Hot stuff!

Last night Rachel made pancakes for dinner and since I can't exactly eat pancakes right now, she was a sweetheart and mixed up some special pancakes for me using almond flour and monk fruit sweetener. Andrew did his best to make a simple syrup from the monk fruit sweetener. 

But here's the thing: 

Erythritol-based crystallized monk fruit sweeteners don't dissolve like regular sugar. So while he made a syrup of sorts, it wasn't quite like actual syrup. It began recrystallizing the minute it stopped boiling, but I decided to try it on my pancakes anyway. 

Here's another thing about monk fruit sweetener:

Evidently, although they don't dissolve well, they do hold heat well. A little too well. 

I figured that the syrup had been sitting out long enough (long enough to recrystallize!) and thought that after I had drizzle/clumped it onto my pancakes that it would be safe enough to consume. Like regular syrup, right?

Hot sugar holds heat. I know this. Syrup gets hot. Hotter than boiling water can. 

But it also cools off. 

Evidently not so with monk fruit sweetener. 

I took a bite of pancake, with my monk fruit sweetener glob on top, stuck it in my mouth and...immediately regretted it.

That stuff was molten lava! 

The roof of my mouth is miserable. 

I have blisters all from the heat (they've been peeling all day; it's absolutely disgusting). 

I left the syrup alone after that. And when it was time to clean up from dinner, the bowl it was in was too hot to handle without a hot-pad! Still!

So be warned! If you're going to make your own monk fruit syrup, use liquid sweetener, not crystal sweetener. Or just busy some at the store pre-made (I think that's our next move).

Rachel's birthday balloons

Rachel has been fourteen for nearly a month now, so I figured I should take down her birthday balloons and record them (finally). 

Alexander drew her a lovely picture of cupcakes on a roof. Then he asked everybody, "But why? Why are the cupcakes on the roof?!" No one knows.

Asynchronous Junior Piano Recital

The kids enjoyed their Christmas recital so much that they immediately made plans to hold a spring recital. And then spring came and went but we didn't get around to holding a recital. And then we thought, perhaps, a mid-summer recital...but, here we are with fall rapidly approaching and obviously we still haven't done anything.

It was high time to retire some of these pieces but I simply don't have the wherewithal to put together a synchronous virtual recital right now, so we settled on an asynchronous virtual recital. Further, Rachel and Miriam weren't feeling quite ready for this (I think they had been ready earlier in the year, but then they moved on from those pieces and want to finish learning their current pieces) so they'll have a senior piano recital a little later.

We'll also be posting an encore junior recital in the near future because we learned that if the computer goes to sleep while we're recording the microphone (which is plugged into the computer) also goes to sleep, so we missed recording a duet by Benjamin and me, another of Benjamin's song, and Alexander pretending that he's also a part of things.

Without further ado, here are three of Benjamin's songs...

Bells of Great Britain:

Diabetes and dependability

I attended my gestational diabetes education seminar, a three-hour long class rehashing information I've received numerous times before. It's not that the information isn't useful or anything, because it is! It's just that I wish there was an option for been-there-done-that mothers. A refresher course of sorts. 

At least this is a pandemic so it was a virtual lecture rather than an in-person class. 

But still...three hours. 

Three hours of talking about how dangerous this can be for baby and mom, three hours of talking about diet and exercise, three hours of talking about the best method for lancing yourself four times a day. I wasn't particularly grumpy about this diagnosis until this class because I'd been doing everything already (aside from carefully measuring and recording both my glucose levels and everything I put into my mouth). I've been carefully balancing my meals and making sure I exercise every day for months now. 

I just don't like...feeling pressured about it, I guess. 

Anyway, yesterday morning I went downstairs to look at our yarn collection so I could decide on a baby blanket to make in the few spare minutes I'll be able to grab here and there throughout the next semester.

The cat's litter box is down there and when I saw it...I got mad. It was in a disgusting state.

"Benjamin!" I hollered.

It's his week for the litter box. 

He thundered down the stairs to join me in the basement.

"What?" he asked innocently.

"Have you even been cleaning out the cat's litter box?"

"A little bit," he said.

Our first podcasts

During Spring Semester I took a course called "New Literacies," which focused on building a digital identity and integrating technology in the classroom. For our final project, we had to produce a podcast that discussed (1) an archival document from the special collections library, (2) an aspect of our personal or professional life, (3) a song, movie, or book from popular culture. I think those were the three main points we had to discuss (in addition to our digital identity and teaching, in general). 

It was quite a challenge, honestly. This is what I came up with:

   

Because I spent so much time recording (and re-recording (and re-re-recording)) my script and figuring out how to piece it all together, the kids got quite interested in learning how to produce a podcast as well. So when my sister suggested that they research real-life dragons and write essays to convince her which one is the best...they decided to take on her challenge in podcast form.

It was quite a challenge, honestly. They had to research their chosen creature, write an essay about it, record their essays, add background music and other little sound effects, and stitch everything together....

It took them a lot longer than I think they thought it would take initially, but I think they gained some good skills (to put to use for the next episode they're planning), as well as a greater appreciation for all the effort involved in producing a podcast in the first place. 

Don't mind the little quirks—like variation in volume (be ready to adjust the volume!)—but do have a listen! They worked hard and did a great job!

After you listen, be sure to vote in their poll. I was planning on embedding it here, but Rachel created it and I have to snag that code from her, so for now just click on THIS LINK to access the poll!

Pool friends

With public schools being back in session, our community pool has cleared right out. Now when we go we usually have it all to ourselves (sometimes there's another person or two using it). Today was mostly an all-to-ourselves day!

Now, ordinarily, having lots of friends to play with at the pool might be fun, but these aren't ordinary times, so we're glad for the space to splash and play at our leisure without worrying about social distancing. We did, however, find one friend at the pool today who we're fairly sure was safe. I mean, its skin may release toxic skin secretions, but that's mostly only a problem if you don't wash your hands before you pick your nose...and we were at the pool where there was plenty of water.

Yes, Benjamin found a Cope's grey treefrog clinging to the side of the pool.

Journaling is to gold as photographs are to plums

Whenever I finish a photo book I tend to feel a little nostalgic for a while; it's both beautiful and heartrending for me to scroll through all...hundred thousand (or more ?)...pictures that we've taken over the years. Inside those many, many bits and bytes are memories of my big kids as babies (and they were all such sweet babies), of the adventures we've taken, the places we've lived, people we've loved...and people we've lost. Our successes and failures are recorded in those pictures. 

One picture that I came across yesterday while I was hunting for orange pictures was a picture of little Rachel, who had scribbled all over herself with orange felt pen (marker). It was washable. It wasn't a big deal. But in this picture she is crying. And I know it's because I chided her too harshly. 

I mean, I'm kind of a big "we colour on paper" kind of mom. But still...she was just a baby. 

I wasn't a perfect mom (I'm still not).

So plenty of my failures are recorded in those pictures as well. 

But I'm so grateful for all those many, many pictures we have. Name a single generation that has that sort of gift—to look back visually on practically every day of their life. At times, for some, it might be considered a curse, I'll grant you that. But mostly I think it's beautiful. 

So it was serendipitous that our lesson for church on Sunday was on journaling (something you may have guessed I'm also fond of). We're currently covertly video-calling into our ward (with permission), since Zoom access has been disbanded, since the pandemic is "over" (but only over-not-over as we're learning; we had a lovely couple of weeks this summer with numbers in the hundreds, though we're now back up in the thousands, on par with the "first wave" and quickly gaining on the second), so I'm the Primary/Young Women/Sunday School/Relief Society teacher for our little class. (Andrew is the organist, so he's going in person; Rachel is vaccinated and the YW class president, so she's been going as well; I'm vaccinated but (a) I have four unvaccinated children, two of whom fall into the "pre-existing condition" classification we so easily write off in our society, and (b) I'm pregnant and thus more high risk). Anyway...

I got to sit and teach my kids about the importance of record-keeping for an hour. And it was great! At least...I thought so. 

These kids!

Yesterday while I was taking a nap Andrew watched The Prince of Egypt with the kids. 

Alexander was shook. 

That part at the beginning when all the babies are being rounded up and...disposed of? Horrifying. 

"Why are they doing this?" he demanded to know.

"Because a prophesy said that one of the babies would free the slaves," Andrew began to explain. 

"What?" Alexander asked. "Why? I don't understand. Why would Prophesy say that sort of thing? Why would Prophesy choose a baby? I mean, a baby can't even hold sharp scissors!"

"Sharp scissors?" Andrew wondered.

"To free the slaves!" Alexander said. "You're gonna need sharp scissors for that!"

"Okay, but..."

"A baby can't even hold sharp scissors! It's not allowed! Prophesy doesn't know very much about babies!"

He continued to mutter random things about Prophesy (who he seems to believe is a person) and sharp scissors under his breath for the rest of the day. 

And forget the part where they load Moses into a basket to float him down the Nile.

"This seems like a very bad idea..." according to Alexander.

Another stocking and another photo album

I started a stocking for Baby #6 (aka Phoebe) on the drive out to see my sister on Thursday morning. I finished it (more or less) this evening, which has to be some kind of stocking-knitting record! I still need to put her name on it (but, to be fair, I still have to put Alexander's name on his stocking and he's almost four). I just thought that with the baby coming so soon before Christmas and with all the other busyness we have going on in our lives (between school and work and other kids and things) that if I was going to have a matching stocking for this baby that now was the time to do it. So I did it!

Then this morning I got a Shutterfly code for a free book and knew I had to throw one of those together, too! The problem was that I wasn't sure what theme to do for it. All the kids have their 1-year baby book now, I've done Christmas and Halloween and family photos and haven't really amassed enough pictures to do another book like that... 

Pit stop!

My sister let me know a couple of days ago that she'd be making a quick pit stop not too far from us. Her schedule was at the whim of her unloading/loading appointments, but we managed to squeeze in a little visit!

She phoned last night while we were in the middle of story time and she was on her way making her way through Illinois so we could firm up some details. While I talked with her, the boys messed around, and Zoë sat serenely beside me. Little did I know she was serenely eavesdropping! 

She heard a few things like "meeting up" and "Illinois" and "a dress" and "for Zoë."

She didn't say much to me about that phone call, but, boy, was she spreading rumours this morning! She told her siblings that we were going to Illinois to meet up with Auntie K, who had a dress for her!

I had to explain that we were going to a truck stop half an hour away from our house to meet up with Auntie K, who was driving from Illinois to Georgia, and who had something small enough to fit into an envelope, and which she had already addressed to Zoë but hadn't put a stamp on yet, which she would give to Zoë. 

So it was a little less of a grand adventure than Zoë imagined it was going to be, but it was certainly grand to get to see my sister! My sweet, flexible, accommodating sister!

She and Allen first suggested meeting at Cracker Barrel for lunch, but I was like, "Yeah, about that...we haven't done any inside dining the entire pandemic and...four of my kids aren't vaccinated...so..."

Instead we met in a grassy area outside of a Wendy's for an ice cream picnic, which was just as lovely, I think. Restaurants are hard for me, anyway, but in a pandemic?! Sounds like a nightmare.

As promised, Kelli had an envelope addressed to Zoë. Inside was a bedazzled unicorn wallhanging, which Zoë loves, of course.