First Week of School, jet lag edition

All of the children started school this week.  I really hate the first week of school.  Summer is not only a break for the children, but for me as well.  Our tight schedule relaxes, I don't have to chase people around to do things they don't want to do, and everyone gets a break.  But all summers must come to an end, and ours did this week.  Only nine more months until summer again.  Sigh.

At the end of school in June, I did a smart thing and prepped everything for the beginning of school this year.  I ordered school books, organized notebooks, wrote out schedules, made new grade spreadsheets, printed out workbooks, and arranged school tables.  This turned out to be a good move, as we started our school year less than seventy-two hours after returning to Tashkent.

Usually I deal with jet lag reasonably well, helped out significantly by prescription sleeping pills.  Brandon will complain of having been up half the night, and I will smugly commiserate, having gotten a full nights' sleep myself.  This time, however, was less successful.  I can't blame the baby, as she only woke up once or twice the first night.  I guess I'll just blame getting older.  In a reversal of fortunes, Brandon was the one who blissfully snored away while I tossed and turned all night.  I suppose it's payback for my years of smugness.  Thankfully we are more than a week back in Tashkent, and the sleepless jet lag nights and even more terrible days are safely in the place for bad memories that includes newborns, young motherhood, moving, and potty training.  

At the beginning of last week, however, we were still in the middle of bleary-eyed days filled with thick-limbed creeping around the house under clouds of exhausted despair.  If being jet lagged is anything like a bad hangover, I'm perfectly happy to not be a drinker.  So instead of full start to school, we had more of a graduated beginning to our academic year.

Kathleen, in her first year of high school (how did that happen???), had already started school two weeks earlier with the collection of online classes I signed her up for.  Sophia and Edwin, who have three online classes apiece, also got to try and fit those in around playing with friends and family in Utah.  It turns out that the trade-off for outsourcing teaching to someone else is having to stick with their schedule.  Sigh.

I hadn't finished a few last administrative things off this summer, so I spent a the first few days of the week arranging those.  Then I fell into the time-wasting planning of my eventual dream house (even moms sometimes get distracted and don't want to do their jobs).  So I didn't start actually teaching school until Thursday, and not quite all of the school at that.  But I did start school, and less a week after we returned home, so I felt like I got a solid high-five for that accomplishment.

Thankfully, each school year's start goes more smoothly than the last one, and, shockingly, this year was almost free of yelling (by me), crying (by the children), or screaming (by everyone).  Each year I add a few more improvements to the schedule and tweak things to make everyone's day run more smoothly.  Often I will introduce a new program to help keep everyone organized after a few weeks of chaos, but this year I haven't yet found anything that could use improvement.  I guess nine years of perfecting my systems has finally paid off.  

There was one morning that I finished my work by eleven and I wandered around the nearly silent house looking for random household tasks to fill my time until lunch.  It was almost eerie.  I'm very happy to be a mother of older children as well as little ones.  Life is just so much easier than it was five years ago.

This school year looks to be (hopefully) pretty quiet as we finish up our last year in Tashkent.  I'm happy that our last baby has arrived and I won't be pregnant or delivering this year, instead just continuing on with our quiet, regulated lives.  And I'm completely okay with that.  

America!

On July 30, we boarded a charter flight in Tashkent and about thirteen hours later, got off in New York.  After our flights through Korea had been cancelled two weeks earlier, we had given up hope of making it to the US for our usual summer vacation.  The following Monday Brandon heard news of a repatriation flight bringing Uzbeks back from New York.  As the airplane had to get there first, the Uzbek government was also offering seats on the outbound leg.  We quickly put ourselves on the list.  As is standard in these situations, we didn't actually get the tickets until four days before our departure, but we got them in the end.

The only catch was that we had no flights back.  There were still no commercial routes available for us to return on, and by leaving we ran the risk of being stuck out until commercial air travel opened back up - which could possibly take months.  I'm a bit of a gambler, and Brandon uncharacteristically agreed that we should just go and take our chances.  So we went, not knowing when we would get back.  

We landed in Raleigh on Thursday evening, taking thirteen hours to get more than a third of the way across the globe and nine hours to cover the last five hundred miles.  After a day to recover and fit in a few crucial doctor's appointments, we headed to the coast on Saturday for a week of the beach.  We hadn't been to my family's annual beach week since 2017, so the children were beyond excited to finally make it this year.  My extended family also showed up, with nine original siblings with spouses, twenty-nine children and spouses, and forty-nine grand children.  Despite coming from across the US (and the globe), everyone stayed healthy and had a wonderful week together, despite the category 1 hurricane that dropped in on Monday night.  

The next Saturday we drove from the beach to Raleigh where my parents dropped us off at the airport.  Everyone marveled at the luxury of taking one (only one!) flight to get to Salt Lake city where we picked up a couple of rental cars and drove up to Twin Falls, Idaho.  Brandon's brother had bravely invited both us and his parents to come for a visit, cramming twenty people into his house and camper trailer.  The children got to experience the long Idaho evenings, white water rafting, a giant slip n' slide, shooting guns, sparklers, a bonfire with s'mores, homemade ice cream, and endless cousin time.  Kathleen turned fourteen during the visit, so all the girls went out for lunch and shopping at the local mall.  Everyone got much less sleep than they were used to.

After Idaho we made our way down to Highland, Utah, where one of Brandon's sisters and three of his brothers live.  The children enjoyed getting reacquainted with more cousins and raiding a new toy room.  The adults had a great time catching up and everyone, again, stayed up much too late.  We finished our intermountain west visit with friends from the foreign service.  The children played, the adults talked, we went hiking and swimming, and everyone had a great time.  

We had tickets to return to Raleigh on the 21st of August, but nothing beyond that.  Brandon and I had decided to return to the beach for another week or two - what better place to wait for a ride home than the beach?  I had started looking at places to rent when we got an email about a return flight on August 27, another repatriation flight.  We once again put our names on the list and flew back to Raleigh to wait for the tickets to come through.  

The tickets did come through, four days before our flight and on Thursday we took the long flight back to Tashkent.  Everyone is almost through with jet lag, and school begins this week.

Our yearly trips to America are always the highlight of the summer, but this trip wins the prize for being the best ever.  After months and months of isolation, spending time with friends and family was an amazing gift.  The older I grow, the more important relationships are to me.  Doing things is fun, but being with people that I love is even better.  I can't count the number of times Brandon and I would look at each other and say, "Aren't you SO glad we decided to come???"  It was a much-needed opportunity to take a break, catch up, and refill everyone's empty social reservoirs.  

School starts again this week, and with it, the end of summer.  Life is still not normal here in Tashkent, and we have two weeks of total isolation before we can return to a semi-regular schedule.  But everyone has had a wonderful breather from normal, non-normal life and we can all head in to our last year in Tashkent with tanner skin, blonder hair, a serious sleep deficit, and wonderful memories.

How We Do Homeschooling

Recently I've gotten a lot of questions from friends about homeschooling.  With the announcement of online or online-hybrid schooling in a lot of school districts, many parents have decided that homeschooling is the better option for their children.  I've been very happy to pass along my own advice, as giving advice is one of my favorite things to do.  Having gained my knowledge from countless mistakes, I'm glad to see someone else profiting from my hard-won experience.

I started homeschooling over ten years ago, when I taught Kathleen to read at the age of three.  This fall I'll have a freshman in high school, a seventh grader, a fifth grader, a third grader, and a first grader.  

I've always used The Well-Trained Mind, a book that Brandon brought home from the BYU bookstore when I was pregnant with Kathleen.  We had both wanted to homeschool, but I was very apprehensive about being able to teach everything myself.  For every year in school, the book laid out what I should do, how I should do it, when I should do it, and how long I should do it.  It was a huge relief to me.  We've been using it ever since.  

Choosing homeschool curriculum can be very daunting, as there seem to be endless options, but in the end it's a decision about preferences.  Some curricula are more academically rigorous, some are more exploration-based, others are religious, and others are secular.  It's just a matter of choice.  Most are perfectly reasonable, so it's just what works best for you and your family.  

I like The Well-Trained Mind because we're an academically rigorous type of family, and the curriculum is based on a classical education, with Latin and logic being included in the recommended areas of study.  That said, however, I've found that I've dropped a few things over the years, including Latin.  

I used to be very concerned that my children would be able to learn the most possible things they could physically stuff into a day, but over time I've realized that that wasn't the best method for me or the children.  Now that I have a child in high school, I can see that the subjects are repeated enough time that if Joseph hasn't memorized the definition of a noun in first grade, he will have memorized it by sixth grade.  He's going to read the History of the World series twice by the time he's through with middle school.  And the Saxon math books spend the first third of the book in review, so we'll see long division quite a few times.  

So in elementary school, I make sure that the children are able to: 1. Read fluently and capably.  Reading is the basis for everything, so it needs to be solid or the child won't be able to do anything else very well.  2. Know their math facts, how to count, add, subtract, multiply, divide, and tell time.  3. Write with decent handwriting (I hate messy handwriting, so I get a little fussy about it) and be able to spell correctly and write a summary.  Writing, like reading, is the foundation of almost any other discipline.  It's how we communicate, and if you can't write, nobody takes you seriously.

Science and history are fun subjects and are less important because they can be made up for later if you don't get around to them.  We do science and history because we've got time, but if you don't have time, these are the things you can skip.  Art and music are really extra.  We don't have any formal art curriculum and the kids take piano for music, as long as singing together as a family for church and Family Home Evening.  

In middle school, the children start taking online classes, through the Well-Trained Mind Academy, for history, writing, and math.  It's a good opportunity for them to learn to work for someone other than me, keep track of assignments, and have deadlines.  It's also nice for me to give the more time-intensive things to someone else.  I can teach writing and pre-algebra, but I'm busy teaching small children how to read, write, do math.  It's better to have someone else do those things.  Once the children are in seventh grade, they also teach their buddy science and history.  It helps me out and gives them the opportunity to review the material again.  

Kathleen is taking almost all of her classes online this year, only doing Russian, Logic, piano, and horseback riding not online.  So by high school, I'm not teaching them anything at all.  It is only homeschooling in that she's doing school at home and I'm just there to answer questions, check up, and offer moral support.  

So that's our homeschooling in a nutshell.  I'm happy to answer any questions in another post or answer questions sent along to me.  Homeschooling can seem pretty daunting and can get pretty chaotic depending on the day, but it's worked well enough for us that we have no intention of quitting.  There are many things I enjoy about it, but most of all I like that we get to be together as a family.  Every morning we have a hot breakfast together, and every evening we all eat dinner together.  After dinner, Brandon reads to the children and they all go to bed at eight.  I don't play a taxi driver, we don't high five each other on the way to different activities, and nobody stays up to the middle of the night doing homework.  It's a pretty good setup.  

Still Here in Tashkent

I haven't been keeping up on this blog because nothing has been going on.  Recently Sophia complained about not seeing people.  I pointed out that she sees people every week - the Russian teacher, the housekeeper, the pool guy, shoppers at the grocery store, and people at horseback riding.

"But," she replied with a sad face, "none of them are native English speakers!  I just want to see someone that I can actually talk with.  I want to see someone."

I can sympathize with her.  I haven't actually seen anyone socially since March.  I've spent time talking with people, which is better than nothing, but it's been home, home, and more home. 

Uzbekistan started loosening restrictions back in May, so I was able to get a couple of pedicures and a long-overdue haircut.  Restaurants opened back up in June, so Brandon and I were able to go out to eat twice.  Life really was - with the exception of having church and friends - back to normal.

But, as is inevitable with opening back up, new cases increased quite dramatically.  By last week, the numbers were much higher than they ever were back when we had the first quarantine.  So on Friday the Uzbek government announced another quarantine. 

Somehow the second quarantine is so much worse than the first.  Back in March everything was new and exciting and we were all fighting the virus together.  It was just a matter of time before things opened back up and life would be back to normal.  Our friends would come back, everything would resume its old pattern, and life would be good again.  But now we all know what we're in for and just don't have the stomach for another round.

The hardest part of this second quarantine has been the cancellation of our summer R&R.  We have missed our family beach trip two years in a row and this year was going to be the year when we could finally enjoy a week of family, waves, sand, and the pure bliss that is a week at the beach.  After the beach we had a fun visit planned to Brandon's family out west.  It was going to be awesome.   It was going to be exactly what everyone needed after months and months of being stuck at home not seeing anyone.

We had gone through so many months of waiting and hoping and jumping through hoops and trying to get plane tickets that when the tickets finally got bought a week ago, it was a relief to finally know that we would get to have our much-needed break.  So when it was snatched away only a few days later, the loss was that much worse.

Instead of seeing family and friends, we'll be stuck here by ourselves in Tashkent.  Instead of spending a week playing with cousins, the children will be doing school.  Instead of getting a much-needed break from doing the work of multiple colleagues, Brandon will be doing even more work.

I know that this is only terrible with a lowercase t instead of a capitol T, but I'm still disappointed.  Our life is still wonderful and everyone is healthy and we are grateful for all the blessings we have.  But I think it's still okay to be sad and I'll probably be sad for awhile.  And next year - unless the beach ceases to physically exist - we're going to be there. 

Happy Birthday, Brandon!

This week Brandon had a birthday.  Birthdays get a lot less personally exciting as an adult.  Getting older isn't as great as it used to be, your presents are often bought with your own money, and often you have to work on your birthday.  Also, the parades still aren't happening.

This year, despite the embassy being on telework status, Brandon again had to work on his birthday.  His section is on a rotational basis, and it was his turn to be in the office this past week.  And to add insult to injury, he also had to begin his rotation as duty officer on his birthday. 

So we decided to celebrate his birthday on the weekend.  Because when you're an adult, you can change your birthday if you want to.  After all, it's more of a guideline anyway. 

However, everyone couldn't wait until the weekend do acknowledge Brandon's day.  The children all headed down to the store together, pooled their allowance, and bought him some of his favorite treats.  On a whim, I picked up lunch and took it to the embassy where we ate it together.  It turns out that even if you declare your birthday to be on a new day, people still can't help but do something on the actual day anyway. 

This weekend we stretched the celebrations out over two days by letting Brandon choose all of the food and entertainment.  For his activity, we stayed home.  Because, 1. there still aren't any fun things open, and 2. Brandon always choses to stay home.  He's been having his birthday choice for the past three months and he's still not sick of it.  It's good to get what you want in the middle of a pandemic.

When Brandon came home from work on his actual birthday, the children eagerly lined up in front of him with their gifts, excited to show him what they had bought for his birthday.  As I watched them wiggle with the excitement of giving something special to their dad, I remembered again how special Brandon is to everyone in our family.

The children all eagerly await his homecoming every evening, jumping up with excitement when they hear the front door slam followed by his foot steps in the hallway.  They love to hear him tell stories from his childhood, or discuss history, or read them a story.  William and Eleanor can always be sure that they can wheedle a swinging session out of him when I've refused their entreaties to be pushed in the swing.  And at the end of a long day, when it is finally time to rest, he loves to tickle and bounce Elizabeth after her nightly feeding while I talk his ear off about all the thousand little things that have passed through my head that day.  Brandon is the light of our family.  Everyone is happier when he is around, most especially me.

And so we're happy to celebrate Brandon's birthday.  After all he does for us, every single day of the year, we're happy to have one day a year (or two or three) when we can help him feel loved and appreciated.  Happy Birthday, Brandon!

Hello, Summer!

School ended the week before last.  The last week of school, the weather decided that spring was officially over and the temperatures went from low-sixties and rainy to mid-nineties and sunny. 

Everyone was happy for school to be over with.  The children were happy to be done with their assignments and I was happy to be done chasing them around to make sure they got them done.  We all enjoy having a good three-month break every summer.  I know that some homeschooling families take breaks and school year-round, but everyone here likes the traditional school timeline.  There's something so satisfying about three months free from school.  I still have eighteen years of schooling children left, so I have to enjoy the summers as much as possible. 

So for the past week, instead of spending the mornings down in the basement doing school, we've spent every morning outside in the bright summer sunshine.  By lunch time, everyone is tired out from swimming and is happy to retreat inside the house for the rest of the afternoon.

Although their regular school assignments are done, everyone still has summer school activities, but only a few.  They all have to do some reading, work on their typing skills, and work on some sort of project of their choice. 

Sophia has decided to work on her baking skills, so twice a week we get treated to something delicious she has cooked up.  Kathleen is taking a photography class online, so we'll all get pulled in as subjects eventually.  The boys are anxiously awaiting delivery of a circuitry set so they can begin to learn about electronics.  Eleanor and William are working on learning to clean up the messes they make in the toy room every day.

Brandon has started to go back in to work, but on a rotating schedule.  Everyone, including him, would rather have him working from home.  But I suppose everything can't always be the way we prefer.

The summer fruits have arrived, with strawberries finished already.  Right now we're enjoying nectarines, cherries, and apricots, and on Friday we found a stand selling watermelons and cantaloupes. 

Elizabeth has discovered the joy of tasty fruit.  Every time someone starts eating a piece around here, she starts panting happily, hoping that someone will share with her.  She also enjoys her time in the pool, happily floating in her baby float while watching the antics of her crazy siblings. 

Brandon, who grew up dreading his childhood summers that were filled with seemingly endless hot, sweaty yard work, has made fun of my suburban summers filled with days of playing with friends at the local pool club.  He still hates summer and I still love it.  Which is no surprise, considering his summers are still filled with (much less sweaty) work and mine are still filled with days around the pool.  There are definitely times when being a stay-at-home mom is a clear win.

I'm happy it's summer.  The living is easy, and I'm not complaining.

Happy Birthday, Sophia!

This week we celebrated Sophia's birthday.  Twelve doesn't have the same significance now that children transition from primary to the youth program at the beginning of the year they turn twelve.  But still it feels like a milestone to me, as I've spent my whole life seeing twelve as a big year. 

Now I have two daughters who have become young women, and two to take to the temple next time we're in the US.  I remember being at a family dinner with Kathleen when she was a new baby and talking with my uncle.  His oldest daughter had just graduated high school, and he commented that one day your baby is just a few months old and then you're sending them off to college.  I still remember thinking that it wasn't possible for time to move so quickly, but I understand him much more now. 

It doesn't feel like it was that long ago that I only had two little girls who couldn't talk and needed me to do everything for them.  Now I have two young women that can take care of their five younger siblings, cooking for them, feeding them, getting them ready for bed, putting them to bed, and cleaning everything up while Brandon and I are on a date.  I confess that life is a lot easier than it was back then!

As with Eleanor's birthday, we had to celebrate Sophia's at home.  Uzbekistan is more open than it was a few weeks ago, but all of the fun places are still closed.  However, she did get to have school off on her birthday, as our school policy is that birthdays are holidays for everyone.  The children are always happy to have so many siblings when birthdays roll around. 

Since Brandon is still working from home, we got to have a proper birthday holiday, complete with sleeping in an a leisurely breakfast of crepes with fresh strawberries, whipped cream, and chocolate sauce.  We spend most of the day cooking or getting food for Sophia's birthday dinner (which was not nearly as easy as Eleanor's), but Sophia was perfectly happy to keep me company and chat.  I love that my girls still enjoy talking with me.

We finished the day with dinner (eggs Benedict) cake (strawberry chocolate meringue torte) and presents, which weren't that many as the mail has been sporadic and no presents were ordered.  But there were enough to make Sophia happy, and so it was a good end to the day. 

We are all grateful to have Sophia as part of our family.  She is patient and calm with her younger siblings, something that I probably take advantage of too much when things get crazy.  I know that William and Eleanor often do, begging her to read them books, push them on the swing, or make toys for them.  She is capable and confident, and I look forward to watch her increase in both of those things as she continues to grow up.  Happy Birthday, Sophia!

Family Home Evening in the Pool

Spring here in Tashkent has been rather uneven.  Of course, spring is a season of uneven weather - never does the weather slowly warm up in a perfectly rational climb of increasing daily temperatures.  But this spring has been annoyingly uneven for people who want to swim in their pool, especially when one of those people is me.

But, as I remind Kathleen every time she complains about yet another cloudy, rainy Saturday followed by a clear, sunny Sunday (and there have been a lot), soon enough it will be clear, sunny, and hot every single day.  For four months straight.  So we don't need to rush the advent of summer that much.

But this past Monday it was one of those clear, sunny, hot days.  Our pool heater has proven to be a little wimpier than I'd like and the water hasn't spent much time above the 85 degree mark - my bare minimum temperature for swimming.  But on Monday the weather was perfect for swimming - 93 degree air temperature and 85 degree water temperature.

I had some yard work to do that afternoon, and spend a couple of hours sweating while watching the children splash in the pool, asking me to come swim with them.  Finally, I was finished and rushed to put my own swimsuit on.  It was close enough to 5:00 that I didn't feel bad asking Brandon to come join us.

Usually I start cooking dinner at 5, but I kept revising my dinner plans as we kept playing.  We started with swimming, followed by fruit tag, then a rousing game of keep away (parents vs. children), after that a very uneven game of chicken (anyone sitting on Brandon's shoulders was guaranteed a victory), and finished the evening with cannon ball contests (I won). 

By the time we finished, dinner time had come and gone and it was 7:30.  Brandon and I unanimously declared that we had just had our activity portion of Family Home Evening.  I then made up a new meal - dinnssert - where we combined dinner and dessert together in the meal of waffles with fresh strawberries and chocolate sauce.  Everyone approved. 

We rounded out our Family Home Evening program with a discussion of goals while eating waffles, cleaned up the meal, and then sent everyone off to bed.  They all fell asleep quickly and slept soundly, one of the wonderful effects of a long afternoon in the pool.

Usually I'm a very scheduled person; the schedule works for me and I can loosely contain the chaos that is seven children.  Everything is neatly packed in, all of the pieces having found their place over the years of trial and error.  From the time I wake up in the morning until the children go to bed in the evening, life proceeds at its measured pace.  It has to, or the chaos will slip its bounds and explode the household into a noisy, crazy, stressful mess.

But it was nice to spend an evening in the pool instead of marching to the usual schedule.  I was happy to break my own rules to play with the children, taunting them for their inability to catch the ball as it sailed over their heads (but not for much longer).  I enjoyed having children that could wait a little while longer for dinner without dissolving into tears or fights as we enjoyed a perfect evening together.  I hope they'll remember that evening as one of the times where - despite the world outside our gate - everything inside the gate was perfect and everyone was happy together.  When they think of their childhood, that happy time will hold a special glow.  A time when we were all together, enjoying being a family of people who love each other and love being together.  I know I will. 

Easing Up

Friday morning, I bundled the kids - complete with masks - into the car, and we left the house.  As we drove through the neighborhood, everyone started commenting on how different everything looked with leaves and flowers.  I realized that the last time we had been in the car together - and the last time several of them had been in a car - was a Friday morning six weeks ago.

Ten minutes later, we pulled into the stable parking lot, and everyone jumped out of the car and practically sprinted to the stable to greet their favorite horses.  It was good to be back.

Uzbekistan continues to do well with their COVID situation, with only ten deaths for the entire thirty-three million population, and so the government has begun easing restrictions.  They have allowed more businesses to open up, including plant sellers, construction materials, dry cleaners, bakeries, and (just in time for Mother's Day this weekend), florists.  On April 30, they allowed private cars and taxis to operate in the mornings and evenings.  Uzbek Air announced that it will resume international flights on June 30.  

As I've been around town, I keep seeing more cars and more people about, as everyone has grown tired of being home and the weather has grown more pleasant.  Tashkent is not the ghost town it was a month ago.

This hasn't made a big difference in our daily life, other than our return to the stables.  Brandon and I have stopped playing taxi driver for our household help, which has been nice.  He is still working from home, and will be working from home until certain benchmarks have been met.  

A lot of our friends are still in the States, and nobody is sure when they'll return.  We're hoping that we can see them this summer and be able to meet again together for play dates and parties.  Some of my children are eagerly looking forward to the explosion of sociality and some are dreading it.

We're glad that things are getting better here.  We'll take what we can get.

Happy Birthday, Eleanor!

This week Eleanor turned six.  Uzbekistan has loosened up their lockdown this week, but all the fun places are still closed.  It made for a pretty quiet birthday celebration, but we were still able to help Eleanor feel special for the day.

She got to have her favorite breakfast (apple cinnamon rolls), play birthday princess dress-up with her older sisters, have a family pool party, and order schawerma for her birthday dinner.  She also received a visit from our newly-emancipated Russian teacher who brought candy and a new tortoise.  When I asked her what kind of cake she would like, she opted to buy one from a local cake store instead of having me make one.

We had a fun time with Tashkent's semi-functional delivery system.  The pouch has been irregular and restricted to necessary items, so we weren't able to order a present from America.  Instead I turned to delivery here in Tashkent.  The first store I ordered from declined our order because they wouldn't take cash.  Thankfully, the second store was able to come through with a doll. 

After ordering the cake, I got a phone call informing me that - despite being available on the delivery bot - the cake we ordered (pink) wasn't available.  It was at that point I decided that delivery really wasn't making my life earlier.  So instead I packed Eleanor and William into the car and we just drove a couple of miles to the store and picked out the cake in person.  There was no pink cake, so we got a purple one instead.  I think it was black currant.

I'm still coming to grips with Eleanor turning six.  Being my fifth child, she's the oldest of the little kids.  I've always been used to her being in the baby category, but six is definitely not a baby.  She's almost done with kindergarten this year and is quite capable, having learned to write and spell in both English and Russian.  She loves to make bottles for her baby sister, and is a fish in the water, happily swimming for at least an hour every day. 

I remember Kathleen turning six and feeling like she was just about ready to head off to college, so it is strange to see my fifth child reaching that same age and being just as capable.  Eleanor, of course, is happy and proud to be such a big, grown-up girl.  Thankfully, she's still happy to cuddle up on my lap each evening for her story (despite being able to read all the books herself) and loves to have her daddy tell her stories every evening before tucking her in to bed.  I'm happy to keep her that way as long as she wants to be.