Defying death

Tonight we headed to the beach at high tide for the first time in a year. It was intense. And the kids had boogie boards. G proceeded to have a great time sliding into the maw of the waves time and time again.

High tide at Vilano is scary. The beach is very steep so the waves crash right on the sand and shoot up the slope. G figured out that he could wait at the top of the slope for a big wave and ride it back out into the water where he would slide right into the next breaking wave which would swallow him and spit him back up the slope. Wow I think I have made it sound fun! Apparently G thought so.

P and I stood there saying "He's going to die!" Our hearts in our throats, letting him enjoy.

Great games

We've let G have access to games for a long time. Long enough that he knows to avoid games that mom will think are bad. Like games with fighting, and nudity. His favorite are racing games. My favorite are ones that require some thought to figure out the puzzle, or achieve goals. Here are some.

Red Remover
Fire Boy Water Girl
Factory Balls (multiple editions including christmas)
Tree of Life
Ninja Painter

There are others I'm sure but I just wanted to make record that these are awesome.

they must be possessed by demons

I was listening to "Fresh Air" recently and it was a story about a Christian group that is coming into political power. This group includes Sara Palin and Rick Perry. It all sounded a little crazy.

Their argument that anyone they disagree with is possessed by demons is such a fallacy. If someone disagrees with you it is because they believe different things. Putting a "christian" face on and saying "If they weren't possessed by demons, they would think the same things as I do" is insane! I mean REALLY?

I am grateful for the gospel and the doctrine of free agency. Whatever dumb things we believe or support, it was our choice.

Snap Buggie!

In this period of our lives where the children exclaim "Bug, Bug, Bug!" and it often means roach... when M started saying "Bug, Bug, Bug" in the car I was freaked out. I asked her if it was inside the car and she said no. "It's over there by the store!" At which point I hoped she was not actually seeing a bug. It was a VW Beetle, or rather a car that had smooth lines and was not a smart car. M knows what a smart car is. So I asked her to call them Punch Buggies, but didn't teach her to hit her brother. The kids thought it was hilarious.

Then today she exclaimed "Snap Bug!"

"What's that M?"

"You know that thing you call Snap Bug. I mean Buggie. Snap Buggie."

I like it.

Sad situation

We recently put an offer in on a fixer upper and it wasn't accepted. The owner is a grandmother taking care of her daughter and grandchildren. The daughter has cancer. She recently went in to the hospital. If she were a member of our church I would totally be involved in taking her dinners. If I weren't trying to buy her house for less than she wants to sell it for I would be taking her dinners.

A firm foundation

We went to G's school for registration today. We met his new teacher who is deaf and awesome. G will be at school for the same block of Science/Social Studies, lunch, recess, writing as last year. So we'll be doing math on our own again which I like. To me it is really important to learn math when you're ready. Schools are pushing kids to learn math earlier and earlier. And math is not something you should force kids into because if they have a bad foundational understanding of math, nothing is ever going to make sense. That's kind of a problem. Also, they are going to hate it and feel incompetent at it.

Imagine how a kid writes their ABC's at the beginning. It's rough but it's ok because they will continue to write out the ABC's in words for the rest of their lives and their handwriting has the opportunity to improve. But in math, if you make them memorize concepts that they don't understand it won't get fixed.

So I'm a fan of just letting G be exposed to math at a very basic level and through experiences.

My sister home schools her kids too and her son is frighteningly smart at math. At the age of 8 he probably has a deeper understanding of math than I do. OK, not probably, definitely. He is the child of 2 math-ies as I call them. Can you imagine putting a kid with such an intimate relationship with math into a class where kids are learning to recognize numbers? How many times would he be told to put his hand down, let someone else answer, don't call out? It would be very like a person of faith put in a class of atheist people discussing God. How many elementary school teachers do you think would list math as one of their favorite subjects, let alone why they became teachers of young children. No way.

It was great

The activity was great. Our ice blocks with cord frozen in for handles were a hit. G won his age group. The kids went off to learn about emergency kits, make rag dolls, make butter, and I don't know what else as I went off to cover the up-cycling station in the quilting room. We made T-shirts into bags.
When it was time for the "trek" we got lots of compliments on our wagon with which G towed M around the parking lot about 6 times. Then there were the pioneer games and a tug of war between girls and boys in which the moms jumped in to win it for the girls.
We went in and ate chili and bread, tons of chili and bread. Then there were pies, cookies and ice cream!
It was great.
I don't have any pictures but it was great.

Down South

We're celebrating Pioneer day tomorrow and I'm so involved. It is lovely to not be planning the activity and be free to participate. We've made ice blocks and a wagon top for our bike trailer. I bought a quart of cream for making butter. I'm running the up-cycling sewing station. And the best part is that we're going to play our tubas! A brass duet is just the thing for a pioneer celebration. Come enjoy! Saturday 4-7.

Perspective and Gratituded

We've had some ups and downs lately. On Monday we went to Gainesville for a marathon of doctors, appointments, scans etc... The great thing about this day in the hospital was that it was just for a check-up. He had an EKG at the medical plaza. Then we rode the shuttle to the hospital for a Bone density scan, blood test, and check up with the Hemotology/Oncology doctors. And we ate at Hovan's in the food court. We were probably having the best day out of all the people at the hospital.

Tuesday we were running around a lot after taking G to speech. Then I locked my keys in the car. It was overcast so at least it wasn't hot. And my neighbor let us use her phone to call my road side assistance. Then it started to rain. That was a bummer.
Thursday I got to go up to Jacksonville to pick up food orders at the bishop's storehouse. It turned out to be even less difficult than I had anticipated and the kids had fun. When we came home we took a celebratory trip to the store. I don't buy most of the groceries anymore. P buys most of our staples at Sam's Club and I just buy food as I feel inspired. But I felt so grateful on Thursday that we can go to the store and buy food that we did, buy food, and ice cream.

Some Thoughts...

Today I overheard the weirdest story. A lady at the therapy office was telling one of the physical therapists about someone who makes babies stop crying and then they are not breathing. So the baby learns not to cry. Then she said "So you have these big Mormon churches with 500-700 people and not a single baby is crying. It's crazy. Criminal!" When I heard that last part I was like "What?!" Because Mormons are very sensitive about the fact that we have the family worship together, including babies and noisy toddlers who try to escape and go up to the pulpit. :) I spend half of the meeting in the hall because Penny won't stay quiet. Random.
BTW, I am loving the "Switched at Birth" show. My favorite part is how favorably signing is presented and how each member of the family is now signing. The spanish mom always signed even though the deaf daughter could read lips and speak. Then the red head mom started to learn because the spanish mom convinced her that it was important. Then the white dad started coaching the deaf daughter's basketball team so he signs now. Then the spanish daughter
started dating Emmett (the deaf friend) so she's signing with him and with the deaf daughter. Then the white brother is finally signing because he wanted to tell the deaf boyfriend that he had hurt his sister... I love it. It is showing such a great approach and the natural barriers that people overcome if they want to.
I had an epiphany about the show tonight. The white family, they suddenly find they have a deaf daughter when she is 16. The spanish mother found out she had a daughter when she
was 4, but didn't start signing until she was in 3rd grade. It reminds me of how for hearing parents it is always like a "Switched at Birth" experience. You brought home this baby and started to raise it with this certain set of expectations of normalcy. Then you find out they are deaf and it is like someone switched your baby because suddenly all the past was with a baby
you thought could hear. And the baby you have, has a history and future completely unfamiliar. So you then have the choice to join them, or try to fit them in with your life.

Good old scared out of my mind

We went to the beach on Tuesday night because it had been over a week! So even though we'd gotten back from a 4 day visit in DC followed by a 12 hour drive home, arriving home at 2:30AM on Tuesday, we had to go to the beach. P was still too tired, having done most of the driving. So we were there at the beach with the bridge, and the only people on the beach.

When P is with us he hangs out with the kids in the water. I was being brave so I was hanging out with G in the water as M played in the sand on the shore. I noticed a few big fish jumping out of the water. Whenever that happens P makes some comment about how he's curious but doesn't want to find out what made them jump.

So we're all alone, no P, no other people in the water, I've seen a few big fish jump out of the water. I'm primed for the possibility of seeing something scary. And I can't believe my eyes as I look over and see a fin just 15 feet away from me.

I grabbed G's arm and started dragging him to shore. I've got bP in my left arm and G dragging behind when I stumble in the 1 foot water and go down. Luckily bP was in the sling because I used my left hand to break the fall. bP and G got dunked as I scrambled back to my feet to continue the scramble to shore.

Safely out of the water heaving from the exertion, G asks me why I dragged him out of the water.
"I saw a shark" I told him. Excitedly he goes to tell M that Mom saw a shark. I look back to the water and see...

that it was a dolphin.

Two dolphins cruising the beach.

I explained that it was just dolphins to G who now thought I had just pulled a joke on him. Good old Mom and her jokes.

This was my FB post: "saw a dolphin in the ocean about 15 feet from where we stood in the water. Unfortunately I thought it was a shark so I grabbed Gand ran for shore scared out of my mind. We (bP and I) tripped and fell, dunking bP and G and spraining my thumb. Awesome."