Successes

Zoë's been practicing French braiding my hair while I've been reading our nightly novel to her and Alexander. After showing her how to do it once she tried it and did it...a little loose and sloppy...but obviously a French braid. Then she undid it and tried again and again and again. And she's getting quite good at it.

This morning she did Phoebe's hair in a French braid:

Robbing the candy store

Zoë's primary teacher gifted all the kids in the class a bag full of activities to do during General Conference and a bunch of candy (mostly to use for the conference games). Phoebe can't attend her own class without having a panic attack, so she went with Zoë this week (she alternates between Zoë's class and Alexander's class). This meant that Phoebe also got a big bag of candy.

Recent silly sayings

Benjamin has his first swim meet today (on his year-round team). Andrew's taking him because it's all the way in Newnan and will be a whole day affair. 

Andrew grabbed his shoes out of the shoe closet and then went to sit on the stairs so he could put them on. While he was sitting down, tiny little Phoebe sneaked around him and started walking up the stairs.

Luckily Andrew was gently settling himself on the stairs because he didn't see Phoebe sneak past him and...sat on her. 

"Okay, wow," she said in disgust. "I'm, like, trying to go up the stairs."

Like, how incredibly rude of him!

Mailboxes

Growing up in Canada, I lived at multiple places, four that I remember well: Burnaby, PoCo, Calgary, and High River. We never had door-to-door delivery. We always had community mailboxes. 

I thought this was normal. 

I thought having a mailbox at the end of every driveway was insane when we moved to the States (to be fair, our house in Spanish Fork had a community box and I applauded that; and Darla's neighbourhood has a community box as well...but literally one for the entire gated community, so it isn't quite as convenient as walkable community boxes). 

Admittedly, I don't remember Burnaby very well. I wasn't ever in charge of getting the mail. But I know we had a playground visible from our window. I'll bet the mailbox was right there as well. 

In PoCo, our mailbox was a 1 minute walk from our house (91 meters)—and a 7 minute walk to the playground (500 meters). We also had a 2–3 minute walk to a provincial park/forest, and a 10–15 minute walk to the recreation center.

In Calgary, our mailbox was a ~1 minute walk from our house (56 meters)—at the playground on our street. There was also a large open field directly across the street from us. And another playground just a 5 minute walk away. And another playground a 10 minute walk away. And...there were outdoor ice rinks we could get to...

In High River, our mailbox was a 1 minute walk from our house (77 meters)—at the playground on our street. We could also access the lakes with a 3-minute walk, 250 meters—conveniently there is now a playground at Sunshine Lake. When I lived there we had walk to the other lake (Emerson) to get to a playground...past the elementary school (just a 6 minute walk from our house—450 meters), where there is another playground where we were freely allowed to play outside of school hours. They've since taken down the playground at Emerson, but the sledding hill is still there (a 15 minute walk from our house). River access was about a 40 minute walk from our house...but no one wants to live too close to the river anyway...for flooding reasons.

It's the final countdown!

Our days at the pool are limited and our schedule is so packed that our time to visit the pool in the limited time it's still open is also limited. Miriam had a babysitting job this afternoon, so we decided we'd visit the pool after dropping her off. 

We had it all to ourselves...if you don't count all the salamanders. There were four dead ones and two still-alive ones. We collected the dead ones and the live ones and moved them off into the woods (returning the salamanders to the little pond/stream area we assume they originated).

Happy birthday, Andrew!!

Andrew turned 41 on Friday. He was at a conference for most of the day and Zoë and Alexander went to a church activity in the evening and didn't return until much later than we thought. A friend of mine gave them a ride since I had to get Benjamin to swim practice and couldn't be everywhere all at once. 

Phoebe was so excited when Daddy got home because she's had such limited time with him the last couple of months. She was really looking forward to him opening his presents (she loves birthdays) and was very upset when he decided to initiate bedtime before the kids come home.

"But Dad!" she wailed. "Mom said presents before bed!"

Lucky for Phoebe the kids arrived in time to rescue her from her having to wait one more day for Daddy to open his presents. 

Perception is reality

This afternoon we were out on a walk and Phoebe wanted to see a police car. 

Now, I have some serious skills as a mother. I can kiss boo-boos better. I can sing away nightmares. I can tape ripped pieces of paper. However...

Not once have I been able to conjure something out of midair. I've been working on it since Rachel could talk and started requesting to see donkey carts while we were taxiing about Cairo. Unfortunately for her, I couldn't make donkey carts appear whenever she wanted to see one. 

Despite the intervening years of parenting...I still just...kind of am not very good at conjuring things...so Phoebe was rather disappointed.

"Is that a police car?"

"No. That's just a black car."

"Is that a police car?"

"No. That's a white truck." 

"Is that a police car?"

"Again...no...that's just a red car."

"Well, I want to see a police car! Can you find me an...oooooh!"

Just then a car with a Dominoes pizza delivery sign on top drove by.

"Now there's a police car!" she said, happily. "See how it has the red and blue lights on top?"

Sisters, sisters!

I was helping Alexander fill out a survey to be spotlighted in primary and he breezed through the first half, confidently answering questions about his favourite primary song and where he was born. Then he got to the really difficult questions, like, "How many brothers do you have?"

Just kidding. That question was easy for him to answer. 

"One," he said, quite sure. 

"And how many sisters do you have?" I asked. 

"Uhhhhhh..." he said, absolutely perplexed. "Does Rachel still count?"

"Yes, Rachel still counts! Why wouldn't Rachel count?"

"Because she's far away..."

"She's still your sister though, so..."

"I guess so..."

"I...more than guess so..." I said. "She's definitely still your sister."

"Okay, let's put down four."

"Sounds good. Four sisters it is."

The P-O-O-L

Going to the pool in September means that leaves dance across the surface of the water, like figure skaters pirouetting. The water is cool, but not so cold that we get goosebumps. Still, the kids climb out of the water to lounge on the hot cement—which they could only sprint across on scorched tip-toes just last month. The shade around the pool is dwindling as the leaves fall, but it doesn't matter because we welcome the sunlight now that it has to stretch a bit further to reach us—to rub our shoulders, boop our noses, run its fingers through our hair...

Is it bad that he's halfway through his math curriculum already? Probably...

 "Is it cheating," Alexander asked. "If I write down the word PEMDAS on my paper? Because I have a question that involves parentheses, multiplication, and addition and I just need to be sure that I remember to do everything in the right order..."

That is not cheating, actually. 

"It's just that we didn't learn PEMDAS this unit..."

Testing is cumulative. You are allowed—encouraged, required—to call on prior knowledge. 

*****

"I have a slight problem with this question because it wants me to find out, like, what is 15*6 and 4*15 and so I did that! I said 15*6 is 90 and 4*15 is 60 and I added those up and I got 150. But then I remembered that this test is focusing on the distributive property and I could have solved this much faster if did 15*10, which is 15(6+4). So I just hope it's okay if I did it another way even if it is slower and takes more work. And it should be okay because this question also wants me to find out what 9*6 and 9*14 is so that I can find out the difference between those two answers, because I'm really trying to find out how much more money one of them earned than the other one. So if I go straight to 9(20), which is 9(6+14), for the second part, then I used the distributive property to get to the answer and it will still count, right?"

Meow

Back in circa 2004 when the internet was young and wholesome, my cousin Heather (Leavitt) came down from Alberta to visit me...or I went up to visit her...? I really can't remember where we were, only that we were together and the internet was young and wholesome and we were sharing our favourite memes (only we didn't know they were called memes back then). 

I was a huge fan of the mad cow disease video (because we were in the midst of a mad cow crisis when I came across it (in an email from a teacher, I believe, because I attended a virtual school and we got all our lessons through dial up internet) and I've always been drawn to somewhat tongue-in-cheek political commentary):

Phoebe did what now?: Reading in the wild and other tales

This morning Andrew texted to say that he was at the airport, beginning his journey home. He's been in Vancouver, BC, for a conference (APSA). His room at the hotel was on the 23rd floor, affording him a beautiful view of the harbour:

Birthday Balloons I (finally)

I'm so behind in so many things.

I was so proud of the fact that we managed to write birthday balloon messages for everyone in our family before Rachel went out to Utah. Last year we didn't write birthday balloons until August! But at least I posted about them immediately after. It's been weeks since we finished writing our birthday balloons for the first half of our birthdays and they've just been curling on the wall.

Phoebe asked if I wouldn't mind taking them down so we could start "fresh" on her birthday. I guess she didn't want stale birthday decorations. 

So I took them down. Finally.

We meant to take a picture of Zoë, Benjamin, me, and Rachel in front of the tree with our birthday balloons. But we forgot to, so I don't have one. 

Here's what people said though:

Zoë! I'm so excited that you are 10! You are such a charming young woman! I'm so proud of how helpful and thoughtful and funny you're becoming! Keep being awesome this year! Love, Dad

Zeal
Optimistic
Ebullient (archaic term)

Watching you grow over this past year has been [groovy?] I love you so much! —Ben

Zoë! How are you already in the double digits? you've grown so much, it's crazy. It has been a joy to watch you grow more passionate about music, especially organ. You are so good at cleaning, and are very quick-witted and funny. I love you so much!!! Love, Miriam

(It should be noted that this was written before they started sharing a room; opinions on cleanliness have changed since then)

Organ harvest

The keys on our organ are brittle. You can see from this picture—with its jaw pried wide open—that it has a few missing...teeth: 

Saying goodbye to Auntie K

At the risk of getting political...or sharing, like, my immediate lived experience and point of view on a personal mommy blog with low readership...

My sister's visit did have to end at some point...apparently...and it did on Saturday evening.

Research across the aisle indicated that while my sister had ample free time while she was between positions, she did have to return home in time to honour the contracted "start date" of her new position. 

Miraculously, Phoebe agreed to sit on Auntie K's lap for a picture prior to going to bed. Sources say this sudden display of affection could have been bought with the gift of a Bluey blanket. There is photographic evidence of the alleged gift, and our gift unit is still investigating this exchange to determine whether or not it violates our household emoluments clause.

I know you can be overwhelmed, and you can be underwhelmed, but can you ever just be whelmed?

The news is always bad, but the last few days have felt overwhelming.

• A gunman (claimed by Hamas) killed 6 at a bus stop in Jerusalem.
• Netanyahu pledged retaliation against Gaza for this because...whatever else has happened in Gaza should not be considered retaliatory enough as it is?? Or because Gaza isn't suppose to retaliate?? Or some other reasoning I don't understand... I mean, they also killed the shooter, so...I dunno.
• Also Israel bombed a residential area in Doha, targeting—and killing—5 Hamas leaders, and 1 security guard (so, like, wasn't that retaliation?...I guess I don't understand the word very well).
• Russia continues to bomb Ukraine, the bullies.
• Russia also has sent drones into Polish airspace, setting a large portion of Europe on edge. 
• NEPAL, friends. What? They overthrew their government, burnt down their parliament building. Props—you do you, boo. But then they also, like, burned the ex-first lady alive and did a bunch of super violent stuff? Less cool—exceedingly uncool.
• There was a school shooting in Colorado. Nice. Neat. Great. Seems we can't get enough of those. Hope and prayers. Pop some popcorn. 

Little and Big Kids

A picture of Miriam lives on our fridge. She's four years old, pigtails flying, bandaid on one knee, pink helmet on head, lugging her bike behind her. In this picture she is the most darling four-year-old in the whole entire world. 

*****

Today Phoebe was wearing the same helmet (which is now 12 years old...which is old for a helmet), which she calls her unicorn helmet because back in 2014 I used the helmet to create a unicorn costume for our neighbourhood 4th of July parade, which I honestly did not realize would be 100% patriotically themed. 

Long Hunter State Park

During quiet time/nap time one afternoon, Auntie K took us to Long Hunter State Park so we could do the Storybook Trail. We got off to a bit of a rocky start because we made it to the visitor's center just as it closed for lunch—and they were very serious about closing for their lunch break. We could see them all in there...and they could see us...but there was no way they were going to ask us if we needed help with anything. 

The bathrooms were locked from the outside, only accessible through the main entrance (which was locked). We had a map, but weren't quite sure what we were looking for because the Storybook Trail wasn't on the map. 

So we had our lunch and waited for the doors to open. 

An Amazon delivery person came by with some packages and they opened the door for them and while the door was open I passive-aggressively made a remark about how I couldn't wait for the next five minutes to be up so that we could finally take our toddler to the bathroom...

And the lady working inside must have heard me because after the five minutes were up and she finally unlocked the door for us, I took Phoebe to the bathroom and the lady made a point of finding Kelli to tell her that the bathroom doors were open, should we have needed to go. 

They weren't. 

But that's okay. We went potty and figured out where to go (kind of). When we got to the right parking lot we just had to find the "hidden" trailhead for the Storybook Trail. It, again, wasn't on any of the park maps. But we were pretty intimidated by the bulletin board, so perhaps we didn't look closely enough...

Motherscholaring

The kids and I all have come down with a cold. 

Luckily, that's all it seems to be...because the past few times we've been sick have been...mighty uncomfortable. This really seems mostly to just be the sniffles.

Still, I had to film a ten minute presentation this evening...on motherscholars...and was sniffling all the way through it (poor everybody who has to listen to my *sniff* presentation *sniff*). 

No sooner had I finished filming...at midnight...when Phoebe ran into the hallway crying, her Chummie alarm blaring. She really doesn't like that thing, which is good because when it goes off she typically wakes up pretty fast (she's only slept through it a couple of times), which means she typically stops peeing to...run into the hallway screaming for help. 

And...I couldn't think of anything more motherscholarly than filming a presentation while sick (probably from kids with no boundaries either sneezing in my face or stealing a drink from my water bottle) at midnight (because that's a good quiet time for that activity in this house) and very nearly having it interrupted by a child needing help going potty.

*****

Side story: last night she was having a hard time falling asleep and staying asleep (because of the sniffles, probably). She woke up around midnight and I helped her go potty and get back to bed. And after she had been in bed for a while, her Chummie went off. 

"Shhhh, shhhh, Chummie-buddy!" she said soothingly, groggily patting her Chummie. "I'm just sweaty. I'm not peeing. You can be quiet!"

Had she been asleep when it went off, she would have been in the hallways screaming in a flash, but since she was only in the act of falling asleep...she tried to soothe it into silence. 

It didn't work.

Instead we got up and changed into some cooler pyjamas.

At Rosie's House

One of the best parts about Rosie's house (according to the little kids, at least) is that it is brand new, so brand new that the rest of the neighbourhood is still being put up right in Rosie's backyard!

Why nobody lives here?

Miriam found Cannonsburgh Village while she was researching things to do around Murfreesboro. It has historical buildings that have been moved to the site or replicas of historical buildings (often made of reclaimed materials so they look as if they're from the time period). 

Here are the kids working on some of the "backpack program" materials...

Ruby Falls with Auntie K

Zoë writes: 

My favourite part of Ruby Falls was finally getting to the falls. The falls were beautiful, even more so because of the lights and music put on.

Beautiful Butterflies at Cannonsburgh Village

This morning we took the kids to Cannonsburgh Village, a little tour through history constructed to celebrate the 200th Independence Day back in 1976. It was a pretty neat place to visit, I think! They had all sorts of buildings—a telephone operator's house, a school, a chapel, a blacksmith shop, a mill, and more. They had live chickens. They had checkerboards. They had about a million organs (just about every building had an organ in it, I think). 

For right now, I thought I'd share pictures of the kids by this butterfly wing backdrop:

 

Zoë holding Oaklyn

To Tennessee with Auntie K: In which we explore many playgrounds

While Auntie K is here she wants to take each of the kids on an individual outing. She tried to give Rachel the gift of a mani-pedi when she was out here last time, but Rachel flat-out refused to entertain the thought of allowing a complete stranger to touch her feet. Miriam similarly declined the invitation this trip. But Zoë...is a horse of a different colour. She was quite excited at the prospect of having her nails done. She loved sitting in the massage chairs and being pampered—they even gave her an ice cream cone! 

She came home with lovely sparkly green nails...and a new outfit as well! Auntie K took her on a little shopping spree (and she had the time of her life). They also saw a cute little ghost dress while they were out and picked it up for Phoebe (who won't be going on an individual outing because she's...fussy...but who is very much picking up on the Halloween spirit (something Auntie K also appreciates)). 

Here are those three girls in their new outfits on Sunday (Auntie K found a dress for herself as well):