This Week at Our House #26 A Lovely, Uneventful Week

This week was not at all eventful. The boys and I worked on the roof and some more wall repair, and the boys and John worked on the van and got it going again. The kids read books and played outdoors. The North Carolina heat has settled in and most of the outdoor play has moved to the evening or over by the woods where it is very shady.

Getting the new tire on the van was not easy because we did not have a jack or a tire iron or anything. John looked at the van and was able to order two jacks, the van needs two to get it high enough and the correct tire iron. All of the standard things one would need to change a tire were different for our van. Fortunately, John is very careful about things and found out exactly what he needed before making an amazon order.

The cps worker did not come again like he said. Given this coming week is a holiday, I don't expect him for another week out. I'm hoping to have the roof completed by that time. We are going slowly, but we are now through all of the slow stuff and it is just a matter of drawing the rest of the lines and nailing on the shingles. Once the roof is completed, we have two windows to replace and two bedrooms to paint. It will be nice to have this all complete, though each new change has been quite lovely. New floors and new paint and a new roof all look and feel nice.

Last week after I wrote my blog all of the kids were anxious to see what I had written about them and were disappointed that it didn't include each of them. So this week I will need to make up for it, as this blog is a journal for them. They love that they have carefully recorded stories about their childhood.

I am going to start with Baby Gideon. He has changed so much over the past couple of weeks. He growls all the time. I have taken several videos of it because it's adorable. He can sit up to play, but he prefers to lie on his belly. He now scoots across the floor like an inch worm. I expect that will turn

into the regular crawl fairly quickly. Gideon wants to be eating and he is always diving for our food. His interests seem to be along the same lines that Sam's were at this age. Gideon scoots to get a hold of playing cards and electrical cords. Gideon is also laughing more and playing with everyone more. He's settled down a lot now that he can move around. He doesn't cry nearly as much and seems much more content. John put it well when he said, "it's as if he felt trapped in his little body that could do nothing, and now he has been set free."

Sam is nearly potty trained, though he still refuses to use the toilet. He has his little potty chair and that is what he is comfortable with. Last Sunday, he wet his pants several times. I was pretty tired of it by the end of the day. On Monday, I began reminding him to sit down and pee. By Saturday, he was doing it mostly on his own, though he will still  pee outside.

Little miss Suzy has her first wiggly tooth and her response to it was hilarious! She screamed and yelled, "Oh no my tooth is wiggly!" Then she ran to me. I held her while she screamed and cried. We got the camera out and took a video of it because her response was so unusual. Nothing would calm her down. A promised gift and Arwen and Josh showing her their missing teeth and the new ones that have grown in and stories about other kids' first lost teeth-- nothing! Then, while we were video taping, she yelled, "IT WILL GET BLOODY!" and we knew what was scaring her so much. I eventually got her calmed down by reading the book, One Morning in Maine. The next day, she told me that she did not hate her wiggly tooth and that she would like another tube of penguins, some gum, and candy bars when it comes out.

Arwen Eve is just solid as a rock. She is my matter-of-fact child. She deals in black and white and not in emotions, which I quite appreciate. I know when Arwen is older, we will be quite good friends. Arwen spent the week drawing and playing with the kittens and watching tv with Suzy while Suzy was distressed about her tooth. Arwen made an intricate picture. There was a strong castle-like house on a tall rocky ridge and a small cottage-like house below it. She had the castle armed with several cannons. Arwen asked which house did I think would win.

Josh spent a lot of the week working very hard on learning Spanish. Since we give him minute for minute computer time for language study, he takes that very seriously. For an 8 year old kid who is barely reading fluently, his knowledge of Spanish and Japanese is awfully impressive. Monday, I made a bunch of flashcards with Spanish nouns. Josh has really taken to those. He knows all the words for the animal set, and the transportation set. He is working on the food set now. I have never seen Josh study so hard. It's nice to see him growing up a bit. Joshua has grown recently. He is skinny and now he is getting long and lanky like myself and Johnny.

Joseph has become a big help in the house. He earns his own jug of orange juice each week by cleaning out the potty chair. He does dishes, sweep floors, washes counters, cooks, picks up floors, and vacuums. He is also reliable in watching over the three youngest kids. I would say that Joseph is very mature for his age, but no one would believe me. He has so much energy that he is all over the place. He talks a lot and very quickly. He has imaginary worlds that he thinks up and writes stories about, but he gets upset if the rest of the family cannot keep up with the details of his imaginary world. I wonder if Joseph will grow up to be a good writer. In a couple of more years, I will have him spend his school days writing a novel and doing math. I want him to get a much better grasp of the language before I give him that much freedom in his schooling. So maybe when he is 12.

Anya has been transcribing the Joseph Smith papers with Ruth and Kate and becoming quite good friends with Ruth. Anya's horrendous spelling has been a point of topic since she began doing this, but it sounds like this is helping her improve. It is also very good typing practice for her.

John had Rachel make a chocolate cake. Kate gave Rachel the instructions to mix the cocoa powder and flour together and then to rotate mixing one cup in at a time with some of the milk. Rachel missed the rotate instruction. Instead she only put in one cup of the cocoa, flour combo. When Kate came to check up on her, Rachel asked if her bowl full of cocoa powder and flour was for the frosting. Kate and Ruth got a good laugh over that and Rachel learned about rotating the dry ingredients and the wet ingredients when mixing a cake. Rachel is currently singing a song in fake Japanese.

Adam is doing so very well. I can't help but be pleased with the man that he is growing into. He is big and strong and very capable. He works hard everyday. He is transcribing along with the older kids. He is working on learning computer programming. He draws everyday and tries to improve with every drawing. He plays and practices the piano everyday. He is doing the roofing with me. He changed the difficult to change tire with John. He has had a hand in almost every house repair since we moved here. And with all of that, Adam is careful with his media.  He listens only to classical music. He does not watch anything that will tempt him to look at things he should not. If Adam continues like he has, he will make a good husband to someone

someday.

Johnny is my right hand man. Last week, the social worker looked over at Johnny and said, "I bet that boy of yours is really good to you." He could not have made a better judgment from a mere glance. Johnny is my right hand man. He is always helping with whatever needs to be done. Johnny always thinks of others before himself. Right how he is holding Gideon for me, so I can write this. This summer, besides working on all of the house repairs for me, Johnny has moved forward

with computer programming and particularly with game design. He also spends time transcribing the Joseph Smith papers. Johnny is the best at languages. He seems to have  natural ability with language and language structure. He knows the grammar for Spanish and Japanese as well as he does for English, and for years now I have called him my grammarpedia as well as my scripturepedia. He just has a good, quick working mind.

Kate is so much happier now that Ruth is home. She is just joyful and busy and happy. Kate finished illustrating her first children's book this week. Step two will be to get it up on an illustration program to fill in all the words. Step three will be to get it put up on Amazon to sell. Kate has also been working really hard on cooking and learning new skills in the kitchen. We all benefit from that.

John was away one night this week, so I was in charge on our family scripture study. I read a chapter in the Book of Mormon to the little kids, sent them to bed and then brought Joseph on up in for some serious study.  At the end, Kate complained that when Dad is gone, I give them a very depressing scripture study. I laughed because I am the negative person in the family. It's almost a family joke to expect anything glum to come from me. However, on the whole, I think when read honestly, the scriptures are often very sobering.

Ruth is an angel. She has been trying to spend individual time with most of the kids. She calls Suzy her little kitten because Susan is always curling up in her lap to be petted and adored and getting annoyed when Ruth does not want to pet and adore her. Ruth dances with the 4 youngest girls nearly everyday. I know they love it.

And there my children are my thoughts about each of you this week. I am blessed to have each one of you. I love our big, close, happy family.

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