Greensboro and Stagville

I've been terrible about blogging the past couple of weeks. Instead I've been kept seriously busy reading all the stories, playing all the games, watching all the movies, baking all the cookies, and doing all the things. That has left very little time for writing, but I feel like I need to "put myself back in the narrative," if you will because telling my life story gives me a whole lot of joy for some reason.

I'm reading A Little Princess right now, which I frankly can't remember if I've read before or not (though I know I've definitely seen the Shirley Temple version of the screenplay (which I should probably put on the to-watch list for the girls)) but which has been a charming read. Sara is such a wise character (and nobody can pout as well as Shirley Temple can) and I just love so much of what she says. Today this quote stuck out to me (and reminded me to take some time to write some of my story down):

"Everything's a story. You are a story—I am a story. ..." (p. 149)

Today we headed to Greensboro to visit the International Civil Rights Center and Museum—and by "we" I should probably mention that my sister Josie is out visiting with us for the week so she's here, too! It was a bit of a surprise for the kids so I didn't say anything on the blog and even after she arrived and the kids knew she was here I still found myself talking around the fact that she was visiting because I was just so used to it by then.

Anyway, we'd taken her to the North Carolina Museum of History in Raleigh on Monday and upstairs was an exhibit of photographs by Spider Martin called Selma to Montgomery: A March for the Right to Vote. There was a sign warning that some of the pictures might be too graphic for children, but we took our children in anyway. Most of the pictures weren't too graphic and I was wondering why they had that sign up at all...but then we found photographs taken after the teargas had cleared, photographs of bloodied bodies strewn all over the road. Sickening.

"Have you watched Selma?" I asked Josie.

She had not.

Later on in the museum we saw a picture of the Woolworth lunch counter sit in and we were like, "That's here?!"

We had no idea. Well, maybe a little idea. Like, we knew about The Greensboro Sit-Ins, but we didn't quite know that it was our Greensboro...

It's Christmas Adam

We went out caroling on the 23rd, but before we did we waited (and waited and waited) for Santa to check in on us, verifying that everyone who should be on the nice list was on the nice list. Benjamin was so excited to see him. See?

Race to Dad

Here's a little video we took during family scripture study of Zoë racing to be the first one to climb onto Andrew's lap.



And here's one that also features one of her newest words—ball—and shows off her excellent throwing arm. Unfortunately, I turned off the camera before she screamed, "MINE!" in Benjamin's face when he tried to climb onto Andrew's lap with her...



Poor Benjamin was getting rather frustrated by the time we'd finished filming!

Reading comprehension

Malala Yousafzai has been a hero of Miriam's for a long time. I'm not sure where she first heard of her, precisely, but I do know that she read and reread Who is Malala Yousafzai? last year, though we only got that book for her because she was obsessed with her story.

We picked up a copy of I Am Malala: How One Girl Stood Up for Education and Changed the World (the Young Reader's edition) at the library recently and she loved it. She kept coming to tell me something she found interesting or to read a sentence or two aloud to me. When she was finished she handed me the book and said, "You should read this next. I'm serious, Mom."

And so I read it next.*

I thought it was lovely. There were a lot of parts that I wanted to read aloud and remember for later, so many that I'm debating just buying the book so that I can look up passages again whenever I feel the need to.

I started the book last night—sitting on the floor beside Zoë's bed while she fell asleep—and I finished it this morning and put it into Rachel's eager hands.

"Have you gotten to the part where Malala gets shot yet?" Miriam asked.

"I'm past that part," I told her. "I already finished it and gave it to Rachel."

"Really?" Miriam was skeptical and started in on a line of questioning we've used on her dozens of times. "That's pretty fast to get through a book that thick. What movie did she choose to watch in her hospital room?"

"Shrek," I said.

"That's correct," she said, clearly taken aback. "I wasn't expecting that. Where does her family live now?"

Sugar Cookies

We went to a friend's house to decorate sugar cookies yesterday morning and when we pulled up, the girls saw that their neighbour had put up a "little free library" in their yard, which was pretty exciting. We didn't borrow any books from it...but perhaps some day we will. 

Christmas in Zarahemla

The theme for this year's ward Christmas party was "A Night in Zarahemla," and we were all instructed to come dressed as Nephites. We searched through our Tickle Trunk but everything kept turning up Middle Eastern, not Ancient American. 

11th anniversary

It's our eleventh anniversary today and to celebrate we actually left the house and got a sitter. And by 'left the house and got a sitter' I mean I begged my friend—and fellow nursery leader—and her teenage daughters to spend their evening entertaining Zoë (she's a screamer) so that Andrew and I could go to the temple. It was a wonderful treat because we haven't gone on a single outing just the two of us since before Zoë was born because, well, she's a screamer. We haven't left her long enough to go anywhere, let alone the temple (which is about a five-hour excursion—to get there, do a session, and get back).

We took the kids over to the Green's house, which they were all super excited about. Benjamin was trying to get ready all day and the girls were ready to take off the minute they got home from school...but unfortunately for everyone I made them all wait until it was actually time to go.

When we got there, Zoë happily ran off with Benjamin to find Ethan. She didn't even notice that I'd slipped out the door until about half an hour after I'd been gone (according to the girls). Evidently that's the key—she needs a friend who's close enough to her age to be interesting but old enough to dote on her because she's a baby.

A five-year-old friend fills that need for her. A two-year-old friend does not.

She did not do too well in her own nursery class when we tried it out a couple of weeks ago. My theory is that's because the other babies in there are too young to care that she's The Baby so they treat her like a peer. But she doesn't want that. She wants everyone to give her everything she wants whenever she wants it.

Anyway, aside from a few "sad moments" she apparently did just fine this evening.

When we picked the kids up she started giggle-crying, "Momma! Momma! Momma!" and then wouldn't even let me put her down to put her shoes on.

It's nice to be so needed. But it was also nice to get away from her clinginess for a few hours. Now that we know she can handle it, maybe we'll be better about going to the temple...though finding babysitters willing to put up with her shenanigans will probably remain a challenge.

Disintegrating and pepper

Earlier this week Benjamin started throwing out the word disintegrated left and right. I can't remember the context(s), necessarily, but it just kept coming out of his mouth. 

"My lollipop disintegrated right in my mouth!" 

"If I shoot a laser at the bad guys they'll disintegrate!"

"I just smashed up my cereal and now it's all disintegrated!"

Sometimes he used the word correctly, sometimes he used it in place of dissolve, sometimes he used it completely incorrectly. But there he was, using it. 

"Where did you hear a word like that?" I asked him because I'm fairly certain that I don't go around talking about disintegrating things very often... He didn't know where he picked it up, but it's a pretty awesome word to be saying, I think. But unlike what I usually have to do when I utter the words "Where did you hear a word like that?" I tried to find a way to encourage the use of the word, rather than discourage him from ever saying it again. 

We decided to do a little experiment on dissolving solids into liquids. We chose four things from the cabinet—oil, pepper, salt, and sugar—and then guessed whether things would dissolve or not ('dissolve' meaning that they would 'disintegrate' and 'disappear' and 'not dissolve' meaning that they would stay the same). Benjamin guessed correctly for all four things, though his reasoning was way off (sugar and salt would dissolve "because they are white and white is the same as clear and clear is the same as disappeared"). He had fun mixing and stirring and writing down his observations (and tasting the sugar water).

Here's Zoë ready to take some notes while Benjamin watches the salt crystals disappear:

She learned a new word from this experiment as well: pepper!

It's rather hilarious to watch her say it because her P's are super plosive. She scrunches her face up and holds her breath while her "P" slowly builds up in her cheeks before finally letting it escape: "PEPPA!"

That's a good first word to have, right? I'm glad it made the ranks. 

A little bit of Christmas...

Last night we attended Rachel's winter concert. It was fun to get to see her perform again, though Miriam brought along some Christmas search-and-find books in case she got bored. When Rachel acted offended by this Miriam said, "Rachel, I've already watched you perform this concert twice."

"Good point," Rachel said.

Miriam watched her perform at the mall and at the school assembly yesterday afternoon. I suppose three times is a lot of times to watch the very same concert. Still, she only looked through the books before the concert, politely tucking them under her chair when the show began.

Luminaria 2016

Tonight was our neighbourhood luminaria. It wasn't quite as well planned as in other years—instructions weren't distributed so no one quite knew when to light their bags which meant Andrew and some other neighbours spent a good half hour lighting all the bags up the street. And then we got to the clubhouse, where the main party was, and there were no bags lit there, either! 

The effect was still beautiful, just not quite as magical as it has been in years past where we've only lit our own bags and the rest of the neighbourhood is already glowing.