Random tidbits

While I was busy in primary, having a pioneer hoedown during music time, President Biden dropped out of the election, which was some pretty good news. 

Grandpa came over for dinner...and to bring back the kids' car seats, which we forgot to take out of his car when he dropped them off on Saturday. We had homemade pasta, which was delicious. 

In less good news, a faulty software update caused practically every flight to be grounded over the weekend. More than 5000 flights were delayed. Delta Airlines was particularly hard hit.

Rosie and I both have flights out to Utah—on Delta—later this week for Olivia's wedding. We're crossing our fingers everything is ironed out by the time we need to fly.

*****

Phoebe can be a real riot. Here are a few stories from her this morning:

Phoebe: Mom, Mom, Mom, Mom…

Me: Mmmm…

Phoebe: Wake up. 

Me: Momma is still tired. 

Phoebe (tickling me): What is this?

Me: That’s my armpit. 

Phoebe: It is so pokey. 

Me: Thank you. 

Phoebe: And you have yucky elbows. My elbows are so smooth. Your elbows are so yucky. Disgusting. 

Me: Thank you. 

Phoebe: Will you hold me? I just want to hug you!

Me: Yup. I can hold you. 

Phoebe: Hold me with your yucky elbows. 

Me: Mmmmhmmm. Wait until you get older…

She still has perfectly soft baby skin. But that will change, I'm sure.

Rachel is 17!

Somehow—almost impossibly—Rachel turned 17 today. 

She (and Miriam) had a game night with friends last night (so it was like a birthday party but without her having to be the very center of attention, which she doesn't particularly enjoy) and Rachel woke up to a flurry of texts from her FSY friends. 

Later in the morning she and I solidified her schedule for next school year. She'll be doing a full course load at BYU-Idaho and is particularly excited for a sewing class we found—Apparel Construction 1. 

Grandpa brought the kids home around noon. We opened presents soon after they arrived. Phoebe has actually been pretty okay with birthdays this year. I mean, the first few were upsetting, but she's realized that her turn is coming and rather than being upset by the ongoing anticipation she's chosen to be increasingly excited for when it's her day.

When she wandered into my room at midnight—soon after I'd finished wrapping Rachel's presents—she said, "Oooh! Are these presents for me?!"

"No," I said. "They're for Rachel."

"Oh," she said, slumping. "Okay."

She perched right beside Rachel the whole time:

Home with Phoebe

Tonight Phoebe and I had the house all to ourselves (which is a rather unusual thing). 

Alexander, Zoë, and Benjamin went to Grandpa's house for a sleepover (Darla is in California helping with her new grandbaby so Grandpa is lonely). Rachel and Miriam had planned to have a bunch of friends over to play games this evening, but they usually play games outside and it ended up storming quite a bit so they decided to head over to the church to play games instead (Andrew went to provide adult supervision, but the church was bustling with activity—a group was there playing soccer and another group was doing something else—so there were plenty of adults around...our teens just took one of the bigger rooms that weren't being used). 

So, yeah, Phoebe and I were left alone together. 

She was a little gutted that she wasn't invited to sleep over at "Gampa-Dala's" house. She packed all her most important items in a little backpack and was all ready to go...and then we crushed her dreams. 

There are just a few benchmarks she has to meet before she can be considered for a sleep over. Things like (1) sleeping in her own bed, (2) ditching overnight pull-ups, (3) not panicking whenever Mom or Dad can't be with her. Simple things like that. Once she understood that Mom wasn't going to "Gampa-Dala's" she was much more okay with the idea of staying home. 

She got to watch Daniel Tiger while I cleaned the kitchen. And then we had some music time and reading time and drawing time and playing time before getting ready for bed. 

"Here’s the deal—" I told her. W need to start getting ready for bed, so it’s time to tidy up."

"Sure hope kids are ‘kay!" she said.

"You…sure hope…" I echoed with a snicker.

"…kids are okay, yeah," Phoebe finished before sighing a big sigh. "Wonder what they’re doing right now…" She sighed again. Evidently she was starting to feel lonely without them.

Anyway, here she is drawing a picture of "my kitty, my Waffles":

Cute Phoebe Stories

Last night Phoebe conducted our Family Home Evening (that is, Phoebe got to decide who did what). Ordinarily the conductor welcomes everyone together (which Phoebe did) and then they invite someone to choose a song to sing and someone else to offer the prayer (which Phoebe did not). Instead she said:

"Welcome to Family Night! I will choose the song!"

Choosing the opening song is a great honour, so it's no wonder she wanted to snap that job up.

"Okay," Andrew said. "And who will say the prayer?"

"Also me!" she said. "And I will do calendar!"

"Okay, that's going a bit far," and considering the fact that she can't read or write or navigate a calendar, that's true. "Let's start with song and prayer. What song do you want?"

"Ummmmmm..." Phoebe hedged. 

She's not actually very good at choosing songs. We usually have to suggest a few for her to pick from because she's not so great at thinking about these kinds of things on her own yet. Fortunately for her, the Primary Children's Songbook was open on the piano. 

"Ummmmm...we will sing...this boat song," she said, running up and pointing to the music that was open (which had a picture of a boat a the top of the page). 

Watermelon, Sunflowers, and Pollinators

Watermelon is usually pretty good on its own, I think. 

Andrew, on the other hand, doesn't ever think watermelon is good.

Everyone else in our family enjoys watermelon, though, so in the summer Andrew will often pick up a watermelon when he does the grocery shopping (because he does the grocery shopping at our house). He won't typically cut it (though he has on occasion), but he will buy it for us. 

I have never succeeded in growing one, though we had some butternut squash volunteer in our yard this year (from the one time Andrew made butternut squash soup, I guess) and it is going wild. Well, the vines are, anyway. We've got a couple of lovely butternut squashes developing, but that's all. 

Definitely sick

Rachel and Miriam took the ACT today. When we signed them up we actually chose GSU campus for their testing center because then Andrew can take them in and just...go hang out in his office while he waits for them to finish. We know because...this is not their first time taking the ACT. In fact, the ACT company gave out a two-for-one coupon for each of the girls when they took the ACT the last time, so this was essentially a free second test.

Unfortunately, they cancelled the test at GSU for our testing date and the girls were moved to a random high school way down the the airport. 

Sick, no...healthy, no...sick, no...healthy, no...sick!

Alexander's still coughing from his pneumonia, but he's feeling just fine. But then last week Zoë got sick. And this week Phoebe has been sick. And we've been...doing very little outside of the house. 

But today? Today no one had a fever (and those who had been feverish had been fever-free for 24-hours!) and we really needed to take our glass to the recycling collection point so we (at least the youngest four) took all the glass we've been amassing the past few months (as well as our textbooks, because we're on week two of our school year) and went to the park. 

Here's Phoebe showing off her big-girl ponytail while Alexander sets out his school books in the background:

I can't imagine a more beautiful thing

We planted corn this year.

I don't think we've tried corn since we once tried it in North Carolina..and things didn't work out well for us. I think a big storm came through and flooded our garden and all our corn fell over and...that was the end of that.

Things went much better this year. Our stalks grew nice and tall...and then they got tassels...but I saw no silks anywhere. So I was a little worried we weren't going to get any ears of corn at all. But then my silks started appearing and I began instead to worry about pollination. We went out and did some hand pollinating, but I honestly think the tassels were simply too far spent to have that do much good. 

Still, we got a couple of lovely (little) ears of corn:

Hermes

Benjamin got his hermit crab—Poseidon—about two weeks ago and we've been meaning to pick up a friend for it ever since...but life has just been so...busy. Andrew and I have a lot of work projects and swim team was coming to a close and Alexander had pneumonia and the girls are off to FSY and...I dunno...getting to the pet store just felt a little hard.

But then yesterday we were driving home from the road race and I hopped on Facebook and saw that someone was giving away a full hermit crab set up—the tank, the crabs, everything. So I said we were interested and...the next thing I know we're bringing home a 20-gallon tank stocked with three new friends for Poseidon (they said it was four...but we only found three crabs and the, uh, remnants of a fourth).

Benjamin was over the moon!

Fourth of July Fireworks

We started our homeschool year this week so we can get some school days under our belts before the real chaos begins in the fall. Did I give my children the day off today? Well...no. We didn't have any big plans, so we we hung out at home, did some schoolwork, played some games, and had a wonderful barbecue dinner. And then we headed out to watch fireworks with the neighbours. 

First we went to some friends in the ward who have kids around Phoebe's age (so the fireworks were a little bit earlier). Here are the kids enjoying some sparklers:

2024 Peachtree Junior

We woke up bright and early this morning—and, in fact, prior to it being bright—to head downtown for the Peachtree Junior Road Race. My neighbour sent me a link about it after she saw Benjamin and I running earlier in the year and I went ahead and signed Benjamin up...and then when I learned that the race was sponsored so fully by Microsoft (as in: the event was free)...and because I figured the littler kids would be tagging along anyway...I went ahead and signed Zoë and Alexander up as well. 

Alexander could have run the mile race, but I decided to just sign him up for the dash because he's a pretty timid kid and doesn't like to be out of sight. I wasn't sure he'd make it through the mile course on his own. And it turns out this was a doubly good call because...evidently he's getting over pneumonia. 

Anyway, backing up a little bit...

We left the house at 7:15, aiming to arrive when registration opened at 7:45 (and knowing we wouldn't be there until more like 8:00). Things really slowed to a crawl, however, and by 8:15 we were still sitting in a long line of cars waiting to turn into the parking garage. So at a red light—and a mile or so away from our final destination—the runners and I hopped out and started booking it to The Meadow in Piedmont Park (where packet pickup was). 

We speed-walked down Monroe Avenue and then jogged down Amsterdam Avenue. Our goal was to hop on The BeltLine Trail but when we got there it seemed to be completely closed for construction. Luckily there was a "gravel trail detour" that we could jog along. Unfortunately, we then had to sneak through the fence, across the trail construction, and through another fence in order to reach the meadow. 

By the time we arrived on the field we were hot, sweaty, and ready for our participation medals already. And we were still a field's length away from the registration tent! 

I rushed the kids across the field and then we stood in line and got our numbers, which was ultimately a very smooth process. They didn't preassign numbers for the kids, but we got an email with a QR code for each of them, which they scanned at the desk, then pulled out a bib and scanned that number to connect it with their racer information. You can see that Benjamin's number starts with a 12 (he ran with the 12-year-olds and all his signage was navy blue) and Zoë's number starts with a 9 (she ran with the 9-year-olds and all her signage was yellow). That made it easy to find where to go and gave me peace of mind about collecting the kids after (though we made sure to also fill out the safety information on the back of the bibs and I wrote my phone number on their arms...just for good measure).

Here are the kids after getting checked in: 

In the first five minutes Phoebe was awake...

"Tan we doe to the pool?" Phoebe asked, stumbling out of bed.

"Good morning to you, too!" I said. "Unfortunately, we can't go to the pool right now because we have to take Alexander to his doctor appointment."

"Oh. How 'bout you not tan tate Alexi to dotor. Daddy tan do that."

"Daddy can't do that because he's taking the girls to FSY right now. So Mommy needs to take Alexander to his appointment. You can come, too."

"Okay. I will choose some clothes."

"Good idea."

"What are you doing!? I want shirt and pants!"

"Of course, I see that you have both a shirt and pants here and I will help you put them on, but in order to do that we have to take off your pyjamas."

"Otay. This is such a busy day! This is not a church day!"

"No, it's not. We went to church yesterday, didn't we?"

"We have Luna today. We have dotor pointments. *sigh*"

"It is a busy day, but I don't think we have Luna today."

"Me so hungry! You so hungry, too? You have not eaten breakfast yet."

"I have not eaten breakfast yet. We can go get some breakfast together. What would you like?"

"Mac-roni and cheese."

"That does sound good. Unfortunately, I don't think I'm going to make macaroni and cheese for breakfast so you're out of luck there. Let me give you some options. We have leftover waffles in the fridge. We have lots of leftovers in the fridge! We have watermelon that's all cut up. We have oatmeal. We have cereal. We have..."

Last day of swim team

Thursday was a busy day! 

I took all three kids to swim practice in the morning because Benjamin wanted to be there for Alexander's mini-meet. Alexander graduated from Future Barracudas a while ago, so hasn't been attending their practices, but he was invited to show up for the mini-meet. 

So, we went to Zoë's practice. And then we stayed for Alexander's practice. 

For the past few weeks Andrew has been taking those two earlier in the morning. And then they've been coming home. And then Rachel leaves to take Benjamin to his practice. And then quite often I would take the little kids (including Phoebe) back to the pool...it's been a lot of juggling.

But on this particular morning I just took all three kids with me. Zoë practiced, Alexander practiced, then Alexander had his mini-meet.

Here he is all wet and shivery (and cute and tiny) and waiting for his event to be announced:

Hosed etymology and other funny(?) things

Swimming has been rather all-encompassing this past month. Andrew remarked (quite humorously, in my opinion): "I had no idea swim team would involve so much swimming!" 

And it's true. There has been a lot of swimming. And a lot of driving kids to the pool (which, honestly, if they didn't have to cross 18 lanes of traffic between two very gnarly intersections, I'd let them ride their bikes to the pool...it's only 3 miles away...but unfortunately they'd have to cross eighteen lanes of traffic to do so. And, yes, there are traffic signals but I'm still just not sure how much I trust the traffic).

Anyway, tomorrow is our last meet (before county, which I doubt we'll qualify for) and the kids are very excited. They went to morning practice today, and then we stayed after to swim, and then we went to afternoon practice as well and Phoebe and I swam while they were practicing because they only use half the pool for the afternoon practice. 

Amazingly we've only had a couple of storms this entire month. It's been so dry. Humid. But dry. 

That's a thing, right?

We haven't had to cancel any swim practices or swim meets due to bad weather (knock on wood because it's supposed to storm a bit tomorrow), which feels...unusual for June. But we did have a good storm the other night when we decided we'd encourage Phoebe to stay in her own bed using a sticker chart.

9:00 PM

Me: …so if you stay in your bed all night, you can choose a sticker to put on your chart! Doesn’t that sound like fun?
Phoebe: Yes! I want a sticker!
Me: How do you get a sticker? Do you remember?
Phoebe: Stay in mine own bed!

1:30 AM

Phoebe: *tip-toes down hallway, knocks on door*
Andrew: What’s up, Phoebe?
Phoebe: I need help staying in my bed! I want a sticker!
Andrew: *tucks Phoebe back in, turns on some lullabies, sits with her until she falls asleep*

4:30 AM

Mother Nature: ⛈️⛈️⛈️
Phoebe: *runs down hall, busts through bedroom door*
Phoebe: THAT WAS THUNDER! I don’t want a sticker! I want you!
Mother Nature: ⛈️
Electricity: *goes out*
Phoebe: IT’S SO DARK!

Obviously mother nature was not on our side. And then she came in bed with us last night, too, claiming she could still hear the thunder from the previous night's storm. We'll see how tonight goes.

Anyway...no rain...plus a lot of kids swimming means that the water level in the pool has gone down a bit. Often rain will fill it up quite nicely. But today they had the hose on, filling the pool back up to the level it needs to be for the skimmer baskets and things to work properly. 

Phoebe thought the hose was great! It was about 98°F today and the pool was lukewarm, but the hose water was freezing (or felt comparatively so). She loved playing with it.

She stood around asking everyone who walked by, "Wanna get hosed?"

A swim meet and pneumonia

We had another "home" meet on Thursday night. 

I mentioned that I sang the national anthem with the kids last week, since they weren't comfortable doing so on their own. But this week Zoë practiced until she felt comfortable and then sang the national anthem solo...and a cappella. The national anthem in the United States has a rather tricky melody and uses quite a large vocal range; it's not easy to sing. Zoë would have preferred to have accompaniment, but she did alright singing a cappella.

Primary and Sacrament Meeting Talks

Zoë was asked to give a talk in primary at the beginning of June. Here's what she said:

Good afternoon!

I was asked to talk about what it means to be “steadfast and immovable.” When I looked up this phrase in the scriptures I found that it is followed by either “abounding in good works” (Mosiah 5:15)  or “in keeping the commandments of the Lord” (1 Nephi 2:10 and 3 Nephi 6:14). 

Being steadfast and immovable means to be loyal, faithful, firm and determined. Being steadfast and immovable does not mean we should avoid change. President Dallin H. Oaks said that “the gospel of Jesus Christ challenges us to change. ‘Repent’ is its most frequent message, and repenting means giving up all of our practices…that are contrary to the commandments of God.” We can and should fix things in our life in order to become better people.

For example, I used to not like mushrooms and would pick them out of everything. One day, my brother Ben made sautéd mushrooms. He asked me to try one, and I did. I liked it. I was not steadfast and immovable in my dislike of mushrooms. And that’s okay! 

Mushrooms still aren’t my favourite but I’m able to enjoy more meals because I can eat mushrooms without gagging. The change made my life a little bit better. 

June is busting out all over!

Rachel just got home from babysitting (at 10 til midnight—and a good thing, too, because in Georgia 15 and 17 year olds can't drive between midnight and 5 am), so I suppose it's a good time to disclose how much of a secretary I feel like lately!

My phone has been off the hook with requests for my kids to puppy-sit, plant-sit, and babysit. Not to mention tutoring. And Benjamin's trying to start up a garbage can washing hustle.

"Can Zoë come over tomorrow at 2 to tutor?"

"Can y'all do puppy duty Monday and Thursday this week?"

"Any chance one of your girls is around on Saturday afternoon and wants to babysit?"

It can be a little chaotic to coordinate everything. Throw in daily swim practices and weekly swim meets (we just got home from the swim meet at 10:45 this evening), girls' camp (which Rachel and Miriam just got back from), music lessons, and the fact that Andrew has an actual job and I have some writing projects to finish up before the school year starts and...it's a real circus over here!

I thought I would share a few pictures of the more ordinary parts of our lives. The pictures are in reverse order (newest to oldest) because that's how they showed up when I imported them and I...don't want to take the time to switch everything.

My corn is flowering!

Miriam's Music

Miriam recorded some beautiful pieces on the organ today. She made a goal to record one piece per month and fell a little behind in March and April and May between breaking her arm and going to Austria and preparing for her piano auditions. She recorded three pieces from various angles and edited those views together. All in one day!

Here's "Come Thou Fount of Every Blessing":

Phoebe in the pool

Phoebe is fairly convinced that she can swim—and she's not entirely wrong. She's really doing fairly well. The one thing she can't quite do is...breathe...which I think is a fairly important part of swimming. 

I've been working on teaching her how to flip onto her back but she hates it. She tends to growl one of a number of predetermined responses:

a) NO! *incoherent grumblings*
b) UGH! MOM!
c) Me gonna drown! (or sometimes "I am gonna drown!" or just "I/me drowning")
d) Me already breeved! 

The solution to drowning is obviously to get off her back and plunge her face back into the water, right? Silly kid. I keep explaining that she needs to learn how to relax and feel comfortable on her back in order to be a competent swimmer. She does not believe me, but she's making progress.

She doesn't like to rest on her back, though, because I told her she needed to flip to her back to breathe...and if she takes one breath, then she's good to go again, right? And, like, that's true for competitive—or even simply fluent—swimming. But I'd really like her to be capable of flipping onto her back and relaxing and breathing before flipping onto her stomach to continue swimming (rather than depending on me to lift her face out of the water). 

We worked really hard today and got her to be somewhat...chill...on her back. Here she is singing "Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star" for me (once she was done with the song she'd be allowed to flip back onto her tummy, see? so she was really rushing through it):

Generations and generations and generations and generations...

I redesigned our (extended) family newsletter this month. I figured that since I was changing the publication frequency from two times a year down to one time a year we could do with a good redesign as well (or at least a mediocre redesign). I decided I'd use this picture of my grandma's family standing in age order—from my great-grandfather and great-grandmother to their oldest son, Loren, on down through eleven (living*) children to their youngest, Ila June—in the header of the newsletter somehow. 

Hermit crabs for FHE

Benjamin and I haven't gone running in quite a while. Swim team, as it seems, takes up a lot of time! We're planning on hopping into things again soon, but in the meantime, I thought it was probably about time we made good on that hermit crab that he technically earned...on March 20. We put off the purchase until the end of the semester and then after the beach trip and then...tonight we finally went and did it!

We took the kids to the pet store for family night and this turned out being a very exciting field trip. Several of the kids hadn't ever stepped foot in a pet store before (my bad). Phoebe was the most excited at all. She wanted to see everything.

Swim Team Stuff

Swim team sure is keeping us busy! 

Alexander started in the "Future Barracudas" program the week we got back from the beach. He said he felt "the urge to excel" in swimming...and he did! He graduated from the "Future Barracudas" program by the end of the week and practiced with the competitive team this week. 

That means he missed the kids' first swim meet (on June 6), but he was an excellent spectator and learned how swim meets work.

Here's Zoë (dead center...and dead last) swimming last week:

Three videos of Phoebe

Here is Phoebe singing "Baa, Baa, Black Sheep":

I love that she always says "have you any wolf" instead of "have you any wool" 100% of the time. I also like how she lost track of all the deliveries the second time she sang the song. "Yes, sir! Yes, sir! One bag full. One for my master and..." then she pauses to think about it and realizes there's supposed to be three bags, not one, which means her "name" must be the recipient of two bags, but then what of the little boy who lives down the...what's the word again? Lane.

Phinizy Swamp Nature Center

We gave the Phinizy Swamp Nature Center another try on our way home from the beach. This time it was open and it was well-worth our time, I think!

They have beautiful boardwalk trails over a swamp, surrounded by tall reeds and trees dripping with Spanish moss:

 

Edisto Island, Day 7: In which my knee is loath to goodbye to the beach

How is it that a week seems like such a long time at the beginning of a week and like a mere blink at the end of the week? We were quite sad to wake up to our last day on the beach. Here's Phoebe enjoying some morning stories and snuggles with Daddy:

Edisto Island, Day 6

 After getting back from Botany Bay, we headed right back out to sit on our "own" beach.

Don't ask me why Phoebe looks so grumpy in this picture because the truth of the matter is that she loved being buried.

Botany Bay

On Thursday morning we visited Botany Bay, a beautiful land preserve on Edisto Island. We weren't really sure what to expect—some websites said to strap on your hiking boots, some websites said to wear shoes that can get wet. We mostly opted for sandals and that was a good choice.

It's a half mile walk from the parking lot to the beach, and it's best to visit at low-tide. When we checked the schedule in the morning and saw we were just about at low-tide we started hollering Grandpa's catchphrase: "Ten minutes!" (meaning that we should all be getting ready to go in ten minutes). I'm not sure we managed to leave the house in ten minutes, but we did leave pretty quickly!

Here we are looking at all the oysters and crabs we can see thanks to the low tide:

This next picture is from our walk back to the parking lot and you can see the tide is certainly much higher than it was when we came:

Benjamin is 12!

Five years ago we moved to Georgia and then Rachel turned 12, and Miriam was still only 9, and Benjamin was barely 7, and Zoë was newly 4.

Edisto Island, Day 5: Doughnut Day and Beach Birthdays

While I was at the optometrist, Daddy took the kids to Wal-Mart and a couple boxes of doughnuts fell into the shopping cart, so we started Wednesday morning with a doughnut breakfast (before Daddy and Grandpa drove off to the mechanic) and then Darla pulled out some big doughnut floats that she likes to bring to the beach and declared that it was Doughnut Day.

Edisto Island, Day 4: The van needs a spa day, too...

Edisto Island, Day 3: So Long, Sunglasses!

Going to the beach with—essentially—six grown people (Grandpa, Darla, Andrew, Rachel, Miriam, and me), two medium people (Zoë and Ben), and two small people (Alexander and Phoebe) is considerably easier than going to the beach with three small people and two grown people. Or even three grown people, one medium person, and three-and-a-half small people. 

Most mornings it seemed like Darla was out the door with the early-bird children and in the water by the time the rest of us stumbled onto the beach. 

Edisto Island, Day 2

After coming back from Charleston, we took the kids to the beach. Because we're here on this beautiful blue planet. And because Phoebe chanted "Me wanna go beach!" for half the ride home. 

It's one of those "keep the Sabbath Day holy" things that's kind of difficult to peg. In Andrew's family growing up, swimming on Sunday would definitely be a no-no. But in my family...it wasn't, as far as I can recall. 

Sometimes we had swim meets on Sundays...and sometimes we went to them. 

And I'm 100% certain that if we had a beach available to us on a Sunday my mom for sure would expect us to get "a little bit wet," which in our family means "all the way wet."

But part of that might be because we didn't always have a beach at our disposal. If we lived on the beach, it might be another story. But we've never lived on the beach, so you visit when you can. 

Because if anything can teach you about might and majesty and the unfathomable nature of God's creation, it's standing on the shore looking out to the point where the water and sky divide while waves come crashing and roaring at your feet.

A day in Charleston

We had initially talked about attending the local ward while we were on vacation, but the closest ward is over an hour away from where we were staying...so we opted to Zoom into our own ward instead. We spent Sunday morning reading, crocheting, resting (for those of us who were up all night with an upset toddler), and then holding primary and priesthood lessons. 

Here's Rachel working on a crochet project in the sun room:

 

Edisto Island, day 1

We left for the beach on Saturday morning without a hitch. 

We had planned for Grandpa and Darla to arrive around 9:30 in the morning, departing from our house at 10:00. I should have known things were too good to be true when Grandpa and Darla arrived earlier than expected and we pulled out of our driveway at 9:38 am. More than twenty minutes ahead of schedule? That never happens! 

Here's a little photograph of what Phoebe felt was important to pack in her suitcase:

She gathered up every bottle of sunscreen we had in the house, a handful of granola bars, and one pack of microwave popcorn, beneath which is a handful of clean laundry that she'd grabbed from the pile of clothes I was folding. 

I was grateful for her help but ultimately redid a little (all) of her packing.

Zoë is 9!! And our very first swim meet!

It's the beginning of birthday season at our house. In the next six months we will celebrate all eight of our birthdays, a statistical improbability. 

Zoë opened her presents right around noon—soon after the kids got home from their swim practice. 

Future Artist?

This morning Phoebe was drawing in a little notepad our sweet neighbours brought by in some birthday party goody bags for the kids (we missed the party, unfortunately). She ended up with this:

When I asked her what she'd made, she told me it was a person. And, indeed, I can see a person in there! I just thought it was timely because although Phoebe hasn't seen the recently unveiled portrait of King Charles she was certainly channeling some Jonathan Yeo vibes:

Horseflies at the pool

This morning I finally finished reading the kids our last out-loud book for the school year (not that I will stop reading to them altogether; in fact I just read to them for a half hour before bed...but this is our last out-loud read-together school book for the school year). We read An Impossible Thing to Say by Arya Shahi, which I was initially drawn to because it's about Iranian diaspora. My brother Patrick is dating a girl from Iran and so I think it's good for us to be learning a bit about Iranian history and so forth (we recently read Everything Sad is Untrue by Daniel Nayeri out loud at bedtime and had Benjamin read Dairus the Great is Not Okay by Adib Khorram and I recommended The Complete Persepolis by Marjane Satrapi to Uncle Patrick as well while he was here...but I'm also kind of wondering where the female-centered stories are for contemporary CYAL so I'll have to do some research to see what I can find). 

Anyway, the book also got bonus points for being a novel in verse. Shahi is a rapper, himself, so poetry would be a natural avenue for a book, I suppose. And my kids really appreciated the rap verses he included—lots of fun rhythms and rhymes. 

And I loved how the end of the story didn't resolve everything. The grown ups were left to make their own messy choices while Omid learns to be comfortable with his emerging identity as a thespian and rapper and Farsi-speaker and so forth, understanding that life will just...continue being messy while also being okay. Mess is...normal. It was lovely. 

I didn't really know much about it before we started reading it. I just saw it pop up on some list somewhere and immediately put it on hold at the library and then forgot about it until it came in...and then selected it to read out loud to the kids because it was on my own personal list of books to read. 

It ended up fitting just perfectly into our year because we spent the year reading Shakespeare and the last play we read was A Midsummer Night's Dream. In An Impossible Thing to Say, Omid's school is putting on An Impossible Thing to Say and...so we got all the Shakespeare references in the story. 

It was great!

Anyway, Phoebe was a bit of a...handful...while we were reading this morning. And she remained that way throughout the day. She wasn't really ever naughty just...loud and full of energy and exhibiting fierce independence.

For example, here she is sitting on the stairs slathering herself in sunscreen:

Doot-doot-doot-doot-doo

I've been the primary chorister for about two months now and feel like I'm starting to settle in. At any rate, I know the kids a little better and they know me a little better and we're all willing to have a good time together. The first week I left feeling a little bit like they'd eaten me alive...but things are going better now. 

We've had some fun and successful lessons/activities. And we've had a few activities fall flat. 

That's the way things go, right?

I can tell when an activity goes over well because then Zoë or Alexander will offer to teach Family Home Evening...using my music lesson from the day before. I think that's totally okay, though, because mimicking a lesson is an excellent way to learn how to teach. 

That's how I initially trained as a swimming instructor. 

When I started teaching swimming lessons I was actually too young to have gone through the Red Cross Water Safety Instructor (WSI) certification course that our recreation center required to teach. But I had said in my lifeguarding interview that I was absolutely interested in teaching swimming lessons. For some reason they didn't realize how old I was, so they just banked on me teaching swimming lessons that summer. 

Because I wasn't technically certified, I couldn't sign any of my own report cards or anything. But they still had me teach as a...co-teacher. I would shadow a certified teacher for the first swimming session of the morning and then would simply...repeat that same lesson the rest of the day with my own classes...over and over again...until my shift was over. 

And then I'd get up and do it all again the next day. 

Honestly, I think I learned more that summer of shadowing my good friend Sam than I did when I finally went through the process to get my WSI certification. I'm really good at teaching "level three" swimming skills!

Spring Piano Recital

On Saturday between helping Grandpa move out of his place in the morning and into Darla's house in the afternoon, Zoë and Miriam had their end-of-year piano recital and awards ceremony. I should probably clarify that "year," in this case, refers to the school year (which our piano studio follows). My littler kids were confused about all the different meanings "a year" can hold—a fiscal year, a school year, a calendar year, a leap year...

Anyway, we had a crew helping at Grandpa's house in the morning, and then parted ways—Rachel and Benjamin went up to Darla and Grandpa's—and the rest of us went to the recital.

A couple of the moms were talking about Phoebe, asking me if she was the same little baby they'd seen at the recital last year...and she was the same baby—just a year older! 

Here she is in May 2023:

What it's like having teenagers

Being a mother to young children is relentless. They need you very first thing in the morning, all throughout the day, and into the night as well. Phoebe recently developed a little "chirp," where she says, "Mom. Mom. Mom," at just the right pitch to make my skin crawl. It's incessant. All. Day. Every. Day. 

Teenagers aren't like that so much. 

I can go hours without seeing my older girls. They host their own parties. They skip out on things they never used to skip out on (like trips to the library and swimming pool).

They are so capable. They do laundry. They cook. They keep up with their school work. 

Freudian slips: Dishwashing edition (and a cake story for dessert)

We were finishing up dinner this evening...relatively late...because we had things like swimming and music lessons...and we were reminding the kids about their "dinner jobs." One child is in charge of clearing the table, one child is in charge of doing the dishes, one child is in charge of tidying up the floors, and one child is in charge of taking care of the cat (and garbage, if needed). Alexander helps out here and there or helps keep Phoebe entertained and out of the way. 

It sounds like a well-oiled machine, doesn't it? 

After all, we're pretty experienced parents now. We have systems and things like that...

Alas, systems are always better in theory than they are in practice (at least from our experience), so it really works like a rusty, piece-of-junk machine. 

But it's working (I guess), so that's all that matters.

Mother's Day

This Mother's Day the kids let me stay in bed while they made me breakfast. Andrew was also staying in bed because he took the middle-of-the-night Phoebe shift and fell asleep in her bed. 

Zoë made the egg for me (though she thinks she may have cooked one side too long because she left it on the stove unattended while she worked on my picture and heard it "popping and whistling" in the pan, but it was delicious so I'm sure it was just fine). Alexander washed the tomatoes and filled my cup with water. Phoebe got the ice.

East Palisades Trail

Feeling like we haven't gone on a family adventure in ages, we decided last night that we'd go for a hike today. Miriam suggested hiking to see the bamboo grove at East Palisades Trail, so that's what we did. 

Here's everyone at the trailhead:

 

Swimming stories and Phoebe tales

This morning we went to the pool to do some practicing before swim tryouts. We'd gone to the pool on Monday afternoon for several hours, but it just so happened that a couple of our co-op families joined our pool so they showed up and then all my kids wanted to do was swim. Naturally, that is something that should happen at a pool (and I understand that) but I did want to make sure my kids would be able to pass the swim test to get on the swim team that I already paid for...you know? 

The test isn't hard—they just have to swim one length of the pool without stopping—but it's early in the swim season and my kids...haven't ever done competitive swimming...or formal swimming lessons...so I just wanted to give them a few more "mom" lessons so they could feel...readier. 

Yesterday we didn't make it to the pool because we had trouble getting anything done and so simply couldn't make it out the door. And by the time we were ready to make it out the door I was not in any shape to take them out. So I took a nap instead.

So this morning we went to the pool and we did quite a bit of playing, but we also worked on our strokes a little. Zoë needed to be reminded to keep her ears in line with her shoulders, and just doing that improved her stroke (and endurance) significantly. If she can just remember that one thing, she'll have no trouble making it across the pool. 

Phoebe loves going to the pool (so it was a little soul crushing to her when we didn't go to the pool yesterday) and very sweetly asks for me to teach her, too. "Mommy teach me swimming! Teach me again!"

We mostly just practice back floats and kicking and things. She also loves to jump into the water (kind of—she kind of squats and falls into my arms).

And after she jumps in the pool she comes back up out of the water and splutters, "Do it 'gain!"

*****

This afternoon the kids and I spent some time in the garden this afternoon while Daddy took Miriam and Zoë to their piano auditions (which they passed with flying colours). Benjamin and I were doing some actual work—weeding and tending and planting—Alexander and Phoebe were collecting worms and making habitats for them. Admittedly, keeping Phoebe occupied and out of trouble is actual work, so Alexander was working, too. And Phoebe was engaged in play, in the hard work of exploring her world.

And I was grateful those two were so passionately engaged in their labours while Benjamin and I were engaged in ours.

More wedding pictures

Because I need to put these pictures somewhere other than my phone, here are a few pictures from Grandpa and Darla's wedding...

Here's a sweet shot of Zoë and Darla walking back inside the church together after family pictures:

Field Day and Swim Teams

On Thursday we met with our co-op for the last time to have a field day. It's been a few years since we've done a field day, and I was so happy the kids got to participate. I always loved field day when I was growing up—I loved getting the whole school out there, having older students and younger students working together. It was competitive, but more fun than truly competitive...I don't know. For someone who doesn't really enjoy "sports," per se, I have some awfully good memories of field day. 

When Rachel and Miriam were in school, they always had to move around field day stations with their class...which I found less fun...but still nice...I guess.

Anyway, at our co-op field day the kids were divided into red, blue, yellow, and green teams, and each team had a mix of little and big kids. The teams sure were competitive and winners were announced after each event, but honestly no one had any idea who won overall (because nobody was really keeping track) and everyone cheered loudly for the last competitors to finish (which, honestly, was usually the yellow team—the team I was helping coach). But we all just had a lot of fun. 

I didn't take a lot of pictures because things were busy (we had about 40 kids there, with 10 kids on each team). Here's Zoë (blue team) racing against Alexander (green team) in the sack race:

Agog with frogs

For a brief moment I forgot that I had written anything in May and I was really excited because my first post of April was about Alexander finding a skink in his pants, but I already did a post in May, so this is my second post. Fortuitously, the skink-in-his-pants post was also my second post in April (apparently I don't remember anything anymore). 

I hate to see what June brings because...

I had only recently finished my run (and then had gotten distracted by a bunch of primary music stuff because Miriam finished making the medley I'd asked her to make and then I needed to finish up a slideshow for one of my songs...) and I was just about to shower when I got a text message from Andrew, telling me that a frog just fell on him.

First Day of Pool Season

Last year the high on May 1 was 67°F (19°C) and we did a little polar plunge for FHE. 

Today the high was 84°F (29°C) and it was a Wednesday, so we squeezed a trip into the pool between doctor appointments and school work and puppy duty and music lessons and...stuff. So it ended up just being me and the youngest four (Andrew picked Zoë up from the pool to go to her music lessons), but the pool was much warmer than last year! We had a great time!

Here's our traditional First Day of Pool Season picture:

4/4 April haiku

I managed to write one haiku a day this month (even if I don't love them all) and I managed to write a 38 page paper for a journal...that was promptly desk-rejected because I didn't anonymize my cover letter (because they didn't say to anonymize it) and because I left my self-citations as "Author, 2023" rather than "Author, Year" (and that mistake is on me because I overlooked that small detail). But I just resubmitted it so I think it should be good. I hope it should be good...good enough to not get desk rejected again. The deadline is today, so...

I spent most of the day crossing things off of a long-neglected do-stuff-around-the-house list. 

I'd been looking for another toddler bicycle seat to try with our bikes because Benjamin would really like to go for more bike rides and the park isn't that far. I mean, it's too far to walk, in my opinion (at least regularly), but it's a perfect distance for biking. 

After submitting my paper I looked at seats on Amazon for a while, intending to measure certain parts of our bikes to see what seats might work with what frames. The last time we scored a bike seat on the Buy Nothing group it worked on none of our bikes. Literally none of them. And we have like 5 adult bikes in our garage to choose from. So that was a bit frustrating. 

We got rid of that one, though, and obtaining a new one has been on the back burner of my mind. 

So I spent some time looking on Amazon.

But then this morning, I opened Facebook and the very first post was someone on the Buy Nothing Group giving away a brand new "universal" toddler seat. What are the odds?! 

Probably higher than you might think.

Random stories

Last night Phoebe came upstairs at bedtime and heard crickets singing through the open window. She was so excited she started screaming and running around. It took me several minutes to catch her and calm her down enough to discover what it was she was carrying on about. 

She wanted to (1) climb up to the window so she could listen to and look for the crickets, (2) to open all the windows, and (3) to go for a walk to see what's special at night. 

That last one I partly credit Daniel Tiger for, though we typically do a lot of nighttime walks once the fireflies come out...as well as in the winter when it gets dark earlier.

*****

I feel like singing time is going so much better. I've really only done it a handful of times because I got called in March and did two weeks of singing time...and then we had Easter and General Conference and Ward Conference right in a row...and then I've done two more weeks. And...things are going better. 

I've been making Google Slides presentations rather than little posters to hold up. Checking the television out of the library every week is a little annoying but, honestly, I'm such a disorganized person that it's far better for me to just have all my Google Slides in one location than it would be for me to make a bunch of papers for me to keep track of. 

Of course, this means I have to remember my computer and various cords to connect everything...and so I have to keep track of all of those things. So I guess the idea of it being a convenience is a toss up. 

And then today I forgot The Church Bag, which was certainly not convenient. 

Home again! Home again! Jiggity-jig!

Vienna. Salzburg. Freilassing. Znojmo. Bratislava. And finally home again!

Here are a few pictures of Rachel and Miriam in Znojmo, Czechia:

Signs of growing up

Alexander just came upstairs to tell me that in addition to the songs I assigned him for piano, he's also been working on the C major 5-finger scale with both hands. 

"You just play them at the same time and it sounds amazing. Like, I have both my thumbs on middle C, like this, and then I play with my second fingers—which would be D on the right hand and B on the left hand—and it just, like, together it sounds so beautiful!"

*****

Yesterday we had our last official day of co-op classes, though we still have a field day next week. Rachel wasn't here (obviously, since she was in Vienna visiting Uncle Patrick, though technically I think they were in Bratislava on Thursday) so I had to teach her preschool class for her, which went well. 

3/4 April haiku

I'm up against what feels like a pretty big deadline right now (I have a paper due on April 30, not for a class, but to submit to a journal) and it's kind of crushing me right now. But this evening I got to stay at home with the little kids while Andrew took the middle kids to the church for their activities because our big kids are in Europe (and because Benjamin remembered at the very last minute that it was career day and he was supposed to ask his dad to come talk to the kids about what it's like being a professor). 

So instead of writing, I went on a long, dawdling walk around the block this evening, braided a crown of clover flowers, and drew with sidewalk chalk. 

And I don't really regret it because it was time well spent. 

Rachel and Miriam take Vienna (and other places)

It's been weird and wonderful having Rachel and Miriam being off on their little adventure. People have asked me whether I worry about them and—honestly?—I don't think I really have been. They're good, capable teenagers, and they are accompanied by a number of good and capable adults—Auntie Josie, who is very well-travelled, Uncle Patrick, who lives in Austria, and Hadis, Uncle Patrick's girlfriend, who I hear has made some delicious food for everyone and who offered up her apartment building's practice room for Miriam's use. They've been well taken care of. 

I've been asked whether we're feeling the pinch of having our babysitters and extra driver snatched away and...I'll admit there have been times when it would have been useful to have a babysitter or extra driver around, but we've managed. 

Mostly I've been consoling myself with the fact that by the time these two are actually ready to leave the house, Phoebe will be just that much older (that is, less of a baby and more of a kid, and that should be helpful). 

Today Darla asked whether it was quiet without the girls and you might be surprised to hear that...yes...it is quieter without the girls around. They're not very noisy people, but the house is definitely quieter without them. The table feels emptier and no one has to sit next to anyone else in the van and so, yes, it's quieter. 

From the few text messages I've gotten from the girls (and Uncle Patrick and Aunt Josie), they seem to be having a wonderful time, but we'll sure be glad to have them back home!

Their Instagram accounts are filled with pictures of...places...but here are a few pictures Auntie Josie has sent me of them...

Here they are carrying baguettes home from the bakery on their way back to Uncle Patrick's apartment on their very first day in Europe:

Poison Ivy and Marbles

We keep a bar of special soap in our cabinet specifically for poison ivy emergencies. Sometimes it's Fels-Naptha. This time it was Marie Originals Poison Ivy/Oak Soap. 

Honestly, given how long we've lived in the south—where poison ivy seems to grow about as prolifically as dandelion weeds do on the Alberta prairies—we have a pretty good track record of not getting into poison ivy. It's true that I spend a considerable amount of time looking for poison ivy (and watching for snakes) and teaching my children to look for poison ivy (and watch for snakes). 

Growing up I didn't often worry about those things—snakes and poison ivy—because all the poisonous snakes came with alarm systems and running into poison ivy was a true rarity. It's possible that's why I'm so scared of them out here. Unfamiliar things are often a little scary. And we've been so vigilant...so have thus far avoided having any serious run-in with the vines. 

Zoë has had to take a few baths after some flirting with disaster too close to the side of the trail (or sidewalk—because poison ivy is all over the city as well as in the woods, which just blows my never-seen-poison-ivy-before-moving-out-here mind), but we haven't had, like, a serious run-in. 

And then today I noticed some poison ivy growing on our little hill. 

Cue Phoebe's high pitched voice: "On my little hill?!"

Phoebe tales

This morning I took the kids on a walk to go find the aftermath of a fire that was in our neighbourhood. We didn't know what had happened. All we knew was that Andrew went out to run a quick errand last night while I was reading to the kids before bed...and he couldn't come home the same way he'd left because there was a fire engine blocking the road, actively spraying water at a flaming something.

We still don't know what happened, but we found the location of the fire. It wasn't a house or anything, just someone's side yard that had been thoroughly torched for some reason or other. 

*****

Phoebe walked the whole way and filled her stroller up with a pile of pinecones "to show Daddy."

*****

When we got home the kids ran in through the garage door and slammed it behind them, which is borderline responsible. I mean—they remembered to close the door! But Phoebe was right behind them and was a little upset about having the door slam in her face (but at least it was only that and not on her fingers, right?).

She can do a lot of things—more and more things every day! She can reach the lights at the top of the stairs to the basement and will stand there and flick them on and off and on and off. And she can reach the light switch by the couch. But she can't reach any other light switches in the house. 

She can open the garage door from inside the house, but she can't open it from outside of the house.

It's frustrating for her to sometimes be able to do things and not be able to do them at other times. So she was pretty frustrated by her inability to open the door. 

"Momma—open door for this little..." she pouted, and the paused.

"This little what?" I asked.

"For this little...bo-bot! Beep-boop-beep-boop-beep!"