February 2022

February wasn't our family's favorite month.  The weather was a little cold for the likes of us desert folk and our family spent a good half of the month fighting off a cold.  It wasn't a terrible cold but little Lucy was especially unhappy.  She's lived a charmed life so far, only getting a teensy bit sick a couple times.  The fever and long-lasting stuffiness were new and scary to her.  

One night she wouldn't take Tylenol (I had tried all my best tricks and she had managed to spit it up.)  I was with her when she woke up at midnight, very feverish.  In a panic, I considered my options.  I could turn on the light, wake her up thoroughly and try, once again, to give her a fever reducer.  She would scream and probably wake everyone up.  

I considered giving her a cool bath.  That would help her feel more comfortable.  Yet again, however, she would probably have a hard time getting back to bed and someone else might hear it.  Everyone was still a little under the weather and needed all the rest they could get.  

Then I realized that there was a third option.  I didn't have to undress her to have the same cooling effect.  I took her to the bathroom, turned on the sink and started getting her pajamas wet.  Then I got her hair wet, after which I grabbed a washcloth, soaked it thoroughly and returned to her room.  For the next hour or so I kept the cloth on her head and held her, as I imagine people have done for centuries before Tylenol was ever created.  

It was an answer to my prayers.  It worked.  She stopped flailing and acting so erratic.  She calmed down and even started to contentedly sing little intervals again and again. ("Bah, bah...")  It was the cutest thing and made me smile as we passed the time.  I have been so busy and she has been so wiggly that it had been a long time since I had been able to snuggle with her like that.  I definitely wasn't as patient for the other nights that I spent with her but that first night I was able to enjoy myself a little.   

Now don't let that last paragraph fool you.  I'm no saint.  After a couple days I was short with my kids (especially poor little Lucy, I'm afraid) and felt frazzled.  I was not myself.  Thankfully, Dane stepped in and helped me regain some composure that afternoon.  And it was then that Lucy really started to get better.  We still have some lingering coughs but I'm happy to say that the worst is over.  Hooray!

Early in the month we had our cute cousins come and visit us again.  It was a short visit but oh, so sweet.  We love them so much! 

They even went to church with us and the boys went to class with our boys.  

Oh, Atticus.  He has so many moments that just drive us crazy.  

For example, after ignoring multiple warnings that his treatment of Max would lead to injury Max bit him.  It wasn't serious, thank goodness, but we were furious.  If he had stopped cornering the dog and grabbing him, as instructed, he would have avoided pain.  And there have been so many other instances when his anger has led him to break something and/or hurt himself.  We hated that he was hurting but it could have been a lot worse.  So, in the end, he got an invaluable life lesson at a pretty minimal cost.

Amusingly, while he was really mad at Max at first, later that day he told us, "I actually like Max.  I've always wanted a scar like this."  I guess we weren't the only ones who saw a silver lining to the experience.

Even with all of these exasperating moments, we have so many other, shining moments that make us feel so proud.  After going outside to practice basketball one morning he surprised me by rushing back in.  He told me, "It's weeding season.  I'm going to get my gloves.  Ms. Cynthia has weeds in her yard."  He got right to work, all on his own.  

A day or two later he saw a neighbor helping in her yard and, once again, he ran to get his gloves and help out.  He isn't always this willing when it comes to extra chores for me but he just loves service.  Maybe we're doing a couple things right.  

Something else I wanted to document this month was the continuing saga of his Valentine.  As I mentioned last month, Atticus had announced to us, his friends and to the special friend that he had a crush on her.  He even made her a valentine well before the 14th.  A couple weeks later (only a couple days before Valentine's Day) he came in to the house, grabbed the valentine and threw it in the garbage.  All the while he kept saying, repeatedly "I'm done!  I'm DONE!"  

When asked what had happened, he explained that he had felt that expectations were too high, mentioning to me, "No matter what I do, no matter how nice I am, it's never good enough!"  I did my best to keep a straight face but my goodness, I was chuckling on the inside.  When asked a few days later if he wanted to make a valentine for any of his friends he responded, "No way.  I'm not doing that again.  My heart got broken." 

Now, don't you worry.  The two of them are still good friends and Atticus's heart seems just fine to me.  Maybe (hopefully) it's a little wiser.  

The last thing I wanted to note about this month has been our bad luck.  Atticus had basketball on Tuesday nights, which was just fine.  The only problem was that the season got interrupted due to some renovaions at the recreation center.  This meant that we were almost a month behind schedule.  

Then we found out that he would start having church activities every other Tuesday.  This would have been doable.   We could just have alternated, going to each activity every other week.  But then we heard from his soccer coach.  The coach wanted to start practices a few weeks early and he, too, wanted to hold practices on the very same day, at the same time.  

We talked it over numerous times and, ultimately, we decided to give up basketball.  He has had fun and has progressed so much (he even scored once each in the last two games) but he just loves soccer.

  

He loves soccer so much, in fact, that the last two times we have gone to the library he has brought home a pile of books about soccer.  Just a couple days ago he grabbed our sidewalk chalk and drew a soccer field out on our cul-de-sac.  He even drew a miniature field for Hinckley.  It's actually pretty fun to play on.  

Speaking of playing, wow.  You should watch him.  He gets better every day.  Tonight he got a hat trick while playing in a scrimmage with his new team.

Here he is with his Sunday school class.  They are a giggly bunch.  You gotta love his laugh.

Atticusisms:

• "I'm putting an extra vote!" (Whispered to me after he raised both his hands to sustain someone at church.)
• "There's the judge!" (Said loudly at church while pointing at our friend who is running for office.  Atticus asked for a bunch of his campaign cards and has handed them out to our neighbors.  The boy seems to have no fear!  Well, sometimes.  See the following quote.)
• "Please help me to forget all the (scary) things that my friends have told me and that my dad has told me..." (While praying- he is SO afraid right now of scary monsters that he's heard about from some of his friends.  It's been a little debilitating for him.)

These brothers.  They do fight but it's so fun when they get along.  In the picture below Hinckley is posing so Atticus can paint his portrait.  I wish I had captured Atticus's pose from just before this when Hinckley was painting him.

Oh, Hinckley.

This kid has such an imagination.  We love it but my goodness is it messy.  

Remember the soccer fields that Atticus drew on the street?  Well, Hinckley decided he wanted to draw his own fields.  There were 7 or 8 of them, in total, all in the funniest, roundish, lumpy little shapes.  One was drawn next to a car parked on the side of the street, so the side of the field next to the car was reeeally skinny and then it got really fat beyond the car, almost making it look like a butcher's knife.  

I was a little confused at first because one of the fields looked really different from the rest.  It had green scribbles all over it.  Hinckley was quick to explain that it was grass.  Then, upon closer inspection, I saw that, while the other fields didn't have green chalk scribbles, there were little sprigs of rosemary on them.  It only took me a second to guess the reason- drawing the chalk was tiring so the rosemary would serve as the grass, instead.  

He proudly showed me his fields and asked to play against me on each one.  How could I refuse such an invitation?  We played a little one-on-one on almost every field, moving on after he scored a few points on me.  I felt like I was reading a book, every aspect of the whole experience was so entertaining to me.

 

There are so many other experiences that feel similar to the one above.  Hinckley has two wooden blocks that he calls his phones.  One is his "work" phone and the other is his "personal" phone, just like his daddy.  He often will receive calls from very important people, like Spin or Spidey.  On occasion, however, he'll receive a call and slam it down in disgust.  "It was a scam call!" he'll announce, angrily.  I can totally relate, little dude.

Less hilarious but just as memorable have been the truly spectacular messes he has been leaving.  

There was one day, in particular, that his imaginative, tornado-like play left me speechless.  He had cut up a wrapper into dozens of small pieces, telling me he wanted to put it together to make a blanket for his Batman Legos.  Then he had put them all in a bowl of water and wanted to microwave them together.  When I told him he couldn't microwave them he had placed the bowl with its contents outside, spilling water on his way.  He had left a huge mess of Legos and wrapper pieces in the kitchen.  Then he abandoned this idea when he thought about listening to a song.  Then he paused the song and disappeared upstairs.  He reappeared having shed all his clothes and was now shirtless, wearing only athletic shorts and boxing gloves on (I discovered all of his clothes strewn about in the playroom, incidentally.)  He began the song again and started air boxing to the beat.  It was "Believer" by Imagine Dragons, if anyone was wondering.  He was recreating the music video.

Later that same day, he filled all of the bowls you see above with water and explained that he had left them on the floor for his wolf family.  When asked to clean up the mess he responded, "I can't!  I'm drawing something!"  

Sometimes I think I'm going crazy and lose all patience.   Other times it's all I can do not to laugh my head off.  It's like Anne from Anne of Green Gables had a little brother with her same imagination.  

The last thing I wanted to note was my experience taking him to a speech evaluation.  He is still not pronouncing the letter "L" or "R" correctly, so his pediatrician said we could make an appointment.  

He talked with a few different specialists and was cracking us all up as he did so.  He was so animated, telling them his name was "Petuh Pawkuh," refusing to tell them his real name for a while.  Finally he relented, telling them he was "Petuh Pawkuh Maes." 

 

At one point, one of the women asked him what he should do if he walked into a dark room.  He was supposed to say, "Turn on the light."  Unfortunately for the specialist, he was in full superhero mode and kept insisting, "That's okay, I like the dark!"  It took her a lot of time (and some help from me) to rephrase the question so he would talk about turning on the light ("Hinckley, what if I was in the room and I was afraid of the dark?")

He is a NUT!  He can drive us nutty, with him, but we sure love him.

Hinckley speaks:

• "Dear Heavenly Father, please, thank you fo this day.  Please bless me that I can get a pet tiguh..." (Atticus was quick to interrupt, "God won't answer that, Hinckley!")
• "It's time to do church for my Legos." (He then set up a small sacrament for them.  Oh dear...)
• "This is gross!" (said in a Batman voice.)  "Don't say that!  It's mean!" (said in a Hinckley voice to one of his Lego Batmen, as though he was trying to protect Mommy's feelings.)
• "This Batman looks weak." ("Are you sure?  He's got some pretty big muscles...") "No, he looks really weak." (Said of a Batman figurine that is almost identical to two figurines he has at home.  The only difference is that this one had blue on it and his have gray and black.)
• "I love Atticus and Daddy and Mommy and Lucy... (continues naming family members) and Heavenly Father and Jesus and Heavenly Mother and everybody in the woyuld."

I'd show you more pictures of him brushing his teeth but we discovered he was extending his middle finger in a few of them.  We're 99% sure he didn't know what he was doing... but then again, did he?

 

Here is his valentine's box monster that he made at Joy School.  His is the furthest to the left.

Oh yeah, it was Valentine's Day this month!  The picture above shows you the epic mess Lucy gave me for Valentine's Day.  I thought she had ruined our tomato sprouts.  Fortunately, I was able to save almost all of them.  I was not a very nice person for a good 15 minutes, though.

It was a fun day.  We're trying really hard to keep it a simple day with low expectations.  I wrote valentines for the children on their doors, the boys got paint supplies and a few treats, we have crepes for breakfast, heart sandwiches for lunch and a Papa Murphy's heart-shaped pizza for dinner with Martinelli's and a candle-lit dinner.

Here is our little cupcake the day before Valentine's Day.  She is so stinking cute.

Don't let that smile deceive you!  This little lady can be such a rascal.   She has taken to putting her foot up on the table when she eats.  She is constantly climbing onto the counter and just loves to push her brother's buttons- especially Hinckley's (maybe it's because he's easier to reach?)

Still, we love her little dimples and this month, we added to her style.  She has learned to sit still for her hair and I've figured out how to put elastics and bows in it.  Yay!  

She loves her books more than ever and can even sit still for a couple of them.  Usually she is up and down getting more and more books.  

We figured out that the major reason she was so miserable with her cold was that she was teething- getting her upper eye teeth, to be exact.  

This month she has become absolutely obsessed with her dad.  Whenever she hears the garage door open or close she gets excited, thinking that "Dada" is home.  She jumps up repeating, "Dada!" over and over and starts heading for the door.  Daddy gets all the kisses and snuggles.  I love it so much.

Instead of bringing me cashews she now brings me bowls all day long, asking for food (she really wants cashew yogurt and granola.)  It feels like we never have clean bowls!

She is so smart.  Whenever she can see that we're getting upset (either with her or a situation) she starts to wave and say, "Hi!"  It is a very effective method of calming us down.  It reminds me of how at her age Atticus would try to distract me if he was getting in trouble by saying, "Apples...peanut butter!" as though he was hungry and Mom should forget all else in order to get him some food.

Listen to Lucy:

• "Dow" ("Down." It's said for "Up," as well, though she's getting better at it.)
• "Uh." ("Up")
• "Ow!" (Just started saying this loudly.  It's less about getting hurt and more about anything that gets in her way.)
• "Pizzz" (Her "Please" is improving!)
• "Buh-bye" 

Homeschool was definitely not as consistent this month.  I taught Joy School one week which took some of our time and then we felt like we lost a week when Lucy got sick.  Still, we had some fun.

We started out by talking about Ancient Mesopotamia and made some cuneiform cylinder seals.  I don't know if you knew this but legends existed anciently about a man who could take the form of a spider...  Okay, not really.  But Hinckley's cylinder turned out pretty well. 

We also studied bugs and read TONS of books about them.  They were all so fascinating and gross!!  The Scorpion book was so disturbing that we had to stop reading it when we were 3/4ths of the way through.  Even Atticus said he was feeling a little sick to his stomach.  Our favorite part of our insect study had to be reading Charlotte's Webb.  I never get tired of that story and I'm pretty sure it was Hinckley's first time being engaged for an entire chapter book.  

We drew some spiders and even made spider meatballs.  Delicious!

We also studied the Holy Land, which has fit in well since we are studying the Old Testament all year.  We learned some songs in Hebrew and even held our own Shabbat dinner.  It was fun and I'd love to do it again next year.

We ended the month by finishing Little Lord Fauntleroy.  It was so sweet and a great reminder of the influence a mother can have for good (or bad!)  I'm so grateful to be where I am.  Wish as I might, I   can't cure the world of its immediate problems (and it really is on fire- we are praying and fasting for the people of Ukraine) but I can do my best in my home.  We live in a dark time, no doubt about it.  It might seem hopeless but there is always hope when there are mothers filling their children's hearts with love and light.