7 Quick Takes about Painting the Sistine Chapel, Being Reminded to Death, and Bait that Tries Really Hard

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Having kids get older is wild. One minute they're toddlers you can't take your eyes off of for 15 seconds or they'll find a way to kill themselves or destroy the house, and the next minute they’re big kids who could stay home alone all day long if there's leftover pizza in the fridge

This week I asked the 10-year-old, my littlest buddy in the family, “I have go to the hardware store, wanna come with me?”

Looking up, he politely declined and said, "No, but I’ll give you a hug goodbye.”

—2—

We're currently in the middle of painting our living room. It's a beast to paint because of the high ceiling. We rented a scaffolding from Home Depot and that makes it less scary than a ladder, but it's still a pain in the butt. 

Yesterday I did the first coat on the blue wall... it took me 2 and a half hours (not including taping) because of all the tediousness of getting up and down from the scaffolding and moving it around.

Yes, we know the top level of the scaffolding is crooked, Phillip is putting it together and hadn't adjusted both sides yet. Don't worry, Mom, there is a railing for the top.

Until we finish painting, the house is a mess. The piano is in the middle of the living room, which the kids actually love. 

The contents of the bookshelf are in piles on the dining room floor (the other day, someone asked like it was totally normal, "Can you hand me Throne of Fire off the second stack from the end?") 

The couch is in the entryway, right by the bathroom so it looks like a waiting area. Actually, we really could have used a waiting area when all 6 kids lived at home. 

—3—

We have the scaffolding rented for one week, and it's a lot of work so I knew that we (mostly meaning I, because Phillip is at work all week) needed to focus and prioritize well in order to finish in 7 days. 

I know that, but once Phillip took out all the seats in the van to bring the scaffolding home, I got distracted by how dirty the van was and spent two hours deep cleaning it.

Sometimes I realize that my productivity is misguided, but I let the irresistible compulsions win because who knows when I'm going to feel like doing that particular unpleasant task again. Best to just go with it while it's still there.

—4—

My 14-year-old thinks I’ll forget everything unless she reminds me. Before I'm supposed to pick her up, for example, I'll usually get a text from her saying "If you haven't left, you should leave now." 

I'm offended. Of course I remember! Don't you trust me? I said I would! About 90% of the time, it's insulting. Of course, there's always that 10% when I actually would have forgotten had she not reminded me. (Which I guess is why she does it.)

But still, sometimes I get a little grouchy at her reminders:

—5—

Our family needs a new TV series to watch for family "pizza and a show" night, so we pulled up Netflix and took a vote on what to try next. We settled on a series called Raising Dion. As I watched the first episode unfold, it seemed like a very straightforward coming-of-age story about a young superhero learning to control his powers.

I was not expecting 8 minutes before the end the discovery of a mysterious note in a dead man's pocket, making me correct myself ("Oh, this is actually going to be a mystery") or 2 minutes before the end for them to randomly see ghosts, making me correct myself again ("Wait, is this a ghost story now? I'm confused.")

Just before the show started meandering across all the genres, Phillip had to leave to pick up the 14-year-old from a school event, so it was a little hard to catch him up because I had no idea where they were going with all of this. If you know, don't spoil it, we're going to give Episode 2 a shot next week.

—6—

Saw this sign for fish bait outside of a gas station:

The small print at the bottom says "our worms catch fish or die trying!" It's a little gruesome, but true and effective advertising.

—7—

I subbed in nursery at church for the last few weeks and saw the cutest thing. After playtime, a snack, and a short lesson, we had just started blowing bubbles for the kids to dance around in when one 3-year-old's mom came to pick her up. 

Surrounded by floating incandescent bubbles, she jumped up and down in her sparkly dress and squealed in her little chipmunk voice "Mom, we learned about sharing! And Jesus!" 

If it had been a scene in a movie, I would've rolled my eyes and thought, "This screenwriter has never met a child in their whole life." But this actually happened. It was definitely the most wholesome thing I've ever seen.

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7 Quick Takes about Makeshift Scaffolding, Ancient Relics, and Life Skills You Gain at Age 44

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

We started painting the main area of our house! It's been a decision that was long-overdue, but we procrastinated because of the pain it is to try to work on the two-story areas. 

We even got a quote from a professional painter to come do it, but I could never in my heart of hearts bring myself to pay someone 4 times as much to do a job we could technically do on our own.

Phase One was tackling the stairwell, which involves a DIY scaffolding that was technically sturdy but felt very precarious to be up on.

You wouldn't know it from this picture, but Phillip absolutely hates heights.

As Phillip was finishing up, he said he was starting to feel kind of dizzy so I asked, "Do you want to take a break? Do you want some water or food? What can I do to help?"

"Just... stand there," he said.

"For moral support?"

"Well, someone’s got to tell the cops what happened."

Everything ended up fine, by the way.

—2—

When we set up the scaffolding to paint, I was especially excited to extract the Nerf dart in the lampshade in the picture above. It's been there for years but it wasn't exactly easy to get out, being situated high in the air over a set of stairs.

When we went in to retrieve the Nerf dart, we also found a wool dryer ball inside, in case you're wondering what it's like to have boys.

Also while I was painting, my 14-year-old complimented my jeans and told me it was too bad I got them all full of paint because they were so cute. This was an old bootcut number from 1999 that I decided was too embarrassing and out-of-style to be seen in public anymore years ago.

—3—

My kids assemble their school lunches the night before, so one evening as we were trying to get the kids ready for bed I yelled to one of my boys and asked, "Did you pack your lunch?"

"No!" came a distant response from deep in the house.

"Where are you?" I yelled back.

"In the bathroom!" came the answer.

Someone in the family had the audacity to look at me and say, "We could say he's unpacking his lunch."

I love being a mom and think it's the best job in the world, but sometimes I could really use some PTO.

—4—

In what feels like maybe a related note to Take #2, I went to pick up a WalMart order and when the employee handed it to me through the car window, he saw my phone and said, "Woah! That's an old iPhone!"

I wasn't offended. It is old. So I laughed and figured that would be the end of the interaction. But he couldn't stop marveling at such an ancient artifact. "What year is that?" he wanted to know.

I'm not techy and I don't buy the household phones so I told him I wasn't sure, and in the end he walked away muttering "That's an OLD iPhone.” 

I’m sure he’s still telling his friends about that day.

—5—

This week I’ve been working very hard to get ready for my new online seminary class. (In the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints, seminary is what we call the weekday religious class for teenagers. I'm not handing out doctorates in theology, but I'm flattered you think that.)

Anyway, my co-teacher and I spent all week setting things up online, visiting our students before the first day of class to deliver their materials and say hello, and practicing using all of Zoom's features like breakout rooms and whiteboards for the first lesson on Thursday.

It went... okay.

Zoom teaching is a bazillion times harder than classroom teaching. I’m still figuring it out, and the kids are still figuring me out, so as time goes on I hope we'll all get more comfortable. Thoughts and prayers are appreciated.

—6—

This is the time of year when my inbox is flooded with emails from all the middle and high school teachers with subjects like “Welcome to 7th grade math!” 

Respectfully,  I'm not in 7th grade math. I'll talk with a teacher if there's a specific concern that my kid can't resolve by themself, but there's really no reason I would need to know the daily ins and outs of the classroom late work policy. By the time my kids are in middle and especially high school, I feel like that’s their job to know and manage, not mine. 

And they do know what the late work policy is. I know that because after the first day they brought home a paper copy of the class expectations that I had to sign for some reason.

—7—

The best thing I ever did for my back was to start lifting weights. It totally taught me how to bend over and pick up stuff the right way. I couldn’t do it wrong now if I tried. 

The right way, if you’re wondering, is to hinge your back. Imagine you’re holding a broomstick (or go get an actual one, I don’t care.) Put it in front of you so your head, chest, and pelvis are all touching the broomstick. Now imagine you have to bend over and pick something up, while keeping all those points of contact.

I shared my observation about learning to hinge correctly with Phillip and he replied, "My hip mobility exercises are teaching me to walk the right way. My hip doesn't hurt anymore after I go for a run."

So at 44 and 45 years old, I’m learning to bend over and he's learning to walk. This is great.

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7 Quick Takes about More College Move-Ins, Adventures in Milwaukee, and Topics for Your Next Luncheon

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

After moving my 18-year-old freshman son into college last week, it was time to help my 22-year-old super-senior daughter do the same.

Her off-campus apartment this year is a real upgrade. Last year she lived in a character-building place (i.e: a poor college kids' dump,) but this semester's apartment is a respectable place for an adult to live. 

After moving in her stuff, I asked her to stand on the steps of her building so I could take a picture.

“Is this my first day of school photo?” she joked.

Yes. First day of 17th grade. We're very proud.

—2—

When I wasn't busy moving both kids into their respective college living spaces, I spent the rest of the visit with my family in the area. I stayed with my in-laws and spent a lot of time with my little niece and nephew.

We took them to the zoo, and it was a great time. They rode the carousel, fed a giraffe, and could have touched the lions if there wasn’t two inches of safety glass between us.

Too young to realize that this is pretty cool.

As cool as the close-up lions where, I had to say my favorite was these monkeys taking a nap. It’s kind of hard to tell what’s going on in the picture but there are four of them huddled together, each pair with their tails wrapped around each other.

—3—

My in-laws introduced us to a card game called Flip 7, which is kind of like family-friendly Blackjack. I quickly got the reputation for being the worst gambler at the table. It was well-deserved. I always push my luck too far and lose everything. Everyone kept joking that I should never go to Vegas. 

When my 14-year-old won, she said, “I also won Blackjack when I played with my friends for cookies. Maybe I should go to Vegas.”

Okay, fine. I'll drive her, but I'm staying in the car.

—4—

Our flight home was sort of a disaster. We had a connection in Chicago, but there was a thunderstorm when we got there and no planes were allowed to land or take off. So we just circled around the airport for a half hour. 

Not a big deal, because our connecting flight was also grounded in Chicago with the thunderstorm and was going to be just as late as we were. 

But then we started running out of gas and had to divert to Milwaukee to refuel. We waited an hour in line to refuel, waited some more for some passengers to get off who just said "Screw it, I want off this plane and I'll make my own way home from here," and then waited another hour for our turn to take off and go back to Chicago. By this time, flights were moving again in Chicago and our connection left without us.

Luckily we were able to squeeze on to a flight leaving later that night and made it home by 1 AM.

—5—

Did I mention that this was the night before school started for my three K-12 kids?

As you can imagine, I woke up at 6:45 to get them up for school feeling like Ryan Gosling coming out of his coma in Project Hail Mary. I was sleep-deprived and disoriented from going straight from all-day flight saga to rushed school morning routine for three. But it was manageable because Phillip is amazing.

Over the past year, we've been having lots of conversations about the mental load at home, and this was the big, beautiful payoff. 

He arrived at the airport with food for me and our daughter and briefed me on the way home about all 3 kids' first-day after-school activities. He didn't ask me about them, he briefed me on them. He'd already checked the calendar, thought through everything that needed to happen for each item, and researched the murky details on after-school soccer tryouts and made sure our son had cleats that fit. I came home to a reasonably clean kitchen where he'd planned, prepped, and packed the kids' lunches, remembering what each one likes and that one of our kids has to meet a specific calorie count from his nutritionist. When I went to print a copy of our son's class schedule for his school binder, Phillip had already done it for me.

The amount of space this stuff takes up in your brain is HUGE, you guys. Having your partner share it is life-changing. I don't want to bash Phillip at all, but in the past I may or may not have had to remind him which grade the kids were in. Now he knows each of their school start times and, more importantly, everything that needs to happen in order to get them there.

—6—

I went to a laundromat to wash our pillows and comforters in the large-capacity machines and oh my goodness, it was such a cute place.

It looks like it's right out of the 1950s. The machines still take quarters. I can't even remember the last time I put a quarter in a machine for anything. I was probably 6 years old getting stickers out of a plastic egg.

—7—

Back in 2019, I went to a luncheon of church ladies where someone had the idea to "go around the table and say what we're reading right now." Well, I outed myself as a complete weirdo, since at the moment I was reading the book Stiff: The Curious Lives of Human Cadavers by Mary Roach. (I probably raved about it a little too much, now that I think about it.) 

Fast-forward to a few months ago, and one of the sweet ladies who was at that luncheon approached me after church and said, "I remember how you said you loved that other book by Mary Roach. This is for you!"

So now I'm reading Gulp: Adventures on the Alimentary Canal. If anyone wants to invite me to your next dinner party, we can go around that table and I can share a lot of disgusting facts about the process of digestion. Or maybe you want to pick a different topic of conversation. It's up to you.

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The Educational Summer Vacation: Studying Malaysia

Since 2012, my kids and I have been learning about countries of the world during summer vacation. You can read about how it started here (at the time, I thought we were doing it for just that one summer) or you can follow along and study Malaysia with us!

Disclaimer: There are affiliate links in this post. If you click them and buy something, the cost stays the same to you but I will receive a small commission for referring you. Thank you!

Monday

While the kids found Malaysia on the big wall map, I told them a little bit about the country. Thirty-two million people live in Malaysia, and it's actually two separate land masses: Peninsular Malaysia and Eastern Malaysia on the island of Borneo. 

In the past, the kids also would've filled out the passport pages I made for them but they didn't want to this time. At ages 10 and 12, they've almost outgrown doing The Educational Summer Vacation so I'm not going to push it.

If you're from the U.S., the flag of Malaysia is going to look a little familiar. They didn't copy us, though. It's inspired by the flag design of the East India Company, which also looks suspiciously like the U.S. flag. So maybe we copied the idea?

 The 14 stripes and the 14 points of the star represent each of the 13 states and the national government. The blue is for the Malay people, the yellow is for the Malay rulers, the star is for unity and the cresent is for Islam.

We watched a travel vlog on Malaysia to get a feel for the country and what it's like there. Then we read a picture book called Kancil and the Crocodiles, where a trickster named Sang Kancil the mousedeer fooled some crocodiles into making a bridge so he could get to a tree full of rambutan fruit. (He's a regular character in Southeast Asian folktales.)

As we were reading the story I recognized the picture of the rambutan and said, "Hey! I've seen those at the grocery store!" So the next time I went shopping I picked some up. 

Not super-ripe... but this is New England, not Southeast Asia. I'm okay with it.

They came with instructions on how to eat them, which I appreciated. First, you saw through the thick  spiky/hairy red skin. Inside, there's a squishy oval about the size of an eyeball. You squeeze it out of the skin, pop it into your mouth, and then spit out the pit inside. I thought the fruit tasted like a grape, only milder. 

My husband loved rambutan and wants to buy them every week, the 12-year-old couldn't get past the freaky appearance to even try one. Everyone else was in the middle.

Tuesday

One of the most iconic landmarks in Malaysia is the Petronas Towers in the capital, Kuala Lumpur. It's twin towers connected by a skybridge, and they were once that tallest buildings in the world.

 

My 12-year-old is really into architecture right now, so we watched this video on the engineering of the Petronas Towers  and then I asked him to use his hand-me-down set of fancy architecture Legos to build a replica. 

He said he only had enough pieces for one, and we could just imagine the other one and the skybridge.  

Just north of Kuala Lumpur is Batu Caves, a series of limestone caves that was developed into a Hindu shrine in the 1890s. There's a giant gold statue of Lord Murugan (the Hindu god of war, victory, and wisdom) and 272 rainbow steps to climb in order to reach the cave.

(My 10-year-old was especially impressed with this drone flyover video of the caves, when the drone zips through the little window on top of one of the buildings.)

In Northern Malaysia, there's a place called Eagle Square. This site has a virtual tour, but be aware that your kids will 100% get frustrated that they can't move around in it like a video game, they can just look around.

Near Pengang (also north of Kuala Lumpur) is a place called George Town. George Town is a popular tourist destination not only for of the architecture, but also for the street art you can see everywhere. 

We checked out some examples in this blog post, where the artist puts a real bike or swing or chair in front of a wall and then paints something on the wall to complement it. I asked my kids to creatively combine a drawing and a 3D object, and this is what my 10-year-old came up with:

Scrat, the saber-toothed squirrel from Ice Age.

Wednesday

The half of Malaysia that is in Borneo is about 60% rainforest and is famous for outdoor adventure and incredible wildlife.   

For example, there are 238 species of birds in Borneo! I knew my 12-year-old would be interested in that. He's gone crazy with the Merlin app and now when we're out and about, he'll hear a distant bird call, incline his ear, and announce to us all, "That's a rose-breasted grosbeak." He's an old soul.

We read about a refuge in Borneo that rehabilitates and releases orphaned orangutans in the book How to Babysit an Orangutan and then I also gave the kids Adventures of Riley: Operation Orangutan to read on their own time. Another one, which I don't think they read but they theoretically could have, was Undaunted: The Wild Life of Birute Mary Galdikas and Her Fearless Quest to Save Orangutans.

Another interesting animal to see in Borneo is the proboscis monkey, and the kids really appreciated the sound effects in this video:

In Borneo's rainforests you might also glimpse the rafflesia flower, which is called the "corpse flower" because it stinks like rotten meat! The kids remembered it from when we studied Indonesia, though, so we didn't spend too much time on it.

For lunch, we had the national dish of Malaysia, nasi lemak. It's essentially Southeast Asian charcuterie, and therefore super simple to make. Especially because I cheated and used frozen chicken tenders to substitute for Malay fried chicken.

Not authentic but we tried.

Nasi lemak starts with coconut rice served in the center of the plate in a dome, surrounded with cucumber slices, hardboiled eggs, and peanuts. One of mine is allergic to peanuts so he had almonds. And in place of spicy sambal, which is time-consuming and my kids wouldn't eat it anyway, we made a fake substitute out of sauteed onions, ketchup, soy sauce, and brown sugar. Malaysian grandmas, don't come for me. I did what I had to do.

Thursday

Islam is the national religion of Malaysia, so I grabbed At the Mosque (Worship With Me) and Muslim Mosque from the library, and had the 10- and 12-year-old pick one to read and report to me on what they learned. 

We watched some footage of the National Mosque, Masjid Negara, and the famous Pink Putra Mosque. They were recognizing the features they learned about in the books, although it was unclear to us where the minaret was on the National Mosque.

Of course, there's obviously religious diversity in Malaysia, since yesterday we learned about the giant Hundu shrine at Batu Cave. So we also looked at Kek Lok Si, the largest Buddhist temple in Malaysia:

The kids didn't know very much about Buddhism so we watched this 5-minute intro to Buddhism video. I would describe the style of this video as "drinking from the firehose." They paused it multiple times to ask questions, including "wait a minute... so no one knows if Nirvana is actually a thing because once you find out, you're dead?" It was a big day with lots of thoughts.

After the video, we took out their Keva planks (I love these things) and I challenged them to build either a mosque or a Buddhist temple. They chose to work together and build a temple.

Friday

Malay is considered a relatively easy language for English-speakers to learn. There are no tones, no conjugations, no verb tenses, no articles, no noun genders, and it's written in the Latin alphabet we already know.

I told the kids about a few fun features, like how you repeat a word to pluralize it ('child' is 'budak' but 'children' is 'budak-budak') and then we watched a video teaching 30 common Malay words and phrases until they got bored.

I usually try to plan a fun activity based around the language, but I was running out of steam at this point in the summer and I knew that my brother- and sister-in-law who both served religious missions in Malaysia were coming to visit us in a few weeks, so I figured that the kids could ask them some questions then and called it good.

This summer is going by so fast, but I'm glad I could make the most of it by planning a fun week for my kids learning about Malaysia. I love it when their interests (like the birding and the building) intersect with the things we learn, and hopefully connecting the different countries with their interests will help them remember for longer. And at the very least, if they don't, then I still will.

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7 Quick Takes about College Move-Ins, Ways to Get People To Be Nicer to You, and Staying Motivated When the Going Gets Tough

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday! How was your week? 

—1—

Last week I talked about how ridiculously well-behaved my 2-year-old nephew is, whose family was staying at our house. He's absolutely obsessed with cars, so when I interrupted him playing with matchbox cars to tell him it was time to eat, he predictably said "No!"

"Time to put your cars away and eat dinner," I repeated enthusiastically, but he didn't budge.

"No!" he yelled again. But he couldn't even be bad without being good.

With an emphatic "NO!" he threw the car in his right hand in the toy bin. With another "NO!" he threw the one in his left hand. And then he took my hand to go downstairs.

However, as time went on I did see a few legitimate temper tantrums (like when we went sightseeing and his did wouldn't let him throw his favorite toy into Niagara Falls) and he also bit his siblings a few times. So that evens it out.

—2—

The day after my brother- and sister-in-law and their kids went home, I got on a plane with my 18-year-old son to drop him off at college.

There was a free arcade in the terminal (I won 2 out of 3 games of two-player Tetris) and then we watched a thunderstorm underneath us from the plane window.

It felt like that scene in James and the Giant Peach when they're floating through the rainstorm.

—3—

Moving a son into college is way different than moving in daughters. My two girls didn't have the kind of dorm rooms you see on Instagram, not even close, but they did think hard about every single item they brought. And they just had a lot more than my son did.

We brought all of his belongings to his dorm in two trips from the car, each time passing girl parents on the sidewalk carrying fuzzy ottomans and full-length mirrors and potted plants and cute pillows and air filters. We moved him in quickly, then went out to lunch and the whole thing was just... enjoyable. The most time-consuming part of the whole move-in process was probably setting up his wi-fi router.

—4—

My son's wi-fi network is named Rocky,. Can you guess why?

This is his router. Amaze, amaze.

—5—

At Target, our cashier accidentally dropped something we bought. "Sorry, it's my first day," he apologized.

When I told him he was doing great, he laughed and said "Good, because I've actually been working here for years."

It's kind of like when I leave the 'Student Driver' magnet on the car and suddenly everyone on the road is nicer to me. I think it's a valid strategy.

—6—

When i'm not moving my adult children into their college places (my 22-year-old daughter is next) I've been playing with more toddler nieces and nephews. It's been so much fun.

I'm staying with my in-laws, who babysit several days a week. It's been so nice to play pretend, make someone laugh with silly noises, and read books about farm animals again. 

My nephew is 1 and he's found an alternative to crawling: sitting up and using his heels to scoot everywhere on his butt. It looks silly, but when you think about it, crawling seems inferior because you can't hold stuff while you're doing it. 

With the butt-scoot method, he gets where he needs to go with a cracker in each hand and abs of steel. Velcro a Swiffer pad to that kid's pants and it's a win-win-win situation.

—7—

I'd like to end with an inspirational thought from my 12-year-old. 

He sometimes likes to join me when I work out, and the last workout we did together was a tough one. He was struggling with 15 seconds left on the timer so I tried to encourage him by saying, "When it gets to this point, I like to tell myself 'I can do anything for 15 seconds.'"

"You can't fly for 15 seconds," he replied. So remember that when life gets hard.

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7 Quick Takes about Not Being Prepared, Headless Cautionary Signs, and Waterfall Overload

It's 7 Quick Takes Friday Saturday! How was your week? 

—1—

This week we more or less successfully completed a multi-state, multi-family road trip with Phillip’s parents and one of his brothers and his family. I’ll spare you all the convoluted details, but trust me, it had a lot of moving parts and little kids to keep track of.

“Are you nervous?” my mother-in-law asked me the day before she flew out here to begin the trip.

“Nervous about what?” I asked. I’d been working so hard to get my college freshman ready to move in, getting the younger kids’ school supplies, figure out my seminary teacher calling before it starts, and getting the house ready for my family to stay here, I’d only spent a grand total of about 15 seconds thinking about actually being on the trip. I just didn’t have time to get that far.

So it was no surprise to me when we had to turn around and go back for our passports 20 minutes into the first leg of the drive. That was exactly the level of preparedness we were bringing to the table.

—2—

I’ve already done this trip and seen these sights before, but I’ve really enjoying spending time getting to know my brother-in-law’s kids, who are 11, 8, and 2 years old. They are unbelievably sweet, and I don’t mean that in a figurative way. I mean it literally.

“Are you even real?” I asked the 2-year-old suspiciously at the hotel breakfast on our first morning together. He was independently spoon-feeding himself a bowl of Cheerios with milk, without a bib or high chair, and his clothes were spotless. I watched as he conscientiously leaned over his bowl for each bite, and wiped his chin with his spoon afterward to catch any milk dribbles. 

For comparison’s sake, when my kids were the same age they ate meals stripped down to a diaper so they’d be easier to clean, and it still took a while to get all the food out of their eyebrows.

As I was contemplating whether or not we were actually related to this clean child, my nephew squealed and pointed at a fly that had landed on our table. My 10-year-old went to slap it, splashing a puddle of my 12-year-old’s spilled orange juice everywhere.

Forget about being on the same family tree, we may not even be on the same evolutionary tree.

—3—

Our first stop on the trip was to visit some church history sites in New York, the place of the restoration of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. (More on that here if you want to 

We saw the farm where most of the Book of Mormon was translated, the hone where the prophet Joseph Smith lived, and the woods where he went to pray and saw God and Jesus Christ. My 10-year-old climbed all the trees there. 

We also went to the shop where the first copies of the Book of Mormon were printed, and also to the hill where the original Book of Mormon plates were found. 

And then, even though it’s not a historical site (it was built in 2000), we took pictures outside the Palmyra temple.

—4—

After we finished with church history sites, we headed back toward home with a stop at Niagara Falls on the way back.

We rode on the Maid of the Mist and were the very first group to board the not-very-crowded boat, so we got prime viewing at the front. Hopefully the other people on the ship didn’t mind us all whooping and cheering to make the 2-year-old think that getting pummeled by the pounding spray was fun and not scary.

I couldn't get it all in the frame, but this rainbow was so visible we could see it curve downward into the water, looking more like a ¾ circle than an arc. If there was a pot of gold at the end, I would have seen it for sure.

When we went to Niagara 8 years ago, our youngest child got a stuffed duck wearing a Maid of the Mist poncho. It became his favorite stuffed animal, which meant that ducks became his favorite animal, and now he owns a hundred duck stuffies and paraphernalia. We had no idea we were building a core part of his personality, but parenting is like that. 

So we checked in the gift shop before we left for Ducky's brothers and sisters, and they were still there! They were also selling sloths wearing ponchos, and knowing what we know now we got the heck out of there before someone could imprint on the sloth stuffy and alter the trajectory of their entire life.

We did get a ducky Christmas ornament, though.

Stuffed ducky is looking a little threadbare these days, but this guy can stay with us forever.

—5—

At Niagara, the 10-year-old pointed out this sign and asked, “Why don’t any of the people have heads?”

I told him I didn't know and forgot all about it, until that night when I saw another headless sign at our hotel!

“Why don’t any of those people have heads?! What’s wrong with this place?” I exclaimed. This time, he was the one who had no answer.

—6—

That night, we went to a Hibachi grill for dinner. While we were entertained by the chef’s show (although our group was so big he only had time for a teeny bit of spatula-flipping and food-throwing), my 2-year-old nephew was busy playing with the brightly-lit claw machines nearby. 

We didn't put any money in it, but that didn't prevent him from having a great time. He thought he was playing a video game, reinforced by the fact that every time he looked at us we all clapped and told him he was winning the game.

My 10-year-old, though, actually did win the game. Twice. Grandpa gave him some money and he got toys out of there 2 of the 4 times he tried! I have never in my life seen or heard of anyone winning anything from a claw machine. It was weird.

—7—

Our last stop before going home was Watkins Glen State Park. My brother-in-law said it was the #3 state park in the U.S. as far as bang for your buck (scenery per square mile) and he was NOT kidding. 

We did the gorge trail, and it was like this basically the entire way down. One a half miles straight of beautiful scenery and beautiful cliff faces and beautiful waterfalls. I can't hardly even describe it.

There were just so, so many waterfalls. I think the official count is 19, and the way they organized the trails was brilliant because you went over some and under others and even behind a couple of them which was really cool. I walked part of the way with my 2-year-old nephew and he kept yelling "'Nother one waterfall! 'Nother one waterfall!" It was a really great end to the trip. 

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The Educational Summer Vacation: Studying the Dominican Republic

At the beginning of the summer, my two youngest kids (ages 10 and 12) picked a few countries to spend a week learning about! We've been doing this for years, and I can't tell you how many times my kids answer a tricky trivia question or wow their friends with an obscure fact that they learned "from doing countries." It's also very cool to have them exposed to more than what they see in our neighborhood and at school.

This week my 10-year-old picked the Dominican Republic. The Dominican Republic is half of an island called Hispaniola; the other half is Haiti. They're pretty different even though they're right together, but I guess that's another story for another week.

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Monday

We started like always, finding the Dominican Republic on our wall map and drawing the country's flag.

The flag was adopted in 1844. The red and blue are from Haiti, which once occupied it. The white cross is the symbol of peace, and the Bible on the crest is open to the verse "and truth shall make you free."

In previous years the kids would have also filled out a page of their passports, but I guess mine are too old and cool to do that anymore. Here are free printable ones if yours are not.

This dramatic video introduced the kids to the natural beauty of the Dominican Republic and life there:

 

The country is not without its problems, though. There's a lot of poverty. And tropical storms and hurricanes also plague DR, not just by causing damage and injury, but by washing tons of garbage onto the beaches. (Here's a really short clip of the garbage on Montesinos Beach after Tropical Storm Beryl in 2018.)

Another thing that the Dominican Republic is known for? Baseball. Ten percent of the players in the MLB are from the DR, which is pretty wild if you think about it. We read in a library book called Home Run Kings about one of the most famous, Sammy Sosa, whose name even I know (even though I can't usually remember which sport is the Superbowl and which one is the World Series.)

One of the most popular pastimes in the Dominican Republic is dominoes. We have a double-12 set that we play often, but I think the version we always play is called Mexican Train. We learned how to play by Dominican rules, pared down our dominoes set, and played a few rounds.

The kids thought it was okay but they missed the rules we usually play by. They're creatures of habit.

To end the day, I gave them a few books by Julia Alvarez that had to do with the Dominican Republic:

• How Tia Lola Came to Stay (fiction, ages 8-12)
• Before We were Free (YA novel for grades 7+)

Tuesday 

This 3-minute introduction to the history of the Dominican Republic was just right for the attention spans of my 10- and 12-year-old.

The Dominican Republic was originally populated by the Taíno people, who left behind rock paintings you can see today in numerous tourist sites, like those in Cueva de las Maravillas. We looked up information about the rock paintings (careful, there are probably some you want to skip discussing with your kids.)

After Christopher Columbus discovered the island and named it Hispaniola ("little Spain") in 1942, the natives were taken advantage of and kind of wiped out. Most people who live in DR today are descended from Spanish colonizers or the African slaves who they brought there.

The Dominican Republic gained independence in 1844, but remnants of Spanish colonization remain. In fact, the disputed grave of Christopher Columbus is on the island. We watched this video tour of Faro a Colón ("Columbus Lighthouse") and talked about where each of us thought his bones really ended up, in Spain or in the Dominican Republic:

Then we learned about Fortaleza Ozama, a Spanish fortress from 1505 with 6-foot thick walls. We checked out this post with pictures, and then the kids designed an ultimate protection fortress of their own creation.

I'm not totally convinced that my 12-year-old knows who M.C. Hammer is, but he named this hammer-shaped fortress after him so I guess that's something:

Guarded by robotic soldiers and something called a "black hole launcher." Sounds terrifying.

My 10-year-old wasn't to be outdone, though, and built a tower connected to the moon that was protected by lightning rods, pressure-activated missile launchers, and a pool of lava that could also blast off into space and then self-destruct in case someone managed to infiltrate it.

I hope neither of these kids work in defense when they grow up. They're both insane.

Wednesday

Did you know that a lot of Spanish words come from Arawak, the language of the Taíno people (for example, iguana comes from an Arawak word meaning "big lizard.")

We listened to this song from Calico Spanish about farm animals and their noises (I think it would have been fun to sing and dance to it as suggested, but those days are gone for my big kids) and then they filled out this AI-generated worksheet:

We also wanted to explore the music of the Dominican Republic. We learned how to dance merengue, and for days afterward my kids were laughing and saying "Speed that thang up" in a robot voice like in this video:

We read picture book called Angélica and la Güira, and then we decided to make one ourselves. (I'd always heard it called a güiro, so I looked it up: a güira is made of metal and a güiro is made of wood. So there you go.) 

I'm not a crafty person, but this tutorial was absolutely my kind of craft. You literally take a tin can or a plastic water bottle with ridges, and run a pencil across it to make a percussion sound. We played them to a merengue video. 

Bachata is another musical style also from the Dominican Republic. We listened to this playlist to hear the sound of it, but if your kids are actually Spanish-speaking you should probably pick another playlist with more appropriate lyrics.

Thursday

Every February, the Dominican Republic celebrates Canival with parades and costumed characters. It's a total party. Here are some of the standard characters you might see in a Carnival parade.

I started out the week with grand plans to make papier mache masks with the kids, but it's a little too complicated so it didn't happen... but it could for you!

Instead, we bought green plantains at the store and my husband followed this recipe to make a DR comfort food called mangu. It was pretty good! Especially since I didn't have to make it.

Friday

The Dominican Republic has some really fun animals. The solenodon (which looks like a shrew) is a venemous mammal only found on the islands of Hispaniola and Cuba. We watched this video to learn more about solendons.

The jaragua lizard, also found in DR, is the world's smallest lizard. It can fit on a dime. 

Also, humpback whales have chosen the waters around the Dominican Republic as a great place to get together during the winter breeding season, which makes it the best place in the world to go whale watching. 

I hope the videographers for this documentary on humpback whales got some kind of award for their work, because it was amazing. 

 

Afterward, I had the boys go outside and compare the lengths of each of those animals, from the 50-foot humpback whale to the 16mm jaragua lizard, in the driveway with a length of yarn. It kept them busy for a while, and tricked them into playing outside afterward when they ordinarily would've been inside reading or begging for video games.

Saturday

One more thing DR is known for is Dominican amber. It's fossilized tree resin from an extinct tree, and it's generally accepted as the most clear and beautiful kind of amber. Sometimes there are even fossilized insects or flowers inside.

I bought a bar of glycerin soap at the grocery store, and using this process from a library book called Dominican Republic by Mary Engler, the kids made "Dominican amber."

They melted down half of the glycerin soap bar in small containers, and inserted an artifact of their choice from the yard as it started to cool and harden.

The 10-year-old chose a leaf from a holly bush:

And the 12-year-old used an acorn from the yard:

It was a fun little craft, and a fun end to the week studying the Dominican Republic.

Remember how I said random knowledge from our weeks studying countries always pops up? Just after we'd finished our week in the Dominican Republic, I passed a semi on the freeway with a picture of the Dominican flag on the back. A week ago I would've wondered what country it was and had to Google it. You just never know when the things we learn are going to come in handy.

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