7 Quick Takes about Weird Kid Habits, Being the House Amazon Doesn't Want to Visit, and Birdcages Full of Stuffed Animals

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

—1—

We don't get graham crackers very often anymore, but we happened to have some in the house and it brought back childhood memories for the kids.

"Remember how we used to dip them in water at snacktime?" the 15-year-old laughed.

"I thought it was normal at the time but now I realize how gross that is," the 19-year-old agreed.

Turning to me, the 17-year-old said in an accusatory tone, "Why did you let us do that?"

I shrugged and explained something like, "That's just what you wanted to do. It was weird but it wasn't hurting anyone, so I wasn't about to die on that hill."

Little does she know they'll be asking me that in 10 years about stuff they do right now. And my answer will be the same.

—2—

At church on Sunday, the speakers talked about being united with a common goal. More in the sense of a congregation working together, but it inspired me to talk with the family about a goal we can pursue as a group this summer.

We were brainstorming what types of family goals we could have, and Phillip mentioned how much he enjoyed taking the older 4 kids to climb a mountain earlier this summer. "You know," he said, "Some people have a goal to climb all the 5,000-footers in New England."

One of the teenagers grimaced and said, "My goal is to not do that."

—3—

The weather has been beautiful outside and as much as I'd like to go on a day trip to the beach or somewhere fun, someone has needed a ride to or from work or some other activity every few hours so we're mostly homebound so I can be the taxi.

But the kids have been making the best of it. Specifically, they've been going out in the front yard and shooting each other with the hose and water guns until everyone is either crying or mad. But it's fun up until that point.

—4—

Yesterday the kids were outside playing in the water and getting soaking wet, and one by one they drifted inside to change into dry clothes until my 11-year-old was the only one left. 

She was standing in the driveway with a 5-gallon bucket over her head, spraying the hose up into the bucket (I think she was experimenting with ricocheting the water off the side of the bucket into her mouth?) and of course the Amazon delivery driver chose that moment to stop by with a package.

Watching out the window, the 17-year-old sighed, "That guy is probably like, 'Man, I hate this place.' The delivery drivers probably drew straws to see who had to come here today and he lost."

—5—

The Amazon package was the birdcage my daughter has been saving up for. And how is this for a weird coincidence? Just after we received it I went to the swap shop (an area of our town dump where you can take or leave any gently used items from toys to dishes to sport equipment) and I saw this sitting there waiting for me:

A perfectly good birdcage. Which my kids are using for stuffed animals until we get a real animal to put in it.

It doesn't have the little plastic trays for food and water, but other than that it's actually better than the one we originally bought so I think we'll return it and have the 15-year-old design food and water dishes and 3D print them.

—6—

My 7-year-old has a really nasty-looking swollen lump on his leg. I assume it started with a mosquito bite that he scratched and it got infected. When I noticed the infection I tried to lance and drain it at home, but it actually looked worse the next morning so I took him to the doctor.

For now we're treating it as a normal infection and he's on antibiotics, but the doctor is also testing him for MRSA just in case. Yikes. 

—7—

I'm the president of the Young Women's (teenage girl) organization at church, and we hold a fun youth activity at the church one night a week. This week we were combined with the Young Men for "Kindergarten Night." They played recess games like tag, duck duck goose, and 4-square, with graham crackers and juice boxes for snack. It was a great success.

The girls had the idea to have everyone come dressed as a kindergartner, and everyone got into it. We had boys show up in their younger siblings' character PJs and girls wearing pigtails or facepaint. Some of them even brought props (I saw a Thomas the Train lunchbox and a toddler balance bike.) The night could have gone poorly if everyone hadn't gotten so into the theme, but they did not disappoint and everyone had a fun time.

Now I'm thinking we should actually do something similar for the adults, but instead of playing kindergarten games we'll just roll out little foam mats and have an hour of naptime. I would come to that activity for sure.

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