Sunday, January 22, 2017

The other night after little ones had been put to bed, I began dozing on the couch.  I sleepily told Brennan and Asher it was their time for bed as well and then proceeded to fully fall asleep.

At some wee hour of the morning I got up to relocate to my bed and as I arose I looked at the living room and thought to myself that I hadn't realized Brennan had done such a good job when I'd asked him to tidy the room earlier.

Hours later when I got up for reals and was getting littles ready for the day I noticed a slip of paper on the floor of the living room in Brennan's writing that said RBRBRF. I laughed at our current joke.  See, recently when Brennan was helping me clean the living room when it was only slightly messy we'd come up with this acronym to describe the phenomenon of our living room's messyness level which, like a wildfire,  gets "Really Big Really Bad Really Fast".  We like to recite it as fast as possible and I'd said it when I'd asked him to clean the room the night before. His note in the clean room was amusing.

Well it gets better.  It turns out that the reason I hadn't noticed how well he'd cleaned the room before my "nap" was because he hadn't. Instead of dealing with RBRBRF, he'd helped Asher with his homework, which was to play a game I think, and I was too distracted getting the little ones to bed to notice or remember. What he HAD done is sneak downstairs while I was asleep and quietly clean the room then. Ha! My little cobblers elf!

But, it gets EVEN better.  Tonight I was like,  "Hey Brennan,  remember that one time (it was 2 nights ago , lol) I fell asleep on the couch and you cleaned the room right next to me and I didn't even notice?" As we laughed at my obliviousness, Brennan casually shared that when he'd seen one of my shoes on the floor, having fallen off my foot, he'd come up and very carefully removed the other one FROM MY FOOT and put them away.

We laughed so hard. He is so funny/considerate/cool.  And I apparently was VERY tired.

Tuesday, January 17, 2017

Life captured

They were first singing this together very nicely. But Kieran, being a 3 year old little brother, quickly turned into a 3 year old little brother. :-P

Yesterday Brennan's piano teacher mentioned to me that she thought it would be nice if I played the other part of the duet with Brennan at the recital (probably next month). I was like, "Oh, uh, ok. Sure." Turns out my part is easy. So I took at look at it this afternoon. Here is day one. I don't consider myself a pianist by any stretch of the imagination, but I LOVE playing duets/numbers with other people, especially my kids.


This one may not upload because it's pretty long. It is SO Asher, though. I had to capture this for posterity. Asher is nothing if not a big dreamer.

OK, I uploaded it to Youtube but I marked it as Private. I'm not sure how to share things to specific people. Does this link work? 



Sunday, January 15, 2017

Jesus Wants Me For a Sun-BEAM!

Last week was cancelled so today made Sunbeam attempt #2. During Sacrament meeting I asked Kieran if he would go to Sunbeams today and he was on board. But when I mentioned going to Primary, he was a no-go. At the intermediate hymn he asked hopefully (as he always does) if it was time for Nursery. Not only was is not that time, but I reminded him that he doesn't go to nursery any more. He disagreed.

I could tell that though he was ok with the whole Sunbeam thing as he knew it (class time), he did not want to give up nursery for it, and he didn't understand that Sunbeams is a part of Primary - like Sharing time and all that. After sacrament meeting ended I walked with him to his old nursery room to show him. "See Kieran, nursery is all gone. It's not here any more. Everyone went to Primary." He walked into his now empty nursery room (he was in the "older" kids class which all moved up together) with a look of total shock and dejection. It was a little heartbreaking. The incredulity, the disappointment to stand in the middle of his empty nursery room. So I told him "I will show you where they are. You don't have to go into the Primary room, I will carry you and just show you." He agreed to the plan.

He protested for a moment as we approached the primary room but got distracted as one of his nursery-mates entered at the same time. So I stepped in a few feet and pointed. "Look Kieran, there's your teacher, Sister McGiven (They moved one of the Nursery teachers up to Sunbeams with the kids) And there's Steven, and Sydney, and Mora..." They were all there. I watched the lightbulb over his head turn on. He slid out of my arms and went and sat with his class and from what I understood, was a perfect little Primary kid. He reported afterwards that he liked Primary AND Sunbeams.

Whew! I think we'll be good from now on.

Thursday, January 12, 2017

Look towards the temple

For Christmas Santa gave each of the kids a small flashlight in their stockings . The lights have a sliding lens that zooms from large circle to a concentrated small area. Strangely, in the latter, what you see is this image:  


I have no idea how or why, but they all do it. As you zoom out slowly on, say, a wall or something up close, you watch an interesting kaleidoscope effect.  We've enjoyed the flashlights.  ðŸ˜Š

In its most concentrated shape like above, I call it the Mesa Temple. Hollyn asked me today why the lights show the Mesa temple, and I told her it is probably to remind us to follow the path that leads to the Temple, or to always keep the temple in view. 




Maybe we'll have to see the real thing when we're there in a few weeks.

Monday, January 9, 2017

Who says you can't teach an old sweater new decades?

I'm curious... What's the oldest item of clothing you still wear?

This evening I realized that I bought this sweater at goodwill in 8th grade and that was 20 years ago! (just the last 5 words of that are crazy enough). Who knows how long it'd been around before I got it. The fact that it lacks any holes or signs of wear-and-tear is a testament to the truthfulness of the old quips about things not being made like they used to make them.

I kinda want to meet the old lady who purged this from her husband's closet.  ðŸ˜†

Sunday, January 1, 2017

Today was Kieran's first day of Sunbeams and he was NOT at all interested. I had Brennan try to take him to the Primary room first while I gathered up our Sacrament meeting mess. I could hear Kieran from the chapel. He was throwing the biggest fit about not wanting to be there. So I brought him with me to the library while I checked out supplies for the class I was subbing. We walked back to the Primary room so I could tell his teacher that Kieran would be with me, but he threw a giant fit again just as I walked into the room. So I brought him to the 8/9 year old class with me, but again he began shrieking and throwing a giant tantrum and had to be forceably brought into the room. Lol, the looks on the kids' faces were awesome. He calmed down soon and sat on my lap for the entire lesson. At the end, I invited him to join the Sunbeams again, but added that they would have snack and coloring and a lesson. He thought that sounded good. At least the snack part. So I was able to drop him off with his class as they left Primary and went to their lesson time and when I picked him up at the end he was all smiles.

I got off easy with none of the kids ever having trouble going into nursery and so far they all eagerly moved up to the join the big Primary kids. So I did not see this coming. And I'm not sure I've EVER seen Kieran throw a tantrum quite like this. It was really a whopper. I guess New Year's Eve late night + 9am church + taking him out of his favorite activity (nursery) is a bad combination for him.

Of course, just 9am church by itself is a bad enough situation for even me.