And That's A Wrap: Benjamin's County Meet

Benjamin was awfully excited for the county swim meet this afternoon. I was both surprised—and not surprised—to look over and see his meet suit underneath his church clothes...

Zoë at the County Meet

After a somewhat terrible night (with Phoebe and rogue fire alarms and other adventures), we got up bright and early to head to Georgia Tech for Zoë's session of the county swim meet. Their facility is phenomenal—it probably helps that it was built specifically for the Olympics in 1996. So it was just fun to be there, even though our kids didn't quite end up making it in any individual events. Zoë was 56th in breaststroke (24.96, but 50th place—the cutoff for county—was only 24.49 and these kids didn't drop to 23.84 seconds until 44th place, so Zoë was really quite close making it!). As the fastest breaststroker on our team, though, she was pulled into the medley relay. She also swam on the freestyle relay.

Miriam on the organ at Christ Church

Here's a video I know Grandpa has been waiting for! 

When the girls were in England (with Grandpa and Darla) they toured around Oxford and Miriam got to play on the organ at Christ Church. Their guide, George, is helping her with the stops at times and told her she should apply to be an organ scholar there. She's been looking into it, but she'd need a number of AP examinations with a score of 5 to qualify (but—one down, right?) and she's not sure she wants to take that many AP exams...

Anyway, here she is playing one of her pieces (she's embarrassed about her playing here, but it's her first time on the organ and each organ has a different feel so it's understandable that she would make a few mistakes):

Butterflies and sunbeams

Today my friend Janelle brought over a bagful of vegetables from her parents' garden. I was grateful because our garden went to the birds (and the deer and the squash beetles) this year. I just couldn't keep up with it...like at all. 

Have I mentioned we've been sick?

Anyway, today we got fresh vegetables from the garden. I knew they were coming because Janelle had texted to ask if she could share. And the little kids knew she'd brought them because they are the ones who answered the door. But my big kids didn't know where they came from. 

"Yum," Rachel said, looking at the juicy tomatoes and thick cucumber slices. "Whose garden did these come from?"

"Janelle's," Alexander answered. 

"Well, technically they're from her parents' garden," I said. 

"Ah, our neighbour-in-laws," Rachel quickly (and wittily) responded. 

*****

Flooding

It was difficult for me to watch the news about High River's big flood back in 2013. 

The flooding in Texas has been absolutely gut-wrenching, with over 100 dead (including 27 children/counselors from a summer camp). To be fair, that flooding has been nothing short of catastrophic...it hurts my heart just to think about it.

Durham is flooding right now as well, and it's eerie to watch the news from there. 

We used to live at the red tag on the following map:

Our neighbourhood was called Eno Trace, and you can kind of see where the river...traces...Lazyriver Drive, the main road in our neighbourhood. We used to hike through the woods to get to River Forest Park (which my kids called the "Purple Slide Park"). There wasn't a great place to cross the river, but Old Farm Road Park is clearly right there as well (we would sometimes have soccer games there), just off Rippling Stream Road. Because of the river, though, we'd have to take Infinity down to Roxboro Road and then enter that neighbourhood. 

Linocutting for FHE

For FHE we put sick little Phoebe on the couch to watch a show and shut sick little Benjamin in his bedroom far away from everyone else (we even have a sign on the bathroom door saying "ONLY BENJAMIN" to remind everyone else to not use that bathroom so that we don't inadvertently share germs with him) and the rest of us did some rubber stamp carving/linocuts. 

The kids made all kinds of fun things—piano keys, a flower pot, a Lego hand, Miriam's music logo, some holly and berries—on rubber. I made a linocut of a person swimming butterfly. 

I broke it into two separate parts so that I could use multiple colours of ink. The top image in the picture below is one of the carvings—of a swim cap and a splash of water—and then the person's body is a separate carving. You can see that I didn't quite take out enough of the "noise" the first time I tried printing (because my goal is to leave room above the swimmer to write "Thank you!" or "Go team!" or whatever), so I took out some of that and tried again:

My blue was drying out by the time I finished flattening the image out a bit, so the water part didn't turn out so well, but I think it will work when I make official prints (because i won't stop to carve so much in the middle). 

I thought it turned out pretty well for my first attempt at layering my linocuts.

Unfortunately, we put both Andrew and Rachel to bed with fevers...here's hoping we can all pull out of this funk we're in by the end of the week...

Double trouble: An update on Phoebe

When Andrew took Alexander into the doctor (after Alexander complained of not being able to hear), he also took Phoebe because she had been sick for a while, too. Alexander was quickly diagnosed with a double ear infection and some respiratory thing that the antibiotics would probably also clear up pretty quickly. Phoebe was diagnosed with...wait and see. 

She also had fluid in her ears, but it appeared to be clear. The doctor assumed it was related to her general head-cold, but it wasn't infected yet. Thus the wait and see approach.

Well, we watched and we saw!

She was still feverish today, so we decided to take her back in, just to be on the safe side, and lo...

Double ear infection. 

A pretty severe one, too. Bright yellow pus, bulging ear drum. 

"And she hasn't complained about her ears hurting?" the doctor asked.

Not. A. Single. Word. 

About the ears. 

There's been plenty of complaining otherwise. 

Miriam's Music Theory Exam (and other morning chaos)

"Why is sugar water so good?!"

Those are the words I was greeted with when I came down the stairs this morning. Zoë, Alexander, and Phoebe were having a tea party for breakfast, with oatmeal and a little charcuterie board of animal crackers, craisins, and pistachios. They had peppermint tea with sugar. Or, in Phoebe's case, plain ol' sugar water. 

"I just don't understand how it can be this good!" she said. 

"Because it's just...sugar..." I told her. "People tend to like sugar."

We skipped swim practice this morning so we could all just sleep and sleep and sleep. Alexander is feeling better. Phoebe seems to be on the mend. They got up with Zoë early in the morning. Zoë and Rachel have what seem to be lingering head colds. And Benjamin crashed hard last night. 

He was perfectly fine all day. He even said the closing prayer in sacrament meeting. 

And then he just...crashed. He slept in until around 11:30 this morning, as did multiple other people in the house. We are a tired household these days.

We had just been lining up all the awake kids (Rachel, Zoë, Alex, and Phoebe) to take their temperatures (mostly normal today—just Phoebe with a fever still!) when Benjamin came skidding down the hallway, crashing through our little group, to fling himself over the toilet in the bathroom. We all grimaced at each other while he puked. 

"How are you feeling, Benjamin?" I asked when his regurgitation noises had subsided. 

In response he hurled some more.

"Not up for conversation, eh?" I asked. 

More retching.

*****

Now, Phoebe has thrown up a few times with this sickness, but those instances have clearly been linked to uncontrollable coughing fits. Benjamin's stomach issues seem like a whole new set of symptoms. 

While he was in the midst of vomiting, Miriam came running up the stairs screaming.

The basement stairs spit traffic into the hallway right at the bathroom door, but somehow she missed the fact that Benjamin was in there puking and rounded the corner to find our preassembled crew. 

"Uh-oh. What's wrong?" we asked, like...what else could possibly be happening?

"I GOT A 5!!!!" she squealed, jumping up and down.

4th of July testimony meeting

Andrew stayed home with Phoebe and Alexander while I took the older four to church. Kind of. I drove Benjamin and Zoë. Rachel and Miriam went separately because they had a meeting after church. 

But Zoë was fading away during sacrament meeting, so Rachel ended up driving her home (so that I could set up for primary). 

The fast Sunday closest to the 4th of July is a Sunday that I approach with some dread because I really don't love it when all the testimonies wind up being about the constitution, for example, rather than about the gospel of Jesus Christ. But today's meeting was truly wonderful. 

Many of the youth (including Rachel and Miriam) bore their testimonies about what they had learned about the gospel during the many retreats they've had this past couple of months (YM camps, YW camp, youth conference, FSY). A few adults bore their testimonies about their immigration or their ancestors' immigration, highlighting the love they have for their homelands in addition to the States. Only one sister spoke of the founding fathers directly—she read a passage from the Declaration of Independence, "that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness.—That to secure these rights, Governments are instituted among Men, deriving their just powers from the consent of the governed..."

She spoke a bit about traveling to Berlin pre-1989, of seeing that wall, of knowing that on one side there was oppression while on the other side there was freedom of movement, freedom of speech, freedom of assembly, and so forth. And how much joy there was when the wall came down and people were reunited and given the freedom to...you know...be. And how sad it is when we put up these walls and grant freedom to people on one side, while not allowing those freedoms on the other side, and that our Heavenly Father loves every one of his children no matter what side of the (human-made) wall they are on.

Swimming

This morning we went to a friend's birthday party at her lake/pool clubhouse. She invited all the youth in the ward...plus some of the older primary kids. Alexander and Phoebe would have been welcome as well, except that they're both too sick. And Miriam was on her way home from FSY so she missed out as well. 

The kids spent a good portion of the morning at the pool, came out for pizza, and then spent a good portion of the afternoon at the lake. 

Medicated Kindness

Phoebe was fine, fine, fine, fine fine yesterday.

Then she got a little runny nose.

Then she lost her ever-loving mind. 

We have never seen that girl so grumpy. She didn't quite know how to communicate that she just wasn't feeling well so while we were at Grandpa and Darla's she just...kept asking to go potty. She should have just found a quiet corner to curl up in because in reality she was just miserable. 

There was a lot of screaming and crying. 

When we loaded into the car to head home she requested that we put on "Everything is Awesome," which we did, and then she fell asleep before we even left the neighbourhood. 

She woke up shortly before we got home and cried because she thought we were going home...which we were. I guess she just had been hoping we'd be there already. 

She definitely had developed a fever by the time we got home. Andrew gave her medicine and put her to bed while I did a video call with my sister Kelli and her grandkids (she went up to Alberta to visit them for the 4th—Scarlett is a year older than Benjamin, Rowan and Arthur are both around Alexander's age). 

*****

It was a long night.

Breakfast flop

I failed the pop quiz. 

To be fair, there was no announcement about the ward breakfast in the email that was sent out three days ago. The attachment was included on the email dated June 24. And, yup, I didn't see it. 

We put the breakfast on the calendar because it was announced over the pulpit (and because we knew we had one every year). To that end, the breakfast is always at the same place and swimming has always been tolerated but not encouraged (and in fact is more often discouraged). 

We showed up without swimming suits. All the other kids were in the pool. 

(How did they all know?! I imagine an announcement was made in RS or something.)

We sat on the sidelines listening to nauseating patriotic music and—for my part—feeling incredibly stupid and underprepared. I had a bad-ittude.

Pop Quiz: Find the information about the ward breakfast!

[Redacted] Ward

[Redacted] Ward Bulletin 

Sacrament Meeting: 9:00 AM till 10:00 AM

1st and 3rd Weeks - Youth Sunday School

2nd and 4th Weeks - RS/EQ Meetings

2nd and 4th Weeks - YM/YW Meetings

Each Week - Primary: 10:00 AM till 11:00 AM

Each Week - Nursery: 10:00 AM till 11:00 AM - Parents welcome to attend with their child. 

Chorister: [redacted]

Organist: Miriam Heiss  

Opening Hymn: 185 : Reverently and Meekly Now” 

Ward Business 

Ear infections and things

Swim team always seems to do Alexander in. 

Last year he wound up with pneumonia. 

He's been sick for the last little while as well. 

We've been battling swimmer's ear all summer. 

And then he caught a respiratory thing that has been lingering and lingering and lingering. 

Last night when he was saying goodnight he casually announced that he couldn't hear anything out of one ear (isn't that weird? But it's probably fine. I love you, goodnight!). 

Yeah. So, we decided we needed to take him to the doctor in the morning.

Silly scripture study

We have this game called "Flushin' Frenzy" that my sister Kelline sent to us a few years ago—right in the middle of COVID lockdowns. She thought we'd get a kick out of it. And we did.

The kids still like to play it. Rachel has catlike reflexes when it comes to grabbing that plastic poop in midair. No one can ever beat her.

#Fail

This afternoon I decided we should embark on some "spiffy up" projects. 

Rachel will be leaving for college soon, which will cause a domino effect of sorts in the bedrooms. Perhaps musical chairs is a more appropriate analogy. Either way—we'll be switching up who's bunking with whom. 

"I'd like you guys to help me decide which board books we should keep and..."

"Okay!" Phoebe said. "No problem: All of them."

"But surely we don't need all of them."

"We do! I don't even know how to read yet! I need the book about the trains. I need the book about the little farm animals. And just...we need all of them, okay? 'Specially the book about the trains."

So apparently we're into trains right now.

And it's too soon to be getting rid of board books. 

We have spiffied up nothing.