2019-2020 School Year: Second Grade and Fourth Grade

Boys,

Summer flew by in a haze of pool days, sno-cones and playdates and somehow here we are again! Back to School! We usually start a bit sooner but we were having too much fun and we waited until the end of July to begin. Both of you have already completed the first units of your school year and are about three weeks into your curriculums. Both of you are more than ready for your grade levels and have had an easy transition back into school time.

Landon, this should technically be your first grade year age wise and maturity wise that fits in some regards. However, you completed a full year of first grade curriculum last year and have earned the right to call yourself a second grader. Not only that, but you are flying through your second grade curriculum easily and I can tell you are ready. I wish you'd let me call you by your age-level though because I'm not ready to make you sound older faster! But you were adamant that you are a second grader and so we'll go ahead and let the title stick since you've done the work to earn it. 

Ethan,

This year you have really stepped up to the plate time-management wise and are working hard at staying focused so that you can start school at 8 am and be done by noon. You recently discovered how much more you could get done in your afternoon between school and Taekwando when you buckle down instead of taking longer breaks! In fact, you were liking your early start so much that you tried to start before 6 am one day! We gave it a go but really Mommy works best when school doesn't start before 8 am so we had to make a rule on how early we could start. Trust me, you'll get a better Math lesson this way.

You boys keep me busy and not just during morning school-time! I love our audio books over lunch, board games in the afternoons and our early morning walks. I'm so thankful that we get to do life together!

A Trip to the Cat Kingdom

Ethan sending messages to "everyone in the Cat Kingdom" about a secret portal and hidden treasure.

King Landon ready to protect and defend the Kingdom

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Today we took the boys for a walk in the woods. We spent an hour and a half walking the trail and geocaching along the way. The boys declared it an "epic quest" and carried their cat tail "spears" that they collected along the way.
































The stopped everyone we met on the trail and asked if they wanted to join our "Epic Quest" and told them about their spears for protection and about the Cat Kingdom and got many smiles from the strangers.

Enchanted Tree

Ethan sat on a "throne" inside a evergreen tree. Landon found a banquet hall between a grove of tree branches and they found several signs of "bob cats and wolves" (not really) that they needed to protect us against. They also found several magical objects of protection in the form of stones.

I'm not sure if there is anything more magical than little boys on an adventure in the woods. Real life felt a little flat after a trip to the Cat Kingdom!

King Mudworth

King Mudworth and his Mud Master

Ethan (being King) had a much more elaborate mud costume. Landon was happy to be the mud master and mine mud to adorn Ethan.

Mud shoes. He was very in character with his fierce warrior faces and was totally in his element.

Butterflies 3.0

We raised Painted Lady Butterflies for the third year in a row this spring. Watching the lifecycle never gets old and both you boys enjoy watching our caterpillar friends and setting them free as butterflies.



 Y'all are always a little sad about the idea of them leaving so we talk about it for a few days before we release them. As soon as you get to hold them and watch them fly away though y'all are happy for them.

Ethan, you told me it was so peaceful watching them go and that it filled your heart with joy.

Another year of butterfly friends behind us! This year all 5 made it successfully to adulthood. I hope next year to have gulf fritillaries find our passion vine (if its big enough to be a good host plant!)

Ethan: 8 years old!

Ethan,

At age 8, you are 49 inches (or 124 cm) and 55.6 pounds. This is significant because you are now over the weight limit for optimal results with an epi-pen jr and are in a grey area where you are not quite big enough for the full sized epi pen but prescribed it anyway. Hopefully we'll never have to use it. We recently discovered at an allergy follow-up that you likely have asthma. Your oxygens levels are fine, but we had you tested anyway because you've been having to use your inhaler several times a week or even nightly during this winter. They suspect small airway disease with environmental allergens as the suspect so we are likely going to be making several more allergist appointments in the coming months. You've been coping and hiding it very well so it was a bit of a surprise how low your lung function numbers were but with new medicine and some more follow-ups, environmental testing, re-testing for food, and possibly allergy shots in our future we'll get it under control. Eczema, food allergies, and asthma tend to go together so we aren't super surprised, just surprised that you probably needed preventative medicines before this point. 

(quick update- it been 2 months since I started this and you are now 52 inches tall and 52.4 lbs)

You are such a people person and so opposite of me child. You read a persons name tag and say hello to them using their name before talking (no one taught you this) and when you were in the center of attention receiving noisy cheers you stood there proudly soaking it up for a moment and then thanked everyone for the cheering. (I would have been embarrassed as a kid).

You can be a little scattered when we ask you to do something. I've lost count of the times that you have come out of your room wearing both pjs and clothes after I sent you in to get changed for the day or the times you've discovered in the evening that you've been wearing two pairs of underwear all day or had your pjs on under your jeans. It amazes me that you don't discover it earlier!

We heard you talking in your room at 5 am so Daddy went in to investigate. You were talking away to Booskger as if he was one of us. You still love your Booksger and sleep with him nightly. You recently had another birthday party for Booksger and made him a birthday card and gave him a present (a bunch of pinecones that you found). You decided years ago that Booksgers favorite snack is pinecones.

Some recent Quotes:

- "I would like to collect different diseases in an air tight jar. I'd have to wear an astronaut suit so I could have my own clean air. Then we could take criminals to the punishment room and that would be the only time we open the jar. Depending on the severity of their crime depends on how bad the virus is. We'd decide what is appropriate: Deadly or a cold."

- "Mom, I'm just PINING for Halloween! I have such a THIRST for Halloween!"

- "I want to know more about this piece of my head" (Looking at the tooth you lost under a microscope)

"My tooth kind of looks like rock. Wait. It's made of calcium, and some rocks are made of calcium. Wow it's like I grow rocks in my head. I'm a rock making person."

- "Mom, I'm going to need this olive oil to make a portal. (What??!!)...Oh and some Yttrium and a spark plug." (Why) "because I need to spark the right corner of the yttrium so it can be a superconductor"

- "Mom, where does Dad keep the lighter fluid?" (!!!!!)

- Ethan was asking me about cloning today... "mom, why did they clone a sheep and not something like a duck?" Me "I don't know" E "oh! I know! Because it would probably be harder to get DNA from a duck and it might bite the scientist! It wouldn't bother a sheep. They are used to getting their hair cut and DNA is in hair!"    

- "What if it was possible to miniaturize a black hole? Do you think it could be kept in a jar if it was pressurized? Would it still be a black hole when you took it out of a jar? Do you think a black hole can ever go dormant like a volcano? What if it was possible to miniaturize a black hole and swallow it. What do you think it would do to a person's  insides? Probably rip them up I'm thinking, but what if, what IF there was a minuscule chance that it might give that person black hole super powers.... then they would have destructive.... DECONSTRUCTIVE super powers!"

- "I really wish I could have a little bitty pet black hole captured in a jar. Every day I'd feed it some rocks."

- "Have you ever wondered what it would be like to drive bubbles instead of cars?"

- (said to the nurse giving him a shot) " that was 4,000% less painful than I expected. If I ever have to get vaccines again, I hope you are the one to do them" "I'm glad that vaccines exist so I didn't have to die from a disease at 4 years old or something else like that" 

- "I love you mom, no matter what. Even when you get the name of dinosaurs wrong"

-  "How did Scrooge McDuck get so rich? He has so much non-digital money that he had to attach his bank to his house!"

- "Mom, do you think I could build up a tolerance to dogs? Cause I kind of want a golden retriever....mom how do golden retrievers know how to find gold?"

- "When I get married, I want to find a girl with the exact same personality and interests as me. Then after our kids go to sleep every night, we can stay up late and invent amazing inventions together!"

- "Mom, I just love how every life has it's own unique story."

- "I can’t wait to have kids. I’m also enjoying my time of BEING a kid. When you play with me on the weekend Dad I can tell you have fun so I know I’m going to have fun with my kids. But I’m going to enjoy having my own kids even if I’m the boss of my own job. I’m going to have my own gemstone store and the kids will have to wear gloves so they don’t get fingerprints on the glass because they are going to want to touch them. And on Fridays, all the workers will get one gemstone each to symbolize each day of the workweek.”

- “Let me put you on notice mom, when I say I don’t like something before I’ve tried it, I’m ALWAYS right.” (you ate it anyway)

- "I think I could discover how to invent an invisibility cloak if I could only study a sea sapphire...of my very own."

- (6 am, climbs into our bed and says) “Mom, have you ever wondered just what’s out there ready to he explored?”

- (He has two pairs of underwear with stars on them) "see these blue underwear with stars? These are my enchanted underwear. They can stop bullets. And these Orange enchanted underwear make me lighter than everything around me so that I can run faster and jump higher." 

- (On finding a test tube in the freezer with his brother’s vomit and the dirt he vomited on inside)....."Well, you never know how the germs and the dna will react to the cold. Maybe they will go into hibernation or maybe they will turn into a super dirt!"

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Little Stories

- one day Ethan's Halloween pining sent him over the edge. He climbed to the top of our swing set and from the top of the swim set, turned and yelled "it's almost October! It's almost October! It's almost October! To the four cardinal directions. From the top of his lungs.

“Say, Landon. Come sit here. I think no matter where we go we will be best friends. And I think we’ll always live in the same time period. Though I may die before you. Or at the same time. And one day, I’ll make you an Uncle.” Landon “what’s an Uncle? Oh well, then I’ll be a grand daddy”

- You and your brother love to throw on capes, grab toy wands, and pretend that ya'll are wearing wizard robes and are in the magic world. You just started Harry Potter number three and you and your brother pretended to follow a secret passage out of the castle to the village of Hogsmead and you wanted permission for some candy for Hogsmead. You love your stuff owl Harkey (and Landon loves Pecky) and you boys play almost daily with your owls. You don't always play magic world with them but you treat them like members of the family. (I saw both of you sharing your hot chocolate with your owls)

- Sometimes your imagination runs away with you at nightime. I had to tell you that cats eat monsters and since they are nocturnal and prowl the house at night you would be protected and could safely sleep. Once you invented monsters that cats couldn't handle you started sleeping with a toy wand by your bedside and you cast a "fidelis charm" so that the outside monsters couldn't find you. Booksger is your secret keeper and he'll never tell your location so you are safe. (Harry Potter plot point for going into hiding). You very much enjoy the Harry Potter Books (we recently let you read up to book 3) and you are currently reading the "Fantastic Beasts and Where to Find Them" book.

- You like to make "Mud Geodes". Landon hides bits of chalk inside and then you break them open with a trowel to see what is inside.

- You call me "Mama Cat-Cat" and love to crawl into our bed first thing in the morning and talk. You pretend that you are a cat called Kidzy-cat.

- You took swimming lessons this past summer and loved it! You said you finally  "drowned your fear in the pool" and that swimming feels like flying in water. You can't wait until swim lesson time again this year.

- You are very sweet to your brother. At VBS you were given a lollipop every night as you were leaving. Instead of eating them yourself, you saved them to give to your brother every morning when he woke up. He was too young to go and was asleep when you got back but he was upset that he wasn't able to join you.

I found this in your room and had to ask... Only the strongest type of monster could pull it from the stone but that type of monster isn't in Heartland. You were protecting your wand at night so that the regular monsters wouldn't take it and use it against you. You use your wand to set protective bubble charms over our house to keep the monsters away at night and you have a monster lock on your door so that they can't access via the closet.  (And you very infrequently have monster problems. It only briefly happens every couple of months)

- (after listening to a radio ad for diamonds)...."I might want to get married but maybe not. Probably not for a long time. Cause I have a lot of things and plans I want to do and they are pretty specific and my wife might say NO. But when I do have a wife I'm going to buy her a diamond necklace with diamonds as big as my hand!". Me, "what kind of specific plans do you have?" E "well, I have rather a lot. I get a new one every day! It'll be hard for me to marry but when I do, it has a 59% chance of being Gabi."

- Mom! I saw that girl over by the car door and now I know what marriage is all about. I think she is probably 7. (you were 7.5 at the time)

- “Landon, we opened the LAST door on the advent calendar” “but I want more gummies tomorrow!” “ sorry Landon that’s not how it works, it counts TILL Christmas. “But I love them!” You can’t rewrite history”

- Ethan on finding two tv antenna from our old rabbit ears "wow, are these really old fashioned?" Me "not really, they are from about 8 years ago" E "wow, people are evolving quickly with technology!"

- You drew a series of pictures that you call your "green hill" pictures. In these pictures you show a secret lair under a hill where guys on computers fight bad guys with remotely controlled lasers.

- You told me that you have 3 Types of energy. Halloween energy (that is charged up all year long),  Everyday energy, and excess energy. Halloween energy is the reason that you can keep on trick or treating the night away and don't need to go home to go sleep.

- You have been making big plans for an oyster farm. Reading up on how to raise them, and saving for the pieces of equipment that you think you will need. Your goal is to have pearls.

- “Landon, I think when you grow up one day, you’ll have a great job. You are great at your passions. You’ll be a great builder.” and also, “Landon, you have a great imagination. I love your ideas”. You love your brother and are so encouraging to him. You two really are the best of friends.

- Ethan, “Today is the best day, you know?” Me “why’s that?” Ethan “because I got to sit here and talk with my brother”.

- In Taekwando when you see me watching you turn back and smile or make a heart shape with your hands and look through it at me.

- You spend your evenings after bedtime reading books on the elements and periodic table by the light of your dumbledore wand. You are fascinated by dark matter and hope that you will be the one to discover more about it. You get so excited when you talk about it that you start jumping up and down.

- At the haircut place you are known as the "Little professor" and "30 year old stuck in an 8 year olds body" They always remember you and they will remind you of your last conversation and you'll pick back up with it and add more. 

- We recently discovered that you can do multiplication. I knew that you had figured out the twos a while back but we had just finally gotten to multiplication in your math book and were about to start your first lesson when you went ahead and filled out your math worksheet on your own, BEFORE we started. When I asked how you knew how to do it, you told me that it was just "logical". You have gotten very good at quickly doing addition in your head and you use that to quickly figure out the multiplication. Now we are working on using multiplication in real life and during games for easily counting faster to help you memorize your  multiplication facts. We also are doing the lessons but you do find them a lot less interesting and have flown through two lessons a day. 

- You helped rinsed Landon’s hair in the bath and then said that you were practicing for when you have kids...

I said “when you have kids?”
“Well in my third life”
“Your THIRD life??”
“...or fourth.”
“Why not until your third life?” (And where do you get this stuff, btw?)
“Because of all the stuff I want to do. I might not be home for a long time.”

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Attachments area

One of your dreams at the moment, is to buy a humongous para-foil kite and sail away on a large gust of wind with just a pencil, a notebook, and a compass. You said that not being able to control the para-foil was the best part. No control over your adventure, just taking it as it comes and discovering all amazing things along the way. I brought up some harrowing scenarios that could come up involving mountains, oceans, etc but you weren't dissuaded. You said the challenges and not knowing ahead of time how to figure them out were the best part. Dear child with your head in the clouds, I hope that you revist this dream (theoretically) when you are older and draw the parallels to life and keep that optimism.

When you were five, you went around telling people that your full name was "Ethan Trilobite Moring".  You thought Trilobites were pretty neat and that it made a better sounding name. At age 8, I privately think that "Ethan Epic Moring" would suit you better. It's all "Go Big or Go Home" with you my dear. You remind me of the refrain from the Pokemon theme song "I want to be the very best, like no one ever was...." You are full of optimism and enthusiasm for all your endeavors (that are YOUR idea) and you see no reason why you shouldn't turn your plans into the stories of legends.

Happy 8th Birthday Son. (Although, its a tad late, and you are keeping a weekly tally of how many years, months, and weeks old you are). May your dreams and optimism take you far.

Bonjilla

You and your brother both have vivid imaginations. You have a sort of language y'all have developed with your own words. In your playtime y'all have developed all sorts of bad guys and creatures that are returning characters. One of these characters is Bonjilla who lives at the end of the world. Up till now, that's all I knew about Bonjilla. Then during journal time you made this entry.

Bonjilla also made an appearance on your final project for the end of this quarter of second grade. Its the first time you've done a big writing project like this and I was proud of your work. I want to save it in this memory book for you too look back on when you are older. Your dad and I enjoyed your story very much.

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Ethan’s final project: A cinderella story

How Silvertin Saved the Kingdom

Once upon a time, there lived a boy named Silvertin. He was named that way because his favorite shoes were made of silver and he wore them always. Even as a baby he wore those shoes and they grew with him.

Silverton lived in a cottage next to the pole that marked the end of the world. His family had an apple orchard that Silverton helped take care of.

One day, when Silvertin picked an apple, it turned into bones in his hands. As soon as he even came closer to an apple tree, all the apples turned into bones. He looked up and then down, and then he spotted a lizard sitting on a rock.

The lizard looked at Silvertin and said “ Look, we know that our food, both yours and mine, is becoming not food. But there is a way to stop this. We must kill Bonjilla.”

The lizard looked around and nobody was watching. “I have a sword in this rock. If you are worthy of wielding the sword to kill Bonjilla, put your hand on the rock.” As soon as Silvertin put his hand on the rock, it transformed into a diamond sword.

The lizard dug and dug and dug until he found a stalagmite and then climbed out of the hole and said “clench your sword tightly and you will not get hurt when you fall”. Then Silvertin jumped into the hole.

Inside the hole, Silvertin saw a princess chained to a stalagmite with a rope made out of bones. Then Silvertin looked behind him and saw Bonjilla. He began to fight.

Bonjilla and Silvertin fought and fought. Bonjilla shot a lightning bolt from his mouth and knocked down a stalagtight that barely missed Silvertin. Then Silvertin rolled under Bonjilla and stabbed him in the belly. Bonjilla squealed so loudly that on the surface, a random guys house exploded.

With Bonjilla defeated, the princess began to tell the story of the food and why it was turning into bone. Bonjilla was sucking the life out of the food so that the Kingdom would go hungry. With Bonjilla defeated, the stalagmite that the princess was tied to, disappeared.

A swarm of bats flew right towards Silvertin and the Princess. Silvertin got scared and ran, losing his silver shoe on the way. The Princess picked up his shoe and vowed that she would marry the boy that had saved her and her kingdom.

Many men tried on Silvertin’s silver shoe and it did not fit them. Then she went to Silvertin’s house and his mom sent her to the orchard. The silver shoe fit like his own skin.

Then Silvertin and the Princess happily climbed the apple tree and sat down on a branch and the magic lizard said “you may kiss the bride” and they got married.

The End

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I hope one day you look back with humor on your story or nostalgia for Bonjilla and the worlds and stories you and your brother used to weave! You have quite a back story and character development on Bonjilla when you are just talking to me and telling me about him. You didn't feel like writing it down this time but maybe Bonjilla will crop up again in the future. Or maybe we'll meet some new characters ;-)

Ethan's 8th Birthday Party! Black Hole, Crystal, Science Party

Ethan's 8th Birthday Party was loosely "Black Hole" themed with a nod to his love of his crystals with "Crystal Growing Tree" experiment kits as party favors. 

Mostly the kids just had fun playing in the playroom with our party lights going.

But Ethan did devise a game of throwing glow in the dark stars and "comets" into a "black hole".

We also added glow in the dark stars to the ceiling to increase the spacey feeling.

The best part however was the dry ice bubbles.

These are always a hit with my kids.

The party guests loved them too.

Can't believe there are 8 candles on that cupcake, kid.

Happy Birthday Kiddo.

He's BACK!

"Dear Ethan and Landon,

I'm back! And I hope you two enjoy the breakfast I made for you! Guess what! Santa gave me a special enchantment so I won't lose my Christmas Magic if I'm ACCIDENTALLY touched. Woo-hoo! BUT don't go around touching me on purpose, okay? Also, I have brought a helper this year- his job is to help me watch you boys for Santa, and he needs a name. Try to pick a great name for him!

Your VERY watchful elf,

Cupcake Stocking"

The boys were excited to see our elf return on December 1st and they were especially suprised and happy to have a new elf arrive this year! Since Ethan named the first one, Landon named the second. At first he named him teleporting cupcake but then we decided we couldn't call them both cupcake for short, and he changed his name to Ronald the teleporting elf. Why teleporting? Well, Landon says that's the only way he can figure that they got in the door!

As for their special breakfast, Mama made some toast to go along with it. After all, Mama would NEVER choose marshmellows, chocolate, pretzels and carrots for breakfast. Ethan said "I think I know what happened. Cupcake must have confused elf breakfast for human breakfast and elf breakfast must be pretty unhealthy. Well, it's probably healthy for an elf."

Human or elf breakfast aside, they were both very excited about the special treat and all too happy to eat it!