Lately

Phoebe just came up to me to ask, "When those three little kittens who lost their mittens found their mittens and then began to cry...were those just happy tears?"

Because, you see, finding your mittens is a reason to rejoice, not a reason to sorrow.

*****

When Phoebe asks for songs, she often goes on and on and on before letting anyone start singing.

"Can you sing to me how much is that doggy in the window, the one with the waggly tail?" or "Can you sing to me Joseph Smith walked to a grove full of trees, seeking God's wisdom he fell to his knees. As he pled with the heavens the sky filled with light?" or "Can you sing to me I am a child of God and he has sent me here, has given me an earthly home with parents kind and dear. Lead me, guide me?" of "Can you sing to me ABCDEFGHIJKLMNOP?"

We've got to introduce her to the concept of "short title." 

*****

The kids were just investigating a spider in the staircase. 

From the amount of screaming Zoë had done, I thought it was going to be Some Spider. 

"Ahhhh! There's a red spider on the stairs! Ahhh! Help! Gross! Spider! Spider! Spider!"

And then appearing in my bedroom, she woozily breathed, "Spider—on the staircase!" just like Professor Quirrel upon discovering the "troll—in the dungeon."

Benjamin wanted to use my phone to identify it. 

And I eventually dragged myself over to look at the thing, curious as to why (a) no one was catching the thing and (b) what the thing actually was. I was expecting, like, a woodlouse spider or something (those things are red and large and creepy-looking), but what we had on our hands was a teeny little orb weaver (according to the identification app) dangling from the ceiling. 

"Some kind of an orb weaver!" Benjamin declared.

"Oh, that thing is so tiny. There's no way it's going to identify it with any accuracy."

"It got all the way to genus!" Benjamin said. 

"Genus," Phoebe repeated. "Genus. Genus. Genus. Genius. Genius. Genius. Genius. GENIUS! That spider is SMART!"

"Almost," I said.

*****

Yesterday I brought our bear puzzles to the church for Phoebe to use while her older siblings were busy in their co-op classes (or, in Miriam's case, practicing the organ). We've had one of the bear puzzles for ages. I bought it from the dollar section at Target (when Target had an actual dollar section) when Rachel was a baby. 

It was such a hot item in the church quiet bag...that it often spurred on some not-so-quiet tousles between the children. So when a similar puzzle became available on...the Buy Nothing Group (of course)...I jumped at the opportunity to have multiples in my church bag. 

This was a couple of years ago, so we've had these puzzles for as long as Phoebe can remember. 

She got them out to play with quite happily and then said, "I am so embarrassed we have two of these games. There are children who don't even have one bear game and we have two. That's so embarrassing!"

When I asked her if she would like to get rid of one of them (because, honestly, now that a couple of years have elapsed they aren't quite the hot item they used to be—Benjamin and Zoë both are gravitating away from needing or using distractions during sacrament meeting and Alexander has grown out of throwing fits when he doesn't immediately get his way—so we could probably get away with only having one again), she gasped and said, "No! I need them both! It's just embarrassing!"

I'm not entirely sure if she understands what embarrassing means, but I am entirely sure that she heard the word and found it to be a delicious set of sounds to practice saying.

*****

Just now the house got very quiet. Suspiciously quiet.

Phoebe stopped playing with the marble run behind me. The kids stopped their bickering downstairs. 

All was silent. 

I'm supposed to be up here finishing my presentation for tomorrow and preparing for a zoom meeting this afternoon (and I kind of am, like, I have been...but I decided to take a break to write down a few stories here, which is also important work) but I felt like things were a little too quiet, so I sneaked downstairs to see what I might find.

I fully expected to have found the floor deserted, the kids having escaped down to the basement to play in the LEGO room. 

But instead, Alexander was at the kitchen table, carefully rewriting a draft of his assignment (which he'd done in incomplete sentences (kind of bullet-point format), and which I asked him to redo with complete sentences) and Zoë and Benjamin had pulled out a laptop and were watching their next "Science Mom" lecture, with Phoebe sitting quietly beside them. 

So they were quiet because they were 100% on task, which was a lovely scene to stumble upon!

Now for me to get back on task...