Sleep Walker

We have a sleep walker in our family. Care to guess who?

It's not Daniel. He used to get up and come into our room late at night. We usually just had to steer him to the bathroom, help him use the toilet, and tuck him back into bed. One night we caught him walking down the hallway with his pillow. When we followed him out of curiosity, we found him in the act of unlocking the front door. The last thing we needed was our 4-year-old wandering around the neighborhood after 11 PM!

It's not Sarah. Well, maybe it is, but she can't get out of her crib, so that's all unconfirmed.

It is Leah. She is pretty regular. She'll often come downstairs to us and stand there, rubbing her face. She'll try to talk but won't be able to finish a coherent sentence and will usually hang around long enough to eventually wake up. Then she'll go back to bed.

A lot of times, she wakes up on the living room couch (like this morning) and wonders who carried her downstairs.

She just came down tonight (10:30). She walked past Chad as he did the dishes, went down the hall to the bathroom, got a bath mat from the towel drawer, wet one corner of it, washed her face, went into the little room with the toilet, slid the door closed a little, turned on the light, paused to rub her face, stepped out and slid the door closed a little more, then turned and went back up to bed. I found her curled up next to Rebekah and put her blanket on her. Then I went back downstairs to turn off the light she'd left on.

It was amusing to watch, but I hope her wanderings never lead her to leave the house. We don't live on a busy road, but it is a dangerous one. And I hope she grows out of this soon!

Mystery Picture

So hairbrushes and bread don't give you much of a challenge. What do you think of this one? Any guesses?

End of Year shirts

We made shirts to wear at the end of the school year. I cut stencils out of freezer paper for the letters and cut fabric for the numbers. The kids helped with the painting. Joseph wasn't about to be left out, so he got a dump truck. :)

Today is the last full day of school, so we put the shirts on. (Tomorrow's school day is 1 1/2 hours. I can't even begin to understand how they justify the bussing cost for that.) Sarah didn't get a shirt and she is innocent enough to not notice.

And now some random pictures.

Chad snapped this one last night. This is Joseph. That is Sarah's crib (you can see her hand sticking out and her right leg.) I'm getting a wicked witch of the east vibe here.

Sarah snapped this one this morning. She accidentally turned the camera on and snapped a picture...all on the run. She has quite a perspective from way down there!

Compositions

Nathan has been cleaning out his desk and has a few funny things he's written. Here are several from one notebook.

How I Help at Home is helping out in the kitchen. I set the table, wipe the table, do the dishes, or sweep. But sometimes I forget to do my job.

(I can vouch for that last statement.)

I made someone feel better when my little sister, Sarah was crying. Sometimes I help my little brother. Sometimes I can't help them because I have to do other stuff.

(Other stuff, like sitting on the couch, I'm guessing.)

My favorite thing about trees is that I can climb them. At my house there is four trees that I can climb. Except I don't like the ants.

(I don't like the ants, either.)

My home is big, but not too big. My room is mostly clean but sometimes it isn't. I wish my attic was one that I could go in. Sometimes my home annoys me.

(Sometimes it annoys me, too. Anyone know anyone who wants to buy it? And I'd like to argue that comment about his room being mostly clean.)

I could teach someone to ride their bike. I teach three people. But one of them are not old enough yet.

(Bike riding lessons anyone?)

A Person I Admire is my Brother. Because he gets gets to have everything that I want to have. But sometimes he is really rude.

(I'm not sure he understands the fine line between admiration and jealousy. But he's right about that rude stuff.)

I would do the running part. Because I like running and I couldn't do anything else. But I would only do it if I HAD to be in a talent show.

(I have my own aversion to talent shows.)

I didn't think I could ever ride a bike. At first I was a little wobbly. When I was finally better I still had a problem. I couldn't control my brakes, I kept running into my dad's truck. But now I can.

(Yes, that is a problem!)

My favorite season is Summer, because I don't have to go to school. I kind of like Fall, but I get to play outside more in the Summer. I like Summer because I get to eat ice cream.

(Ice cream is often the final decision maker for me, too!)

The most important person I konw is my dad, because he is the one that fixes the bathroom. Sometimes I help him.

(The bathroom is very important in our house!)


I hope you got a little chuckle. Nathan is a funny kid. Here is how he described himself, using the letters of his name:
Nice
Artistic
Tiny
Happy
Awsome
Noisy

Mystery Picture

The last picture was too easy. Hopefully, this one will cause most of you to think a little harder.

Leave your guesses in the comments. I'll reveal the answer when it looks like the guessing is done. :)

Jackie, Jackie, Jackie

I don't know what a typical life span for an imaginary friend is. The older 4 kids never had one (although Daniel was certain there was a tiger under his bed for a while).

I do know that I'm ready for Jackie to find a new family to love him. According to reports, Jackie has done everything from growing up to be a daddy to dieing to having a birthday party and inviting Joseph. It's hard to know what to expect from Jackie.

And now Joseph wants to visit Jackie at his house (again). I finally had to tell Joseph that Jackie didn't have a house because he was a pretend friend. Maybe you can imagine how that went over. I got an earful for that remark.

Sometimes I forget that Joseph is only 3 because of some of the things he says and does. But there are plenty of tantrums and silly moments to keep me from forgetting for too long.

I was beginning to regret teaching him the proper word for his boy part. It's sure coming up in a lot of conversations. But maybe that would have been the case no matter when he learned it!

Coincidentally, Daniel is finishing up 5th grade and recently survived "The Talk" (maturation) in school. He didn't want to talk about it when he got home. ;)

Back among the living

The kids have had some kind of stomach bug for the last month and half or so. Out of 8 people in the family, it seems 3 have escaped some how. I was not one of them.

I came down with a fever on Thursday. Friday I was in a fog and Saturday through Monday I just felt yucky. I alternated between a pain in my stomach to feeling nauseous. Additionally, I spent more time in the bathroom than was fair.

But I am happy to report that today seems to be a good day. I even went ahead and had milk for breakfast (after avoiding it for several days). I even swept and mopped the floor. I even found the desire to blog! ;P

Sarah had some antibiotics (and cream for her diaper rash) and had a better looking diaper than I've seen in two weeks. Yippee! She has started eating again and is even in a good mood.

I doubt we've seen the last of this misery and woe, but things do seem to be turning around. Now I need to find a different reason to avoid folding the laundry.

Compositions

Another one from Daniel. He has more writing activities in 5th grade than Nathan does in 3rd.

This was a "space crew prompt".

If I was to be chosen to be part of the space crew. I would play Uno. I think if I did that it would become catch the cards. I found out that you can't throw rocks as far as you can on earth. I would play eat the jelly bean. When I was walking on the moon I looked inside a crater I saw a baby dragon. I wanted to take it home to my family, but it started scratching me. I decided to leave it there so it wouldn't cut my air tube. I don't want that to happen because I would like a proper funeral.

Is it normal for a healthy nearly-eleven-year-old to be considering his funeral?

I'm itching to get out my red pen on this one!

Seriously bugged

I think I've mentioned this before, but it bugs me SO bad that I'm mentioning it again. 

Two classes of Kindergarteners need to be picked up.  This means a lot of cars.  And people are inconsiderate (lazy?) (rude?) (careless?) enough to park like this - and worse.

Sometimes it's a mere 2 feet short of making room for another car.  I HATE it!  And I'm so glad school is almost out.

In this car's defense, they picked up their student early and left, but it caused the next car to be off enough that still only one more car could park there.

I wish the school would send home a letter or paint some lines or something.  But there's no point in that this late in the year.

Thankfully, I don't have another Kindergartener for two more years.  That's plenty of time to sneak over to the school and paint the lines myself.  ;)

Compositions

This is another one of Daniel's. The subject was "volunteer". It is so "Daniel".

If I could volunteer in my community I would clean up garbage for $5 a week. I would use that money to get all the stuff that I couldn't get before. I would get a better hex bug than Nathan. I would get night vision goggles so that I could sneak into my sisters' room and take down all of her horse pictures.

It looks like his teacher wrote Meany! at the end of the paragraph but then thought through that a little better because it's heavily scribbled out. I'm glad to know that his teacher considers his comments. (He usually says them out loud and those can't be scribbled out!)

Upon reading through Daniel's writing, I can see several things that jump out at me. The fact that he doesn't understand what it means to volunteer is only one. ;)

Peace

It's been a rough morning.  Joseph started his day by illegally climbing up the bathroom cupboards and slipped.  He ended up with a bloody lip.  It may be too optomistic to think that he's learned a lesson.  When he ran himself into the wall 30 minutes later, he was primed for trauma-level tears.

Sarah has been sick (diarrhea) for several days, including fevers and blood in her stools.  TMI?  Sunday-I held her all day because of fever.  Monday-I held her all day because of temperment.  Tuesday-I got a break while she cheered up a bit.  Today-it's not looking good.  She's a CRANK!

So I had to capture this shot of them in the tub this morning.  Neither one is crying...hallelujah!

Maybe I should just plan to have a productive day tomorrow.  This one seems to have been taken from my control.

Compositions

I have one of Daniel's writing prompts this time. It's always an interesting probe into Daniel's mind to read these things. At least this one doesn't talk about beating up on his siblings.

Life hundreds of miles away from civilization would be hot and dry. There would be snakes and lizards. I would have to use a tent and get water from my canteen. I would have to bring some dried fruit and meat to eat and when I ran out I would eat the snakes and lizards. I might even to have to lick myself to keep cool. I would have to learn how to treat myself if I got sick. It would be really hard trying to survive with all the wild animals after me. I don't think I will ever have the disier to be out there.

I love that licking himself idea! I hope he doesn't get that hot around here this summer.

Slow-growing

I gave Nathan a haircut this morning, literally minutes before the bus arrived. It was a quick and sloppy job involving the 1/2" and 1/4" guards on the clippers. We quickly dusted him off, sent him up for a new shirt and out he went.

He was just telling me that only two people noticed his haircut...his best friend, Robert and his teacher. Then, he wisely deduced the reason why his teacher noticed:

"Because my hair didn't have very much time to grow."

Very true. Maybe she wouldn't have noticed anything by tomorrow. ;)

Mystery Picture

It's been over 4 years since I posted a mystery picture. Why have I waited so long to post another? Who knows? But since that time, I've accquired a few new readers. Maybe they'd like to play along.

There really aren't any rules. Just leave a comment telling me what you think the picture is and I'll leave the answer when it looks like everyone who is going to play has played. Sorry...no prizes...just a feeling of pride. Clear as mud?

If you'd like to be informed of further guesses or the eventual answer, mark the box that says "email follow up comments to".

Here is the picture:

It might be too easy. I don't want to discourage anyone from playing along!

Compositions

I've been saving several papers from Nathan and Daniel's school work. Because I saved, but didn't share, my stack is now pretty big. I'll share them with over the next little while, starting now with one from Nathan. When I first read this one, I asked him if he wrote it himself or only copied for handwriting practice.

He assured me he wrote it himself, with guidelines/required elements from his teacher.



My Favorite Place
by Nathan Collett

I like the forest.
I like the forest, because I like to see the tall trees towering over me, and the long branches stretching over the sky.
I like to lay in the soft, brown, warm dirt and see the green leaves, and the colorful birds soaring through the sky.
I like to see the yummy fruits on the big plants.
I try to find out what kinds of strange animal trackes I can see.
(if there are any)
Except there's one thing that I don't like: SPIDERS!! They freak me out when they crawl on me!
Sometimes when I'm walking through the forest I hope I'll see a monkey, but I know I won't.
Sometimes when I'm walking through the forest I get very thirsty, and I just have to go get a drink.
So, I get a drink and go back to walking.

I love getting things like this crammed into the bottom of the boys' backpacks. :) What funny kids I have. And what makes this even more humorous is that we rarely make it to the "forest." Nathan has quite an imagination!

Swept

A conversation Leah and I just had:

ME (to everyone listening): Who needs to do their dinner jobs?

Leah: Not me. I already sweeped.

ME: Swept.

Leah: No. Sweeped. Swept is when you're crying.

ME: That's wept.

Leah: Oh.

Shopping with Sarah

I spent the morning shopping with Sarah and Joseph.  They were such good kids and didn't throw any fits.  If Sarah had been willing to stay in the stroller, it would have been nearly perfect. 

This afternoon, we went shopping as a family.  Sarah was a bit rambunctious and we all took turns herding her. 

I got two pictures of Sarah that just made me laugh.  We love that little one!