Tate's sweat lodge

It really breaks my heart seeing my boys be sick. And they all are or have been sick the last two weeks. I tell them I wish I had a Magic Mommy Wand that will make everything better.

Seems like it's harder on Tate. When you start out HoH (Hard of Hearing), any congestion makes it dramatically worse. He's had, apparently, a really bad cold with a fever. He just coughs and coughs and coughs. And he sleeps so soundly (is this a deaf thing? or just a Tate thing?) that he will cough until he gags.

I thought moist air might help, but the boys' bedroom is so big, that the vaporizer doesn't have much effect. Sunday night I got him up twice and sat in the bathroom with him, running the shower hot for a few minutes. That would buy us about four hours of sleep. Then I was up with Gunnar (102F and throwing up).

Monday night - with a deep desire for sleep - I got more resourceful and we created Tate's 'sweat lodge'. Yep, the tent is IN the boys' bedroom. He's sleeping on a gym mat, with the vaporizer zipped up in the tent with him. Seemed to work pretty well, so we're trying it again tonight.

Pray for the boys to be well! They all really want to play soccer on Saturday AND we have tickets to Cirque D Soleil (sp?). It would be nice if we're all well enough to go.

Gunnar and Gizzy

This is Gunnar, at bedtime tonight... not nearly a well child. He's trying to smile, and cuddling a toy elephant he has named "Gizzy".

The bowl next to his head? Well, if you come to dinner at my house, you will never be served food out of that bowl. That bowl is reserved for things like mixing plaster-of-paris to make a volcano, or embalming "King Cluck", or for the purpose it's serving now.

Not that it always works as intended... Since all the boys have been sick, we've been doing a lot of reading aloud (now on book 5 of the Chronicles of Narnia - The Voyage of the Dawn Treader). Gunnar was resting on the couch this morning, with Gizzy and The Bowl, when he announced that he needed to pee. He decided to use the bathroom off the family room, (wouldn't you know it, one of the only carpeted rooms in the house.) And, of course, en route to the bathroom the agenda changed. He stood there, helpless as a deer in the headlights, and downloaded breakfast.... on the carpet.

Once I got him wiped off, loved up, and resettled on the couch, I had the mess to deal with. I'll spare you the details, except to say that - to make matters worse - I think Tate is allergic to my carpet cleaner. As if he wasn't sick enough already, when the fumes from the foamy 'Resolve' wafted from from the family room, through the kitchen and the dining room, and into the living room, his eyes filled with 'tears' and turned red, and he began sniffing and coughing and sneezing! Wyatt and I ran around opening doors and windows to air out the house. And it's not like it's a warm day either! We had fresh snow just above us in all the hills again, and more hail today!

Wyatt - the well child

That is the happy face of the child whom I think is finally feeling better. You know they're feeling better, not because their fever goes down, but because they start getting into mischief again.

King Ghidorah and Godzilla

Wyatt, not to be outdone by his younger brothers, prepared these wonderful play-doh sculptures.

He's in bed - I hope asleep - so unable to give commentary (which he may wish to add later). Since I have watched exactly NONE of the Godzilla movies (but have listened with great patience to many long explanations and descriptions) I can only tell you for certain that the green creature on the right is Godzilla. (I love the detail of the blue tongue!) I think the yellow creature on the left is Gedorah.

I'm sure the expert will want to comment in the morning.

Hi, my name is Wyatt. I'm here to comment this morning! My creation was of King Ghidorah, a three-headed dragon-like creature, and Godzilla. Godzilla is more of a lizard-like creature. Godzilla does not like King Ghidorah. Godzilla actually kills King Ghidorah, even though KG is bigger than him. In one of the movies, people in Tokyo also make a Mecha-King Ghidorah out of metal. Godzilla kills this too. KG can breathe three atomic rays, but Godzilla can only breathe one. And this about ends my descriptions.

Tate, Godzilla, and Hedorah

The green guy is Godzilla! The black guy is Hedorah – the Smog Monster. Hedorah is shooting a ray, from the top corner of its eye, at Godzilla. But of course, since Godzilla has such armored skin, the ray has not much effect.

Now, for more information that is not happening, Godzilla can breathe an atomic ray. Hedorah can spray gas that can originally kill people, but can only make Godzilla dizzy. Also, Hedorah has two other modes: tadpole mode, and standing mode. When Hedorah is in standing mode, he can also shoot these glop-like bomb-like missiles that start to smoke on Godzilla, that must be hot. In tadpole-mode, Hedorah can swim around sinking ships. And Hedorah is made originally of garbage which makes it so invincible. Another reason Hedorah is so invincible, if Godzilla were to punch it or bite it or get it with his tail or his spikes, they would stick into Hedorah with no harm! If Godzilla sticks his hand in (into Hedorah) all that happens is that glop comes out. Another way to say "Hedorah" is to say "Head-ra".

Back to Godzilla, he has spikes, a big tail, two legs, and two arms and hands with four fingers. Godzilla also has a roar that doesn’t sound like a roar. It sounds like a screechy roar that I cannot describe. Godzilla is originally charcoal gray, but in some of his movies he is kind of green – very very dark green.

Hedorah looks like a piece of glop too. It has gloppy legs, but you can hardly tell that they’re not one piece! And long strands and pieces of him just hang off of him everywhere, which is why he looks like a piece of garbage. Hedorah will only stop rampaging to breathe smoke. Hedorah likes breathing smoke because it must give him power.

Gunnar, Minilla and Mothra

This is a picture of Mothra’s larva, webbing up (since they're silk worms) Minilla, the son of Godzilla! Mothra is a huge moth, that’s why she’s called Mothra. We know she’s a girl because there’s a movie called “Godzilla vs. Queen Mothra”. In the movie “Tokyo S.O.S.” on an island where there is two fairies they were singing a song, which I think was the Mothra song. There is an egg, above, as they singed, the egg started to hatch. Out of the egg, came two Mothra larva.

Minilla is Godzilla’s son. (Japanese people call Minilla “Minya” because they don’t like to say “L”. And they call Godzilla “Gojira”.)

This is why the larva are mad at Godzilla and Minilla: In “Tokyo S.O.S.”, Godzilla killed Mothra, so now, for the rest of their lives probably, the larva has been longing for revenge. That’s why the Mothra larva is webbing up Minilla.

That’s the end of my story.

U11 Wyatt

Wyatt amazes me. If you could harness that boy, you could light Seattle. Many games, he'll play the whole hour without being subbed out, and he hardly ever stops running full bore. His agility and speed are incredible, and he rarely seems intimidated, though he's often going up against boys who are bigger... sometimes a lot bigger. Wyatt just runs them into the ground.

Of course, he has had wonderful coaching and plays with a great bunch of boys.

For some reason, I think my boys are all genetically programmed to play defense... or maybe they're following Wyatt's example. They all gravitate to it, and Wyatt has set the bar pretty high. I tell him I want to get him a soccer shirt that says "NONE SHALL PASS", but he gets kind of embarrassed. He's got the strategy and the speed to keep most of the other team's players away from the goal, and can often run them down if they try for a break-away.

Wyatt's branching out these days, and getting in on a bit of offensive action too. Where he got the coordination from, I have no idea, but it's a thing of beauty.

U9 Tate

Tate has been playing soccer, indoor and outdoor, non-stop since August and it really shows! He's always loved playing 'last man back', with two of his buddies, but now he's branching out, and asking to play mid- and even forward. He gained a lot of confidence and his ball handling has improved too.

Tate has also gotten better at changing direction. Used to be that once he took off running for the ball, he was kind of like a cannon ball that had been launched, and woe to anyone or anything in his path. (Anyone meeting Tate head-on is still likely to end up on the ground, as you can see in the first picture.) He's not a rough (mean) player at all, the boy just has a lot of momentum!

Tate's playing a smarter game, as well as showing more ability to maneuver around players. Mostly, the key word for Tate is determination. I've seen him surrounded by three players from the other team, and he'll come out with the ball, moving toward the goal. I don't have a picture of it, but in his last game he scored the only goal! Way to go Tater-bug!

U7 Gunnar

Gunnar is really enjoying soccer this spring, in spite of getting bumped up from the U6 to the U7 league. He seems tiny next to some of the other players (!) and he's not particularly competitive. Still, he's gaining confidence and going after the ball more. He even managed to score in one or two of the games! More importantly - to Gunnar - he's been to three team-mates' birthday parties, and one boy is coming home from practice with us this week to play.

The team is developing more skills too, and that is fun to watch. The 1st grade and Kinder teams actually split in half and play on two fields, just 3 on 3, or 4 on 4. It makes sense really, because why would you want more than 8 kids mobbing the ball at a time? They don't exactly play positions yet! But they're getting the idea, more and more. Last season, what looked like passing was really just poor ball control. This season there is actually some strategy developing. It's fun to watch. :0)

New Homes Cool Lunch Program

Home + Schooling = Flexibility

Our week has been interrupted by some usual things (like our Sign Language class today) and some unusual things (Wyatt had one of his two testing days on Wednesday, and I went out to lunch to hear a holocaust survivor speak on Tuesday).

For the boys this has meant more free time! With the slightly warmer weather, they've been able to be outside more and longer, and decided to build a tree-house. They started yesterday, and by lunch-time today had finished a platform big enough that they all could sit together and eat! Gunnar informed me that it has a wonderful view of the lake. (In case I hadn't noticed it from the house!)

Now they're working on enclosing the bottom part into a "Clubhouse", with a window. While Wyatt and Tate were at soccer practice, Gunnar and a neighbor managed to nail "siding" around the window and talked me out of an old dishtowel for a curtain.

Julius Caesar and Cleopatra will have to wait.