The little mermaid

I promised Phoebe that we could go to the playground this week and unfortunately we just didn't make it there. But today we went to hang out at the church, which was almost like playing at the playground (though Phoebe would be quick to remind me that it was not playing at the playground). 

Miriam needed to practice the organ, however, and there's really no playground near the church (plus technically Miriam isn't supposed to go to the church building by herself). Anyway, the kids had to just suck it up and play at the church. 

We brought scooters and frisbees and all sorts of things. They managed to have fun—and they all managed to injure themselves (Benjamin even put holes in the knees of the new pants he got for Christmas)—even if it wasn't the playground.

Phoebe found this stick and gushed, "Wow! This looks just like a mermaid tail! If I wear it I will look just like a mermaid! Can I be a mermaid for Salloween?"

(She's been replacing /h/ with /s/ recently for some reason). 

You have to admit—she makes a pretty good mermaid!

Wild things

For your viewing pleasure, here is an elephant that Phoebe created this morning: 

She used paint, markers, glue, and googly eyes.

New hair, who dis?

This afternoon while I was trying to get some reading done and Phoebe was feeling too scared to play outside with her siblings because there were dark, angry storm clouds gathering in the sky (that just sailed right on by without a spilling a drop), I let her put about a million barrettes in my hair. 

Valentine Exchange (and a poem on Executive Orders)

Not only did we have the excitement of getting a bearded dragon to contend with this morning, but we also had to walk Luna (which we usually don't have to do on Wednesdays, but needed to do this week), and we had to walk her early because we had to get to co-op early for the Valentine exchange that we had beforehand. 

It was a busy Wednesday...and then got busier with piano for Zoë and organ for Miriam, and activity days for Alexander and Zoë, and a temple trip for Benjamin, Miriam, Rachel, and Andrew. Luckily it was just as crazy for our friends the Fitzes—they dropped their youth off at our house and Andrew drove all the youth to the temple and they picked up Alexander and Zoë for activity days since they're the activity day leaders, which left just me and Phoebe at home. On Tuesdays we hardly see each other at all, but on Wednesdays we are stuck together like glue, Phoebe and I.

We haven't participated in a Valentine exchange since exiting the public school system, so I was sorely out of practice. We signed Valentines for Family Home Evening on Monday and it was a real slog, let me tell you. Approximately 30 children participated in the Valentine exchange, which meant my four co-op children signed approximately 120 Valentines between them. It was...taxing. 

But I have to say—we came away with a lovely haul. 

I remember feeling like a bit of a curmudgeon about Valentine's Day back in 2019. To be fair, that was our first Valentine's Day after Karen passed away...and Valentine's Day is her birthday...so none of us were feeling super pumped about Valentine's Day.

But also! The. Amount. Of. Candy. my kids came home with. It was absurd!

Not so in our homeschool group! We had a few rice krispy treats, some muddy buddies, an orange...some erasers...stickers...pencils... Our family put a little frisbee in each Valentine box (they were leftover from the Anderson family reunion...in 2015...so I figured it was a good time to finally offload them). It was a lovely. I mean, a few candies here and there might have been okay. 

But nobody needs 10 boxes of conversation hearts. 

Anyway, I'm just saying, we ended up with different things at this Valentine exchange than I imagined we would. And it was lovely.

One little boy even crocheted a little whale for everyone. He made thirty of these things! And they were a huge hit. Everybody loved them. And he felt so happy that he was able to spread so much joy (even if his fingers were aching). Here's Phoebe with her whale:

Gary

We did our best to be productive this morning. It was a co-op day, first of all, which always makes it difficult for us to get all our "work" in (as ridiculous as it might be for me to even feel that we need to get all our work in and go to co-op...where we also learn things). Second of all, we had a surprise coming that morning and the kids were buzzing with anticipation.

But they really did do their best to get some work done (some being the key word).

Here's Alexander reading Phoebe some stories on the bed while I got a little work done this morning:

Who's that wonderful girl? Could she be any cuter?

Zoë got some hair chalk for Christmas. 

Phoebe found them the other day and gave herself a makeover.

And now for something completely different!

Last night we waited to have dinner until after my class. Sometimes we do, sometimes we don't. It depends on how the day goes, who is making dinner, and the level of everyone's hunger. My class gets out at 6:00 so it's not like it makes for a super late supper, but sometimes we like to eat earlier. 

Anyway, Zoë made dinner all by herself while I was in class. She greeted me precisely at 6:00 to tell me so.

"Mmmmm," I said, sniffing the air. "Smells like spaghetti."

"Well, it's not spaghetti!" she said. 

"Oh!" I said in surprise (because it really smelled like spaghetti). "What is it?"

"Something different!"

"But what?"

"You will just have to find out!" she sang, practically dancing out of my bedroom/office.

I followed her downstairs and found a steaming pot of...cavatappi...on the table. 

Cavatappi is a noodle shape. 

So essentially spaghetti.

And it was delicious.

Wild Robot

Rachel and I left the house...when it was still dark...to spend the day on campus...on a Saturday...because I had a meeting for the Georgia Children's Book Award. It was a long day!

When I got home, Zoë happily chirped that the books she'd ordered had arrived and she'd already finished reading Wild Robot and that Daddy said we could have a movie night to watch it tonight even though no one else had read the book yet. 

Phoebe and Daddy had spent the day in the kitchen making pretzels (each one got a kiss from Phoebe, but don't worry because after the kiss they were boiled and then baked) and some, like, babka or something (almost cinnamon rolls, but not quite), so the house smelled delicious, and anything sounded good for dinner after our Friday evening YOYO fail. 

I came home from the meeting carting a wagon full of books—library books that I'd checked out and kept away from the kids so I knew I'd have them all for our meeting, and a couple extra books from our meeting that I was able to take home. And then Andrew was nice enough to run to the library for me to return some books that were due soon and to pick up my holds that were expiring soon, while I took the kids out for a walk to stretch our legs and our eyes, even though all they wanted to do was sit around and read. 

They're like little book vultures.

YOYO*...oh, no.

Our dishwasher broke this week (because...why not?). 

Was I grateful for that dishwasher? Immensely. 

Was it my favourite dishwasher in the world? Not remotely. 

So when we got an estimate for how much it would cost to fix it versus how much it would cost to simply get a new machine...guess what we went with. 

Is that environmentally friendly? I honestly don't think so. 

Do I know why manufacturers make machines that aren't easily repairable? Absolutely not.

I mean, I understand that it ultimately means more money for them, but it really feels like it would be better for everybody if these things were simply...easy to repair. 

*****

We're about a month into the semester and things are heating up. Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday is once again an absolute marathon. 

The dishwasher broke on Monday—and for once not after I had touched it last (both the stove and the washing machine died after I touched them last but the dishwasher is not on me!). 

On Tuesday (my long day on campus), Andrew ordered pizza for dinner.

On Wednesday we had leftovers.

On Thursday we had leftovers.

On Friday our new dishwasher was delivered and installed and...we had leftovers.

Razzle Dazzle

Phoebe got into one of her favourite things last night—Zoë's purple lip gloss. She figured that if that purple sheen was that dazzling on her lips, surely it would be dazzling everywhere! 

Do *YOU* have a billdew?

In my mail preview I saw that we were supposed to get a letter from BYU-Idaho today. Usually that's because we've missed some charge on Rachel's account. Here's the thing: we pay tuition because it's pretty obvious when that is due, but then sometimes her courses will have textbooks that they will automatically charge us for her to use...at random points in the semester. Like we will check and check and check...and then we'll forget to check for charges. And then they'll charge us and send us a letter in the mail saying, "Hey! Pay for your textbooks already!"

It's fine. 

So I walked down to her room and said, "Hey, do you have a bill due at BYU-I?"

And she goes, "What's a billdew?"

And I was like, "You know...like...when you have a bill that you have to pay at a certain time and..."

"Oh!" she said. "I thought you were talking about a thing called a billdew. And I was like, I don't even know what that is..."

And I said, "I don't know what a billdew is either, but this does not bode well for sending you out into the world..."

"Hey!" she said.

I thought I did, I thought I did...

Today there was a copy of The Little Engine That Could in a "Little Free Library" we passed while out on a walk, so we took it home with us. On a very technical level, I believe that we have a copy of this book in our house somewhere, but I don't know where it is off the top of my head and I haven't read it to the kids in years so it's possible it didn't move with us...or...at any rate, we haven't read it for a long time.

But we read it today and then the kids wanted to get out one of our felt board games (that are typically reserved only for sacrament meeting, to keep them novel and entertaining on Sundays). The kids know the back side of this felt board because it's The Three Little Kittens and I sometimes sing that to them for a bedtime song, but I guess they've kind of been in the dark about the significance of the train part. 

Not that they haven't ever played with the trains—they definitely had—they just didn't realize they could have been retelling the specific story of The Little Engine That Could. My bad.

I thought I had read them this story. I thought I did. I thought I did. I thought I did...

But for sure I have now.

A-B-C-D

Phoebe made me a bookmark during reading time this morning. It's a picture of Luna (the neighbour's dog), obviously. You can tell because of the legs.

We're reading Codename Kingfisher by Liz Kessler, but my thoughts are only tangentially on the topic of the book (which is a holocaust story). Or perhaps they are precisely on target, but also tangential. 

Because everything looks the same, everything feels normal. Until it's not. 

All homemade (except the stuff that isn't)

Last night Rachel was cleaning her room when she came across a UFO (an UnFinished Object), which she decided to take a few minutes to finish. It was a hat she had started during General Conference...in October...of 2021. 

She's standing over my shoulder as I type this and would like to say that in her defense she started it then, put it down, and left it down for 3+ years before picking it up again. 

I suppose that's an excuse.

At any rate (and the rate in this case was incredibly slow because it took her 3+ years to do so) Rachel has finally finished the hat!

This morning Zoë helped Phoebe try on all our most recent handmade items (hat and sweater by Rachel, scarf by Zoë):

As Rachel put it,  Phoebe looked very Dobby-esque. Phoebe also requested pants and socks. We'll have to work on that.

In other news, Benjamin's new sweater arrived today. 

Free money

We finally redeemed the gift certificate Zoë for the spooky story contest. The last time I used this particular bookstore was when Benjamin won the spooky story contest a few years ago, so I was surprised to find that my gift card balance was $50 instead of the promised $25. 

I did a little digging into our account and found out that when Benjamin and I ordered his books—and I have a distinct memory of this—I had used my credit card to pay the little bit he went over. It's really hard to hit exactly $25 when spending a gift card and the total in his cart came to something like $28 when it came time to check out. So I was like, "That's fine. I can pay $3 to get him these books."

That's where they get you with these gift cards, isn't it?

They doubly got us, though, because when I went to check out I somehow overrode the gift card payment and payed the whole thing with my credit card. We've just had $25 sitting at the bookstore for the past couple of years!

So Zoë picked out her $25+ of books (remember—it's very difficult to hit that $25 precisely) and I thought, "That's fine. I can pay a couple of bucks to get her these books." 

But then I looked at my total and it told me that we still had a good $20 left to spend on books!

It really was like finding free money! 

So we stuck a couple more books in our cart...and still ended up paying a couple of dollars using my credit card. BUT this time I was sure to actually apply the gift cards as well. 

I think I'm most excited about Wild Robot. We haven't read it yet (or watched the movie) but I've heard excellent things about it. It is always, always, always checked out at the library and I haven't jumped into the hold line yet. I've been putting holds on so many other things lately—for both my class on Race, Class, and Gender in Children's Literature and for my job with the Georgi Children's Book Award—that I just...haven't bother putting this on hold, especially knowing that we'd only have it for three weeks with no hope of renewing...but also that so many different people in our house want to read it that we'd need more than three weeks with it to let everyone read it. 

So I think this was a wise purchase.

This evening at dinner

For some reason, Andrew mentioned that Costco sells elk antlers...for dogs to chew on. This got Benjamin very excited, but Andrew told him that he was not going to buy any for him. 

"It's not like the entire antler," Andrew said. "It's just pieces of elf antler."

"ELF ANTLERS!" the little kids all squealed. 

"Ugh. Wrong continent," Andrew moaned.

"WRONG CONTINENT?!" the kids howled. "Where do you think elves live?!"

"Wrong consonant! I swear I said consonant!"

"You did, in fact, say continent," I solemnly informed Andrew. 

"This is like cannibalism!" Zoë exclaimed. 

And thus ensued a long conversation about (a) Andrew's knowledge about which animals live in the south pole and which live in the north pole—he gets them confused sometimes and (b) the hierarchy of humanoid creatures in The Lord of the Rings and who is okay with eating who and (c) how this translates back to our own realm regarding humans, elves, and apes. 

Apparently elves outrank humans. Orcs are fallen elves who don't necessarily outrank humans but who definitely would eat humans. But in our world humans outrank elves, so we could eat elves, but only if we were fell humans.

Andrew was laughing so hard he was crying.

Come on, get in my boat, fish!

Yesterday Andrew made challah specifically so he could make French toast for dinner. He made some delicious fried apples to go on top (which our kids like to call "simmered fruit" because of Zelda). The whole meal was divine. 

When we were taking our little "Victory Lap" around the table, Andrew answered that "making this meal" was...something...either his F-POD or his F-Party...I can't remember which. We'll pretend that it was his F-Party.

"I celebrate making this food!" Andrew said. 

"Me, too!" Phoebe agreed. "Thank you for this yummy dinner, Daddy! It is so delicious!"

She is very quick to thank people for things. And she is very quick to praise people for things.

"Thank you for wiping my bum." 

"Thank you for handing me that crayon."

"You are very good at walking up the stairs."

"Wow! I love that picture. It is amazing!"

She is overflowing with gratitude and awe. And we love that about her.

It's dynamite!

Alexander told me a joke the other day. He made it up about a picture on the cover of the joke book we checked out of the library. It's not a joke in the book. He just made it up about the cover, which features a skateboarding dinosaur (or something like that—definitely a dinosaur, might not be skateboarding), proclaiming, "These jokes are dino-mite!"

"What do you call a dinosaur who might do something?" he asked me (when he was supposed to be brushing his teeth). 

"I don't know," I said.

"A dino-might!" he cackled. 

"That's hilarious!" I said. "...go brush your teeth."

So, chuckling, he walked away to brush his teeth. Approximately two minutes later he came back to me. 

"This is sort of a follow up to that last joke," he said timidly, but you've got to understand that when Alexander feels any sort of fluster or confusion or excitement, he starts hiccoughing basically between every syllable. And evidently he was either really excited about part two of his joke or he was nervous that it was now past the time when he was sent to bed (the punishment for which is...being reminded that it's time to get to bed...so pretty serious stuff...I'm going to go with "he was excited about his own cleverness"). 

"This—hic—is—hic—sorta—hic—a—follow—hic—up—hic—to—hic—to—hic—to—hic—that—hic—last—hic—joke!" 

"Go for it, buddy," I said. 

"Did it..." He waggled his eyes as he said this next part: "Blow. Your. Mind?"

And then he ran off to bed laughing his head off. It was a pretty good follow up joke, I have to say!

(If I were to workshop the first part I would suggest something like, "What do you call a dinosaur who maybe will, maybe won't?" But overall, two thumbs way, way up!)

Li'l Adrenaline Junky

We were gathering for scriptures and prayer the other day when Phoebe decided she wanted to brush my hair for me. She was wielding a comb, however, and I was like, "No, thank you! Not with that! If you want to brush my hair you have to get a hairbrush."

She does not hold back when she uses a comb and I'm always afraid she's going to slice into my scalp. 

Anyway, she went upstairs to find a hairbrush. And it took her a while because she stopped to wash her hands and liberally apply someone else's chapstick to her face and...who even knows what else. She took forever. And when she finally came downstairs she did, in fact, have a hairbrush, but her sleeves were soaked and her face was covered in purple chapstick, so we know she was up to a few things.

Anyway, she was taking so long up there that Andrew hollered, "Phoebe! Come downstairs!"

"Okay, I'm coming!" she hollered back. And then she whimpered, "Oh, no..."

"Not like that!!" I yelped as we heard the first thud. 

A Victory Lap

Guys, my chapter manuscript is due on Monday and it is 2000 words too long. But it's a first draft, and that will simply have to be the way I turn it in—far too long—because I don't think I have it in my to cut 2000 words by Monday. 

But I celebrate finishing that manuscript. 

We've been doing a lot of celebrating over here. In one of my classes (our kind of...initiation course...to graduate school), our professor has us keeping a victory log. At first she told us to just write down victories of the day, bullet-point, nothing fancy, anything goes. So I started listing out a few things from the day that I was kinda sort of proud of, but which really just a list of things I'd done:

• made it to campus and to class
• walked across campus to the IAAS (Institute of African American Studies)
• Phoebe slept in her own bed
• finished reading two chapters of Derrida

You get the picture. Nothing remotely victorious had happened that day, though I was on campus and in class (and if you knew how much I have to pump myself up to go to class, you'd be proud, too); Rachel and I did walk across campus to the IAAS (and made our way back without a map); Phoebe did sleep in her own bed and she so rarely does that so it felt exciting; and then by Derrida I was about scraping the bottom of the barrel. 

Then my teacher said, "Now take your list and rephrase everything starting with I celebrate..."

Snow Day 3

The kids were in the hallway, staring at the thermostat (which also can give you a 10-day forecast, among other cool tricks) and arguing about whether or not it was going to snow after all when Daddy hollered from his office (where he has a lovely view out the window, the most accurate weather forecast of all): "It's snowing!"

So we bundled up and went for a walk in the freshly falling snow.

Here's Rachel:

Extreme Cold Warning

On the one hand, I recognize that this weather barely registers as chilly in some climes. For my brain, I've turned my phone to Celsius because while my brain can comprehend hot temperatures in Fahrenheit, it completely breaks when it gets cold. I think it's because I have so often lived in warmer places while thinking in Fahrenheit, so I can translate warmer temperatures in my head. Like, "Oh, it's 80°F. That's like 26°C." And I have that all...snug in my brain. 

Room temperature ranges from 20–21°C or 68–70°F. 

Those feel equivalent in my brain. They make sense to me. 

But then I'll see, like, 23° pop up on my screen and my brain automatically assumes that it's in Celsius. I think, "No way is it 70° outside today!"

Yesterday's temps in °F

Books and jokes and jokebooks

First of all, this is the only picture I took today (apparently):

Zoë had quite the sleep-in this morning. After she woke up I asked her why she was so tired and she sheepishly answered that she'd stayed up reading (somehow even after we confiscated her flashlight and gave her melatonin and...)

We did a lot of Saturday chores today (not that the house even looks like we did anything—but I assure you we were working like beavers) and when I brought a pile of books upstairs to put away on the shelf in the little girls' room and glanced at Zoë's bed, I had to laugh. 

She had been reading, indeed. 

(The hair you see in the picture is a doll, not a person...just so you know). 

Someone is the antagonist

I remembered the other story I was going to tell along with the [this door / the store] confusion story earlier: 

Rachel is taking an introductory theater class where they analyze plays and things. She has to attend two live events so we looked at UGA's schedule and one of their plays will fit the timeline for when her first analysis is due. 

"What was the name of that play again?" Rachel asked me as we were driving to campus (just because we were, not for the play).

"Oh...it was...ummmm..." 

The name of the play was just on the tip of my tongue but it was not going to come out.

"Someone is the Protag...no! Someone is the Antagonist!" 

"John Proctor is the Villain!" Rachel exclaimed. "Mom! That wasn't even close!"

I disagree! I think I came very close to remembering the title perfectly: someone (whose name begins with pro) is the antagonist. John Proctor is the villain. That is the same thing!

Bad luck with back tires

Biking to the park was...oppressive...somehow. 

Like, I barely made it there. I had trouble keeping up with Zoë and Alexander and their bikes don't even have gears. I needed to be on such a low gear to even go straight. I powered through things and we made it but, boy, was it ever the hardest bike ride of my life. 

I couldn't quite figure it out. Sure, it had been a while since I'd taken the kids on a bike ride, but I've been running...

Could it have been that my backpack was too heavy? I had my laptop, water for everyone, a bunch of glass bottles (that we stopped to deposit at the collection bin):

Frogging and cabbage and goats...just the worst

There were two stories that I had in mine of me completely misunderstanding someone...but I can only remember one now. So you'll get that one and then you'll get the story of how we juggled vehicles this afternoon.

*****

On the way home from campus, having already had the burning truck experience, Rachel and I decided we'd also stop by Walmart to grab a skein of yarn she needed to finish up the temperature blanket she's been working on for two years now. She's just adding the border, but realized about halfway through that we didn't have enough white yarn to make it all the way around so she had to "frog it," a textile crafting term for when you have to "rip it, rip it, rip it" apart, and start over again with a new skein. 

Why a new skein? Because it can be very difficult to colour match across batches of yarn, so even though "white yarn" might seem like it should always be just...white...in fact there are variations across batches of white yarn. 

So she pulled out the border she'd begun earlier and has started again with a fresh, full skein...which we had to pick up from the store. Walmart is on our way home, so that's where we went.

It was 9:56 pm when we walked in the door, where we were met by a police man and a door greeter.

"This door closes at 10:00," the door greeter informed me.

I glanced at my watch. It was, as I mentioned, 9:56. 

"The store closes at 10:00?!" I said, with some degree of surprise because...I don't know...it just seems like Walmart keeps insane business hours. Some of them are open 24/7. "We'd better hurry!"

"This door," the greeter enunciated slowly, for my sake. "Not the store. You can still use the far door. It's open until 11:00."

"Oh," I said sheepishly. "Okay, thanks. We've got plenty time then, Rachel. Let's go find your yarn."

*****

Bugs, Flowers, and Braids

I made Phoebe choose clothes this morning (since Andrew let her stay in her pyjamas all day yesterday—I don't mind the fact that he let her stay in her jammies all day (goodness knows I've done that) but I felt like two days in the same jammies was a bit much). She came to me with this outfit:

Pumpkins and Sweaters in January

In October, Jessica (who teaches in the primary, although she wasn't Phoebe's teacher) gave her class and Phoebe a pumpkin. Jessica always brings an extra [whatever] for Phoebe (she's very sweet like that, even if she judges my attachment to my cheap tupperware). 

Phoebe has insisted on being tucked into bed with that pumpkin ever since and every night we'd give the pumpkin a little squeeze to see if it was...starting to...you know...turn. Finally the day arrived that its once-rigid exterior developed a bit of give to it, if you will. We knew something had to be done sooner rather than later. 

So we made a big deal about picking out the perfect orange on Sunday morning so that Mommy could make her a stuffed pumpkin to replace her real pumpkin (which we invited her to toss into the garden to see if any baby pumpkins will come of it). 

Here she is picking out her orange:

Six Conversations from Facebook

In all honesty I am trying to move away from Facebook (Meta)...but it's just such a convenient place for storing little conversations throughout the day. So here are some conversations I've been storing up since the weekend...

1) While getting ready to head outside to play in the leftover snow (probably on Saturday or Sunday).

Phoebe: Will you put garbage bags on my feet?

Me: Sure. I can help you with that.

Phoebe (to Miriam): Are you putting garbage bags on?

Miriam: No. I am going to exercise self-restraint.

Phoebe: Oh. Well, I am not going to do that.

Me: I pretty much bank on you not doing that in any given situation, so...

Phoebe: And that's why I need garbage bags?

Me: And that's why you need garbage bags.

A funny thing happened on the way [from] the office

When Rachel and I were driving home from campus today, I noticed a plume of smoke rising around the corner. 

"Something's happening up there," I said. "You need to move over."

Fortunately, we were fairly alone on the road at that moment (changing lanes can be tricky). We rounded the corner and immediately saw the cause of the smoke. A large vehicle—what seemed to be a moving van—was engulfed in flames.

Home church

Phoebe was so baffled by "home church" on Sunday that she hardly knew what to do with herself. It's a little strange to us that she can't remember "home church," but she can't...so I think all these pandemic babies will turn out alright. 

Sometimes when I remember that I had to go through labour with a mask on, wasn't allowed to leave my hospital room for any reason, and was only allowed to have a single visitor in the hospital...it feels like some strange dream. But that's the world she was born into. 

And I know people thought we were crazy for keeping her home from church (and all social situations) for so long, but I really don't think it's had a lasting impact on her psyche. 

All that is to say that we had "home church" on Sunday and Phoebe thought it was so interesting. 

First she wanted to know whether she had to change into church clothes. When I told her she could stay in her pyjamas she was overjoyed. She loves a good pyjama day!

She thought it was awesome that we had our own little sacrament trays. 

And she loved watching Joseph Smith: The Prophet of the Restoration, which is what we did for our lesson time.

I was secretly relieved to get a break from singing time (I'd done so much playing in the snow that I was behind in my schoolwork plans and thus hadn't even looked at singing time) but I'm glad we'll be back this week. I've been low-key on the lookout for a Wheel-of-Fortune spinny wheel thing (mostly on the Buy Nothing Group) for singing time and...I just got one today!

Andrew picked it up for me while I was on campus today so I just saw it when I got home and it's much bigger than I expected...which will be great for primary (less great for storing the thing, but that's okay).

Sledding videos

I feel like I'm running out of time to devote to blogging at the moment. I still have a ton of reading to do for my classes next week. So...here are some videos of everyone sledding...I still have more pictures to get off of people's phones (of, like, me, for example). We'll see if that happens. Oh! One more good story is that...Andrew lost his phone!

It fell out of his pocket while he was sledding and we hunted around for a few moments before we realized that we could just do "find my phone" for him. But when I tried to do that with my phone it wouldn't let me ping him for some reason. So instead I just called him and hoped for the best. Miriam located it, sunk deep into a pile of leaves at the bottom of the hill (thank goodness). 

When we got back up to the top of the hill we met a little neighbour boy hunting around for his lost glasses. Those are much harder to find than a phone because (a) you can't just call it and have it ring and (b) you're half blind while looking for it. But we managed to find those as well (thank goodness). 

Sledding can be dangerous!

But it's so fun! I told the kids about ice blocking and suggested they do it for a church activity (I did it a couple of times when I was a kid). They could even put down a slip and slide or something so they don't ruin the grass... Our youth group used to do sledding activities when I was growing up, too...but those are harder to plan for and carry out down in the south. Ice blocking is a more...dependable...activity.

Anyway...we're here for sledding videos! Here they are:

Snow day (part one)

There were a couple of times last night when the power turned off with such finality that I would think—in the dark—"This is it. We've got to..."

And then the power would come back on before I even had a chance to think through precisely what we needed to do to make it through the night without power. Laugh all you want—it's not that cold and this wasn't that much snow, but our houses simply aren't built or insulated the same way they are in the north. Our pipes are more likely to freeze and burst. Our upstairs can be incredibly drafty. And that's just how it is. 

But, we were some of the lucky ones. Our power stayed on (for the most part, though it definitely shut off at least a dozen times over the course of the evening).

Anyway, I'm ready for Part One of our Snow Day adventure. The kids are tucked away watching Frozen (Phoebe's first time, in her memory) after coming in from a disappointing second day of snow...it's all melted and refrozen...and just not the same as the fresh snow. So, here are some memories from yesterday...

Phoebe was obsessed with eating the snow. She did not understand how to work her hands in her mittens—although she can recite "Thumb in the thumb place, fingers altogether," and does so while we're putting on her mittens, she tends to stick her thumb in with the rest of her fingers and then her hands are useless in her mittens. So instead she just throws herself into the snow face-first to take in all the snowy goodness.

Snow day (part 2)

I suppose I should really start with the morning when I woke up at 8:00 to the sounds of someone clomping down the driveway. I glanced out the window and noticed that Mother Nature had not let us down—it had, in fact, snowed! And someone was probably coming to see if the kids could play.

So I hopped out of bed, threw on my housecoat, and rushed to wake the kids.

But, as it turns out, they woke up at the crack of dawn to head outside and it was them clomping up to their own house to get something. 

As Zoë put it, "My alarm went off at 7:35. We were outside by 7:40."

The rest of us were outside by 8:30, probably. And we enjoyed a lovely morning sledding with the neighbours, and building snowmen, chatting and chattering.

The kids went back out for round two in the afternoon, but I stayed inside to nap study (and, boy, was it a good study nap session). By this time it was sleeting more than snowing so most of the neighbours chose to stay inside, but one little neighbour and his mom came outside to play with the kids and I'm so glad they did because the mom had been too shy to try sledding when all the neighbours were out...but when it was just my kids out...she decided to give it a go (or three or four go's). 

The kids wanted to head back out for a walk after dinner. By this time we were mostly getting plain ol' frozen rain. See how all those drips are changing to icicles? Everything is covered in ice out there.

Chapstick tales

Phoebe loves chapstick (as previously discussed). Here are a couple new chapstick stories...

First, I've had to move my personal chapstick from location to location to keep it away from an ever-mobile (and ever-chapstick craving) Phoebe. I moved chapstick from my desk, onto the shelf beside my desk, all the way to the shelf mounted on the wall above my computer because Phoebe just kept finding ways to get it. 

The other day she came in complaining that she wanted chapstick but that she couldn't find hers. I was in the middle of doing something, so I just stood up to grab mine (because I have to stand up to reach my chapstick otherwise Phoebe can get it) and said, "Here—you can use mine."

"Really? Your weird, round chapstick?!"

"Yes," I told her. "My...weird, round...chapstick."

I have an eos chapstick...that is...evidently...weird and round.

"Wow! Thanks letting me use your weird, round chapstick, Mom!" she said. "Can I hold it?"

"Yes, you can hold it."

"Wow! Thanks letting me hold your weird, round chapstick!"

Such an honour.

Grocery bags as snow pants

Just a friendly reminder to my southern friends that if you don't have snow gear, you can make your own with plastic bags! It's easier done with little kids (see here, here, here, and here). But I'll probably be fashioning myself a nice pair of plastic pants tomorrow so I can go out with the kids.

Here's skeptical Benjamin rocking a pair of snow pants in 2014:

Swelling, Schooling, and...sledding?

Here is Miriam on Monday when I woke her up from her post-extraction nap so she could take some pain medication and drink some water and things like that:

And here she is this morning:

She is straight up not having a good time and is so swollen. But she did go to her organ/piano lesson, as well as to mutual, and she plans on attending seminary tomorrow morning. And she's eating more and I really think her recovery is going...okay...so far.

Extractions and Excavators

Miriam had five teeth removed on Monday, so she's been pretty miserable. She's sore and swollen and pretty miserable.

Here she is trying her hardest not to laugh (probably about something that Rachel said):

Phoebe is a Sunbeam!

Phoebe had her first day of Sunbeams yesterday and it went swimmingly. 

I really just think the difference is in how the teachers approach the children in Sunbeams versus in the nursery. Not that the nursery teachers did anything wrong! I think it's rather instinctual in the nursery to coddle a little bit, to say, "Aw, sweetie, come here! Let me hold you! Mommy will be right back!"

And Phoebe didn't want that. 

She wanted to be told, "Welcome to class. Find a seat. Listen to the lesson. And then we'll go to singing time."

No hugs. No random toy-stealing. No talking about her mom.

Where's My Pants? (Again)

This morning while Andrew was out grocery shopping I called the kids into the living room to help me fold the laundry—their laundry, to be precise—so we could put it away. Zoë and Phoebe came right away, but Alexander was lingering in front of Zelda. He was in the middle of figuring something out and apparently wasn't able to save his game until that part had been figured out, so I gave him a few minutes to get things sorted before joining us in folding the laundry.

He ended up failing in whatever quest he was in the middle of, dying somehow, and respawning, and...so he quit and saved his game and entered the room still feeling a little dejected...a little distracted.

"Did you save your spot?" I asked. 

"Yeah," he sighed and started explaining to me all about how he failed and died and respawned and...

He pulled off his pants.

"Ummm...buddy..."

"What?"

"What are you doing?"

"What am I doing? I'm..." he looked down at his hands, which were holding his pants, which were no longer on his body. "What am I doing?! I think I thought I was getting dressed! Ahhhh! I'm not getting dressed! I'm folding laundry! I'm folding laundry! Ahhhh!"

Buttercup

Last year, our friend Edson (who is on a mission now) was messing around with the young Korean boys in our ward, teaching them to say, "Listen up, buttercup!"

And now this is "A Thing" for all the young kids in the ward, no matter what language they speak. Even Phoebe has picked up on it. 

In fact, whenever there is a phrasal verb that includes the preposition "up," you can pretty much assume that "buttercup" is coming after it.

She'll often say, "Pick me up, buttercup!" rather than "Hold me!"

*****

We still don't think she has a stomach bug. My kids just happen to have very sensitive gag reflexes. Half of them were formally diagnosed with GERD. The other half, well, based on how much they spit up as infants I'm pretty sure most of them could have been diagnosed with GERD if I had pursued such a thing. But usually the GERD diagnosis came with other things—like Benjamin was diagnosed with GERD in the NICU and Alexander was diagnosed with GERD when he was diagnosed with laryngomalacia. And Zoë was diagnosed with GERD when she spent the first year of her life screaming her head off (she's the only one we specifically asked for reflux medication for, I think).

All that is to say that my kids have always thrown up. A lot. 

Believe me, I know. 

Why are children?

On the last day of co-op last year, Alexander's class was released early and they came outside with what was a rather messy art project at the time. You can see it on the whiteboard just behind Rachel's head in this picture. 

It's a Santa that he painted on a piece of paper that he made in his class...that he then glued to a piece of black construction paper with liberal amounts of glue. It's fine now...but at the time it was exceedingly messy.

He came to me with this drippy mess in the middle of my ukulele lesson and just...handed it to me. And I was like, "What am I going to do with this?!" not because it wasn't lovely but because it was so soggy. 

I tried to put it down in a safe place—out of foot traffic, away from toddlers, and where it wasn't liable to blow away in the wind—but soon Phoebe came up to me with her hands covered in paint.

"Excuse me while we take a quick break to wipe our hands off in the grass," I said to my class. "Phoebe is covered in paint."

"Paint?!" one of my helper-moms echoed sympathetically (she apparently hadn't seen the artwork hand-off). "We are outside! How did she even find paint?! Ugh. Why are toddlers? I'm so glad I'm out of that stage..."

I mean, I certainly feel that sentiment. Not so much the "being out of that stage" part, but the wondering about why toddlers are the way they are.

But lately I've been wondering if children are any better. 

The Dreidel Game...and gingerbread

After an entire month of advent calendars counting down until Christmas, the kids (Alexander, in particular) were excited to start counting the days of Hanukkah. As it happened, the first day of Hanukkah was on Christmas Day this year...but somehow we didn't get around to playing the dreidel game until today. We didn't get any gelt this year (although technically the kids got chocolate coins at both the live nativity we went to and in a Christmas gift from Jessica (their primary teacher), but they ate all of that) so we played with M&Ms instead. 

They were left over from our gingerbread houses...which I never did post about, did I? 

Guys! We made gingerbread houses! On December 19!

And, honestly, Phoebe ate so much candy it was concerning. She ate so much candy that her tummy hurt. When I suggested she could...stop eating candy...she simply batted her eyelashes at me and said, "No, fanks!"

New Year's Day

As it turns out, Phoebe does not have a stomach bug. This is lucky on two counts (1) because stomach bugs are awful and (2) because she basically slept on top of me last night.

Happy New Year!

Last night someone on the Buy Nothing Group offered up some NYE balloons, available after noon today (since they were throwing a Noon Year's Eve party at their house, wouldn't need the balloons for the evening, and wanted to spread the joy). I wasn't selected to get the balloons.

But! The person who was selected messaged me to say that she only wanted the word balloons (that spelled out "Happy New Year!") and since I live just around the corner...did I want to come pick up two big garbage bags of white and gold balloons? 

We had just finished preparing all the pirogies, but they were in the oven warming...so I said yes! We could come right now! So we got the balloons and then had our dinner. 

After dinner I set up a balloon drop in the living room:

 

The last shall be first and the first... (Or: Oh, Phoebe!, part II)

Phoebe woke up just before midnight and she was not happy about it, but we invited her downstairs to ring in the New Year with us anyway (even though we'd already done that with her earlier in the evening).