as a bird flies

 B spend hours exploring the neighborhood on his bike today.  He went from our neighborhood over into the next and over to the next.  When we went later in the car I was shocked at how far he went and all the turns he was able to navigate to get home.  I told him that my mom had the ability to visualize her location as a bird looking down.  He said that's what he does too.

Fasting

 B has a hard time fasting.  He has been in a growth spurt for the last 6 months!  He is constantly hungry and gets shaky.  He goes to bed hungry and begging for food to be left out in the morning.  This usually happens on nights when he gets on the computer and forgets to eat at 7pm.  I even have an alarm on my phone to remind myself to offer L and B food before bedtime.  L doesn't usually eat dinner.  I just feed him whenever he is hungry which is usually right before bedtime when the medicine wears off.

Last month B offered that he could fast something else instead of food.  He suggested he could fast "being mean".  I thought that was funny since B is pretty good at being nice.  But he is probably mean about as often as people eat breakfast.  

His fast offering prompted me to fast from getting on my children about their chores on Sundays.  Fasting from food isn't hard, but I do think that I can keep the Sabbath day more holy if I just do the chores myself or let them go on Sunday.

Sweet singer

 B has a strong voice.  He sings melody and lets me sing harmony because he can hold the melody all by himself.  

B sings in a children's choir and is sometimes very full of wiggles.  He sings well and when he is not wiggly he is the image of good behavior.

He looks after L and has fun at homeschool group.

Strong Boy

 B is a big kid.  He is 9 but about the size of a sturdy 12 year old.  He loves being strong.  He is always interested in trying to beat P in arm wrestling.  Once when P had already lifted weights, he let B try and B won.  Here is a great one of B and L with their powers combined, they could not defeat P.  It's only a matter of time though.  B is gigantic and growing quickly.

Hairs were cut

 We were having a fire on the back porch.  S'mores is a semi-regular activity around here.  We were having so much fun throwing twigs and pine needles on the fire.  Suddenly B threw a lump of something onto the fire.  It writhed and I thought he had thrown some sort of insect nest on the fire.  It turns out he cut of a handful of hair and threw it on the fire.  Oh boy.

Thing explainer

B has been taking lessons with LB.  He has been diligent about practicing and doing the theory assignments.  I'm so glad it is working out for him.

Tonight we had some pineapple, peach salsa.  We all thought it tasted a little strange.  B said "This is how it is, it starts off really sweet and then it gets way too hot!"  

B is very tall for 9 and I know it is hard for him that people always think he is 11 or older.  Sometimes he is just that little kid playing in the dirt.  I've been teaching an art class at co-op and though he's one of the biggest kids in the 9-12 year old class, he's happy to have a group of 9 year old boys and girls to play with.

One time at the co-op another boy was trying to exclude girls from play.  B and lP did not like that.  I'm so glad B values his lady friends.

Glasses and armwrestling

 

P has been doing PT work on his arms.  It makes him so exhausted that B beat him in arm wrestling.

We went to the UF eye Dr and they said B's eyes were stable so he could now start wearing glasses.  We stopped by grandma's house and made caramel corn.

B's good and beautiful work told him to make gnocchi, shown here.

Happy Farmer!

Sweet glasses.

A recent trip to the thrift store brought these awesome building sticks to our lives.