7 Quick Takes about Horse Pills, How to Answer a "Would You Rather" Question, and Why the 1990s Was Clearly the Superior Decade

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

—1—

Recently, my church (not my local congregation, but the worldwide organization) did a broadcast for the Primary children ages 3-11 and it was so cute. They'd never done one before and I wasn't quite sure what to expect.

When I first told our three Primary-aged kids we were going to watch it, the youngest two started rolling on the floor moaning "Noooo, we don't waaaaaant tooooooo!" and the third just narrowed her eyes and asked, "How long is it?"

The answers to their concerns were "tough rocks" and "I don't know." But luckily, it was fun (more like Sesame Street without puppets than just adults talking at them like the kids feared) and 45 minutes was the perfect length. 

If you don't have time to watch all of it, I suggest looking at the rock art segment at 28:00. Once the snow melts, we're definitely doing this for a Family Home Evening activity.

—2—

A few months ago, my rheumatologist put me on a new medicine in an effort to get my discoid lupus under control. They are the most gigantic horse pills I've ever seen.

We gradually phased them in: first I took one a day, then one in the morning and one at night, then two every morning and every night. I didn't realize that wasn't the maximum dosage, though, and when the lesion on my face had improved but hadn't gone away he upped the dose to SIX PILLS A DAY.

"I'm going to write you a 3-month prescription," he told me. "So it's going to be...540 pills."

I'm going to need a bigger medicine cabinet.

—3—

Today's trick question is brought to you by my 4-year-old:

4yo: Would you rather have zero heads or 100 heads?

Me: Hmm, I don't know. I really wouldn't like not having a head, so I guess 100 heads.

4yo: I would choose one head. [walks away]

—4—

At the grocery store where my 14-year-old is a cashier, they put bright orange stickers on unbagged items to show that they've been paid for. 

Apparently those stickers are a perfect form factor for doodling The Mandalorian and Baby Yoda.

Welcome, shoppers. This is the way.

I'm going through her lane next time. I want to go home with one of these on my milk.

—5—

This week I went a little ballistic about chores, namely the kids not doing them. So we dedicated Family Home Evening to talking about it.

We tried to make it fun. First we moved the furniture and had Phillip lie down on the floor in the living room. One at a time, each of the kids tried to pick him up. When they couldn't, we all worked together and (just barely) lifted him off the ground. The point being that we all need to work together or the house is going to turn into a landfill.

Then over ice cream, I brought out a list of things that are driving me crazy around the house (library books everywhere! chores not done! laundry that sits in the dryer creating a traffic jam for 3 days until its owner finally remembers it!) and we came up with some possible solutions to each problem.

To borrow a term from Seinfeld, I think we'll do this once a year and call it "The Airing of the Grievances." 

—6—

Speaking of TV references my kids are too young to understand, the other day I said to my teenager "How you doin'?" like Joey from Friends. 

I do this all the time, by the way. I must have said this to her 500 times before, but this time I asked "Do you know what that's from?"

She shook her head.

It's just so weird! Me and literally everyone on the planet over the age of 30 knows where that comes from and she has no clue. Teenagers are like aliens.

On the other hand, we just watched Jurassic Park with the older three kids so at least they know now why Phillip says "Hold on to your butts" whenever we're about to do something. 

We're trying to save the children, one 1990s pop culture reference at a time.

—7—

Thanks to this brilliant article, we totally changed how we do piano practice for our younger kids. 

We used to require them to practice for a certain number of minutes (during which time they'd whine, complain, and wander away from the piano as much as possible.) 

It's only been a week, but so far I no longer have to nag them to stop getting distracted during practice time and (just between you and me) sometimes they even practice LONGER than the number of minutes we used to require.

Here's our new magical routine, posted by the piano.

This isn't a sponsored post or anything, but if you've got beginning piano students who are having trouble committing the notes to memory, I really like the Note Rush app. I never pay for apps, but I did part with $4.99 for this one because it's so good. Session Town is free, but since it's on a computer screen it has its limitations.

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