Liam Had a Birthday

Last week, Liam had a birthday.  I can tell my kids are getting big by the food they choose for birthday meals. Liam's birthday dinner was chicken cordon bleu and his dessert a trifle. See?  I don't think I have anyone left who will let me off with a request for pigs in a blanket and potato chips anymore.  Okay, I don't think anyone has ever requested potato chips actually.

Anyway, Liam is 10 now!  Double digits.  Except, if you ask his siblings, I would be willing to bet that several of them would at first tell you that he is 5.  Really, that is the age that Liam is stuck at for many of us, and our automatic response to "How old is Liam?" is frequently "Five!"  I suspect that the reason for the confusion may stem from the fact that Liam was five longer than he was any other age.  In fact he was five for about.....4 years.  Really.  Okay, not really.   But he sure thought he was.  See, when Ronan turned five, Liam was so impressed by it that he decided to be five too.  So from about the age of 2 1/2, Liam told everyone who asked, and sometimes those who didn't, that he was five years old.  And we learned that a lot of people are fairly clueless about what an average five year old (or two year old for that matter) looks and acts like, because an awful lot of people took his word for it.  The only remnant of that stage of Liam's life,  besides our tendency to sometimes still think he is five, is his 'buddy,' an African Wild Dog named....you guessed it 'Five.'  I don't know, it was a special number to him.

Random Liam stories...

Once, Kris bought a fully cooked pot roast at a school fundraiser.  He brought it home after work, all wrapped in foil and resting in a disposable foil pan.  Apparently I said something like "Let's get this puppy in the oven."  I was later alerted by some older siblings to a serious conversation going on between Ronan (who really was five) and Liam (who really wanted to be five) in their bedroom.  They were very seriously debating whether or not Daddy had actually brought home a puppy for dinner .  And whether or not I had willingly put said puppy in the oven.  And whether or not they would be expected to actually eat the puppy.  Oops.

Liam likes to pick flowers for me.  On a walk one day (he was probably three, but he thought he was five), he was picking lots of wildflowers and I told him he better leave a few to drop seeds to make next year's flowers and he told me very matter of factly that seeds don't make flowers, Jesus makes the flowers and He makes them because girls like them.

Last month Kris and I took Liam, Fionn, Ronan and Noah to show them a footbridge that goes over I 25.  We stood on the bridge watching the traffic pass beneath our feet (If you have never done this, by the way, you are missing out on some serious fun in life.  I used to do this in LA when I was a kid.)  The kids started to wave at the passing cars and trucks.  Nearly everyone waved backed, many truckers honked, one person waved out his sunroof.  Eventually though we  had to go. When I told Liam it was time to go though, he loudly lamented: "But everybody LOVES me!" And then proceeded to wave a big, grandiose goodbye and blow kisses to his adoring fans below on the highway!

And a photo gallery, cause he is too cute for only one:

Being Seven

This is our baby.  She turned seven the end of last year, in fact this picture was taken on her birthday.  At the zoo, which is where Fionn typically prefers to spend her birthdays.  I realize that at seven she doesn't really qualify as a baby anymore.  But she is still our baby.  Anyway, some things Fionn has accomplished since turning seven:

She reads.  Really reads.  Like on her own, picks up a book and reads it because she wants to, not because someone told her to read it.  Yes, in this picture she is reading a comic book.  Baby Blues I believe.  You can probably tell that it is a very tattered and well worn copy too, so you might be able to surmise from that that I am totally okay with my kids reading comic books.  And you would be right.  One morning I came home after driving some older sibling somewhere and found Fionnula perched on the back of a living room chair contentedly reading all by herself because she wanted to. 

She earned a 'Green Band' at the YMCA.  Which basically means that the Y recognizes her as someone who can swim and thus is allowed anywhere in the pools without a parent hovering close by.  Funny thing about that green band, Fionnula has been in a pool on a very regular basis since she was about 18 months old.  And she has been a pretty confident swimmer now for probably 2 years.  But she was not at all interested in taking any  test  to prove her swimming ability to anyone else.  She was perfectly content to swim around in the area of the pool designated for the 'Red Bands.'  Until suddenly, she wasn't okay with it anymore and one afternoon while we were at the pool announced her intention of taking the test.  Kris ran her through it once, she asked the lifeguard to test her, and she did it. 

And this last week, Fionn learned to ride a bike.  Our kids don't ride bikes when they are tiny.  So she had never been on just two wheels until Friday when she and Kris headed to the park where she learned the basics.  And then Saturday she actually went on a bike ride with her parents and some brothers.  We went again today.  That isn't to say that there aren't some scary moments, like Saturday when Kris nearly leaped from his own bike to ensure that she actually did come to a stop rather than exiting the church parking lot at full speed right onto a busy street (but he didn't have to actually make that leap, because she did manage a screeching stop after all), or today when she suddenly careened off the bike path and down a relatively steep embankment full of cacti and yucca (she did eventually crash, disentangled herself from the bike, informed us she was okay and that she would need some help getting her bike back up on the path).

Also, she added to her collection of Disney Princesses that inhabit her bed.  Okay, so maybe this accomplishment may not seem to be of the same caliber as some of the previous ones, but it is equally important to her.  Plus, I like the picture, aren't they cute?  And anyway, she saved all her money to buy herself something awesome at Disney World and she picked out that Belle doll on day 2 there I think, stuck with that decision for the next several days of our trip and very proudly purchased her and brought her safely home.

Anyway, I look at Fionn and wonder: what have I accomplished since my last birthday?

Of Boys and Beads and Buttons and .....Noses

I try really hard not to ever say things like "Boys will be boys!"  Or "He's all boy!"  And I have been known to scoff at people I overhear talking about their one and only child and how well he represents the most typical stereotype of a boy.  Their boy is so full of energy and never holds still and they wish so badly they had a nice, quiet, prim and proper little girl who would just sit quietly and draw or something....and I think well, I have a little girl I could show them who certainly isn't prim or proper and hasn't ever sat still for more than 30 seconds at a time or else that I have a little boy who is the sweetest, kindest soul ever and who is content to sit quietly for hours at a time reading a book....or even that drawing a picture is not always the quiet activity that some may imagine (trust me, I live with artists).

There is this one thing though that, for us, has been consistent with all our boys.  Not one of our girls has ever done this.  But... every single one of our boys has stuck various objects up their nose as a toddler.  I wish I had thought to collect the objects and display them in a frame as I once saw at an ENT's office, because it would be a colorful and varied display.

Rhys was the first offender, back when I was young and inexperienced and more easily panicked.  He came to me and confessed in a frightened whisper and with tears in his eyes, that he had a small gold safety pin up his nose and that it hurt.  When I questioned HOW he had got a safety pin up his nose he said "I put it there."   And when I then inquired why, he said "I don't know." And started to cry in earnest which effectively ended any possibility of me scolding him over this and instead I did the practical thing, squelched my panicky parent emotions, and retrieved the safety pin with a pair of tweezers.  Ta-da!  I didn't know then how routine similar scenarios would become in my life.

One afternoon, my children were entertaining themselves and their parents by bouncing on a bed and then jumping to the floor.  (Hey, don't knock it, you know it's fun.) Amik was littler than the rest, but participating nonetheless, and in one particularly good jump, apparently landed ever so slightly harder than he had previously and instantly dislodged a small white button from one nostril.  It literally shot from his nose.  "How long has that been up there?"  we wondered, a tad bit chagrined.

The preferred objects for stuffing up nostrils were definitely beads and buttons.  Amik actually took things to a new level and tried putting things in his ears too, an unfortunate choice as it nullified the nifty little trick I learned from another mother (of a little girl I might add, who had similar 'interests' as my boys did).  It turns out, if you plug up the nostril that doesn't currently house a bead or button or other small object, and then gently, but quickly blow in the kid's mouth, whatever is stuck up that nose will, usually, come shooting out.  Sort of like that button that Amik dislodged that day jumping on the bed.  Except sometimes, it won't.

When Liam was little, I spotted something up his nose.  Way up his nose.  It was white, and shiny, and maybe not really there, so I did nothing at first.  Then a couple days later I saw it again.  This time I actually took a flashlight and peered up the poor kid's nose and determined .....that there was definitely something up there.  That was all I could tell, seriously.  I used my tried and true 'blow it out' method, but all I did was cause my baby considerable alarm.  Kris tried tweezers, we held Liam down, but the unknown object seemed to actually repel tweezers, Kris could not get a grip for anything and Liam was miserable.  We let him go to sleep.  We waited until we were certain he was really, really out.  I turned him so his head was actually hanging off the bed.  And Kris, properly rested from his previous efforts, tried again.  And while Liam peacefully slumbered on, his Daddy successfully retrieved from the poor boy's nose a ...googly eye.  Yep.  True story.

I think that was probably the last such 'surgery' in our family.  And that googly eye would have made a fine addition to my framed 'objects extracted from noses (and occasionally ears)' display.  Up there with all those safety pins, beads and buttons, it really would have added some variety you know?  If only I had had the forethought on that first fateful day with little Rhys and got started on that bit of family history.

Same boys as above, young enough here that if you look closely you might just spot something  up someone's nose!

The Hard Part is Over?

So we took several of our kids to the Denver Art Museum a few months ago.  (I was a little sad that they no longer give you a little pin to wear that reads 'DAM').  Anyway, ten of us were standing in a mob at the front desk, talking to the 20 something receptionist who was running through her standard admission to the museum questions, and she asked if any of the children were under 6.  Because my brain is a little mushy after all these years of being the mommy, I had to think about that question for a second before I responded that, no, the youngest was 6.  She smiled at me then and said all cheerily; "So the hard part is over!"

Really? Really? The hard part is over?!  I hadn't noticed things getting markedly 'easier' as my children reached the magic age of six.  In fact, I feel a certain nostalgia for the days when everybody was under six.

For one thing, they used to go to bed before me and I would stay up for a while enjoying the quiet. I could sew or read or watch a movie or just relax and eat ice cream or drink cocoa with no one the wiser.  Now kissing my children goodnight typically means that I am going to bed and they are the ones staying up watching movies and eating ice cream.

I miss the days when my children's emotions could be soothed with a good hug and a pat on the head.  I am not saying that a two year old doesn't have emotions, but I don't know a lot of them who can put a good sized hole in a wall when they are feeling frustrated.

Also, I feel like I used to be so smart....my kids thought I knew everything and could do anything.  As they get older, they have started to get a little more suspicious of my omniscience.  Sometimes I think they suspect that I really know very little and am just making this all up as I go along.  I think it starts when they first come to me with a math problem and I have to say "isn't there a CD with this math program?"

I used to be able to pick them up.  This was highly useful. It worked when they were sad and needed to be comforted.  It worked when they were hurt and needed help.  It worked really well when they were stubborn and just wouldn't get in the car already so we could go!  Except, eventually I can't do it anymore.

And I don't know if you realize this, but they let big kids drive  On the road.  With other cars.  But, before the kids get to go drive around all alone, with their parents sitting at home worrying about them, they make the parent sit in the passenger seat for months at a time with the teenage driver.  And it is just about the scariest thing you have ever had to do with your kid in so many ways.  I liked it when they rode tricycles.  On the sidewalk.

And here is the hardest part....if you have done your job right with these little ones who follow you all over and think you are so smart and awesome and fun to be with even when you are just folding socks, then what happens is they grow up, become capable, independent, intelligent grown ups... and they leave you.

Mission Calls

So, last week Kegan and Rhys got their mission calls.  Not quite two weeks since Bayley got hers.  But of course, everyone knows that much already.  Because I have Facebook.  Where I can announce in concise statements the everyday events or even non-events of our lives and allow all my Facebook friends to comment or not, or give me that enviable, thumbs up 'like.'

But the details aren't on Facebook.  things like how Bayley got her papers submitted a week before the boys did but was then worried that her call wouldn't be assigned until their papers were in too, so she wanted a report daily on the status of Kegan's and Rhys's papers.  Something which we had no control over.

Or that her call was not held after all, and she knew it was assigned and was anxiously counting down the hours to the arrival of the Thursday mail when it was supposed to be there....but it wasn't.  And I received a relatively frantic call about 2 in the afternoon that went sort of like this "It didn't come! What am I going to do?  I can't wait another day!"

But about 2 in the afternoon the next day I received another phone call that was something like this "It's here! It's here! It's here!....I want to open it now!"  This was followed by a lot of frantic discussion between Bayley and her friend Diana about what they could and could not tell about said call without actually opening it.   Because of course it had to be opened back at Diana's house, in front of Skype with all the rest of us gathered on this end to witness.  Which, after a lot of texting and some schedule rearranging, it eventually was.  And weirdly, it really was Texas, just like Bayley had flippantly said it was when she was on the phone with me frantically trying to 'sense' what was inside that big white envelope.

Unlike Bayley's call, Kegan's and Rhys's calls did get held up in Salt Lake a week longer than expected.  So while we were originally told to expect them just a week after Bayley's, as their papers had been sent in (and by that I mean 'clicked' in really, since it is all 'sent' to Salt Lake electronically) just a week after hers, we soon learned that it would be one more week, on Wednesday "if all the stars align" but probably on Thursday according to our Stake President.  Thursday it was.

Kegan and Rhys were comparatively way more relaxed than Bayley upon the arrival of their calls....Kegan and Rhys are usually comparatively way more relaxed than Bayley...except when they aren't.  But on this day it may have been more because they were extremely sleep deprived, especially Kegan who had literally stayed up ALL night the night before completing an art project--not necessarily the first time he (or Rhys) has done so.  We had to nearly force them out the door to 'check' the mail after Kris got home from work and maybe, possibly, had a peek inside that mailbox before he came in.

So, they retrieved the mail.  And again there was the frantic texting and calling and gathering of siblings.  Bayley was back at the Briscoes with her laptop and we were back at the kitchen counter with one of ours, except this time the big white envelopes were on this end.  And this time, Bayley's friend Diana wasn't present because she had left the day before for the MTC to begin her mission.

And this time Kegan and Rhys had control over the pace of things.  And they may have been a little dramatic in the reading of the calls.  And Kegan may have been in danger of actually falling asleep in the 'marshmallow chair' before Rhys finally got around to the part that said Argentina.  And then Kris may have actually read over Kegan's shoulder and whispered 'Chile' in my ear before Kegan got around to announcing it himself, since he was actually announcing even the punctuation as he went.

The next day, as Kegan and Rhys perused their lists of what to bring with them, Kegan announced  "I feel like I finally got my Hogwarts letter!"  Except I don't recall Hogwarts reminding their students to bring some serious sunscreen, lipbalm and heat rash ointment or to be sure to get immunized against Typhoid and Yellow Fever.  Yikes.

But Will they go to Prom?

Ever seen Mean Girls?  You know the scene where Lindsey Lohan gets up to leave class because she needs to go to the bathroom?  It's hilarious.  Because that little bit of culture clash is so true.  Occasionally people will ask me questions about homeschooling that make me realize that what is normal to my family is sometimes very foreign to some of my friends.  They also make me laugh a little. So, a sampling:

Do you have a bathroom pass?

     One of my personal all time favorite homeschooling questions, asked very sincerely by an eight year old at church.  And, no, we don't have one.  My kids go to the bathroom when they need to, no questions asked.  In fact, when they first learned of bathroom passes, they were absolutely incredulous---did such a degrading practice actually exist?  Imagine their horror when a friend told them that in her class they were only allowed to use the bathroom once a day!

Do you have recess?  

     As in do we have a certain time set aside in the day during which we go outside for precisely 11 minutes to play?  No.  Do we go outside pretty much whenever we feel like doing so and play for as long as we want?  Pretty much.

Do you even do school?
     This was asked of one of my children actually.  Yes, we do school.  And some of it looks a lot like the 'school' everyone else is doing, except for where it is being done.  And some of it looks very little like that.

What grade is_____ in?

     Seriously people just don't ask me this question.  I.  Don't.  Know.  Really, I don't.  I don't know what grade they 'should' be in according to age.  And I don't know what 'grade' the sort of learning they are currently doing would fall into.  The problem is that this is the universally agreed upon question to ask when meeting a child, and my kids don't know either.  If you ask my younger kids, you will most likely get slightly panicked stares.  My older kids can do a little better with this one, between seminary and friends who do go to school they have acquired some understanding of what the question means at least.  But what if you are 17 and a full time college student but still attending your third year of seminary?  Yeah. It gets confusing.

Aren't you worried you will miss something?

     No.  Because I don't think there is a list out there that comprises what everyone must know to be properly educated.  Unless it is this : read, write.  And so far it hasn't been a huge problem to get each of my children to learn to do those two things.  

How will your kids get into college?

     The same way everyone else's kids do.  Take a test.  Fill out an application.  Pay the school.

How much money does the State give you?
     Ummmm.......zero.  

Aren't you worried about socialization?

     Ok, so first I think I should warn my non-homeschooling friends that this question can really, I mean really, tick off your homeschooling acquaintances.  So be careful with it.  Second, I think you mean 'a social life' not 'socialization.' And yes, I am worried about the social life in your average public school (and the socialization) which is one reason my kids don't go.

How do you (as in the mom) have a life?

     Well....this is my life and I live it almost 100% in the company of my children.  And I like it that way.  Even if I sometimes whine about NEVER having any time to myself, the truth is that if decide to run errands alone, I usually realize within a few minutes that I am lonely and should have brought a couple kids with me.

Oh, and the question in my title.  That is a real one too.  And the answer....probably not.  Which should save them a couple hundred dollars.

A Family Road Trip...and it's Aftermath

This is what happens when you return from 3 weeks of vacation and promptly come down with the flu.  And I am being nice and only showing you the piles of clean laundry.... and only the piles in that one room.

But yes, we recently returned from 3 weeks of vacationing to and from and in Florida.  Where I woke up one day, checked the weather and discovered that the humidity that morning was 100%!  Outside of the ocean---how does that even happen?!  I live in Colorado where if we require humidity, we tightly  lock up all windows and doors and plug multiple humidifiers into the walls.

Our first evening at Disney World I witnessed a grown woman standing in the middle of the street sobbing, really....sobbing as she angrily snatched the kleenex her husband was silently offering and exclaimed "I am just soooo tired!"  I didn't laugh at her.  Much.  But by our last night at Disney I had a lot more understanding for that lady.  Essentially we spent our vacation getting up early so we could witness the Good Morning song at the front gates of Magic Kingdom and then going to bed late after a light show and firework send off, only to get up and do it again the next day.  But Disney isn't really about a restful vacation, it's an escapist vacation.  Besides....when there is too much downtime things like this happen.

Lesson learned:  don't let Fionn and Ronan anywhere near each other when entering a pool.  Also, maybe be a little more specific when telling them they can't get in until a lifeguard sibling shows up ( yes, we travel with our own lifeguards, handy).  Otherwise, what might happen is the second said lifeguard sibling touches the door to the backyard, everyone may just leap into the pool at once and maybe, just maybe, someone's knee will strike someone else's face and possibly split their goggles in two and cause a really scary looking cut under someone's eye which may seriously freak out the parents and ensure that the rest of your vacation pics will include a black eye.  Maybe.  It could happen.

Anyway, some highlights from our trip:

The rental house featured a really clean sliding glass door out to the pool which no fewer than three family members walked smack into at one time or another (Fionn did it twice), and one person left a spectacular imprint of their nose and lips on the glass.  Which we left up the remainder of the visit.  And which gave everyone else in the house great amusement every time we went out the door.

Butterbeer at the Hog's Head.  And choclolate frogs from Honeydukes.

Places with names like these: Natchitoches. Achafalaya. Pascagoula.  Whose pronunciations, according to the natives, have absolutely nothing to do with their spellings.  That's okay, we have a son named Rhys and a daughter named Fionnula Eilis.  We have a healthy appreciation for creative pronunciation. 

This sign at Harry Potter World:

And this sign somewhere in Texas: "The JESUS Christ is Lord travel center. Featuring heavenly burgers".  I think Texas may know what it is talking about when it comes to burgers though, because we stopped at a Whataburger for the first time.  Wow.

A morning of cemetery wandering in New Orleans.  Plus Beignets.  And Pralines.

A creepy ride on It's a Small World in which the soundtrack wasn't playing and all you could hear was the clicking and clacking of little doll mouths opening and closing eerily.  Read more about that part of our adventure here:
http://bayleyiswriting.blogspot.com/

Watching my grown sons valiantly helping their little siblings to save Jellyfish that had washed up on the beach.  A process which involved scooping up the jelly fish in a plastic cup and then swimming out beyond the waves to hurl them as far out to sea as they could.

Listening to Fionn teach herself the 5 times tables (despite not having a clue what multiplying is) while waiting in line for Soaring (which is still over California even in Florida. Whatever).

And these bathroom signs at a Texas rest stop: