A morning at the playground

As I mentioned, we spent the morning at the park. Did it rain last night and I just missed it? The weather history says no...so perhaps they just sprayed the pavilion? Whatever the case, Phoebe enjoyed splashing in these puddles while her siblings completed their morning work.

Early literacy

On Wednesday while the boys were in their co-op classes (Zoë didn't come with us because she needed to go to piano lessons and Andrew wasn't here so Rachel had to drive Zoë in when she took Miriam), Phoebe decided she wanted to learn how to write her name. 

Here is one of her attempts from Wednesday:

J'ai voté!

I'll admit I was a little worried when I didn't get a confirmation email...

I got one email from Elections Canada saying:

Your application to vote by mail has been received.

An Elections Canada representative will contact you if your application is incomplete or cannot be approved.

If your application is approved, you will receive a confirmation email and a special ballot voting kit will be sent to the mailing address provided on your application. 

I didn't get a second email. But today when I opened up the mailbox, my ballot was there! 

We're here to burgle your turts!

Phoebe slept in her own bed—and stayed dry!—until 6:00 or so. I helped her go potty and then we climbed back into bed for some morning snuggles and ended up falling back to sleep. She woke up hankering for a trip to the park.

I had a meeting in the early afternoon, but we decided we could do our writing time at the park and our math when we go home (we've finished with our science curriculum for the year and the kids have been working on reports for social studies). So we got up and started getting ready to go right away.

We had fun at the park, and I'm sure the kids would like me to share pictures of the cool stuff they did (and I will) but this post is about the turtle-y awesome walk we went on just before we came home. We decided to just take our ordinary stroll around the pond to see how spring is coming on (very nicely, if I do say so myself). 

Suddenly Zoë screeched, "Is that a turtle?!"

"Is what a turtle?" I asked. 

"That!" she said, pointing to the sidewalk. "I thought it was a rock...but it just moved..."

Potty training progress...and things

There are days when I literally don't care that Phoebe wears a pull-up to bed. And there are also days where I do care because I honestly never had a child in pull-ups before. For the most part they potty-trained over night quite easily. Benjamin was reluctant...but he managed. And he wasn't angry about it.

Phoebe is reluctant. And angry. 

Like, having to get up to go potty in the night just makes her so mad. 

Andrew usually wakes her up to take her potty because she tolerates him at night. When I weaned Phoebe some switch in her brain went off and she just finds my very existence to be beyond annoying at night. I think she was a little bitter about weaning (it's been eleven months now!) and she just was kind of like, "Well, what good are you to me now?!!?!" 

So Andrew has been waking her up to go potty at night. 

This has been our method for the rest of the kids, except for Alexander who I just said, "Okay, no more diapers." And he was like, "On my honour..." and literally never wet the bed (except for one time when he was five). But the other kids we just would put them to bed, and then wake them up consistently for several nights. And then they'd typically start waking up on their own to use the potty and then we could stop waking them up to use the potty and pretty soon...presto!

Phoebe...is taking a while. Her sticker chart is full because she can stay dry. She even has stayed dry for five consecutive days (at which point I thought, "Phew! We did it!" but at which point she thought, "Cool. Did that. No need to do it ever again."). 

So she's off again, on again. 

Eatonton and things

On Saturday we headed out to Eatonton to visit the Georgia Writers Museum as well as the Uncle Remus Museum. The Georgia Writers Museum was right downtown, across the street from the Putnam County Court House (or the Pvutnam Covnty Covrt Hovse, as the children liked to say).

Here's Phoebe and Alexander with a little statue of children reading outside of the museum:

 

Too much water for Phoebe

This is just a preamble while I gather my thoughts on our day. It's been a long time since we've gone on a family adventure! Rachel wasn't sure it was wise to join us because she had a few assignments to finish before this evening, but we convinced her that she could work on things in the car—she even got to ride in the front seat so that she wouldn't be bugged by her siblings. She finished with plenty of time to spare. 

On living in a somewhat geriatric neighbourhood

When Miss Penny died (about two years ago now), I wrote a poem—an abecedarian. It's doubtless that it will ever be published anywhere but here, but I thought it should be published somewhere...so here's good!

So far it's untitled:

An awkward sight in the afterglow of day, she stood,
bathrobe open, slippers on, spreading birdseed on the
cement for wild city creatures: bunnies, chipmunks,
deer. She doted on them and they came to trust her,
expecting an evening feed. Thus engaged when we
first saw her, she gave a friendly wave, guffawed:
“Guess I’m Snow White, all grown up!” Ever after
her house became known as “Snow White’s House”
in the juvenile collective imagination. In general, her
job—neighbourhood invigilator—just meant watching
kids play, gathering gossip, keeping an eye out for
languishing souls. “Hullo, there!” she’d holler, loudly.
Make no mistake—if you were melancholy she meant
nobody but you. “Now, why don’t you make your way up
onto my porch?” She’d offer stories meant only for your
pretty little ears, help you practice observing in order to
quiet your mind. Quite the lady, Penny was. I don’t
recall registering her absence until I saw the sign: “Estate
Sale.” A childless spinster school teacher, retired and
tired of everything but sitting in her rocker, watching the
universe unfold between the balustrade posts, it was not
very obvious when she vanished. Not too long ago we
waved to her while out on a walk. Then warmth gave way to
extreme cold (a poor excuse), we stayed away, and she said
yes to the past tense, to turning into yesterday, leaving the
zoo on her front lawn wondering where she got off to.

*****

A few Sundays ago, a clay creature Zoë and her friend had made broke. We'd already had dinner and the sun was rapidly sinking, but Zoë wanted to run up to her friend's house to hold a funeral service for their little clay creature. I told her to run along (remember how whenever I'm in charge of bedtime, we're always late getting things done? Yeah...it's a real problem for me).

She came back much sooner than expected. While they had buried their broken creation and held a brief service for it, their mourning was cut short by the arrival of an ambulance. They stood in shock as they watched Miss Anne be wheeled out of her house on a gurney.

"And I don't know if she's a live or dead!" Zoë panted, trying to recover from her sprint home in darkness punctuated by flashing red lights. 

Phoebe-Q

Phoebe found some lip gloss this morning, and having liberally applied it (+/-) to her lips declared herself "boo-i-ful." 

She insisted on wearing two skirts to the library.

I warned her that it might be a little chilly for a skirt, but she insisted she'd be fine. We came home and took Luna for a walk and when we came home Phoebe decided she'd rather wear pants—it was a little chilly with bare legs. So she went upstairs to get some pants.

I watched her awkwardly waddled down the stairs, but couldn't quite put my finger on what was wrong with her.

"I think something's wrong with your pants," I said. "Let me see..."

The issue she was having is that she was wearing not one, not two...or three...or even four pairs of pants. She had put on five pairs of pants. 

Jump start

On Wednesday last week, Rachel drove the kids to mutual and everything went fine. But when they got in the car to come home...it wouldn't start. So Andrew drove down to the church to rescue them. Fortunately it was a battery thing, so he gave them a jump and Rachel was able to drive home just fine.

And she went to seminary the next day. And the next. And then on Friday she drove to Athens and home again. And on Saturday she drove to Andie's house (to get a ride to a dance). And then drove home from Andie's house after the dance.

And then drove to seminary on Tuesday. 

And every time she turned on the car, it started a bit rough. It was just a little...hesitant to actually start...which was concerning. But we had a plan in place to fix it...but not until Wednesday. 

We just had to get to campus on Tuesday first...

So on Tuesday after Rachel got home from seminary, we hopped in the car, which choked to life, and started on our way to campus. 

We had to stop to fill up on gas, choosing a different gas station than we ordinarily do because...