7 Quick Takes about Graduation, Mystery Readers, and Learning All About Whales

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

—1—

My oldest daughter's graduation was last Friday. The weather looked iffy and it was an outdoor ceremony, but I'm glad they decided to hold it anyway because the rain held and they sped things along just in case.

I love my kids, but I don't love sitting for an eternity at their events, so that was perfect.

The younger kids are still in school but she's done now, working and occasionally doing fun stuff but mostly she's just another adult at home with me during the day to help give rides and do whatever else needs to be done around here. In a word, it's awesome. 

—2—

Does your kindergarten have a "mystery reader" program? Parents secretly sign up to come read picture books to their child's class, and none of the kids know who's coming until you show up in the room. Sometimes the teachers will give hints so they can guess.

I've been a mystery reader for each of my older 5 kids, but ever since COVID started our elementary school has been weird about having volunteers come in so I didn't think I'd get to do it for #6. What a sad end to that tradition.

But guess what? 

The teacher unexpectedly asked for mystery readers this week, and I was all over it.

I brought the same books I bring with me to every mystery reader gig: Some Dogs Do by Jez Alborough and  What! Cried Granny by Kate Lum. 

I have to admit that What! Cried Granny is my favorite. I've read it to a lot of kindergarten classes and noticed that without fail, I have to allow time after reading it for each kid in the class to tell me who they know with the same first name as the main character's. Just that book, never the other. Weird.

—3—

Speaking of my kindergartner, I pulled this crumpled picture out of his backpack the other day and for some reason I found it really interesting.

Fig. 1a: Generic Child's Artwork

In the movies, when they want to show that the character has kids this exact picture will be hanging up on the fridge every time. I know because I see it and scoff, "That was done by some unpaid intern in the prop department who's never even met a child. Real kids don't draw like that." 

I stand corrected.

—4—

While she was here for a visit, my mom gave me a belated birthday present: she took my brother and I on a whale watching tour. 

 We caught a few brief sightings of a lone whale and then an extended viewing of a mom and baby whale. We even saw the mom jump out of the water, which they don't actually do all that often.

The boat driver told us whales can have babies until they die (upon Googling "whale menopause" to confirm it I actually realized that virtually all animals do the same thing and humans are the weirdos.) Also, did you know that whale milk is 40% fat and that a nursing whale produces 100-130 gallons per day? 

On a whale watching tour, everyone wants the good seats on the outside of the boat, but when we turned around and started headed back to port we opted to sit inside. It was pretty windy out there, as evidenced by the lady we could see out the front window who bore an uncanny resemblance to a Troll doll.

—5—

I'm washing all the dishes by hand right now because our dishwasher decided to stop working. Around the same time (it's unrelated, I think) my back also decided to stop working and now I look like a Lego person every time I have to bend over. It's totally fine if I bend from the hips but I can never, under any circumstances, let my back curve.

On the plus side, my posture lately has been excellent.

—6—

My 6-year-old gave his first talk in Primary, which is the name for the children's class at church. He was given the topic "How can I serve the Lord?" and I asked him questions to help him think of what to write but he did it himself.

It keeps going after this, but you get the idea.

It physically pains me to correct his spelling, though. 

There's nothing cuter than when a 6-year-old writes "wen" instead of "when" in his wonky 6-year-old handwriting, but he's getting old enough that he recognized it didn't look right, furrowed his brow and asked, "Is that how it's spelled?"

"Ummm... yeah. Yeah, it's fine," I answered, but then my conscience got the best of me and I had to tell him the truth.

Even though it killed me on the inside just a little.

—7—

I buy everything online, so I've seen some weird things in my day (badly photoshopped product images and bizarre purchaser reviews) but I still was a little taken aback by these suggestions:

Why I would want to gift wrap my toilet paper or upload a video of how to use it, I'm not really sure. But if you're interested, Amazon offers that option.

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