Henry's Digital Artwork

Henry's Mountains

Fighting Sharks (Morgan says this was all his but that she helped him a bit. I think "a bit" might be an understatement.)

Thanksgiving

I just wrote a note to my sister about our Thanksgiving dinner, and as I wrote, I realized that my only truly successful dish today was the stuffing.

We spent most of the morning preparing our family room for painting.  We filled cracks and holes and sanded.  Preparing Thanksgiving happened mostly during the breaks I took when my arms got tired.

The kids really wanted to use our china.  They decorated the table with the china and homemade name cards.

So here's the rundown of our Thanksgiving dinner.

• Turkey:  I only made a breast this year--since that's what we like anyway.  I used Pioneer Woman's brine recipe.   It was fine, but I think I like a simple salt and sugar brine just as much.  We expected the turkey to be roasted by 1:30.  It wasn't finished until 3:00.  
• Stuffing:  This I did right.  I used Stovetop, and added shredded apple.  Yum!
• Pie:  My hubby made our old fashioned pumpkin pie.  It was delicious.  I also made a chocolate mousse pie using pudding mix and whip cream. 

As you will see, things started to fall apart at some point:

• Potatoes:  Sticky, starchy, gooey.  Whatever you call that mess when you overcook them.  The texture was more like poi. 
• Corn:   Straight from a freezer bag into the microwave.
• Carrots:  I glazed carrots, but they weren't that great because I used mini carrots.
• Rolls:  I completely forgot the salt.  Henry tried to throw away the leftover rolls because he thought they were so bad.   Actually, I hadn't even planned to make homemade rolls.  I bought Sister Shubert's super yummy frozen rolls.  But Morgan begged, "Mom, you have to make homemade rolls!"
• Gravy:  Lumpy.  I didn't really care. 

So there you go.  It wasn't so great.  And yet we loved it.  And we loved each other.  And that's all that matters. 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Kindergarten!

It was a hard decision, whether to send Henry to kindergarten this year.  We debated for months about whether he was ready.  Whether he could benefit from one more year home.  Whether he would be too physically little for other kindergartners.  Whether he was too physically rough for other kindergartners. Whether he would be ready to sit still and behave as expected.  

Henry's preschool teacher suggested that he might benefit from one more year at preschool.  She said his attention span wasn't quite as long as the other children.  And he certainly didn't know his alphabet.  I wasn't too worried about that.  

With my first child, I pushed and pushed for her to know her alphabet, colors, numbers, etc., so she would look really smart when she started kindergarten.  And she was smart.  She read far above her level.  

My second child, Morgan, refused to learn her alphabet.  I tried to teach her, but she just stubbornly didn't want to learn.   When she went for her kindergarten evaluation, Morgan was picked out as possibly being a slow learner.  Boy was her teacher surprised when she shot ahead of the other kids and was reading on a second grade level by the end.  Once she decided she wanted to learn, she shot ahead.  

Part of that was just that she decided she wanted to learn.  Part was excellent teachers.  And a huge part was our regular use of this book:  

I can't recommend this book strongly enough.

We have always had a tradition of reading together at night.  Each small child in our family cuddles with me at night while we read, sometimes 45 minutes to an hour.  When they are interested, we work through this book.    

Morgan taught me a lot that kindergarten year.  She taught me about how much more kids learn when they are self-motivated rather than mom-motivated.  She taught me that she had her own time table, and that she would read when she wanted to.  I learned the great one liner:  "No problem."

When Jackie came along, though she did learn somewhat in preschool, I didn't try to teach her the alphabet.  I just enjoyed learning with her.  We visited museums, played in parks, read non-fiction--if it interested us.  She also went to school not knowing her alphabet well and learned quickly once she decided that was what she wanted. 

So here was Henry.  We agonized over whether to send him, and finally decided to give it a try.  

Henry was my first child to cry over going to school.  The morning of the kindergarten evaluation, we walked in with him already tearing up and hanging on my arm.   We were late because I had to coax him to the car.   I have always been good at just leaving my children and letting them learn to deal with being away from me, but this was the first time I felt torn.  Maybe because he is my last child.  

We filled out a few papers, and I sat and held him while he cried, and then the two teachers in the room with me encouraged me to leave, which I obediently did.  I noticed that one teacher, like a bouncer, escorted me out to the school lobby and kept me busy talking so that I wouldn't go back to check on him.  After a while, I could still hear his wails down the hall, and I decided to leave.  

I have worked enough with kids to know that they will stop crying, and usually faster if you at least act confident.  But Henry was pretty strong willed.  I got a phone call a couple hours later saying that he had only cried for 45 minutes.  !!45 minutes!!  That's a long time for a kindergartner if you ask me.  But I was glad he stopped, and I knew he would be fine. 

Henry had insisted that he didn't want to go on the bus.  As I sat filling out forms in the kindergarten room, I had to decide whether he was a car rider or a bus rider.  At the prodding of the teachers, I decided to make him go on the bus, as that was what I wanted to be the final result.  I imagined the teachers having to force him onto the bus and into a seat.  And I imagined him crying and trying to get off.  What a mess it was in my imagination. 

But when I met the bus that day, there came Henry down the steps, smiling ear to ear off the bus.  

"Henry, how was kindergarten?" I asked.

"Great, Mom,"  he exclaimed enthusiastically. 

"Henry, did you like the bus?"   

"Mom, I want to ride the bus tomorrow!"

So here we are a month later.  Any of you who might have been following my blog might understand why I was worried that he might get in trouble at school.   Henry has in the past, quite frankly, done some pretty crazy things at home.  But I guess that's over for now.  His teacher caught me at the open house, and said that he's the best kid in school, that she uses him as an example for the other kids.  My Henry?  What a surprise was that.  

Henry loves school.  He's thriving there.  And I'm glad I sent him.  

Kindergarten rocks.  

I Love You Mom

Each night before dinner, our family kneels down, and we say a family prayer together.  Well, everyone kneels except Henry.  Since he was big enough to climb onto my back, he has crawled on and lain on my back like a floppy teddy bear during the prayer.  I lean my forearms onto a kitchen chair to support his weight.

Normally, I expect our kids to be quiet during the prayer, but I just can't stop this one.  Every time we pray, Henry leans over to my ear in the middle of the prayer and whispers, "I love you Mommy, very much."  Sometimes he whispers, "I love you Mommy, and I don't ever want you to die."

First Tooth Lost

                                           

I sure do love this kid. . . . 

He came to me with this tooth hanging down perpendicular to his other teeth.  It was pretty annoying to him, so I took a picture, and then got a tissue and pulled it out.  

I learned this from the best.  I'll never forget attending a church activity with my Dad, who is a dentist.  I remember a small child running up to show him a loose teeth.  My Dad peered into the child's mouth, and before the child knew it, my Dad had pulled that loose tooth out.  In all fairness, I should point out this memory is from long ago . . . the accuracy may be questionable.  

I've blogged before about the tooth fairy's negligence in our household.  I don't know who was the tooth fairy this time around, but it wasn't me, and I don't think it was my husband.  I have some really kind older kids who have taken over tooth fairy duty.  Somehow a bunch of coins appeared under Henry's pillow.

Droops

So, this may give an unfortunate view into my occasionally strange sense of humor, but someone gave me these flowers.  I don't know what I did wrong, but the next day they looked like this (below.)  I thought it was funny enough that I took a picture.  I hope you can find some humor in it too.

I did, by the way, photoshop some crumbs off the table.