The Things Our Kids Say.

You may recall that when we parted last week, I left you with a sweet story of our youngest yelling out that he hated someone in our ward during the middle of the Sacrament.

Oh, those were sweet times. When I was still young and innocent.

My kids have said crazier things than that since last week.

Here is sweet Harris after he and Dan made their first, very simple model plane together. Harris is a middle child and also loves to tinker. In an effort to give him some more attention, Dan has decided to take him to Hobby Blobby once a month or so to pick out a new plane to build together. Look at that cute face with the finished product.

That sweet face also uttered these precious words to me one morning this week-

"Mom, I went pee in the potty, and then my glasses dropped into the toilet."

The grossest part about this is that I wasn't super duper fazed by this predicament. I am well-versed in grossness by now, and I don't think much of putting my hand in a plastic grocery bag and digging out a pair of expensive glasses.

I guess that's good that I don't let something that gross ruin my day, but also it means that my standards are rather low. Someone please step in if I stop using the plastic grocery bag when I go to retrieve things from the toilet in the future.

We went roller skating for the first time ever this week. There is always that one guy at every skating rink who you know is there every Friday night and every Saturday night and the all-day Sunday skate and does the limbo like he was born to, whizzes right past you skating backwards so close to you that you almost topple over, and taunts you with his powers to come to a sudden stop.

Even though my kids were struggling for the most part and Harris gave up after doing one single turn of the rink (even though the rink owner had actually stopped his wheels so that Harris was only walking), there was some real progress made too. Gwen had the hang of it by the end, and June, though moving slowly, entered the relay race and finished.

I take my job as a parent and educator seriously. This means teaching my kids about all of the fine composers. We listen to Dvorak and Vivaldi and others quite a bit. And Queen. This week, I introduced my kids to "Bohemian Rhapsody" and sang along every single word of the entire song to them, using all of the different voices and creating my own unique choreography as I went along. June teared up at the beginning, distraught by the storyline of a young man being tried for killing another man. I reassured her--don't worry, it's a fun song! You'll like it. Like it, she did not. She bawled through the whole thing. Another huge win for Mom.

Speaking of dark themes in songs, my kids memorize history sentences set to music every week to help them learn the history of the world. This week they learned an upbeat song about the French revolution that had the actual lyrics of "the aristocrats' heads were removed by the guillotine". Removed? It makes it sound like the aristocrats were getting rid of a pesky mole or something.

And maybe one more dark theme. We went to a book club meeting with Forest School this week. The book up for discussion this month was Mr. Popper's Penguins. I signed myself up to make a penguin-themed treat because I guess even knowing myself for 38 years isn't long enough to know that I don't make crafty things.

The Pinterest version of some Magical Penguin Cookies:

Heather's Scary Possessed Penguin-like Cookie-ish Creations:

There was chocolate everywhere--all over the eyeballs and beaks and feet. I told the kids we would have to relay to the book group that we had accidentally read the Halloween version of the book, the one where all of the penguins were massacred in the end.

See that cute Beck? The primary music leader in our ward recently told me that a cute little primary girl told the group that her dad sings church songs to her every night to help her fall asleep. Beck raised his hand, was called on, and then volunteered, "My dad doesn't like kids."

Here we are with our dear friend Sister Mellow, to whom our family ministers once a month or so. And yes, Harris is still wearing a tie over his t-shirts half of the time. 

The End.