7 Quick Takes about New Year's Parties with Kids, the Birds and the Bees, and the First Snowfall of the Season

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

—1—

Over the break, Phillip and I got into a pattern of staying up late watching a movie with the teens after putting the little kids to bed, so getting up at 6 AM and driving them to seminary (before-school scripture study class) this week was pretty painful.

I used to pull all-nighters regularly; now if I get less than 7 consecutive hours of sleep at night I feel like I'm having a stroke.

—2—

On New Year's Eve we went over to our neighbor's house for dinner. We're both members of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints and they invited someone else who's considering joining our church.

He was a little overwhelmed by all the child noise at first, but he eventually became immune like we all do and we had a good time getting to know each other. At one point he told us "This is the first sober New Year's I've ever had!"

I told him to just wait until 8PM, when we count down to "midnight" and then immediately dismantle the party, grab our kids and flee so we can get them to bed on time. This is just the beginning of the wild life.

I like making these because the kids love crushing the peppermints.

We did have the most amazing cookies, though, so it's totally a trade-off.

—3—

Around Christmas and New Year's, our family picks some kind of service project to do together. In the past we've done stuff for an area NICU, Heifer International, and Deworm the World. 

This year we chose Charity: Water. We picked a goal amount for each person in the family to donate, and the younger kids are doing chores around the house to earn it right now. I'm not going to lie, it's a really effective way to keep the house clean over Christmas break when everyone is home and the place is a disaster area.

My 13-year-old cleaned the doors in the mudroom which sort of turned into him sanding the doors and then me buying metal dent filler and getting them all ready to prime and paint, so I guess that's my next home project. I'm still not quite sure how that happened.

—4—

My son's kindergarten teacher announced that she's having a baby in the spring, and my son had some questions when he got home. In our family, we've always talked frankly about the birds and the bees, but 5-year-olds forget things so we end up having the same conversation a lot.

"But how does the sperm get to where the egg is?" he asked me (again.)

I explained briefly that the mommy and daddy put their vagina and penis together and the sperm goes through the daddy's penis. 

"For how long?"

"What?"

"How long do you have to put your private parts together?"

Me: a visual representation.

Figuring we'd reached the limit of age-appropriate information for a 5-year-old, I waved my hand and answered vaguely, "Oh, not very long, I guess."

"Like, how many seconds?"

Me again.

This kid is relentless in his pursuit of the truth.

—5—

I stumbled across a standup show of a comedian called Rodney Norman. His whole thing is being awkward on stage. Like, really awkward. 

After I watched him, the YouTube algorithm started showing me a series of short inspirational messages he does in the style of Forrest Gump, and now my kids watch them regularly.

I did have to admit that I liked this one, and will definitely be using it on my kids whenever they complain:

Just think about that.

—6—

Every day I'm switching more things over to my new email from my old one, and it's even worse than I thought it would be. Every single account I've ever opened, every person from every one of my kids' schools and activities, everyone I know from church... they all need to be informed of the change.

This is exactly why I put off making this switch for about a decade. I anticipated it would be exactly like this.

—7—

As I write this, it's snowing! It's actually the first snow of the season, which is pretty unheard of for New England in January. The kids even have a snow day from school. 

Of course, I wasn't prepared at all and didn't have any of their snow stuff ready. So right now, there's a foot-deep pile of snowpants, coats, and boots of various sizes on the floor as the kids root through them and run out the door, and it's a little chaotic at the moment.

Wish us luck, and happy Friday! 

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