Coming in threes

We survived Thursday, or just about have at any rate. Andrew's on his way home from Georgia and Grandpa's on the way to the airport to pick him up. Miriam got to organ class. I attended all three SEPs (student educational plans (or something like that)) for my school kids with my preschool kids in tow. I also met with a member of the bishopric.

I was so worried they were going to give me another calling (I have two) but when I got there they flooded me with questions about how we are doing and how they can support us more and that took up a good ten minutes or so. So I thought, "Phew! This was just a checking-in-with-y'all meeting!"

"I want to let you get back to your family," he said and I almost stood up to leave, but before I could he slipped in, "But before you go I wanted to extend another calling to you."

And I was like, "Oh..."

I tried to explain that my Wednesdays next semester are going to be rather busy since that's the night Andrew will have an evening class. But everything I said slid right off of that man like he'd been coated with Teflon.

So now I have three callings, I guess.

I day

Just before Halloween I took the kids to story time at the library and we played a cute little game that I decided I wanted to recreate in our preschool co-op. They had several paper pumpkins, each a different colour, as well as a little ghost. The librarian would hide the ghost behind a pumpkin and then after saying a rhyme ("Little ghost, little ghost! Which pumpkin do you like most?") she called on a child to pick a pumpkin to look behind.

It went over with the kids really well.

My next lesson was a Thanksgiving one and I was trying and trying to come up with a variation of this game to play with the kids. But I couldn't come up with anything. Pilgrim doesn't rhyme with much. Turkey? Pie? Still couldn't think of anything.

It ended up not mattering because I didn't end up handling the week before Thanksgiving break.

So today was my next teaching day.

I was in charge of teaching about the letter /I/.

If it were up to me, we wouldn't have a letter of the week because (A) the kids are only three years old, (B) teaching the letters in isolation means the children learn them "without connection to meaningful reading and writing," which means that (C) they have trouble "transfer[ing] this knowledge to literacy tasks later, so basically (D) it's a "serious disadvantage" compared to a more whole language approach.

Good Grief

Rachel has been texting Grandma's phone to tell her that she loves and misses her. Andrew was tempted to text back to Rachel from one of Grandma's old devices, just to mess with her. But he decided to just let her have that connection for a little while longer.

******

Tonight at dinner Grandpa was asking about Thursday plans (because Thursdays are the worst; everyone's always going on about Mondays but Thursdays are miserable at our house (at least this semester)) and said that he could take Miriam to her organ class.

"Grandma offered to take me to organ on days like tomorrow," Miriam said solemnly.

"She did," I agreed.

The table was quiet for a minute and then Miriam burst out, "Well, I guess she got out of that!"

I think she might have a bit of a nervous humour.

False alarm

Last night was not a good night for Alexander, with wake up calls for me at 2:30, 3:30, and 6:00 prior to everyone else getting up between 7:00 and 7:30 (after going to bed at midnight). That alone would have left me feeling rather exhausted this morning, but then we get to add into the mix Zoë, who woke us up around 5:00 this morning when she burst into our room, sobbing, to tell us that she had thrown up.

Andrew rolled out of bed and headed to her room to survey the scene.

He speaks

Around 2:00 every morning Alexander wakes up to scream. More recently he has begun screaming rather specifically:

"AMPA! AMPA! AMMMMMMPAAAAAA!"

I'm not sure why he's taken to screaming for Grandpa in the middle of the night because Grandpa has gotten him from bed exactly one time, but call for Grandpa he does. It makes us laugh because it's just further evidence of how opinionated this baby can be.

Hopefully now that he's starting to add words we'll have less screaming at our house.

Mama was first.
Hello was second.
Grandpa was third.

He also says "ball" and will sign "milk" and "all done." He refuses to sign the word "more" and instead will just grunt and shove his plate at me.

Tonight he finally attempted to say "dada" and it was hilarious. His face got all red and tense as he geared up for that plosive /d/. It would be great if saying dada meant that he would let his dada hold him, but he's solidly a momma's boy (or a grandpa's boy).

Mute

Along with the many other global tragedies so often on my mind (wildfires, starving children, refugees, that sort of thing), I'm feeling rather distressed by what's going on at our very own border today.

I have no words. None. 

First snow of the season

Alexander and I were the first ones awake this morning, which means we got to be the first ones to see the first good snowfall of the season. Technically it already snowed here once—on November 4th, fast Sunday, when Karen was still here—but it melted before we got out of church so that hardly counts. This morning's snowfall was generous enough that the kids could hardly eat breakfast for wanting to go outside so badly. 

So we bundled up and headed outside. Alexander enjoyed the snow much more than he did his first romp in the snow:

November 24, 2018

Alexander has done quite a bit of growing up this year, though he still wears that little sleep sac to bed. 

February 19, 2018

Looking at the timing of these pictures is giving me a little bit of anxiety about how long winter can last, but I'll try to push that aside for now because snow can be fun (in moderation).

Hand and Foot

We played Hand and Foot tonight—Rachel, Miriam, Emily, Andrew, and I—and we had a nice time. We were loud and silly and ruthless.

When Miriam did the "reading of the score," a Heiss family tradition that I've come to accept even though it flies in the face of everything I learned as a child, she revealed what Andrew and I already knew: we did not do well.

"Dad's in last place with 155. Then Mom with 300," she said.

"But," Rachel interjected, "You're supposed to add them up before you read them."

"I did add them up," Miriam replied saucily. "That's all they got."

"Ouch," Emily said.

"Sick burn," I said.

Her burn was made even more effective because Rachel wasn't trying to insult our scores at all. She genuinely didn't believe they could possibly be so low (but they were). Everyone else scored well over 1000.

I couldn't help but think how much Karen would have enjoyed playing Hand and Foot with us this evening and joining in the conversation and laughter (we're still capable of laughter) and ribbing going on. I'm probably not alone in thinking so. It was her favourite game.

Rachel and Miriam have been slowly aging into Hand and Foot (starting with playing "just one round"), so I hope they'll remember the few times they got to play with Grandma—in Durham, the hotel in Idaho, at Grover, and here (and probably a few other places as well). I wish they could play a thousand more rounds with her but instead they'll have to play with us...which is good news for them because, if tonight's game is any indication, apparently Andrew and I are not very good players!

Thanksgiving 2018

Thanksgiving happened. 

Aunt Stacey came to our house on Wednesday to make stuffing and prep the turkey. Here she is letting Benjamin help her mix the egg into the bread (Aunt Stacey is a terrific chef and enjoys having little sous chefs around to help; she was giving Benjamin all sorts of jobs):

He had one job

Andrew was given the job of burning a CD of the funeral service so we can mail it to his sister Sarah. The only problem is that CDs are so antiquated that none of our computers have CD drives (let alone burners). He had to check out an external CD drive from the library on campus in order to burn one.

He also had to buy a disc (for a dollar—the guy working the counter was super intrigued; "You really want to buy a CD? No one ever buys these!") even though I knew his mom had several stacks of blank CDs in her office closet (and told him this). He felt sheepish enough about that when we were going through her office supplies deciding what we might actually use and found about six spindles of CDs, but then...

We were upstairs finishing up a few things before bed when he thought to pull out the CD he had burned on campus so that he could label it and give it to his dad. So he pulled out a permanent marker, uncapped it, and opened up the CD case to reveal...

Nothing.

The case was empty.

And then he felt really sheepish.

The disc of Karen's funeral is inside an external drive sitting in the HBLL somewhere.

I suppose he can go check to see if his disc was found (and/or returned), but he'll probably end up having to go through the entire process again (less buying a CD because we have loads of those).