Duke Gardens with Naanii and Bumpa

After spending the morning at the pool, we came home for lunch and some downtime—napping and board games and a little bit of Mako Mermaids—before heading off on our afternoon adventures.

Here's my mom ever so patiently playing Chutes and Ladders with the kids (that game is one of my least favourite games to play, so I think she's a saint):

Stagville and spider wasps

My parents arrived late last night, after being delayed for several hours in Las Vegas (due to a damaged plane; a new one had to be flown in to replace the plane they were supposed to be on). It was like waiting for a snow storm; the children were wild with anticipation. Amazingly enough half of them were asleep by the time my parents arrived (after 11:00 PM), though I swear they were still awake ten minutes before they walked through the door.

They sure were happy to see them in the morning! By the time I woke up, Benjamin was nestled on the couch between Naanii and Bumpa. Zoë took to Bumpa right away and is always happy to let him (or make him) hold her. The girls are both over the moon.

We went swimming this morning. I taught lessons to some kids in our neighbourhood while my parents watched my little brood (it was lovely to not have to multi-task) and then we came home for lunch. In the afternoon we headed to Stagville and tagged along with an already-in-process tour. We missed touring the big house but got to see the slave houses and the barn.

My mom was amazed at how the tour guide could discuss slavery with such nonchalance, as if it were no big deal that it happened. History is hard and complicated; with hindsight we can see that certain practices and attitudes were so, so very wrong. But in the moment they seemed natural, normal, even right. I suppose it is hard to condemn slave-owners as a group; although slavery itself was an evil practice I'm not sure I'm comfortable saying all those who owned slaves were evil people. That brush is too broad. Surely, though, if they themselves looked back at history armed with what we know now they, too, would find their practices disgusting.

The sad thing is that there are wrong practices today that we accept as normal and natural, even right, that we should probably find equally disgusting. Prejudices still abound. Inequality runs rampant. There is hate and fear and a spirit of revenge... But there are also many, many good things about today, about the people of today, so I think that in spite of everything that we will be able to look back at ourselves with forgiveness.

Obviously these tours tend to get my blood boiling as well as my mother's.

Anyway, here's a picture of my dad with Zoë:

Musical Family Night

The minutes leading up to family night were fraught with melodrama (as much of the day was; welcome to summer vacation) as well as peril (which, thankfully, most of the day wasn't).

Shortly before dinner I made the kids practice the piano and ukulele, which caused a little bit of tension. I lost it completely when we were practicing a fairly easy two-chord song and the girls "couldn't figure out" how to switch between C and F and "couldn't even remember" what the F chord was. I sent them both to their rooms to "figure out" and "practice" the CFG chord progression because we've seriously been working on these chords for three solid years (give or take).

I was like, "Other chords you may ask me about. Other chords you can make a face about or refuse to play because they are too hard. But for crying out loud YOU. KNOW. THESE. CHORDS. But since you claim to not know them you can practice them in your bedrooms until dinner."

Because, so help me, you will learn these chords.

True to their individual natures, Miriam went to her room and hammered out the chords until she was jamming with them. It took her all of two minutes because (surprise!) she already knew them; Rachel, however, went to her room and pouted and raged before practicing. But practice she did. And she played beautifully, and apologized without prompting (which is a lovely thing about this girl).

During dinner we talked about why we are "making" the kids learn the piano and the ukulele—and it's not just to learn how to play the piano and ukulele! It's because music helps promote brain development in language and math, it helps with memory and movement, and while I doubt my children will ever be professional ukulele-ists, I'm hoping the ukulele (and/or piano) will act as a gateway instrument for them (so that when we can afford to give them actual lessons they'll know they want to learn (though the piano I will probably keep pushing for longer than the uke)).

"Complain to me now," I said, "Thank me when you're thirty, or forty, or fifty."

"If I live to be that old," Rachel glowered.

Oi.

Saturday

We had a wild day today, starting with Trading Tables, which is usually something I enjoy putting together. No, no. Enjoy is too strong of a word. I don't mind organizing Trading Tables but it's kind of a big job. It can be enjoyable when a lot people pitch in to help with set up and clean up, but when help is sparse it just feels like a lot of work.

I realize that I volunteered to do this and, like I said, I don't mind doing it because I appreciate the merits of the activity. But this time around it was one of the "a lot of work" times. Sometimes I feel like I barely have to lift a finger because I have so many happy helpers. Today our little family lugged stuff into the gym (not just our stuff; others' stuff, too) and set up tables all on our own. My friend Emily arrived and helped put up signs and helped sort stuff, and soon other people arrived to help sort things. But that was all the help we had setting up.

Several people helped pack stuff up, but most people left without helping at all. It ended up being our family, a family from another ward (who are always so great about staying to help), and a friend from the musical (also not from our ward), who stayed until the end and volunteered to take a load to the Durham Rescue Mission. We had so much stuff left when everyone was gone that we couldn't even fit it into our van. We had to leave a bunch of stuff in a classroom and come back for it!

But, I did find some good hand-me-downs for Benjamin. He and Rachel are the two I have trouble keeping clothed in hand-me-downs, though I might have to add Miriam to that list in a couple of years because Rachel got holes in every single pair of pants this year! Every pair!

She came home from school a couple of weeks ago with a hole in the knee of her very last intact pair of jeans, saying that she tripped at recess and though her knee is fine...but her pants were not. *sigh* There goes another pair of pants.

Shampoo-poo

I debated putting writing about this because it's sort of gross. Gross as in "WARNING: the following blog post contains discussion and images of human excrement; viewer discretion is advised" gross.

Zoë frequently plays at my feet while I shower. She's such a momma's girl that if I didn't shower with her I probably would never shower. Well, the other day I was washing my hair and she was holding onto my legs, walking in circles around me, when all of a sudden she stopped and I felt a plop, plop, plop on my foot.

On my foot!

She had the whole shower at her disposal and she chose to poop on my foot!

Picture below, so prepare yourself...or just spare yourself and don't click.

Miriam's papers

Going through the girls' work has been fun but it's almost making me sad to think it's the end of the school year. This has been a fabulous year for both girls and I kind of hate to see it end!

Anyway, I need to take pictures of a few of these little essays before they get tossed...but before then, "please to enjoy" these transcriptions of Miriam's work (side rant: we send in notebooks that come home empty at the end of the year...and then they send me a jumbled mess of random paper my kids have written on...just use the notebooks, folks!).

21-10-15

Always on Christmas Eve my sister allways creeps out of our room to go to the bathroom. And when she is done she goes out of the curtin that we hang up. And it's long so no one can see santa as he is puting the presents in our stocking's. AND SHE HELPT SATA PUT STUFF IN THE STOCKINGS! And she new what she got. But I hope that I can do this Christmas!

Mr. Tree

Mr. Tree lived inside a tall red wood tree. he was an aprcot tree. what did he eat? well he was an aporcot tree so he only ate popcorn! his naibor was juliann! She ad Brinkley could get popcorn whenever they watned! Brinkley lived on straberry cornor. She lived in a cake. Langston lived in a gigantic straberry. Parker lived in a sap tree cabin! Jennifer lived in a gingerbread man! Huh. Said mr. tree what's that? Hi said mr. tall. hi said mr. small. Ohh! Said mr. tree. Hi mr. tall and small! Do you want to be frierds! Sere! OK said Mr. tall and small. And then they met Elieen. Hi Elinn. Hi mr. tree. Parker was walking ackros the street to mr. trees House to get popcorn. You prodaly know why? Becus he was haveing a movie night! The end!

8-27-15

My name is Miriam. My faivorete food is cake and banasplit's. And pizzia. My faivorete toy is my bunny pinky.

10-27-15

Yesterday Benjamin threw up eight times. When me and Rachel came home he was sleeping on the couch. After dinner he threw up 2 times can you guss how many times benjamin threw up all together? He actchaly threw up 9 times. Onets in the toylit and toytabele. And 7 times in a bowl.

Swimming and ear updates

May 28th: I take Benjamin to the pool and he screams and cries and carries on, refuses to do a single thing.

June 9th: I take Benjamin to the pool and he jumps in and swims to the side to do it all over again and again and again.

I don't know happened within the last week and a half to turn him into a swimmer. It surely wasn't all the time we spent at the pool because, truthfully, we haven't gone swimming very much yet this season due to Miriam's ear infection. Whatever it was, I'm glad for it (though now I have to keep a very close eye on him because he's not afraid of the water at all, while the Benjamin + H20 combination still makes me a little nervous).

Miriam's ear is finally feeling better. I can see that it's still infected, but she hasn't cried about it in days now. Her teacher sent me a text message on Friday afternoon to say that she was crying and holding her ear during story time, a text message I didn't get until Saturday morning when I picked up my phone to call the nurse's hotline because she was in a bad way, with a fever and a lot of pain again, and there was so much gunk in her ear that I was worried something had gotten stuck in there.

Our paediatrician has a walk-in clinic on Saturday morning, which I think is a great service (because kids always get sick on the weekend) and had no idea it existed, so Andrew took her to the clinic and the doctor decided that her ear drops weren't really helping matters. He prescribed a different one with a steroid mixed in.

It's seemed to do the trick because she's finally seeming to be on the mend, though her ear is still really gunky. I hope it clears up soon. She's had this infection for weeks now.

How does our garden grow?

One of these days I need to plan a low-maintenance garden with lots of colourful perennials that will bloom year after year for me (and that is magically weed-free). Last year I purchased a wildflower mix, but I don't think we put down enough seed because our garden was pretty sparse (not to mention completely neglected) the whole summer. So this year we used more seed, probably too much seed because our (still neglected) garden is out of control. At least we have a lot of pretty blossoms popping out!

Top row: gladiola (obviously not from the wildflower seeds), blue cornflower, some sort of daisy?

Middle row: nasturtium, vinca (not from seed), pink cornflower

Bottom row: some sort of snapdragon, Rachel with a carrot flower, and no idea

Obviously I should have kept the package so that I could have a better guess about some of the stuff that's growing, but as long as they keep being pretty I suppose I don't mind what they're called.

As for our vegetable garden... 

Well, our radishes bolted, our kale, carrots, tomatoes, and cucumbers are struggling, we've harvested a few pea pods, and our pepper plants are starting to get little baby peppers so I have high hopes for them. We're still enjoying a daily strawberry or two.

Mostly grass has taken over our garden bed and I just can't keep on top of it so its strangling everything. 

Zoë at the park

Here are a few pictures of Zoë playing at the park this afternoon...

Celebratory Sundaes

To celebrate the end of the school year—and more specifically the end of EOGs (end of grade testing)—the whole of third grade decided to have "Sundaes on a Tuesday." Since I'm the grade parent, I dutifully put the date on my calendar so I could start planning for the day, but then I got a note saying that it was being moved to Wednesday, so I logged into my calendar and slid the event over to the next day without changing the name of the event.

At family night on Monday Andrew was going over the calendar and he said, "Okay, Rachel has Sundaes on a Tuesday...but on Wednesday?"

"That's right," I said and explained how I had moved the event over a day without changing the name.

The story gets better, though, because yesterday when I showed up to the school to help dish out ice cream Rachel's teacher hid her face behind her hands and said sheepishly, "You're going to laugh at me! I forgot that I said I'd supply the ice cream! When Rachel brought me a package of spoons I thought, 'Gee, that's nice, but what about the ice cream?' And then I thought, 'Wait...what if I said I'd bring the ice cream?' So I checked the emails I sent you and I did say I'd bring ice cream. So we'll just do sundaes tomorrow."

Benjamin, Zoë and I spent yesterday afternoon in Miriam's classroom instead, and we headed back to Rachel's classroom this morning to have Sundaes on a Tuesday on a Wednesday on a Thursday!