Eerie itching

It was a dark and stormy night and, as is the case several times a night, I was coaxing (read: nursing) Phoebe back to sleep, drifting in and out of sleepy, myself, when I heard a distinct rap-rap-rapping that yanked me into a state of being very wide awake. 

It had sounded as if someone had been tapping the window right above my head.

It was impossible...

We're on the second floor.

Perhaps some animal...

But, no. It was a distinctly human pattern of knocking: rap, rap, rap.

It was impossible...

And yet I heard what I heard. 

I reached over, shook Andrew, and whispered, "Did you hear that?!"

"What?" he mumbled. 

"Someone was knocking on the..."

Matchy-matchy

When Grandpa moved to Georgia, he arrived wearing a red polo shirt, which Alexander was excited about because he has a red polo shirt! Ever since this realization, he's been wanting to coordinate a red shirt day with Grandpa, but somehow they have never managed it! 

The first time we tried, Grandpa didn't get the text, so Alexander dressed in his red shirt and Grandpa didn't. And then the next time Grandpa came over he wore his red shirt and Alexander didn't. And it's just been months of missed opportunities and dashed hopes. It's not like something like this is even that hard to coordinate...we just struggle sometimes. And that's okay.

Yesterday, however, Alexander put on his red polo shirt and was thrilled to pieces when Grandpa arrived for dinner wearing...his red polo shirt!

In the bathroom

Believe it or not, this is a first for me...

More psalms

The younger kids and I wrote our own psalms today during primary. Benjamin had to write his fast because a friend came to the door to see if he could play outside (we were overtime already, so this was fine); I've never seen him write so efficiently.

Oh, Lord, your majesty is proclaimed in all things, from the trees to the bugs, every life cycle you engineered to go on forever. From mosquito larva to a fetus in a mother's belly your mark on the world is everywhere.

Zoë wrote:

Oh, Jesus, you died for us. In the tomb, you rose again. At the last supper you said, 'I will give this piece of bread to the person who betrayed me.' You are the Son of God.

Alexander chose to copy out the chapter heading of Judges 15 (weird flex, but okay):

Samson burns the grain of the Philistines—They burn his wife and father-in-law—Samson slays a thousand Philistines at Lehi with the jawbone of an ass.

I am not yet satisfied with my psalm, but I'll share an early draft of it, anyway:

The tree, when cut, reveals the fingerprint of God within its core, echoing rings that match my own. My image reflects his glory, my dominion mirrors his power to succor or destroy. 

As a tree sways in the storm, I will yield my will to His hand. I will wield my own hands gently, allowing his goodness, which flows within me, to trickle through me, drip by drip, and ripple outward into the world.

Fall is in the air

I took Miriam to mutual the other night, along with all the little kids because mutual took advantage of the great outdoors, so I figured that I would let my kids play while she hung out at mutual and then we'd all go home together. But my kids wanted to participate in the activity—which was plogging (picking up trash while walking/jogging)—so we ignored the playground and helped pick up trash along the river instead (though we did our best to steer clear of Miriam and let her be with her peers...except, perhaps, for Benjamin...who will be her peer at mutual soon enough, anyway). 

Mists were rising off the river and it was quite beautiful, inspiring, really. I'm surprised Zoë didn't make a note of it. She's hit a writing block and has been hankering for some good ol' fashioned inspiration to strike her. She even took her little notebook and pen on an outing with Grandpa earlier this week—where they got chased by ducks hoping for a nibble and impeded by great geese flapping their wings—but Grandpa had made her leave her notebook in the car so apparently she wasn't too inspired. She said she'll have to just copy down poems from Charlotte's Web and other places, since sometimes writing down poetry inspires her. She's pretty smart. But I'll have to remind her that she can write from the memory of a moment; she doesn't have to feel inspired in nature and sit down to write a poem just then.

(Update: She just now (at 11:53 pm) came to show me the poem and narrative she wrote about her outing with Grandpa so it looks like her writing block is over and I can cancel the lecture.)

Like these mists. I'll save them in my head for a poem another day:

In Alexander's words

This morning after I gave the older kids their writing assignment, Alexander asked what he could write about. So I told him that he could write about riding his new pedal bike. Then I went upstairs to put Phoebe down for a nap, but instead ended up reading a couple of books with her and then wandering back downstairs to check on something. On our way down the stairs, we ran into Alexander, who was rushing up the stairs to show me his work.

He had written an entire page!

I admit that I was initially skeptical of its quality given how little time he had spent writing (Phoebe and I read two books, but they were board books, so...like...we weren't upstairs that long), but Alexander had carefully written an entire story!

Thinking caps for psalmists

Rachel and Miriam have been having their youth Sunday School lessons at Grandpa's house. This past week we were studying psalms and Grandpa told the girls to "bring your thinking caps," so before they left the house they fashioned some tinfoil hats for themselves and showed up at Grandpa's front door wearing them. 

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: