It's the final countdown!

Our days at the pool are limited and our schedule is so packed that our time to visit the pool in the limited time it's still open is also limited. Miriam had a babysitting job this afternoon, so we decided we'd visit the pool after dropping her off. 

We had it all to ourselves...if you don't count all the salamanders. There were four dead ones and two still-alive ones. We collected the dead ones and the live ones and moved them off into the woods (returning the salamanders to the little pond/stream area we assume they originated).

Happy birthday, Andrew!!

Andrew turned 41 on Friday. He was at a conference for most of the day and Zoë and Alexander went to a church activity in the evening and didn't return until much later than we thought. A friend of mine gave them a ride since I had to get Benjamin to swim practice and couldn't be everywhere all at once. 

Phoebe was so excited when Daddy got home because she's had such limited time with him the last couple of months. She was really looking forward to him opening his presents (she loves birthdays) and was very upset when he decided to initiate bedtime before the kids come home.

"But Dad!" she wailed. "Mom said presents before bed!"

Lucky for Phoebe the kids arrived in time to rescue her from her having to wait one more day for Daddy to open his presents. 

Perception is reality

This afternoon we were out on a walk and Phoebe wanted to see a police car. 

Now, I have some serious skills as a mother. I can kiss boo-boos better. I can sing away nightmares. I can tape ripped pieces of paper. However...

Not once have I been able to conjure something out of midair. I've been working on it since Rachel could talk and started requesting to see donkey carts while we were taxiing about Cairo. Unfortunately for her, I couldn't make donkey carts appear whenever she wanted to see one. 

Despite the intervening years of parenting...I still just...kind of am not very good at conjuring things...so Phoebe was rather disappointed.

"Is that a police car?"

"No. That's just a black car."

"Is that a police car?"

"No. That's a white truck." 

"Is that a police car?"

"Again...no...that's just a red car."

"Well, I want to see a police car! Can you find me an...oooooh!"

Just then a car with a Dominoes pizza delivery sign on top drove by.

"Now there's a police car!" she said, happily. "See how it has the red and blue lights on top?"

Sisters, sisters!

I was helping Alexander fill out a survey to be spotlighted in primary and he breezed through the first half, confidently answering questions about his favourite primary song and where he was born. Then he got to the really difficult questions, like, "How many brothers do you have?"

Just kidding. That question was easy for him to answer. 

"One," he said, quite sure. 

"And how many sisters do you have?" I asked. 

"Uhhhhhh..." he said, absolutely perplexed. "Does Rachel still count?"

"Yes, Rachel still counts! Why wouldn't Rachel count?"

"Because she's far away..."

"She's still your sister though, so..."

"I guess so..."

"I...more than guess so..." I said. "She's definitely still your sister."

"Okay, let's put down four."

"Sounds good. Four sisters it is."

The P-O-O-L

Going to the pool in September means that leaves dance across the surface of the water, like figure skaters pirouetting. The water is cool, but not so cold that we get goosebumps. Still, the kids climb out of the water to lounge on the hot cement—which they could only sprint across on scorched tip-toes just last month. The shade around the pool is dwindling as the leaves fall, but it doesn't matter because we welcome the sunlight now that it has to stretch a bit further to reach us—to rub our shoulders, boop our noses, run its fingers through our hair...

Is it bad that he's halfway through his math curriculum already? Probably...

 "Is it cheating," Alexander asked. "If I write down the word PEMDAS on my paper? Because I have a question that involves parentheses, multiplication, and addition and I just need to be sure that I remember to do everything in the right order..."

That is not cheating, actually. 

"It's just that we didn't learn PEMDAS this unit..."

Testing is cumulative. You are allowed—encouraged, required—to call on prior knowledge. 

*****

"I have a slight problem with this question because it wants me to find out, like, what is 15*6 and 4*15 and so I did that! I said 15*6 is 90 and 4*15 is 60 and I added those up and I got 150. But then I remembered that this test is focusing on the distributive property and I could have solved this much faster if did 15*10, which is 15(6+4). So I just hope it's okay if I did it another way even if it is slower and takes more work. And it should be okay because this question also wants me to find out what 9*6 and 9*14 is so that I can find out the difference between those two answers, because I'm really trying to find out how much more money one of them earned than the other one. So if I go straight to 9(20), which is 9(6+14), for the second part, then I used the distributive property to get to the answer and it will still count, right?"

Meow

Back in circa 2004 when the internet was young and wholesome, my cousin Heather (Leavitt) came down from Alberta to visit me...or I went up to visit her...? I really can't remember where we were, only that we were together and the internet was young and wholesome and we were sharing our favourite memes (only we didn't know they were called memes back then). 

I was a huge fan of the mad cow disease video (because we were in the midst of a mad cow crisis when I came across it (in an email from a teacher, I believe, because I attended a virtual school and we got all our lessons through dial up internet) and I've always been drawn to somewhat tongue-in-cheek political commentary):

Phoebe did what now?: Reading in the wild and other tales

This morning Andrew texted to say that he was at the airport, beginning his journey home. He's been in Vancouver, BC, for a conference (APSA). His room at the hotel was on the 23rd floor, affording him a beautiful view of the harbour:

Birthday Balloons I (finally)

I'm so behind in so many things.

I was so proud of the fact that we managed to write birthday balloon messages for everyone in our family before Rachel went out to Utah. Last year we didn't write birthday balloons until August! But at least I posted about them immediately after. It's been weeks since we finished writing our birthday balloons for the first half of our birthdays and they've just been curling on the wall.

Phoebe asked if I wouldn't mind taking them down so we could start "fresh" on her birthday. I guess she didn't want stale birthday decorations. 

So I took them down. Finally.

We meant to take a picture of Zoë, Benjamin, me, and Rachel in front of the tree with our birthday balloons. But we forgot to, so I don't have one. 

Here's what people said though:

Zoë! I'm so excited that you are 10! You are such a charming young woman! I'm so proud of how helpful and thoughtful and funny you're becoming! Keep being awesome this year! Love, Dad

Zeal
Optimistic
Ebullient (archaic term)

Watching you grow over this past year has been [groovy?] I love you so much! —Ben

Zoë! How are you already in the double digits? you've grown so much, it's crazy. It has been a joy to watch you grow more passionate about music, especially organ. You are so good at cleaning, and are very quick-witted and funny. I love you so much!!! Love, Miriam

(It should be noted that this was written before they started sharing a room; opinions on cleanliness have changed since then)

Organ harvest

The keys on our organ are brittle. You can see from this picture—with its jaw pried wide open—that it has a few missing...teeth: