Week in Review

All summer I've been intending to be more active on my blog!  And now summer is over...

So first off this week - on the first day of public school - we went to the zoo.  It was like "our zoo".  No crowds, no lines, awesome.   But hot.  The first 2 hours were soooooo hot.  We brought along a spray bottled filled with water and that was a great choice.  It really made a difference.  While we ate lunch, the sky clouded over and it rained BUCKETS.  Thunder, lightning, the works.  It took a while, but it began to slack and the rest of the afternoon was not bad at all.

Blazing hot...

Soaked!

Soaked again!

And they ran through another water playground after that.  We never really dried out this trip.

The rain washed the jaguar out of her favorite hiding spot and she was cuddled right next to the window!  The kids also got a great show from the Giant River Otters, but by then my camera and phone batteries were too weak to take pictures.

Irene's progress towards walking reminds me VERY MUCH of Annalise's loose tooth a few months ago.  It seemed for a long time that it would fall out any day, but it had to look very loose for a very long time before it came out.  Irene has looked close to walking for about 4 months now.  I feel like she has made substantial progress this week - she crawls on hands and feet a lot of the time:

 And she is able to walk while holding only one hand - although this picture shows two, but I included it because she likes puddles....A LOT.

Annalise made and iced a cake - pretty much all by herself.  I will post pictures of the finished project another time.  It was a part of a project that she has been working on for the last two weeks.

Mako...not quite status quo this week - he developed another UTI, the vet said this is common for diabetic dogs.  I will not go into his symptoms, but I will say this - if your pet has a UTI, it will be pretty obvious you need to take him/her to the vet.  He is losing a patch of hair near his shoulder, something I read is also common of diabetic dogs.  His blood sugar is still not low enough to please the vet, but except for the bald patch and the UTI symptoms, I would say that he acts mostly normal.

And although I have no pictures, we spent the week watching TS Erika cross the Leeward islands, checking the National Hurricane Center website multiple times a day, and ultimately watching her dissipate.  The kids were disappointed, but Rob and I....are not!

Water from a Rock

Mostly for Natalie's benefit, we've been doing a simple craft to go along with our Bible lesson each morning.  And most of them have come from a last minute pinterest seach.  This one included - super simple:  fold a small piece of paper to make it stand, draw Moses on it with a staff, crumple a triangle of blue construction paper, place a rock over the tip, position Moses next to rock.  Voila.

Natalie's - I love her sunshine :)

Caleb's - naturally, a staff is really a cane and why not a candy cane...

Annalise's - I have no words.

A Caleb Quote

(In an incredulous and sincere tone,)  "Dad, why didn't you play college football?"

Quotable Natalie

"It's not nice to not be nice!"

Hide the Markers...

For the record: we were NOT trying to recreate the interview scene from the movie Alexander and the Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day!  Somehow she found the only non-washable crayola marker in the house. I don't know how, but she did not get it on her cute ladybug shirt.

And I know you are wondering - it came out blue too!

Dogpile!

Botany Take 2

I'll be teaching Botany again at PEP this year.  It's been easier to plan the class since I can draw on my old notes, but I got an undesirable time slot (3rd class - after two academic classes) and a smaller classroom.  Every time I think about the class, I picture it in this huge room they assigned last time, but the new room is about half the size.  So I am a little uncertain going into it. 

Last time we made a notebook with folders and printed sheets, but I am going to try to make the class lean in a more artistic direction and have the kids do a lot more drawing, so I am going to have them use a sketch book for all the lab pages.  I plan to post a lot more about the class this time because I look back on my own posts to jog my memory!  This is an interesting class and I hope to teach it several times. 

Because Natalie's class was too small, they combined the Kindergarten with 1st and 2nd and she and Annalise will be in the same class.  They are taking ceramics, weather, great artists, and folk dance.  Caleb will be in my botany class, read Charlotte's Web, Civil War, and Geography. 

Hopefully we'll have a fun semester and learn some new things about plants!

Spin Art

I meant to post these a while ago!  The girls had the spin art toy out today and it jogged my memory.

Rob's parents got this spin art toy for Natalie for her birthday.  I had a battery operated spin art machine when I was a kid and it is fun, but this is superior in so many ways and I highly recommend it.

One great thing about it is that it is powered by pushing a button, no C or D sized batteries that-you-never-have-on-hand required.

The other cool thing about the button is that it allows you to vary the speed and create different types of swirls.

The kids also experimented with adding paint before pumping the spinner.  They created a lot of great designs.  And they were happy together, which to me is the best thing.

Mako Update

Mako has been holding steady the last week or two.  I haven't noticed any dramatic improvement, but he hasn't declined either. 

Unless you call being used to pull up on declining!

This is normal for him.

I set an alarm on my phone to remind me to give him his two shots at the same time each day.  The alarm has a tone I don't use for anything else, and we noticed this week that he recognizes it when it plays.  He winces when I poke him, but he doesn't resist or try to bite or run away.  I don't even have to hold him to keep him still.  It makes me wonder if he associates it with feeling better.

His insulin dosage has been increased each time he's had his blood sugar checked.  We are hoping it will not need any change this week.  The increased insulin also makes him hungrier so that he is eating about twice as much as before, still stealing food, and sometimes at night will beg for more dog food.

Adding to My Resume

When I look back and take stock of all the skills I have gained by being a stay-at-home mom, I feel kind of accomplished!  I just never expected that I'd do anything to prepare myself for a career in wildlife removal.

With a face only a mother (or our 3 older children) could love.

So about a month ago, I started to suspect we had a mammal in the garage.  It was after dark and I needed something from the garage, when I flipped on the light, I saw a tail disappear into some stored items.  Yay.  Rob set up the trap with a piece of bread and peanut butter and assured me if something was there, it would be in the trap the next morning.  It wasn't and I began to doubt my vision.

But...A week later while Rob was in Haiti, I was doing laundry I discovered the garage smelled like something had died there!  We searched the garage and did not find a body, but we did find...ugh...poop.  Definitely not a phantom mammal.  And after IDing the poo we were pretty sure we were looking for North America's only marsupial - an opossum.

Top two are bowfin fish.

We reset the trap with more PB and even got a footprint in a cornstarch path we'd made, but no opossum in the trap.  Then we tried wet dog food and apples without success.  Then we added chicken bones and cat food.  Although the trap was so sensitive I nearly lost a finger trying to set it, the animal got in and out with the food without making it trigger.  Next, I broke up a piece of bowfin fish that Rob and Caleb brought home from fishing and placed it so the critter had to step on the trigger pad.

This morning - we had an opossum!  It was a baby - about the size of a kitten - and despite barring it teeth and making itself as fierce as possible, it melted the kids hearts.  They quickly got to work drawing it.  They named it "Bowfin" after the fish that caught it.

Annalise

Caleb

Natalie

Rob wasted no time getting it out of our vicinity!

Saying goodbye!

You can see in this picture that it pushed the back door open on its own and got out, for some reason it did not try this trick in our vehicle! 

It disappeared into the woods and didn't look back.  The kids are hopeful that it will meet a new opossum family, but it's just as likely to become part of a python's diet!

Not everyone was happy upon our return:

Annalise

Natalie

Week in Review

We had an unusual week.  First - the kids had a pet sitting job for the week.  They had fun with it, but they did do the work!  The family has 2 dogs, 3 cats, a guinea pig, and 3 turtles.  (The turtles were self sufficient for the week.)

He's holding his nose!

Annalise decided she likes cats.

Cuteness!

In addition to pet sitting, we had 8am swimming lessons.  Not that it will benefit anyone who reads my blog - but the Learn to Swim program at Miami Dade parks is a great deal!  And I think both C & A improved a lot.  Caleb was in Level 3 and learned the breaststroke and backstroke.  He is a fast swimmer too!  They worked on diving a lot too - which was amusing to watch - the kids could get the form right on the board, but they fell in the water like a rock.

Annalise was in Level 2.  They focused on freestyle swimming.  Her biggest improvement was in confidence.

And we did school - actually we finished school for the year - at least for the portfolios.  Our work this week will go towards next year's portfolios. 

Caleb pretending to take a nap on the year's schoolwork.

Irene and Natalie had check ups - Irene is holding steady at the 50th percentile and Natalie continues to be on the small side - about 15th.  They were both pronounced to be very healthy.

Rob surprised the kids with an outing to see Minions.

Mako had his insulin increased again.

And Natalie made the jar salads:

I think I need a vacation!  Or I would if a vacation wasn't so much work!

A Card for the Low Patience Section