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):
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.
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.
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...
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.
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.
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.
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.
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).
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.
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.
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.
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.
When we went to clean the church this morning we accidentally stumbled upon another ward's "Dads and Doughnuts" activity...so the church was filled with dads and doughnuts and children. They invited us to join them (and we did, from the sidelines). My kids weren't terribly upset about getting "second breakfast" before pitching in to clean.
The church has been filled with strange messes, some of which we've known about and some of which took us by surprise. One surprise was that someone had spilled a carton of chocolate milk in the chapel...and then just...left it...fermenting in the carpet. Super awesome.
Some of the messes we knew about were: a urn/flower arrangement delivery box left over from a funeral that happened months ago that has been sitting in the chapel. Some banker boxes that someone left in the hallway (again, months ago). I made the unilateral decision that these were destined for Rachel to pack her college stuff in.
I threw away some things that our co-op left behind (again, months ago now).
And I finally put a poster up in the YM room that had been put behind the piano in the YW room (again months and months ago).
It can be difficult to keep the church uncluttered when so many units are in there because no one wants to throw away anything that belongs to anyone else. But...given the unclaimed nature of these things...I don't think they were going to be claimed any time soon.
So, it took us a while to get through with our cleaning, but it was a pretty good morning.
*****
When I got Phoebe dressed this morning she was still in a bit of an early-morning daze so I was helping her pick out her clothes (which she ordinarily does on her own).
"Do you want pants or shorts?" I asked.
"Shorts," she said.
"Okay, here you go," I said, handing her a pair of blue and white striped shorts.
"Thanks," she said, "But I want to wear my high tide shorts."
"Your high tide shorts?"
"Yeah! They're right there!"
She meant her tie-dyed shorts. And then, of course, we had to find her "high tide" Grogu shirt to go with it. Here she is in her "high tide" outfit:
She was delighted to see Rachel and Miriam (she hasn't seen them since Sunday night because they've been at camp...and then even when they were sleeping at our house they were coming home after Phoebe went to bed and leaving the house before she woke up so she didn't even realize they were "home"). We were happy they were home to help us clean the church!
She delighted us on the drive to the church by singing "Once There Was a Thunderstorm" (to the tune of "The Wheels On the Bus"). She had sung the first verse last night at dinner and you should have seen us all lean in as she got closer and closer to the last line of the song because no one was sure what she was going to do to resolve her song. She simply fell back on the traditional ending for "The Wheels On the Bus."
Here's her song:
Once there was a thunderstorm, A thunderstorm, a thunderstorm.
Once there was a thunderstorm... All through the town!
So she sang that in the car for us and then went seamlessly into a secret second verse:
The thunderstorm made the power went out,
The power went out, the power went out!
The thunderstorm made the power went out...
All through the town!
Did she past-tensify too many of her verbs? Absolutely. But that's okay.
I recorded her singing it later and she corrected her over-past-tensification to say "the thunderstorm made the power go out."
It was fun to listen to her improvise this little autoethnographic ditty about her experience last night.
As the evening progressed, it became clear that our 40% chance of thunderstorms had increased to about, oh, I'd say ninety-nine-pointy-one. When the storm hit us, it was raging: the thunder was loud, the lightning was constant, the rain was...wet. Our power flickered a few times in the midst of everything, but it didn't go out until after we thought we were through everything.
We'd just gotten Alexander and Phoebe into their jammies and were about to gather for scriptures and prayer when...everything went dark. It was still light enough outside that this wasn't a huge deal, but Phoebe thought it was the best thing ever!
Andrew posted online about a swim meet the other day and someone commented on his post something like: "Lord, if I have but one day to live, let there be a swim meet, because those things last forever!"
With two swim meets this week, it has felt like this week has been at least two weeks (three swim meets within eight days).
Add in the girls going to YW camp, a heat wave, the girls being sent home from YW camp, daily swim practices, class, work, and everything else...it feels like we've lived an entire lifetime since last week.
Oh, and Benjamin had his woodworking camp this week as well! It was every afternoon from 1 to 5. And I think everyone had a good time—from the youngest boy up to the oldest teacher. Here's Benjamin when I dropped him off on the first day:
We were driving home from Benjamin's exhibition evening at Woodcraft. Grandpa met us there and took Zoë and Benjamin back to his place for a sleepover. Alexander is feeling exhausted from the late night at the swim meet yesterday, so he'll be staying home this evening. The older girls are finishing up their last day of camp activities. And, of course, Phoebe was with us.
"That cloud looks menacing," Alexander observed.
"Yeah!" Phoebe agreed. "Dad, is it going to rain?"
"It might."
"Before you said it was going to rain!" she objected.
"No, I said there was a 40% chance of rain, which means that if we lived this day over 100 times, it would rain on 40 of those days," Andrew explained.
"What about ninety-nine-pointy-one cent chance?!" Phoebe asked, which is a sure sign you're being raised by a statistician of sorts (not that Andrew is a statistician by trade, not precisely...but he teaches stats and that's pretty close to the same thing).
As you can see, the kids did well at their swim meets this week!
Benjamin had a whole fistful of blue (first place) ribbons:
Coach Heidi approached me about the possibility of him swimming on the high school team, which he's super excited about! He wouldn't be a star swimmer (to start out with; he'd probably be in the slowest lane), but he's showing a lot of potential and she'd love to have him when he graduates from middle school. He'll be heading to the county meet on the freestyle relay.
Our final meet was tonight and it was a little...touch and go in the beginning. A thunder storm rolled in just as we were setting up so we spent the next 1.5+ hours waiting it out. We got our meet started at 6:30 pm and the officiants really moved through things quickly!
On Tuesday the kids spent all afternoon in the neighbour's kiddie pool. This picture is just Phoebe...because at this moment all the other kids were sitting in front of the fans (they hauled up from our house) in the garage, dripping wet. That must have felt good!
I turned 40, which seems impossible and also just about right.
Our ward choir performed, which meant we had to be to church early to practice. Phoebe had been a bit of a...stinker...in the night and did not want to wake up in the morning. Here she is stubbornly asleep at 7:45 (we needed to leave at 8:00):
It was a scorcher today, but as hot as it was, tomorrow is supposed to be hotter!
Poor Rachel and Miriam are off to YW camp, where they'll have to suffer through the heat all week (their cabin has electricity, so they've each packed a fan and have a few more items to help keep cool).
The rest of us only had to suffer for a few hours at the swim meet this evening. Everybody was dripping—either from having just climbed out of the pool or from sweating to death on the sidelines—but we had a really great meet!
It was such a busy day between morning practice and Benjamin's woodworking camp in the afternoon. I changed into my blue shorts but somehow forgot to change into my white top (which I have to wear as a stroke and turn official) until I was walking out the door and Alexander said, "Oh, cool! You can wear navy blue and purple to judge now?"
No—I cannot! Good thing he said something! I had time to go back and change before heading to the pool. Andrew picked Benjamin up from his woodworking camp and brought him straight to the pool...it was chaotic.
But so good!
I worked with Alexander on his backstroke last Friday. I haven't been working with the kids as much this summer—in part because Rachel and Miriam haven't been around to help with Phoebe, who is still pretty hands-on in the pool, and in part because I've had bronchitis (have I mentioned that?)—but on Friday I did pull Alexander aside and we worked on getting his arms windmilling up-up-up into the air and down straight behind his head before pulling through the water.
And just look at how high his arm is, whizzing by his head just perfectly:
The kids had some tough events, swimming longer and harder sequences, so they were pretty exhausted (which meant they didn't always break their speed records in their regular events), but overall they did just great!
Alexander walked away with several speed breakers for his backstroke, 25 free, and 50 free—he is making great progress! His freestyle relay came in 6th...of 6...but since they had Alexander (7) and Atlas (6) swimming up with the 9/10 year olds...I think they about got what they paid for.
Zoë got 4th place in her IM, 5th place in the 50 yard free, and 3rd in breast stroke. Her medley relay got 3rd (and her freestyle was DQ'd). Benjamin got 4th place in his IM, 3rd in his 50 yard free, and 6th in his 50 yard backstroke. His medley relay came in 3rd and his freestyle medley came in 2nd.
To clarify: I'm doing pretty well right now. I'm completely overwhelmed by June—with working and taking classes and juggling a handful of writing projects on the side and...swim team. But I'm currently—and perhaps finally—doing fairly well.
Poor Andrew has been picking up the slack lately.
I'm telling you—I pulled (or strained) a muscle in my back at the beginning of April and it's just been one incapacitating thing after the other since then (barring my week at the beach, where my back had only just begun feeling back to normal...but, like, then Rachel kicked me in the head and fell on top of me in the waves, as you recall...so that took some recovery as well). Most recently I had a pretty severe case of bronchitis (like so, so bad).
Should I have gone to the doctor? Maybe.
Miriam did.
Right before she left for Europe we took her to the Instant Care (as is our tradition) and they prescribed her some antibiotics since she was still sick weeks later while everyone else got over their sniffles in a day or two. They worked great for her.
I was sick the entire time she was in Europe (because I refused to go see the doctor).
I'm feeling better now...finally...but it's seriously been just weeks and weeks of me being pretty much out of commission (six weeks recovering from a pulled muscle, three weeks with bronchitis).
Rachel and Miriam arrived home from London on Monday.
Grandpa and Darla stayed behind to do a bike tour through France and Germany, so Rachel and Miriam travelled home alone. They all went to the airport together—both Miriam and Darla got pulled aside for extra security—before going their separate ways. Poor Miriam had applesauce in her liquids bag and apparently it didn't pass the vibe...so after running it through several tests, security had her toss it, and then gave her a pat down. She was rather upset by the whole ideal (especially since she had brought the applesauce from the States...bug couldn't take it back to the states).
Anyway, the girls had quite the journey—their flight ended up being delayed, and then they were switched to a new flight, and then their flight switched back. They finally arrived home about four hours after they were supposed to.
I swear we were at the pool for at least six hours today, between swim practice and recreational swimming. It was hot this afternoon, so we went to the pool and friends kept coming and wouldn't stop coming (to loosely quote Smash Mouth), which made it rather hard for us to make an exit. At one point we had about a dozen kids from swim team at the pool (most of the homeschoolers, too).
They played Wax Museum, Go/Go/Go/Stop, What Time is it Mr. Shark, Sharks and Minnows, Refrigerator, and all kinds of things. Sometimes my kids were among the youngest there—and Benjamin and Zoë were particularly delighted when some older (more teenager-y) friends ordered a pizza, had it delivered at the pool, and then offered a slice when they realized they wouldn't finish. Other times Benjamin was the oldest one there and was delighted that he was the uncatchable one during Sharks and Minnows (because that wasn't the case when the older swimmers were at the pool).
Phoebe got bored of it just being me and her in the shallow end and requested to play in the deep end. She has never done this before. She likes to stay where she can touch if she needs to (if only on her tippy-tippy toes) and we've had to coax and encourage her to believe that her swimming skills are the same in any depth of water (if you can swim in 4 feet of water you can swim in 10 feet of water...or 40 feet of water...or whatever). She hasn't yet willingly gone to the deep end this summer, but today she did.
The kids were having a diving contest and she decided she wanted to participate.
"Sure, you can go off the diving board..." I told her, though I didn't believe she would.
She has always chickened out before (or has needed a lot of assistance to make it off the end of the board—like, having me lower her down while someone catches her at the bottom). Not today!
Today she walked right out there and jumped in the pool. She pulled herself up to a floating position on the surface of the water and started swimming to me like a champ!
And then proceeded to do it about a dozen more times!
Here's a video Benjamin took (while the teenagers were eating pizza, and before pizza was offered to Benjamin):
She did great today!
And then she was moved to play in the 3 feet zone with the kids when they were playing Wax Museum and things instead of staying in the 2.5 feet zone where she's played the past few years.
Soon she won't need me in the pool at all! What will I do without a baby to play with at the pool?!
I'll have to start...swimming laps again...or something...
While Rachel and Miriam have been "across the pond," we've been having a fine time here at home.
On Monday morning last week, Zoë came home from swim team practice and immediately began making cookies. She's determined to learn how to bake...and whipped up some delicious oatmeal raisin cookies...while wearing an apron over her still-damp swimming suit.
It's been a while since we've joined in a protest.
And today just felt like a good day to protest.
Today while Israel bombed Iran and Iran bombed Israel. Today while we waited to hear anything from anyone in Gaza. Today while a manhunt is underway for an assassin who shot and killed Minnesota state representative Melissa Hortman and her husband (and made an attempt on the lives of State Senator John Hoffman and his wife and had a list of several other targets).
And that's just today (let alone the past few weeks).
So we decided that we should show up, be counted, and make our voices heard. Even if all we were doing was screaming into the void...it was nice to do it together for a little while.
The kids helped make signs in the morning. I didn't know what to write on my first sign (there is so much—too much), so I settled on "UGH" and let Phoebe scribble on it.
The kids were worried about what Fun Friday would look like after our cancelled swim meet last night. No ribbons! No speed breaker splash-the-coach privileges! Would they even give out "swimmer of the week" awards?
Yes, they do! Because look who's the swimmer of the week—it's Alex! He was selected because he's always willing to help set up and take down lane lines.
I had a dentist appointment this morning and when I walked into my exam room (following the dental assistant), I was shocked to find the room full of people. My dentist waved a magazine in the air.
"I didn't know you were famous!!" she squealed.
Everyone clapped...and then dispersed and went about their business.
It was very embarrassing. Our dentist is...a really fun and wonderful person.
"My daughter went to UGA so I get this magazine! And I was reading it and I was like, 'I know her!' I highlighted your name and everything! It's just too bad that you're not showing your beautiful smile..."
Honestly, I'm a little crushed that of all the pictures the photographer took of me that is the one that they decided on...but...you know...whatever...it's fine.
And then tonight one of Andrew's colleagues at BYU (who was previously at UGA) emailed him a picture of that very same spread! So I really am famous now, I guess.
Benjamin celebrated his birthday at camp this year—along with two other boys. Their camp leaders threw a little party for the three of them, complete with cake and candles. The highlight of Benjamin's time at camp was canoeing on the lake. He's also proud of the fact that they put four kids in a ten-man tent and stuffed ten kids on a two-man canoe—getting all into the stats side of thing.
He was a little bummed that he missed the last swim meet (especially since Zoë did so well and he didn't get any ribbons at Fun Friday...because...well...he didn't swim), but he's excited that he gets to try swimming an IM at this coming meet (that's and "individual medley," where he'll swim butterfly, backstroke, breaststroke, and freestyle).
We opened presents after Fun Friday (so Benjamin is in his swimming suit). Phoebe wanted to have the best seat in the house right beside the birthday boy. And is she still in her pyjamas? Why, yes, she is!
Yesterday while we were playing Ticket to Ride, Phoebe (who was playing with extra train pieces from Mexican Train so she felt included) picked at a mosquito bite and made it bleed. Andrew got a bandaid for her. After he put it on she was still sitting there with her little lip quivering.
"Will it feel better by...the day after tomorrow?" she finally cried.
*****
Zoë wore a bracelet to church yesterday and Phoebe decided she needed it in the middle of sacrament meeting. This conversation took place in very passionate (on Phoebe's part) and very annoyed (Zoë) whispers...
Phoebe: Is that bracelet for me?
Zoë: Ummm…no. It’s for me.
Phoebe: How can you be sure?
Zoë: Well…it’s on my arm, so…
Phoebe: Then it could be for me.
Zoë: Not really.
Phoebe: But maybe...
*****
Alexander: *playing a song on the recorder on repeat*
Zoë: Ugh. Is Jingle Bells the only song you know!?
Alexander: No.
Zoë: …
Alexander: This is Mary Had a Little…
Zoë: UGH!
Auntie K pointed out that if he'd learn Baa, Baa, Black Sheep he could also answer that he was playing Twinkle, Twinkle Little Star or the alphabet song. And Uncle David pointed out that Jingle Bells and Mary Had a Little Lamb are really quite similar tunes, so if he can play one he could probably learn the other without too much trouble.
As we suspected Zoë had quite a few ribbons waiting for her at Fun Friday this morning. Uncle Patrick asked if she had robbed the ribbon giver—but, no! These ribbons were all hard-earned!
Early this afternoon Benjamin opened his birthday presents (more on that later), but we also got fun packages for most of the other kids that I felt kind of bad giving to them, considering we're technically celebrating Benjamin...but there the packages were nonetheless.
Well, Phoebe woke up around 3:00 in the morning today.
When it became clear she wasn't going to go back to sleep I let her get up...but made her unload the dishwasher. And then we folded a load of napkins together (she was actually getting quite good at it by the end). And then we did a reading lesson.
At some point she asked if she could go back to bed, but was unsuccessful at falling asleep.
So we got up again and put in a load of laundry.
And then the kids got up for swimming practice, so they all had breakfast together. I made Phoebe play on her own while I did some work and when the kids got home, I went down for a long nap.
Phoebe...did not.
She played in the basement with Alexander and Zoë.
I left for the swim meet early with the kids (and still had to park on the street quite a distance from pool) and got them settled in "the bullpen" and checked in for my volunteer shift—I actually switched shifts with someone else. I was scheduled to be stroke and turn judge for the second half rather than the first half, but I just didn't know that I would have the stamina to make it through the second half (given my track record this week—cough, cough, wheeze, wheeze).
Zoë sang the national anthem (as she has for every meet we've hosted for the past two years—I think she's up to five times now...but she'll probably sing next week as well, bringing her total to six). Considering she's also coming off a cold, I think she did well! That official was so nice (I'm not sure what his name is, but you can see that he tries to step in when Zoë lost her place in the song—and that wasn't the only nice thing he did today, either!)
This sickness has wiped me out, but I finally think I've rounded the corner. I slept so well last night and woke up feeling much better. I took the little kids to the pool for a little while in the early afternoon and managed to finally get a draft written for a writing project.
"Did Phoebe sleep well?" I asked Andrew when he came home from taking the kids to swimming in the morning...because not only did he put me to bed at 9:00 last night, he also got up to take the kids to their early morning practice.
Except for Benjamin, who is away at camp this week...missing out on his birthday...which was today.
"Not at all!" he said. "You should know! You got up with her around midnight. And then I took over and sent you back to bed and she didn't really go back to sleep until around 4:00 in the morning."
I remember years and years ago—approximately 30 years ago—the Schwartzbergs (the parents of my friend Jade, who had recently moved to Canada from South Africa) spoke in sacrament meeting. One of them—I believe it was Jade's dad—spoke about the importance of keeping promises to our children, even the silly little promises like stopping at McDonald's for a Happy Meal. He spoke about being called on the carpet for that one, with the kids reminding him that he had promised that if they _________ then he [would take them to McDonald's].
This was an amazing story to me because McDonald's was a luxury was rarely promised in my house growing up. We experienced it as a spontaneous surprise, perhaps (and, actually, Uncle David somehow had an impressive "Happy Meal Toy Collection" growing up), but I feel like it was a rare experience.
Somewhat reluctantly, I recall, Brother Schwartzberg made a stop at McDonald's to make good on his promise.
I'm trying to remember the exact gospel connection here. I'm sure it was something about how our Heavenly Father makes good on his promises. Maybe Matthew 7:9–11?
Or what man is there of you, whom if his son ask bread, will he give him a stone? Or if he ask a fish, will he give him a serpent? If ye then, being evil, know how to give good gifts unto your children, how much more shall your Father which is in heaven give good things to them that ask him?
Whatever the case, I think we should all be impressed that I was paying enough attention during sacrament meeting to recall any details thirty years later.
One of Phoebe's favourite treats to get at the store are the bags of mini sweet peppers. She loves them, will help herself to them, and chomp on them with breakfast, lunch, and dinner (as well as in between meals). But she went shopping with Daddy on Saturday and came home with a new treat—fancy carrots—and has been eating those like they are the best thing in the world.
Half our house is sick right now, so I (sick) stayed home with the sick kids and Phoebe (who is mostly better since she was sick early in the week) while Andrew (not sick because he was also sick early in the week) took the healthy kids to stake conference (and simply didn't want to battle Phoebe).
We (the sick ones) watched a few Friend to Friend broadcasts instead. And Phoebe ate like half a bag of carrots or something, getting increasingly creative with how she was eating them as time wore on.
Phoebe sat in an open-ended time-out for...I don't know how long...before dinner. Not an oppressively long amount of time, mind you. And it was her choice to be there, so I don't even feel too badly about it.
Our house is somehow a disaster, so before dinner I rallied the children to do some tidying up. Phoebe didn't want to help and kept screaming and crying at everyone so I told her to sit on the stairs and be quiet until she decided she could contribute to the household rather than simply causing chaos.
So she sat and sulked.
"Have you decided you're ready to help yet?" I asked her as I passed by the stairs on my way to put something away.
We said goodbye to the beach house on Saturday morning and then started on the drive home. Though we had planned a pit stop at the military museum on the way out to Florida, we had no planned stop for the way home. We were just going to more or less drive straight through, stopping only when necessary. We determined we'd eat our lunch at...some random gas station along the way.
It's always hard for me to say goodbye to the beach...even though I know that regular-ordinary life is piling up back at home so we need to get back to real life. It's just so beautiful...
When we got to the beach we found that the shallow waters were filled with jellyfish of sorts, so we were a little hesitant about getting into the water. Eventually we caught one and identified it as a brown comb jelly—so not a jellyfish at all. While jellyfish often have stinging tentacles, jellies are typically harmless.
The kids had their first swim meet of the season this afternoon. It was drizzling when we arrived and soon started a veritable downpour. The chairs that I brought got completely soaked. All the children's towels were drenched. Everything was soggy.
I had Andrew bring an extra canopy for the kids when he came. I should have brought one when we set out, but ran out of time to grab it. Next time we'll be better prepared. It would probably be good to set up the canopies when it's sunny outside as well, truth be told, so it's good we dug them out.
Here's Alexander doing his warm up (he's adjusting his goggles—you can see "A Heiss" on his back):
It has been so cold and rainy this week that they even cancelled swim practice for the youngest swimmers on the team yesterday. Zoë suffered through her session until she was told to get out of the pool to warm up before she went hypothermic (reminding me of my youth and being sent to the hot showers in the middle of practice...except that our current pool doesn't have a row of hot showers to retreat to).
Zoë woke up early on Friday morning and convinced Grandpa and Darla to take her and Alexander to play pickle ball. So by the time I saw her she already felt like the luckiest girl in the world.
After breakfast we headed down to the beach, where we found so many creatures. Brown comb jellies, sand fleas, clams, fish, crabs...animals were everywhere.
Here's Zoë pretending to pop a clam into her mouth:
I hardly took any pictures this day. When I got up, Phoebe was already wide awake, watching video montages on a phone. Sunrise was at around 5:45 every morning, so the day was already bright and well under way by the time we were getting up.
After scriptures and prayer Andrew announced that two children had bedtime coming up in 25 minutes and one child had bedtime coming up in 55 minutes (early swim practice means early bedtime).
"I'll take 55 minutes!" Alexander squealed, his little hand shooting up into the air...before he realized his mistake. He let his hand fall onto his face in shame. "I mean..."
"Yeah. You're a 25-minute kid," Andrew said.
"But way to jump at the opportunity," said Miriam.
Andrew didn't actually have to work on Wednesday, so he came to the beach with us in the morning for a quick splash in the gulf before playing tourists. It was another red flag day and the waves were just right for boogie boarding again.
Here's Phoebe enjoying some snuggle time with Daddy (she sure likes being held):
Darla tried to convince Phoebe to select a name other than Garbage Baby for her doll.
"How about Gabby?" Darla suggested.
"No."
"What about Gee-Bee?" Darla said.
"No. Her name is just Garbage Baby."
Here she is asleep at the beach house with Garbage Baby, Cookie (the pink thing), and Bean Bag Puppy, with Llama Llama at her feet. The two toys she named personally are Garbage Baby and Bean Bag Puppy. We're hoping her naming skills...mature...a bit before she has to name actual humans or something.
The water was much choppier on Tuesday, which made it perfect for boogie boarding (but less perfect for Phoebe, who has given everyone a real arm workout this trip). Here you can see Phoebe in Grandpa's arms, along with all the kids (except for Alexander) and Darla:
We went in to St. Andrew's yesterday to visit the Panama City Publishing Company Museum (which was fantastic, by the way), but we arrived a little bit early so we did a little self-guided walking tour to see the Oaks By The Bay park and to look at the marina and things.
On the boardwalk just behind the park, Phoebe spotted a baby (doll) that had been left by the garbage can.
"I need to rescue that baby!" she said. "Can someone help me to rescue that poor garbage baby?"
Benjamin went to pull it out of the weeds. It was a little waterlogged but otherwise in pretty good shape.
Phoebe is always so happy when Daddy finishes his meetings (teaching classes is what he's mainly doing) and joins us at the beach. Look at her grin when she gets in his arms!
I've decided that I'll upload videos later since there are a few more steps to that and I...miss my desktop setup. So for now pictures will have to do.
We spent the entire day at the beach on Monday. Grandpa and Darla headed out to the beach with the littler ones as soon as they got up in the morning—which was quite early because the sun rises at 5:45 am (and not until 6:30 in Atlanta). The sunset feels early as well. And I'm still trying to figure out the tides because...what is happening tomorrow? Some kind of reset button or something?
Here are the tides for Panama City Beach:
Look how small the difference is between the high and low tide! We have hardly been able to notice when (and whether) the tide is changing—it only comes in/out 2 feet over the course of the entire day!
Nothing untoward happened on Monday...except that several of us got a little too much sun. But Saturday, Sunday, and Tuesday have certainly had their moments of excitement!
On Saturday, Grandpa bent over to get something out of the fridge and when he stood up he bumped a shelf with his shoulder and sent a jug of orange juice crashing down to the floor. It split open and went all over the floor. It took two full bath-sized towels to mop it up (and then some).
I was just glad it wasn't my kids who made the mess.
On Sunday, Darla went to get a bowl out of the cupboard and the shelf—which was missing one of its pegs—tilted and an entire set of dishes came crashing down. Honestly, I'm a little vague on the details here because I was in the bathroom when I heard the crash.
My first thought was, "I hope that wasn't my kids!"*
*Technically my first thought was, "I hope no one is hurt!" But that thought quickly passed because there wasn't any associated screaming. So it was clear that something had broken and not someone. So my more permanent thought was, "I hope that wasn't my kids!"
We had the option of attending church in person at 10:00 in the morning, but the girls' friend Jessica was giving her mission farewell talk so we decided to Zoom into our ward. Our home ward meets at 9:00 AM, which is already early enough...but we're in central time currently so that meant church was at 8:00 AM for us (which felt really early to have church during vacation, but it was a wonderful service).
After church we packed a picnic lunch and got ready for a visit to St. Andrew's State Park. Grandpa doesn't feel we should swim on the sabbath, so his plan was to not to. We had no problem making alternative-to-the beach plans with him, though I don't have the same qualms about the beach on Sundays. I mean, we don't typically go to our pool on Sunday—because we do other things to keep the Sabbath holy that day—but the beach feels different to me somehow.
Maybe I would say no to the beach if we lived at the beach, but we don't live at the beach so...it feels okay to me to marvel at God's planet on the sabbath...even if we happen to get wet doing it.
Anyway, we went to St. Andrew's after church and hiked a little trail by Alligator Lake (where we saw only one gator). Phoebe got to ride on Grandpa's shoulders for quite a while, which she was very happy to do.
We left for our trip quite uneventfully. Alexander and Zoë rode with Grandpa and Darla. Our van was quiet with the rest of the kids in there. We listened to Hamilton until Columbus, where we stopped at the Infantry Museum (which has been declared America's #1 Free Museum for several years in a row). It was a pretty good stop to make, especially on such a rainy day—we had plenty of space to stretch our legs inside and by the time we were ready for our picnic lunch things had dried up a bit.
Phoebe and I were snuggling in bed the other morning and I decided to ask her about her favourite things. Just to make conversation.
"What's your favourite colour?" I asked.
"Umm...all of them!" she said.
"I feel that," I said...because she seems to have inherited my own dis/satisfaction with everything in the world. I simply don't understand how to choose a favourite colour. That feels like too big of a commitment. I admit to feeling drawn to certain colours of certain items at times, but I don't feel like I often seek out specific colours for things...if that makes sense. All colours are beautiful.
"What's your favourite animal?" I asked next.
"Ooooh! Dood question...all of them!" she said.
"All of them?" I asked.
"All of them—dogs, cats, horses, giraffes, lions. Just all of them."
"So what about spiders?"
"Not spiders! I do not like spi...well...nice spiders. I still like nice spiders."
"And snakes?"
"If they're nice."
"So you just like animals in general?"
"Yup. Hey, Mom—you know, like November, January, February, April, June, May, July and August?"
"The twelve months of the year? Yes, I'm familiar. Should we sing them?"
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