Eating Glue, and so on

I managed to make it through 36 years of life without ever eating glue. Up until yesterday. Yesterday I was sitting at the table with my kids, cleaning up our lunch dishes at co-op. I moved a lid and felt something wet on my hand. It was a little white smear. They'd eaten go-gurts earlier, so I thought nothing of it and just licked it off.

Not yogurt.

The 6yo had a class project sitting next to our dishes, and the class project had huge globs of wet glue. Which is, of course, what I'd just eaten.

In case you're wondering, it was gross. Not the worst thing I've ever eaten (that would be horseradish), but I'd definitely never eat it on purpose. I had to eat an orange slice and a big bite of cake to try to get rid of the flavor, and even then it felt like it was sticking to my tongue. (Sticking. Har har.)

So, there's that item off my bucket list.


In other news, the 2yo is currently even more crazy about reading than his sisters. Yesterday morning he woke up around 5:30 wailing, "Read a book!" Which was pretty much how he'd fallen asleep the night before too.

Also, we were playing with wiki sticks earlier in the week, and I made the letters for the 6yo's name, so the 2yo wanted me to do it for him too. I did, and I spelled out his name while pointing at the letters. It was fun, and then he started jumbling them around and picking up each letter and saying it was his name. Good golly, 2yos are cute.

The next day while I was showering he toddled in (I have got to start locking that door!) holding a bunch of wiki sticks in his hands and saying, "Letters!" Also ridiculously cute. But you probably had to be there to understand.

On second thought, you shouldn't be there. Because I was showering and all.


Now for a teaser: Soon I hope to regale you with tales of our trip to Londontown and my giddy jumping-up-and-down excitement over getting to use a drop spindle. It was good times!

Also, maybe I'll get around to updates on my teen writing class and our epic anthology!

So far

Things I may or may not have done so far today:

*Eaten cheesecake in hiding. For breakfast.

*Let the baby chew on a shoe.

*Looked at the 9yo's outfit and thought, "Oh well. At least it's weather appropriate?"

So pretty much I'm winning.

Jewelry!

 It's been a jewelry kind of a day. Every once in a while I get a chance to work on it, and today was the day! I really just dabble, but I quite enjoy it.

Today was ...

... the beginning of a treble clef pendant and earrings. Not done yet, but mostly done.

... a random experimental ring that spells "love." I've never made rings before, and this one isn't good, bit it was fun to try!

... a pair of earrings made by Addra for me. She designed them and I put them on the hooks.

... a bird's nest pendant that I've been planning to do for a while.

Yay!

Before Moonlight There Was Mathcounts

So, by now you probably know all about the Oscars mishap where La La Land got told they won, but ... they didn't.

Well, I'm here to tell you I've been there and done that, in a way more geeky junior high sort of way.

It was the year 1995, and my teammates and I were at the national MathCounts competition. After a whole slew of different events--including nerdy mathematical interludes when the judges asked things like, "How many digits of pi have you memorized?"--we were announced as placing fifth out of the fifty-seven teams! We were both thrilled and shocked. Especially given how much goofing off we'd been doing.

Um yeah, we actually placed twentieth.

Naturally we drowned our sorrows in junk food, many rounds of card games, and a lot of tween angst. Also a lot of geekiness. Fortunately, we all recovered.

Here's the news article chronicling our tragedy: http://www.deseretnews.com/article/418107/MATH-OFFICIALS-CANT-ADD-UTAHNS-ARE-20TH-NOT-5TH.html?pg=all

Of particular note: the insanely pretentious answer I apparently gave to the question of future plans. Seriously? Could I possibly get more show-offy sounding? But it was good for a guffaw just now, so I'll call it a win.

Too bad it wasn't also a win for my MathCounts team.

Meta

"I don't know what to write," I tell Brice. I have a goal of writing every day, you see. 

"Write about how the baby was crawling down the hall and how we are all crawling down the hallway of life. We can choose to laugh and giggle as we head into the darkness, or we can turn back in fear."

"Brice, I love you. You are a source of endless delight."

And also, I think to myself, I'm totally not writing about that. Because that's weird. 

Wolves

A few days ago, I prayed so hard that I would be able to be patient and be kind and see the positive in the kids. I've been really struggling with them lately.

But then Addra wanted a YouTube drawing video. And then she didn't like the one she chose. Then she wanted a new one and wanted to scroll through tons to find it. Then she started getting upset because it was too hard, she said.

All this time I was getting increasingly frustrated at her. Just pick something! Just try again! It's okay if it's not perfect!

She was crying and upset and just curled up in a blanket by the computer, and I just didn't think I could be nice about this. I knew she needed a snuggle and some comforting, but I didn't want to do it. I went to find Brice to get him to help her so that I didn't make it any worse, but he was eating breakfast and I didn't want to stop him in the middle of a bowl of cereal.

So I took a breath and went back. I sat down beside the red blanket lump and pulled her partially into my lap and started rubbing her back. I told her that I loved her, over and over, and listened to her sadness at how hard the video was. At first I had to bite my tongue to keep from getting cranky at her, but slowly the back rub and snuggling soothed me too.

Five minutes later, I asked if she wanted to try again. Brice brought another pencil and paper, and we both watched the video and tried to draw from it. I paused it frequently so she could erase or catch up, and eventually we were both done.

She was totally happy again and was satisfied with her wolf drawing, and we'd had some happy, loving time together. 

Without a doubt I can say that this was a gift from God. Brice being busy so I had to handle it. My recognition and acceptance of what she needed just then--not criticism or pushing her to try harder, just a snuggle. And most of all the inner strength to actually do what was needed when I didn't want to. It turned an ugly interaction--the kind of thing that we've been having far too frequently these days--into a loving one. I'm so grateful for that gift.

Spindles, baby exercises

The kids and I are reading Sun and Moon, Ice and Snow by Jessica Day George, and there is discussion in it of carding and spinning, so we watched some YouTube videos about that. Then we watched one about spinning wheels, and I kept waiting to see something that Sleeping Beauty could have pricked her finger on. Alas, there was nothing.

So then we looked at the Perrault text of the story and discovered it mentions a spindle but no wheel! It was a drop spindle! Oh, Disney. The shame of it all.


In other news, every time I've had a baby, I've thought someone should invent a workout routine that uses the baby as the weights. Today I discovered one! Too bad my baby is now too wiggly and too heavy to use effectively for very long.

http://www.realsimple.com/health/fitness-exercise/workouts/too-tired-too-busy-too-bored-work-out/new-baby-strength-training-routine