Weekly Highlights:
Microwave, Dining, Wet Socks, Playing at Matt & Becky's, and the Refuge of Mommy
Matthew: I goed to the store at Wal-Mart. And I got a microwave with Daddy and Nathan and not Mommy and Hayley. They were staying at our house. I becided to eat dinner. I becided to get the rice and the pineapple without the peppers. And I forgot to go outside with socks on. And I didn't go downstairs outside. Now there are two outsides – one down there and one up here. [Split-level house – front yard and back yard by way of deck or basement] Yeah. I goed with someone else to Becky's house and Matt's house; I goed out and play at the park [the "quad" as Hayley calls it, between the apartments, which has slides, sandbox, and lots of toys with wheels.] I got to ride on the twicicle and the 'cooter and the t'uck too and on…and a wot of sings wit' wheels and I gotta go to dose. And the cart – I did ride in the cart and in the t'uck and I'm done now.
[A few minutes later, Matthew begins again] I...I, I – becided to get a microwave with Nathan and Daddy. AND I goed to Wal-Mart. And the other green car was in the grass out there. And I…and I…and Nathan was getting something with me – like cars…He was hitting me on the head and on the finga' and on my head and on my finga' – wite here! and wite here! and wite here! – and then I goed to mom.
Mom: And did I give you a hug?
Matthew: Yeah. {suddenly noticing his mom and giving her a hug.} Mommy – You got your pajamas on! [Matthew runs down the hall, yelling] – Mommy, are you getting your pillow?! [Matthew has gone to "help" his mom].
Music Practice & Random Acts of Kindness
Nathan: I went to Music Class. And I um uh…And I get to play the bells that they gave me. There are words….I mean there are letters on the bells. And we play with mallets on them – they're just 'bing, bong, bing bong, bing bong bong.' And I get to do homework and I already did some homework.
Dad: We've got to tell them what the homework is.
Nathan: The homework is, well from my music class and it's called the Big Big Red Balloon.
Dad: You sing it?
Nathan: You draw some and color them in. And you get to do this big red balloon thing where the balloon gets stuck between the wire and on the wire.
Dad: And that tells you what note it is?
Nathan: Yeah! It goes up up up up or down down down down. And we sing a song with it called, "My Dad Took Me to the Circus in the Mary Month of June." (And Nathan sings a few bars: "and the favorite thing I got there was a big big red balloon! And it went up up up up up up and it floated and it floated and and it floated I wanted it to come back down down down down – I got it!" Hayley joins in with the singing.) And we got some red balloons, and mine popped. (Nathan and Hayley also sang the Barnyard song in tandum, it was quite cute.)
Dad: Was there anything else in your week?
Nathan: Yeah. I sleeped a lot of nights. And, um, I got to ride my bike on the deck. I just carried and carried mine and Matthews bike and we rided…
Mom: "and rode"?
Nathan: And rode and rode and rode. My bike.
Mom: Nathan had carried his bike up to the deck and he was riding around. And Matthew came to the sliding door and wanted to ride his bike too. So Nathan went to the Garage and got Matthew's bike and carried it up all the stairs so Matthew could ride his bike too. And tell them about how you made everybody's bed!
Nathan: We made…I made my bed and then Matthew's bed and then Hayley's bed. It was so tiring! I wanted to see all of the pictures that were on the blankets. I did Hayley's with the strawberry blanket, mine with the Cars blanket, and Matthews with the yellow blanket.
Books, Music, and a "Lemony-Cinnamony" Reception Cake
Hayley: I read some exciting books. One was called the BFG. The BFG is really a big giant that's called "The Big Friendly Giant." I read another book called "Danny the Champion of the World" – he's learning how to poach. Poaching is trying to kill—what are these birds called—pheasants. Danny and his father live in an old caravan behind a gas station. Then he goes to school with a very bad teacher. The teacher had been in the army. One time he and his friend were sitting together in school his friend asked him a question "what are two sevens" and Danny answered it. And the teacher caught them and got all of what they had been doing out of them (cheating) and then he summoned him up to the front of the class. Then he took a white cane from the wall, lifted it up in the air, and brought it down, "thwack!" on Danny's hand. And then he did the same to his friend. His friend was called Sidney.
Dad: Hayley, are you going to tell us the whole book?
Hayley: No. Another book I read was the BFG.
Dad: You already told us about that one.
Hayley: It's about a girl named Sophia. She's an orphan. She's up late because she can't go to sleep and then she sees the BFG. The BFG lives in a cave is in a mountain colored blue in a yellow-colored wasteland. The other giants that live with him are mean giants that eat people.
Dad: You've told us about two books – is that all you did this week? Tell us what else you did.
Emily: It's good that she's reading. It doesn't have to be…
Hayley: One time I went to music class. We go one Tuesday every week. One Tuesday our mom comes with us and another Tuesday, only Nathan and me. There are other people in our class. There is me, Heidi, and I can't remember the other one. The other ones are preschoolers, but we still learn a lot. Sometimes we play the bells along to a CD that we have. We even got puppets – there's a song on the CD that talks about the puppets, there are different kinds of songs for different puppets.
Dad: Hayley, anything else?
Hayley: Last week we went to Aunt Christa's reception. I met a lot of new friends there. And for the first time in my life, I learned to play soccer. We had cake there. It was kind of like a lemony-cenimony cake with white frosting. We had fun. It was a long way to where the reception was. Because it was in Layton and I live in Orem so it was a long way. I met Maurine, Becky, and Grandma. Becky and Grandma and Maurine were there because Mommy and they had been at "A Woman's Conference." Time out for Women, actually. I saw Steve and Christa in their wedding clothes at the reception. There were Steve's family-Lots of people were there...
Emily's Two, Somewhat-Brief Summary Comments
Emily: Time out for Women was wonderful. And I feel like things are coming together-we're still getting the kinks out of our new situation. (Emily says she can write next week. So be ever-vigilant and watchful - her exciting update cometh).
Playing with Kids, Glenn's Performance, and…Dave's Nerdy Side
Dave: You already know that I goed to Wal-Mart. You can guess that I also attended a wedding reception and took the kids to play at Matt and Becky's (I had a lot of fun there kicking a ball back and forth with Hayley who seems to really enjoy soccer since she played at the reception). I spent a good portion of the time Emily was gone doing something very nerdy – I was organizing about 60 books that I've read on GoodReads.com—that is, when I wasn't doing kid duty. On another day, I put the kids to work hosing the dry spots of the lawn and garden. They were very diligent, you might expect. Let's see – our little family went to have the "Glenn McMillan Unplugged Live Performance" experience at Muse Music along with Becky & Tessa (his beloved wife to whom he dedicated two songs) & Shanna Phelfrey (esteemed cousin) and a modest crowd of Thursday-night club-goers. Prior to the show, we even got to have dinner with Glenn and Tessa in their very own home. The kids had a rockin' good time and Glenn is a very brave stage man to perform to a crowd like he does-putting it all out there at full volume.
Emily and I read Macbeth for our book club last week. I should mentions that we meet with a handful of "homeschoolers" interested in Thomas Jefferson Education every Thursday and talk about a book and what we're learning from it to apply to our own lives. We're reading Leadership and Self Deception this week. This was a text from a very important class I took at BYU—one of my favorites. Go out and find it and read it – it's neither expensive, thick, nor difficult to read, but it is HUGELY helpful in relationships (particularly your relationship with yourself and, indirectly by extension—if you pay any attention to the spiritual side of your nature—your relationship with God—although that's not stated in the text). So I'm looking forward to tomorrow night's book club meeting.
I started work this week. So far, while the state of Utah confers with the state of Idaho regarding my background check, education, and licensure issues, I am pretty much sitting and reading case files and policies of the facility this week. I don't yet have such necessaries as keys or an office and have to be escorted by some other employee when I'm with the school residents. The therapist I will be replacing (a huge former semi-pro football player) was good enough to "supervise" at least brief 15-minute introductions with the boys that will be on my starting caseload of six. Maybe by next week I'll do some therapy. J
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