There was a little girl

 

There was a little girl,

            Who had a little curl,

Right in the middle of her forehead.

            When she was good,

            She was very good indeed,

But when she was bad she was horrid.

Henry Wadsworth Longfellow apparently composed this poem while walking his infant daughter up and down and around and around in the middle of the night. So it is appropriate that Miss Phoebe had this curl spring up right in the middle of her forehead the other day. 

She is so much better about bedtime than she used to be...but I do remember those horrid days of pacing the floor with her every night (and just the other night she had Andrew up most of the night because she just couldn't sleep and was so very sad about it). 

How are we old enough to have been friends with people for this many years?

 

Between the county swim meet and attending Sam Lewis's mission homecoming/report, we've missed the last two Sundays at our ward, so I'm sure we'll surprise some people by showing up again!

Thoughts two days out from swim team and two weeks out from moving

My brother recently sent a video of "bedtime" at his house, which was really of his 4-year-old and 2-year-old running in circles around him and jumping on the bed while declaring that they were not going to go to sleep. 

I don't know why he thought they'd go to bed.

It's late July in Southern Alberta. The sun even doesn't think about setting until around 9:45 PM so those children had no indication from the universe that it should be bedtime (and why should they trust their father about a thing like that?). Soon enough (like in December) the universe will be telling them it's bedtime by 4:00 in the afternoon...perhaps he'll have an easier time then. 

On the other hand, I'll bet he didn't take them to the pool for four hours in the middle of the day (like I did today). That somehow doesn't guarantee my kids will be worn out at the end of the day, but it sometimes works to shorten bedtime shenanigans. 

I didn't tell him anything, though. 

I just "laughed" at his video—the kids are cute even if they're driving him crazy. 

My mom, though, simply told him that parenting is...hard... 

And that is absolutely true. 

*****

We lasted two days without swim team to keep us busy before I threw in the towel and told the kids to get started on their math curriculum.

Double the Phoebes

Phoebe met another little girl at the pool today. 

"Hello!" she said. "Do you want to play with me?"

"Sure!" said the little girl.

"Okay!" said Phoebe. "What's your name?"

"Phoebe," said the little girl. 

"No, that's my name," Phoebe said, shaking her head. "What's yours?"

Phew!

I had my consult with the surgeon this morning and he feels confident this is not a hernia and I am not in need of surgery immanently. I'm also free to resume regular activity. So that's all good news. 

He thinks it is simply a lipoma (that is causing discomfort because it is attached to my chest cavity...like perhaps was inside my chest cavity...and then slipped out...I dunno...because it wasn't there before and now it is there). Whatever the case, I probably will have it removed eventually because it is uncomfortable to, like, lie on my stomach, for example. 

Plus, he can't guarantee it's benign so suggests eventual biopsy and the way they would biopsy a growth like this is to...remove it. 

But I don't have to squeeze in a surgery in the next 15 days...so that's good, good news.

In other news, we left this morning before any of the kids woke up. They all knew the plan this morning (that Benjamin and Zoë would be collectively in charge), but I left them a reminder note on the table, just in case:

Phoebe's Slide Face

Our neighbours threw the most awesome block party today (in our honour) and the main attraction was an inflatable waterslide. Phoebe was thrilled about this, telling Grandpa on a video call yesterday that she was super glad about it because the last time we went to a waterpark the kids weren't even allowed to use the waterslide, which wasn't very fair (and also wasn't very true because only children under 4 ft tall weren't allowed to use it...all other children were). She loved the waterslide...

But her face had me harkening back to her early days when any change in elevation made her cringe:

All Along...It was Hamnet

Approximately six weeks ago, Andrew ever so lightly smashed his toe (his words, not mine) and has been in abject agony ever since (my observation, not his). Last week it was so very sore and swollen and he decided to clip his toenail to see if that would release any pressure. He was unprepared when pus started streaming out from under his nail after he disturbed it. 

It felt glorious...but it was also rather concerning and finally convinced Andrew to go to the doctor—urgent care, of course, it being the weekend.

The doctor prescribed a course of antibiotics and suggested that the toenail might spontaneously fall off in the future. They also asked Andrew to come back in and have a physical exam during normal business hours (since Andrew hadn't had one since before his mission...in the year 2003). 

So Andrew went back for a physical. And that doctor looked at his toe and said that the nail probably wouldn't fall off, but recommended that he see a podiatrist anyway. 

Andrew put off that for a few days, but eventually did call to make an appointment because his toe was still dreadfully swollen and throbbing. 

He went in to the podiatrist yesterday and the podiatrist was like, "That's never going to heal. Let's rip that sucker off!"

And that's precisely what they did. 

Andrew was not thrilled. His toe still hurts. But it also now feels like it might one day get better. 

Meanwhile...

I recently finished reading Hamnet. 

Adventures in Buying Nothing

I have given away so much stuff on the Buy Nothing Group (and though other avenues). Here's a compilation of the strangest (to me) interactions and exchanges...

County! County! County!

 

Swimming is an interesting sport because we spent approximately 15 hours at the pool over the past two days (5 on Saturday and 10 on Sunday) to watch our three children swim a collective grand total of approximately 5 minutes.

It was certainly a marathon...for the spectators!

Fortunately, they do allow swimmers to leave after their last event and they always schedule relays first (at regular meets they are last) which meant we got to leave "early" after Zoë's relays. Still, it was a lot of hours at the pool!

I took this top picture because it shows our coach (Amy) as a child swimming for Gwinnett county and now as an adult coaching for Gwinnett county. There are 5 coaches featured on this slide for the same reason (and there seemed to be multiple slides of this nature). Such a thing is unfathomable for me (I currently live 2221.66 miles, as the crow oryx flies, from where I first joined a swim team) but is apparently the reality for many people. The Census Bureau claims that in the United States "nearly six in 10 young adults live within 10 miles of where they grew up, and eight in 10 live within 100 miles," while this Pew study claims approximately 40% of people remain in the community within which they grew up.

Anyway, Andrew and I were both surprised by how many coaches in the Gwinnett county swim league were also young swimmers in the league.

It's a bird! It's a plane! No, it's...an antelope!

Today was another day when we didn't have to set any alarms! There was no early morning swim practice because the oldest age group had their county competition today. Benjamin has his tomorrow afternoon. Zoë and Alex have theirs on Sunday. 

In addition to some small things like laundry and dishes and I meeting with my academic advisor and whatever else, I also finished cleaning out the chest freezer in the garage and listed it on the Buy Nothing Group. And I sent out the Hancock Hummer. And I finished writing (and submitted) my application essay for the Certificate in Interdisciplinary Qualitative Studies. And we went to the lawyer's office to sign a POA (power of attorney) for welling our house.

And I still have a million things on my list of things to do!

I also took a nap because we are trying to manage our stress levels. I'm doing okay so far. I can tell because I haven't even developed a twitch in my eye yet. Andrew, however, was silently thinking he was going blind for the past two weeks (but didn't want to talk about it because talking about it would make it real...so he went to the doctor while I had all the kids at the waterpark and the doctor suggested he go to the eye doctor...so he went to the eye doctor yesterday and they did all sorts of tests and determined that he has beautiful 20/20 vision, but might need reading glasses, and also that he's probably pretty stressed out so use eye drops and try to sleep more).

Here he is with his wacky eyes coming off of whatever dilation medication they used on him (apparently more solution went into one eye than the other so they de-dilated at different rates, which was pretty freaky looking):