College memories

BYU's humanities magazine arrived in my mailbox yesterday. 

Yesterday it was 60°F (15°C) and Benjamin and I went running in t-shirts, no sweaters (while in Alberta some of my friends were battling temperatures sub -40°F/C).

Today we've got rain and scattered thunderstorms throughout the day. The kids are busy getting their rain gear on so they can splash in puddles, and I sat down to fill out the crossword puzzle at the back of the magazine. I don't know why. I haven't ever really sought out crossword puzzles before and it feels a little bit like a "soaps and bonbons" way to fill the afternoon. As if I don't have anything responsible to be doing? Like editing the proposal I should be editing, for example...

And then—because I like to read things backwards sometimes, I guess—I flipped the page to read the faculty farewells and obituaries. Not because I was seeking such things out, necessarily, but because that's what happened to be there. And I have to admit...it was a rollercoaster of a read because two professors who were very meaningful to me were featured.

First, Deryle Lonsdale evidently retired after 25.5 years at BYU. When I took classes from him he was not even tenured! And now they want to tell me that he has retired?! Sounds fake, but okay. Apparently it's been nearly 20 years since I took a class from him. He was such a great professor. 

I know that I wasn't one of his favourite students (especially in syntax, where I was thrown into dysfunctional group on a semester-long project filled with so much drama it gives me nightmares to this day, and where I had several "run-ins" with the TA of the class, who was one of his master's degree students (who, until today when I looked him up, I thought was a PhD student (turns out he was just a master's degree student with a god-complex)), and with whom he co-authored six papers, but who was a complete...uh...person with whom I could not find a way to get along with). 

First day of the semester

Today was our first day of the new semester at co-op, which means that we all had new classes. It was also Andrew's first day teaching this semester, and he was quite nervous because it had been so long since he'd last taught in person. But he did well, and so did we!

Rachel and I were in the nursery with Phoebe the first hour. Rachel was the head teacher; I was one of the co-teachers. She did a fabulous job teaching and Phoebe had a delightful time! 

When it was time four our second class, I asked Phoebe if she wanted to come with me or whether she'd like to go back to her nursery class. She informed me that she'd like to go back to her nursery class. I was surprised, but I took her down there, opened the door, waved goodbye and...then stood by the window watching her for a few minutes.

She was perfectly fine without me.

Huh. 

So I left to go join Alexander, since I am the co-teacher for his LEGO Challenge class. 

I was in there for a grand total of maybe five minutes, when I heard a bit of a familiar-sounding commotion in the hallway. I poked my head into the hallway and saw Rachel carrying a weepy, red-faced Phoebe towards me.

I guess I'm not so unnecessary after all. 

Laundry math

We've been using cloth napkins for a few years now. We made a set from material we had on hand (it's how I taught myself how to use a sewing machine, which, as it turns out, wasn't as scary as I thought it would be (though it can certainly be frustrating at times)) and I bought a new set. And then we thought we were set! 

But apparently we're messy eaters, or lazy laundry-doers, or something because we were always running out of napkins. So whenever I see someone post napkins on the Buy nothing Group, I usually throw my name into the ring. I've picked up a lovely set of Thanksgiving napkins this way, a set of Christmas napkins, and not one, not two, but three sets of "everyday" napkins. 

The Thanksgiving and Christmas napkins aside, since they're put away with our holiday things, we have at least five sets of napkins in our napkin drawer, but really more like six because we made something like 20 homemade napkins (so that definitely counts as two sets for our family). 

That's a lot of napkins! And we really haven't run out of napkins in a quite a while.

I was surprised, then, when we were setting the table this evening and...found out we had no clean napkins! 

Incredibly, all the napkins we own fit in our laundry bin...even though it used to seem like all the napkins we owned (before we owned as many napkins as we do now) barely fit in the laundry bin. I'm not really sure how this works out, mathematically speaking, but it's the predicament we found ourselves in this evening.

But now the napkins are all washed, dried, folded, and put away to start the cycle over again tomorrow.

Oh where, oh where has my little boy gone...?

Each church schedule comes with its pros and cons. The 9:00 block means that you don't really get to sleep in all that much, but at least you're out before lunchtime. 

The Spanish ward has the 9:00 block, so Miriam left for church at 8:30 this morning (with Grandpa), played the organ for sacrament meeting, and then played the piano for primary, and then came back home. 

You'll probably be in charge of setting up all the chairs in the overflow, but you won't have to break them down at the end of the day. 

The 10:30 to 12:30 block is really pretty nice, but it can be difficult for little ones to feel like they're missing lunch. I dunno. This might be the best block of time because I can't really think of any "cons" for this time. Some people complain about church interrupting this thing called a "nap schedule" but I'm not really sure what a nap schedule is, so I don't really feel like church got in the way of that. 

We're currently on the noon to 2:00 church block. 

I'll admit—it was nice not to have to rush people out the door. Is it bad that leaving the house by 10:00 in the morning requires us to rush? Leaving by 11:30, though? No rushing required. In fact, we found it a little difficult to fill the time before leaving. It was fast Sunday, so it wasn't even like there were a million people trying to have breakfast or lunch (just a few of the little people). 

I did manage to give Alexander a piano lesson. And the girls worked on their crochet projects (Miriam just taught herself how to crochet and Rachel is still working on her temperature blanket from last year (she's still in August)). The kids played downstairs. It was quiet. And still. And...finally...it was ready to go. 

Andrew stood in the entryway and called all the kids to come because it was time to go.

One, two, three, four, five children assembled in the entryway—Von Trapp family style (or perhaps a little less organized than that)—all dressed in their Sunday best and ready to pile into the van. 

"Okay, let's go!" Andrew said. "We can't be late for 12:00 church!"

Not that we'd ever be late for church. There's a video meme going around right now with the formula "we're x, of course we y" (like this video about millennials, or this one about Greeks, or this one about stay-at-home moms). If we were to make one about our family, it might go, "We're organists. Of course we arrive to church fifteen minutes early and feel like we're fifteen minutes late..."

We have to get there for prelude, so we're always on time. 

Anyway, Andrew said, "Okay, let's go! We can't be late...wait... Where's Ben?"

Who said that?!

While he was grocery shopping, Andrew picked up a two-pack of some small tongs. We've had one pair for years and years—they've got orange silicon tips and they're just perfect for serving roasted vegetables and things—and we've often found ourselves wishing aloud that we had more of the same. But—until this week—we've just made do with that single pair of small tongs and a couple pairs of larger tongs (which are so unwieldy that we hardly ever bring them out).

Anyway, Andrew came home with this two-pack of small tongs and I was like, "Oh, this is great! We've always wanted more of these!"

And Rachel was like, "Awesome! More tongs!"

Miriam whipped open the drawer where tongs are kept, pulled out the orange tongs, and said, "New tongs? Good! These things are the worst!"

Nary two seconds had elapsed (and none of the rest of us even had time to say anything) and Miriam gasped and goes, "Huh? Who said that?!"

"You...you did," we said. 

"I did not!" she said. "Mom said it!"

On Christmas Day in the Morning

Our children aren't very early risers, so the big kids were more or less content to sleep in until Phoebe woke up. All the kids slept in the basement—which featured its own festive tree this year—so after she woke up we all went downstairs to get everybody. 

Here are Miriam and Benjamin, just waking up:

Phoebe tales

I'm sure I'm jinxing myself, but I just have to announce that Phoebe slept in her bed all night last night. She didn't come into our room until 8:00 in the morning. She climbed into bed to snuggle and then requested to go downstairs for breakfast (without requesting her traditional morning nursing session for the first time in her life). So we went downstairs...and because we still have Christmas treats out, she asked for a cookie for breakfast. 

She ended up with an apple, a cup of milk, and a cookie. 

Sadly—and terrifyingly—after dipping the cookie into her milk it turned into...poop!!

"Oh, no! Poop!" Phoebe gagged, dropping the cookie on her plate. 

"That's not poop!" I told her. "It's just your cookie!"

"Poop!" she declared again, dry heaving a handful of times in rapid succession. 

"It's not poop! Mommy wouldn't give you poop to eat! It's a cookie, silly goose! A cookie—breakfast of champions..."

"Poop! Help me! Poop!"

I had to rush to take away her soggy cookie bits before she threw up all over the table. She does not like getting poop on herself. And she does not like anything that reminds her of poop. 

We recently had another "magical" food-to-poop incident when she declared that she needed to go potty in the middle of eating a slice of banana bread. I carried her to her little potty and helped her sit down, but a chunk of banana bread that had been hiding in a fold of her shirt fell out somehow and landed on the floor right in front of her.

"Poop!" she screamed.

"That's not poop. It's banana bread," I said, picking it up with the baby wipe that I had been using to wipe her hands off. "I'll take care of it."

"Poop," she gagged. 

She dry heaved. She moaned. She dry heaved some more. 

"I'll just...go throw this baby wipe away," I suggested. 

"Yeah. Throw away poop!" she said with relief.

"It's not poop. It's just banana bread! It hasn't even been chewed!"

Needless to say, she is pretty much 100% on getting her poopies where they should be (in the potty) because having messy pants is pretty much impossible for her to handle. 

*****

Phoebe is prone to saying "I love you, too!" before anyone has said, "I love you" first. She just comes up to someone, gives them a hug, and croons, "I love you, too!"

Rather than a simple "thank you," she normally says, "thank you, welcome," as if that exchange is a single phrase.

She likes taking attendance of who is home and whether the people at home are happy. If ever I'm [upset, sad, mad, frustrated, tired] about anything, Phoebe is guaranteed to check on me (and offer a hug and a kiss) and say, "Happy now?"

Lately she has been coming up to me and saying "Guess what!" and then wandering away before I have a chance to guess and without ever offering me any news (although today she did allow me to guess what and then told me that she wanted cheese). 

Creating a list of words she knows is virtually impossible at this point in her language development. She seems to know every word and is piecing together sentences well. The other day she said to Andrew, "Daddy, please help me to get some water and some ice in this cup." 

She loves water and ice and is completely capable of dragging a stool over to the fridge and operating the ice and water dispenser (although she also likes to command others to get water and ice for her: "And ice!" she'll say. "Also ice!"). She knows which button will give her ice and which will give her water and even gets a responsible amount of liquid...now. But it took several...irresponsible...episodes to get to that point. 

*****

Here's a couple of pictures of Phoebe and Zoë in their matching pigtails (Phoebe's first full-head pigtails) on Sunday:

Her hair is still pulling into little ringlets (which I love) and she's still favouring her left hand.

To sum up, we all love Phoebe to bits!

Cooper's Furnace

Last night for FHE we reflected on the goals we made in 2023 and discussed our goals for 2024. As usual, we listed a number of "Georgia Adventures" to complete (in the past these have been "Utah Adventures" or "North Carolina Adventures"; anything that gets us out exploring our own state (usually for free) so we gain and maintain an appreciation for our immediate surroundings). We also split up "hikes" and "Georgia Adventures" this year, so that hikes can't count as adventures (I guess because I've been craving wilderness lately, though I recognize that history and culture and civilization and things like that are also valuable).

Anyway, today we thought we'd get started by checking off both a hike and an adventure! We headed out towards Cartersville to hike the trail to Cooper's Furnace. We first stopped at the Allatoona Lake Visitor Center & Museum (which was really marked as the Land Bureau or something like that, so we were a little bit timid going inside) so that we could use the potty.

Very technically, we stopped at a random gas station about 10 minutes prior to arriving at the visitor's center so that Phoebe could make an emergency potty trip. When I ran up to the gas station shop with her, however, the doors were locked! A man ran up behind me and when he saw that I had trouble with the door he said, "It's locked?! You have got to be kidding me! It's 11:00 in the morning!"

Fortunately, the worker came to the door, removed a sign (that she'd taped to the top corner of the door, above all the other signs and stickers on the door, that said she'd be out momentarily) and let us in. That man busted past me and Phoebe to the restrooms, so evidently he was in some dire straights. 

Phoebe did her business and then we went to the visitor's center where Phoebe did some more business of a different nature. And then we were ready to begin our adventure.

The museum is small, but interesting. We learned about pig iron (so called because the cooling forms look like piglets nursing a sow), the Allatoona Dam, the Civil War, and some of the local wildlife. (We also were lambasted at every turn by reminders to wear our lifejackets—with catch phrases like "Lifejackets worn, no cause to mourn" and other cheerful things like that. 

On Christmas Eve in the Evening

On Christmas Eve we surely had something for dinner. I can't remember whether it was latkes or green chili burritos, but either way it was good (and whatever we didn't have for Christmas Eve dinner, we had for Christmas dinner (Andrew was a super chef machine over Christmas break)). 

After dinner we gathered together to read the Christmas story. This year, rather than having Andrew read and the kids act it out, I put together a sort of a reader's theatre piece, breaking up the lines (pulled directly from the scriptures) over various characters so that more people could have a chance to read. The kids had so much fun reading Shakespeare together this past semester that I thought they'd also enjoy reading some more of the scripture story. I'm not sure it was a complete success, but they did seem to enjoy it. 

Alexander and Phoebe were Joseph and Mary.

Frisbee Golf with Patrick

This summer there was a house on the way to the pool with a disc golf basket set up in their yard. Every time we drove past, Benjamin would say, "Look at that! They have disc golf!" So disc golf had been on my radar since then, though it wasn't until I saw a set pop up during a big sale that I made the leap. It hid in our house for months, waiting for Christmas—with the big bonus being that Uncle Patrick was coming for Christmas (and Uncle Patrick is pretty much a professional frisbee player (like, he played and coached Ultimate Frisbee for years and years)).

I was fully committed to waiting for Christmas morning, until I saw the forecast for Christmas and Boxing Day was full of rain. Christmas Eve, on the other hand, was lovely and warm and...so I decided that it could be an early present and brought it out on Christmas Eve afternoon. 

Uncle Patrick taught the kids (mine plus some from the neighbourhood) the rules of the game, and gave them some wonderful instruction on how to throw discs properly.