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."

She had spelled out WELOME, completely missing the C. 

This is particularly funny because once when Andrew was in high school his parents went on a trip (to the UK), leaving all the kids at home. Andrew made a cake to welcome them home and proudly wrote on the top with frosting: WECOME HOME!

This slogan quickly became family lore and is brought up all the time. 

In fact, when Andrew came home from his mission, his family met him at the airport with a homemade banner that said, "WECOME HOME, ANREW!" (because when he was in middle school he made a sandpaper holder in woodworking class and used a wood burning tool to emblazon the handle with his name...almost. He forgot the D so it came out ANREW). 

Now Andrew is not alone and offered Zoë a warm WELOME to the "welcome misspellers" club.

Here she is redoing her sign:

She even made a copy with dot-letters for Phoebe to trace and Phoebe was thrilled to pieces. Part of our lecture was about involving Phoebe in things because older children are sometimes expected to indulge and entertain their younger siblings rather than exclude and tease them. We've been having a...difficult... week over here...but who does it hurt to include Phoebe in the making of a sign? Zoë is not obligated to use the sign. Phoebe is merely excited to be involved in the process...and it saved us some tears...and honestly probably kept Phoebe from bugging Zoë as much if Zoë had told her no.

So kudos to Zoë for figuring out how to positively involve Phoebe in this activity rather than chasing her away. It helps everyone to be kind to each other, I think.

Also, do you like our new "clock" on the wall?

Benjamin made that because we all keep looking at that wall to see what time it is and then feel a little taken aback when the wall is just...empty. 

We still don't know what time it is (it's just a paper plate taped to the wall), but at least it's less jarring than seeing nothing there.