Ups and downs

This afternoon while Miriam and Zoë were at music lessons, I took the other kids to the park. Phoebe has been begging to go to "the sandbox park" for ages, but the last few times we've gone the sandbox (intended for volleyball) has been occupied by a large group. So we've skipped out on that in favour of other play places. But today—surely—was our day! 

We got to the park and the sandbox was free but...the sand toys that had been patiently waiting in the van were no where to be found. I guess Daddy took them out when he was loading up soups and things to take to the church for Alexander's baptism on Saturday.

"So it looks like we don't have any sand toys," I said, after looking in the trunk (just in case). 

"That's okay!" Phoebe said. "I can use my hands! I just need to play in the sand!!"

Evidently she's been desperate to get good and sandy for quite some time, but she agreed to go on a little walk around the pond first. Here she is sitting on the bench, watching the pond (her words):

And here are some leaves I thought were pretty:

And here are some leaves that I thought were strange only because the rest of the leaves on the tree were still mostly green:

Here she is hopping down a path in the woods alongside Benjamin:

And here are the kids finally getting their time in the sand:

Notice the dog galloping around in the background... 

My kids were completely unbothered by it. Phoebe didn't even notice it, but if she had noticed it she surely would have rushed up to greet it. Now, I won't say that I'm entirely cured of my phobia of dogs (ha!), but I will say that when I saw it running past, I didn't get that prickly rush of adrenaline that I'm so used to. So that's something. 

I imagine it's how normal people feel when they see a dog. Just like, "Huh. There's a dog." Not like a, "Help! That dog is going to maul me to death here and now."

Kinda nice. 

Here are the kids playing around while I read an article.

It's nice that they're all able to do most things on the playground without my close and constance supervision and assistance. We're really truly entering the winding down years of small-child parenting.

I know this because at a meeting on Sunday (for the Christmas party), a woman (rather condescendingly) told me, "Well, as a toddler mom..." to tell me why the activities Miriam had planned for the party were inadequate for her family's needs. 

I was floored. 

Like, ma'am, you literally have a three-year-old. I literally have a three-year-old. We are the same but-'cept-for I prolly know a little more about toddlers than you do...

Granted, my three-year-old will be turning 4 very soon, but her three-year-old will be turning 4 in about six months. So...I mean...same...?

The activities are: decorating cookies, using stamps to make greeting cards (and a general letter-writing station), doing a craft, and a place to play games like corn hole (or general bean bag tossing) and stick pull along with block building and butter shaking—even a few pioneer climbing bears to play with. 

I get that not all of those activities are entirely suitable for a three-year-old. But some of them are. 

Did I just type out a 700-word rant about our ward Christmas party and then delete it? Yes. 

But I do so artistically by telling you what—or that—I refuse to tell you about that oh-so-frustrating meeting. A "refusal is not just a no, it is a performance of that no, and thus an artistic form," say Tuck and Yang (p. 814).

Instead you get pictures of my kids playing on the teeter-totter, which I always pronounce tee-dee-todder, which drives Andrew nuts. Speaking of which, the other ward invited our ward to participate in a Pinewood Derby—both activity day kids and youth, so Alexander, Zoë, Benjamin, and Miriam are all busy making their cars. 

Unfortunately for my brain, those are Kub Kars, which will be raced at a Kub Kar Rally. 

And everyone looks at me like I'm having a stroke. They have no idea what that is, which feels ridiculous for me because clearly Kub Kar Rally is synonymous with Pinewood Derby. My brain just pulls out Kub Kar before Pinewood every single time. 

I understand that my American peers have no experience with or exposure to Kub Kar culture (aside from my random mentions, which only serve to confuse them), so they don't equate the two terminologies. 

But that does not help my brain come out with the correct words, so I've baffled a lot of people. 

For example, Miriam didn't end up getting her car cut out however many weeks ago when the bishop brought a big ol' saw to the church and cut out a zillion cars for all the kids in the ward. She was waving her hand when they asked if anyone else needed their car cut (Kub Kar kut?) but...nary a person noticed. So the saw was packed away while she was making her way over and...that was it. 

She didn't say anything because...well...contrary to how people at the Christmas party planning meeting might feel, Miriam's not much of a pot-stirrer.

I apologized to her for having the invisible gene.

My dear, dear Brother Brown once had us over for a party on the 4th of July, along with some other families, and we were talking about...stuff...ward dynamics and things...and he said something about me being invisible, that no one would notice that I wasn't there because they hardly notice that I'm there at all, they're unconcerned if I'm not there, and aren't concerned if I am there. I'm just...an easily ignorable person, and a difficult person to notice. 

And that all sounds a little rude (it felt a little rude to hear, honestly). 

But, he went on, those are the people he likes to keep his eye on because he's found they're often very valuable and dependable people. Not that flashy people aren't. But the quiet ones are valuable in a different and important sort of way.

And, boy, did he keep his eye on us. He was just the best home teacher (this was back in the day when we had home teachers). And he is still a wonderful friend.

Anyway, some of my kids got the invisible gene from me. 

And the bishop called almost immediately after the Christmas party meeting...which made me really nervous, but he was just seeing if he could arrange a time to cut Miriam's car because it had been brought to his attention that she had been missed at the activity. But he was going out of town and Andrew was going out of town and...I told him that I'd ask around neighbours first and would let him know if we ended up needing his tools. 

So I asked one neighbour who is a bit of a do-er kind of a guy...

"Kub Kar...?" he said. 

"You know, for the...rally," I tried explaining. 

He's got four sons. Surely he knew what I was talking about.

"The...rally?" he said. 

"You know...the...the...derby! Pinewood."

"Oh, Pinewood Derby cars, sure, sure. I wonder what kind of saw you'd need to cut out one of those..."

We talked about the various saws that we had, but ultimately he suggested his next door neighbour who has a fancy shop filled with various tools that he's refurbished and collected. He even has a vacuum system he built to pick up the sawdust. 

He's always making stuff. 

So this evening I got a text from the first neighbour with the second neighbour's contact information and before I knew it we were in the shop and he was cutting out Miriam's car on a 1904 band saw that he refurbished himself—replaced all the bearings with modern ball bears, fixed it up, etc., etc. etc. 

His workshop was pretty impressive! 

Benjamin came along just to look. Miriam came along to oversee the cuts. I came because...it was dark and nighttime and we haven't spent a lot of time with this neighbour. 

But he was like, "If you ever want to build anything...come on by!"

Anyway, here are those pictures of the kids on the seesaw or teeter-totter or whatever:

Works Cited

Tuck, E., & Yang, K. W. (2014). Unbecoming claims: Pedagogies of refusal in qualitative research. Qualitative Inquiry, 20(6), 811–818. https://doi.org/10.1177/1077800414530265