I've always harbored a pet theory that given everything we know about the proportions of human bodies (mostly learned in art class), we should be able to more accurately predict heights. There are holes in my proportion chain, though, a notable problem being that even though eyeballs are the same size for your whole life, there is no way to reach inside a baby's head and examine the eyeball size. I was explaining this to the kids one day, and Gretchen thought maybe irises would also stay the same size. You know, since eyeballs do. Brilliant! We all latched onto this very scientific conclusion and set about measuring irises in the most precise way imaginable: We stared into each other's eyes and hollered about staying still. All the male irises in the family are visibly larger than the female irises which clearly means we're on to something. The family now believes that Theodore will be the tallest. The girls are all, as closely as we could measure, about the same as me.
One of the girls (probably Gretchen?) received the board game Villainous for Christmas. Olivia and Gretchen, and some others, have been enjoying playing it approximately twice a month since then. Their biggest obstacle is that it is a longer game, so by the time they finish explaining it to a friend they only have about 20 minutes left to actually play and don't manage to get very far. Yesterday Bryan played with them, and then told them to create their own villains to add to the game, which provided some interesting discussion and kept people busy. Olivia is creating Bowser and Gretchen is working on Dawn Bellweather.
Side note, the previous paragraph was made more difficult by the fact that the children of the household have completed the cot/caught merger while the adults have not. Don and Dawn sound the same coming out of Gretchen's mouth.
We had no school on Monday due to President's Day, and it ended up being more busy than anticipated. Olivia and Kaitlyn performed piano at a local nursing home for service hours. Kaitlyn played mini golf on the oculus with Opa. Olivia and Matthias went to a friend's house for a game of Kid Magic (just magic the gathering, but all kids playing). Olivia played chess with Opa. I'm not sure what Gretchen was up to. Probably homework and riding her bike. Theodore was also around, but didn't have any engagements.
Speaking of riding bikes, Olivia and Gretchen have become quite independent and will frequently take their bikes down to the subdivision to ride for a while. It started as a way to get exercise without running as the weather warmed up, but Gretchen especially has really taken to bike riding as a way to get a little break outside between other obligations.
Now that the weather is warming up, fog days are back on the table! These were a huge surprise to me when Olivia first started school. With the number of kids coming from the country, though, I guess the fog is a problem. Monday was actually incredibly foggy, even in downtown Lima and on the freeway as late as 9 am. That would have been a canceled day for sure if we didn't already have the day off. The administration is reluctant to cancel anymore this year because we're out of calamity days and have to do virtual learning during cancellations, which is inconvenient for everyone. As a result, a moderately foggy Thursday morning ended up being just a 2 hour delay.
Matthias is unintentionally and reluctantly becoming better at cleaning up. He had made butter at school and wanted to try at home as well. Unfortunately, when he got tired of shaking the jar his arm got a little to low and he managed to smash the bottom of the mason jar on the counter, sending cream all over the kitchen. He had to wipe up the cream, sweep the floor, and then mop. Many tears were shed, but he did a good job and when he spilled something the next day he was much more willing to take care of it.
Kaitlyn made slime yesterday, which obviously led to Matthias making slime as well. We didn't have food coloring, so we just have two large balls of white slime. It was painless and easy and doesn't even seem to be unbearably sticky, which I appreciate. They still are not allowed to have it on anything fabric.
Theodore would like to know how many reptiles you can name without looking them up. Bear in mind that alligators and crocodiles apparently count as the same thing, and all reptiles within the same genus count as one. You are permitted to separate orders and (probably) families.
Pictures:
Kaitlyn and a classmate at the 5th grade retreat on Ash Wednesday:
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