Twofer one teefies

I was afraid it was going to storm yesterday so we went to the playground instead of the pool. And then—wouldn't you know it?!—it just took forever to storm! The clouds just grew bigger and bigger and bigger while we watched them. But it took a while for them to gather so we made the most of the clear day while we could.

Night owl poetry

A while ago Zoë revealed to me that when she feels poorly about herself she makes a list of reasons why she's an absolute failure in her "hate journal." In it she had quite an extensive list of reasons why she deserved to feel poorly. She's a maniac. She's a jerk. She's selfish. She can't do anything right...

And...it was so sad. Absolutely broke my heart. And made me feel so anxious I felt nauseated.

We talked about how it might be better to write more positive things about herself because—and not to make her feel poorly for being wrong but...she was 100% wrong about herself—she's really quite wonderful and so, so lovable. Always lovable. 

I love her so much and I just...wanted her to love her, too.

We've since had several lessons on how to write through our emotions (how to capture and release our sadness and anger and grief...and joy and love and happiness). We've also read through Shannon Hale's Real Friends series and talked about it a lot. And have been working through Anxiety Relief for Teens with Miriam...but with everyone else, too (Zoë included). 

Anyway, the other night I checked on Zoë before going to bed and found her sleeping parallel to her pillow (horizontally across the bed), with a notebook and pen resting on her pillow. She'd stayed up past "lights out" to write a poem about Halloween. 

My children are already passionately excited for Halloween. 

So we've started reading Frankenstein together.

Because how else do you respond to that level of excitement about Halloween in August? Like, we're not decorating yet! I'm not a big decorator, anyway, but...we are not decorating for Halloween yet! But, fine, I'll read a spooky story with you.

Rachel's belated birthday balloons

Rachel's birthday was over a month ago, but her birthday balloons have been sitting stalely on the birthday trees waiting for Andrew to buckle down and write out a birthday message for Rachel.

The summer wasn't ideal, truly. We spent a lot of time being sick, a lot of time navigating disasters in the house (like, for example, our oven has been out of commission for about as long as Rachel has been 15), a lot of time...I don't even know what. All small stuff, really, but exhausting stuff nonetheless. And somehow Andrew didn't sit down to write a birthday balloon when everyone else did. So we waited and waited and waited. 

And tomorrow his semester starts (mine started last week) so he's been puttering around the house with first day jitters, tidying things up, and he wanted those balloons down. But first we made him fill out a balloon and Rachel posed with it to show how appreciative she is:

Pooping Contests and Grand Pianos

Did I ever  write about the time Alexander noticed the symbol denoting the number of players for a game, in this instance "2–5 players," and interpreted it to mean "pooping contest?"

It took us quite a while to figure out what he meant, while he very frustratedly insisted that we understand what he meant when he asked if we could play the "pooping contest game," in this instance Carcassone, but I'm sure there are other examples. 

This was just last year, so he was 3 or so. 

Well, yesterday we had this beast delivered:

Tranquil Trail

Today's story is not my story because I stayed at home, somewhat sick, with Zoë, who had been up all night with a raging fever and round after round of vomit, and Phoebe, who likes to hang around me for some reason. Andrew had his faculty retreat today (they retreated...to the conference room for eight solid hours). Grandpa took the rest of the kids hiking at High State Park. 

This is their story.

Zoë wishes it were her story. 

When I first took her temperature in the morning (after, you know, she finally went to bed at 5:30 after throwing up while refilling her water bottle at the fridge...and getting vomit all over the fridge and the floor...which Andrew cleaned up because I was in bed with my own fever), it was hovering around 104°F. So I gave her some ibuprofen (which is the only medicine she can take without gagging; literally I'll be like, "Time for your medicine," and she'll say, "Cherry or berry?" If the answer is "berry" (ibuprofen) she'll slurp it right up, but if the answer is "cherry" (Tylenol) then she reluctantly gags it down).

Fortunately, it was berry's turn and she happily gulped it down and then over the course of the next hour or so her fever receded. 

She asked me, just as the kids were leaving, to take her temperature again. So, thinking nothing of it, I did.

"98.7°F," I announced.

"So...no fever?" she asked.

"No fever," I said. "But..."

She jumped up off the couch (where she was sleeping because getting out of the top bunk every time she wanted to vomit was...difficult) and started stripping off her pyjamas.

"Whoa, whoa, whoa!" I said. "What are you doing?"

"I want to go!" she said.

"Want to go where?"

"Hiking! With everyone else!"

"Oh, you are not well enough to go hiking!" I said. 

She collapsed on the couch sobbing and Rachel, who was just leaving, asked Grandpa to come back inside to say goodbye to Zoë, who he had missed seeing when he was in the house. He told her they'd hike to the falls another time when she wasn't sick and was able to come with everyone. 

And then they left. 

And Phoebe waved "bye bye," which I didn't know she knew how to do. 

And Zoë stewed on the couch until she recognized that she didn't actually feel better, and then she settled in for a full day of watching Bluey and Minnie Mouse...Bow Toons? Or something?

And I had a couple of meetings and our new oven got delivered and Andrew ran over something on the highway coming home and got a flat tire...again. This is his third one in three years. Ugh.

Anyway, that's not what this post is about. 

This post is about the kids and their adventure at High State Park, an adventure I was not party to and thus can't tell you very much about, except to tell you...

It was exceedingly muggy outside. 

Data visualization

Not to whine, but Zoë came down with a fever last night. And then I did, too. So we've both been miserable. That "streak" of having everyone be healthy sure didn't last long. I honestly don't know what's going on with us but...it's not super fun. 

Anyway, Rachel and Miriam finished their data visualization course and gave their final presentations today. They both did an excellent job (as did their friends whose presentations I watched). Most of our invited guests just stayed in their assigned Zoom room, but I hopped around a bit because I felt bad that our girls had so many guests in their rooms while others had...fewer. We're talking, like 11 to 3. Plus, it was fun to see what the other kids did!

And we were so grateful to have family show up for them! Grandpa and Naanii & Bumpa, as well as Uncle Patrick and Auntie Josie, plus Andrew and I were logged in on different devices. It was well-attended. And Uncle Patrick asked some fabulous questions (which the girls said they were very thankful for because other viewers weren't asking many questions at all). 

Naanii was happy that both girls chose topics that fell within her purview. 

Rachel analyzed ticket prices and attendance of major broadway shows across time, while Miriam compared the music of Taylor Swift (her favourite pop singer) to the music of Bach (her all-time favourite musician).

Not only did they learn a lot about data and coding and design and camaraderie, they also gained confidence in the trial-and-error method of learning. 

Miriam used to get so frustrated with math when she didn't get things right away, but today while she was doing math, she found a pattern her textbook hadn't pointed out to her and tested it on a number of problems to see if it consistently worked out. She wrote down pages and pages of math work, scribbled a bunch of stuff out, and kept on going. 

Without even crying!

She was treating her math the same way she's been treating her coding these past few weeks—as an experiment to do and re-do until she figures out how to make it do what she wants it to do. 

Not that this data visualization course didn't ever make her cry...because she definitely did some of that. 

But overall it was a good experience. Probably even a great experience! 

Andrew has all sorts of plans to have the girls keep their skills sharp, so I'm excited to see what they come up with!

A pool day!

Not to brag, but, for the first time in about eight weeks, everyone at our house is healthy! And the girls are at the tail end of their coding class and didn't have any tutorials due today, so they joined us at the pool as well. It was fun to have all the kids there together. 

The oldest four spent a lot of time playing in the diving tank. Zoë showed off her "unicorn dive," which from the deck looks like it's going to be a hot mess (especially since she biffed it while running on the driveway and scraped up her elbows and knees, so her hobbling on the deck was especially hobbly today), but which looks very graceful once she hits the water. 

So perhaps it's really a narwhal dive. I doubt narwhals are very graceful on land. 

(Note the hand being held up like a horn; that's integral to this dive's form).

Yummy yogurt

One of the hard truths about life is that before you can do something well, you first have to do it abysmally. Everything is learned slowly and with lots of practice and (seeming) failure. 

When you're raising children this learning process, unfortunately, leads to a lot of messes as well.

And so it was that I handed Phoebe a little bowl of yummy homemade yogurt at dinner this evening. The homemade part is important because Andrew's been making it super thick lately, so that when we mix in the fruit compotes (which Andrew also makes from scratch) it can get a little runnier without getting too runny. Anyway, the thicker yogurt is a little less scary to hand over to a baby than runny yogurt. 

Phoebe had plain yogurt with freshly sliced mangoes for dinner, which she fed to herself.

It went...well.

Her theory seemed to be that if she simply smeared yogurt on every surface, then any surface she licked would taste like yogurt. It was a flawless plan and she was happy the entire meal!

Literal bike shorts

"Help! Help! Alexander's shorts are caught on his bike!" Zoë came yelping down the driveway. 

I was just buckling Phoebe into her stroller so we could go for a walk. Zoë and Alexander were riding their bikes around while they were waiting for everyone else to get ready to leave.

Knowing that Alexander was on his balance bike (he's working on figuring out his pedal bike but is still much faster on his balance bike, so he takes that when we go for walks), I wasn't sure how his shorts could get stuck anywhere. Yesterday Zoë had tried to ride her bike with too long of a skirt and that was perilously close to getting caught in her chain. But pedal bikes don't have a chain or gears or anything. So how could Alexander's shorts get caught on his bike?!?

Friends...

A few beautiful things

We see these acorn plum galls quite often and only recently did we ever take one home to cut it open. Inside it does look rather plum-like—fleshy white fruit that bleeds red when its cut. This isn't a plum at all, however, but a tumor caused by an itty baby cynipid wasp that was laid on an acorn cap. I've seen other galls before, mostly on leaves, but these acorn plums were surprising to me when Benjamin filled the cupholders of the stroller with acorns (from the same oak he found this acorn plum) and I noticed that the gall really did have the same pattern as the acorn cap. So I guess I could see how it could grow alongside an acorn.

The kids have been very interested in collecting bugs lately. The weather is starting to turn fall-ish so we're starting to find dead cicadas all over the place. Interestingly enough, we're also seeing a lot of cicada molts as well. And I can't figure out why because I feel like we usually start finding those old molts earlier in the summer and expired cicadas later. But maybe they've always been contemporaneous and I just...am remembering wrong. 

Me? Wrong?

It could happen.