Expecto Patronum!

Our penultimate day of Harry Potter week was a bit less busy than some of our previous days. I do the grocery shopping on Thursday mornings and have Relief Society presidency meetings on Thursday afternoons, so I have less time available to be a proper educator of the magical arts. Malia did have defense against the dark arts where she learned to create a corporeal patronus. Her patronus is a horse (of course) and I think it turned out quite nicely. She also learned that chocolate is the appropriate treatment for the aftereffects of being in close proximity to dementors. After her lesson was complete, she gave it her all in the (tabletop) quidditch finals. She and Matthew have a tendency to bicker non-stop right now and as such, there was definitely some non-sportsmanlike behavior, but up until then she had a good time. There will be additional games with other family members, but the rest of us had a busy day and weren’t available this afternoon.

Our magical week is winding down and I think she’s sad about that, but there are still some fun things planned for tomorrow!

I Finally Found a Plant that I Cannot Kill

The mandrake. At least the Harry Potter inspired chocolate and caramel version. 😊

After starting the day with some super tasty British style scones, Malia repotted some immature mandrakes in herbology, much to the pleasure of her brothers who got to enjoy the tasty end result. She also had another potions lesson where she cooked up some Polyjuice potion slime. It was nowhere near as tasty as today’s other creations, but it was so much fun to play with! Herbology and potions took so much time that she did not have time to complete her care of magical creatures lesson, but she will be able to complete her pygmy puffs on another day. It was a very busy day at Hogwarts!

Muggle Magic (AKA. Science)

Malia’s second day at Hogwarts began with porridge for breakfast (AKA oatmeal) for breakfast.  She requested the overnight variety since she’s not a fan of traditional cooked oatmeal and I was happy to oblige since I also think the pasty version of oatmeal is loathsome. We tossed some strawberries and milk in with the oats last night and had a cool, creamy breakfast. After she ate and completed her reading minutes, she attacked her muggle studies with gusto so she could move on to her magical education.

During her house orientation, she created a tie in her house colors so everyone would know that she’s a Gryffindor through and through. Then she moved on to Potions, which was easily her favorite subject of the day. She made some exploding elixir by mixing mandrake root (baking soda), dragon spit (dish soap) and volatile solution (vinegar) in her cauldron. She learned how to use basilisk venom (dish soap) to send spiders (ground pepper) running. She also created some dancing unicorn milk by injecting it with leprechaun elixir (food coloring) and more dragon spit (dish soap). She ended her school day by learning to make a balloon and a feather levitate (assisted by the magnet on the end of her wand). We couldn’t cover all the potions in her book in one class period, so she is excited about having another lesson later in the week.

As a random, yet related, comment, science is one of the subjects that is getting glossed over with the switch to online learning. She is learning the basic concepts in the 3rd grade core, but there won’t be time to go into as much depth as there would be in a traditional classroom learning environment. As such, we are working to enrich her learning outside of what is assigned online. We got several books that dig deeper into the concepts of force and gravity, heat, and energy and she is completely engrossed. She loves that she is learning the basics of physics since all the boys talk about it so much. 😊

Welcome to Hogwarts

When the world shut down in March, all my children had a myriad of things cancelled. Most of them were things I cannot fix. I can’t reschedule Nathan’s choir tour or Nathan and Matthew’s musicals and concerts. I can’t make this year’s AP tests an actual test of the knowledge gained and I can’t guarantee that all the universities will accept any credit earned. And I most certainly can’t turn back time and make it possible for Daniel’s mission to go as expected. By the time the announcement about schools remaining closed for the remainder of the year came a few weeks ago, most of the hope Nathan and Matthew had for the school year had trickled away. There was that emotional deflation that occurs when that last bit of hope is squished, but for the most part, they had already come to the conclusion in their minds that things would not go back to normal in time to salvage this school year. On the other hand, Malia was holding firm to the hope that she would be able to go back to school and still be able to participate in the 3rd grade’s traditional Harry Potter week. And having that hope ripped away resulted in tears.

Let me explain a bit about Harry Potter week. In third grade, the kids learn about different genres of books. In conjunction with their study of fantasy, the entire third grade at our elementary school holds a weeklong adventure based on the Harry Potter books. There are acceptance letters sent, shopping trips to Diagon Alley taken, individual moments with the sorting hat, house points, chocolate frogs, magic wands, etc. They go all out. In fact, it is such a big deal that when Matthew was in third grade, his class was on the news during Harry Potter week. As such, this is an experience that all the kids look forward to. And the anticipation is not limited to the third graders. All the kids in the lower grades know about it and anxiously await the year when they will be old enough. So this is a big deal. A very big deal. And all that excitement and anticipation was ripped away from my 8-year-old. However, unlike most of the boys’ events, it is completely within my power to plan and execute a rockin’ Harry Potter week. And that’s just what we’ve done. Matthew has been my co-planner. Daniel, Matthew and Nathan have helped with preparation for the event. And Malia was waited with excitement, not knowing when our magical week would begin.

Malia’s Hogwarts acceptance letter arrived this morning via owl (a cardstock creation assembled by Daniel) and the excitement in her eyes made all the preparation worth it. With her train ticket in hand, she arrived at Platform 9 ¾ and traveled to a magical school. She did all her shopping in Diagon Alley with Matthew acting as shopkeeper. He was so fantastic, using different voices, offering her a variety of wand options, etc. He made it so fun for her and I’m really grateful. There are days when I’m certain those two will kill each other and being forced into endless close proximity for the past two months has only exacerbated the situation. After enjoying a chocolate frog on the train, she arrived just in time for her muggle studies. After her first day of classes, the start of term feast was held. Malia wanted to do Harry Potter themed food all week, but that felt like a bit more than I could manage. I did, however, plan several British style meals to scatter throughout the week and this evening’s feast featured bangers and mash. It turned out to be a delicious meal and everyone decided we should add it to the regular meal rotation.

The sorting ceremony was held immediately following the feast. I made a wizard’s hat a few years ago when Nathan wanted to be Dumbledore for Halloween, but unfortunately that hat was nowhere to be found. Instead, we grabbed another hat from the costume bin, got creative with several sheets of construction paper, and made a last-minute alternative. It won’t earn any awards, but Malia was pleased and that’s all that matters. Our hat doesn’t talk, so we ate rice crispy treats with a colored jellybean concealed in the middle to let us know which house we were in. Malia, Matthew and Nathan are Gryffindors and Kevin, Daniel and I are Slytherins. With so few of us, we opted for two houses only so we could have even numbers.

It has been such a fun day and Malia knows there is more to come. We have done everything we can to keep all the plans secret so there will be as many surprises as possible for her. Her eyes are alight with excitement and it is something I haven’t seen for more than six weeks now. After Malia went to bed this evening, I heard her humming the music from the Harry Potter movies. It made me smile!

Free at Last!

Daniel is finally out of self isolation. It has been a very long two weeks for him. After spending the past six months with a companion, he has been nearly completely alone since he got home. This evening he was able to come home for real, join us in the house for dinner, and get reacquainted with both his saxophone and his clarinet. The music in the house was wonderful! I'm so glad he can finally actually reintegrate with our family!

The Parenting Manuals Don’t Address How to Handle a Pandemic

Yesterday an individual who lives several houses away from us tested positive for COVID-19. Although this is a family we don’t spend a lot of time with, especially not right now, their kids do play outside, riding scooters back and forth in front of our house and such. With that in mind, we felt like we needed to let our kids know. There was also another earthquake last night. Matthew and Malia were the only ones who felt it because they were both in bed and loft beds have a tendency to sway more than shorter furniture, but still. Add to that yesterday’s announcement that the schools will remained closed for the remainder of the school year and it is no surprise that Matthew and Malia were both up in the middle of the night having terrible nightmares. Nathan reports crazy dreams as well, although hes’s old enough that he didn’t feel a need to wake up Kevin and me.

We’re all in uncharted territory here. And our mental and emotional health is something we have been discussing with our kiddos pretty regularly. We are working to focus on the positive, act and speak with kindness, find the good, add some good to the world every day, and make it through this mess with some semblance of sanity. Some days are better than others, but we’re baby stepping towards the bus.

As for today, exhaustion is making concentration an elusive animal for all of us. We keep getting distracted and end up trawling YouTube for “Between the Lions” video clips-vowel boot camp, the smarty pants dance, Cliff Hanger, etc. But it’s educational television so it’s technically school at home, right?😜

Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs

For the past several weeks, I’ve been wondering what I could do to make today’s Sunday at home different from our other Sundays at home. In normal times, there is always a special something in sacrament meeting to set Easter apart from other Sundays. There is a sameness to our days right now since we aren’t going anywhere and no one comes here, and I was struggling to find something that would help us all focus on the Savior and the joy of Easter. Then a few days ago, our amazing primary chorister, who was also my primary co-teacher during my most recent time there, sent us an idea from the Friend magazine that had short narrations, a scripture, and a song representing each day of the week from Palm Sunday to the resurrection. It looked like a wonderful plan for our Easter Sabbath.

We started off our SCONES (This is what we’ve started calling our Sunday routine. I’ll write an explanation at the end of this post.) with the sacrament. We did it in the garage so that Daniel could be with us but still keep an acceptable distance for self-isolating, and I can tell you that the surroundings were in no way a deterrent to the Spirit. The Spirit can be present just as strongly in a two-car garage as it can be in a chapel. It was probably one of the more touching sacraments that we have had at home. As I thought of the Savior, it was reminded that no matter where we are or what our circumstances may be, he is always there. Then we went through the lesson from the Friend and ended with a few of our favorite hymns focusing on Easter and the Savior. It was perfect. We felt the Spirit in abundance, and I came away feeling uplifted and hopeful.

After lunch we drove to the temple to walk the grounds. It was a beautiful, albeit cold, day and being out in the sun was like a balm for the soul. All the kids were taking pictures of the beautiful springtime trees and flowers. As I looked up at the temple, I was struck by a longing to be inside. With so many temples within such a short distance, I think we sometimes take them for granted. If one is closed for one reason or another, we have a myriad of other options. If we have a conflict one day, we can easily reschedule for another. But now that they are all closed for an undetermined amount of time, I find myself having an iota of understanding for the longings of those that live further from a temple and can’t attend regularly. What a blessing it is to have such easy and constant access to the peace and joy that is to be found within.

As we drove to and from the temple, Handel’s Messiah was playing on the radio. One of the movements we heard was chorus no. 24 “Surely He Hath Borne Our Griefs.” The music and words got stuck in my mind and all afternoon I was thinking on just how true those words are. Jesus Christ not only suffered physical pain, but he suffered sorrow, discouragement, disappointment, anxiety, fear, isolation, loneliness, worry. Everything that we are all dealing with in our extremely uncommon circumstances is known to our Savior. He felt the frustration we feel at having our normal lives interrupted. He knew the discouragement we feel as more and more of our anticipated events are cancelled. He lived with the feeling of isolation and loneliness we do as we endure social distancing. And he taught us how to stand faithful through it all. He was, and is, our perfect example for enduring well. And the rewards for doing so are more magnificent than any of us can currently comprehend. On this particular Easter Sunday, my heart has been deeply touched as the Spirit had reminded me of the truth and light that is Jesus Christ. What he endured for us and his glorious resurrection mean that we can and will overcome death. He gives us hope when it seems there is none. He comforts us in our trials. He walks beside us on our most difficult paths. He ensures that we are never alone. He truly is the light and the life of the world.

Isaiah 53:4-5 “Surely he hath borne our griefs, and carried our sorrows: yet we did esteem him stricken, smitten of God, and afflicted. But he was wounded for our transgressions, he was bruised for our iniquities: the chastisement of our peace was upon him; and with his stripes we are healed.”

We ended our Easter Sunday by eating dinner and our traditional hot cross buns in the garage, which although most definitely not our normal routine, gave us all a chance to have a much needed casual family conversation while still observing Daniel’s last few days of self-isolation. He’s down to three days and then he can come home for real. We are all looking forward to that.

-So what exactly is SCONES, I mean besides a wonderfully delicious piece of fried bread drenched in honey? We have struggled to find a name that describes our Sunday worship right now. It isn’t exactly church, but it’s definitely more than Come Follow Me or family home evening, so instead of saying it was time for Sunday sacrament/primary/scripture study/lesson/prayer/singing/FHE/whatever in the world it is, we came up with an acronym.

S-sacrament
C-Come Follow Me
O-organization (This is our family planning meeting, not that there is much on our schedule right now, but still…)
N-Normal FHE
E-evaluation (This is our “State of the Family” counsel where we talk about how we are all doing)
S-singing

Shhhh!

While most of the activities and events the kids had scheduled have simply been cancelled, one of Nathan’s did some finagling and instead of a live event, they went digital. I have mentioned in the past that Nathan is taking ASL (American Sign Language) as his foreign language. He absolutely loves it and is picking it up enormously quickly. Each year there is a statewide high school ASL competition. The kids choose one of a variety of events in which to participate-finger spelling, debating, expressive storytelling, etc. Nathan chose to do an expressive story and has been working on his entry all year. When the organizers opted to go digital rather than cancel the event, Nathan recorded his story and submitted the video.

This evening they held a series of Zoom conference calls to hold the awards ceremony. Nathan was super jazzed because Marlee Matlin, the first deaf actor to ever win an Emmy, was one of the judges. She recorded a message for all the kids and Nathan thought that was super cool. He made sure to point out that her Emmy was clearly visible in the background. Anyway, Nathan did really well. In fact, he won first place in his event! I’m so proud of him! It seems that being an actor is of great benefit for those learning ASL since so much is conveyed with facial expressions. Due to the nature of this year’s event, he will have to wait for his medal to arrive in the mail before I can post the “this is my kid, isn’t he amazing” picture, but it will be coming. Stay tuned. 😉