For Sunday dinner, we had a simple meal as I had planned. We had Whiting fish. It was not good. Monkey made multiple trips to the bathroom because his stomach hurt, and the rest of us were afflicted with terrible gas within 15 minutes of eating the fish. I threw away the leftovers and counted our blessings that no one got any sicker than we did.
We have truly been blessed. Dragon slipped in the shower last Wednesday before Cub Scouts and bit through his lip. Literally. It appeared that he chomped down on the outside under his lip where the skin was totally cut in a solid line about 1/2 inch long. He bit through to the inside where two teeth marks showed through.
We immediately started giving him homeopathic tablets, Arnica and Hypericum. One is for bruising and swelling of tissues, and the other is for nerve damage. We took him over to the church where Jim and the missionaries administered to him and gave him a priesthood blessing. Dragon was blessed that the pain would begin to subside that night and the lip would totally heal. It had mostly begun to scab up when he went to bed, except for a little teeny bit of weeping. The next day, we continued giving him the homeopathic tablets, but the blessing did the job. The wound mended very quickly (Jim's opinion had been that James needed stitches and normally we would have taken him in.) By Friday, he decided to participate in tae kwon do, and it has been fine ever since. While the scab is still there, it is rapidly healing.
We also had the unpleasant surprise of having our insurance (home owners and car) raise. I learned that as I balanced the checkbook today. All together, they went up about $50. When the mail arrived, however, it included a letter notifying us that May's premium would be reduced the same amount. When I called the office, they said it appeared the premium would return to the same amount after May. Jim heard the news and said very matter of factly, "That's what happens because we pay tithing."
Sunday was also the commemoration of the Saviour's resurrection. We had Easter buns that were hollow inside. They worked even though the Easter story cookies from Friday night did not. The buns were actually rolls wrapped around a marshmallow and then baked at about 300 degrees. The marshmallows melted, leaving a hollow space. Mmm, mmm! We had french toast from the 2nd loaf of Challah bread and snacked on the remains of the first loaf after church.
Last night, we decorated Easter eggs. Jim and I hid them before going to bed, along with a dozen plastic eggs filled with Dove chocolate eggs. My favorite! I had also picked up some rabbit ear headbands and bubbles as a last minute treat on Saturday night at the grocery store. (They were cleaned out of everything but candy!)
This morning, the kids had a ball looking for the eggs which I had limited to two rooms. Jim was going to put them all over the house, but I reminded him that we have a dog that might also go for them and what if we forgot where they all were? The kids hunted for them in a very cooperative manner. All looked and made sure the "owner" of the egg found theirs. Very cool!
After we did some of the usual academia, I ran down to Barnes and Noble for a Geography book and came back with two 6th grade world history geography books for the boys and a box of Clifford's Level 1 easy readers for Dog Lover. The 6th grade books coincide with what we are doing in geography and history so it made sense. Dog Lover has carried her box of booklets everywhere she has gone today! She has always wanted them, and I decided to get them to see if it would spur her on to reading more. She is doing the grade 1 Abeka Language Arts curriculum (which is what finally taught the boys to read), and she is doing very well with it but she still doesn't "read" much on her own. She was very pleased to read the first 6 booklets to me as I prepared dinner. There are 12 in the set. She loves Clifford anyway so this was really cool for her to get! I should have bought them a year ago!!!
When we got back, Monkey reminded me that we had gotten Seven Brides for Seven Brothers for working on their Showman activity badge in Cub Scouts so they sat down and watched that while I balanced the checkbook. After lunch, we sat down again to watch Romeo and Juliet. I realize that there are "adult" and sometimes very rude and bawdy scenes in it, but since most of it is couched in more-difficult verse, I figured most of it would go over the kids' heads. It did. They found most of it to be boring. The boys really enjoyed the sword fighting, Dog Lover was very relieved to notice the tricks like the blood actually dripped down from Juliet's hand onto her gown instead of up from her chest. She was very concerned and happy to realize that Juliet wasn't real, and the actress was very much alive. (Between you and me, I think the boys were relieved to learn that too!) She wasn't very impressed with the fashions of the day either; she wanted to know why they didn't ever change their clothes and thought their pants were weird. Remember, the men wore skin-tight leotards back in the Shakespearean era. Amazingly, they were all able to tell me the story line with some interesting points that stuck with them most. They had to do that much for their badge. I had interjected explanations along the way during the play when I thought it was needed, and they only requested one fast forward during the show (when Romeo is in bed with Juliet). I fast forwarded about 5 minutes worth of the play, and missed a chunk of stuff so apparently that scene was over in less than a minute. We also learned a bit about Shakespeare and the Globe Theatre (including pictures of the modern Globe Theatre) before viewing Romeo and Juliet.
I had been toying with showing them West Side Story, and they were relieved to learn that I changed my mind. The relief was obvious when I told them it was a modern-day rewrite of Romeo and Juliet. They didn't enjoy it enough to sit through it twice! LOL! My reason for scratching West Side Story was different than theirs. It is written in modern-day American English so they probably would understand far more than I am prepared to have them catch. I think we'll stick with Sound of Music, perhaps My Fair Lady. I actually have requested My Fair Lady from the library. I think I'd like to show them Oklahoma! too. They really enjoy musicals! Especially those with fast-paced action in them. I think Seven Brides for Seven Brothers is probably their all-time favorite one so far! It has really caught their attention, and they do all their movements (esp. the fighting scenes) with the actors. I have also requested some children's opera videos from the library as well. They haven't ever seen an opera to date although they are familiar with soundracks from Les Miserables and Phantom of the Opera. Those are some of dh's favorite scores.
So all in all, you could say we had a "cultural" and theatrical repast today, taking about 6 hours in total. That includes viewing the play and musical and discussing them and Shakespeare. We learned about grand opera vs. light or comic opera as well. Add another hour and a half for other subjects, and that was our school day.
If it isn't already obvious, I don't particularly understand the people who think that we should teach Shakespeare while children are very young. Somebody is always brutally murdered (at least in the plays I remember), and the thoughts expressed are often baudy, to use a Shakespearean term. While it is worth reading and even attending a play, it isn't something I'll push on my kids for a few more years! Scripture stories are better suited to young minds, I believe.
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