Phoebe tales

This morning I took the kids on a walk to go find the aftermath of a fire that was in our neighbourhood. We didn't know what had happened. All we knew was that Andrew went out to run a quick errand last night while I was reading to the kids before bed...and he couldn't come home the same way he'd left because there was a fire engine blocking the road, actively spraying water at a flaming something.

We still don't know what happened, but we found the location of the fire. It wasn't a house or anything, just someone's side yard that had been thoroughly torched for some reason or other. 

*****

Phoebe walked the whole way and filled her stroller up with a pile of pinecones "to show Daddy."

*****

When we got home the kids ran in through the garage door and slammed it behind them, which is borderline responsible. I mean—they remembered to close the door! But Phoebe was right behind them and was a little upset about having the door slam in her face (but at least it was only that and not on her fingers, right?).

She can do a lot of things—more and more things every day! She can reach the lights at the top of the stairs to the basement and will stand there and flick them on and off and on and off. And she can reach the light switch by the couch. But she can't reach any other light switches in the house. 

She can open the garage door from inside the house, but she can't open it from outside of the house.

It's frustrating for her to sometimes be able to do things and not be able to do them at other times. So she was pretty frustrated by her inability to open the door. 

"Momma—open door for this little..." she pouted, and the paused.

"This little what?" I asked.

"For this little...bo-bot! Beep-boop-beep-boop-beep!"

Auntie Josie's visit

Auntie Josie arrived on Friday night, just before midnight. We talked too late in the night and then slept in the next morning. I had originally wanted to go hiking or something, but the logistics proved too much for me to manage (which vehicles do we take, who drives, what do we do about Miriam's arm, etc). So instead we went grocery shopping, which is pretty lame, I guess.

But Josie is one of those people I just enjoy being around, so it was fun to get to walk around the store with her...even if shopping isn't the most thrilling activity.

Then Rachel left for the dance and we finally got around to passing out the presents Naanii had sent with Auntie Josie. Zoë and Benjamin got slap bracelets (and some colouring kits, that I told them was to share). Phoebe got  a stuffed pig in a BYU shirt, and Alexander got a stuffed bunny in a BYU shirt. Miriam and Rachel and I got a set of pens. And there was also a little game for the family. 

For meeeeee?

Phoebe has started to say a few cute things recently.

For one, she has started calling me "Mama" or "Momma" (I am never sure how to spell that) and it's adorable, but also off-putting because it's just...something I thought I'd heard the last of. I haven't been called "momma" in years. 

When Phoebe started talking she skipped right over that and went straight to "Mom."

She said it at the pediatrician's office once and the doctor was like, "Excuse me, did she just call you Mom?"

"Yeah," I said. 

"Tell me you have five older siblings without telling me you have five older siblings," the doctor (more or less) said. "Typically babies don't say mom right away. Mama is much more common."

It's true. That duplicated syllable ma (ma+ma = mama) is easier to accomplish than tacking a final -m sound onto mo- to make mo+m (mom). But, that's the way Phoebe did it...

Until recently when she's suddenly started calling me "Momma."

2/4 April haiku

My last post took us from April 1 to April 8, which is 8 days (in case anyone is counting). I already wrote a haiku today, so this post will take us from April 9 to April 16, which is also 8 days. I am well aware that a week is only 7 days long. However, April has 30 days...so I had to have a few collections with 8 days in them (or have four 7-day collections and one 2-day collection and that hardly makes any sense). 

April 9

a dreary morning

against all odds

she asks for milk

Bonus

soggy catkins

curling on the asphalt

a dead snake

Blue cast, Spring Formal, and many visitors

Could more things have happened over the weekend? Possibly. But it felt pretty packed as things were.

I woke up bright and early Friday morning and began calling pediatric orthopedic offices to see if anyone could squeeze Miriam in that same day. The first office I called (which was the one recommended to us by the urgent care facility) was super grumpy about how "entitled" I was to think my child could be treated within such a small window. You have to plan for these things, apparently.

The soonest possible appointment would be at least ten days out. She didn't care what we had coming up...

And I'm like, "Who plans to break their arm mere days before taking an international flight?!"

So clearly that wasn't the place for us, the weirdos. 

But I found a place that could see her that same day. Because her break was minor and her swelling wasn't too bad, they went ahead and put a cast on her to immobilize and protect her arm during her travels so that her minor injury didn't turn into a bigger problem by being jostled, etc. 

Hosting

My sister Josie arrived this evening! 

I set up an air mattress for her in the basement. And also set up a couch cushion bed for her in case the whole air mattress thing didn't work out. And told her that a third option was a futon in the girls' room, which I didn't set up because Rachel had already gone to bed. 

Miriam was going to take the futon and let Josie have her bed, but then she broke her arm and didn't want to give up her comfy bed because sleeping has been hard enough as it is. 

But the futon is a third option. And if none of those options really sound good then we can kick Alexander out of his bed and steal his mattress to put on the floor downstairs.

So many comfy options!

"I'll be fine," she insisted. "My years in Young Ambassadors really taught me that I can sleep anywhere."

She loved her touring days, but they were grueling and the accommodations could sometimes be...less than accommodating. 

Left arm...broken!

A few months ago I scored a push tricycle on the Buy Nothing Group. Phoebe had been putting up a fuss about riding in the stroller and I thought that perhaps a tricycle stroller would help make her fits less frequent. And I was correct! She is much happier about getting to bike around the block than she had been being pushed around the block. Eventually she'll walk around the block just fine—and she has walked around the block before—but sometimes we want to go faster than she travels on her two little legs.

So the push tricycle has been a fine solution.

I wouldn't say it's been a perfect solution, but it was free, right? And free is nice.

A few of this issues we've had with the push tricycle are:

1/4 April Haiku

It's National Poetry Month! 

I've trying to write a haiku for every day this month. 

Haiku has become such an interesting form to me (since reading Jane Hirshfield's Ten Windows, which contains such wonderful discussion on Basho). What children are taught in elementary schools about stringent syllabic patterns—and, perhaps, that the poem should have something to do with nature—is woefully inadequate, not to mention slightly misleading. While the three-line rule seems to be sticking rather firmly, the 5-7-5 rule is too...convoluted...to work well in English. Syllables don't matter as much as ideas because in Japanese the poems don't contain 17 syllables but seventeen on. A good haiku makes an observation about the world by means of a surprising juxtaposition...in very few syllables.

(Read more about haiku here, here, or here, or wherever).

So, no—my haiku don't always have 17 syllables. That said, they don't always contain a surprising twist either.

I didn't promise every day's haiku would be a good haiku, did I? 

My purpose, I suppose, is to tell little stories about each day, to remember the month by. So far it's been a gloriously good month for haiku—so much has been happening with nature!

April 1

earth warms—creatures wake,
slink and worm their way inside
the boy's pants—"A skink!"

Watching the April 8, 2024 Eclipse

We had a lovely time watching the eclipse this afternoon. While we weren't in the path of totality (we were about 85%), we did notice a significant gloaming effect (another vocabulary word from today) as well as an accompanied decrease in overall temperature. 

Painted Book of Mormon Activity

Today for FHE we talked about syzygial relationships...or how thinking celestially can help us align with God. Really I just thought it would be fun to talk about alignment today, after watching the eclipse. And I was in luck because this month's Liahona had a couple of articles about just that—aligning our hearts and wills with God. I gave the kids a head's up about today's topic at dinner and told them all to come prepared to share something and everyone (except Alexander and Phoebe) was ready to share. 

We talked about some of the General Conference talks we listened to this past weekend and shared thoughts we had about scriptures we'd been reading recently. So it worked out well!

Last week we finally got around to painting the covers of our copies of The Book of Mormon. We'd seen many people do this and decided we wanted to do it as a family and told the kids they could choose whatever language they'd like for their copy of The Book of Mormon. Rachel is just finishing up her second semester of Spanish, so she chose Spanish. Miriam has been studying German for quite some time, so she chose German, as did Alexander (who studies languages by whim...the other day he told me about the "galactic" lesson he'd recently completed...but he mean Gaelic). Zoë has been learning French at co-op, so she chose French. Benjamin simply wanted English. That's what we did for Phoebe as well. I chose Russian. Andrew chose Italian. 

So we ordered all these books months ago and some of them came in right away, but the Spanish and French books were on backorder for some reason. But eventually—at long last—we received another package...with only a Spanish book in it. And then waited and waited and waited some more and finally— finally!—Zoë's French book arrived. 

We painted our books last Monday. It was pure chaos, but everyone had a good time.

We covered a portion of our table in paper to keep the little ones from accidentally (or purposefully) scribbling on the table with the paint markers.