A Breath of Fresh Air

One More Year

It's my day! Today I am thirty-nine years old. Whew. I am celebrating by taking the kids on a cub scout pack meeting adventure, because I'm a good person.

I realized that I always ask the kids our list of birthday questions, so that's what I'll do to mark my day, because even people who only have one year until they turn forty have favorites.

FAVORITE FOOD: watermelon

FAVORITE ANIMAL: human being

FAVORITE CANDY: very, very dark chocolate

FAVORITE BOOKS: A Wrinkle in Time, When Breath Becomes Air, To Kill a Mockingbird

FAVORITE COLORS: red, green, blue

FAVORITE SHOWS: The Wired Autocomplete Interview (yes, from YouTube), Marvel's Agents of Shield

FAVORITE MOVIES: White Christmas, Some Like It Hot, The Court Jester, Mr Smith Goes to Washington
FAVORITE SONGS: The Wizard and I from Wicked, Home from Beauty and the Beast, You Will Be Found from Dear Evan Hansen
FAVORITE BOARD GAME: Clue

FAVORITE CARD GAME: Uno
FAVORITE VIDEO GAME: Solitaire? 
FAVORITE THINGS TO DO: read, bake, snuggle and read with my kids, talk with Bryan, sing, have dance parties with the kids, go on adventures as a family
FAVORITE MEMORY FROM BEING 38: watching Topher grow and learn
FAVORITE PLACE: home, wherever that is at the time, where my family is
FAVORITE SUBJECT IN SCHOOL: anything I can make time to learn

WHAT DO YOU WANT TO BE WHEN YOU GROW UP: a children's librarian, a public speaker, a good person, well rested, kind

Happy birthday to me!

Trim and Tidy

Topher recently adopted the practice of running his hands through his hair during meals. Here's a good illustration of that from earlier this week. On a related note, he really likes our homemade refried beans.

His hair had gotten so long that cleaning all that food out was becoming quite a chore. So yesterday, on a whim, I decided it was time to cut it. I tried to take a before picture to show how long it was, but I didn't do very well. 

It wasn't too long on the top, but the sides and back were in serious mullet mode.

It was long enough that I could easily pull into a ponytail.

He sat in his highchair during the trim. As I tried to get started, he was very interested in watching the scissors in my hand and kept twisting to keep his eyes on them. I handed him the comb which distracted him for a short time. That meant I had to move quickly. It's not perfect, but I'm pleased with how it turned out, though it's hard to tell from the blurry pictures. And now maybe it'll be a little easier to wash the food out!

The Anti-Social Experiment

Remember when I fasted from social media for eleven days last year? Well, a few months ago I was thinking about how much stress and chaos I was feeling and was praying for a solution. The prompting I got was to take Facebook off my phone. It wasn't to leave Facebook completely, just make it less accessible.

I usually scrolled through it while I nursed Topher or while I was on my own in the kitchen making dinner, not while the kids were around. I thought it was less obtrusive on my phone, so I was kind of surprised at that answer. But I followed it anyway.

That was about two months ago. The first few weeks were harder than I thought they would be. I felt cutoff and kind of isolated, even though I would check in on the laptop after the kids had gone to bed. And then I felt like my nights were suddenly swallowed up in scrolling through Facebook posts, trying to catch up.

But gradually I got used to not having immediate access to the social network. And I realized that I felt more present during the day. It's not that I had been on my phone constantly before the switch. But I discovered that often I would read a post from someone in the morning that bothered me or amused me and then my brain would stick to that rather than to whatever else I was supposed to be doing. And, what do you know, being present helps me to be a better parent and spouse and human being in general.

I still check in for a few minutes each day, mostly to keep up with family and the schools and my ward. But I don't feel the same drive to READ ALL THE POSTS that I felt before. I know I can never be on twitter because I would feel compelled to be caught up on every tweet, and then I would never do anything else. It's refreshing to know that I can read a few updates, then close the computer and walk away.

This anti-social experiment has been successful. I plan to keep it going.

One Dapper Dude

Yo-Ho Yo-Ho

She's a pirate. 

She wore this one the first day because the doctor gave it to us, but we were advised to get a different kind of patch so as not to irritate her skin. He said people with "snow white skin" like Sophie don't react well with the adhesive.

We found the right kind of patch on Amazon. She's supposed to wear it two hours each day for the next two months.

The goal is to strengthen her right eye enough that she'll just need the glasses once school starts.

"Okay, now a funny picture!"

The Kindness Quiz

Cooper and Phoebe do not always get along. They spend so much time playing together, but they have developed ways of pushing each other's buttons. This happened a few weeks ago. Cooper made up a quiz about Phoebe that was not very flattering, which led to tears from her. After he saw what happened, rather than arguing that she was being over-sensitive (as he usually does), he was troubled. While I comforted Phoebe, Cooper disappeared.

A few minutes later, he came back with this:

It says:

The Phoebe Quizze

1, 2, 3, 4, 5, 6, 7, 8, 9, 10! = amazing, beautiful, smart, creative, fast learning, world changing, weird in a good day, best sister ever!!!

Then there's a hidden message to solve. It was a clue to go find a sweet treat.

Phoebe recovered quickly when she saw the new quiz. They jumped back to playing and all was forgiven.

I was impressed with Cooper. He recognized that he'd been unkind and then done something to fix it. One of the things that I've been trying to teach my kids is to own their choices, good and bad, and not cover them up, to be honest in all they do. This is a hard thing to do, even for grownups. But they keep improving, and that's the goal.

Ambulatory

Ode to Father

Sophie has started writing poetry to mark special occasions. She usually dictates it to Phoebe, who acts as scribe. She composed something for Bryan for Father's Day, and it's definitely worth sharing.

Here's what it says:

I love you, Dad,
You are mine,
And when you smile at me
I see that you will help me each year
And you and I will be forever and ever.
I will always love you
No matter what,
Even if it's stormy or black.
I'll stand beside you
And we will never be forgotten.
I am a song for you
And you are a song for me.
I love you
And you love me, too.
I will love you
And you will, too.
You will guide me through the days.
You will love me again.

After letting Bryan read it, she asked for the paper back so she could sing it to him. Then, after looking at the paper for a moment, she remembered, "But I can't read." That's okay, the poem was entertaining, even without music.

Twisted

Bryan celebrated Father's Day weekend by teaching himself how to make soft pretzels from scratch. They were delicious.

We also had a special dinner of oven fried chicken, pasta salad (made by Peter), watermelon, and corn bread. And the three middle kids sang with the Primary in Sacrament Meeting and brought home paper ties for Bryan to admire.

It was a good day.

Happy Father's Day!

Where Are You Going?

A Light Snack

These pictures are not staged. This is the actual sandwich Peter made for himself after school on Monday. I thought it was such a good visual depiction of his teenage appetite that I took a picture. It's honey, soy nut butter, and chocolate syrup on whole grain bread, in case you were curious.

Last Day of School

We made to the end of another school year! Thank goodness. The next time we take one of these pictures, four kids will be holding signs.

On to summer adventures!

The Lob

Sophie hates brushing her hair and she really hates when I brush it. I told her if she didn't take care of it that we'd need to cut it short. She agreed, which kind of surprised me. Since then, she's been asking to get it cut short. That was months ago. I told her we would need to wait until the dance recital was over since they'd already told us the girls would need curly ponytails.

The end of the recital meant her hair didn't need to be long anymore. Guess what we did yesterday?

The before:

The after:

She loves it! I think it looks adorable. We looked at some pictures of little girl haircuts before we left the house and she chose a long bob, or lob. Though, because she's little, this still looks like a bob to me. And (hopefully) it'll be easier to take care of than her long locks.

Dancing Queens

On Friday night, after we got home from the recital, we washed the makeup from the girls' faces, but we kept their hair in place. I had used so much gel and hairspray that they only looked a little messy in the morning. A short time with a curling iron and hair product brought them back to performance ready.

The studio had informed the parents that the doors to the house would open every four dance numbers and we were encouraged to retrieve our dancers and bring them in to watch the show. They even provided one free ticket to each dancer to use themselves. In theory, this was a good idea. And I admit I'm glad the girls were able to see most of the show. But each time the door opening arrived, the house lights would come up too. Then a horde of people would go filing out of the theater. Entire families would leave after seeing their dancer. It was so disruptive and pretty awful theatre etiquette.

What was that? You want to know about our own little dancers? Of course.

They were splendid.

Phoebe glowed and was so graceful. She had practiced at home several times during that last week before the performance, and it showed. I got kind of teary eyed watching her on stage.

Sophie had so much spunk and personality, she was a delight to watch. I loved her whole dance, but my favorite part was at the end. When the song was over she curtsied, then proceeded to blow kisses the entire walk off the stage. The audience loved it.

We celebrated the hard work the girls had put in throughout the year by going out to dinner as a family afterward. They were both shocked that we let them keep their makeup on at the restaurant. Once we were home, we went through the process of washing off all the products from the show. Sophie's hair kept its ponytail shape even after the hair tie was removed, thanks to all that gel.

The girls are already looking forward to the next recital.

Broadway Babies

Tonight was the first performance of the dance recital! Phoebe was nervous beforehand, Sophie was not. We're seeing the show tomorrow at the matinee, so I didn't see the performance tonight. I took them backstage, then waited until their numbers were over. After they danced, both girls were full of energy and excitement. They loved being onstage!

Also, Sophie had the best curls in her class. It's good to know that more than twenty years after being in show choir, I still know how to make curls stick.

The Most Important Meal of the Day

Every morning Cooper asks me what he can have for breakfast and every morning I give him the same answers. I'm hoping he's more visual than auditory. I put this sign on the front of the fridge yesterday afternoon.

Guess what Cooper didn't ask this morning? So far, so good.

Footwear First

We went to the park this morning and our cute littlest boy wore shoes for the first time. He was totally cool with it and didn't even try to take them off.

Form and Function

When I came downstairs on Sunday morning before church I discovered that Cooper had built a stool out of Duplo blocks, because he could.

He was very pleased with his creation.

Five, Six, Seven, Eight

This coming weekend is the girls' dance recital. They're both excited. Last Saturday was the dress rehearsal for their cast. It was good for them to be on stage and get out some of their jitters. It was also my opportunity to film them. Phoebe changes her location several times during her dance, so I didn't zoom in and it's kind of hard to see. Sophie's is much tighter since I knew she stayed in the same area on stage. If you really want to see the dances (so basically if you're a grandparent), I'll send them to you. For the blog, I'll just share a few pictures.

Here's the best shot I got of Phoebe. I think her eyes are covered because she was trying to find us in the audience while the teacher worked on staging. At least you can see her costume. I'll try to get a better shot this weekend.

I got more pictures of Sophie because she went second and I had had a chance to delete some stuff from my phone, so I had room for pictures. She had a lot of spunk during her dance, which should come as a surprise to no one. She LOVES her costume.

We're looking forward to the show!