A couple of things

Thing #1: Rachel drove me to campus (and home) all by herself today. She is a superstar.

Thing #2: Phoebe gets rather anxious on the days leading up to the day I need to be on campus. Starting on Sunday, every time anyone was asked to give a prayer, Phoebe would say, "Why them? Why not me?!"

We'd explain that everybody gets to take turns saying prayers. 

"I det to say de prayer 'fore Mommy dohs to pampus," she would then retort. 

(Using "de" for "the" is new for her; she used to always say "uh." Also, they way she substitutes /p/ for /c/ is hilarious. She can say /c/ perfectly fine, it's just a bit of assimilation going on when the word also has a /p/ in it, I think. Because there's this kid in co-op (which, first of all, she pronounces as "poh-op") and his name is Cooper. And it's hilarious because she talks about him all de time. "Is Pooper coming today? Where is Pooper? I see Pooper's mom!")

Today was campus day and, as we'd assured her tens of times beforehand, Phoebe got to say the prayer before I left (with Rachel, my chauffeur). We gathered around the table and I pulled her onto my lap.

"Dear Heavenly Father, thankful for the day. In the name of Jesus Christ, Amen!" she rattled off mindlessly. Then without any prompting she stopped short in the middle of her "amen" (which she actually pronounces "may-em") and said very sincerely, "Oops! Dear Heavenly Father, thankful for the day. Please help Mommy and Rachel to get to campus safely. And help us to have a good day at home."

It was so sweet. It's always sweet when she mindfully prays.

Oh, last night she got to say family prayer as well, now that I think about it. And right in the middle of praying that Mommy would have a good day on campus she threw her arms around my neck and said, "I AM GOING TO MISS YOU SO MUCH!!"

It's been kind of a difficult transition for her (to have Mommy gone one day a week). It's been a difficult transition for me as well (though I don't mind the quietness of my office).

Paper arrow-planes and Fanuel-on-the-Wall

On Saturday afternoon, Zoë and I put stars on about thirty boxes I'd reserved over the course of several months. I drew the stars on (scrap—it had been printed on) paper and glued them to the boxes; Zoë painted them yellow. 

I took them to church on Sunday for singing time, where we're busy doing review for the sharing time presentation. The children sang their little hearts out in some "Primary's Got Talent" acts I challenged them with and a panel of judges rated their efforts by holding up a number of stars. I selected that number of children to go grab a box from around the room to build a wall of stars in front of me (we talked about building a strong foundation last week, so the kids were on top of their construction strategies). By the end of singing time we had a big wall of stars and I brought out the surprise—Samuel the Lamanite—to stand on the city wall while they children all threw paper airplanes at him to try to hit him. 

See, because "Samuel the Lamanite, high on the city wall, came to warn the people and repentance was his call." The people did not like what Samuel had to say, though, so they tried to kill him, but "arrows could not hit him, for a man of God was he."

The trick here is that I attached Samuel to a box fan...so those paper airplanes simply could not hit him.

Alexander and I tested several things last week—ping pong balls, ball pit balls, wads of paper, etc.—but it was the paper airplanes that worked the best...meaning that the fan could redirect them away from Samuel well enough. 

So during the last few minutes of singing time I let the kids throw paper airplanes at Samuel (high on the city wall) while we sang the verse about him from "Book of Mormon Stories." 

The kids had a blast. And we practiced four or five songs.

And then I recycled all my prep work for family night! How environmentally conscious of me!

We could construct a full wall because Phoebe had made a house out of all the boxes and was feeling territorial.

Funny Phoebe (and other stories)

Admittedly, Phoebe is not always funny. 

Sometimes—not every day, but sometimes—she dumps out a full bottle of water onto a laptop. 

I've matured a lot as a parent (and as a person) since I started raising kids. And I just want to let the record show that I didn't even yell about the laptop (not really). I sat Phoebe in timeout and gave her a little lecture. And Zoë got a little lecture as well (since she's the one who gave Phoebe the water bottle in the first place). But I didn't even yell. 

I yelled at Benjamin through the window this evening—in full view of who knows how many neighbours—to "STOP HITTING YOUR BROTHER WITH THAT STICK RIGHT NOW OR YOU'RE GOING TO REGRET IT!" to which he responded, "I'm not hitting him hard..." to which I responded, "YOU'RE HITTING HIM ENOUGH AND I'M TELLING YOU TO STOP!"

And then when he had stopped hitting Alexander with the stick (or threatening to hit him or whatever was going on there) he refused to stop tormenting him, so I yelled, "HEY, BENJAMIN! I NEED YOU TO CLEAR SPIDERWEBS OFF THE HOUSE, LIKE NOW!"

Because clearing spiderwebs off the house is the same thing as regret, right?

Thoughts (and prayers)

I will share a whole lighthearted bunch of funny Phoebe saying soon...

But first I just have to say...more...about gun violence (which is out of control in this country, specifically, though not exclusively)...and about school shootings in particular. 

I hate that "school shootings" is even a term. But whether I like it or not, it is a cultural practice that if we have not embraced as a nation, we have accepted (see: JD Vance's remarks about school shootings being a "fact of life"). I think it's high time we—as a nation—push back against this cultural practice. 

We need to explore its roots and weed it out because trimming it down (by installing locks and alarms and posting armed sentinels at the constantly-locked doors) will do nothing (or at least very little) to end the violence. The root of the cause is elsewhere and that's what we need to get at.

Wednesday things

This morning Phoebe spilled a cup of water on a laptop and completely fried it. 

Zoë was doing math on the couch, lying on her stomach, with the laptop resting in front of her. And Phoebe walked up with a cup—and open water bottle, actually—and just...there goes that laptop.

She has been a challenging child lately (I mean—are open containers of water even allowed in the living room? They are not so...).

Fortunately she's very cute.

*****

We had our first day of co-op today. I'm teaching ukulele to...some group of kids. Are they grades 4 and 5? Who is to say? Zoë is in my class, which she's excited about. 

I was nervous about saying yes to co-op because I'm afraid I'm a little bit busy, but the moms really wanted me to come back to teach ukulele. So I said that I could as long as I didn't have to be a co-teacher for any other classes. So I'm teaching 8 hours, but my kids will end up with 32 hours of instruction (24 of which I'll be able to be somewhat alone to get some work done—I could be all the way alone if Phoebe would go to the preschool class, but...she won't go alone, so...Rachel went with her for the first hour today (while I was teaching), but Phoebe wouldn't go back alone and Rachel wanted to get some math work done, so Phoebe just hung out with me). 

I taught the kids outside because apparently there were some complaints about me wearing a mask while I was teaching last year. But, honestly, my kids have been sick since the middle of June so everyone should be grateful we're masking up and not sharing these germs we have (because they are brutal).

I checked for various hazards before spreading out blankets for the kids to sit on—anthills and goose poop, mostly—and the area I chose seemed to be mostly clear of those things. A couple of kids noticed some stray ants wandering across the picnic blanket, but nothing too concerning.

After class, a boy in the class wanted to show me some things that his brother had taught him already (his brother took ukulele with me last year) so I stopped to listen to him, and he's really quite good already (so I know I can bring in some more challenging stuff for some of the kids to work on while other kids are mastering the basics). And then I started stinging all over because...

I'd stopped to listen to him right on an anthill!

Allatoona Falls

I do need to write the introduction to a paper this evening, but Blogger uploaded my pictures in the exact order I wanted them (instead of the exact opposite order, which is what usually happens) and so to reward the system for doing a good job, I will write a little bit about today.

Evidently we didn't communicate things very well and so weekend plans got a bit complicated. I think Grandpa texted us rather early in the week about weekend plans. Tuesday, if I believe, which is one of our busier days around here. I was already nagging around about it on Wednesday morning. And at some point he wrote to his dad and made a plan.

The plan was that...because Andrew had taken so long to write back to his dad...and then his dad had taken so long to write back to Andrew...that Rachel was busy babysitting on Friday night and then on Saturday night the girls planned a wild night of crocheting with their friends, so if the kids were going to squeeze in a sleepover at Grandpa's house it was going to have to be Sunday to Monday (because it's a long weekend). 

So they planned to go up on Sunday for dinner with some of Darla's kids and grandkids. And then they'd watch some movies (a kid movie before putting Zoë and Alexander to bed and then a scary movie with the big kids because Grandpa likes scary movies (he calls them "suspenseful")) and then sleep over. 

In the morning, we'd do a hike...and then return for lunch at Grandpa and Darla's and then go swimming. 

Boom—weekend planned.

Benjamin informed me at church that he'd forgotten his pyjamas. This was slightly problematic because in order to get to Grandpa and Darla's house in time for dinner, the kids had planned to leave directly from the church building. But, I mean, pyjamas aren't the end of the world, so I was like, "Well, deal with it."

It's not like we hadn't told the kids precisely what to pack—a change of clothes (with underwear! because Alexander forgot underwear the last time he slept over at Grandpa's house...but had arrived in his swimsuit...so he just wore his swimsuit all weekend), pyjamas, toothbrush, swimsuit. I mean, they were all bustling around packing things Sunday morning.

"Who is going to pack the toothpaste?" I heard Benjamin.

"I will!" Zoë volunteered.

"I'll pack the melatonin!" Alexander offered.

He got out a ziplock bag and counted out three doses of melatonin. One for Zoë (the most important dose) and then one for him and Benjamin...just in case.

They seemed to be doing well.

But it turns out they all forgot their pyjamas! 

And then Rachel and Miriam somehow didn't get the memo about bringing swimsuits!

And then, Andrew and I left the house en route to the trailhead, thinking that everyone else would be meeting us there. But they were blithely sitting around playing "Happy Salmon" (a card game), thinking that we were going to drive all the way to them before we all drove to the trail head together. But the park is between our house and Grandpa & Darla's house, so we had no intention of doing that.

Luckily I texted Rachel to tell her we were running a bit late but would be at the park in 5 minutes or so and she was like, "Wait...at the park??"

So they all scrambled to rush to the park (where the trailhead was) and we took our sweet time to get there (stopping at a gas station to fill the van and take Phoebe potty). We arrived within minutes of each other. 

I got out of the van—in my swimsuit—and the kids were all like, "Why are you in your swimsuit?!"

"There's a waterfall at the end of the hike," I said. "Remember...we talked about this..."

"We did not!" Rachel said. 

"Benjamin—we totally talked about this!" I said. "Because remember you wanted to do that other hike."

"You can't swim at that hike."

"I know! But that other hike was farther away for Grandpa and Darla, so we picked this one and you can swim at this hike. I showed you pictures. I told you to pack your swimsuits for the hike..."

"Oh, yeah..."

So, it was a morning filled with miscommunication, but in the end we made it and it was a beautiful day for hiking, given the season (which is still hot). 

Our first point of interest was this sand mine:

Two times TODAY where reading has undone me

Number one

We are reading Anne of Green Gables for school right now. I didn't precisely go into the school year with a plan. We read a non-fiction book about the Great Famine in Ireland, and then read Nory Ryan's Song, a historical fiction account, mostly because that's a topic Zoë's been curious about. 

And then we read Kwame Alexander's Door of No Return because it's nominated for the Georgia Children's Book Award this year and...that's kind of my job. It is set somewhat contemporaneously to Nory Ryan's Song (within 20 years). 

And then I had picked out Anne of Green Gables for a nighttime read with my big kids, but they selected a different book (Good Different, another book on the GCBA list). But I just feel like there's no bad time to read Anne of Green Gables, really. Plus it's set within 20 years of Door of No Return, so it's somewhat contemporaneous...right? 

At any rate the kids have been working on their spooky stories and using rich description to invite their readers into their story. What better mentor text than Anne of Green Gables for that?

Zoë started her story with a rather bland sentence: It. Was. October.

She started reading Anne of Green Gables and her revision and suddenly "the October sun" is "shimmering" through the leaves, "casting suspicious shadows" on the path.

Delightful. Thanks, L. M. Montgomery!

Math and Brownies

Alexander was so excited to start his Beast Academy (math) training online this year. I ordered the workbooks for him last year because I wanted him to work on his handwriting skills. But this year I signed him up for the online platform so I could—more or less—take something off my plate.

*****

We had a linger longer on Sunday, which Zoë baked brownies for. 

She left a rather threatening note for Rachel in the kitchen, informing her that Zoë was going to be the one to bake brownies for the linger longer and—importantly—she did not need Rachel's help with that task.

So Zoë baked some brownies. And they were fairly popular. 

When I was in line at the dessert table, a couple of women in the ward were like, "And what came from your house? 'Cuz I know I want a slice of that!"

I explained that the brownies came from our house, but that Zoë had claimed baking rights and had kicked Rachel out of the kitchen. The ladies were hoping for some of Rachel's sugar cookies that she's made for a couple of youth activities lately.

Rachel is a phenomenal baker.

Inland tsunamis

Tuesdays are my long days on campus this semester, but so far the kids have been good about doing their work (they have assignments to complete throughout the day and they have to check in with me with emails and sharing documents and things to show their work). 

My advisor told me I could take home some books from the book room that were ineligible for consideration for the book award this year, either because their publication date was too old or because they weren't the first in the series or...you know...whatever doesn't meet our criteria. So last week I brought home a book haul for the kids and gave them each a book before I left for campus on Tuesday. 

Alexander had read a Magic Treehouse non-fiction companion book with facts about tsunamis and other natural disasters and was absolutely riveted, so I gave him a book about how to survive a tsunami and he sent me a rather desperate-sounding text message about half an hour into the drive to campus:

"is our house bolted to the foundation mom (I finished the book about tsunamis by the way)"

While I was writing to tell him that our house would be just fine, he wrote to tell me that the book was "also about earthquakes that caused the flooding that caused a tsunami that destroyed a house."

So it's possible that book was a little too much for him. But he's read it about 50 times today as well, so it's also possible that it's just his speed.

Sting, Crash, Splash!

Would you look at this adorable bee clinging to our mountain mint?