Revolving door

In stark contrast to my memories of babysitting children who just miraculously went to bed and stayed there, last night was...something else.

I've been struggling how to most accurately describe it. There's the idea of a revolving door, because that's basically how my door was functioning last night. But then there's the idea of a jack-in-the-box with that door flying open every few minutes, startling me out of whatever drowsy torpor I'd managed to relax into (not sleeping...quite...but almost). It was bad.

First it was Zoë, I think. She'd had a nightmare. 

(No, first it was Alexander, just screaming in his bed; I went in to comfort him and retuck him in and so forth and then left and then Zoë came into our room).

I told her she could sleep in the cozy chair in the corner. 

Next thing I know she's speaking right into my face: "I can't sleep in the chair."

"You can sleep on the floor, then. There's an extra pillow in the corner."

A few minutes later she's speaking right into my face again: "I can't sleep on the floor either."

Then back to bed she goes. 

A few minutes later, she runs into our room again: "Still can't sleep. It's too scary."

Nope. Gotta get back to bed. 

Cats and ceilings and things

Our cat, Andrew was surprised to learn, can exit what we refer to as "The Lego Room" without using the door. 

Benjamin is typically in charge of putting kitty to bed each night and he's gotten in trouble a time or two for not securing her properly. He will swear up and down that he put her in The Lego Room and closed the door and doesn't know how she keeps getting out! But, of course, by the time any parent has gotten down there to investigate, the door is wide open (so there's no evidence that it was ever closed).

For the record, I have—time and again—taken Benjamin's side of this issue. 

My theory has long been that the cat climbs into the ceiling somehow. We have a drop ceiling in half our basement and it opens up into The Lego Room. From the very first day we got her and she simply disappeared—we couldn't find her anywhere—I started to suspect that she'd been finding her way into the ceiling. And for a very good reason!

I've blogged about this before, but I'm going to write about it really quickly (even though I should probably be finishing my reading for my class; but I'm all jittery-mad from the presidential debate so I'm going to write it off) because, well, I think it's interesting how a story can be told in different ways at different times. As it's remembered differently different details come to light. And maybe some details are changed while others stay the same. That's how memories are. Having someone give more than one version of a single event doesn't particularly ruffle my feathers.

Anyway...

Various hilarious household disasters

Yesterday Andrew announced (on Twitter, because apparently he wasn't excited enough about it in order to tell me personally) that he had a publication accepted, which is a Big Deal in this publish-or-perish profession and Andrew's been in a bit of a(n inexplicable because his stuff is really quite good) publication drought. It's "only" a book chapter, though, so it doesn't really "count" toward tenure requirements although it is something (which is better than nothing). Further, it had already been through numerous submissions and ended up being accepted at a lower ranking press than the editor of the book had hoped but, again, it's something. 

So I when I saw this announcement on Twitter I went to congratulate Andrew on purpose and while I was standing there congratulating him on having his book chapter accepted Andrew got another notification that one of his papers had been accepted—this time at the top journal for non-profit research! This one he was rather ecstatic about because...it's kind of a big deal! So we high-fived and squealed and whatever and then both admitted that we had no idea what to make for dinner because...making dinner is kind of a drag. But has to be done every day. And everything is just so monotonous but also terribly anxiety inducing and the world doesn't even make sense anymore so who cares about dinner, anyway?

I said we could do something with rice.

Andrew said, "Rice and pot stickers."

"You hate pot stickers," I said.

"We have to get rid of them," he pointed out.

This is true. We have been avoiding pot stickers because usually Andrew teaches a couple of evenings a week and isn't home for dinner. And that's when the kids and I go hog wild on all the kinds of things Andrew doesn't like to eat—like pot stickers and stir fry vegetables. But he's been home for the past seven months, which I'm not really going to complain about...except that it means we haven't had as many American-Chinese cuisine nights at our house.

So I made rice and pot stickers and stir fry vegetables for dinner last night (which meant that to celebrate Andrew's achievement of landing two publications in a single day he got to eat rice with soy sauce for dinner). I use the word "made" lightly. 

Doggerel: Nailed It!

We're reading The Scarlet Pimpernel together, which the children are finding rather amusing (at least those over the age of two). In recent chapters we've come across the word doggerel more than once (chapter XII and XIV, to be precise) as Sir Percy Blakeney (that inane man) enjoys spouting off-the-cuff, bad poetry, like this verse he recites about the Scarlet Pimpernel:

We seek him here, we seek him there,
Those Frenchies seek him everywhere.
Is he in heaven?--Is he in hell?
That demmed, elusive Pimpernel

Unsure of the exact meaning of doggerel, we looked it up (it's just bad poetry, my friends (your dog speaks more eloquently), often seeming to poke fun at something somewhat serious) and then read some famous doggerel-style poems (by McGonnagall and Ogden Nash, who had us in stitches). We also discussed nursery rhymes, as well as Dr. Seuss and Shel Silverstein, both of whom the children considered to be expert doggerel-ists. 

And then, because writing poetry is entertaining, we tried our hand at some doggerel, ourselves (which, I mean, honestly, bad poetry is kind of my jam, so it was quite a lot of fun). I don't even know whose poetry to begin with—they're all so bad-good—so I'll just go in age order beginning with Zoë (Alexander didn't really participate on account of...he's two...though he does like thinking up rhymes and making up songs he was more interested in racing the cat around the house).

Zoë's poems:

Oh, COVID 19, I hope you're gone soon.
I wish you would go up to the moon.
I hope you would rot up in a pot!
You're something I hope I never got!

(We assured her it was alright to use "got" here, even though it doesn't really make sense, grammatically. This is doggerel, after all!)

A bad omen

So, that last post went way off track. What I had really intended to do was share this little joke/prank that Zoë pulled on me today.

"How about I say a word and you spell it," she suggested. "And then I'll define it!"

"Weird game, but okay," I said. 

She's super into definitions (and synonyms) lately (not that I'm complaining). 

"How do you spell bad?" she asked.

"B-A-D," I answered. 

"That means something not good," she said. "How do you spell omen?"

"O-M-E-N," I answered.

Weird word choice, but the kids had all been playing together unsupervised that morning and Halloween season is coming up and so their games are getting a little Halloween-y themed. Plus, you know my whole house is full of Potterheads. But still...weird word choice.

"That means something is going to happen. How do you spell scream?"

"S-C-R-E-A-M."

At this point she opened her mouth and let out an ear-piercing, spine-tingling scream that left me feeling completely unsettled (and a little bit deaf). 

"Wha...wha..." I gasped out, shaking my head.

"Told you something bad was going to happen!" she said, and then skipped off cackling.

Weird kid.

Science and stuff

 Miriam made up a joke while we were talking about the water cycle the other day. It goes like this: 

Question: How does water feel when it's vaporized?

Answer: Aghast!

Get it? A-gassed. So funny!

I have to pause here a minute to ponder about school schedules and teaching methods (since I spent a good part of my morning looking at different science curriculums for Rachel, who is kind of hating the curriculum we settled at the beginning of the year). 

Growing up, I was either the most oblivious child on the planet or (and I think this is more likely, though I by no means ruling out my own obliviousness) the schools I went to had more of a cohesive education model. I almost never knew what subject I was learning. There were times I was aware—PE was a pretty obvious time because we'd all line up to go down to the gym or outside, music class was another obvious class for the same reason, and French—but other than that, I'm not sure I ever distinctly knew what we'd be doing any given day. Like...I didn't grow up with a schedule on the board, with times and subjects carefully delineated throughout the day, as I've seen in so many classrooms in the states. We'd just, kind of, go about our day...

Sometimes I could tell, like, "Clearly this is science," but other times I wasn't so sure. 

Like, we studied birds in grade three and it was very all-encompassing. We read Owls in the Family by Farley Mowat (one that I should read with the kids this year, probably). We studied various birds and wrote reports on them (penguins and robins are two that I remember specifically that I did). We learned how to identify birds by their beak shape and their feet and their feathers. We learned about flight and aerodynamics. We went for hikes in the nearby woods and identified birds. We did bird crafts. We dissected owl pellets. We talked about habitats and endangered species and our duty to protect vulnerable creatures. We...had no idea when what we were doing was science or social studies or language arts because our teacher never told us. And everything sort of overlapped and ran into each other.

I'm sure our teacher knew what we were studying when.* But we—the kids—had no idea.

Whose arms are whose?

It's been so chilly here the past little while that we haven't been going to the pool (even though it's technically still open). I know we'll really regret skipping out on the last week of pool season when it gets hot again before actual fall starts, but this week is just a little too chilly for swimming. 

Today I took the kids to the park to do a painting project I had seen somewhere, where you gather local flora samples, trace them on your paper, and then paint them to make a guidebook (or poster) of sorts. I thought the kids would do that, so we walked around identifying trees and plucking a sample or two. We were surprised by the variety of oak found in our park (sawtooth oak and willow oak look nothing like how you might imagine oak leaves to look, but they grow acorns (the sawtooth acorns are wild looking—with spiny little top hats—and the willow oak produces the daintiest mini-acorns). 

Anyway, we found all our leaf samples and then broke out our art supplies only to find that although I had packed paper and pencils and paintbrushes and clipboards and a picnic lunch, and spare clothes in case the children should get wet or cold or have a potty accident, and a million other things...I forgot the paint at home. So...yeah.

The activity ended up being a little anticlimactic, but that was okay because we got to stop by the park to play. Zoë and Benjamin were both dressed in purple, so I asked them to pause their play and pose for a picture for me:

I took more pictures than this one of our day, but I just wanted to throw this one up for now because I think it's so funny! It took me a few minutes to work out what their arms were doing. It's hard to tell whose arms are whose!

Buttercream, the Cloudless Sulphur

While on our family walk the other day we saw a "topper-ed nate" (translation: copperhead snake) squished on the road, which was less than pleasant, but we also found a cloudless sulphur butterfly, which was pleasant. 

It was just sitting on the road, so I urged it onto my finger (because sitting on my finger is safer than sitting in the middle of the road). They migrate south this time of year in droves, but not all of them make it and I'm not sure this little guy is one that is going to get much farther south. Perhaps he's considering hunkering down for the winter here (some do). Perhaps it's an older butterfly and doesn't have another migration left in 'em. Perhaps it was simply too chilly of an evening for flying. 

Happy Birthday to Andrew!

Andrew turned 36 on Saturday—a perfect square, he noted, since Benjamin has been studying perfect squares. "I haven't felt so perfectly square since I was 25!" Andrew noted. We began his day with presents in the morning because Andrew knew he'd be getting a new toaster since our toaster has been on the fritz lately (it was the cheapest toaster we could find back in our grad school days when we found ourselves in the awkward position of having been married long enough that our wedding gifts were starting to wear out but not having been married long enough to actually be making any money yet...so it really was the absolute cheapest toaster we could find). 

So he had to open that toaster, see, so he could have new toast for breakfast.

His birthday actually started much earlier than that because we let Daddy sleep in, but the three littlest who were so excited for Daddy's birthday (they just couldn't wait ( some were worried waiting might literally kill them (because some of them thought we intended to starve them until Daddy's birthday))) sang the happy birthday song to Andrew before they ate their breakfast.

Once Daddy was up we did presents. He opened the toaster last. Before that he opened a homemade Venetian carnival mask, which Benjamin constructed weeks ago and saved for this very occasion. He was so excited for Daddy to open it.

RBG and things

I have been a stay-at-home mom since the day Rachel was born. I was so naively confident that she wouldn't possibly be born before her due date, so blissfully unaware that I would spend subsequent pregnancies desperately trying to keep my babies inside while I counted up until the moment they could safely be born (rather than counting down to their due date, like a normal person), that I gave my two-week's notice precisely two weeks before she was born. 

She came two days early, the cheeky thing, and made me cut my last day of work just a few hours short (she was supposed to be born on Sunday but came Friday afternoon). 

I've worked several freelance jobs since then—tutoring, editing, and (when extremely pressed) childcare—helping put Andrew through school (and school and school) while keeping our family financial situation afloat. But mostly I've been a stay-at-home mom, which has also helped keep our financial situation afloat (considering how costly childcare is).

I think I'm pretty okay at being a mom (World's Okayest Mom, right here), but I'm a hopeless housekeeper, which usually doesn't bother me...until it does. I feel like I'm usually pretty good avoiding the pitfall of comparing my worst to someone else's best, but sometimes social media gets to me, too. The other day my friend was posting pictures of her magazine-ready house, gorgeously decorated for fall. And then I looked around at my house and it's just so very different from that. My house was a...mess.

On that day Gretchen Goldman, PhD was interviewed on national TV. She wore a yellow blazer. Her house looked spotless. Dr. Goldman looks like she had everything together. And then Dr. Goldman posted this to Twitter and I almost cried with joy: