A few things Phoebe has said lately:

Phoebe: Do you remember how I broke Miriam's arm by this fence?

Me: Yes, but please explain. 
Phoebe: I rode into her with my tricycle and tripped her right over, remember?

Me: You did do that. 
Phoebe: That was miles and miles ago.

Me: It was...a long time ago...comparative to your age...yes.

Andrew: Alright, you guys are sleeping in your new room tonight!

Phoebe (shrieking): WITH ALL THESE WEAPONS?!

Andrew: Those aren't weapons. Those are...tools. And we'll move them out before we put you to bed.

Phoebe: *mutters to herself about how unconscionable it is to put a baby to bed in a room full of weapons*

(We've been calling our little pile of tools our "armory" ever since, but Andrew just put everything away in the ultimate armory—the garage).

Phoebe: I am so excited to go to the pool again for the party that I'm invited to this time.*

Me: Oh, so am I.

Phoebe: I will just throw my sinky toys in and they will sink to the bobbom of the pool and then I will swim to the bobbom and grab them up. But I won't throw them in the deep end because I can't touch the bobbom there. So I will throw them in the shallow end. But when I'm big enough to touch the bobbom of the deep end I will throw my sinky toys in the deep end and get them from the very bobbom. 

Me: That sounds like a good plan.

* We're having our "not-back-to-school" homeschool party tomorrow. It was supposed to be on Monday when the public school kids went back, but it was like 65°F and raining so we postponed. For the record, she's been trying to touch the bottom of the deep end for weeks now. I hate it when she tries because she's not great at getting up for air in the first place and ten feet is a long way to go for a little girl (twenty feet if you count coming back up again, which Alexander does). But, as she said, she's never made it down that far yet.

Phoebe: Aw, man! Why is this Benjamin's blanket and not mine?

Me: Because...that's his baby blanket. He got it when he was a baby.

Phoebe: But it has a monkey on it and I love it. Can I have it?

Me: No. It's Benjamin's.

Phoebe: But he's not a baby anymore. 

Me: It still belongs to him.

Phoebe: What if we ask him if I can have it? And if he says yes, then...good...and if he says no then...*sigh*...I will be okay.

Me: How about...it's Benjamin's?

Phoebe: FINE-uh.

The kids in Utah

At this time last week we were either all weeping as we drove home in the rain...or were off to Kroger to do a snack run for a long road trip. 

The older kids have now been gone for a week and their whirlwind trip to Utah is just about over. Tomorrow is their last full day there (except for Rachel, who will be there for longer). 

Miriam has been enjoying her time at the organ workshop. She had a private lesson with Joseph Peeples (a tabernacle organist), which I assume went well. My mom went with her to that (because Miriam is a minor she was required to have an adult present at her private lesson).

Forced Perspective Photo Shoot

Today on Facebook a memory from five years ago popped up, a memory that I apparently didn't ever get around to blogging about. It must have been near the beginning of the school year, still at the beginning of the pandemic, and we did a little photo shoot playing with forced perspective. 

Here's Zoë holding up Benjamin and Miriam:

If you give a parent a paintbrush...

They'll* run to the store to grab just the shade of grey you wanted. To be safe—they'll grab two cans! 

Nonrefundable, of course (because once you tint it, it's yours).

Then they'll* decide they need some white paint to redo the trim. They'll* quickly grab a can and then rush home. 

When they've finished painting the room grey, they'll** realize they have 1.25 cans leftover. That will start them*** thinking about what else they could possibly paint that same colour. 

But they** still have the trim to paint, so they'll** break out the white paint and get to work. 

When they're** finished painting, the parent* (who went to the store to get the paint but didn't help do any of the painting because they had to finish grading so they could submit grades by the deadline) will ask if the painting parent** can simply repaint the banister as well...since the paint is out. 

So they'll** paint the banister. And then they'll** rinse out their paintbrush.

Before and after

Benjamin's walls have successfully been transformed from a light grey and what-were-you-thinking purple... 

Room swapping

This morning Phoebe climbed into bed to snuggle. 

"Mommy, can you read me five-and-a-half stories?" she asked. 

"Five-and-a-half stories?" I repeated.

"Mommy, you're weird," she said. 

"You request five-and-a-half stories and I'm the one who's weird?"

"Yes. Every morning when I press my nose into your skin and sniff you...you smell so...weird."

"Oh. Well, thank you."

"You're welpum."

And then she squirmed out of the bed and picked five books from the shelf. We actually ended up getting through only four-and-a-half of them before she decided it was time for breakfast.

*****

Cancelled Primary Party

This morning we woke the kids up to get ready for the back-to-school primary party, but just as we'd all changed into our swimming suits...we got the message that it was cancelled—rather, postponed—due to thunder at the location.

But we hadn't heard any thunder at our location, so we decided that since we were all ready to go we'd head to the pool for a little while. We have a cold front—"False Fall," if you will—coming in and things are going to get mighty chilly, comparatively speaking. We have a high of 70°F tomorrow. Our windows are open right now. This is...weird. 

And it also means the pool will cool off significantly, so we thought we'd enjoy one last splash in the warm pool. And it was warm—it felt warmer inside the pool than it did outside this morning. 

We swam in the morning drizzle until a birthday party arrived. Technically you're not supposed to have birthday parties at the pool unless you go through the leadership and check a bunch of boxes. We'll assume this family did that. But they were also, like, eating popsicles in the pool which is technically speaking against the rules...and it got to be a little difficult for Phoebe to be there but not be part of the party (they have popsicles over there?! And music...and balloons...and...it was too much)...so we left. 

But before that we had a fun time swimming together. Zoë helped Phoebe work on her big arms:

Long live the sunscreen bottle!

As summer was winding down last year, the last full bottle of sunscreen got knocked from the counter and fell to the floor. The lid broke. In the most technical of terms: the little plug part simply shattered off the lid, remaining wedged in the little hole the sunscreen is supposed to squirt out of.  

Andrew wanted to throw it away, but I was like, "No way! It's still perfectly good inside!"

I tried to take off the entire lid so that I could perhaps squirt it into an old and more functional bottle, but that was an impossible task. So I moved to plan B. It took me quite a bit of time to pick out the little plug piece from the bottle the first time I did it, but I eventually managed it and triumphantly declared that it would be the first bottle we'd use this summer. 

We wouldn't use any other sunscreen until this stuff was gone...

Folks, we have finished off about five other bottles of sunscreen this summer (naturally).

No one ever wants to use this stuff unless I pull out the little plug and squirt it into their hands. The bottle has gotten a little...messy...over the course of the summer because the lid simply doesn't plug up as nicely as it might if it were, say, not broken. So it's lived in a ziplock bag in the pool bag (adding another layer of complication to self-application, further explaining why no one uses it unless I pull it out and force them to).

But I'm happy to announce that it is finally, finally (just about) empty. 

Any day now it will squirt its last squirt and we can retire it for good!

And we will all rejoice.

Saying goodbye to Rachel

Yesterday was a painful day of waiting. 

The day had come to say goodbye, but the hour was not yet at hand. So we just...went through all the motions of having a regular day...which was really anything but ordinary...and yet was entirely ordinary.

I convinced all the kids to come to the pool with me, in part so I could take our traditional "end of season" pool picture. Although it's not the end of the pool season yet, it is the end of an era:

(Zoë apparently taught Phoebe and Ireland to make peace signs in pictures, so they've both been trying to do it since.)

First day and last day at home with Rachel

A little over 18 years ago we brought our brand new baby girl home from the hospital. We placed her in her bassinet and...