A better day (in which no one gets impaled)

This morning was much smoother (thanks in no small part to the slight temper tantrum I had at dinner after Andrew came home, in which I ranted about everything that had happened during the day). 

The little kids got up and worked together to put away the clean dishes, practiced the piano, played a dominoes counting/adding game with Phoebe that I made yesterday but she refused to play, and started on their math work. Phoebe played nicely while I got a good bit of writing (for my coursework) accomplished with minimal interruption. 

It was (compared to yesterday) so marvelous. 

Here's a list that Phoebe made for a hypothetical sleepover that she'd like to go to some day:

It says: 

swimsuit

goggles

pajamas (triggered autocorrect)

toothbrush

toothpaste

pillow

stuffies

blanket

clothes

GO!

She carefully sounded everything out and then double checked her work. 

"Let's see P-L-O. Pillow. Yup! I definitely got all the right letters in!"

For our English and social studies, we read a number of poems and talked about where the authors were from (or writing about), looking some places up on the map, and talking about the beautiful language of the poems.

Lines and Squares by A.A. Milne

Enter Shadows by by Dalia Taha

Cities by Rick Barot (a little more risqué than my first glance realized) 

Rain at Night by Andrew Frisardi

While Everything Else was Falling Apart by Ada Limón

Ìbàdàn by Damilola Omotoyinbo

The kids wrote their own poems about cities...I wish I could have joined in on the poetry but I do have an essay due, so I worked some more on that while they wrote and Phoebe played.

Empty by Zoë

Mom snaps photos of us in the empty rooms in our empty house. I don't want to say goodbye.

I want to stay.

I wait for Evelyn to come home from school so I can say goodbye. When she pulls up we walk to the green electrical box, our favourite sitting spot. 

When she starts crying, the torrent of tears I was holding back bursts from my eyes. 

We hug each other for the last time. 

It's time to leave. 

She runs after our car, but it's too fast. 

I sob all the way to the airport.

Doha by Alex

At 3 am we’re driving to the Marriott, a three-day plane trip tires us out. All ready for some sleep we still have to drive. Look—the Museum of Islamic Art with spirally pillars going up. Look—the corniche lights with the Quran written on them, but wait there’s more. Palm leaf lights let out a steady glow—look! The Marriott is where we park. We go in and see torsoless statues in the lobby while signing in. We pop our ears as we go up the elevator. In the room we look out at the dark sky with the little tan and white houses with flat roofs. As we sleep it turns from night to day. 

Those are some wonderful drafts, I think. 

And here are some pictures of the kids doing some drawing and painting together:

They did a "yeti" drawing tutorial and then painted them to colourize. This was a compromise of activities since Alexander and Zoë wanted to draw (with a drawing tutorial up on a laptop) and Phoebe wanted to paint (but I don't allow water and laptops on the table at the same time). So instead of fighting about it they worked out this compromise.

Not a single child was impaled by anything today, no one yelled or cried...all in all it was a pretty good day!

Not every day can be great, but isn't it nice to know that not every day can be terrible, either?