what's up weekly.

It's time for the rundown of our week!

I am beginning to feel like the news is always the same, and if you haven't noticed that already, I won't judge you but I will tell you to prepare yourself for many more posts that run along the lines of, "The kids are fantastic, school is going well, life is stable-bordering-on-the-mundane, and Coronavirus and all its implications can go to hell."

1. The kids are fantastic.

What can I tell you that you don't already know?  The kids are a gift.  This week we got to celebrate so many milestones!  Juni turned 18 months - her half birthday.  She is a year and a half old.  Full-throttle toddler.  HOWWWWWWWWWWW.  She started signing and saying "please" this week, and has finally started saying anything specific besides Dada.  (Why say anything else when the most important things are communicated so clearly already?  She loves Dada, end of story.)  She will now occasionally, begrudgingly, say Mama, and will sometimes say, "No, no, no."  But honestly, she mostly just nods at anything you ask her - such an accommodating little nugget.

We celebrated the two-year anniversary of Atticus' baptism...

...and the three-year anniversary of Penelope's baptism...

...and the fact that Finneas is just so very Finneas.

2.  School is going well.

As has been the case this school year, everything is just running along like clockwork.  We are loving this school year with all our hearts.

3.  Life is stable and boring.

In the best way possible.  I just finished reading Gone with the Wind again, and it is so engrossing, so haunting, so sad, so riveting, so good.  I don't feel ready to start another work of fiction quite yet until I sort through All the Thoughts.  If it wasn't such a hefty book (700-900 pages, depending on the formatting of the edition), I'd consider starting it over immediately.  I'm also still reading "You Who" and "Heaven Misplaced" (both nonfiction) and am planning to start Booker T. Washington's "Up from Slavery," once I can find my way out of the grip of GWTW.

Other than that, no news is good news, right?

4.  Covid can shove it where the sun don't shine.

If you want me to consider shanking you, just utter the words "pandemic" or "unprecedented" in my hearing.  I am absolutely serious, just try me.

And with that friendly threat, I leave you to enjoy your weekend.

what's up weekly.

Well.  I thought last week's news was sparse, but apparently my noteworthy life updates are following the trend of the viewers of the NBA finals: just when they hit the fewest ever seen, they somehow managed to go lower yet.  What a feat! 

To wit: I took nary a photo this week.  NOT A ONE.  And that is reflective of the overall state of the union over here.  Nothing to see here, folks.  So I'm just going to post unrelated, but adorable photos of the kids taken previously.

On Saturday, we were supposed to go up to Iowa to meet my brand-new, precious, perfect niece (!!), but then Penelope woke up with the barfs.  Not exactly the 'Welcome Home, New Baby!' gift we were looking to give, so we sadly stayed at home.  More than one Van Voorst cried over it.

By the end of the afternoon, everyone was back to normal, but I hadn't planned any food for the day since we were supposed to be gone, but I didn't want to put a recently-barfing kid in the car for a half-hour drive to an out-of-town park for a picnic, just to potentially spread our germs and risk car-puking far from home.  No to the thanks.  So we were a little stuck.

But then Todd came to the rescue and ordered food for pickup from a nearby town's wing place.  Sick kids opted not to eat, the rest of us ate like kings, and I didn't have to cook.  It all worked out.

We had nothing else of note until Tuesday night, when a sweet friend came and watched the kids so Todd and I could go on a date to a local Mexican restaurant.

On Wednesday night, I made chili, even though it was 87 degrees outside.  (That's literal.  Hello, October?)  This was a big mistake, not just because it was way too hot to be eating chili, but because I had no idea Atticus was getting ready for gastrotechnics.  Another one down with the barfs for a few hours.

Then yesterday, everyone woke up with headaches and sore throats, including myself.  No fevers or anything, just a rundown, ragged, slow-going kind of day.  We got our read alouds done for school, but we skipped out on our table work.

It honestly hasn't been that bad, and I can't even remember the last time any of us was sick, which is saying something because in a household this size, it seems like we can spend months just recycling each others' germs.  But we have stayed crazy healthy (for large family standards) for almost a year now, maybe longer.  I spent a lot of time yesterday reflecting on the fact that this week's sickness really just served to highlight how blessed we've been this year.  And now that we did get something, it seems to be pretty mild.

And that was literally the entirety of our week: sickness, interspersed with some hot wings and some margaritas.  Actually, when I put it that way, it was actually pretty noteworthy after all.


(Oh, P.S., just for posterity's sake: Let the record show that the city's mask ordinance was extended this week.  Hey, Future Paige, remember when you emailed your city councilman to voice your thoughts, and he LIED DIRECTLY TO YOU and said it was no longer an issue that the city council had anything to do with, and then he voted on that exact issue the next day at the city council meeting he failed to mention?  Those were good times.  2020, unflaggingly working hard to endear us all to our representatives.)

what (very little) was up weekly.

Hello, hello! How you doin' this fine Friday?

I'm fantastic, thanks for asking!

There was little of note this week, so I'll blitz through our lives as though you can boil 168 hours, and nine human lives, into a bulleted list like it ain't no thang. Watch me gooooo!

1.  Yesterday, I was like a woman possessed.  I painted my nails, took a shower, put on real-person pants, AND put on makeup, and never went anywhere.  I did it just cuz.  And the kids were spooked.  "What kind of ill wind is blowing...?"

2.  A while back, we bought Callista a wagon with her birthday money.  Well, the darn thing was a complete beast to assemble, so it's been sitting in the garage in half-done misery for a couple months.  Todd finished it up this week, and the kids have had a ball pulling her, and each other, around the yard.

3.  I started and finished A Tree Grows in Brooklyn in less than 48 hours, which was a feat considering I've really been lagging in my reading lately.  I realized I need more fiction right now, so I started the next book in the Anne of Green Gables series (I'm slowly making my way through those for the first time) and Gone with the Wind.

4.  I'm still reveling in Fall - I haven't yet got up my hackles against winter, so I'm just luxuriating in leaving the windows wide open, lighting candles, sleeping with the down quilt on our bed, and walking around in slippers.  I'm also loving the fact that the poison ivy has almost given up the ghost for this season - only five new plants spotted this week.  I like to think my CONSTANT VIGILANCE! had something to do with it, but I secretly know I have the cooler weather alone to thank for it.

5.  Four words: PRESIDENTIAL DEBATE - OOFDA, AMIRIGHT?  I feel a bit sucker-punched, but also weirdly optimistic now.  If the debates don't matter, as they clearly don't, then all I have to do is vote based on the candidates' records.  Who knew it could be that easy?!

And that is literally all the news that this week held.  Not that I'm telling you how to live your life or anything, but I wouldn't hold it against you if you bragged to all your friends that you know me.  "Yes, that Paige Van Voorst.  The one who lives such a jet-setting lifestyle, all from the comfort of her own threadbare bathrobe."  It's this kind of name-dropping that just might help you land that promotion you've been coveting.