Obstruction of Correspondence

On Tuesday we put together some Mother's Day cards to mail out to some important women in our lives (because it's good to tell people you care about them and it's nice to receive something in the mail that's not a bill every once in a while). We ended up choosing nine relatives. Zoë made a picture for each one (and printed off one of her recent poems) and we also had everyone sign a card for each recipient—that's 72 signatures in total! 

We got nine envelopes, put nine stamps on nine envelopes, addressed nine envelopes...licked nine envelopes. Alexander thinks that's the worst part. He's probably not wrong. And then we put those nine envelopes into the mailbox...for Wednesday (because by the time we were finished we had missed Tuesday's mail). 

Here's a couple of things to be aware of: (1) we are always home (pretty much) and (2) we check our mail all the time because that's one of our methods to cut Phoebe's fits short. 

She always wants to check the mail because it means she gets to go outside. But she also understands going into things that it's only going to be a brief visit to the mailbox (not an entire afternoon of outdoor joy) so she doesn't get upset when it's time to head back inside. 

We check the mail when we know the mail hasn't been delivered. And we check the mail when we know we've already collected the mail for the day. We check the mail a lot. Specifically Phoebe checks the mail a lot...with the help of many people over the course of the day.

I was thinking Tuesday was a pretty good day to get things into the mail. Aunt Ruth's card, I knew, would be late (since that would be international mail). But I figured all the domestic mail should arrive by Sunday.

Did you know that it costs $0.63 to mail a letter these days?! 

For some reason that feels outrageously expensive to me. But anyway...thank goodness for "forever" stamps.

Anyway, on Wednesday when we checked the mail, our letters were gone—off and away!—and our mail was in the box and we thought everything was right in the world. 

Then this afternoon, just as I was settling down with Phoebe for a nap, I got a message on NextDoor:

Lick-a-cat

Here is Phoebe trying to lick the cat:

She doesn't quite seem to understand why the cat might not want her to do this. The cat gets to lick herself, but Phoebe can't lick the cat? Seems unfair!

Sprinkle, sprinkle, little hose...

Since our first little trip to the pool on May 1, it's warmed up significantly. Whatever little springtime cold snap we were experiencing was replaced with weather that is quickly turning hot and humid. We, however, have been unable to make it back to the pool due to super fun things like (1) it's the end of the semester and I had a poetry reading to give and a poetry reading to attend and a major paper due and so forth, and (2) we took our van in to get a tune-up before we try driving across the country with it.

The good news is that our mechanic felt nothing major needed to be done. Even better is that we have our van back again, which means we can go to the pool!

To make up for not being able to go to the pool, I did let the kids talk me into setting up the sprinkler for them yesterday. They had a blast!

Poetry readings

On Saturday, Andrew planned to make tacos for dinner, but then decided Sunday would be a better day for tacos. Besides, Grandpa came over and gave us all a lesson on how to change a tire and we ran out of time to make tacos:

1) Loosen the lug bolts

2) Jack up the car

3) Take off the lug bolts

4) Take off the tire

5) Put on new tire

6) Tighten lug bolts in a star formation (top, bottom, side, bottom, side)

7) Done!

A good day

Benjamin was on fire today!

Not literally, of course, but by 11:00 am he had worked on his programming course (he requested to learn Python and has been doing great so far), revisited any math lesson he only got "two stars" on and earned "three stars" (all without prompting or asking for any assistance), he unloaded the dishwasher (Alexander's job) and took out the kitchen trash and recycling (Miriam's job, but his favourite chore), decided that we should have spaghetti for dinner because we had leftover meatballs from the meatball subs Daddy made for dinner last night, pulled out some noodles and sauce from the storage room and set them on the counter...

And so on.

As I said, the boy was on fire!

The only thing I sort of asked him to do was take out the trash, and I didn't even really do that. I was just throwing something away and sighed, "We've really got to take the trash out..."

And Benjamin said, "Done!"

And started preparing to run it outside to the bin...in the rain. No hesitation!

It was wonderful to have such a good helper today! I'm sure this is a sign that Benjamin is maturing.

Here he is with a lovely bouquet of flowers he picked for me at the park this afternoon:

Phoebe: Potty + mouth updates

Phoebe has been reaching some milestones. I believe I already documented that she has eight teeth now. Given that she's just about 18 months old, that's not a huge accomplishment. However, in the past couple of weeks she has been working hard, hard, hard on cutting her one-year molars. The top pair are about half-way through and the bottom pair are getting ready to erupt any day now. 

She has been somewhat chompy, and even left a few bruises on me from some well-placed chomps. 

Fortunately, she's figured out that Mommy does not like to be bitten (and she's typically a sweet and loving baby who doesn't want to hurt her mommy) so I've had fewer chomp marks on my arms and legs. 

*****

Piano Auditions for Zoë and Miriam

This afternoon, Miriam and Zoë attended their National Piano Playing Guild Auditions and they, of course, did wonderfully. These kinds of auditions are kind of like the ACT or GRE in that you can't really fail them. You simply...get the score that you get. The guild notes that "should your grade be lower than you expected" students should "not be discouraged" but "encouraged to work harder the next year! If you have a higher grade, we congratulate you but encourage you to remain humble and seek even greater goals in the next Auditions." 

I think that's pretty good advice for life! 

Both girls were very stressed out about their auditions, perhaps Miriam more so than Zoë. Miriam entered 10 pieces for this Audition (all of which had to be memorized; last year she played only 2 pieces) and had to review all the scales and chord sequences in existence, basically, since she would be quizzed on them at random. Originally she thought she had to play them all during her Audition, which would have been about 90 minutes of scales and things, but her teacher soothed her spirits. It would only be 10 minutes or so of scales; they were simply making sure she was comfortable with all of them so that she wouldn't falter when the judge asked her to play. 

Miriam practiced every day until her fingers went numb. 

Zoë was equally present at the keyboard.

And their hard work paid off! They did very well (but even if they had scored lower than expected, nothing bad would have happened (just to clarify for those of us (*ahem*Miriam*ahem*) who need clarification on that issue).

Here's Zoë in one of the practice rooms (or out in the gallery? It was held at a piano store/studio) that Andrew took before she was called in for her audition (parents aren't allowed in during the audition, but he waited around with her prior to her audition and then after the two of them went out to the car and accidentally drained the car battery and had to jump start the car after Miriam's audition):

Nest update

Yesterday when I peeked into the nest there were two eggs inside.

Today I see that momma bird has begun incubating so my assumption is that they are going for a clutch of three:

The green grass at the top of the nest is a "privacy fence" they added after they caught me peeking through the window at them. Prior to that, momma bird had been trying it out without that grass, but would get spooked every time I walked by the window. So they put in that privacy fence and evidently that's all she needed to feel safe. 

It's doing its job, though! I can just see her little tail feathers sticking up out of the nest (and they almost look like twigs). 

At this rate, we can expect the eggs to hatch by mid-May. 

*****

Update on the update:

Momma bird has left the nest again...so now my guess is that there are three eggs in there as of today and perhaps our pair is going for double or nothing (and that tomorrow she will lay a fourth egg).

Polar Plunge (Georgia Style)

It's really been a relatively mild spring for us. While we're usually hankering for the pool by May, this year our April has felt uncommonly cold. Today we were only in the 60°s, but the kids begged to go to the opening of the pool season, so we headed out there for a "polar plunge." It was a memorable FHE activity (that Rachel missed because she went driving with Grandpa, who was heading out to teach some temple prep lessons). Only Benjamin, Zoë, and Alexander really wanted to get in. The rest of us just stayed in our street clothes (though I did pack swimming suits for me and Phoebe, just in case we changed our minds).

Benjamin was the first to jump in. He was very happy that the diving board was back up (it was broken for most of last year). Zoë was next to go off the diving board. Benjamin really swam just fine, despite the shock of the water, but Zoë was struggling a bit to remember how to swim, with it being her first time back in the pool and having it be rather chilly.

So I told Alexander that he shouldn't jump into the deep end. He may have been playing in the deep end at the close of last swimming season, but I didn't want him jumping in the very first thing this swimming season. He reluctantly moved over to the 4 ft area, which is still well over his head, and climbed up on the diving block (which I still wasn't sure about). 

Little birdies, little bruiser

About a month ago, we heard some wild chirping outside and stumbled into two male cardinals trying to prove to each other who was the bigger man.