Friday, February 12, 2021

7 Quick Takes about Pointless Visits to the Doctor, Strawberry Gardens, and Having Your Own Personal Force Field

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

1


My peanut-allergic 4-year-old had some promising bloodwork done. He's already outgrown allergies to walnuts and pecans, and his older sister outgrew a peanut allergy before him, so I was really hopeful when we went to his allergist for a food challenge this week.

He failed miserably.

We didn't even get around to putting it in his mouth. The first step was putting a dab of peanut butter on his skin, and he got a big old hive just from that so we called it off. Kind of a waste of a 40-minute drive to the office if you ask me.

On the plus side, we picked up the water bottle we'd left in the exam room at our last visit in December, which I was shocked they still even had. I assumed with all the extra COVID precautions they'd immediately removed it from the building after we left and blew it up in a field.

2


Overall, homeschooling the 16-year-old is going well. I've confirmed my suspicions that homeschooling, like every schooling system, has both pros and cons. 

Honestly, I don't think it would work for a majority of my kids in most circumstances. But my 16-year-old has an oddly specific set of needs, and COVID has created a whole series of weird circumstances that made homeschooling the right choice for her at this particular time. 

This is kind of an oversimplification, but here's how it works for us: she does all the hard work, and I get to enjoy French pastries every other Friday. 

As part of her French class, she takes an online lesson from a French chef at Masterclass twice a month and holy cow. Look at this fruit tart:

Prettier than anything I've ever made and I'm 38 years old.

I mean, the resulting fruit tart was delicious. but check out the presentation! My 6-year-old took one look at it and squealed with delight, "It looks like a strawberry garden!"

3


This week was a big week for our family because, in the words of my 12-year-old, "Dad was yeeted out of the bishopric."

For those of you who aren't familiar with the way Latter-day Saints talk, "bishopric" means the head of the congregation, sort of like a pastor and a few co-pastors. For those of you who aren't familiar with the way teenagers talk, "yeet" means "to forcefully throw something out."

Don't worry, it wasn't a horrible skeleton in Phillip's closet that caused him to get fired. In our church, it's just a normal cycle that happens every few years. All the roles in our congregations are filled by volunteers on a rotating basis, even the administrative and pastoral ones. 

As with any calling, Phillip learned a lot in the bishopric, but neither of us are sad that his plate has a little less on it now. 

4


On the other hand, I'm still as active as ever in Young Women's, where I help lead the youth organization for the teenage girls. (For a look at some of the other jobs/not jobs I've done at church, see this post.)

You know how I'm always trying to multitask, and this week my church job gave me the perfect opportunity. 

I needed to drop off some materials for an upcoming youth activity at several different houses, and I could've been upset when a snowstorm derailed my plans. But instead, I seized the opportunity to teach my teenager winter driving.

So she drove me around in a snowstorm to make all the deliveries, which was mostly nice with only a little bit of terrified internal screaming.

5


For the kids' Valentines Day parties at school, the teacher isn't allowed to give out food but she did say they could bring in a special treat for themselves. 

I planned to sneak these heart-shaped snack cakes into their lunch boxes, but then the school ended up switching to a virtual learning day because of the weather so I handed them out at home.


We don't have a lot of processed or pre-packaged food, so I assumed this was really going to be a special treat for the kids. I wasn't anticipating my 9-year-old unwrapping hers and saying, "This smells like Benadryl."

6


Epic family Nerf gun battles used to be a regular thing in our house. But eventually I got tired of finding the darts everywhere, the kids argued too much over who got which gun, and the novelty wore off so we put them up in the attic.

That was about six months ago and we decided to bring them back out this week. It was like Christmas morning with guerilla warfare.

One more thing: it's an unspoken agreement in our house that Phillip and the kids can play all they want, but I don't ever join and the cardinal rule of Nerf gun warfare is that no one ever, ever shoots Mom.

As a result, I feel like a superhero because while they're sneaking around like ninjas and rolling behind couches to avoid being shot, I can freely walk around the house and the sea of bullets simply parts as I go past. I don't have to be scared of snipers, the snipers are scared of me

I tell you, it's a real power trip.

7

I was searching through our photo library, looking at old family pictures, when the 9-year-old asked what I was doing.

"I'm looking for pictures of messes you guys have made."

She looked at me like I was an idiot and said, "Why don't you just walk around the house and take some?"

So even the children themselves know that they're pigs. Interesting.

I was looking for photos of household disasters because I was writing a blog post on the subject and I wanted to include some of my kids' more  ahem  memorable ones. I just regret not snapping a photo of the time I tore apart one of the bedrooms looking for the source of a smell and discovered a stash of soiled Pullups in the closet stuffed behind some shelving.

On second thought, I don't regret not having a picture of that. That was disgusting.

When you get a moment, head over and read the finished product: "A Gallery Exhibition of Artwork by My Children." And leave a comment about the biggest mess your kids ever made!

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3 comments:

PurpleSlob said...

Benedryl?? lol
Winter driving?? You are a braver woman than I!! I totally messed up my oldest's rainy driving lesson, by letting her drive in the rain. She immediately sped backwards into our naighbor's fence! Electric gated part of the fence! Thankfully they were very charitaqble, and didn't make us pay for it! Whew!! We would have had to be their maids for months!!

Angela Caswell said...

I loved every single one of these! I relate strongly to the kids with peanut allergies, as we've talked about before. Our allergist is 53 miles away, so I get that too... That tart looks totally worthy of master chef!

Ellen said...

I found 3 pullups in the corner of the closet. Thank goodness it had only been two days before I found them, but they still stunk! What is the problem with walking the thing to the garbage?