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!