Sometimes I Forget Stuff

Sometimes I get an idea for a blog post, I write it up, read through it several times, then publish it. It's often at this point that I realize I forgot to include the reason I wanted to write the post in the first place. Ahem.

Such was the case yesterday. I pulled up my blog on my phone partway through the day to see if anyone had commented (because I do that several times a day, in case you were curious) and I discovered I had failed to include the most important part of Peter's jump off.

Peter does not always play by the rules. He is notorious for staying in during a dodge ball game, despite the fact that he's been tagged out, usually more than once. He just keeps throwing those balls and yelling, "It didn't touch me! I'm not out!" This does not earn him friends.

When he was jumping last week, the few times Peter tripped, he sat down right away. He didn't keep jumping in the hopes that no one saw, he followed the rules of the game! Afterward I told him I was most impressed with that. More than how long he jumped or how well, it was his budding integrity that won me over,

Jump Rope for Heart

The girls and I visited Peter's school last week to watch him participate in Jump Rope for Heart. He's been practicing his jumping skills for weeks and I think the work paid off.

First we watched the routines the kids had choreographed. Actually, choreographed is too strong a word. Some of them were very organized. Some... were not. Peter's was right in the middle. I could see him prompting his teammates to help them remember their parts, but I don't think his direction helped much.

After all the groups had performed, the third-graders had a jump off. I filmed all of them. Peter did the best with the first round, jumping more than a minute. He tripped almost immediately in the second round. The third time he did well. In fact, he told me afterward that he sat down without meaning to; he hadn't even tripped. After reviewing the footage, I think he's right. Oh well, he was still one of the last kids jumping.

I realize that maybe only the grandparents will watch this clip, but I'm including it anyway. I think it's cool to watch Peter concentrate on his footwork. This is the third and final round. Listen for Phoebe. She was really excited for Peter.

Pesky Germ Season

This sweet girl is sick. Again. 

She's got her second round of croup this season. She's sniffly and sneezy and goopy and exhausted. In the last three days, sleep has only come to her when Bryan or I have held her, which means we are also exhausted. On Saturday night I finally put her in her bed at 4AM, too tired to hold her. She rapidly cruised the perimeter of her bed, while talking loudly and banging on the wall every time she came to it, for forty-five minutes. Have I mentioned she doesn't get grumpy-tired so much as zany-tired?

Good news though, I think she may have turned a corner. She's still sick, but her face isn't quite as puffy as it was yesterday. And the fever she's run for several days was much lower today. She had enough energy that she wanted to play, but she was still sick enough that when Peter picked her up for a snuggle before Family Home Evening tonight, she sat with him for a few minutes, leaning her tired head on his arm.

Handiwork

During our snow day on Monday I was determined to finish a project I had been working on. I usually do that sort of stuff at night after the kids have gone to sleep, but since Sophie hasn't been sleeping well and Peter's bedtime has gotten later recently, I don't have much project time these days. So when Sophie went down for a nap, I started sewing.

In keeping with my goal to make our house a little fancier, I decided to make some throw pillow covers. Bryan realized that if we bought cheap bed pillows at Walmart we could shake the stuffing down and reshape them to look like throw pillows. And that's just what we did. Last week I found some fabric that I like and on Monday I sewed them. That sounds like it was easy, and I'm happy to say it wasn't as hard as past sewing endeavors have been.

The kids were fascinated by the sewing machine. Instead of shooing them away, I asked if they wanted to have a sewing lesson. Now, me offering to give someone a sewing lesson is very much a blind-leading-the-blind situation. Nevertheless, the kids were all excited.

Peter went first. After showing him how to sew a straight line, he ran to my fabric box, picked out a piece of felt, and announced that he wanted to make a bag for Phoebe. And so he did. I sewed the button on, cut the button hole, and helped him feed the material under the needle, but he did most of the rest of it. Phoebe was delighted with her bag.

Cooper and Phoebe also practiced sewing straight lines, but we ran out of time for them to do anything else. No one sewed their fingers, no one broke my sewing machine, everyone wants to try sewing again. I consider that a success.

Next they all want to learn how to crochet.

The Fashionista

Phoebe wore both of these outfits today. I asked her to open her eyes and she said no, they were supposed to be closed.

She's wearing my shirt in this second one. When she first came downstairs in it she also had my black, knee high, three-inch-heel boots on. I reminded her that those are dangerous and suggested the princess shoes instead. The bow was my idea. The gloves were not.

I think wearing color makes her happy. Also, posing makes her happy.

Happy Birthday To You And You And You And You...

I'm conducting an informal experiment. I'll be looking for results twice, once in five months and again in seventeen months. This experiment requires a few minutes each day at most, and some days it takes no time at all.

Curious?

Over the last few years I've been terrible at wishing my Facebook friends happy birthday. I wanted to leave a nice note for some, but I worried that if I remembered one, but not another, then someone's feelings would be hurt. That's how my brain works. So I chose to do nothing. I would send texts and emails, but I wouldn't write anything on their wall.

Big deal, right?

Well, it turns out I'm truly terrible at keeping in touch with people. I already knew this about myself, but at least I used to comment and say hello on Facebook. I don't really do that so much anymore. Well, I do comment, but only about a third of the time I want to. Other than that I'm kind of a social media hermit. I even type replies, then delete them before publishing anything. Over the past few years, the number of people who wished me a happy birthday went down. I wondered if it had anything to do with my lousy online presence. I hadn't put in the time to maintain our virtual friendship, why should they?

This year I decided to do something different. During 2015 I am wishing all of my Facebook friends a happy birthday. So far a few have even written back. Which means I should probably go respond...

I want to see if the number of people that wish me a happy birthday increases. Because my birthday falls halfway through the year, I'll need to go through a full cycle to check for results, which means eighteen months of online birthday cheer.

I'm sure I've just skewed my results by writing about it, but I have a good reason. This week I discovered a flaw. Two of my good friends had birthdays. In years past I would have sent an email or a text. (Birthday phone calls tend to be reserved for blood relations since that's usually the only gift we give, because in addition to being terrible at keeping in touch, I'm truly awful at giving gifts.) This year I wrote on their Facebook pages, because I had to in order to follow-through with my goal. After I sent the messages I felt like it wasn't enough. But I had already sent a message, so another in text or email form would be overkill, right? Except that Facebook really isn't very personal.

And now you know my first-world problem for today.

Snowed In

I love snow days.

We've had more snow days here than anywhere we've lived before. In Utah snow days were something we heard about, but never experienced. I remember driving Peter to school in blizzard-like conditions and still nothing was canceled. I wrote on the blog about the few snow days we had in Washington. Those were funny simply because there were only trace amounts of snow each time.

Here in New Jersey, we have real snow. I woke up one morning last week sometime around 3AM to the sounds of snowplows scraping the cold white stuff off the roads. We've also had a handful of late start days. I think those exist to give the plows a chance to work their snow clearing magic.

I like having an excuse to not run errands or be out in the freezing cold air. And often snow days turn into pajama days. We read books and do art projects and eat big, slow breakfasts. I even let the kids watch movies, which no doubt adds to the wonder of the day.

I'm not a big fan of cold, or winter, or snow, but I do love a good snow day.

On the Role of the Older Sibling

Miss Phoebe gave her first talk in Primary yesterday. She was asked to speak about the Savior. Last week I asked for her thoughts about Jesus. "I love him," she said. Why? I asked. "Because he's kind and loving."

That sparked a conversation about being kind and loving in our family. I took the things we talked about and typed them up, added a story about Jesus, and printed it out. I suspect if we had practiced it before the drive to church (which was the first time she heard the whole talk) she would have been able to memorize it. Instead, she did a lovely job repeating it while I whispered in her ear at the mic.

And now, for preservation sake, here is Phoebe's talk.

I have a baby sister named Sophie. She is so cute and I love her a lot. I try hard to keep her safe. She’s little and doesn’t understand what is safe and what is not. I pick up little toys that she might try to put in her mouth and I watch to make sure she doesn’t crawl up our stairs. I want to be a good big sister because I love her.

We all have a big brother who loves us. He wants us to be safe and happy. He knows that we sometimes get hurt or make mistakes. Because he loves us so much, he made it possible for us to repent. That’s a fancy word that means to erase the mistake we’ve made.

Jesus is our older brother. Before he died, he went to a place called the Garden of Gethsemane and said a special prayer. During that prayer he felt all the pain that we’ve ever felt and all the pain that we’ll ever feel in our whole lives. He did that so we would never be alone when we’re hurt. He did that so we can repent and someday live with Heavenly Father again.

Jesus Christ is my Savior and I love him.

I say these things in the name of Jesus Christ, amen.

Clubbing

Once upon a time I was in The Best Book Club Ever. That wasn't its official title, but it might as well have been. We would talk for hours about the books we had read. We would share our insights and our questions. We developed wonderful friendships.

When my time in that book club came to an end, I mourned. I missed it terribly. I found another book club in our new ward and anxiously read the assigned book. I arrived the night of my first book club ready to discuss and ask questions and be edified. We talked about the book for thirty minutes, then proceeded to talk about the "super-cute" refreshments for another thirty.

I left crestfallen.

My expectations, it appeared, were way out of whack. No book club would be able to live up to the memory of The Book Club That Filled My Soul. I attended the new group a handful of times, then just stayed home and read books on my own.

I related the disappointing book club experience to a good friend who had been in The Magical Book Club of Wonder with me. She shared her own less-than-satisfactory book club experiences with me. I don't remember who had the idea originally, but in a moment of brilliance we decided that we would form our own book club. We were in two different states, so our meetings would take place over Skype or Google Hangouts. We made a list of books we wanted to read, picked one, and scheduled our first official book talk.

We've now had several meetings of our miniature book club. Last night we talked about To Kill a Mockingbird. I've been saying for years that it was one of my favorite books and I was relieved to find that, in the eighteen years since I first read it, my opinion of the book has not changed. My perspective and understanding have grown, but my love for the book has remained.

My new book club is one of the highlights of my month. Not only do we have wonderful discussions about the books we've read, we also have a chance at least once a month to catch up with each other, which is pretty marvelous. And though I'm no longer part of The Book Club of Mythic Proportions, I'm delighted with my Exactly What I Need Book Club that I have now.

Party Planning

Our hibernation party that was supposed to happen last Friday took place yesterday morning. The kids that attended all seemed to be suffering from various stages of cabin fever. I did my best to keep them moving and engaged, but they were a squirrely bunch. I was glad when we finished the learning/activity portion and moved on to snack time at the end.

As I was gathering my supplies this morning before the party, Phoebe saw me put raisins and fruit snacks, my potluck contributions, into my bag. She was concerned and let me know.

Phoebe: But who's going to bring the cupcakes?

Me: Cupcakes? Phoebe, I don't know that anyone is going to bring cupcakes. I know we had some at the last party, but we might not have any this time.

Phoebe: Mom, what's a party without cupcakes? A meeting, that's what it is.

In light of that knowledge, I can say that we had a fun hibernation meeting.