Shopping for school

Last night was "Meet Your Teacher" night at the school, so we went to meet the girls' new teachers and say hello to their old teachers before heading out to buy school supplies. Fortunately this year's "Meet Your Teacher" night was held indoors. Last year they tried having it outside, which I heard was miserable. I wouldn't know because I missed it (I was still in Utah), but Andrew took the kids and I heard it was hot and miserable. Apparently so many people voiced their complaints that it was moved back inside this year—and a good thing, too!

It was like a sauna outside yesterday—90+°F with humidity up to 90%—so I don't think anyone had any desire to wander around the school's field meeting new people.

Benjamin was a little overstimulated or something and spent the whole evening yanking on my arm, trying to get me to move on to the next thing. He yanked on my arm while we were meeting Miriam's new teacher, Mrs. G. He yanked on my arm while we were chatting with Miriam and Rachel's first grade teacher, Mr. A. He yanked on my arm while we were chatting with Rachel's third grade teacher, Ms. W. And he yanked on my arm while we were meeting Rachel's new teacher, Mrs. G.

This yanking continued at the store.

Granted, it was getting late and the kids were getting tired and no one really wanted to be shopping...

Splish! Splash! I was taking a...

This afternoon we were practicing music a lot. Miriam practiced the piano, and then I had the girls practice the ukulele, and then Rachel practiced the piano. Meanwhile Benjamin and Zoë were having fun on the drum pad and chimes (which Benjamin calls a zaxophone (his own little mixture of xylophone and saxophone, I guess)). When we were finished playing we had to then put everything away, obviously, and while I was tucking the drumsticks into their case I noticed that the house was eerily quiet.

Not silent—because our house is never silent—but disquietingly quiet.

I sat for a moment trying to figure out what was missing from the cacophonic atmosphere of our home. And then it struck me. What was missing was the pitter-patter of little feet, the constant tugging at my pant leg, the yammering of, "Mamamamamama!" What was missing was Zoë.

"Where's the baby?" I called to no one in particular, springing up and spinning in a couple of wild circles to see if she was hiding in plain sight. That baby's favourite spot is right underfoot, so the fact that she wasn't underfoot at the moment was disconcerting.

"Zoë!" I called, but she didn't respond.

"Where's the baby?" I asked again, and again no one responded (it's like they can't hear me, but I know they definitely can; our house is not large) but I did hear a faint squelching sound.

"The baby's in the bathroom!" I gasped, sprinting down the hall along with everyone else in the house (suddenly everyone was intrigued with what was going on).

We caught her halfway into the toilet (she had one leg inside and the other on the ground) and when she saw us she squealed and quickly finished climbing in before we could stop her.

"I guess I'll be needing the camera," I said.

There wasn't much else to be done at that point, so I took a few pictures of her before transferring her to the bathtub. The good news is, I suppose, that quite miraculously the last child to use the toilet actually remembered to flush!

Softball on a Saturday

We went to a ward activity on Saturday morning and enjoyed some good food and company before the heat of the day got to us. We still left dripping with sweat, but it wasn't as bad as if we had been out there in the afternoon!

One of the biggest draws of the morning was a big game of softball. I didn't participate because...softball. Well, that and because I had to hold the baby (Zoë is not a fan of any activity where she has to be held by someone other than me). But Andrew and Rachel played!

Here's Rachel hitting her very first ball:

Tragedies

On Sunday we were chatting about Miriam's newfound fascination with sticking bugs in her mouth when Grandma told us a story about how when Grandpa Frank was a boy he left a glass of orange juice sitting on the counter for a while and when he returned to drink it found that it had been infiltrated by ants. Only he didn't find out about the ant part until his mouth and throat were full of them and they started biting him all over.

The kids thought this story was hilarious, so hilarious, in fact, that they brought it up while we were video calling with my parents later on. Stymied by fits of laughter, the girls managed to tell the story, picking up the narrative wherever the other would take a break to laugh or breathe.

This story of Grandpa Frank reminded me of a story about my Grandpa Conrad, who one day came in from working in the fields to find a tall glass of lemonade sitting on the kitchen counter.

"How nice!" he thought. "Pearl made up some lemonade for me."

And he chugged that lemonade, but found that instead of refreshing it was revolting. As it turns out, they were running low on water (they had potable water brought to the farm on a truck) so my grandma had saved the dishwater to use again later! My grandpa had noticed the floaties and things when he glanced at it but figured it was just pulp. So gross!

After my mom and I had finished telling that story, Benjamin jumped in with his version of Grandpa Frank's story.

"Once Grandpa Frank left orange juice on the counter for three days and some super bad bugs got in it—TICKS!" he said. "And he drank it and the ticks bit him and then...HE DIED!"

Emerald Isle, take 2

Summer break is almost over, though it feels like it's just begun. That's kind of the downside of the year-round schedule—which, for the record, I'm very glad we got to keep this year!—because the upside is that the girls have already been begging to go back-to-school shopping and they won't even have to wait until August or September for those shiny new no. 2 pencils because we'll be going out to get them next week!

Anyway, we decided to squeeze in one last trip to the beach before school starts again, and we decided to do that squeezing today because we could. We had a few mishaps, like, someone forgot to pack bread for sandwiches (I'm not going to mention any names (fine: it was me)), my sweet little baby got a little too much sunshine, and the cable for one of our sliding doors snapped, rendering it mostly useless. But other than that we had a great time!

Zoë's birthday poster

When we moved in once of the first things we hung up were the pictures of our kids, on the wall behind our couch. We had a collage of Rachel and her birthday poster, a collage of Miriam and her birthday poster, a collage of Benjamin and a frame proudly boasting its dimensions: 11×14!

He was so little when we moved here that I hadn't made up a birthday poster for him yet. I had high hopes of getting that done in a timely matter...and about three years later I finally finished it. One month before Zoë was born, we took down that "11×14" frame and put Benjamin's poster inside, completing our wall. But our victory was short-lived because one of our first purchases after Zoë was born was a set of 11×14 frames, one for her collage and one for her birthday poster.

"This time I'm going to leave this big picture of this random kid in the frame," Andrew said. "To motivate you to finish faster."

And yet again our wall was left with an awkward gap, this time filled with a mystery child rather than a paper stating the dimensions of the frame. I'm not sure which was worse, frankly. I mean, the dimension-paper was clearly a blank frame, but the random child model tends to really throw people off...

Wednesday

This morning I took the kids to see a (free) summer movie at the theatre. Rachel had mentioned something about wanting to see Minions and I remembered seeing that title on the list of summer movies, so decided we'd be sure to put that movie on our calendar. I'm not sure how many others we'll make it to, considering we missed the first three movies and next week is our last week off school...

I'm not big into the whole movie theatre experience. Movie theatres are dark and loud and filled with strangers and have sticky floors. Besides, we have too many babies and not enough money to be regular cinema attenders.

Anyway, this morning when I woke the kids up to get ready they very happily complied. Rachel put on the minions t-shirt Naanii gave her for Christmas a couple of years ago and asked, "Is this at a real theatre?"

"Yes, it's at the regular theatre you've been to many, many times," he answered.

"Twice," she corrected him.

"Okay, twice," he said.

But later we figured it out and we think she's actually been to the theatre at least four times. That's like once a year. Not bad!

We enjoyed the movie, except for Benjamin (who tends to not like either loud sounds or feature-length films) and Zoë (who was also bothered the sound and the length). It was fun to be in a theatre packed with children though (because you know all the families with tons of kids flock to the theatre for these free movies, right). So much giddy laughter at every silly joke!

In the afternoon, once our seemingly daily thunderstorm was over, we headed to the pool where Zoë decided to take a pair of goggles for a spin.

Pathetically adorable

Zoë's little bed is in our room. She hardly ever uses it, but it's there and we've been practicing getting used to it. We took the side off the crib because she thought being all caged in there was a form of cruel and unusual punishment. It's better with the side off, but she still doesn't like it. 

A couple of nights ago she went down at a somewhat decent hour and stayed asleep for, like, a chunk of time (that's rather unusual for her, truthfully). She started fussing but then settled down again (which is rather unusual for her, truthfully) and when I went in to check on her I found her halfway out of bed, which was pathetically adorable.

Benjamin swimming

You may recall that first time I took Benjamin to the pool this year he screamed his head off the whole time. It was ridiculous and embarrassing and so very lame. Well, he still can't swim, per se, but he has turned in to quite a little fish. He can get into a front float and a back float by himself, he can do a front glide, and while his front crawl is a little sloppy he can move through the water.

He's also always up for a cannon ball. In fact, did I write about the one time when he was jumping into the 3-feet, which was fine because I was standing right there and because he can recover on his own in water that depth (meaning he can get his face out to breathe and can make his way to the side of the pool on his own). Well, he climbed up the stairs and announced, "I'm going to go again!" so I said, "Go for it!" and go for it he did! But instead of coming back to where he'd been jumping before he ran off to the deep end and plunged in.

I was standing in the 3-feet holding Zoë and just about had a heart attack!

Have you ever tried to cross a pool in .2 seconds while holding a baby?! It's not easy!

We made it to him, though, and fished him out (crazy kid) and now he has a deeper understanding of the phrase "sink like a rock."

Anyway, here are some pictures of him swimming today:

My countries 'tis of thee...

This first week of July is full of all sorts of celebrating for a couple of countries we call home. Canada had its birthday on July first. We celebrated by lighting a few sparklers...