Alexander is three!

Alexander has been planning and counting down to his birthday for a long time, and this morning he woke up to execute his plans. Here he is giving me his final two-year-old goodnight hug:

And here he is in the morning, with spiky hair (he loves spiky hair and keeps saying that when he grows up he wants to have spiky hair, so I pulled out some hair gel this morning and gave him some spikes):

Another smashing success

When I broke one of our glass measuring cups, I didn't break the huge 4-cup measuring cup (which we hardly ever use because rarely do we ever have to measure four cups of something), nor did I break the 1-cup measuring cup (which we use more often than the 4-cup measuring cup but still not that frequently because although we measure one cup of stuff frequently it also feels a teensy bit like maybe it will spill if you only use a 1-cup measuring cup). I broke the just right 2-cup measuring cup—the one we use the most often of all.

Thus the reason it was sitting out to dry on the edge of the counter (though in all honestly it should have been sitting out to dry more to the middle of the counter than the edge...I'm just saying).

Anyway, Andrew decided to order a new 2-cup measuring cup because we immediately began to feel like we were missing it. It arrived the other day, dropped off unceremoniously on our front porch...

...In a plastic-bag envelope. 

When I peeped out the window to see what package had arrived I whispered, "Oh, no," because I already knew what it was we were expecting that day. 

When I picked the package up and it...jingled...in my hands, I started cackling...because isn't that just the most 2020 way for a package to arrive? Shattered to bits?

Tickled pink (or blue or brown)

Alexander loves to name his toys. His owls all have names—Bluey, Hedwig, Spot, Brownie, and...I can't think of the other one—his doll is named Tom. The other day he was having me draw pictures and he asked if I would draw a picture of his puppy, so I did. And then he asked if I would draw a dog house for his puppy to live in, so I did and decided to put a sign on the dog house, so I asked Alexander what his dog's name was. 

"His name is...he doesn't have a name yet!" Alexander panicked.

"Well, you'd better name him then!" I said. 

Alexander scanned the room, finally settling on some bottles of glue the kids had left on the counter. 

"Gluey!" he said. "My puppy's name is Gluey!"

I thought his naming process was so cute, so I was telling my family about it on a group video call. When I announced that his name was Gluey, Rachel snickered, "That would be a good name for a horse."

My family rather appreciated her dark humour. 

*******

Today Benjamin agreed to do a difficult job for me (squeezing between the wall of the downstairs bathroom and the foundation to get some trash left back there (by the previous owners)), which he was rather reluctant to do but which when it came right down to it he found he rather enjoyed it.

"You're a good man, Charlie Brown," I told him.

Alexander looked at him—Benjamin was wearing all blue today—and said, "He's not Charlie Brown! He's Benny Blue!"

*******

We had a lovely Thanksgiving dinner this evening, cooked up by Rachel and Andrew, and while we were talking, the topic of Alexander's birthday came up. Alexander is very excited about his birthday and has all sorts of plans for his special day. 

"That's right," Andrew teased for some reason (because...he's a tease), "You're going to be four!"

The aftermath

Last night, in a very short amount of time, the heavens unleashed over 5 inches of rain on us. In fact, between 10:30 PM and 10:45 PM—shortly after we noticed the house had begun to...uhhh..."wet" itself and while we were outside desperately trying to build up a berm and convince the water to take a path that didn't include my basement—we received 1.24 inches of water! By 11:00 we had accumulated 0.75 inches more for a grand total of 2 inches in a half hour! 

I've included the precipitation chart below, but you can see a table with more detail here, if you're interested:

It was an almost unfathomable amount of rain, so let's see if we can fathom it, shall we?

It was a dark and stormy night...

...and I had only just tucked my little ones in for their tornado-warning tent-sleepover, turned out the light, and crept up the stairs (and wrote a quick blog post) when I got a text message from Rachel (at 10:18 PM).

"Heyyy," she wrote.

"'Sup?" I asked.

"There's a wet spot on the floor by the bathroom?" she frained.

This is not technically a valid scrabble word. Whereas refrain comes from the Latin re+frenum and means to bridle or restrain oneself (or from the Latin refringere, which means to break up, as with a refrain in a song), frain is a rather Scottish way to inquire about something. But Rachel was desperate, so we allowed it this afternoon. 

Anyway, she asked/told me that the floor was a bit wet.

"Oh?" I said.

"Can you come look at it?"

So I went back downstairs to look at it and...oh, no. 

Everything was not fine, as I so erroneously claimed in my last blog post, which I had finished (at 10:14 PM) mere minutes before Rachel made her discovery. The carpet was wet all along the outside wall as well as the wall between The Lego Room and the rest of the basement. The Lego Room was also wet. 

Good night, Hurricane!

We still haven't fixed our roof from Hurricane Sally and now we're being bombarded by Hurricane Delta. It was quite a ride for me when Andrew first sent me a warning about the wicked weather "Delta" was bringing us. 

"Tornado watch...from Delta," he texted me. 

"Better than a warning," I said and then I wondered what he meant by "from Delta."

Delta Airlines? They bring tornadoes now? Delta, Utah? That's quite the distance for a tornado to travel. Oh, Hurricane Delta! I mean, clearly it was raining outside but I didn't know when it was due to hit us. Apparently it was today.

So it's been raining heavily all day with tornado warnings popping up all around us but never for us. We had scriptures and prayer and I was just ushering the children upstairs to their beds when...it was finally our turn for a tornado warning!

Simply smashing

For the first time since...March? Literally for the first time since March, I have an errand to run today. I need to go to the library—to drop off our books that are due, to pick out new books, and to drop off our ballots (seriously, VOTE, guys!)—and this time I checked and they're not closed to the public (unlike the last time I was going to run an errand but then didn't). So I put on a nice outfit today—jeans and a (new!) shirt that I go on clearance in the early spring when we were buying new flip flops from Old Navy for Rachel and wanted free shipping but didn't want to spend enough money on flip flops to qualify for free shipping (like, may as well buy a shirt, right?), but which was on clearance because it was from the winter collection (it has long sleeves) so I hadn't had an opportunity to wear it until now.

Part of me was like, "Why wear a nice shirt? It's just going to get dirty/stained/ruined!" because motherhood is a, uh, messy affair, okay? But then I was like, "It does me no good just sitting in the closet waiting to be worn and I'm going in public today." So wearing a nice shirt is completely justified. Right?

Guys, the shirt already has a snag in it and I don't know how. Ugh. 

This is why I can't have nice things.

Zoë, at your serviette

We've been doing far too much reading lately, which might not be a thing you'd think would be possible but in our case...it just might be. Because we're planning on taking our fall break next week, the older kids have been pushing to finish reading The Scarlet Pimpernel so that we can have a movie night. This has made for some long mornings of reading, which can be difficult for Zoë and Alexander, who aren't following the story quite as well as the big kids (though still Zoë is able to recall a surprising amount of information; even when I'm struggling to recall character names—the other French girl...whatever-her-name-is De Tournay—Zoë can come up with the names in a snap—it's Suzanne).

This has led to some perceived naughtiness on their part (perceived because they aren't trying to be naughty, necessarily, but are being so rowdy that they're driving everyone else bonkers). They won't leave to go play elsewhere, though, because they want to listen to the story, too. So it's been a little tense the past couple of days, just trying to balance everyone's needs and personalities. 

And we've just been juggling so long, you know. 

Thus the need for a break.

Anyway, we finished reading this morning and I gave the kids their writing prompt and set them loose and Zoë and Alexander went into the living room to...read some more!

Zoë is a very fluent reader and will read anything she can get her hands on. She's also a very expressive reader, an indefatigable reader. 

Tonight she tried to read the entire 48 verses of 3 Nephi 12...even though we told her that she wasn't allowed to read the whole chapter by herself because other people wanted turns. She aggressively read the first 12 verses (yes, aggressive reading is definitely a thing) and then aggressively followed along and anytime anyone paused to take a breath or swallow she would cut them off and aggressively begin plowing through more verses.

She's got fluency, expression, and endurance.

The only thing she can't quite manage is to read in her head. 

This works out well for us, though, because she can usually find a willing listener. 

Here she is reading to Alexander, who moments before was so exhausted from listening that he couldn't manage to sit still or keep quiet (in his defense, there were no pictures):

Park time

We are gearing up for fall break over here, I think. I can just tell we're at a...breaking point...if you will...the point where we just feel like we're slogging through...the point where we haven't taken a day off since June, practically. That's the point we're at. I don't know what we'll end up doing—perhaps probably nothing—but whatever it is, it gives us something to look forward to for the next few days.

The promise of...sleeping in (we do that, anyway)...of not having to coach Benjamin through his math work (though yesterday when we wrote about heroes he said that I was a hero for helping him so perhaps it's not so bad after all)...of playing more games and watching more movies (we're hoping to finish The Scarlet Pimpernel before we break) and lazing about at the park (outside of "prime time" so we don't have to be around other people). 

And that's about it. 

We've considered driving somewhere and staying in a cabin, but haven't committed to that idea yet. It might be nice...but it might be nicer to do that not when we're in the middle of a pandemic, which (just as a reminder) we are. 

I did take the kids to the park today, specifically for science so we could look for examples of weathering happening in real life...but also so that they could just play for a while. We found plenty of weathering going on at the park (enough that most of the walking paths are closed for resurfacing right now since they've been weathered to bits (the kids are going to miss the "roller coaster" the tree roots have made in one section of the path; they loved hitting that with their scooters)).

Here are Zoë and Alexander by the sign warning about the trail being closed:

Best meals, best blankets

Somehow it's October, apparently. 

It's been quite the week at our house with a few work deadlines for Andrew and my regular homework load along with compiling a (23-page) family newsletter. Dinners were scanty: nachos, pancakes, frozen pizza, that sort of thing—which is the very reason I've always said that both of us couldn't do grad school at the same time. Thank goodness neither one of us is actually in school full time or we'd never remember to feed the kids!

We ordered pizza on Friday night and when the delivery guy dropped them off he asked if we were having a party. "No," Andrew told him. "We just have a lot of kids."

The guy looked a little shocked but, like, it's the truth. 

*****