The Aspiring Babysitter

Sophie has a track record of being rough when Topher is near. She doesn't intend to be, but her love for his cuteness and mild jealousy over his existence combine to create aggressive hugs and kisses. She is determined to overcome this so that I will start asking her to watch him while I make dinner, since the older three each take turns with him in the afternoons. 

Yesterday morning she practiced being gentle and patient with him. She played and read and did a good job. Am I ready to let her babysit? No, no I am not. However, I'm not quite as terrified about momentarily leaving a room with both of them in it. Progress, eh?

I Spy

We enjoyed running around a friend's empty backyard today. Can you find all five kids in this picture?

Majestic Nature

Cooper worked all last week on a poem for his Language Arts class. He wrote and scrutinized and wrote and edited and wrote. Then, with a page full of poetry, he cut it down to three stanzas and turned it in. Here's his final product:

Majestic Nature

By Cooper

Heaven above the soaring peaks 

Topped with a white flaky blanket 

Pointed masses of majesty

Over a readying banquet

Of fruits and nuts, such wonderful foods

While creatures roam in Nature's house 

A brilliant band of all sorts of things

From cougars to deer to rough feathered grouse

Babbling brooks plash on rocks

While these summits hold sheep with white fleece 

And where there always is happiness

And creatures roaming with peace

I Do It Myself

We have a not-so-tall person at our house who thinks he's quite big and able to do things without help like get himself dressed and serve his own food out of the fridge.

In related news, we are now using a fridge lock.

 

Dragging to the Finish Line

I present to you Sophie, finishing her final school assignment before spring break. It was a long week to get to this point and I'm happy we made it. Both girls are on break now, hopefully the boys will join them tomorrow.

Are You Being Served?

I was prepared to serve cold cereal for dinner tonight when Bryan saved the day and cooked hot dogs instead. Topher was sitting at the table, ready to start dinner, when this conversation took place. Keep in mind, words that start with the letter l sound like they start with a w when they come out of Topher's mouth.

Topher: Are we having hot dogs for dinner?

Me: Yes we are.

Topher: I love hot dogs! (grinning, he bends his arm at a 90 degree angle and excitedly swings it in front of his chest) Diggity dog!

Then, a little later in the meal, I offered him a pickle.

Topher: I love pickles. Pickles are my favorite.

Topher has been exceptionally picky lately about what he'll eat. Maybe we just haven't been serving enough pickles and hot dogs?

The Countdown

A perk of our cyber school is that, for the first time since we moved to Pennsylvania, we have an actual spring break. For the entire week before Easter and the Monday after, we have no school. I am unreasonably excited about it.

Let me be clear, we're still staying home. We have no big plans, no fun places to go, no people to see. But, my oh my, I am looking forward to the rest from schoolwork.

Maybe it's because we're so close to the break, maybe it's because we're still adjusting to the time change, maybe it's because it's officially spring and we've got cabin fever (despite all the walks we've taken), but the first two days of this week have felt so long. Sooooo long. Getting through school for a few of the kids has required much more work from me than usual.

Just a few more days...

Close Up

Somebody learned how to take selfies on my camera. These are my favorites.

As Easy as ABC

Topher loves the alphabet. He loves singing it, he loves pointing out letters on clothing and boxes, and he really loves playing with this letter puzzle. He's learned a few letters and will stop me while I'm reading to him and point out every o and i on the page. 

Bring Your Brother to School Day

 

No Luck

We celebrated St. Patrick's Day by eating special green marshmallow Lucky Charms for breakfast, wearing green, and eating delicious potato soup and soda bread.

And I didn't take pictures of any of it.

Oh well, it was fun, even if we don't have photographic evidence.

Keep Your Focus on the Temple

The Primary Presidency in our ward dropped off a bag of homemade playdough at each home with kids under the age of twelve. They challenged the kids to work together with their siblings or families to sculpt a Temple, then take a picture and share it with the Primary President.

On Sunday afternoon Phoebe and Sophie looked through pictures of Temples online and picked one to recreate. They found the rendering of the in-progress Layton, Utah Temple (which is near where some of their cousins live) and went to work.

I think they did a great job.

Real Life

I've begun to feel that I'm living two lives: the life I document here on the blog and the actual life I'm living. I don't like that disparity. I aim for authenticity and transparency. I don't want to be one thing and pretend to be another. The life I record in these posts is real, but it's sanitized, the good parts version.

Why do I hold some things back? In part, because it's not all mine to share. I can write about struggles that my kids have when they're little, those stories are relatable and cute and only mildly embarrassing but not in a way that will cause harm in the future. Big kid struggles are different. Teenager struggles are different. They are part of a bigger story, one that the protagonist may not wish to remember.

Another reason is that real life is hard. So so so so hard. I've marveled recently that we had the foresight (which came from inspiration) to adopt We Can Do Hard Things as our family motto so many years ago. We had no idea how often we would need to refer back to it. I know the past year has been especially hard for so many people. I feel that our family keeps getting hit with bigger and harder trials. We move through one, or into the beginning of one, and I think, "How are we going to deal with this? How are we going to get through this?" And then we're hit with something even bigger.

The overwhelm that I feel on a daily basis is suffocating. I consciously narrow my vision so I can see the trials directly in front of me, otherwise I would drown.

And that's why I don't write about it too much. This real life business is not so pleasant to read about. Even when I do talk about it, it's usually with a laugh and a joke as a way to be honest, but not so honest that I drive people away, or worse, become someone's project.

In the past when people have asked me how I'm doing I have been known to answer, "How honest do you want me to be?" And that's a problem, because honesty is very important to me. But few people are truly interested in that kind of honesty, or are prepared to hear it.

I realize I'm painting a bleak picture. This is the part of the post where I would normally find something positive to write, some kind of silver lining about all of these hard things that I'm vaguely referencing. That's what I do. I lighten the hard things. I make them more palatable. I don't want people to worry.

But I need to get this down, I need to be able to look back at this time and remember these hard things. These hard things help me to have understanding and compassion for other people experiencing their own hard things. These hard things connect me to the Atonement. There's always a lesson in the hard things, I just have trouble seeing the lesson while I'm in the middle of it, but I can often see it when I look back.

Mistaken Identity

Bryan's youngest first cousin, Anya, was born the same year as Sophie. Last week we attended Anya's baptism via Zoom. It was wonderful to see family and feel the sweet spirit of the meeting. After the baptism Anya's Bishop welcomed her as the newest member of the church.

At that point Sophie turned to me with a look of concern on her face. She asked, since she hasn't been baptized yet, did that mean she wasn't actually a member of the church yet. She looked genuinely concerned.

I started to explain that on the records of the church, rather than a member, she was considered a child of record.

She sat perfectly still, then took a deep breath and said, "I thought I was a child of God."

Bryan and I locked eyes and did our best not to laugh. I hugged her tightly and assured her that she is absolutely a child of God.

Favorite Things

Sophie is prolific in the art that she produces. I find stacks of drawings each week when I file away her completed schoolwork. This week I discovered that the Valentines she made for each of us were still floating around. Topher's might be my favorite. She included all the things she could think of that he loves: Monday and the trash truck that comes with it, Lightning McQueen, dogs, balloons, the alphabet, and her.

Pinchable

Tonight for our virtual YW activity we had a baby picture guessing game. Everyone was instructed to email a baby picture to one of the young women, she put together a slide show, and we all named who we thought each child was. 

When the first picture came up, the majority of people guessed one particular girl. Then someone said it might be me. Another leader pointed out that our (the adults) pictures would have a more faded look. Sure enough, it was the girl most of us had guessed.

A few pictures into the game, this photo appeared on the screen.

There was no doubt in anyone's mind. They were all immediately sure that this was me because it looked just like all of my kids. While I don't think it actually looks just like all my kids (several of them favor Bryan quite a bit), they were right, it is me. 

I had shown it to Phoebe and Sophie earlier in the day and they were both appropriately impressed with the fullness of my cheeks, which they quickly claimed as part of their own faces. They're not wrong, we are a full faced bunch. I think it adds to our youthful appearances.

Options

"Mom, can we do chalks?"

"Sure, we can get out the chalk."

"No, not chalk, chalks."

Topher clearly didn't want to be stuck with only one color option as we enjoyed the glorious sunshine outside this afternoon.

Darling It's Better Down Where It's Wetter

Phoebe has been exploring her newfound love of photo editing. She's turned Topher into a very cute troll.

And today, after she had me track down pictures of everyone in our family (which took some digging for a few of us), she turned us into a family of merpeople.

I have to say, I think as merpeople we must lead a much more active lifestyle than we do as mere humans. I mean, not one of us is playing video games or watching movies here, definitely an improvement.

I love that she's exploring this interest and developing her talents!

Standing Appointment

For the last eight weeks Peter and I have had a standing appointment on Friday night. That's when we've been watching WandaVision. It's a really fun show and tonight it comes to its conclusion. And it's been a cool thing that Peter and I talk about throughout each week.

Now, if you'll excuse me, I need to go join Peter and Bryan for the last episode!

The Brothers

Remember when Peter and Cooper were featured regularly on the blog? I had lots of pictures of them and funny anecdotes to share because they were always doing and saying clever and adorable things. 

They still say clever things, but I don't have very many pictures of them, especially not of Peter, because he's in the stage of teendom (yes, it's a word) where he doesn't want his picture taken, ever. Plus, the line between something funny that can be shared and something embarrassing that cannot be shared has become very blurry. And because these blog posts act as a record of their lives (to an extent) I try to be very mindful of what I document.

Here's a general update on both of them: 

• They both spend a lot of time doing school, some days are longer than others. 
• They both want to stay up late every night and we still send them to bed at a specific time each night.
• Peter is so excited for Cooper to turn thirteen (which is coming very quickly) so they can watch Marvel movies and TV shows together.
• Both are still so loud.
• Cooper is getting anxious to be done with braces, but we don't have an end date yet.
• He hasn't had any hives for the last two weeks.
• We still don't know what caused them.
• Both get really introspective when we're telling them to go to sleep.
• Cooper has embraced sleeping in and is almost always the last one awake each day.
• They both still adore Topher.

Walk the Walk

Someday, if you happen to be so lucky, you might inherit a pair of dragon/dinosaur/monster slippers from your cousin who's not quite a year older than you. And then, you just might spend the next day stomping around your house, because such cool slippers require more than simply walking.

Paige and Emma, thanks for the slippers!

Growing Artist

Sophie loves her art class at school. She spent the last three weeks creating this snowplow and learned quite a bit in the process.

All the Feelings

Topher has officially entered the Giving Up The Nap Even Though He Desperately Needs One stage. We still go through the naptime routine and he hangs out in his bed during the designated time, but he only napped three days last week. And on the days that he does nap he's been waking up in the middle of the following night, wanting to snuggle or drink water or, well no, it's basically those two things. But waking up in the night causes him to sleep in the next day, which makes him feel like he doesn't need a nap. That goes on for a few days until he's tired enough to sleep in the middle of the day. And then it begins again.

It's a vicious cycle.

All of this leads to a very tired boy who has been having all kinds of meltdowns. He's generally an even-tempered kid, so from his behavior it's obvious that he's exhausted. Today held lots of tantrums and demands and some mild lashing out with violence. He's still small enough to scoop him up and snuggle or carry somewhere else, so it's manageable, but it does make for long days.

It's good that I know this stage doesn't last forever.

When he's feeling extra sad he'll slump his shoulders forward, hang his head, and go lie face-down on the big red chair in the library. It's equal parts sad and adorable.