Buses

I'm a huge fan of public transportation. This probably doesn't come as a surprise considering I only got my license a year and a half ago. Unfortunately, due to the makeup of our communities in North America many—if not most—have inadequate public transportation systems. I've griped about this before.

Basically, I think buses should be more plentiful and cars should be...less plentiful.

To catch the bus here, I'd have to walk over a mile (along a busy road with no sidewalk). It is impossible to take public transportation to Rachel's school (at least via google maps—it says walking is the fastest option and gives no bus route options). Any bus that I can catch on the main road runs every hour. When the girls see a "city bus" they get excited...because it's unusual.

I'm grateful for our van and I'm also grateful that I can drive (even if I don't love it). I'm even more grateful for our scooter and for the weather we have here that allows Andrew to ride it so often (because gassing up the scooter is much cheaper than gassing up the van and if he rides the scooter often enough we can go three week to a month before we have to fill up the van). I just wish that public transportation is more of a priority to our society. But it's not.

I think this author hit the nail right on the head. He's discussing the need for better public transportation in Salt Lake City. A bus route through his neighbourhood was proposed by the city but his neighbourhood has been fighting against it:

One neighbor stated at a recent city council meeting that he found the very idea of rapid transit distasteful, simply because “families and children don’t ride buses.” I know he doesn’t represent the majority of people in the neighborhood, but I would have hoped such a view would have been widely criticized and shamed as wrong for the 21st century. This attitude denigrates public transportation users as a ‘certain kind’ of undesirable for two reasons: one is clearly based in class prejudice and the other based in custom. If poor people are the only ones riding public transportation, we as a culture have completely misunderstood the importance and need for public transportation. Its greatest benefits accrue when we value public transportation for everyone—families and singles, elderly and young, rich and poor. This requires a cultural transformation, and the reality is, it also requires making public transportation more convenient and accessible.

Public transportation needs to be convenient and accessible (in respect to location, travel time, and cost per ride). I'm sure there's some sort of bussing initiative someone could think up to encourage people to ride the bus...if a city would make a leap to make buses more available.

With the recent snow storm (the forecast says we're due for several inches this coming weekend—I sure hope not) I heard several people talking about how unsafe buses are. I'm not going to say that buses are always safe (because they're not) or that they never slip on ice (because they do). However, I will say that buses are generally safer than cars. They're designed to be safer than most cars and eliminate a lot of traffic (which means fewer accidents).

Anyway, I don't know what the solution is, really. I just wish we had more walking/biking/busing/metro-ing than individual automobiles. Maybe if we all talk about it and wish for it long enough it will happen...

Football vs. Eight is Great

This evening we had a baptism preview (called "Eight is Great") for the seven-year-old class. Each of them will be turning eight this year, "the time when a person begins to become accountable" for their choices (they've been taught the difference between right and wrong and have learned to recognize the spirit, etc.) "and can be baptized."

We had several speakers. The primary president spoke about baptism and read an entry from her journal about her baptismal day. She admitted to feeling scared because she wasn't entirely sure what to expect but that it ended up being a wonderful experience and she never wanted to forget how clean and pure she felt.

The children came up to sing a song.

The cub scout master spoke to the boys about their imminent initiation into the cub scout program. He also gave a brief introduction to the Faith in God program.

The activity days leader spoke to the girls about their imminent initiation into the activity days program. She also mentioned the Faith in God program.

The bishop got down to the nitty-gritty details of organizing a baptism program, date, interview, and so forth. He took the kids on a tour of the font and gave them some words of advice, which will hopefully help them feel more comfortable on their own baptism day.

We sang a closing song, blessed the refreshments, and ate. We gave the kids a white towel with a poem and a picture in a frame.

It took about a half hour to get through the program (which was just about perfect for a seven-year-old attention span), we ate every last crumb of food, and the men broke down our set-up in record time.

Seriously. It took three women nearly an hour to get everything set up perfectly—tables, chairs, table clothes, podium, piano, food—and about ten minutes for the fathers of the children to put everything away (including wheeling the piano back down the hall). I was impressed.

And then I realized that it's Super Bowl Sunday! Obviously there are no men in the primary presidency. We planned a church event smack dab in the middle of Super Bowl Sunday!

Although our attendance rate was high (seven of eight children attended the program with one or two parents in tow, along with some grandparents and siblings) it was obvious some of the men were ready to bust out of there (especially when it came time to clean up—never have I ever seen a group of men volunteer so quickly to get things put away).

(Next year Rachel will be attending Eight is Great. That's just crazy.)

Frozen

We have listened to the Frozen soundtrack so many time on Spotify that we finally decided to buy it—support the industry and no more commercials (win, win). It's fairly safe to say that two-thirds of our children know most of the words to every song (there are still some lines they sing funny—for example, Rachel asked me yesterday why Elsa says, "Up here in the golden air I finally can breathe." The lyrics are "cold, thin air").

Even Benjamin will sing along with 'Let it Go' and 'Love is an Open Door,' though he only sings one word for each of those songs (go and door, respectively). His favourite song is 'Frozen Heart.' He has choreographed a dance for it. And it's adorable. And I took a video of it but if I post it YouTube will get mad at me for copyright infringement or something so you'll just have to imagine his adorableness (and that of the girls dancing and singing to the soundtrack).

At first Miriam was really drawn to Anna's character but since then she's converted to being an Elsa fan. She was invited to a princess-themed birthday party for her friend Lauren, who, incidentally, had a princess-themed birthday party that we attended last year.

Last year we arrived to the party wearing regular clothes and found the house full of pretty, pretty princesses. Miriam was mortified—even after Lauren's mom said it wasn't a problem and found an extra princess dress for Miriam to borrow. This year, Miriam was determined to be the belle of the ball. She hired Rachel as her designer and the two spent quite some time yesterday coming up with the perfect Elsa costume:

A Puppet Show: The Boy Who Cried Wolf

We had a full snow day yesterday and the kids played together wonderfully. They watched a Magic School Bus episode while I rode on the bike, then we all did ABC Yoga together. While I had a shower Miriam and Rachel made some sheep (they got the idea at the back of the Sheep in a Jeep book), turned them into puppets, made scenery, and planned a puppet show based on the story of The Boy Who Cried Wolf.



I won't deny they were likely thinking of this story because I likened calling snow days to crying wolf not too long ago (and, boy, is that ever a touchy subject down here).

Anyway, I thought their puppet show was cute, especially when Rachel said something about the wolf wanting to show the little shepherd boy "what it was like to have his sheep attacked by a wolf." So then the wolf started "straying the sheep."

When we were re-watching it together, Rachel was shocked by her bossy behavior.

Around the time she was hissing to Miriam about how "you're not supposed to see the fluffy side—the audience is supposed to see the fluffy side!" her eyes got wide and she let out a little gasp before muttering, "Why hello, Miss Bossypants!"

It was probably good for her to watch herself being so bossy since she doesn't usually believe me when I tell her she's turned into Miss Bossypants. I think being bossy (occasionally, not always) goes with the territory of being an older sister.

She was also shocked to hear her own voice. I remember thinking my recorded voice sounded funny (and sometimes I still do) because it sounds so much different when I hear myself speaking. Rachel needed to talk about that a lot.

"So, that's what everyone hears when I talk?" she wondered.

"Yes."

"But I don't hear that when I talk. I sound different to myself."

"Yes."

"But everyone sounds different to themselves, right?"

"Yes."

It was a fun snow day project for the kids, that's for sure!

How's sleep training going?

Sleep training is going well. We've had a few nights where Benjamin's been in and out of bed like a yo-yo all night long. We've had a few nights where he's slept the whole night long.

Last night he woke up once but agreed to go back to sleep in his own bed.

Tonight he fell asleep in his own bed, completely on his own.

I put the kids to bed rather late tonight. Tomorrow's another snow day (no comment) and since both Benjamin and Miriam took rather long post-sledding naps they were in no condition to be going to bed when bedtime rolled around. Rachel's always willing to not go to bed. So we stayed up.

We coloured valentines and read stories and cleaned the house and played ring-around-the-rosie. It was a pleasant evening.

When I finally declared that it was bedtime the girls decided to have a sleepover and ran for the top bunk together. Benjamin followed right behind them.

The girls snuggled down in the covers together, each with a book in hand. Benjamin picked up Baby Norah (Rachel's very special baby doll) and cuddled her.

"Uh, Rachel," Miriam pointed out, "Benjamin's got Baby Norah."

"Meh. That's okay," Rachel said, shrugging her shoulders. "He'll give her back."

No tantrum or anything?! She's certainly growing up!

Snow Day

Here I go talking about snow again. It's like it's winter or something...

Benjamin woke up just as I was getting ready for bed last night. He was in a real panic because his door was closed all the way (I usually leave it open when I go to bed). I held him for a minute and then put him back in his own bed and stayed with him until he fell asleep. And then no one bothered me until nearly 9:00 this morning! It was wonderful!

The girls had already eaten breakfast and were on their way to head outside to play in the snow by the time Benjamin had finished nursing. They couldn't wait to get outside and were very excited about all the tracks they could see in the yard: deer tracks, rabbit tracks, bird tracks, squirrel tracks. We know our yard boasts a menagerie but we don't often see much solid evidence of that fact (so perhaps it's not so menagerie-ful in that sense of the word).

Some serious snow...for these parts

School let out three hours early today due to the threat of winter weather and Rachel came home expecting snow to start falling any second. She was bouncing off the walls with anticipation. She kept checking forecast.io to see how many minutes until it was "supposed" to start snowing. Then she'd set the timer on the microwave and when it beeped she'd rush to the window to check for snow. She even had a theme song.

"No-flakes! No-flakes! No-no-no-no snowflakes!" she sang as she raced through the house checking windows on all sides.

I endured six hours of this before it finally started snowing. Six hours!

Rachel had Benjamin and Miriam in quite a tizzy, too! All three of them were racing around the house singing about no-flakes and snowflakes and screaming and bumping into each other and falling down.

Finally I told the girls to bundle up because they were going to head outside to wait for the snow (that I was beginning to lose hope in). And, boy, did I ever bundle them up! Sweaters, snow pants, scarves, boots, hats, mittens—the works! It was already below freezing so not only did I not want them to freeze I didn't even want them to notice that they were cold.

"And don't come inside until you're good and cold," I warned them as I sent them packing across the street to play in the neighbour's backyard.

Benjamin was so sad about being left behind in the house with boring old mom so I took pity on him, bundled him up, and wandered around in the yard with him until Andrew came home.

It still hadn't started snowing when the girls came home from the neighbour's. We made grilled cheese sandwiches for dinner (with soup and broccoli (raw, which everyone loves—or at least tolerates)).

Soon after dinner someone noticed that the weather report said it was currently snowing. We checked outside but couldn't see anything but then...but then we did! And there was much rejoicing (from everyone except Benjamin, who cried—because snow is awful).

We bundled up for a family walk. The girls pranced around the street pretending it was a slippery ice rink. It wasn't remotely slippery but they ended up falling several times anyway. When we got home from our walk they still didn't want to go inside so I told them they could keep playing on the back deck (where the snow had begun to stick). They didn't want to play outside in the dark alone so I took one for the team and played outside with them (I really don't like being cold). Andrew had tons of reading to do (that's always his excused—it's like he's in the middle of a doctorate degree or something).

Here are a bunch of pictures we took. Bear with us. This is the first time we've seen real snow since early 2012, which is the first time in memory for some of us. It was a little bit exciting.

A cardboard box

We got a package on Saturday. The kids couldn't have cared less about what was inside. They just wanted the box.

This boy!

There's never a dull moment over here with Benjamin around.

The other day he walked around with a metal bowl on his head for the longest time. It was quite entertaining.

Outside time

This afternoon we took advantage of the 60°F weather. We have another cold front moving in—promising several inches of snow according to the forecast, so already school is getting out early, people are scrambling for bread and milk and other comfort foods, as well as winter gear like sleds and gloves and things.

We're not going to buy a sled. Our kids can take apart that cardboard box they've been playing with for the past several days if they're desperate for a slide. Garbage bags work as well. We'll get creative. I think the only thing my kids want is to build a snowman.

We have a few pairs of hand-me-down snow pants that we've been holding onto for these "just in case" moments. As my friend Becky told me when she gave me her son's too-small snow pants, "I wouldn't recommend buying winter gear, necessarily, but it's nice to have sometimes—if you can get it for free."

I remain doubtful of the forecast, but I still don't like cold fronts. Avoiding the cold is the whole reason we moved here! You know, besides grad school and all that. Anyway, that's why we went outside—to soak up some sunshine before it's too cold to be pleasant.

Rachel wouldn't play with us after school. She came home with a headache. She stayed inside to read. She totally missed out.