2nd and 5th grade are in the books!
...but, for all the excitement of today Joshua had a rough afternoon. He refuses to look at the (analog) clock to figure out if it is before or after 3pm, which is snack time. Then he almost had a meltdown when a mess was made while he and Isaac were playing a game in the basement. I absolutely said, "It's going to be a long summer." already. Joshua did perk back up after dinner, so I think he was a bit hangry.
School only has a half day left: 1 drop-off, 0 recesses, 0 more lunches to make, and 1 more pick up. At one point I counted how many years I was going to need to deal with pick-ups, but then COVID hit and now I don't count things like that anymore.
Giraffe had an adventure today! He was a Gir-inking Giraffe. I crack myself up. Good thing it's almost summer so they can stop having adventures.
O:CtH kitchen edition is a wrap!
I finished the last little bit today and dealt with the pile of stuff that was on the counter. I know the puzzle is still there, but I need to start it after VBS and don't want to forget.
I'll also note that it took me so long that I probably need to start over at the beginning, but I'll just gloss over that. It is also importation to remember to clean under things in the kitchen. The bottoms of the cabinets and drawers were especially disgusting. I absolutely could do a better job of keeping the drawers clean too, but if I think realistically I know that won't happen.
Next up is the little storage room off the office. I'm going to see how summer goes though; I wouldn't be surprised if I do a minimal number of chores. It can wait until fall.
In other news, the bears had a straw-bear-y adventure today.
I finished more of the kitchen today!
I started with the cabinet above the microwave. I threw out a ton of plasticware and straws.
Next I cleaned the drawer with the kids' plastic dishes. I got rid of several things from here too, and arranged it so everything actually fits...and should easily fit with limited upkeep.
I finished the towel drawer too. There was a surprising amount of random stuff in the drawer that has now been placed in (hopefully) better locations.
So there's only one spot left! It does have a pile of random stuff to deal with though, so I'm not looking forward to it.
My goal was (and possibly still is) to finish cleaning the kitchen before the end of school: 3.5 more days. I'm not sure I'm going to make it as a few other things need to take priority near the end of the week.
I did work on it some today and got through several locations. I really thought that I had cleaned under the oven recently but that was obviously not the case. It did make for gratifying cleaning though! I still have four more spots: a cabinet, two drawers, and part of a counter to finish before I can call it done.
I woke up to find Horizon on a quilt I was giving away today. That wasn't were I wanted him to be.
It was Joshua's turn to choose the family activity, so he choose Lego challenge: "related to cats".
I made a cat toy. I really tried to get it attached to a motor and spinning, but I just don't have enough experience with gears/technic to make it work correctly in the allotted time. Tornado played with it for about thirty seconds.
Ben also made a toy. It used a laser pointer on a double pendulum+. The cats played with it for about thirty seconds.
Joshua made some scenes. One is a cat bathroom with food, sinks, and a scratching post. The other was a minecraft-like environment where all the different biomes were called cat related things.
Yesterday Joshua found out that Snowfoot and Grey Bear were planning to go on an adventure today. So when he got home from school, he found out that they grabbed a few other bears and had a bear-rel adventure!
(Root beer was in the little barrels. These are not drunk bears.)
Today was mainly a normal day. I biked to the library instead of driving. I did two loads of laundry and finally got it all cleaned. (It's always a project after camping.) It isn't sorted, let alone put away, but it's at least clean.
Grey Bear was waiting for me for nap time.
It's been a bit of a boring week, once we got home from camping, I'll admit. Putting the desks together was fun, but there has just been a lot of normal/boring things filling the days too.
Today was a lot of cleaning up. Finishing up cleaning from the new office set-up, camping, and then the normal cleaning. The cats made me smile several times though.
I was taking apart the boxes from the desks, turned away for a moment, and suddenly there was a cat in the box! It felt a bit odd because usually the cat takes up most of the box, but this time there was room to spare.
A short while ago we decided that it was time for Joshua to have his own (good) computer. So I have a new computer and Joshua, who is inheriting my old computer, has been sad about the lack of Minecraft for the last few days. It hasn't been too long, but I wanted to get everything set up for him promptly.
And so, in between a few other chores today, I reset the office. It use to have one longer table, but that table wasn't long enough for two computers.
Joshua was so excited. He promptly decorated his table with assorted Minecraft characters made out of Lego and added the creeper head to the back of his chair. Ben and I were happy that we've hung on to some of the old monitors that we've used in the past...they're small and the color isn't great on the secondary monitors, but they work for looking stuff up as needed. These tables also came with cupholders, but we're calling them lovie holders instead; you can see Grey Bear in the middle of the picture.
The day finally came! Black belt test number 3, the final test.
It started with basic actions and combos. There were always a few that I have trouble starting, but I get them within one or two repetitions. We moved on to forms. I struggled with a few forms, not because I don't know them but because it is hard to do them with a group. However, I've also been at enough practices lately that they know I know the forms and this last test is mostly just for show. (There were a few people missing and I think there were a few students they were watching a bit closer than normal. They got a little grumpy at the lack of power some students were putting forth, but besides that they seemed happier than normal too.)
Phew. We were through the hardest stuff. Self-defense followed. I had been struggling a bit with this because they would previously only give the name of what they wanted...and it felt like the names and/or the motions kept changing. So this time they gave a quick description too. I was with a lovely partner and we had a fun time together. We are trying to come up with a word when we execute the move correctly. We don't want to say "good", because it doesn't feel good. But we don't want to say "bad", because the move was executed correctly. We've been using "terrible" and laughing about it, which lightens the mood.
Next we had some fun things! We were divided into two groups and needed to make a six-motion form in five minutes. There was one adult in each group, with the expectation that we'd help lead. No problem there! One student would select a move, we'd run form. Then the next student would select a move and we'd run the form. If they were too slow to choose a move someone else got to choose, although everyone did get to put a move in by the end. The parents voted and we won! Huzzah!
Then the parents came out and we had to teach them the first five moves of a form. My sparring partner's mom came out to help me since the rest of my family was camping. She is a red belt, although hasn't been on the mat for a while, so we had to do one of the harder forms. We ended up with Bassai, which was the one I disliked the most. But we only had to do the first five moves and I know the form! I just don't like it.
The mile came next. I just gave them my time from Thursday again (12:02). I feel a bit like it's cheating, but that 10 minute break is so nice.
We finished up with some sparring. I never love sparring but it was fine. It helped that I had just had a break.
And then we were done. They noted that I was the first adult female to become a black belt under their leadership of about eight years. (In fact, there aren't that many adults that make it. I obviously don't know the history all that well, but in talking with the other adult that was testing for his second degree belt there might only be two males as well. There are several teens that are now in college and on the cusp of adulthood, but they were all younger when they actually got the belt.)
(Note that we were all able to flip our belts! Previously we had the red on the top black on the bottom denoting black belt candidate. Now we have black on the top denoting that we've passed but are waiting on the official ceremony.)
I worked through the chore list today. It was pretty boring. I practiced my forms for a while; they're getting better. The test is Saturday and I'm ready to be done. They ended up not rescheduling it as I had mentioned earlier and right now I'm rather glad of that. I can get it done with and move on.
I brought the cat grass in for the cats this morning.
I finally got all the flowers on the wall. A few of them might need to be moved around a little bit more to get everything balanced, but I'm pretty happy with it.
As with every summer, I have high hopes of teaching the children household chores. Our housekeepers recently graduated and so I moved up some of my summer plans. For now they still have daily chores, although in the summer Isaac is going to have a weekly list instead.
As for the chores that the house cleaners used to do, they are now up for grabs. I've offered money in the past for extra chores, but this year they can choose money or extra screen time. It's been a huge hit with Isaac so far. He did a great job of cleaning the bathroom tub this evening. It looked amazing. I think Joshua might do some, but he hasn't seemed as motivated yet...and that's ok too.
Joshua was playing with the nerf gun and found it very important to put up this Caution sign.
It took me a day to get some of the Mother's Day pictures and then it took me a while to get pictures of the papers but I'm finally getting around to posting.
The kids did a really nice job with Mother's Day. They both had some gifts and were just so excited about them!
I helped out at Joshua's field trip today. It was a perfect day for it.
Joshua wore his dangerous bear shirt on purpose.
Joshua was also willing to hold my hand a lot. It was lovely.
The field trip was about ecosystems and the leaders did a really amazing job of making it interactive.
I went for a walk with Cheryl this morning. We saw a ton of wildlife in our one mile walk! Two snakes, a muskrat, three adult ducks, several baby ducks, a cardinal, and lots of other birds.
This afternoon Cheryl tagged in to be the responsible adult at rock climbing so that I could climb. For my first time ever! The workers were rather surprised...I'm there all the time and know all the ropes (somewhat literally), but have never climbed. Anyway, it was harder than it looks, as expected. I kind of wish that I could always join them, but that seems like it might be breaking the rules a bit too much. Isaac and Joshua did a great job of showing me the ropes and helping me out though. I managed to get over the top of the bouldering wall (even though the easiest route had been removed). I also did an auto-belay (oh, it is scary letting go at the top) and worked on a take-away route with Joshua.
Tornado enjoyed using the cat backpack a lot today. I think Horizon knocked him over in this picture.
