Captain Obvious and Captain Obvious, Jr.

Last night before bed Andrew and I were talking about needing to do something this summer (because we've just been in our house for the past forever) and we settled on, perhaps, making a trip out to the beach. We kept talking for a while (because there was quite a bit of extended family excitement going on last night) and then Andrew hopped on his phone and kind of zoned out a bit. 

"What'cha doing?" I asked.

"Looking," Andrew answered vaguely, his voice trailing off. 

"Good answer," I said and started laughing because it was just too funny for me not to.

"At beach possibilities," he said, shaking his head to come back to reality. "Why are you laughing at me?"

"No reason, really," I said. "It's just...earlier today your child, who has jumped into the pool a million times before, jumped into the pool and when he resurfaced he announced, 'There's water under the water!' And I was just thinking about how very much your child he is."

That child was Alexander and it was a very hilarious moment because he shared this fact with everyone like it was a Moste Exciting Discovery when really...duh. 

In his defense, yesterday was a monumental day for him in that he realized he has more control over his breathing patterns than he originally thought, so he can actually hold his breath and be under water, calmly observing, rather than wildly thrashing around, trying to get back to the air so he can fill his lungs. It actually made the whole outing less stressful for me because, as it turns out, it's easier to get back to the surface when you calmly push off the bottom of the pool than when you're wildly thrashing about (go figure). He didn't inhale any water the entire day! But he did spend quite a bit of time carefully sinking to the bottom of the pool (where it was 2.5 feet deep; it's not like we were in the diving tank or anything) taking in his underwater surroundings. 

He noticed that the pool gets bluer where it's deeper, which is the idea I think he meant to express when he observed that there's water under the water. But it was just such a comical observation to make. 

As was Andrew noting that he was "looking." 

Like, I knew that part! What are you looking at?!

Anyway, like father like son...

Pregnancy FAQs

Our baby has done quite a bit of growing and changing the past month. Here they are last month, looking like a little bean:

And here they are the other day, looking like an actual human:

No wonder I'm tired!

There's a lizard in the hallway!

The other day I opened the front door to retrieve a package from the front step and a lizard must have taken that opportunity to dart inside the house because soon after I closed the door I heard Alexander hollering, "There's a lizard in the hallway!"

"What?" Zoë yelled and then her shrieks joined Alexander's hollers. "There's a lizard in the hallway!"

And then Benjamin began bellowing along with them: "There's a lizard in the hallway!"

So apparently there was a lizard in the hallway. 

It cornered itself in the pantry and I trapped it under an old Cool Whip container and then we worked a thin piece of cardboard under it, just like we'd do for a bug (though for bugs we often just use paper). I carried it outside and put it in a bucket for the kids to observe for a little while before we set it loose.

A train! A train! A train! A train!

For FHE, Andrew decided it was high time the kids got a lecture reminding them of our COVID family motto: We are going to ROT together. Respect. Obedience. Tolerance. 

So the kids got a lecture over dinner. I'm not sure it helped because today we ran into the same problem we've been having of me asking the (younger) kids to do things repeatedly and them completely ignoring me until Andrew opens his office door and then they suddenly spring into action. But it was worth a shot.

(And if they don't watch it, I'll get so tired of their behaviour that I'll just start the school year for next year...)

Anyway, when I felt that the lecture had drawn on long enough, I said, "Okay, so we did Dad's idea for family night, but I had a different, funner idea in mind..."

The kids immediately wanted to know what it was.

"Well, we need to finish eating, clean up from dinner, go on a walk, and then...I thought we could all go down to the basement and..."

"Clean it?" Rachel moaned. "How is that any more fun than Dad's idea. Like, I'd rather endure another lecture than clean the basement tonight..."

"Build a LEGO train together?" I suggested. "I thought we could each make a train car that represents us and then make a little stop motion movie of our train rolling along."

The kids agreed that this idea actually did sound like quite a lot of fun, so that's just what we did. It took us far too long—we were still finishing our creations at 9:00—and Alexander ended up having a complete meltdown about having to go to bed before we made the movie, but really I think it was better that we made the movie after we put the youngest three to bed. At any rate it was a lot less chaotic.

Here's our finished movie (which I'm sure I'll talk more about later):

A little bit of swimming

The pool has been lovely the last couple of days! It's warm enough that getting in isn't painful and cool enough that getting in feels refreshing, so it's just about perfect. The little ones have been making great improvements with their swimming skills. 

Here's a few pictures of Benjamin lounging around like a lazy bum (on a little raft we found floating in the pool; it's not ours), but really he's been working hard on both his front crawl and backstroke:

A power outage

Not last night but the night before I was ripped from my sleep when the pad-mounted transformer in our front yard exploded/blew/failed. Whatever it did, there was a tremendous bang and a flash of light and our windows were open and I'm a pretty light sleeper and...it was a terrifying way to wake up. 

I quickly identified the sound as a failed transformer (though I didn't know it was our transformer until later) because, well, the power had gone out. So I figured I may as well go to sleep (there's not a whole lot to be done in these scenarios). I was just about calm when I heard the thunderous pitter-patter of little feet followed by a frantic banging on my bedroom door.

Evidently the boom of the transformer blowing had woken up Alexander as well.

Here he is talking about his point of view in the morning. He explains all about how he couldn't find the doorknob because it was night and the power had gone out and so he felt confused (listen for the second time he says confused (at the very end of the clip); I can't get over how adorable he is).

He got to sleep in our bed.

Zoë's birthday cake

As I mentioned, Rachel made Zoë's birthday cake again this year. From scratch, of course, because that's how she rolls. We haven't had cake from a mix in ages! Rachel believes this is her most elegant-looking cake to date. 

Zoë requested a mermaid cake, so Rachel made a lovely blue cake, made a wave of flowers on it, and added some chocolate seashells and mermaid tails (that she molded herself and then dusted with gold using the new foodgrade air brush set Auntie K sent her for her birthday, which isn't technically until July...but Kelli knew Rachel could get a jumpstart in using it if she sent it early). 

Here's Rachel placing the chocolate (they're really candy melts, not chocolate) embellishments:

Zoë's 6th birthday!

 

Today's the day! At long last, Zoë finally turned six years old! She's been looking forward to this day for a long time. It was a pretty good day for her but she's disappointed that (a) she has no wiggly teeth yet (she checked each and every one of them this morning), and (b) we won't be starting our new school year tomorrow (though if she really wants to get started I don't have a problem letting her break in a few of her workbooks; the other kids aren't ready to dive back in, however).

Is this what zero-scaping is?

When we cut down the trees in our front yard we had some pretty big plans for fresh landscaping, including doing some terracing with some retaining walls. Pretty easy, right?

Don't laugh.

Because that's exactly what the landscaping guy did on the phone when I told him.

We'd priced things out online but hadn't yet actually ordered our supplies, so after measuring things out once again (measure twice (or thrice), build once, right?) I phoned a landscaping supply company to place our order. 

"I'd like to place an order for some supplies..." I began.

"What is it you're trying to do?" the guy asked.

"Well, we're going to put in some retaining walls..." I began again.

This time the guy on the phone just started laughing. 

"Good luck," he (finally) chuckled.

I...didn't know how to respond to that so I think I just sat there in stunned silence.

"It's not that I don't think you can do it," he clarified. "It's just...good luck finding supplies."

Because, turns out, that in addition to the lumber shortage (thanks, COVID), there's also a cement shortage (thanks, COVID). Evidently it's true because this place didn't have supplies for us and every other place I tried didn't have the supplies either. 

So now we at least have a good excuse for why our yard will continue to look like a mess for the next few months...

Bike rides and doughnuts with Grandpa

One of the things the kids most wanted to do with Grandpa was go on bike rides. Taking the kids on bike rides can be complicated because they're all at such various levels of riding. Grandpa was patient and took Zoë and Benjamin around the neighbourhood a bit while Alexander pouted in the cul-de-sac (since he's not big enough to make it up (and down) the hills).