We were finishing up dinner this evening...relatively late...because we had things like swimming and music lessons...and we were reminding the kids about their "dinner jobs." One child is in charge of clearing the table, one child is in charge of doing the dishes, one child is in charge of tidying up the floors, and one child is in charge of taking care of the cat (and garbage, if needed). Alexander helps out here and there or helps keep Phoebe entertained and out of the way.
It sounds like a well-oiled machine, doesn't it?
After all, we're pretty experienced parents now. We have systems and things like that...
Alas, systems are always better in theory than they are in practice (at least from our experience), so it really works like a rusty, piece-of-junk machine.
But it's working (I guess), so that's all that matters.
This Mother's Day the kids let me stay in bed while they made me breakfast. Andrew was also staying in bed because he took the middle-of-the-night Phoebe shift and fell asleep in her bed.
Zoë made the egg for me (though she thinks she may have cooked one side too long because she left it on the stove unattended while she worked on my picture and heard it "popping and whistling" in the pan, but it was delicious so I'm sure it was just fine). Alexander washed the tomatoes and filled my cup with water. Phoebe got the ice.
Feeling like we haven't gone on a family adventure in ages, we decided last night that we'd go for a hike today. Miriam suggested hiking to see the bamboo grove at East Palisades Trail, so that's what we did.
Here's everyone at the trailhead:
This morning we went to the pool to do some practicing before swim tryouts. We'd gone to the pool on Monday afternoon for several hours, but it just so happened that a couple of our co-op families joined our pool so they showed up and then all my kids wanted to do was swim. Naturally, that is something that should happen at a pool (and I understand that) but I did want to make sure my kids would be able to pass the swim test to get on the swim team that I already paid for...you know?
The test isn't hard—they just have to swim one length of the pool without stopping—but it's early in the swim season and my kids...haven't ever done competitive swimming...or formal swimming lessons...so I just wanted to give them a few more "mom" lessons so they could feel...readier.
Yesterday we didn't make it to the pool because we had trouble getting anything done and so simply couldn't make it out the door. And by the time we were ready to make it out the door I was not in any shape to take them out. So I took a nap instead.
So this morning we went to the pool and we did quite a bit of playing, but we also worked on our strokes a little. Zoë needed to be reminded to keep her ears in line with her shoulders, and just doing that improved her stroke (and endurance) significantly. If she can just remember that one thing, she'll have no trouble making it across the pool.
Phoebe loves going to the pool (so it was a little soul crushing to her when we didn't go to the pool yesterday) and very sweetly asks for me to teach her, too. "Mommy teach me swimming! Teach me again!"
We mostly just practice back floats and kicking and things. She also loves to jump into the water (kind of—she kind of squats and falls into my arms).
And after she jumps in the pool she comes back up out of the water and splutters, "Do it 'gain!"
*****
This afternoon the kids and I spent some time in the garden this afternoon while Daddy took Miriam and Zoë to their piano auditions (which they passed with flying colours). Benjamin and I were doing some actual work—weeding and tending and planting—Alexander and Phoebe were collecting worms and making habitats for them. Admittedly, keeping Phoebe occupied and out of trouble is actual work, so Alexander was working, too. And Phoebe was engaged in play, in the hard work of exploring her world.
And I was grateful those two were so passionately engaged in their labours while Benjamin and I were engaged in ours.
Because I need to put these pictures somewhere other than my phone, here are a few pictures from Grandpa and Darla's wedding...
Here's a sweet shot of Zoë and Darla walking back inside the church together after family pictures:
On Thursday we met with our co-op for the last time to have a field day. It's been a few years since we've done a field day, and I was so happy the kids got to participate. I always loved field day when I was growing up—I loved getting the whole school out there, having older students and younger students working together. It was competitive, but more fun than truly competitive...I don't know. For someone who doesn't really enjoy "sports," per se, I have some awfully good memories of field day.
When Rachel and Miriam were in school, they always had to move around field day stations with their class...which I found less fun...but still nice...I guess.
Anyway, at our co-op field day the kids were divided into red, blue, yellow, and green teams, and each team had a mix of little and big kids. The teams sure were competitive and winners were announced after each event, but honestly no one had any idea who won overall (because nobody was really keeping track) and everyone cheered loudly for the last competitors to finish (which, honestly, was usually the yellow team—the team I was helping coach). But we all just had a lot of fun.
I didn't take a lot of pictures because things were busy (we had about 40 kids there, with 10 kids on each team). Here's Zoë (blue team) racing against Alexander (green team) in the sack race:
For a brief moment I forgot that I had written anything in May and I was really excited because my first post of April was about Alexander finding a skink in his pants, but I already did a post in May, so this is my second post. Fortuitously, the skink-in-his-pants post was also my second post in April (apparently I don't remember anything anymore).
I hate to see what June brings because...
I had only recently finished my run (and then had gotten distracted by a bunch of primary music stuff because Miriam finished making the medley I'd asked her to make and then I needed to finish up a slideshow for one of my songs...) and I was just about to shower when I got a text message from Andrew, telling me that a frog just fell on him.
I managed to write one haiku a day this month (even if I don't love them all) and I managed to write a 38 page paper for a journal...that was promptly desk-rejected because I didn't anonymize my cover letter (because they didn't say to anonymize it) and because I left my self-citations as "Author, 2023" rather than "Author, Year" (and that mistake is on me because I overlooked that small detail). But I just resubmitted it so I think it should be good. I hope it should be good...good enough to not get desk rejected again. The deadline is today, so...
I spent most of the day crossing things off of a long-neglected do-stuff-around-the-house list.
I'd been looking for another toddler bicycle seat to try with our bikes because Benjamin would really like to go for more bike rides and the park isn't that far. I mean, it's too far to walk, in my opinion (at least regularly), but it's a perfect distance for biking.
After submitting my paper I looked at seats on Amazon for a while, intending to measure certain parts of our bikes to see what seats might work with what frames. The last time we scored a bike seat on the Buy Nothing group it worked on none of our bikes. Literally none of them. And we have like 5 adult bikes in our garage to choose from. So that was a bit frustrating.
We got rid of that one, though, and obtaining a new one has been on the back burner of my mind.
So I spent some time looking on Amazon.
But then this morning, I opened Facebook and the very first post was someone on the Buy Nothing Group giving away a brand new "universal" toddler seat. What are the odds?!
Probably higher than you might think.
