Non-camping and Easter Eggs

Weeks ago we made plans to go beach camping this weekend. It was above 70 during the day and staying fairly warm at night when we booked our campsite. I found a decent tent on Craigslist for dirt cheap. The girls didn't have rehearsal for their ballet performance. Everything was perfect—we were going to begin spring break with a bang!

But then the weather turned cold again and the forecast for the beach was cold and rainy.

So we wimped out and stayed at home.

Naturally we were all terribly disappointed (some more than others, as I'm sure you can imagine) so alternate plans were made and carried out.

When Andrew and I announced to the girls that we were cancelling the camping trip we made a number of promises: we could go to the Life and Science Museum! We could roast hot dogs and make s'mores at home! We could set the tent up in the living room and sleep inside!

The Museum worked out well. It was super crowded, but I think that's because everyone is on spring break this week and the museum is popular, anyway. I drove the kids to the museum after the egg hunt and Andrew met us at the museum after his class. The only kink in our plan was that the parking lot was completely full. I had to wait for someone to leave in order for them to take their spot and...well...

Let's just say that I'm terrible at parking.

I parked successfully, meaning that I didn't hit any other vehicles, but I was so crooked that my neighbours didn't have half a chance of pulling out and I was so close to the car on my left that I couldn't even open my door to get out. There was no way I was going to be able to back up the car on my own so I swallowed my pride, threw the car into park, hopped out of the passenger side, flagged down the next family who came walking my way, and asked if they wouldn't mind fixing my terrible, terrible parking job.

It was really terrible so they happily obliged. The wife took all the kids and headed off to her car while the husband climbed in through the passenger side of my van and parked it properly.

Thanks, strangers!

The museum was fun, as it normally is. We spent our time outside because it was beautiful and because if you have to be surrounded by swarms of people it's better out than in (at least, I think so).

Benjamin's still a little young for most of the activities. He spent a lot of time playing with his seat belt and people watching...

Sunbeam Egg Hunt

Just as I'm always raving about how wonderful Rachel's kindergarten teacher is and how lucky we were that Rachel was put in her class, I now have to boast about how wonderful Miriam's Sunbeams teacher is and how lucky we are that Miriam was put in her class.

If these two women were the only people you ever met in your entire life, you'd be completely convinced that the world is full of wonderful people. I know a lot of terrible things happen in the world, but good things still happen and wonderful people still exist and these teachers my daughters have are just amazing!

This morning, Miriam's Sunbeams teacher hosted an Easter egg hunt at her house for all the cute kids in her class. She didn't have to—she's only asked to teach them on Sundays—but she is the most wonderful lady and has completely adopted all of her little sunbeamers as extra grandchildren and by extension I think she's also adopted the previous generation because she hugged everyone before they left, including all the moms.

She never raised any children of her own, which just boggles my mind because she has all those little sunbeams trailing after her like the Pied Piper all the time, and was really nervous to take on this assignment, but she's doing a great job! She's married to a man who had already finished raising his kids—and they just recently moved up to North Carolina from Florida to be closer to their daughter, who is in our ward, and whose son is in Miriam's sunbeams class.

Anyway...this sweet couple dyed a bunch of eggs, bought a bunch of candy, hid it all over their yard, and invited five sunbeams, plus all their siblings. They had individual chocolate bunnies hidden for each of the little ones (three and under) and had little treat bags made up for all the older siblings (five and up). They knew exactly who was coming knew all the children by name and made them each feel so welcome and special.

Ramblings about school

I was going to write a blog post about how annoyed I was with school fundraisers a few weeks ago when Rachel was sent home with the task of selling cookie dough (for only 40% of the profit). This was during a book sale (when we'd just had a book sale a couple of months before), after a "night out" event, after magazine subscriptions, after a Christmas stuff sale...

Since the cookie dough, they've had a school dance ($5 per child!), another thing that I can't remember, and now they're gearing up for their Spring Fling and are asking families to contribute an item or $5 for a themed basket to be raffled off.

I understand that Rachel's school needs money, but—holy hannah!—I think they might have their fingers in a few too many pies there. Maybe they should try to limit themselves to one fundraising event per month, focus a little.

I think the raffle is an excellent idea and we'll definitely be contributing to that. Rachel really wanted to go to the dance (it was grades K–2) but it was the night of the ward Easter party so she couldn't, otherwise I probably would have let her, even though it cost $5 per child and snacks were only for purchase (snarl—y'all have the sound equipment and music so why not $2 per child so that they could pull it out of their own piggy banks?). The cookie dough sale, though? That really got my dander up.

"40% of the profit goes to your school!" they promised.

Awesome. So let's say that I work my tail end off, dragging my child around door-to-door selling cookie dough (because "only sell to people you know!" and we know six people in this state so Rachel can't exactly wander the neighbourhood selling cookie dough) and I get in $50 worth of cookie dough (that's about four orders (2/3 of our 6 neighbourhood contacts were feeling generous enough to spend $13–$18 on a couple dozen cookies that day)) that means the school only gets...$20.

Aren't there laws against child labour for this very reason?

Wouldn't my five-year-old essentially be working for this cookie company for free? Because the cookie company...they just earned $30 (which is more than the school got) and they didn't even have to work to sell their product because we did it for them.

Yeah. We obviously didn't go out selling cookie dough.

But I'll tell you what we did do. We hopped on Amazon.com and found an awesome deal for bulk glue sticks. We bought three cases for around $20 and donated those to Rachel's school.

If I was going to spend x-amount of time to give her school 40% of my efforts anyway, I could also just spend 100% of x-amount of my money on the school. The way I figure it, my $20 worth of glue sticks was really $50 worth of cookie dough, anyway. I think. If my math's right. It might not be. Whatever.

This week I also volunteered in Rachel's classroom for their "class snack." The school district is cracking down on unhealthy party foods so Rachel and I came up with some healthy snacks to offer her fellow students. Popcorn, apple slices, cheese sticks, and...vegetable flowers.

Door ajar

I woke up this morning gripping my sheets, with chills running down my spine, and adrenaline coursing through my veins. The sound I heard was one I often hear in my nightmares—a door being forced open. Alert as possible, but still very groggy, I elbowed Andrew.

"Someone opened the door!" I hissed at him.

"What?" he moaned.

"Someone just opened the door!" I whispered in a panic.

"What?!" he whispered back, panic rising in his voice.

"The door is open," I explained, keeping my voice low.

Andrew sat up in bed and looked at the front door. Having the advantage of 20/20 vision he wasn't busy frantically feeling around for his glasses and could check. We can see our front door from our room.

"It's not open. Go back to sleep."

"The back door, then!" I insisted. "I heard a door open!"

The sounds I hear in the middle of the night are not to be trifled with—because once I heard an attempted murder (just a domestic dispute...involving a butcher knife...no big deal)—and ever since then when I say I hear sounds in the middle of the night my husband believes me and feels obligated to check things out. He's nice like that.

So, sighing a little, he got out of bed to investigate the backdoor. I tiptoed behind him.

When I saw a sliver of sunshine spilling across the kitchen floor, I froze and quickly scanned the room for a weapon. The nearest thing to me was a nice, cushy yoga mat, all rolled up and ready to go. I picked that up and wielded it like a baseball bat, ready to lash out at any intruder (never mind the cast-iron fire poke that was just a few feet further away (a yoga mat makes a much better weapon—obviously)).

Andrew glanced around the house, confused that no one seemed to be inside. Figuring the perp must still be outside, he turned the lock on the bottom handle and prepared to slam the door, shutting the villain out of our lives for good.

That's when he saw...

So now we eat graham crackers

Miriam had gotten some graham crackers out to munch on while I was hanging up the laundry (a bit of a gamble today, considering the stormy clouds on the horizon) and while Benjamin was supposed to be napping. By the time I'd finished hanging up the laundry there were cracker crumbs all over the table and Benjamin was wide awake and playing in his crib (I had almost hoped he'd fallen back asleep because he had been screaming minutes earlier, but no—he'd just found something entertaining to do).

I got Benjamin up and put him in his seat at the table while I made some official lunch for me and Miriam.

Next thing I know, Miriam's shrieking with joy.

"Mom! He likes graham crackers! He's eating it! Good chewing, little buddy!"

"Did you give him a graham cracker?" I asked.

She creatively denied this charge (since she knows it's against the rule to give Benjamin anything to eat). "I didn't give him a cracker!" she insisted. "I just put it in front of him and now he's eating it!"

So in other words...you gave him a cracker. Oh, well. It was bound to happen sooner or later. And he loved it. He loved it so much that I gave him a second one. And I took five million pictures of him (to make up for the guilt of only taking one picture of him at the Easter egg hunt, perhaps). You get seven of them, which is probably six too many...

The Easter Party

The first part of the Easter party was an egg hunt for the kids. It was kind of chaotic, as all egg hunts seem to be, but I think the kids all had fun. We had kids three and under in one area, kids four through seven in another area, and kids eight through eleven in another.

Andrew was out getting ice so I was left to divide myself between three children during the egg hunt, which doesn't work out so well if you do the math. I helped Miriam figure out what to do—pick up the eggs, not that difficult—and then left her in the care of her Sunbeam teachers while I went to check on Rachel.

Just my boys

Andrew fell asleep at his desk yesterday. He was reading a boring article. Apparently it was very boring.

Here's a little glimpse at Benjamin's two front teeth:

They've just broken through in the past couple of days. His gums are still pretty raw, poor boy.

It's kind of weird that he got his front teeth first. Both the girls got their eyeteeth before their front teeth, which is what happened with me and at least three of my siblings. I was totally expecting Benjamin to get his teeth in the same fashion but he broke the mold and got his front teeth first, perhaps taking after Andrew's teething order.

It's funny to look in his mouth and see such big teeth in there. Rachel has the same size of teeth and hers look so tiny! I suppose that has to do with variation in their head sizes. Rachel's head is much bigger than Benjamin but she still has all her deciduous teeth (and she's anxiously awaiting the autumn of her babyhood (one of her friends at church just lost her first tooth today and Rachel's beyond jealous)).

And here's Benjamin enjoying some green beans:

He loves them any way he can get them, from mashed to whole (and anywhere in between). 

Rachel's talk

Here's the talk that Rachel gave today in primary. It was fun to sit down and write this with her. She is a very wise girl.

This week

We had our ward Easter party last night and I am so glad it's over. The feeling I had was one of sweet relief. The primary presidency was in charge of this little shin-dig. I'm in the primary presidency. Ergo...

"I feel," I told Andrew last night, "Like someone has been throwing peaches at me and they finally stopped."

"Peaches?" he asked. "Because, like, they're gross and hairy and mushy and the pits?"

Andrew doesn't like peaches. Unless they're canned.

"No," I said. "Because right now I'm just like, 'Khookh!"

Andrew burst out laughing. He was laughing so hard that tears were streaming down his cheeks. It's an old joke of ours, along with feeling like eggs are being thrown at you (Oeuf, oeuf, oeuf!) because, you see خوخ means peach in Arabic and is said khookh (just like oeuf means egg in French and is said oof).

Ordinarily Andrew would have picked up on this joke right away, in fact, he's usually the one to bring it up at all since my default noise of exasperation is khookh but we went to bed super late last night because Les Mis (the movie) was released on Amazon last night so we rented it and watched it and it was awesome. Besides the couple of times we've gotten bo-berry biscuits, last night was the first night we've spent money on a date since the one time we went out to breakfast while Benjamin was in the NICU last summer.

Let's see, this has been a busy week and a busy day. I almost put Benjamin in the bathtub fully clothed this evening. He saw nothing amiss with that idea. I only noticed just in the nick of time.

Here's a few highlights of my week:

The Incomprehensive Field Guide to Our Backyard

When we lived in British Columbia, our backyard was more or less a swamp. At any rate, it was a lawnless mess—we did have moss and buttercups and equisetum and things, but it was mostly rocks and dirt.

And we thought it was great! It made the perfect jurassic-era backdrops for our toy dinosaurs and this one time my dad dug a huge pit, trying to get out a rock (which he claimed must've been part of the Canadian Shield at some point), but it never mattered how many holes we dug because once we were finished digging and making a big mess back there, we'd just fill in our holes and they'd get recovered with bog-loving "weeds" and we all lived happily ever after.

Except for the one time that my little brother, who was two at the time, was caught eating some mushrooms he'd found. After a bit of a panic, he was taken to the hospital where it was determined that the mushrooms must not have been toxic because he was just fine.

But it's important to know what grows in your backyard, especially when your little ones can't keep things out of their mouths.

In Alberta and Utah yard weeds are fairly boring. Besides grass, dandelions are plentiful (and edible) and thistles are prickly (and edible should a baby decide to brave the prickles). I don't know—I never really noticed much of anything growing besides grass (though we did have mushrooms in Orem...and morning glory, come to think of it). At any rate, it didn't seem too difficult to keep questionable plants out of my children's mouths in Utah. I don't know if it was simply because I was more familiar with the local plants or if it's because Benjamin's more of an oral explorer than his sisters but whatever the cause I am suddenly hyper aware of the smorgasbord that surrounds him.