Phoebe kind of listens...and Zoë gets some teeth pulled

Yesterday Zoë got four teeth pulled (more of that below with—fair warning—perhaps some icky pictures). I spent a quiet evening at home with Zoë, Alexander, and Phoebe, while Andrew took Miriam and Benjamin to an extra youth activity (our ward tends to be...understaffed and under-enthusiastic while this other ward in our building is...less that way...and we appreciate them inviting our handful of youth to join in fun activities with their dozens of youth). 

When they came home, we were all upstairs in my bedroom for some reason. 

I think, actually, that I had been trying to read an article. Phoebe was playing with the marble run. And Alexander and Zoë had been playing outside with a friend (walking kick the can, since Zoë wasn't really supposed to be running around) but they came inside because it was dark and...time for bed. 

So we all ended up being in my bedroom when Daddy and the other kids came home, so then they all came home and we had scriptures and prayer sprawled out all over the bedroom.

Phoebe was having trouble transitioning away from the marble run. 

Plink.

Plink.

Plink.

"Phoebe, time to stop." 

Plink.

Plink.

Plink.

"Phoebe—for real. You've got to stop playing for a minute."

Phoebe's first sleepover

Phoebe has been begging to have a sleepover at Grandpa's house for literal ages...probably about half of her life, if we're honest. She's been fully begging for at least a year (as documented here), but has been longing to join in on sleepovers for even longer than that. 

But she's been working hard on a few essential sleepover skills, like (1) staying in her bed at night rather than getting up in the middle of the night to do weird stuff or cry for hours at a time for no reason, and (b) staying dry. 

We're still a little iffy on the first item listed, but she's been so great with staying dry! 

She hasn't even worn the Chummie to bed in a month (I've never seen a child more happy to yeet a piece of technology than Phoebe was when we said goodbye to Mr. Chummie) and has been doing so well. 

So last Saturday when Grandpa and Darla came to the Front Porch Recital, we made a plan to have a sleepover this weekend. 

"We can have a sleepover whenever she's ready," Grandpa said. 

"Oh, she's been packed for weeks now," I said.

Phoebe literally helped me put the Chummie into its box and said, "Well, I'm going to go pack for my sleepover!" and started lugging a heavy backpack around the house just in case it ever happened to be time for a sleepover.

She was overjoyed when she learned it was really going to happen. On Thursday morning when she came into bed with me for "70 minutes of snuggling plus 100 more snuggles," she explained to me all about how today was Dad's long day to be on campus and then she would have one more sleep and then it would be time to sleep over at Grandpa and Darla's (and she hoped I wouldn't be lonely without her).

She was thrilled to pack up in Grandpa's car when he picked the kids up. And she just...had a blast. She loved the independence.

Here she is racing down the driveway with Zoë and Alexander:

I can't believe it's not butter!

When we first began the conference tradition of a vegetable tray (back in our Durham days), it felt like a real splurge. But the kids loved it and begged for a vegetable tray every conference after.

And how do you say no to children begging for vegetables?

Our conference spread has...expanded over the years. Charcuterie boards came into vogue and we jumped on the band wagon and now the kids expect one of those every year—meat and cheese and crackers. You can see this year's charcuterie (courtesy of Benjamin) behind this beautiful bowl of hummus (courtesy of Andrew):

Creepiest house on the block

One of the saddest things about The House That Burned Down is that...it was Bertram's house...and Bertram was missing from our lives.

The first few years it was "Fil(thy) the Clown."

When he fell apart, he was replaced with "Bertram the Plague Doctor" and we would go for a walk to see him every night so he could lunge at us and deliver his scary little speech. He was delightfully spooky.

(Who came up with these names? We did. And the entire neighbourhood adopted them.)

Phoebe called him "Berf-pump" because she couldn't say "Bertram." 

She can say Bertram now, and she remembers that he should be there. The House That Burned Down always put a lot of effort into making their house look spooky for Halloween, but this year...Bertram wasn't around. 

Until suddenly...he was...in all his smouldering glory:

Stories about Phoebe

Monday's reading lesson was a disaster, which is fine. "We" are three. Disasters are to be expected. 

Every word was "the"; it didn't matter what the word looked like...Phoebe decided it was probably "the" and then would get upset when I would make her sound the actual sounds out. 

I was plenty frustrated as well. 

But Tuesday's reading lesson was a breeze. 

One of the words we've been focusing on the last couple of days is "duck."

That is such a tricky word for Phoebe. She's been working hard on her fronting habits and can successfully say "duck" now, but when she has to say it so many times (three times in one story!) it starts to be a bit much for her. Throughout the course of sounding out, reading, and responding to questions, I heard duck, guck, gut, and dut ("dut" being her default pronunciation). 

Knowing when to use the front of her tongue instead of the back of her tongue simply isn't quite intuitive for her yet, but she's getting the feel of things and corrects herself when she says dut...gut...guck...duck. 

Cat is another tricky word, although we've been working on that word for so long that she's pretty good at throwing out "cat" the first time. It used to always be "tat." Sometimes it comes out "tac."

She's working on it.

Lost and Found

Phoebe's favourite toy du jour is Pink Baby. She's notoriously terrible at naming things (my apologies in advance to her future children). And she also tends to lose track of things and every time is a tragedy. 

She knew she had Pink Baby in the kitchen. I had turned on some dance music in the kitchen while I was doing the dishes and she was dancing with Pink Baby. 

But then a neighbour knocked on the door and wanted to play. Phoebe asked for help determining which shoe belonged on which foot and hinted that she wanted to take Pink Baby outside.

I can be...a little strict...about inside and outside toys. And library books. And other things that I'm going to be asked the whereabouts of later. 

Like Phoebe, I struggle to keep track of things. So library books stay in the music room—period. (Well, picturebooks never leave the music room. But novels and things...I will sometimes let kids read those elsewhere...if they check with me and I watch them put the book back in the book bin when they're finished reading for the day). 

Inside toys stay inside.
Outside toys stay outside.
Duplos stay in the bedroom upstairs.
LEGO stays in the LEGO room. 

And so on. 

Successes

Zoë's been practicing French braiding my hair while I've been reading our nightly novel to her and Alexander. After showing her how to do it once she tried it and did it...a little loose and sloppy...but obviously a French braid. Then she undid it and tried again and again and again. And she's getting quite good at it.

This morning she did Phoebe's hair in a French braid:

Robbing the candy store

Zoë's primary teacher gifted all the kids in the class a bag full of activities to do during General Conference and a bunch of candy (mostly to use for the conference games). Phoebe can't attend her own class without having a panic attack, so she went with Zoë this week (she alternates between Zoë's class and Alexander's class). This meant that Phoebe also got a big bag of candy.

Recent silly sayings

Benjamin has his first swim meet today (on his year-round team). Andrew's taking him because it's all the way in Newnan and will be a whole day affair. 

Andrew grabbed his shoes out of the shoe closet and then went to sit on the stairs so he could put them on. While he was sitting down, tiny little Phoebe sneaked around him and started walking up the stairs.

Luckily Andrew was gently settling himself on the stairs because he didn't see Phoebe sneak past him and...sat on her. 

"Okay, wow," she said in disgust. "I'm, like, trying to go up the stairs."

Like, how incredibly rude of him!

Mailboxes

Growing up in Canada, I lived at multiple places, four that I remember well: Burnaby, PoCo, Calgary, and High River. We never had door-to-door delivery. We always had community mailboxes. 

I thought this was normal. 

I thought having a mailbox at the end of every driveway was insane when we moved to the States (to be fair, our house in Spanish Fork had a community box and I applauded that; and Darla's neighbourhood has a community box as well...but literally one for the entire gated community, so it isn't quite as convenient as walkable community boxes). 

Admittedly, I don't remember Burnaby very well. I wasn't ever in charge of getting the mail. But I know we had a playground visible from our window. I'll bet the mailbox was right there as well. 

In PoCo, our mailbox was a 1 minute walk from our house (91 meters)—and a 7 minute walk to the playground (500 meters). We also had a 2–3 minute walk to a provincial park/forest, and a 10–15 minute walk to the recreation center.

In Calgary, our mailbox was a ~1 minute walk from our house (56 meters)—at the playground on our street. There was also a large open field directly across the street from us. And another playground just a 5 minute walk away. And another playground a 10 minute walk away. And...there were outdoor ice rinks we could get to...

In High River, our mailbox was a 1 minute walk from our house (77 meters)—at the playground on our street. We could also access the lakes with a 3-minute walk, 250 meters—conveniently there is now a playground at Sunshine Lake. When I lived there we had walk to the other lake (Emerson) to get to a playground...past the elementary school (just a 6 minute walk from our house—450 meters), where there is another playground where we were freely allowed to play outside of school hours. They've since taken down the playground at Emerson, but the sledding hill is still there (a 15 minute walk from our house). River access was about a 40 minute walk from our house...but no one wants to live too close to the river anyway...for flooding reasons.