Spring Breaking

I attended a fireside tonight for the youth in our ward, and one of the questions asked (the bishop had collected questions from the youth beforehand) was about journal writing: why do we do it? And: do we have to write every day?

We write for a lot of reasons. We write to remember the major happenings in our life (because at our age, we've begun to realize that we won't actually remember everything that seems unforgettable in the moment). We write, as my friend Alisa pointed out, because reflection is often the most important part of learning. We write to remember the tender mercies of God in our lives.

And sometimes we write because we can't help ourselves.

I'm aware that not many people read this blog any more, and I'm okay with that. It started originally as a way for grandparents in distant states to keep tabs on their grandkids; that's still pretty much what it does, though the distance is much  narrower these days.

This week has been sort of a mixed week. Not as hectic as last week, which means not as much to report. Dan attended a mini-Philmont scouting workshop yesterday and came home with all kinds of great ideas for his job as cub master.

We had parent teacher conferences with both kids parents and discovered what we already knew: Evelyn gets along with just about everyone (plus, she's a better reader than I'd realized, since my baseline of comparison was Andrew); and Andrew is highly motivated. In fact, his teacher just sort of sat back and shook her head. This year she has four little boys (Andrew's one of the ring leaders) who drive each other to do harder math and read harder books. Case in point: each year, the students fill out a "Thousands" book where the write the numbers 0-1000 by ones, tens, twenty-fives, and hundreds. In previous years, the highest she's had students go is to the 2 thousands. This year, thanks to Andrew and his competitive drive (and his competitive friends), Andrew is now in his *nine* thousand book, and his friends aren't far behind. It's always gratifying to hear that the kids are doing well. Andrew can act up a lot at home (he gets easily frustrated) so it's nice to know he's thriving at school--though I'm beginning to worry about what will happen next year when he has a teacher that isn't so dedicated as his current one (She's been terrific--she goes out of her way to make sure each student has reading and math assignments appropriate to their abilities, regardless of what the rest of the class is doing).

And Oliver is still pretty charming, though he's been sick the last few days. Croup, and now a cold (bronchiolitis?) on top of that. But he's at that fun stage where his vocabulary is exploding: Dan brought home a pizza from a school activity on Wednesday and the next day when I asked Oliver if he wanted some, he crowed, "pippa! pippa!" I didn't even know he recognized the word. Other new words include: baba (bottle), wawa (also bottle--I think the distinction is one holds water and the other holds milk), koo-kie (cookie), chee (cheese), down, and more that I can't remember right now.

And as always, he's obsessed with balls and rocks (maybe because they look like balls? Or maybe he really is a budding geologist. Poppy should be proud).

But he still calls me "daddy!" (And Dan, too.)