Andy & Jessica

Yesterday Jude was complaining about something that just goes along with living in a fallen world. I explained to him that the world is the way it is because Adam and Eve sinned and ate the fruit. Jude said it wasn’t fair that he has to suffer the consequences of Adam and Eve’s sin. I then explained to him that if he and I had been in the Garden of Eden, we would have sinned and eaten the fruit too. Jude said, “No. I would have been like, ‘I’m never going to. I don’t like tasting new stuff.’” Then he said he would never listen to a snake anyway.

Jude got a package in the mail from his online government school teacher who is very nice, but very behind the scenes.  It contained a certficate for the “A” Honor Roll for the first semester.  He was pretty excited when I explained what it was.

Today we took our star student and his brothers to the Mall of America for an afternoon of free rides, hosted by Children’s Hospital.  Jude is now tall enough to go on some fun rides, like rollercoasters.  And, given that the snowstorm kept people away from the mall, there were no lines.  Jude isn’t a total ride daredevil like me, but he’s not a total ride wuss either, like Andy.  He is somewhere in the middle.  We had a ton of fun and Jude was really brave, even going on rides multiple times when the first time was really scary for him.

Jude: “I don’t think we should we that cavity protection toothpaste anymore.”
Me: “Why?”
Jude: “Because I already used it and I got cavities.”

(Or he needs to use more of it! The dentist said that although Jude has 2 cavities, he didn’t recommend we do anything about them since Jude isn’t too far off from a new set.)

“Why could you just walk to South America and I’ve never been there?”

“Me so happy.” 

 

Last night Jude disappeared for a while and then reappeared and asked me to come look at his new fort in his bedroom.  It was pretty cool.  Jude then said to me, “You know how Levi helped me?  He helped me by not helping.”

Tonight I was getting ready to work with Jude on one of his school lessons. I hadn’t seen Asher for awhile so I asked Jude to find him and make sure Asher was okay. Jude didn’t snap to it, like I like, so I asked him again to please find Asher. Jude said, “I will. I will…if you stop whining!”

Tonight the 3 boys got a bath after swimming lesson.  Being nice and clean inspired  Jude to write the first verse of a song that goes like this:

“The cleanest kid in town…[CLAP, CLAP]…will definitely not be brown.”

After Jude sang his new song for me, he asked for a drink of water, which inspired me to write the second verse of the new song that goes like this:

“The thirstiest kid in town…[CLAP, CLAP]…will definitely not drown.”  (Get it?  He’ll just drink up all the water.  Well, Jude was sure impressed and thought that was just hilarious.  I have a feeling we’ll be writing some more verses to our silly song.)

Every weekend the boys and I built what I always describe as “the best train track ever.”  This time, it may actually be our best train track ever.  After much agonizing and studying of the instructions, I was actually able to assemble Levi’s Blue Mountain Mystery set this morning.  Usually Asher destroys it during the middle of the assembly ordeal and I am demoralized and then give up.  But, this time he was napping during the assembly process so we got the whole thing together.  I was so tempted and am still tempted to gorilla glue big chunks of the thing together.  Jude and Levi helped set up the rest of the track, which includes all of the track we have.

I had found a $5 peso coin the other day that I gave to Jude.  He was carrying it around all day today.  When I randomly asked him “what do you think?” he responded, “I think we should go to Mexico and spend this 5 cents.”