Zip-a-dee-doo-dah

This afternoon Miriam found instructions to build a rainbow out of LEGO and followed them precisely.

Tadpoles: Day 5

It's a relatively warmer though still rather drizzly day. We changed the water for our tadpoles. At first I wasn't sure where we were going to get non-tap water from but then I remembered that we have rain barrels so we have a decent supply of fresh rain water.

After changing the water we noticed little things swimming around inside—mosquito larvae! We spent a decent chunk of time fishing them all out.

2 days until spring!

Here's the accumulation of ice we had this morning:

They cancelled school for this

V-Day, Paddy's Day, Snow Day

Today is St. Patrick's Day so what better day to talk about Valentine's Day, right? I'm only a month (and three days) off. To be fair, Andrew was a little late delivering but that was only because it snowed on Valentine's Day and we were "snowed in." As luck has it we're "snowed in" again today (there's a three hour delay for school tomorrow) so it's even more appropriate to reminisce about Valentine's Day.

Here's all the snow we had this afternoon:

They cancelled soccer practice for this

A beautiful Saturday

This morning we had the opportunity to attend the baptism of a little boy in our ward. Andrew played the piano. I brought cookies. It was lovely.

Did I say "this morning"? I meant this afternoon! Last night was awful on the Benjamin-front so we kind of wasted our morning away and didn't really get moving until mid-morning and then it was time for the baptism. A quick stop at the grocery store on the way home put us at mid-afternoon by the time we got home. Andrew had a bunch of projects to work on so I took the kids on a hike by myself in order to give him some peace and quiet.

It was a lovely adventure and I took a billion (or 140) pictures, so prepare yourself.

Here's Rachel crossing one of the bridges on the trail. She remarked several times how silly these bridges were because they "didn't even do anything!"

Play time

This morning the kids went visiting teaching with me. The woman I visit teach has a little boy Miriam's age and a baby girl (who Benjamin finds fascinating). Benjamin was in heaven in their toy room, which had more cars than dolls (something he found both unusual and awesome).

Don't get me wrong, Benjamin loves dolls. But he also loves cars. A lot. And they have a lot more cars than we do. Benjamin picked out an armful of cars when we were leaving and though it was quite unreasonable for me to tell him to put them back. He threw himself on the floor and sobbed. He kicked and screamed as I carried him out the door. And then he saw a squirrel and forgot all about wanting those cars.

He's got cars at home, anyway.

This afternoon he was wheeling around the house on his ride-on car ($5 on Craigslist (thank you, Craigslist)) while carrying a little car in his mouth. He needed both hands to steer, evidently.

We've got sentences

Benjamin's become the king of two-word sentences. Granted, most of his sentences begin with the word "want," which he pronounces "uh!" But still. Two words in a row!

In the middle of the night he was up and fussing about wanting to nurse and I told him that was absolutely not a possibility and that he could have a drink of water. He (a) hit me and (b) said, "Want Dada!" before rolling over and clinging to Andrew. I don't know how long it took for Benjamin's spite-cuddle to help him fall asleep on the other side of the bed but his breathing did eventually slow down and even out (rather that the huffy-puffy angry breathing he was doing before) so I knew he'd travelled once again to the Land of Nod.

It was actually a rather rough night, punctuated by little screaming fits. I don't know what his problem was but he woke up happy enough.

When I pulled off his footy-jammies he stuck his little toes in my face and said, "Uh pi'!" Clearly this means, "Want pig!" So I played This Little Piggy on his toes and then announced it was time to go potty because there are certain times in the day when little ones just have to go potty (when they first wake up, before going to sleep, and before leaving the house, just to name a few). This caused a temper tantrum so severe that Andrew ran in to save me from him (Andrew's on spring break).

Andrew was able to calm him down and convince him to go potty. On the way he fulfilled many of Benjamin's morning wants.

The Rightful Elephant

For those wondering, Rachel loves her elephant hat. She has reminded me at least a dozen times today that she needs her costume for dress rehearsal on Tuesday morning. I kept assuring her that her costume was finished. I didn't know what else there was left to do—I certainly wasn't going to make anything more elaborate.

"I need to pick out my grey clothes!" she insisted.

So before putting on her pyjamas this evening she picked out her grey clothes. She doesn't actually have a lot of grey but certainly had more than I thought she did. She had to choose between some grey spotted pants a pair of grey pants with an orange-pink stripe on the sides. For the top she had to choose between a ruffled tunic and a grey-on-grey polka dot tunic (both are too short to be dresses but too long to be shirts, in Rachel's opinion).

You can see what she settled on below:

When you assume...

I've been feeling sick of facebook lately, so today I'm going to share an article here (that admittedly I found on facebook (shared by two friends I knew in Cairo: Lindsey and Lydia)) about a "collapsable woven tent" designed by a Jordanian-Canadian (two places close to my heart).

The article my friends shared was written originally for The Green Prophet (a Middle Eastern sustainability news blog thing). Although the concept/design for the tents is certainly impressive, I wasn't entirely a fan of this article because of the following sentence: "Seikaly [the brains behind the operation], now living in Amman, Jordan is well poised to design a dwelling for refugees given that her ancestors in Jordan probably toggled between nomadic and sheltered life in the desert for centuries."

Excuse me?

Do you know what my ancestors did? They drove ox carts across the prairie. They spoke German. They grew sugar beets. A few were midwives.

Do you know what I can't do on account of having never done it? 

I can't drive an ox cart. I'm probably afraid of oxen. I don't know. I've never really been around them. 

I can't speak German. Bitte und danke.

I've never touched a sugar beet and on the whole my garden was a catastrophe last year. 

Although I've successfully delivered my own babies (with the help of various doctors and nurses) I don't feel qualified to deliver other women's babies. 

Obviously the occupation and lifestyle of my ancestors influences where I am today but not directly. Not really. I don't think today's sugar beet farmers would accept my advice on sugar beet farming simply because my grandpa was a sugar beet farmer (and his grandpa was a sugar beet farmer)—and they shouldn't because I would give them terrible advice!

That sentence just bothered me. It smacked of orientalism and I immediately assumed it was a Westerner who wrote it but it was actually written by an Iranian (though one admittedly raised outside of Iran (in South Africa and the US, to be specific)).

After a bit of poking around I found Seikaly's website, which explains the shelter in more detail. No where on her website does she mention whether or not she descends from the Bedouin (nomadic tribes in Jordan (and elsewhere in the Middle East—like, oh, Iran)) and to assume that she does is...completely irrelevant. Unless, of course, as Andrew pointed out it was because of the author's own nomadic heritage that she was able to recognize the nomadic heritage of Seikaly.

Her shelter, though, looks awesome and practical, which is probably why it won an award.

Soccer, Hiking, Bird Songs

Last night was Rachel's first soccer practice of the season—and her life. She was so nervous and excited for it.

Ballet always seemed to be a thing she did so that Miriam could do it and it was an expensive activity for her to not have her heart in it. Miriam loved it (and I kind of want to sign her up again except that it's so darn hard to swallow the cost) but Rachel simply never did.

Then she asked us if she could play soccer instead. I looked around and found a league that plays for three months (one practice a week plus sporadic games on Saturdays) and costs $75. They even supply a uniform (though we still have to find shin pads and perhaps some cleats (though I'm leaning toward just getting a nice new pair of runners because that's an option (a much more practical option))). Of course, the coaches are volunteer coaches, but I don't think that's a terrible thing.

Andrew and I were both shocked at how inexpensive it was—like manna from heaven after forking out wads of cash for a semester of ballet classes.

Rachel was so cute running around on the field. She kept stealing the ball from her own teammates and heading off into the middle of nowhere with the ball, but she'll get the hang of what she's supposed to do.

It was only her first time playing but she's already dreaming of making the olympic team one of these days. A small city league with a volunteer coach is a good place as any to embark on fulfilling that dream, I think. And if the dream changes along the way I won't be too heartbroken. I'm more in it for the fun (and the ensuing exhaustion running around for an hour causes my little non-sleeper).

While I sat on the bleachers and read A Short Stay in Hell Andrew took Miriam and Benjamin to the nearby playground where they had so much fun they can hardly wait for next Monday.

It made our FHE schedule a little harried but I think we'll manage for the next few months.