Last year's science fair

Is it possible that I never wrote about the science fair from last year (March 9, 2017)? It's suddenly seeming entirely possible because I can't find anything about it. We had seen a viral post about the amazing anti-bacterial properties in human milk and decided to duplicate the study, as best we could, at home. In short, we were unable to obtain the same results as the original study. Our breastmilk didn't seem to inhibit the growth of bacteria, at least not topically.

Children and emotional intelligence

Since learning how to read and moving into the top bunk, Benjamin has been using a little clip on lamp that—in his defense—his sisters had been using before him. Somehow it managed to survive the girls but (for whatever reason) it was unable to withstand the whirlwind known as Benjamin (or perhaps it was just getting old). Whatever the case, the lamp started falling apart with reckless abandon.

A loose screw here, a lost cover there, and all of a sudden the entire circuitry of the thing was exposed.

Last night I decided I'd tie part of it together as a stop-gap measure until we could think of a more permanent solution. Mostly I just wanted the circuit board out of sight (out of mind (out of little fingers)), so I got some yarn and I tied the little light panel onto the the head of the lamp (it's an LED light board, obviously, not incandescent) before sending the kids to bed.

A few minutes later I walked into Benjamin's room and he was fiddling with the lamp.

"What are you doing?" I asked.

"Oh, just there was a rope tied on my lamp for some reason. But don't worry! I untied it!"

And he had! Gah! So, with a hint of frustration, I removed the lamp from his bed. He picked up on my frustration and started sobbing because he didn't know he wasn't supposed to remove the string (and that's true...) but I wasn't really frustrated about the lamp and the string. I was more frustrated that Benjamin had, once again, outsmarted me.

It's like he sits around concocting ways to get around the very solid rules I set (or attempt to set).

******

Passport Pictures

This was a weird Monday. The AM kindergarten (which Benjamin attends) was released at their standard early-out time (the PM kindergarten had the day off) and Rachel and Miriam only had a half day so they got out of school at noon. I forgot about ukulele practice because Miriam had a make-up piano lesson scheduled and when she left the house (Aunt Linda teaches her now) I sat down to have a piano lesson with Rachel because Rachel's rehearsal schedule is crazy next week (musicals are fun, but...a lot of work) and I knew we wouldn't have time to squeeze a lesson in any other day. But then I got a text asking if ukulele was still on, so I told the texter to go ahead and come on over and we had our little ukulele practice half an hour late.

It was just an off day. I couldn't get nap times right and almost forgot to pick up Benjamin from school because no one got out at their normal time and everything seemed just a little bit harder to do today.

But I managed to take passport photos of the kids. My mom is hoping to take Rachel and Miriam up to Canada in the not-too-distant, whenever-their-passports-arrive future, so we'll be applying for their passports tomorrow. Benjamin and Zoë technically didn't need passport pictures taken but they wanted them anyway. They're always feeling a little left out (though I keep promising them that they will grow up and get to do neat things, too). 

Benjamin even told me that he needed his passport picture taken "in case [he] learn[s] to listen well enough that Naanii wants to take [him] with her, too." He tries really hard to listen, I think. The problem is that he just has so many...interesting...ideas. Ideas that should probably not be acted on but so often are. *sigh*

Zoë just wanted her picture taken because everyone else was doing it. And—oh, boy!—you should see the outtakes. She was in quite the mood today and kept yelling at everyone to leave her alone.

Bouncing Baby Boy

This summer, my friend Geneen had the audacity to move out of the area just as my family was making our way to the area. I was a little bothered by her timing (come on, Geneen!) but she left behind a bunch of baby stuff for Alexander, so I guess her moving wasn't all bad. Among the treasures she left behind was a doorway jumper, which has been sitting in our closet ever since. 

But then this girl that I know who had twins around the same time I had Alexander asked on Facebook if anyone had a doorway jumper she could borrow for the next several months (she had one jumper but didn't want to buy a second one) and I thought to myself, "Huh. I wonder if Alexander is ready for something like that, too..."

It's funny the things you forget about babies even as you're in the midst of having babies. I mean, he's my fifth child and I've been having babies pretty regularly. It's not like I took a ten year break and then had him. Nope. He came right on the tail end of Zoë's babyhood. Still, I feel a little clueless. So I looked up how old a baby should be before you plop them in a chair suspended from the doorway by a spring (that doesn't sound perilous at all, does it?) and the internet told me between 4 and 5 months, assuming the baby has good head control. 

Alexander finds his little bouncy chair a tad bit boring of late, so we decided (on Saturday morning) to give the doorway jumper a try and he...thought it was interesting:

Do you wanna build a snowman?

Since it last snowed on us (last Friday) the weather had been warm enough to melt off nearly everything we got (and we got quite a bit). Yesterday afternoon we went to the park with Naanii and Zoë ran around barefoot (avoid patches of snow), Benjamin wore shorts, and Rachel and Miriam kept taking their sweaters on and off. And when we got home we made Benjamin go into the backyard to collect all the flotsam the melting snow had been hiding: an orange bowl, a frisbee, some boards for the porch swing, and several other things.

And then last night it snowed once again—and quite a bit, too!

We knew it was coming. The winter storm advisory had been in the forecast for about a week. Still, it was hard to believe that a storm actually was coming because yesterday had been so balmy. But we woke up to a good eight inches of snow—and then it kept on snowing for four or five more hours!

Some wards in our area met for sacrament meeting only and then went home to help shovel out the neighbourhood. Other wards in the area cancelled church altogether (areas closer to the mountain really got pounded). Our ward met for all three hours (and then went home to shovel, although some of us shovelled before church (some of us had 5 AM skype meetings so had plenty of time on our hands before church (ahem, Andrew)).

After choir practice, I took the kids outside to play in the snow. It was perfect snow for building a snowman, which I was happy about because the last time we had snow good enough for a snowman was at Christmas (and Andrew took the kids out to build a snowman because Alexander was still so new and I was still so just-had-a-baby, and we forgot to take a picture of it)! We haven't managed to build a snowman since then. Until today.

Andrew had been napping (see above for the reason why) but he joined us when we had reached a crucial part in our snowman building process. We'd rolled two ginormous snowballs but had no idea how we were going to get them on top of each other (they were just that big).

Little House on the...

Lately I have been thinking about the various backdrops I've enjoyed through different chapters of my life. A friend of mine recently wrote about how someone wise once told her that not having one true childhood home will stunt a child's ability to connect with their environment. This particular friend's lifestyle requires rather big moves every few years, so she protested that her child would grow to love many environments, on a general level, and would be come a "global steward," of sorts, to which the Wise Person replied, "Ah, but the power of nature lies in its particularities."

This Wise Person had my friend promise that she would strive to at least teach her child(ren) about local birds, "as a start," which she's done, and which I heartily approve of. However, I think living in multiple places is like having multiple children. You always worry about how you can love a second (third, fourth, fifth...) child as much as the first (second, third, fourth...) but soon learn that, as cliché as it sounds, love for your children can only be multiplied, not divided. So too with the concept of home. It is possible to love multiple places fiercely. 

I also believe that a change in scenery provides a necessary component of embracing particularities. A new environment arouses a childlike curiosity in an otherwise dull and jaded adult. 

Farewell, February! Hello, March!

What a downer of a month February is. It can't do anything right. It isn't even a normal length. 

We have a March 1 deadline that I've been thinking about this week, but all week I've been thinking, "We still have a few more days left to decide..." 

(Are we going to fly out for Andrew's graduation ceremony or not?)

BUT it's February! So we don't have a few more days left to decide because February is over!

I'm glad about this because even though this winter was mild, the snow and cold we've gotten recently has been enough for me. Too bad for me, though, because there's another winter storm a-brewin'. Still, snow storms in March aren't quite as depressing as snow storms earlier in the season because even if it's snowing it feels like spring, like the world is rejuvenating (which it is). February, as the tail end of winter dreariness, is the absolute worst.

My question today, though, is this: I've been alive for several Februaries (32, to be exact) so how did I not realize the end of February was already upon us?

What a weird month, February. I mean, come on...

Oh, so about the picture! I had to force Zoë to come with me to pick up Benjamin today, which is great because I've been reading this book called Peaceful Parent, Happy Kids that my mom got for me. And, like, I'm all about helping children work through their emotions until I'm not. And today when we had to leave and Zoë was still throwing a fit I just picked her up, put her down in the garage and said, "We're going now. Do you want to wear shoes and a coat, or not?"

"Yes," she sniffed.

Sometimes I just don't have time to deal with her emotions because we have to go (but it's something we'll work on together, I guess).

She cheered up while we were on our walk and I started pointing out all the things she would have missed seeing if she hadn't come with me. These flowers were one of those things. And I always love when I see the first little blossoms poking out from the snowy ground.

ALSO...I just tried to type "rabbit, rabbit, rabbit" to Andrew but instead I typed, "rabbit, rabbit, rabbi" and now I can't stop laughing. Happy March!

All the birthdays

There are a lot of birthdays in our family this week: my brother David, my nephew Andrew, my Grandma, and Grandpa Frank. Did I miss anyone? I probably missed someone. It's a busy week for birthdays!

David's birthday was on Monday. He was always such a good big brother. He's been there for me from the very beginning...

My dad, my brother, and me

Play and dough

Every morning after the kids leave for school, Zoë requests play-doh time (at least, that's her activity of choice this week). Her specialty creations are pizza and bouncy balls, but she makes other things, too.

She was using some of the little cookie cutters in her dough and announcing what she was cutting out in the moment. "I'm making a pineapple!" she said. "I'm making a flower!"

Then she grabbed a little cookie cutter shaped like an "old fashioned" telephone—one with a receiver that sits on top of the base, with a rotary dial, and...I'm pretty sure we had one in my house growing up (the kind that sits on a table), at least for a while (if not, I know my aunt had (and perhaps still has) one that was mounted to the wall). Those phones don't seem so old to me, but to Zoë they are ancient history.

"I'm making a..." she paused and then exclaimed, "I don't even know what this is!"

A mixed bag day

I gave Benjamin a haircut yesterday because he was one shaggy boy. He tends to get that way in between haircuts because, well, he hates haircuts. He hates when I use scissors to cut his hair because that takes way too long. He hates when I use the clippers to cut his hair because the buzzing and vibrating makes him nervous. He basically just hates having his hair cut.

But, like his daddy, Benjamin also hates doing his hair. He hates getting it wet and combing it down. He especially hates putting gel in his hair. A good day for him is a day that he can roll out of bed and not bother with his hair at all.

Unfortunately—and perplexingly—this means that in order for him to have a run of good days he needs a haircut and haircut days are very bad days. Or, as I tried to impress upon Miriam this evening, bad moments. Most days are really a mixed bag: some good, some bad. And that's fine; you enjoy the good moments and work through the bad moments.

Anyway, I cut Benjamin's hair yesterday and it was certainly a difficult moment for him.

He cried, he screamed, he scrunched his shoulders up to "protect" his ears, he wiggled, he squirmed...

It was difficult for everybody involved. Alexander started crying because he doesn't like it when his siblings are loud (so he went into the front carrier). Zoë was be-bopping around trying to cheer Benjamin up. Benjamin just kept on carrying on no matter what we did to reassure him (I even rubbed the clippers on the palm of my hand (and his) to show him that he was in no danger of having his head chopped off by mistake—all it is is a tickle).

His haircut took probably twice as long as it should have and it's a little crookedy, but it's done.

Until the next time.