The Strummer

Rachel's doing a unit on sound in school right now and the culmination of the whole thing is a "sound parade" where each brings in a homemade instrument and they march around the halls playing them. Parents were not invited and I'm really not too shaken up about this because I can only imagine how cacophonous this parade will be.

The instrument Rachel designed and created is called a strummer.

Heiss Holiday Humbug 2014

I finished writing this poem on Thanksgiving Day. And then I had to rewrite part of it and was left stewing over my broken stanza for quite a while. But I finally fixed it!

I also had to wait for Rachel to finish her reading goal for the year and then for Andrew to write about it. He totally geeked out and made all these charts and things "for me" to use as props in my post and I was like, "I don't even really know what to do with these and I don't think you've written a post since you blogged about Ghana in 2012, so I think it's about time you made a contribution."

He did a wonderful job and even used words like "quadrimodal," which I don't think I could have managed unless I needed to rhyme it with anecdotal or something.

Speaking of anecdotes, this poem is full of them!

(You can download a PDF of the newsletter here or catch the text-only version below the jump).

And now, without further ado...Merry Christmas to you and yours from me and mine!

Rachel's 2014 Reading Report

As we were making up New Year’s resolutions back in January, Rachel decided to make an audacious goal—read 365 books in 2014. She had just finished every book in the Magic Treehouse series and was determined read enough to be able to understand all seven Harry Potter books.

She totally smashed that goal.

Just for fun, we meticulously tracked her progress. Here’s how she did.

Cheers!

Miriam's been dying to take dance lessons again. She absolutely loved ballet and I thought it was the perfect fit for her. It was not, however, the perfect fit for our budget...but the same sports association that organizes Rachel's soccer league also has a cheer squad. My friend Suzi is in charge of it and kind of talked me in to signing Miriam up.

Tonight was the "first" night. All we did was have a meeting and try on uniforms, which was probably for the best since it's Miriam's turn to be sick. The poor thing can't stop coughing. Anyway, despite feeling terrible she was excited about the uniforms and pompoms and the list of cheers they handed out.

Before it gets better it's got to get...

Benjamin had a fever on Wednesday night and a fever on Thursday night, but other than a lingering cough (lingering from his three weeks of croup) he seemed fine all day Friday and Saturday. Saturday night, though, he kept waking up and crying, which is rather uncharacteristic for him (the crying, not the waking up). He was a grumpy little monster in the morning, but we got him dressed and ready for church, anyway.

He did fine through sacrament meeting—aside from purposely kicking and hitting his sisters whenever he could manage it—but I took him to class with me instead of sending him to nursery because his cough was sounding a little too nasty.

I'd love to be (and occasionally try to be) the kind of mom who stays home with her kids when they're sick, but, uh, when they have a cough for a month you start just ignoring it and going out anyway.

Right in the middle of the lesson, I looked over to see Benjamin gagging. He'd been munching on a motley assortment of crackers: Angry Birds graham crackers, cheddar penguins, gold fish, and crasins (those aren't technically crackers). I wasn't sure if he was choking or what, so I said, "Are you okay, Benji?"

Christmas at Historic Stagville

I know we were just at Stagville last week for family pictures, but we decided to head back again this Saturday for their antebellum Christmas celebration (after forcing the kids clean the house).

We got to see a meal being cooked over an open fire...

A bit of catch up

I feel like I've been lagging behind a bit, so here's a picture dump!

We started setting up for Christmas. Andrew magically got all the Christmas boxes down from the attic by himself. Benjamin thinks they make wonderful toys.

Benjamin Update

Aside from being sick again (no, not croup, a new one!), and aside from still being small, I'm pleased to announce that Benjamin is practically perfect in every way!

We had our 6-month follow-up to our well-baby check in June today, but with an attendant instead of a resident. I've rarely (never?) had a follow-up visit with a resident. Is that normal? I don't know.

But, basically, this doctor said that the resident was probably being a little overzealous.

Benjamin's not on the chart, but he's hugging his own little curve right below the the 0th-percentile line. He's growing at a normal rate...he's just on the small side. But he was displaying his two-year-old boy energy and vocabulary for the doctor and the doctor said he looks healthy and happy, so as long as he keeps putting on weight and getting taller, he doesn't see any problem.

Then, of course, I had to tell him all about my weight (because I can't set foot in a medical facility without them asking about my weight). I had to swear that my family consists of a bunch of beanpoles.

Evidence? Me with three of my siblings (this picture was taken when Benjamin was, like, two months old so I think I look like I just had a baby, but it does show that my siblings are similarly thin):

More from yesterday

Yesterday morning, of course, I had to drag my children out of bed to leave the house—because we actually had somewhere to be. This morning, Benjamin woke up early—because we have no where to be. That's just the way the world works, I guess.

Miriam is still sleeping though...maybe.

When I went in to wake her up yesterday, I flipped on the light and said, "Time to get up, sweetie! You have preschool this morning!"

She bolted out of bed and said, "Oh, yeah! I forgot! I wasn't sleeping. I was just getting my thumb-sucking in!"

So apparently she sometimes wakes up but stays in bed to suck her thumb—because no one's there to remind her not to do it. During the day I will remind her if I catch her (she is five, after all, and should be kicking this habit) but I haven't been saying anything about nighttime...yet.

I have a feeling that her thumb sucking habit is what's helped her be such a good sleeper all these years. Her dentist keeps assuring me that it's not a problem until she starts losing her baby teeth so we probably have a few years to get her to quit, but she loves her thumb.

Some people say that a thumb sucking habit is the worst but I, frankly, think the trade off was beautiful. Would you rather have a self-soothing thumb-sucker or a refuses-to-put-anything-in-their-mouth-but-breast scream-all-the-timer? The choice is clear to me, even if we're still battling thumb sucking years down the road.

Rachel lost her first tooth when she was 6.5 and the second tooth followed soon after but she hasn't lost any others, so Miriam still has a good two years, probably, before we really have to worry.

I told Andrew about Miriam last night and he thought it was pretty funny. But not as funny as he found this little exchange...

"I went to the post office," I said.

"What?! You packed up the kids and left the house for the express purpose of going to the post office?" he asked.

"Well, no," I said. "I stopped by on the way home after dropping Miriam off at preschool."

"Ah," he said. "That makes more sense. You never just run errands."

Today I...

• Got up and got Miriam to preschool only five minutes late.
• Went to the post office and mailed some international letters.
• Told everyone (yes, everyone) in the post office how old Benjamin is. And when he said, "Pick me up, Mommy!" and I said, "Not right now," they reminded me that they're only small once. I didn't tell them that I have two children bigger than him or that I have another one in my belly because sometimes sharing those things in public is like walking around with two heads. When I said that I couldn't hold him because he's too heavy he said, "Me not heavy. Me teeny tiny boy!" He squeaked out the last part. And everyone almost died of cute. And I squatted beside him in line because that's almost the same as holding him.
• Went home and didn't shower like I was planning to because showering requires standing and I just stood in line at the post office. Standing can be exhausting. 
• Read Benjamin a bunch of stories. He says, "Eat me dis book," and it always takes me a minute to remember that he's really saying "read" and not "eat."
• Started going through my grandparents' biographies to find Christmas stories while Benjamin brought me more books to "eat" and I kept telling him to look at the pictures on his own.
• Picked Miriam up for preschool...on time! Though I may have barked at Benjamin to "Step outside the house!" because he wanted me to carry him again but I was holding the storm door open, carting the diaper bag (which I guess is mostly my purse at this point—gee, it's a big purse), juggling keys, and trying to close and lock the front door. Even if I had a spare hand I'm not supposed to lift him, so... "Walk out the door. Just take a step. Benjamin. Move your feet. Fine I will carry you to the car just step outside the house. Go out of the door. Benjamin."
• Came home, made, lunch, fed the children. 
• Discovered Benjamin knows what N-A-P spells. Miriam spells everything now. Everything. In the car on the way home she said, "I-S B-E-N-J-A-M-I-N G-O-I-N-G T-O H-A-V-E A N-A-P T-O-D-A-Y?" That's code for "Can I selflessly volunteer to watch a highly educational show so that you, also, can take a nap?" I told her that what she spelled happened most every day. Benjamin said, "No. Me not M-I-N. Me not I-N-G. Me not N-A-P," the whole time she was spelling. So I'm not positive he knows what N-A-P means, but he does understand that spelling means bad news. And he spelled nap several times throughout the afternoon, including saying, "Me not N-A-P. Me just play!"
• Took a nap. And Benjamin took a nap. And Miriam watched a show. Or two.
• Went outside to play and wait for the school bus. Benjamin and Miriam are always so excited for the bus to bring Rachel home. They jump up and down for joy and run around in circles like puppies. Rachel was a little slow coming off the bus today and so the driver shrugged his shoulders, winked at me, and said seriously, "I guess your sister's not on the bus today." And Miriam and Benjamin just about died. But then Rachel appeared and they were happy again.
• Helped Rachel with her homework and supplied after-school snacks.
• Made dinner.
• Put laundry into the dryer.
• Helped Rachel make a cardboard ukulele. Now she'll "sleep much better tonight" because she's at least started on her project for the 2nd grade musical parade for science class that she's been stressing out about since October (at least) and that's not due until December 12. "I won't have to cry about it anymore," she said. "That's part of the reason I've been crying at bedtime." Well, glad to have remedied that. All Andrew could say was, "She's your daughter." Oh, and Miriam made a "shaker" out of beads and a toilet paper roll. She wrapped the whole thing up in construction paper like a Christmas present. It's gloriously hideous but she did it all by herself.
• Helped children brush and floss and pyjamafy themselves.
• Read scriptures and stories, said family prayer, sang lullabies, put the kids to bed.
• Greeted husband.
• Sat on the couch with a snack and watched a show while he worked until midnight.
• Wrote this blog post.

Some days I spend most of my time wondering where my time actually goes. I think I spent 95% of my time today trying to make children do things while not actually doing things myself. Not that I didn't have things to do...just that I couldn't make them MOVE today. And then I was so exhausted from trying to make them do stuff that I couldn't do anything myself. 

Maybe tomorrow will be better.