A gripping tale

"Oh, dear!" Phoebe cried, barreling up the stairs and crash-landing, completely out of breath, in my bedroom doorway. "This baby's family got on the boat to Qatar and left her behind! I just found her in the basement all alone! She is so scared! What do we do?!"

This story has all the trappings of a very dramatic novel.

Xylophones and Pinckneyville: Crossing things off the bucket list

Downsizing is an incredible amount of work! 

I suppose one could simply rent a dumpster and empty the contents of their house into said dumpster and call it a day. But even that would take a bit of work (unless one also hired workers to carry the contents of the house to the dumpster for them). We don't have the luxury of a dumpster—and doing something like that would eat away at my conscience forever—so we've had to figure out what to do with everything. 

We took a load of old paint cans to be recycled here. We took old electronics to be recycled there. We took 20-year-old towels to the animal shelter. We took dozens of loads of stuff to goodwill. We've given away a billion items on the Buy Nothing Group. We left a bread machine in the kitchen for a friend who is in Mexico until after we leave. We meticulously disassembled our broken organ and snuck it piece by piece into the church dumpster over a number of weeks. We sold a few things. And yesterday we took all our glass to the park to recycle it.

*****

Years ago—in 2022—we got a case of ginger beer for Christmas. We kept the bottles so that Miriam could make a xylophone. By October 2023 she still had not done this, but she did manage to smash an entire box of said bottles on the cement floor of the basement while we were recovering from the Great Flood of 2023. That experience must have really taken the wind out of her sails because the rest of the jars sat for another nearly three years. 

I came very close to simply loading them up to take them out to recycle but then I thought to myself, "Come on! It will take all of two minutes to make a xylophone!"

So I grabbed the cracked funnel (that we haven't tossed yet but which we knew we weren't going to pack halfway around the world with us) and filled those bottles with varying levels of water. 

Boom—xylophone done! 

Extremely scientific. 

If I had wanted to take more time on this project we could have used a tuner to get actual notes. Or I could have used a larger variety bottles to make it trickier to know what order they would go in (though we did throw in an experimental bottle or two into this activity). Or, I suppose we could have done any number of things.

After holding onto these bottles for, oh, four years, however, I was simply proud of us for doing anything with them at all (aside from smash them on the floor). 

Alexander had the most fun playing with them, I think. 

WECOME, WELOME

This morning Zoë sat down to make a "welcome" sign for her friends (who are coming to sleep over tomorrow—because sleeping in an empty house sounds so exciting for any of the neighbourhood kids to pass up).

This morning Andrew also had the follow-up appointment for his toe and the doctor thinks it's coming along nicely. I think so, too. Andrew has other feelings about it, but also is noticeably in less pain so overall I think he's improving. He just doesn't like to look at it.

He picked up doughnuts on his way home and while we were enjoying them together we...fell into what we call "lecture mode."

Let's just say that Zoë and Benjamin are transitioning to being the oldest and most responsible young humans in the home and it's been a rough transition. They've been used to having four older humans waiting on them hand and foot so perhaps haven't realized that they've become capable older humans, themselves. That comes with great expectations. 

For example, Zoë was like, "I want half of that doughnut and have of that doughnut."

And Andrew was like, "Great, go for it."

And Zoë was like, "Like...what do you mean?"

And Andrew was like, "Cut the doughnuts you want in half and take them."

"By myself?"

"You're eleven!"

Yes, we cut a doughnut in half for Phoebe, who is four. But you're eleven. You can cut your own doughnut!

It's just been a bunch of things like that that they haven't ever considered doing because their bossy older sisters would step in to cut doughnuts (or whatever) if we as parents didn't do it, ya know? So we had to clue them in that they were getting older and wiser and needed to just step in and do...stuff.

In their defense, we took the chore chart down (and with it went any sense of responsibility, apparently).

"Like, if you see something that needs to be done, you can't just say, 'Someone else can do that!'" Phoebe added.

Exactly. 

At least she's been listening to our "please do stuff" lectures. 

Of course, the dishwasher is still full of clean dishes, so she's quite happy to ignore her own assigned chore...but...growing up is a process.

Anyway, we were deep in lecture mode and then—still in lecture voice—Andrew said, "And you're going to want to remake that sign, Zoë."

"What? Why?!" she asked.

"Go ahead and read your sign out loud."

"Welcome. Come and find me."

"Try again."

"Wel...oh."

Nature-y stuff

Going for "one last" walk on the trail at Pinckneyville was wonderful and heartbreaking because really, truly we won't have this in Doha. We will have many interesting things, I'm sure. But we won't have this and I have such a soft spot for moss and ferns and all things moist and verdant....

Highlights of our time in PTC

Making a list of what we've loved about living here was much easier than coming up with a list of things we were happy to say goodbye to. On the other hand, writing about all the things we've enjoyed and will miss has made me feel a lot more melancholy than writing about all the things we were ready to say good riddance to. I'm not sure items on this list will warrant as much rationalization to make you understand why they made the list (as opposed to the "lows" list), but we also know that I get...chatty...so I will probably tell too much about things anyway. Once again, they are offered in no particular order:

These are a few of our LEAST favourite things

We are in the single digits before we close this chapter and open the next, and that...kind of gives us the butterflies, honestly. We still have quite a lot to do. And the time we have left here feels both oppressively long (can we just be there already?!) and far too short (and ever shorter—how can we say goodbye?). 

Our house is getting echoier and echoier and I feel pressed to make every day be The Best Day Ever (although today we mostly stayed home because Phoebe was up all night complaining of a sore tummy and trying to make herself throw up...she did have a low-grade fever...and all the kids have had their run with this summer cold that is going around...so I'm sure she didn't feel fabulous, but it would have been nice if she had tried more sleeping and less gagging. She seems fine now though). 

Before Miriam left, we sat down to make a list of our favourite things and least favourite things about living here. Today I'll present the lows, which I'm not sure that I can necessarily rank in importance...so here they are in no particular order:

Benjamin's very churchy weekend

Benjamin was asked to give a talk on July 12—the Sunday we were busy at county—so I asked if there was another week he could possibly speak. We only have 10 youth speakers (on a good year) and 52 weeks in a year, so it's pretty easy to find an open week...but although I was told they'd try to rearrange things, we never heard back. He wasn't on the schedule the following week (which was good because we ended up going to Sam's homecoming instead of attending our own ward) and then we just didn't hear and didn't hear and didn't hear about anything this week, so we figured Benjamin was off the hook (since next week is fast and testimony meeting, which has no assigned speakers). 

But then the ward bulletin was sent out on Friday and, lo, Benjamin was on the intended program. 

So he got to work writing and came up with a decent draft. I read that draft and discussed it with him, noting areas he needed to explain things better, craft some segues between ideas, and more clearly develop the theme running through his talk. He was miffed, but sat down to write a second draft, which was much better than the first. I read that draft and discussed it with him, noting areas where he needed to back up huge claims (such as "the phrase 'fear not' can be found in every book of scripture"—do you know that? Or are you just saying it? You're just saying it...okay...perhaps do a little more research before saying it) and tell enough of a story that people can understand what's going on and glean the message from it, but without reading the whole thing verbatim. He was quite upset about this feedback but agreed to give his talk another round of edits. 

You can imagine how he felt when I sent him back for a third round of edits. Pretty darn frustrated, that's what! Let's not even talk about the fourth...

There was a little churl...

 

I'm kidding! I'm kidding! But it is kind of surprising how curly Benjamin's luscious locks get when they get lengthy. Unfortunately for him, he doesn't believe in combing his hair so it eventually ends up getting chopped. Lucky for all of us, it'll grow back.

I saw this picture of Benjamin and thought again of the poem about the girl with the curl and my brain immediately inserted the word "churl" for "girl" (but churl is a little too negative of a word, don't you think?):

There was a little churl,

            Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of his forehead.

            And when he was good,

            He was very good indeed,

But when he was bad he was horrid.

So I tried it out with lad. Not sure I'm satisfied with it yet.

There was a little lad,

            Who was never very bad,

Whose hair had grown wavy and wild.

            His mom cut it short,

            Cut it very short indeed,

While the child just impishly smiled.

His smile is particularly impish here (I'm not sure why he decided to smile that way). 

And because of the way my brain works I then jumped to mashing together twit and twist. But twit isn't very kind either, so I defaulted to scientist...but I suppose any -ist word could work here (though a lot of -ist words are negative as well...plagiarist...racist...narcissist...maybe my brain is just negative today because I'm sure there are more positive -ists out there).

There was a scientist,

            Who had a little twist,

Right on the top of his noodle.

            He thought up ideas

            Thought up several indeed,

And counted them oodles by oodles.

I am no Longfellow...

Killing time in an empty house: rain walks, nature wreaths, and craft dates

We have been blessed with a very wet summer, filled with plenty of thunderstorms. It's sometimes made our walks a little difficult to take, but it's been lovely to literally soak in all the rain while we can.

I took Alexander and Phoebe for a walk last week after a storm and they enjoyed exploring their wet world. Here's Alexander pointing to a little herd of deer wandering through our neighbourhood (they've eaten everything in my garden that we would have liked to eat—such a nuisance).

Miriam's last day (last week) and giving away the last of our food storage

Miriam had Andie and McKenna over on Thursday night (July 16) to play a few games and say goodbye. Tonight the kids are having a sleepover down there because that room is 100% empty (except for all the stuff the kids just dragged into it, I guess). After this picture was taken I made Andie and McKenna fill a box of food to take home to their families.

There was a little girl

 

There was a little girl,

            Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

            When she was good,

            She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow apparently composed this poem while walking his infant daughter up and down and around and around in the middle of the night. So it is appropriate that Miss Phoebe had this curl spring up right in the middle of her forehead the other day. 

She is so much better about bedtime than she used to be...but I do remember those horrid days of pacing the floor with her every night (and just the other night she had Andrew up most of the night because she just couldn't sleep and was so very sad about it). 

How are we old enough to have been friends with people for this many years?

 

Between the county swim meet and attending Sam Lewis's mission homecoming/report, we've missed the last two Sundays at our ward, so I'm sure we'll surprise some people by showing up again!

Thoughts two days out from swim team and two weeks out from moving

My brother recently sent a video of "bedtime" at his house, which was really of his 4-year-old and 2-year-old running in circles around him and jumping on the bed while declaring that they were not going to go to sleep. 

I don't know why he thought they'd go to bed.

It's late July in Southern Alberta. The sun even doesn't think about setting until around 9:45 PM so those children had no indication from the universe that it should be bedtime (and why should they trust their father about a thing like that?). Soon enough (like in December) the universe will be telling them it's bedtime by 4:00 in the afternoon...perhaps he'll have an easier time then. 

On the other hand, I'll bet he didn't take them to the pool for four hours in the middle of the day (like I did today). That somehow doesn't guarantee my kids will be worn out at the end of the day, but it sometimes works to shorten bedtime shenanigans. 

I didn't tell him anything, though. 

I just "laughed" at his video—the kids are cute even if they're driving him crazy. 

My mom, though, simply told him that parenting is...hard... 

And that is absolutely true. 

*****

We lasted two days without swim team to keep us busy before I threw in the towel and told the kids to get started on their math curriculum.

Double the Phoebes

Phoebe met another little girl at the pool today. 

"Hello!" she said. "Do you want to play with me?"

"Sure!" said the little girl.

"Okay!" said Phoebe. "What's your name?"

"Phoebe," said the little girl. 

"No, that's my name," Phoebe said, shaking her head. "What's yours?"

Phew!

I had my consult with the surgeon this morning and he feels confident this is not a hernia and I am not in need of surgery immanently. I'm also free to resume regular activity. So that's all good news. 

He thinks it is simply a lipoma (that is causing discomfort because it is attached to my chest cavity...like perhaps was inside my chest cavity...and then slipped out...I dunno...because it wasn't there before and now it is there). Whatever the case, I probably will have it removed eventually because it is uncomfortable to, like, lie on my stomach, for example. 

Plus, he can't guarantee it's benign so suggests eventual biopsy and the way they would biopsy a growth like this is to...remove it. 

But I don't have to squeeze in a surgery in the next 15 days...so that's good, good news.

In other news, we left this morning before any of the kids woke up. They all knew the plan this morning (that Benjamin and Zoë would be collectively in charge), but I left them a reminder note on the table, just in case:

Phoebe's Slide Face

Our neighbours threw the most awesome block party today (in our honour) and the main attraction was an inflatable waterslide. Phoebe was thrilled about this, telling Grandpa on a video call yesterday that she was super glad about it because the last time we went to a waterpark the kids weren't even allowed to use the waterslide, which wasn't very fair (and also wasn't very true because only children under 4 ft tall weren't allowed to use it...all other children were). She loved the waterslide...

But her face had me harkening back to her early days when any change in elevation made her cringe:

All Along...It was Hamnet

Approximately six weeks ago, Andrew ever so lightly smashed his toe (his words, not mine) and has been in abject agony ever since (my observation, not his). Last week it was so very sore and swollen and he decided to clip his toenail to see if that would release any pressure. He was unprepared when pus started streaming out from under his nail after he disturbed it. 

It felt glorious...but it was also rather concerning and finally convinced Andrew to go to the doctor—urgent care, of course, it being the weekend.

The doctor prescribed a course of antibiotics and suggested that the toenail might spontaneously fall off in the future. They also asked Andrew to come back in and have a physical exam during normal business hours (since Andrew hadn't had one since before his mission...in the year 2003). 

So Andrew went back for a physical. And that doctor looked at his toe and said that the nail probably wouldn't fall off, but recommended that he see a podiatrist anyway. 

Andrew put off that for a few days, but eventually did call to make an appointment because his toe was still dreadfully swollen and throbbing. 

He went in to the podiatrist yesterday and the podiatrist was like, "That's never going to heal. Let's rip that sucker off!"

And that's precisely what they did. 

Andrew was not thrilled. His toe still hurts. But it also now feels like it might one day get better. 

Meanwhile...

I recently finished reading Hamnet. 

Adventures in Buying Nothing

I have given away so much stuff on the Buy Nothing Group (and though other avenues). Here's a compilation of the strangest (to me) interactions and exchanges...

County! County! County!

 

Swimming is an interesting sport because we spent approximately 15 hours at the pool over the past two days (5 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday) to watch our three children swim a collective grand total of approximately 5 minutes.

It was certainly a marathon...for the spectators!

Fortunately, they do allow swimmers to leave after their last event and they always schedule relays first (at regular meets they are last) which meant we got to leave "early" after Zoë's relays. Still, it was a lot of hours at the pool!

I took this top picture because it shows our coach (Amy) as a child swimming for Gwinnett county and now as an adult coaching for Gwinnett county. There are 5 coaches featured on this slide for the same reason (and there seemed to be multiple slides of this nature). Such a thing is unfathomable for me (I currently live 2221.66 miles, as the crow oryx flies, from where I first joined a swim team) but is apparently the reality for many people. The Census Bureau claims that in the United States "nearly six in 10 young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up, and eight in 10 live within 100 miles," while this Pew study claims approximately 40% of people remain in the community within which they grew up.

Anyway, Andrew and I were both surprised by how many coaches in the Gwinnett county swim league were also young swimmers in the league.

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's...an antelope!

Today was another day when we didn't have to set any alarms! There was no early morning swim practice because the oldest age group had their county competition today. Benjamin has his tomorrow afternoon. Zoë and Alex have theirs on Sunday. 

In addition to some small things like laundry and dishes and I meeting with my academic advisor and whatever else, I also finished cleaning out the chest freezer in the garage and listed it on the Buy Nothing Group. And I sent out the Hancock Hummer. And I finished writing (and submitted) my application essay for the Certificate in Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies. And we went to the lawyer's office to sign a POA (power of attorney) for welling our house.

And I still have a million things on my list of things to do!

I also took a nap because we are trying to manage our stress levels. I'm doing okay so far. I can tell because I haven't even developed a twitch in my eye yet. Andrew, however, was silently thinking he was going blind for the past two weeks (but didn't want to talk about it because talking about it would make it real...so he went to the doctor while I had all the kids at the waterpark and the doctor suggested he go to the eye doctor...so he went to the eye doctor yesterday and they did all sorts of tests and determined that he has beautiful 20/20 vision, but might need reading glasses, and also that he's probably pretty stressed out so use eye drops and try to sleep more).

Here he is with his wacky eyes coming off of whatever dilation medication they used on him (apparently more solution went into one eye than the other so they de-dilated at different rates, which was pretty freaky looking):

Childhood games

We had some friends sleep over last night and they've been playing here all day. We started at the pool, where I ended up playing with Phoebe (the poor youngest child). She wanted to play "family," as she ordinarily does, and that's fine. I'm very familiar with the game "family."

We have one little baby doll (Baby Dora for the past 12 or 13 years, but suddenly Baby Anastasia, which is much fancier, don't you agree?) that we use in the pool. And then we set out the sinky rings to use as dishes and cook up a good meal, pulling ingredients magically from the water. Sinky sticks are for stirring. Reusable balloons are eggs. 

We just...bake a lot of stuff...take care of the baby...and take many trips out to sea...or have sunset picnics...

Phoebe will narrate the whole thing, which is usually fine. But today there was another family with young children at the pool playing close by and I began to feel self-conscious about how awkward Phoebe's speech patterns become when she plays this game.

"'Mother, will you hold my head while I attempt a back float?' I ask," she'll say. 

Or, "I say, 'This recipe needs three eggs, not four.'"

Or, "What time will the sun set?' I ask. 'We should set up the picnic,' I say." 

But she includes that little "I say" or "I ask" in every sentence she utters...because she's not really saying that or asking that. Her character is saying. She's just the narrator. 

I can tell it sounds strange to hear a small child speak like that because we definitely got a few weird looks. But that's okay because it's her go-to game at the pool and it keeps her entertained for literal hours. 

Waterpark with swim team friends

One of my swim team mom friends started a group chat with about a dozen swim team families, suggesting that we meet up at a water park this afternoon. So that's what we did! 

When we took this picture we had about 25 kids (though some more came later). You might think it would be difficult to gather 25 kids from several different families together for a picture, but this waterpark enforced "adult swim" for the last 15 minutes of each hour. 

Adult swim is not my favourite concept, but I do admit that it has a few perks. It forces the kids out of the water so they check in with their parents. You can reapply sunscreen, make sure kids go to the bathroom, take a group picture...and so on. 

We really took advantage of the first adult swim that was called. 

"Come on, moms!" one of my friends called. "We've got the pool all to ourselves. That's right—all of us. Miriam grab Phoebe. Who will take Baby Red?"

She marched us all over to the water slide and demanded we head up the stairs. It was really quite fun! We all went several times. 

And then the kids suggested a jumping contest off the high dive. 

It was also fun to just float around in the pool, taunting the children that we were swimming and they weren't!

Sparklers, take 2

When Phoebe saw the pictures of the kids playing with sparklers on the 4th, she was like, "Wait a minute—when did that happen?" 

So we had to tell her that it happened...after she had gone to bed. She immediately began to have some serious regrets about bedtime, so Andrew promised that we'd pick up some sparklers at the store on Monday and do them again for FHE. 

This sounded like a good plan to her.

Could she remember what they were called?

Absolutely not.

Sprinklers? Spracklers? Spritzes? Sprinkles?

Twinklers? Twizzlerss? Twirlies? Twinkles?

If she was talking about something yesterday, it was highly likely that she was talking about sparklers. 

Or trying to...

Unfortunately for her, there were no fireworks left in the grocery stores on Monday morning—zip, zero, zilch!

Every last firework display had been replaced with back-to-school displays. Yuck!

So I sent out a plea on the good ol' Buy Nothing Group to see if anyone had any sparklers left for my poor youngest child who had slept through the late-night fun the big kids had in the cul-de-sac. 

It took a couple of minutes but soon I had offers pouring in. 

"I have a few boxes!"

"I have so many left over! TAKE MINE!"

"You should have just asked me! The big kids didn't burn through my entire stash on the 4th!" (this last one was from our neighbour who had supplied the sparklers in the first place).

We ended up with plenty of sparklers—enough for Phoebe and all the cul-de-sac kids to enjoy another evening of pyromaniacal mayhem!

Here she is anxiously waiting for her first sparkler to...spark:

4th of July

Seven years ago, our first ward activity was the 4th of July breakfast, just the day after we closed on our house here! It's fitting, I suppose, that our last ward activity here was also the 4th of July breakfast.

This year was much smoother for us than some years have been. Last year we noped out of there because Alexander had a raging ear infection and it was so hot and humid and the pancakes weren't ready and no one had told us there would be swimming so we were just sitting there sick and sweltering. The year before that they started at 8 AM instead of 9 AM and we collectively decided that no one wanted to get out of bed at 7:00 on a Saturday (swim season already has us up early most mornings). We've skipped out on several other years as well... 

This holiday can be a tough one for me. 

Miriam's last Sunday

 

Today was Miriam's last week at our ward. Technically she still has one more Sunday left in Georgia, but we aren't going to our ward next week. So this was it for her. 

Funemployed...in Greenland [Qatar]

We had been operating under the assumption that I could continue working remotely from Qatar, but unfortunately we recently learned that that will not be a possibility. Since I am moving for personal and not professional reasons (unlike Andrew, who is moving for professional reasons), UGA can't allow me to continue to work, which means that I lose my stipend and scholarship. 

Which is all...fine. 

It simply...changes...my path toward graduation a little. I'll still continue my studies, just...differently...than before. 

We're still working out precisely what changes this will entail. But it'll be fine. 

It is a little sad for me because I've liked my job, but it will also be nice to slow down a bit and focus more on being a mom and (Andrew says this part is important) having fun. 

To get a scholarship/stipend at UGA you have to work part-time (13 to 20 hours a week, depending on the contract) and you also have to take 12 credit hours (that's four classes; three classes is considered full time). Last semester, in particular, felt a little rough for me, so I think it will be nice to let that go...and then I can be more present during our homeschooling. The past couple of years I've really had to assign the kids their tasks and work on my own tasks instead of joining in on tasks with them (and honestly the latter can be much more fun—and sometimes effective—for all of us). 

So that will be nice. 

But Andrew also insists that I become like the fancy housewives from, like, a Jane Austen novel and just...frolic about the town...and have mid-afternoon teas...and whatever. 

He insists that it's funemployment rather than unemployment. 

Stripey kids

 I came across this memory of a very stripey outfit that Rachel put together for Zoë on July 3, 2017:

I noted on Facebook: "Rachel dressed Zoë this morning. She wanted everything to, uh, match. So, rainbow-striped shirt (18 months), rainbow-striped pants (9 months), rainbow-striped hair bow, and striped socks."

Oh, what do you do in the summertime?

It was hot today.

Our swimmers were hosed down with cold water while they swam because the pool was a little too warm to work out in. It was hot yesterday morning—hot enough that we got hot just playing around and had to go home to cool down. 

We didn't plan on extra pool time today because...it was just too hot.

But our little neighbour knocked on the door asking if they could have phase two of the water fight they started last night. 

"Only this time can we use your hose?" he requested. "Because my dad is working. I can bring all my water balloons! I just need a grown up to fill the tub with water!"

So that's just what we did because...it was hot!

We brought out one of our empty bins as well. I haven't decided on the fate of this bin yet (it doesn't have a lid) but it made an excellent little pool today. 

Here's Phoebe dancing around in the arc of water from the hose (I had to keep making water rainbows for the kids to run under while I filled the bins with water).

Sounding things out

Apparently Phoebe's doll Anastasia turns one in just five days (we're on a countdown until the party—it's going to be huge, I'm told...there's fireworks and everything). 

Mountain mint

It is wild how quickly the mountain mint I planted has taken over my garden. Not that I mind! 

It's native to Georgia, the deer don't eat it, pollinators love it. 

Our relator was like, "And we'll have to get some landscapers out to remove all this weedy overgrowth..."

And I was like, "Sure...weeeeeds..."

I don't want to seem like I'm attached to this house or what happens to it. I'm not. I don't really care what the future owners do with the yard. But I am also a little morally opposed to overly manicured lawns when we could be planting things that could do a little more for the ecosystem. 

So I have this huge swath of mountain mint on one of our terraces and I think it's great. It's absolutely teeming with pollinators. The kids joke about how bad it would be to fall into the mountain mint and make all the bees angry...but they're mostly content to sit nearby and watch the bees and things buzz around. 

Now, you might be asking, "Why on earth would you want this in your yard? Isn't this The Summer of Stings? Don't you feel responsible for drawing all these bees to your yard and endangering your children?"

Not at all!