Christmas at the nursing home

This afternoon we went to a local nursing home (The Addison of Sandy Springs) with some homeschool friends to give a lunchtime performance. The little(r) kids and I sang "Little Baby in a Manger," which I taught the kids in primary...but we really only focused on the first verse so I needed my phone to keep the other verses straight.

The kids sang this song for stake conference (like, all the youth and primary kids in the stake, thus the reason I scrambled a bit to teach our primary at least the first verse and chorus—because it hadn't been on my list of songs to teach originally). It was fun to get to sing it with them since I missed out on hearing them at stake conference.

Rachel's home!

Rachel's plane touched down around 11:00 last night. She's been home for less than 12 hours and already I've sent her to the dentist. 

On the Cover of the Rolling Stone

My dad, as I recall, enjoyed the song "On the Cover of the Rolling Stone," as performed by Dr. Hook & the Medicine Show. Today I learned that the lyricist was actually Shel Silverstein. Who knew? Not me. 

But this song has lived in my head for about as long as I can remember.

And today guess who made it into Rolling Stone?! 

Andrew! 

He's not on the cover...but they quote him, so...close enough!

They interviewed him about AI-generated papers that are being cited as real sources, how search engines are picking up on the fake citations, and the ways his students are using AI in his classes.

He's in a magazine!!

Lemmings

Benjamin learned about lemmings at church on Sunday. 

They were talking about being agents, choice and accountability, things of that nature, and the bishop talked about lemmings. When Benjamin told us he learned about lemmings he described them in kind of a strange way so I asked him what, precisely, lemmings were.

"Well, it's a really old video game where these little dudes just walk around..."

"Whoa, there..." I objected.

"Hang on, now!" Andrew said. 

"Lemmings are actual living creatures," I said, while Andrew said: "It's not that old of a video game!"

We were concerned about vastly different things.

This led to a conversation about both the video game and the creature, which extended to an FHE lesson the next day, because did you know...

Lemmings don't behave the way you imagine they do. 

They don't mindlessly follow each other to their ultimate demise, they are not wont to fling their tiny bodies off high cliffs into the icy waters below. They do experience population drops and booms and undergo "mass dispersal" behaviour (that sometimes does force a number of lemmings into cold water), but they don't run mindlessly off cliffs together for no reason. 

In the Disney documentary where this behaviour is shown they actually, ummm, bought lemmings in Manitoba, transported them to a filming location in Alberta, rigged a "lazy Susan" up to a motor, placed the lemmings on it, and repeatedly hurled the poor creatures off the cliff to get the dramatic footage they desired...because such footage was impossible to film in the wild...because lemmings don't do that.

It's a myth.

IOOF's Organ Advent

The International Online Organ Forum asked members to record and submit themselves playing a Christmas piece, which they'd then review and select from the pool to publish during advent. Miriam recorded Angels We Have Heard On High (arranged by  R. Elliott) and submitted it just before the deadline. I'm sure she would have done it sooner but November was a messy month with travel and sickness and (for me) finals so finally I helped her film it on, like, November 30 or something! 

Miriam was thrilled to be selected for December 11 (the 12th day of advent)!

From the other players listed, it's becoming clear why she'd like to go to Europe to study organ (there are a lot more organ(ist)s in Europe). 

What's the difference?

My great-grandmother's name was Mary Gladys, but she went by Gladys. 

My grandmother's name was Gladys Evon, but she went by Evon.

I grew up hearing a lot about the name Gladys. My dad liked to tell the joke that ends with the punchline, "Gladys...happy bum...what's the difference?"

*****

My mom sent me a capybara advent calendar for Christmas. Behind every little door is a little capybara dressed up as something or other—a detective, a pilot, a superhero, you name it.

Beginning to look a lot like Christmas

I wanted to go outside to take a walk today—it was right around 60°F (15°C) this afternoon—but Phoebe just wasn't feeling up to it. She lazed about all morning (while Alexander and Zoë were at Lydia's baptism (an interesting place for them to be; she is the daughter of my friend and the daughter of Darla's new son-in-law, who is now married to one of Darla's daughters—it's a complex relationship)). 

Instead I threw myself into decorating the house for Christmas.

I've wanted to make a little tree tent for a while now and have slowly collected the supplies from the Buy Nothing Group—a little teepee tent and lots of garland. This year I finally had everything I needed to put it together. Zoë helped me figure out how to do it. We got faux pine needles everywhere.

Zoë made the inside nice and cozy, putting some foam puzzle pieces down on the floor and filling it with all our Christmas blankets and pillows. It's very cozy. 

Spittin' facts, you know that's how it's...

I wasn't home for family prayer because I went to the Relief Society Christmas dinner. 

Poor Phoebe went to bed feeling so sore. She got four shots today—two in each thigh—and was just miserable. Miriam also got four shots today and is also miserable, but she is a little less...melodramatic...about it. Or perhaps Phoebe isn't being melodramatic. Perhaps Phoebe is being honest about how she feels, while Miriam is stoically persevering. 

Whatever the case, Phoebe is having big feels, requesting to be carried around, and so forth, while Miriam is simply sitting in the big comfy chair in my bedroom, moaning about her life. 

To be fair, Miriam's shots were in her arms, not her legs. 

But, to be fair, Miriam had to record her final for her "practical musicianship" course this evening—she had to conduct a rehearsal for a quartet (comprised of her brother and a few friends), which meant she had to wave her arms all about (which wasn't much fun for her). 

Anyway, I wasn't home for family prayer this evening because I was at the Relief Society Christmas dinner...but I have a story about family prayer that I haven't written about yet because...I haven't.

This was a few weeks to months ago. I can't remember quite when. I know it wouldn't be before October because we watched KPop Demon Hunters in October. This was after that.

Miriam was praying.

"We're grateful that we could get everything that needed to be done..." she paused while she tried to come up with another word. Fruitless, she repeated, "done."

Then she paused to stifled a giggle over her "speaker's block." 

Phoebe took this opportunity to shout out "DONE!" for a third time.

And...that did us in.

Miriam's stifled giggle quickly spread through the whole family until we were all laughing.

(There's a song from KPop Demon Hunters called "How It's Done" and they repeat "done, done, done!" several times during the song...that's why it was so funny.)

Well-child checks for Phoebe and Miriam

Rachel went to the doctor today. She has the flu, poor thing.

I also took Miriam and Phoebe to the doctor at the same time...just here in Georgia! 

I need to remember to ask to not see Dr. Z. She was okay at Zoë's appointment in May (though I need to remember to take Zoë back in for a COVID shot) but was rather pessimistic about homeschooling today. 

First, I should mention that Miriam was hoping to have gained at least an inch since her last visit. Instead she learned that they mis-measured her at her last visit, so she not only didn't grow. She's shorter than she thought. 

So it was already a ho-hum visit.

At Phoebe's visit, the doctor insisted she couldn't understand Phoebe very well and that Phoebe thus needs speech therapy. I told the doctor that was ridiculous. 

Actually I said, "Respectfully, I'm going to disagree with your assessment. I'm a trained linguist. I'm currently getting a PhD in children's literacies. I'm around children a lot. And I don't think Phoebe is behind her peers at all. She's made significant improvements from last year—if you recall, she was fronting all of her sounds, couldn't say /k/ or /g/, but now she can say words with /k/ and /g/ and she has mastered several consonant blends and..."

"I'm pretty fluent in toddler myself. I should be able to understand 90 to 100% of what she's saying and I simply can't. Early intervention is key!"

"Yes, but she's making fine progress by any metric," I countered.

Guys, listen—the doctor is working from old standards. 

Newer studies indicate that the "General rules of thumb for intelligibility of multiword utterances, based on data for the lowest performing typical children, are as follows: (a) By 4 years, children should be at least 50% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener; (b) by the 5 years, children should be at least 75% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener; and (c) by just over 7 years, children should be 90% intelligible to an unfamiliar listener" (see further, less erudite discussion here).

Now, I wouldn't say that Phoebe is among the lowest performing typical children range. In fact, I think she speaks rather clearly and that her vocabulary is rather impressive.

For example, consider Benjamin and his "ucky, mucky augie." 

Leaf jumping

We jumped right back into the swing of things this morning. The kids did their independent work and then we studied some Arabic together. Phoebe was even excited about her reading lesson because Daddy had told her that knowing how to read will help her to be an independent computer user (and she really wants to get better at Minecraft). 

This morning while I was texting my friend a song our family would like to sing at nursing home visit (our homeschool group(s) go every year), Phoebe said, "Why did you type 'Little Baby in a...in a mmmaaaannnngerrrr?'"

And, indeed, I had typed "Little Baby in a Manger."

She also read the word "slow" on our walk, so she's turning into a regular little reader! That's exciting to see!

After our afternoon walk, we spent some time tidying up some of the leaves in the yard (there are plenty). We like to keep them around because there are so many beneficial insects that overwinter in the leaves—fireflies and butterflies and all sorts of things. Plus, it's good for the soil! 

Look at all these friends we've found: