the squibix family blog

It was slightly stressful transitioning from a busy morning at church to getting ready to walk into someone's house and sing for them, but aside from the boys trying to walk briskly holding full cups of hot chocolate ("don't spill on your shirt", I told Harvey; "I did!" he answered) we managed it. And Harvey did great with all aspects of the audition: answering questions about himself, smiling for a photo, and doing his best singing on command. He hadn't had time to prepare anything, but that was fine; they just tested him on pitch-matching, then explored his range by having him sing the first half of "Twinkle Twinkle Little Star" in many many keys (he wondered afterwards why it was that his voice was so shaky; I told him that's what happens in auditions).

As he finished, the show's music director asked what experience Harvey had with singing. When I told him we just do a lot of music at home, he wondered if I sang too. I had to admit that I did, so he suggested that I should audition myself. I tried to demur, saying that this was Harvey's thing, and plus I had the littler boys to think of, but he wasn't having it. "It's a family opera," he told me. "And they can join too!"

So we all three auditioned. Each of us had to do less than the last: I sang plenty, but much faster than Harvey. Elijah volunteered to go before Zion and did fine; just a couple minutes was enough to show off all his strengths and limitations. Zion stood behind a chair and did his best not to take part at all, but he loves singing so much he couldn't resist singing along when it was supposed to be Elijah's turn, and then he was persuaded to give just enough to give a sense of his considerable range. Then of course we all had to get photographed and measured (Harvey told us how it was done).

Zion and Elijah still aren't convinced that they want to be in an opera. In fact, right now they might be convinced that they don't. But we were all so proud and happy Sunday afternoon as we left the auditions, that I hope they change their mind. They're both fantastic singers, and getting to be part of a big production seems like a great opportunity. I told them we'd all go to the organizational meeting and see what it's like; that'll be towards the end of November. Stay tuned!

We got the pool last year, and we've managed not to pop it so far. It lives on the deck, which is great because there's a perfectly flat floor with no danger of sticks or rocks, and also because I don't have to worry about damage to the lawn. The boys have been having a great time out there: singly, all together, with friends... Listening from the street you'd think we had a full-size pool in the backyard with all the noise they make splashing, "diving", and even playing Marco Polo!

While we fit in the pool well enough, Leah and I find that the boys' enthusiasm leaves it a little dirty for us to feel quite comfortable soaking. So we take other routes to beat the heat. We've got a window AC in the bedroom—which is to say, Leah's office—so she can work in comfort. Relative comfort, at least. When the humidity gets too much even there, she does her swimming at the pond.

Me, I've discovered I do the best when I spend the most time outside. I've spent lots of time weeding and pruning the last few days, and it's been really hot—but when I take a break and sit in the shade for a minute the air feels charmingly cool and comfortable in comparison! Plus, I'm more on top of the weeds than I've ever been before! In the past I've failed to understand how people could embrace really hot weather like this, but I'm actually kind of digging it this week. I've even taken a couple good bike rides! Maybe improved heat tolerance is something to do with getting older?

Tomorrow looks like it's going to be the last day of the heat wave before cooler, rainy weather takes over. I'll miss all the weeding time, but the plants will appreciate the rain. And it'll also be nice to give the water meter a break: between the garden, frequent showers, and water play in the yard keeping cool has taken a lot of water!

But amazingly enough, we survived! And we even had fun... a certain kind of fun, anyway. We found some places to put our feet in the water, and the dogs went swimming. The boys played in the root cellar cave we passed along the way. We got plenty of time to talk to each other as we moved along. And when we got home, our house felt pretty cool in comparison! I think sometimes our culture tries to define "hard" as the opposite of "fun"—or maybe the other way around. But that's silly: just about everything that's fun is actually hard too. Certainly exercise is always challenging. I'm not much of a gamer, but I understand that video games involve a fair amount of grinding. Sitting on the couch watching TV? Maybe that's not hard. But that's not an option for us, so I guess we have to hike!

The only problem with our day yesterday is that we went everywhere by car. Harvey rightly pointed out that we should have biked to Lexington; as the eldest, he has dutifully absorbed my prejudice against the automobile. But it was so hot, and I was already feeling weak. Today we made it right by not driving anywhere at all. We took a long walk in the morning before it was too blazing, then Lijah and I had a few quiet hours to ourselves while the bigger boys played with friends. Then after lunch we spent four hours in the cool convivial comfort of the library, reading books, playing on the iPad, and—Harvey and I—practicing Pokemon.

Pokemon is one of our focuses for this fall. On a shorter time scale, so are monarch butterflies. We have at least one—or rather, one caterpillar well on its way to becoming a butterfly. To get us some school credit I thought to academize our informal study a little bit, so we picked up four or five butterfly books to look at over the next couple weeks. I thinking about academic rigor, see, because I'm rushing to finish up the home education plans for the year. It's not that I want to impress the superintendent.. just that I have lots of good ideas for fun things I could do with the kids if only I could manage a little more organization. My thought is if I write them down now they'll have more chance of coming to fruition. We'll see soon enough; because never mid the heat, fall is just around the corner!

Two of them, anyways; Lijah has escaped so far, so he spent his time at home jumping on his brothers, messing with the iPad, and putting the vomit bucket on his head as a helmet. To defend them he got to go on errands with Mama and Dada, and enjoy AC and samples at stores as diverse as Whole Foods and Costco (no points for guessing which outing goes with which parent). Here's a picture of Zion sleeping on the floor this morning; he dropped there on the way to the breakfast table for pancakes, and if Lijah hadn't sat on him he probably would have been there all day. As it was he transitioned to the couch where he stayed all day—until maybe 7:00 when he got up to have a pancake at long last.

By that time the heat had broken (after a terrific windstorm with only a little rain). Yesterday it never broke at all: terrible hot well after dark. And we were all healthy, though less raring to go than we would have been in more temperate conditions. Though in retrospect, maybe the early warning signs were there. We certainly took very well to the news that it was, apparently, National Hammock Day.

Just the thing when the heat index is over 100°.

I have no problem with it being hot in the summer. It's to be expected. And I think with the AC and the windows (and the hammock!) we're all set for a couple more days of this craziness—all set, that is, as long as the other three of us don't get sick!