melt?"
"It might. It depends."
"Does God depend it?"

"Christopher Columbus was an ice cream cone"

"...and his crew was from Mississippi."

The bug

Five of us just got over one yucky stomach bug.
Joe was the first one to get sick. He asked me, "why did I get sick?"
"Oh, you just picked up a little bug."
"How does that make you sick?"
"Well, it gets into your body and your body has to fight to get rid of it and that's what makes you feel sick."
long pause
"I pick up daddy long legs... but I don't eat them."