Two times TODAY where reading has undone me

Number one

We are reading Anne of Green Gables for school right now. I didn't precisely go into the school year with a plan. We read a non-fiction book about the Great Famine in Ireland, and then read Nory Ryan's Song, a historical fiction account, mostly because that's a topic Zoë's been curious about. 

And then we read Kwame Alexander's Door of No Return because it's nominated for the Georgia Children's Book Award this year and...that's kind of my job. It is set somewhat contemporaneously to Nory Ryan's Song (within 20 years). 

And then I had picked out Anne of Green Gables for a nighttime read with my big kids, but they selected a different book (Good Different, another book on the GCBA list). But I just feel like there's no bad time to read Anne of Green Gables, really. Plus it's set within 20 years of Door of No Return, so it's somewhat contemporaneous...right? 

At any rate the kids have been working on their spooky stories and using rich description to invite their readers into their story. What better mentor text than Anne of Green Gables for that?

Zoë started her story with a rather bland sentence: It. Was. October.

She started reading Anne of Green Gables and her revision and suddenly "the October sun" is "shimmering" through the leaves, "casting suspicious shadows" on the path.

Delightful. Thanks, L. M. Montgomery!

Math and Brownies

Alexander was so excited to start his Beast Academy (math) training online this year. I ordered the workbooks for him last year because I wanted him to work on his handwriting skills. But this year I signed him up for the online platform so I could—more or less—take something off my plate.

*****

We had a linger longer on Sunday, which Zoë baked brownies for. 

She left a rather threatening note for Rachel in the kitchen, informing her that Zoë was going to be the one to bake brownies for the linger longer and—importantly—she did not need Rachel's help with that task.

So Zoë baked some brownies. And they were fairly popular. 

When I was in line at the dessert table, a couple of women in the ward were like, "And what came from your house? 'Cuz I know I want a slice of that!"

I explained that the brownies came from our house, but that Zoë had claimed baking rights and had kicked Rachel out of the kitchen. The ladies were hoping for some of Rachel's sugar cookies that she's made for a couple of youth activities lately.

Rachel is a phenomenal baker.

Inland tsunamis

Tuesdays are my long days on campus this semester, but so far the kids have been good about doing their work (they have assignments to complete throughout the day and they have to check in with me with emails and sharing documents and things to show their work). 

My advisor told me I could take home some books from the book room that were ineligible for consideration for the book award this year, either because their publication date was too old or because they weren't the first in the series or...you know...whatever doesn't meet our criteria. So last week I brought home a book haul for the kids and gave them each a book before I left for campus on Tuesday. 

Alexander had read a Magic Treehouse non-fiction companion book with facts about tsunamis and other natural disasters and was absolutely riveted, so I gave him a book about how to survive a tsunami and he sent me a rather desperate-sounding text message about half an hour into the drive to campus:

"is our house bolted to the foundation mom (I finished the book about tsunamis by the way)"

While I was writing to tell him that our house would be just fine, he wrote to tell me that the book was "also about earthquakes that caused the flooding that caused a tsunami that destroyed a house."

So it's possible that book was a little too much for him. But he's read it about 50 times today as well, so it's also possible that it's just his speed.

Sting, Crash, Splash!

Would you look at this adorable bee clinging to our mountain mint?

A phone call to Vienna, or "Time Zones—boy, I dunno..."

Alexander enjoys calling people (on Discord), but he can sometimes be a little persistent if no one answers him, calling over and over again on repeat. 

Vienna is 6 hours ahead of us, so fortunately our lunch time is only Uncle Patrick's dinner time (or thereabouts), and lunchtime is often when Alexander thinks to call, but there are other times that's worse for Alexander to call (like at our dinner time, for example, which is bedtime for Uncle Patrick).

I've explained phone etiquette to Alexander, telling him that he needs to arrange phone calls beforehand (especially with people who live far away in different time zones) and I thought he understood that, but the other day he started calling Uncle Patrick again (and again and again).

Uncle Patrick tried to be polite about it. He explained again to Alexander that he should send a message beforehand, to which Alexander replied that he did (because he had messaged "call" two seconds before calling...not much of a head's up). Uncle Patrick tried to give him an example, telling him that he could call him in a bit and talk for five minutes or so. 

Alexander interpreted that to mean that Uncle Patrick would be calling him in five minutes, so he set a five-minute timer so he wouldn't forget when he needed to be by his phone. 

I texted Patrick to tell him how excited Alex was and he was like, “Oh, then I’d better call him! I was going to call him after I had dinner…” 

So, Uncle Patrick called and the first thing Alexander said was, “I set a timer on my phone for five minutes, but it seems like Vienna has a different time zone even for minutes because you called me and it hasn’t even been five minutes here!!”

They spoke for a few minutes (mostly about what everyone was having for lunch and/or dinner) and then hung up and Alexander exclaimed, "Time really must be different in Vienna because Uncle Patrick said he could talk for five minutes but the phone call duration was seven minutes!!"

First day of school for me!

Not last week but the week before, I had my graduate student orientation. 

Because I'm such an anxious driver, Andrew is training Rachel to take me to campus (though I'm also trying to take as many courses online as I can so that I limit the number of days I need to go to campus). It's quite the commute. 

Last week I had my first day of school, but only for online coursework.

Today I had my first day on campus. Here I am by one of the many bulldogs on campus:

Birthday Balloons I

We are hopelessly behind in celebratory events this year. I really didn't think the summer would end up being as hard as it was...but then pneumonia happened...and it ended up being as hard as it was.

That said, for FHE we finally finished up writing our birthday balloons for everyone.

Yes, it took us May, June, July, and August to finally write birthday balloons for Zoë, Benjamin, me, and Rachel. We figured we should finish them up before the next wave of birthdays hits us in a month.

Here's for Zoë:

From Benjamin:

You're nine! That's 3² and so old. You are a good swimmer and sister and just an amazing person altogether. 

amaZing

Origami cadet

Elated to be 9

I love you!

Kinda blah moments

Things aren't so terrible over here. 

One of the fans of our air conditioners went out on one of the hottest days of the year (as these things tend to go) and it has been doing its best to chug along while we waited for a part to come in. Today we finally got the call that our AC people have both the fan part and the vent for the heater (which evidently had broken at some point, which means that our heater would have been venting into our house instead of outside) and said they could come this afternoon.

But our road is being repaved right now—a project that has been in the works for quite some time now...nearly two weeks? First they scraped up really broken sections and repaired those before scraping up the entire road (which I am sure is logical for some reason) and then they laid down a layer of rocks and tar and they're just now getting around to surfacing it. And I get that these things take time, but we just never know when they're going to let us use the road and when they won't. 

Our neighbour up the street missed a prenatal appointment last week because they wouldn't let her out of her driveway. I couldn't go to campus on Tuesday because our cul-de-sac was off limits.

And our road was also off limits today when the AC guys wanted to come (as well as when we came home from our homeschool "not back to school" party at the pool—we had to park at a friend's house about half a mile away from our house and then walk home across all our neighbour's lawns).

Fortunately, the air conditioner is still working even if it isn't running at full throttle.

Unfortunately, our washing machine also decided to give up the ghost last night (or the night before?).

Glory, glory hall-lelujah!

When Andrew and I met with our stake president (President Jack Christianson) before getting married, he drew out what I can only describe as football diagrams to counsel us on how to...be...when we were married. He was a quarterback at Weber State University, so he talked about football quite a bit. He told us that we were a team and should be together:

X X

And that sometimes, as children come along, he'd see that team kind of split apart on the pew at church:

X o X

And then:

X o o o X

Which he felt was a real shame. He preferred to see a couple sit together with their children beside them (rather than letting children "push" them apart):

X X o o o

His counsel was to always be a team. And, I mean, we tried that for a few years. It was fairly easy with Rachel. She'd sit on one lap or the other and Andrew and I could sit beside each other. Then Miriam came along and there was still a lap for either child and Andrew and I could sit beside each other. 

By now we've about given up on following this advice because while it may be nice to sit beside each other, it isn't logical, and isn't representative of our unity as a couple at all. Besides, Andrew is so often the organist and for a time I was the chorister, so that means he's up on the stand—or Miriam is up on the stand—or I'm up on the stand. And our current ward has hardly any deacons so Andrew often ends up passing the sacrament with Benjamin before sitting down. 

So we usually end up sitting somewhat like this:

z a N p r b A m

And then by the time Andrew comes to sit down with us, Phoebe is ready to sit on his lap instead of sitting by mine, so we end up like this:

z a N r b A p m

So instead of looking like a tidy football play we look like we're kind of struggling with the alphabet. But I think that's okay because although it's not bad advice (and may even have been good advice), it's not necessarily practical advice. President Christianson himself rarely got to sit beside his wife because he was always on the stand, right?

Plus, we started to hear other advice along the way. One of our bishops (or stake presidents? or was a general authority?), for example, mentioned that he liked to see fathers carrying out screaming babies instead of the mothers. Andrew wanted to help out with our babies more but they were all such momma's babies that they wouldn't sit with him unless they were far enough away from me. That meant Andrew had to be farther away from me so he could wrangle babies and I could enjoy the meeting.

What I'm getting at, I suppose, is that there are times and seasons to things. One day, perhaps, Andrew and I will sit side by side on the pew again. Maybe...if we're lucky...

Lego-tionary for FHE

Benjamin was in charge of our family night lesson on Monday. He had us create scenes from The Book of Mormon out of Lego. While some people were thrilled with the assignment bestowed upon them by a slip of paper they drew out of Benjamin's hands (Andrew scoffed, "Oh, this will be easy!") I was...less thrilled.

But I managed.

We had ten minutes to create our scenes. Excuse the messy basement...this room is constantly a disaster. The kids have been setting up the doll house for The Borrowers to move in (we just finished reading the book) and there is Lego mess and Play-doh mess and fort building mess and...we do clean down there. It just is a very played-in area of the house.

Anyway, here's Phoebe sharing her creation which was "an airplane with all of these guys":

Firetrucks and butterflies

This morning Andrew took Rachel and Benjamin to the doctor for their post-diagnosis check-up and the doctor determined that...they both still have pneumonia. Rachel, like Alexander (who is doing just great at this point), has it in her left lung. Benjamin has it in his right lung. But it seems like the antibiotics did their work and the kids will just have to cough it out. So lots of (generic) Mucinex for them!

I had the much more pleasant task of taking the little kids to the library (we left Miriam at home to work on some things in a quiet house). Our books were due and I had several holds waiting for me. 

The fire station is next to the library and we could see from the parking lot that they were working on one of the trucks—they had the ladder extended and were greasing it. Phoebe is the one who saw it. First she saw the crane from across the street and said, "Oooh! Loot! A tane!" And then she saw the ladder of the firetruck (which was horizontal) and said, "Oooh! Loot! A boat!"

"I don't think that's a boat," I said. "I think that's a firetruck."

"I think that's a boat," she said.

"No, I'm pretty sure it's a firetruck because that is the fire station, which is where firetrucks stay when they're not being used. What you're seeing is the ladder of the truck all stretched out."

"Well, I'm pitty sure it's a boat."

"Should we go see? Let's go see."

We walked over to the edge of the parking lot and peered through the trees. 

"See," I said. "It's a firetruck."

"Oh! It is a firetruck!" she admitted.

"Come on down!" the firemen called (we were, relationally speaking "up" on a hill above the firemen). "We'll show you the truck!"

The hill was pretty steep, but we decided to slip and slide down it anyway (leaving our three big bags full of library books sitting unattended at the top of the hill). The firemen showed us the 100 foot ladder, how they were lubricating the hydraulic press that works the ladder. They made the ladder go all the way up and all the way down (to make sure every bit of it was lubricated). Then they showed us all the hoses on the truck (they keep several different hoses of different lengths). When the hoses are filled with water they get pretty heavy—a one foot section ends up weighing about one pound, so a 200 foot hose weighs about 200 lbs But they also have, like, 1000 foot hoses as well, so things can get pretty heavy!

Olivia's wedding (7/28)

 

Olivia got married on Sunday and it was truly a beautiful day!

Kelli assigned herself a few too many tasks to do and was a bit frazzled (to put it lightly). She decorated, she catered, she walked the bride down the aisle... And everything was wonderful—the food, the decorations—but it was a lot!

I was glad that I volunteered my mom, Josie, and myself to chop vegetables for her. We spent hours chopping onions and tomatoes and olives! But I wish we'd done more (because, Kelli did so much). 

We should have showed up early to help set things up, but then—I suppose—we wouldn't have had the energy to help out during the reception. I ended up in charge of the live stream recording of the ceremony (so family members too far away to attend could still attend), so I sat right behind my sister, which felt a little too VIP for my station. 

Another one bites the dust

Technically she bit the dust over the weekend. And we thought she was getting better. But in the last couple of days she spiked a new fever and has been terribly, terribly sleepy. We took her SpO2 levels this morning and they were low enough (and her cough awful enough) that we decided to take her in as well.

They heard some wheezing in her breathing so decided to give her some albuterol. But even that didn't clear up all the noises in her lungs, so they gave her an antibiotic prescription as well. They considered giving her an x-ray to confirm, but since both her brothers were easily diagnosed with pneumonia the doctor decided her borderline case was likely also pneumonia.

So very fun times over here! Hopefully we will all get over this thing soon!

Pneumonia boy, part 2: Benjamin bites the dust

While I hopped in the shower this morning, Andrew started calling the pediatrician the minute their office was open. We'd decided last night that Benjamin's cough was (a) wild and (b) lasting far too long. He'd fallen ill on Thursday (the day I left) and had been running a temperature between 100° and 105° the whole week long. 

Everyone else who has had this sickness got really sick but then started feeling better. 

I was just barely feeling nearly 100% when I headed out for SLC, so I was fairly confident I wasn't going to be spreading germs. I was just sad to hear that Benjamin wasn't feeling well—and missed the sleepover at Grandpa's house because he wasn't feeling well—and then Rachel started feeling sick the following day (though she hasn't been as sick as Benjamin). 

Anyway, I was only sick for about a week...but I was almost better by the end of that week. 

Benjamin has made no apparent movement towards getting better. His fever was lingering, his appetite was down, his cough was persistent... It was feeling very much like Alexander (and those symptoms felt similar to Andrew because he was also prone to pneumonia as a child).

Unfortunately, the same storm that brought down all the branches last night before I got home also knocked out the power at various places around town. We were fine over at our house, but our pediatrician's office was without power. When Andrew couldn't get through on the phone he went over in person to see if he could make an appointment, but they were running on generators over there and weren't going to make an extra appointments until the power came back on. 

So we took Benjamin to the urgent care. 

A Library Miracle

On the way up to the airport on Tuesday my mom and I stopped at the Orem Public Library to say goodbye to Josie (who works there). She took us through the new art gallery where I got to see an installation by my friend (?) acquaintance (?) tutor (?) colleague (?) AshMae (who taught the "Mine to Tell" course I took years ago, who I've visited with at BCC events, who I'm friends with on Facebook but don't truthfully know that well in real life). The theme of her exhibit was stay-at-home parenthood.  

It was fun to run into AshMae's work there.