Adventures in Sherwood Forest

Monday

Caroline's lesson plan:

Bennett's lesson plan:

Bennett spent Monday home sick. He was running a fever after daycare on Thursday, but woke up without one. Friday we got a call after lunch, saying he was running a fever and needed to be picked up. He was clearly sick over the weekend, mostly happy and playing, with episodes of extreme crabbiness, as is his way when he is sick. He started the croup cough Friday night, along with a bad bloody nose, and was coughing up blood. It was terrible. By Sunday night he still had a fever and cough, so we decided he should stay home Monday, which he was more than happy to do.

We started off the day by building a Lego truck that we had started months prior. Bennett is great at many things, however, I don't think puzzles or Legos are his strong points. It could also be because he is younger, but Bennett is very physical. He has never gravitated towards puzzles, and with Legos, he gets distracted very easily. Each piece he finds, he needs to play with, usually pretending they are cars. I don't have much patience, so needless to say, doing Legos with Bennett isn't one of my favorite things. It seemed to take an eternity, but somehow we finished.

Since the croup cough only strikes at night, Bennett wasn't in too poor of spirits during the day. He still had regular cough/sneeze cold symptoms. At some point during the morning I made him a mixture of lemon, honey and water to drink, which did seem to lesson the frequency of his coughs. He wanted to get out of the house, as did I, so we went shopping at Kohl's. We were there for about an hour, so that I could comb the clearance racks. Bennett brought along two toy trucks to play with, but still asked if we were finished every two minutes. When he wasn't asking if I was done shopping, he'd make comments like, "SIGH... Why are you taking so long???" Clearly Bennett takes after his father when it comes to shopping. We did find a Captain America sweatshirt that he loved:

In the end we purchased five items for $0.34. A great use of time, if you ask me! Plus, Bennett wasn't too difficult to manage in the store, and was very happy about his sweatshirt.

Tuesday

Bennett's big day, turning 4. I have been dreading this birthday, because although Bennett has always felt older than his age to me (he has always been fairly reasonable, great at following rules and emotionally level headed), actually turning four means he officially is not a toddler. Like, he's actually a real little kid. Not a baby, not a toddler, but a little kid. Whoa, it seems too soon for that. The night before, Joel picked up some balloons and we put together his new bike. Balloons also decorated the banister. When he woke up the next morning and walked down the hall, a smiley face balloon greeted him. I heard his giddy little voice make a comment about how there are balloons for him. It was very sweet, and he loved the smiley face balloon. He really sounded so excited and content with the one balloon, despite all the balloons tied to the railing. We got our act together, and had him walk downstairs to get his surprised in the living room. He seems genuinely confused as to what we were referring to, since he was so happy about his balloon. He was speechless and thrilled to say the least.

For his classmates Bennett brought in chocolate chip cookies and little toy party favors:

I picked the kids up early and told them we were going for a surprise birthday outing. I asked Bennett to guess where we were going along the drive. When we got near Shady Oak Lake, Bennett excitedly asked, "Are we going to YUM!???" He sounded so excited, I felt bad telling him no. As I was waiting to make the final turn into the Chuck E. Cheese parking lot, he finally guessed it. "CHUCKIN CHEESE!" It was cute, and so hilarious the way he called it 'chuckin.'

Bennett had a great time, but Caroline was a little overwhelmed. Maybe she wasn't feeling well, since she had the croup cough as well, or was hungry and tired, but she didn't do much playing at Chuck E. Cheese. We went to Jason's Deli for dinner where she was more than happy to eat ice cream.

Wednesday

Nothing delights me more than when daycare sends pictures of a topless Caroline working on an art project. She really enjoys drawing, much more than Bennett. Bennett has always been a big scribbler, large continuous strokes over the entire piece of paper. Caroline, much like everything between the two of them, is the opposite. She draws small, precise circles and shapes. There is always some scribbling, but even then, it is contained. Seeing the pictures they send from daycare, I can always see her careful concentration.

Joel got home late, around 7 pm, so it was just me and the kiddos for dinner. They had PB&J sandwiches, and dried peas and carrots on the car ride home. We took the girls for a walk, then they hopped into Caroline's bed to read stories.

Thursday

No pictures from daycare, but Joel was at a conference so we had another evening without him. The night before we discussed going to Noodles and Co. for dinner, one of Bennett's favorite places. When I got them from daycare, I asked what they wanted to do for dinner and Caroline exclaimed, "NOODLES!" She clearly hadn't forgotten the plan, nor had Bennett. This marks the second time I had taken them out to eat at a restaurant by myself. Again, they did really well. Bennett eats pretty slowly, but Caroline actually sat still for a while (longer than 10 minutes) to eat her food. I consider this a huge success!

Friday
No work for me, as I had errands to run and party prepping to do. Joel left the house early to go to his conference, and I took the kids to daycare. We took our sweet time getting ready. Caroline ate about 1/4 cup of peanut butter to start off her day. She really loves peanut butter.

Saturday
After a late night of cookie making/decorating, we adults had a busy morning wrapping up party preparations. The kids were pretty well-behaved. Really, the energy and mood of the household depends on Caroline's mood, and luckily for us, it was a good one!

Caroline was pretty tired. In the morning, I saw her digging in her ear. When I took a look, I saw the left was probably infected because of some pussy goo. She nearly fell asleep on the way to lunch, where Bennett discovered the delights of hosin sauce in pho, and fell asleep on the drive home. She woke up around 2:15, much too early for her, despite falling asleep early for her nap. She was pretty inconsolable with Joel, so I took her, laid down in bed with her and she fell back asleep.

At the Y with their mommy-painted dress and pants. I am quite proud of my work!

The cookies were supposed to look like outer space, but they were a minor disaster, so... they look like a little like Monet, and a little like nothing, but whatever.

Bennett's amazing Star Wars cake. The next day I asked Bennett if he liked his cake, because he was surprised with the design at the party. He told me he didn't know which character was on the top of the cake and I said, "THAT IS YOU!" He had a pretty big grin on his face after that.