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."

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. 

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):

Broken toad

While Andrew and I were moving a (big, heavy) bookcase, he...pulled it into his (bare) foot and smashed his toe. This was on...Saturday...last week. I remember because soon after we got it outside (for someone else to pick up) Andrew had to leave for the adult session of stake conference (stuffing his poor, throbbing toe into his dress shoes). 

It wasn't so painful that he thought it was broken. In fact, he was upset about it because online it said a hematoma of this nature was caused by trauma to the digit. 

"It wasn't trauma!" he fake-raged. "It was a light tap! I'm fine!"

His toe felt differently and remained painful throughout the week. The discolouration of his toenail was quite severe. 

I believe he will lose that toenail. 

He insists he won't. 

But he was in quite a bit of pain all week. I told him that if the pressure kept building we'd have to go to the doctor for a nail trephination to allow the blood stuck under the toenail to come out of his body.

He felt that drilling a hole into his toenail was a terrible idea. 

"It'll just heal on its own!" he insisted. 

"It'll fall off..." I warned.

"It'll be fine."

And then we went swimming as a family on Saturday. The kids love when Andrew comes to the pool because he'll roughhouse with them a bit more than I ever will. So he was in the deep end with them—not even in the pool with them yet (thank goodness), just on the deck, picking them up and chucking them into the water. 

And then there were three

First there was the Raccoon Wrecker. 

Then there was the Copper Popper.

Today...the Chipmunk Masher. 

That is to say, Andrew ran over a chipmunk on our way to clean the church building this morning. 

Miriam is feeling a lot better about her snake incident.

Qatar without the details

Once upon a time...way back in August...Andrew saw a posting for a job in Qatar. 

It was perfect for him, almost as if they had written the job description with his CV sitting in front of them. He asked if he should apply, and I said that he definitely should. So he did. 

And life went on...and on...and on...

We began to assume we simply wouldn't be hearing back about his application, but they reached out on November 10 for a zoom interview. Andrew responded in a great hurry, saying:

(Hi! I just submitted form. All possible dates/times work great for me so I arbitrarily chose three, but if needed, the other times are also fine too. Thanks!)

He came upstairs and faceplanted onto the bed. 

"I just submitted form!" he mumble-screamed into the mattress.

"What?" I asked. 

"I. Just. Submitted. Form," he repeated and then showed me the email he had sent (which left out the "the" that a native speaker would have used). 

"I'm sure it will be fine..." I said (gracefully not pointing out that he used both also and too in the same sentence, which is completely redundant—he didn't need to worry about that, too!).

Andrew's Talk: God will bless me for my faith and righteous desires, even if it doesn't seem like things will work out

When I was in primary and in young men's, the Book of Abraham in the Pearl of Great Price was my favorite book in the scriptures. I didn't like it necessarily because of any of the specific scriptures or teachings in it—though there are some good ones in there! We learn about foreordination, the premortal life, the council in heaven, and lots of other fundamental doctrines.

I liked it because it has neat pictures.

I've long been interested in Egypt—while some kids love dinosaurs, or trains, or Greek mythology, I was an Ancient Egypt kid. There are three facsimiles from Egyptian papyri included in the Book of Abraham, and I would pore over the symbols and little interpretations during boring talks and lessons. I would try to replicate the little pictures and include different hieroglyphics in doodles. I just thought they were cool. They made the Pearl of Great Price feel ancient and special.

As an undergraduate student at BYU, I majored in Arabic, which meant that we lived in Jordan for a summer to study Arabic in the Middle East. During our time there, we got to visit Egypt for a week, and I loved it. We got to see the pyramids in Cairo, of course, as well as a bunch of ancient temples and other religious and royal complexes in Luxor. There's a modern Egyptian saying that once you've metaphorically "drunk from the Nile," or been to the country, you're hooked and have to get back to Egypt. After graduating from BYU, we did just that—we moved to Egypt for two years for graduate school.

During our time in Cairo, we traveled all over the country and visited as many ancient sites as possible. I particularly loved going to the different ancient temples and looking for temple symbolism in the architecture and art. During one trip, we rode on a rickety little minibus for an hour up the Nile to visit Dandarah, one of the best-preserved ancient temples in Egypt. The art still has bright colors and most of the buildings are intact. Surprisingly for me, one of the Dandarah temples has a large mural that—with some differences—is essentially Facsimile 1 from the Book of Abraham, which Joseph Smith interprets as the story of Abraham almost getting sacrificed to heathen gods in Babylon. I was so excited to see it!

Puddling and Panopticon

We did, in fact, make it outside to play in the rain. 

Alexander and Zoë got up at 6:30 this morning and finished all their (individual) school work by 10:00 this morning, so they were free to go outside and play. Benjamin slept in a bit so he had to do math hour.

Sometimes we have issues with...accountability...at our house. 

But I was talking to my friend Bekah in class on Tuesday and she mentioned that the teacher she's observing has this, like, surveillance screen on their computer where they can see the screen of every child in the classroom at once to know whether they are on the appropriate screen or not. And I was like, "Ummm...what program is this, precisely??" 

She told me, but it is not priced for private use. It's more of a thing a school district buys. 

But I was telling Andrew about this and so he, of course, came up with a solution—screen-casting through Discord! Apparently a lot of people do this for study groups and things, just for an accountability measure. And it seems to work for a lot of people. So Andrew made a channel where the children can stream their screens and I can see them all at the same time. That way I can easily see whether they're working on their math lesson (or whatever) or whether they're watching a YouTube video (or whatever).

And because the kids don't know whether or not I'm watching...they act as if I'm always watching.

The potential of being watched is motivation enough. 

Andrew initially called the channel "Panopticon" and we explained to the children a bit about what that was (some of them had listened to a 99% Invisible segment on Panopticon so they already knew about it), but he was like, "We can rename the channel to be less threatening...like "study hall" or something instead of the foucauldian panopticon. School-time to match gaming-time..."

So he changed the name to boring ol' "school-time" and there was quite an uproar about that.

It's back to Panopticon. 

Here's a shot of Benjamin looking at his own screen through his own screen through his own screen through his own screen through his own screen...

Screen-ception

Grown ups come back

After a long week of Daddy being away, we sure are happy to have him home again! Here are the kids eating some wafer cookies from Thailand that Andrew brought back to share with the kids:

Although Andrew has never been to Thailand, he has partied with people who have. 

Thus the cookies.

Bog-standard cookies

This is a cookie that Phoebe made for Rachel. Underneath it all is a bell-shaped gingerbread cookie. On top of it is a whole bunch of leftover birthday icing and some candies (and a goldfish cracker) arranged to look like a landscape of sorts—some earth (with a worm), a stream (with a bridge and fish). 

It. Is. A. Masterpiece.

On the Cover of the Rolling Stone

My dad, as I recall, enjoyed the song "On the Cover of the Rolling Stone," as performed by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. Today I learned that the lyricist was actually Shel Silverstein. Who knew? Not me. 

But this song has lived in my head for about as long as I can remember.

And today guess who made it into Rolling Stone?! 

Andrew! 

He's not on the cover...but they quote him, so...close enough!

They interviewed him about AI-generated papers that are being cited as real sources, how search engines are picking up on the fake citations, and the ways his students are using AI in his classes.

He's in a magazine!!

Where's my pants?! (part 4, I think)

Andrew packed a suitcase the night before he left. He never worries about these things very far in advance. He's just...a very confident packer.

He landed in DC and...I don't know at what point he noticed, but it was after he got to his hotel room and was going to freshen up before heading to an important everyone-else-was-wearing-suits dinner.

"Guess who forgot *~*~*~pants~*~*~*" he texted.

This was news was incredible! We have such a rich history of DC and...forgetting pants.

Rachel famously forgot to pack pants back in 2016. 

That same year, Andrew forgot to pack a coat for DC. 

And now here it is, 2025 and he forgot to pack pants for DC. 

Everyone needed to know about this.

So I quickly told everyone.

I can't believe it's not butter!

When we first began the conference tradition of a vegetable tray (back in our Durham days), it felt like a real splurge. But the kids loved it and begged for a vegetable tray every conference after.

And how do you say no to children begging for vegetables?

Our conference spread has...expanded over the years. Charcuterie boards came into vogue and we jumped on the band wagon and now the kids expect one of those every year—meat and cheese and crackers. You can see this year's charcuterie (courtesy of Benjamin) behind this beautiful bowl of hummus (courtesy of Andrew):

Happy birthday, Andrew!!

Andrew turned 41 on Friday. He was at a conference for most of the day and Zoë and Alexander went to a church activity in the evening and didn't return until much later than we thought. A friend of mine gave them a ride since I had to get Benjamin to swim practice and couldn't be everywhere all at once. 

Phoebe was so excited when Daddy got home because she's had such limited time with him the last couple of months. She was really looking forward to him opening his presents (she loves birthdays) and was very upset when he decided to initiate bedtime before the kids come home.

"But Dad!" she wailed. "Mom said presents before bed!"

Lucky for Phoebe the kids arrived in time to rescue her from her having to wait one more day for Daddy to open his presents. 

Phoebe did what now?: Reading in the wild and other tales

This morning Andrew texted to say that he was at the airport, beginning his journey home. He's been in Vancouver, BC, for a conference (APSA). His room at the hotel was on the 23rd floor, affording him a beautiful view of the harbour:

Tip Toe Injury

I'm not saying that I'm better than everyone because I didn't get antibiotics, but I am going to say that whatever illness we had this summer was a doozy. And I didn't get antibiotics.

I was violently coughing for a month. But I didn't use antibiotics to help me get better.

I think antibiotics are useful—a miracle, even! 

When we put Alexander...and then Phoebe...on antibiotics for their double ear infections this summer they immediately (within 24 hours) started to feel better. And their ears cleared up. And they went back to being bright and happy children who could hear and everything. 

A miracle of modern medicine. 

Miriam got sick the same time I did, like...really sick. Everyone got sick in early June. But Miriam and I got really sick. And then everyone got better...except for Miriam and me. And we took Miriam to the doctor to see if she could get some help kicking this bug because she had her trip to the UK she wanted to be healthy for. They decided it sounded like a viral infection that had perhaps turned bacterial (I understand that a virus can't turn into a bacteria, but a bacterial infection is not uncommon to encounter after a viral infection), they put her on antibiotics...and she started feeling better. 

And then Phoebe and Alexander got really sick while the girls were in Europe, I believe. 

And then Rachel and Andrew got sick after they got back from Europe. Or Rachel did. And then Zoë and Benjamin got sick...right before their county meet. And then Andrew got sick. 

I don't remember when everyone got sick. I was a mess taking everyone (except Benjamin) to the doctor...one by one...as they fell like flies. 

"And when did their symptoms begin?"

"Right...so...let's see...it must have been...uhhhh..."

Look—I didn't know there'd be a quiz! 

(I have calendaring issues!)

All I knew is that we had been sick for forever. And that we waited so long to take Alexander and Phoebe in that the doctor gave me stink eye about them both having double ear infections (which aren't even contagious, but I think this virus just caused a lot of blockage in the sinus region that their little ears couldn't even handle—plus I don't even know why she was so miffed about it because we brought Phoebe and Alexander in together initially...and Alexander had visible infection in both ears and Phoebe had fluid—not infected—which turned into an ear infection over the weekend...so we ended up having to bring her in twice...which meant double the co-pay...). When Zoë started complaining about her ears I took her in right away—no infection. Whatever. 

And then Rachel eventually went in because she had had a bad sinus infection at the beginning of the year and the doctor was like, "Why did you wait so long to come in?"

And antibiotics helped her...but I think Andrew went in before Rachel so...

I'm not really clear on things. Benjamin got super sick and even threw up...but then got better really fast. 

And just when we thought everyone had been through it...Miriam got super sick again. 

That had me really worried that I was going to get sick again as well and I was was almost crying thinking about it because I had only just stopped coughing when she got sick a second time. But so far, so good. 

My whole theory is just that because I was so sick for so long, my body was creating a ton of antibodies so I had longer immunity to whatever this thing was...and Miriam (who had used outside help fighting this illness) caught it again when she was exposed to it because she didn't have to make as many antibodies herself. 

But I am not an immunologist, so I could have this all wrong.

Whatever the case, we're all mostly healthy. Andrew is still coughing a bit. 

And...I mentioned an adventure with the fire alarm the night before Zoë's county swim meet...well, let me briefly tell you that story: the fire alarm in our bedroom went off in the middle of the night.

These fire alarms are touchy. 

Amazing Andrew

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). 

Andrew's been incredible. 

Nothing personal

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. 

Up with Phoebe

Last night Andrew put me to bed at 9:00 pm. 

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 got up with her?"

Tales from the garden

My garden has been neglected this spring. 

A very wise mentor of mine recently told me to leave myself room to fail—and I have! I have approximately 72 square feet of failure in the front yard (plus, you know, the rest of the yard)!

Sure, the annuals we planted have been pulling their weight. And little bits of zombified compost have popped up through the soil, reanimated tendrils lurching toward trellises—they're sure to offer us a surprise harvest of sorts. And friend who started too many tomatoes offered me her leggy cast-offs.

So it's all chaos out there, but that's okay because it's a beautiful, wild failure.

*****

The same friend who gave me the tomatoes gave me some clustered mountain mint last year.

When I say friend, you should know that this friend and I met on the Buy Nothing Group and our entire friendship is just...the exchange of plants and advice. And it's mostly me taking because—let's face it—my garden is pathetic and I need all the advice I can get.

She's been trying to increase the number of local plants in her garden—mountain mint being one of them. 

Like most mints, mountain mint is a prolific spreader, but it's less of a problem because the shoots it sends out tend to not root very deeply, so it's controllable. Also, it's native, not invasive. 

That mountain mint took to our hillside like it was coming home after a long day and has spread significantly since I planted it at the end of last summer. And that's fine by me. Bees love it—wasps and butterflies, too. It smells delicious.

"Is it edible?" Rachel wanted to know.

"I don't know," I told her. "Most varieties of mountain mint are, from what I've researched. But some aren't and..."

Long story short, Rachel picked a leaf and ate it. 

And she didn't die. And she didn't get sick.