Schoolhouse of Wonder

At six o'clock this morning I heard someone tiptoe to our bedroom and close our door, which meant that I had to get out of bed to investigate who was doing the tiptoeing and why they were closing our door. It was Rachel.

"What are you doing?" I asked as she opened the blinds.

"Checking the weather," she said. "I'm not quite sure what to wear but I have to choose my outfit. I can't be late today!"

"Rachel, it's six o'clock in the morning," I pointed out.

"I got up early," she said, "Because I didn't want to be late."

"You're not going to be late," I assured her. "How many times have you been late to school?"

"Like, never?" she guessed.

"Exactly. I'm going back to bed. You can do whatever you want."

By the time I got up Rachel had eaten breakfast, gotten dressed, brushed her hair, packed her backpack, and read a book. And what was the reason behind her pre-school angst? Why, it's field trip day!

She has been stressing out about being late on field trip day for weeks now, probably because every reminder sent home said, "Please make sure your child comes to school on time since we will be leaving soon after announcements." But Rachel is usually on time to school (I think she was marked 'tardy' once and even that was super lame because it was a day when I brought in a bunch of stuff to school for her winter class party, so even though we arrived to the parking lot on time we were barely late when we hobbled in the door laden with two preschoolers, a tub full of ice, three ukuleles, a stroller, a diaper bag, a plastic bag full of toilet paper rolls, and a bunch of other stuff—I'm pretty sure the current secretary would have waved us on but the previous secretary was a little...grumpy) even when we wake up late. 

The real irony, though, is that I was one of the parent chaperones for the trip and yet Rachel was stressing out about missing it.

Stories of Introverts

Yesterday while Benjamin was napping, Miriam and I made tahini in order to make hummus for dinner. When Andrew came home he fried up falafel (from a mix) cut up some pita bread (from the store) and boiled some water for couscous (which was not a brand we were familiar with and ended up being rather gross). I cut up some cucumbers and tomatoes and opened a can of olives and we were ready to go.

The girls were quite excited about this meal. They have a thing for Middle Eastern cuisine.

"Is this Egyptian food?" Rachel asked. "I remember eating stuff like this..."

We explained that it's similar to Egyptian food, though not quite the same. In the Levant, both hummus and falafel are traditionally made of chickpeas. In Egypt, we found that ful and tamiya were more popular than hummus and falafel (or at least were easier to find). They're basically the same food but are made of fava beans rather than chickpeas.

"Where did we eat this stuff then?" Rachel asked.

"Mom and I ate this in Jordan," Andrew said, telling her about the little cafe he'd go to for lunch everyday. "But you never did because you've never been to Jordan."

"Why haven't I?" she asked. "I went to Israel. That's close to Jordan. Didn't we go to Jordan? I thought we went to Jordan when we went to Israel."

"You didn't go to Jordan because when we went to Israel I was 33 weeks pregnant with Miriam and didn't feel like hiking around Petra with a two-year-old so we stayed in Eilat and looked at dolphins while Dad and Uncle Patrick went to Jordan without us," I explained.

"I don't understand. Why didn't I just go to Jordan with Dad. I like hiking!" she objected.

"You know how attached Benjamin is to Mom?" Andrew asked her. She nodded. "You were like that when you were two," Andrew told her. "You'd scream and kick and throw huge fits whenever you couldn't have Mommy."

"Benjamin's not that bad," Rachel said.

Sense(less) of Direction

Rachel experienced some gastrointestinal distress while we were camping. I'm not sure what caused it, precisely, but I did hear her muttering to herself on one of her many trips to the bathhouse, "I shouldn't have had that seventh s'more..."

I had my hands too full of keeping Benjamin from diving into the fire pit to enforce dessert limits.

Honestly, I've never really been one to enforce dessert limits at all. Nature is often a better teacher than I am and it beautifully—if painfully—managed to teach Rachel why you should only ever eat six s'mores in one go and never seven without my saying anything.

As often as Rachel went to the bathroom you'd think she'd have been able to remember where it was—proximity to restrooms is one of my top criteria when selecting a campsite so we were pretty close to it—but every single time she got up to go to the bathroom she'd stalk off in completely the wrong direction.

"Where are you going?" I would ask her.

"To the bathroom," she'd say. "Don't you remember? I just said I had to go..."

"It's over there," I'd say, pointing her in the right direction.

Probably around the fifth time this happened I turned to Andrew and said, "I guess she inherited my sense of direction."

He laughed because I am hopeless. In fact, I'm pretty sure I was born without a sense of direction.

He's always quizzing me in the car: "Do you know where we are?"

Usually I don't. I still rely heavily on Ginny, our GPS, to get me anywhere. I don't know what people did before them. I, for one, probably would have spent a lot more time lost and crying than I do in this blessed age. Also, I can't wait for cars that drive themselves. Yes, please!

Anyway, Miriam ate only a manageable number of s'mores and didn't end up with a tummy ache so she should have been less familiar of the whereabouts of the bathroom than Rachel was. She asked if she could go to the bathroom and I told her that she could. We could see the bathhouse from our campsite so I was willing to let her go on her own but Rachel, ever needful of the toilet, quickly volunteered to go with her.

"I'll go with you!" she said eagerly.

"Alright! Let's go!" Miriam agreed.

Then they split up and ran off in opposite directions. Miriam immediately hopped on the path leading to the bathhouse while Rachel dashed off into a grove of trees separating our campsite from our neighbours.

"Looks like Miriam inherited my sense of direction," Andrew laughed with superiority.

Falls Lake

After packing up camp yesterday morning we headed to the lake for some swimming. The beach was still open despite high waters—and, indeed, the water was very high. When we pulled into the parking lot Andrew said, "That's a weird beach—it's a grass beach!"

Memorial Day Camping

I had a meeting before church on Sunday (ward council—it was my first time going and it was kind of amazing) which meant, because we only have one car, that I got a ride and left Andrew behind to get all three kids ready (and then to) for church by himself.

When I walked into the chapel I saw my sweet little girls in their Sunday best. Miriam's skirt was on backwards and their hair was thrown into classic "Daddy" ponytails, but other than that they looked spectacular.

"Dad took Benjamin out," Rachel informed me when I sat down. "He's throwing a fit. Daddy told him you'd be here waiting and you weren't and then Benjamin started screaming 'AAAH! MAMA! AAAH! MAMA! AAAH! MAMA!' and wouldn't stop. He was being so bad. He was kicking his legs and..."

"Alright, I'll go find them," I said.

After doing a quick lap around the building and coming up with nothing I eventually did find them—sitting with the girls in the chapel. Benjamin was no longer screaming, but he certainly wasn't calm either. When he saw me he took a shuddering breath, lunged into my arms, and nestled his face into my neck.

When he was quite comforted I took a good look at his outfit. To Andrew's credit Benjamin had on Sunday shoes and a tie. He also had on Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle socks, pants with holes in both knees, and a wrinkled red plaid shirt.

"He wanted to wear it," Andrew shrugged.

Pick your battles, folks.

Topsail Beach

We went to the beach today and had way too much fun and took way too many pictures. Only a few valiant readers will make it to the end. Shoot—even I might not make it to the end and I'm the one writing this, so don't be surprised when I write something like, "And then we played in the water more. Pictures."

Seriously, though, I think I could live here. And I guess I kind of do, though the three-hour drive kind of puts a damper on calling the beach our backyard. Still, it's nice to live to the ocean again.

I'm not sure what I was thinking when I planned this beach trip for Memorial Day weekend, which is usually a crazy weekend for trying to go out of town. After we decided to go I started having flashbacks to the Memorial Day weekend fail we had before Benjamin was born—when we tried to go to the copper mines with my parents and ended up sitting on the freeway in backed up traffic unable to go anywhere.

Fortunately, traffic was fine this morning and the beach wasn't even crowded!

We went to North Topsail, which I guess is a less popular beach for whatever reason. We happen to think it's awesome, even if it is a little more rustic. Probably because there's free parking.

Anyway, we left our house around 8:20 (aiming to leave by 7:30 so only 50 minutes behind schedule—not bad) and got to the beach around 11:30. Rachel got a little worried when we turned down a street with a dead end sign and I said, "Yeah, because we've reached the end of the continent."

"What do you mean 'the end of the continent'?" Rachel asked nervously.

"I mean we're at the beach," I said. "There's no more land."

I suppose that's not technically true because there are water rights and blah, blah, blah, but it was funny that Rachel was so concerned. Within minutes of arriving at the beach we all hopped off the continent and into the ocean. And it was glorious.

Busy Wednesday

The Museum of Life and Science has a "Build it Bamboo" exhibit and they had a special "Bamboo for Bambinos" time this week on Tuesday and Wednesday. We didn't make it on Tuesday because we were at the pool nearly the entire day and I was worried we wouldn't make it on Wednesday either because I was summoned for jury duty that day—but when I called the number to see if I would be needed I was told that I was not and I literally did a happy dance in the living room.

So we were able to make it to "Bamboo for Bambinos" after all, and even had some friends join us.

It was fairly busy with field trips when we arrived—the overflow parking lot was about half-full of busses but we were able to find a spot. Benjamin was, of course, in heaven with all those busses around, though he wouldn't get out of the stroller for a picture because he's always afraid Miriam will take his spot (and that's a valid fear so I don't blame him).

Holy Moley

Shortly after closing the door on his way to school yesterday, Andrew burst back into the house.

"There's a dead animal in the garden," he said with disgust.

"Really?" I asked. "What is it?"

"I don't know what it is. It's either a really big mouse or a really small rat. Whatever it is it has huge hands!"

"That," I said, "Is a mole."

Swimming lessons, meat-eater showers, and other tales

We have been to the pool five times since it opened on Saturday (twice today, twice yesterday, once on Saturday). Already the pool monitor has asked us if this is going to be a daily occurrence.

She must have met our NICU nurses who would say things like "Once he's consistently taking one oral feeding a day we can try two feedings a day!" and then would be like, "Great! He ate once. Time for two feedings!" and I would think to myself, "You keep using the word 'consistently.' I do not think it means what you think it means."

But on the other hand, Benjamin now takes 100% of his meals orally. So maybe we will end up going swimming every day this summer after all. Only time will tell.

We started on swimming lessons today—both for my kids and for other kids. Yes, I've taken on more pupils. A friend and I are trading services. I'm teaching her boys how to swim (and basically letting them use our pool whenever they want to—we're there all the time, anyway) and she's giving me a friendly discount for the preschool she runs (which Miriam has been dying to attend).

I figure the HOA can't really get upset with that since no money will be changing hands.

It made me think back to when we lived in Egypt as poor grad students and literally worked in exchange for food. Ah, the good old days—when we were poor...and in school...and...oh, wait...

Here we are. Still. No pressure, Honey.

I mean, at least this time we're working in exchange for a service. That's got to be a step up from working for food, right?

Big red car

This is phase one of Benjamin's birthday present: