Pizza from Utah

I actually got Zoë to take a nap this afternoon. Of course, she napped on top of me so it's not like I was able to get anything done but I was able to send the kids outside with my "mother's helpers" while I held her (and maybe dozed off for a while, myself). It sure is nice to have a couple of nearly-ten-year-olds around (Rachel and her friend Meadow) who are willing to keep an eye on, well, Benjamin (that boy should always have at least two pairs of eyes on him at all times). 

When I woke up, Andrew sent me a message warning me not to make dinner because a "grandma-sponsored" dinner was on its way. I was literally busting out the pots and pans when I heard the notification so I'm glad I dropped everything to check it. Dinner not-made-by-me was just what we needed. With Daddy out of town I've been feeding the children things like homemade vegetable soup. 

The horror!

With their blossoming vocabularies I don't just get told my dinner is "gross." The kids tend to spring for heavier-handed words. Miriam once described my food as "vile." Yes, vile. 

It does wonders for my cooking confidence.

Furthermore a not-made-by-me dinner was just what I needed after flying solo for four days. 

Andrew's been in Utah, visiting his alma mater, giving presentations, meeting with professors, hitting up old bosses, probing for employment opportunities, networking, and, of course, visiting as many family members as possible (and hopefully getting some work done on his dissertation). 

Here he is with my parents; he enjoyed an evening of root beer floats at their house:

 

Fort building

I helped the kids build a fort in their bedroom this evening so they could have a sleepover in it. They wanted to do it in the living room (and had already constructed a fort there) but I made them take it down (sometimes I'm a mean mom, see?). Zoë always walks through the living room in the middle of the night, so have a fort in her way would confuse her. Also our house isn't very big and when the living room is a mess the whole house feels messy (because if the living room is a mess the whole house is messy). Anyway, we built a pretty awesome fort in their bedroom. 

Here's Benjamin in the "watchtower," also known as the top bunk:

Cheer (up)

Our plan for this morning was to go to Miriam's cheer event (I don't really know what to call it—it's a basketball game but that's not really what we're there for, so...) and then head to the church for her friend's baptism. It was going to be a tight squeeze fitting both activities in, and I knew that, but the school she was cheering at is close to the church. The game's half-time was at 10:30. I figured we would be out of there by 10:45 (10:50 at the latest), but the church is only a five minute drive from that school and the baptism started at 11:00. We'd be fine. 

Wrong.

Today was picture day and we were instructed to show up 15 minutes before game time for a team photo (which our sponsors require for some reason). That means we had to be at the school at 9:45, which is perfectly reasonable. But for whatever reason they didn't ever end up taking our team picture before half time. They had 45 minutes to take it and they just...didn't. 

They took pictures of the basketball teams. 

They lined our girls up. 

They dismissed the girls and started taking individual photos of them.

They lined the girls up. 

They decided to just head in to cheer and take the pictures after the game. 

Feeling hot, hot, hot!

Zoë is an explorer at heart. You can tell her something and she'll totally understand what you're saying. She just won't believe you until she checks it out for herself. I'm hoping she'll grow out of this at some point because I think learning through the experiences of others is a whole lot easier than learning through your own experience, which is why reading is such a great thing to do. I guess lessons are internalized a lot faster when you learn them firsthand, however, and now Zoë knows the word 'hot.'

I was making something in the kitchen a couple of weeks ago (January 17) and I had the oven preheating while I was using the stand mixer on the other side of the kitchen. Zoë walked into the kitchen and I warned her about the oven being hot. 

"The oven is hot. Don't touch," I told her, and then I turned my back on her to attend to whatever I was making in the stand mixer (it's a mystery; I can't remember what I was making). I don't think I'd even resumed my task before Zoë let out an ear-piercing scream. I spun back around to see her writhing on the floor, screaming her lungs out. 

I scooped her up and inspected her for injuries. "What happened, baby?" I asked. She clearly hadn't opened the oven door (she can do that, sadly) because I hadn't heard it slam shut. Had she fallen over? "Where does it hurt?" I asked. Had she stepped on something sharp? Had she...oh, no. The broiler drawer was open just a crack. 

I grabbed her hands and saw that the fingers on her left hand were covered in burns. 

Spelling Bee

The school-wide spelling bee was last Thursday and since Rachel was participating I figured we should go support her. Usually I go to things during the day because I'm the stay-at-home parent; Andrew has commitments all day, like writing and research and meetings and stuff. I have commitments, too, like diaper changing and nursing and child-wrangling but my commitments are a lot more mobile. 

Still, getting my commitments up and fed and clothed and out the door in time to drop the kids off at school (7:45 in the morning!) and then making my commitments behave (sit quietly!) through the entire spelling bee seemed like a huge burden. I mean, huuuuuuuge.

"You're going to help me get the kids ready to go before you leave, though, right?" I asked Andrew the night before.

"Yeah, I can do that." He paused to think. "Wait a minute. What if I go to the spelling bee?"

"Like, just you go to the spelling bee or, like, you go to the spelling be as well?"

"I'll just go. You stay home with Benjamin and Zoë and I'll go to the spelling bee to cheer Rachel on and then I'll go to work."

"That...makes sense," I said. "I can't really imagine Benjamin and Zoë sitting still through this sort of thing anyway."

So that's what we did. And it turns out that leaving the little ones at home was a wise choice because the teachers were flipping out about noise levels all the time, apparently (and I totally believe it because (and I don't know if it's just a southern thing but...) the kids aren't allowed to talk at school, like, ever; not during class, not during lunch, quiet, quiet, quiet—I guess their 15–20 minute recess lets them chat a bit, but I seriously don't remember being shushed so much when I was in elementary school (except, perhaps, at Alice M. Curtis in Calgary)). 

Rachel made it to the fourth round before getting nervous and misspelling vacation (which is a relatively easy word for her—you should have heard her spell the words we were practicing). She spelled it V-A-C-T-I-O-N.

Cheerleading

Miriam's doing cheer right now, or so I'm told. I haven't been to any of her practices or performances yet; Andrew's taken on that responsibility/joy. I was really going to make an effort to go this Saturday since she was having her game followed by a Duke Cheer Clinic, but Zoë was sick so I stayed home with her (because while Miriam will accept Andrew as a mom-substitute, Zoë will not). I made Andrew promise to take pictures though, so he did.

The poor girl forgot her pom-poms, unfortunately, so she had to cheer without them:

Bordering insanity

Quizzically, these are not evaders of the system being detained in airports for "invalid visas"; these are not undocumented immigrants. These are people who went through the red tape: they filed paperwork, paid their fees, checked off every box. These are people whose visas are in their passports—signed, sealed, delivered. The system failed them. And it is an outrage.

Imagine you're a trailing spouse, riding on your husband's student visa, and you leave the country with a friend—so that she can renew her visa because she's required to leave the country before renewing her visa while you (as luck would have it) are not—accompanied by your small child. You spend a few days seeing some sights but mostly you're just leaving the country so you can go back in again, so your friend can purchase a new visa.

The border control officer takes your passport, flips through the pages, nods, stamps your passport and hands it back. Next he takes your child's passport, flips through the pages, then says, "She does not have a valid visa."

Your stomach drops to the floor.

"Excuse me?" you stammer.

"She has no valid visa."

"No," you insist. "She has a visa."

 "She has no visa. You may go through. She stays here."

"She is 18-months old!" you protest. "She is a baby! I can't just..."

恭喜发财 (Gōngxǐ fācái | gong-hey faa-chwhy)

Miriam's class has been studying the Chinese New Year this week (last week they did a unit on Sweden's May Day celebrations—complete with learning a dance and some phrases in Swedish (Miriam's teacher is Swedish)) and she has come home gushing about the holiday every day this week.

On Wednesday while we were hiking she was rambling on and on about the twelve zodiac animals. She'd looked everyone in the family up. Daddy's a rat. She and I are oxen. Rachel is a pig. Benjamin is a dragon—that's the very luckiest! And Zoë is a goat. And the New Year celebration lasts fifteen days. And there are firecrackers and lion dancers and sometimes dragons. Do you think we could make a dragon? We could just use an old sheet and paint it red. They're usually red. Apples and oranges are eaten to bring good fortune.

"And you'll really like this part, Mom," she said. "They make the house spotless, clean it from top to bottom!"

"That part does sound pretty good," I said (though I'm rather fond of the dancing lions and dragons, myself).

"Why did you have to say that?" Rachel glowered, imagined chores souring her attitude.

"So do you think we can celebrate? I'll make the dragon if you'll make the fortune cookies! And..."

She was off again, making holiday plans faster than I could put a lid on them.

So we planned to have a Chinese-themed dinner tonight. We made orange chicken and ate with chopsticks. We had oranges for good fortune, and Andrew stopped to pick up some fortune cookies on his way home from work.

On Apathy

On Monday we (all of us) wrote postcards to our state senators about some concerns we had regarding public education and medical coverage. I don't know if it will do much but, as Andrew said, "Pressure is pressure." When I went to buy stamps at the post office they couldn't find any in the back. I swear we were waiting for more than half an hour while an employee was searching around in the back, trying to come up with some stamps for me (waiting at the post office that long was no small feat for Benjamin and Zoë, but really they did just fine).

"All I can find is a roll of 100 postcard stamps," the employee said helplessly. "I can't find the individual stamps."

"That's exactly what I'm looking for," I said (and exactly what I asked for, but thanks for having me wait around anyway).

"Really? You must be planning on mailing a lot of postcards."

"Yes," I answered, "I am.

Because I am. Because I refuse to allow apathy be my passion. Because I'm bothered.

"Let me alone," said Mildred. "I didn't do anything."

"Let you alone! That's all very well, but how can I leave myself alone? We need not to be let alone. We need to be really bothered once in a while. How long is it since you were really bothered? About something important, about something real?" —Montag (Ray Bradbury, Fahrenheit 451: 60th anniversary ed., p. 49)

Hiking

This morning I went to a lovely brunch with some ladies from church. The invitation was a little spur-of-the-moment, but I don't think it could have come at a better time. Benjamin had his special preschool day, which he attends once per month, and I had his teacher's (Annie's) little boy in his place. It was nice to get to visit while the little ones played. When preschool was over I went to drop off E and pick up Benjamin and who should walk down the street but E's older brothers.

"They're home already!?" I gasped. "I've got to get home!"

"Yup. Half day today," Annie said.

"That's right!"

How could I have forgotten? Well, I have a million things on my mind. But still. How could I have forgotten?!

Annie's kids ride the same bus my kids ride, except my kids are at the end of the route and Annie's kids are at the beginning of the route so while my children's to and from school commute is around an hour Annie's children are only on the bus for about five minutes. I had plenty of time to get home.

It was such a glorious sunshiny day that we decided to go hiking "to the purple slide park."  Now that their early release time is, like, noon we have plenty of time for such adventures.