Red Ribbon Week

This week at Joseph's school is Red Ribbon Week. This means that the trees have bright red ribbons tied around them, that the kids plant tulips, and that each day they're supposed to wear something with a certain theme.

Nothing this year is too hard to find. Yesterday was "wear red" day and today is "wear your Halloween costume" day. I've heard of schools where kids are supposed to wear camo one day or "dress as what you want to be when you grow up" day. In contrast, crazy hair day and hat day aren't too hard.

Even so, I've been a little bit annoyed at having to come up with outfits for each day. "What do any of these have to do with drugs?" I wonder. What do any of these have to do with the horrible, horrible things that happen because of drugs -- the physical and mental health problems that occur, the ravenous call of addiction, the children traumatized by having parents who can't take care of them, the difficulty in holding a steady job, and the siblings and friends devastated by the loss of loved ones due to an overdose? How can you teach kids about the horrors of drug cartels, about how dangerous borders have become, how much pure evil there is in those who want to enslave and addict anybody they can?

Well, you can't really say all that to a first grader. So you say what they can, and they understand what they can, and in the meantime you do crazy hair days and hold them as close as you can.

***

Halloween always puts me in a bit of a family history mood, so on Monday I gave a lesson for Family Home Evening about what happens after we die. I explained what we do in the Spirit World and then explained that we are resurrected. It wasn't the first time we've explained it, but Joseph understood it better this time.

"We get our bodies back? And they never get sick or hurt? That's so cool!" he exclaimed.

It's not always a doctrine that means a whole lot to me. Bodies are great, but I feel like living with God and families forever matters more than living with them with a corporeal body.

Still, as I think about so many people whose lives have been hurt by drugs, whose bodies and brains have been ravaged by their effects, and who die prematurely because of them, I feel a lot of comfort as I think of the resurrection. We will see our loved ones again, and because of the resurrection, we will see them whole again.

I the Lord have not forgotten my people

This week has been so horrible for so many families. Innocent people have lost their lives to domestic violence, racism, and anti-Semitism, and others have been threatened with bombs.

It is all horrific, but it is equally mind-boggling. How could anyone think another human being deserved to die?

I think I know one answer. As soon as you are unkind to someone, you start to hate them. You start to warp them in your mind so that they deserved what you gave them. This happens with gossip or turning someone into a punchline. It happens with an entire culture built around dehumanizing black people so that you can justify enslaving them. It happens with immigrants, with LGBT people, with people of a different political affiliation.

And today it happened to Jews.

Anti-Semitism is as old as it is bizarre. That a mere one percent of the world's population can be hated by more than ten percent of the world's population defies logic. These verses in 2 Nephi 29 in the Book of Mormon have always seemed to reflect both wrath and bafflement from God:

4. . . . And what thank they the Jews for the Bible which they receive from them? Yea, what do the Gentiles mean? Do they remember the travails, and the labors, and the pains of the Jews, and their diligence unto me, in bringing forth salvation unto the Gentiles?

5 O ye Gentiles, have ye remembered the Jews, mine ancient covenant people? Nay; but ye have cursed them, and have hated them, and have not sought to recover them. But behold, I will return all these things upon your own heads; for I the Lord have not forgotten my people.

7 Know ye not that there are more nations than one? Know ye not that I, the Lord your God, have created all men, and that I remember those who are upon the isles of the sea; and that I rule in the heavens above and in the earth beneath; and I bring forth my word unto the children of men, yea, even upon all the nations of the earth?

White supremacy has caused many problems in the United States, but I think it can end in this generation. We need to speak up. We need to cling to truth and insist on teaching it. We need to teach that any kind of hate speech (even the casual kind in our own homes) will poison our own soul and warp our own minds. We need to teach gratitude for people of all races and ethnicities who have contributed so much to making our lives better.

And we need to remember what God has said about all His children:

 33 For none of these iniquities come of the Lord; for he doeth that which is good among the children of men; and he doeth nothing save it be plain unto the children of men; and he inviteth them all to come unto him and partake of his goodness; and he denieth none that come unto him, black and white, bond and free, male and female; and he remembereth the heathen; and all are alike unto God, both Jew and Gentile.

Moons, Moonmoons, and Submoons

"A few years ago," the Smithsonian Magazine article begins, "an astronomer’s son asked the type of question only kids and genius astrophysicists come up with: Can a moon have a moon?"

I am here to testify that Moons can have Moons. Moons have been having Moons for generations. Furthermore, Moons can marry Moons, become Moon Moons, and have more Moons. Moons can even live with Moons while building Moon homes within a mile of other Moon homes. (According to the Smithsonian Magazine, this distance is necessary for the younger Moon residence to complete its own orbit but still be close enough to take advantage of the older Moon's gravity [or garden].)

Scientists wonder why moons don't have their own pet moons. I have the answer to that. First of all, children are not pets, so when Moons have baby Moons we don't call them pets. Second, Moons don't usually have pets because if they had pets they would have to be dopey wolves named Moon Moon to fit the theme of the family, and no one here likes big dogs.

Although no moons outside of Earth's atmosphere have been shown to have their own submoons, plenty of Moons inside of Earth's atmosphere have. Here is my photographic evidence:

As you can see, there are several Moons orbiting the Grandmoons. (Not to be confused with the other Grandmoons that live in Duchesne, of course.) These Moons or former Moons have all converged on an orbit that now only extends as far from the grandmoons as Arizona. The orbit used to include places such as Michigan, Connecticut, Alabama, New Jersey, Georgia, Costa Rica, and Spain, so the Utah gravity is definitely much stronger now!

Scientists have considered calling the moons of moons "moon-squareds." Kevin and I were of course the original "moon-squared" (see here), so naturally Joseph was called moon-cubed, at least for his first Facebook album. And these days he definitely likes three-dimensional objects, especially paper airplanes and origami animals.

Matthew is our little Moonito right now. He always wants to know how to say things in Spanish, and once when my sister asked how he said his name in Spanish, he said "pantalones."

Matthew also fits a lot of other criteria relating to moons of moons. According to the article, "In order for a submoon to survive, it needs to be small -- about six miles in diameter or less." And he is much, much less than six miles in diameter. But what he lacks in size he makes up for in volume.

Jacob is our mini Moon, and he is learning lots about gravity right now. For the past few weeks, whenever he got upset, he flung himself backwards and landed on whatever was right behind him. Luckily, he now checks behind himself when he's about to do that, and if the ground looks hard, he slowly lowers himself down backwards and then continues his mournful soliloquy.

Most of the time though he's pretty sweet and happy and very content to hug and nuzzle the pet moons we do have (stuffed animals).

Moon Moons. Submoons. Moons-squared. Moonitos. Mini Moons. Whatever science decides to call moons of moons, we're sure glad that our set of Moon babies exists!

Naming conventions

Matthew's got a very straightforward approach to naming his stuffed animals. For example:

"What's your white bear's name?"
"White Bear."
"What's your small black bear's name?"
"Baby bear."
"What's your bird's name?"
"Chick."
"What's your dog's name?"
"Dog."
"What's your other dog's name?"
"Cantalobis."

. . . It turns out there's a Cantalobos pet hotel animal rescue, so I suppose even that last name is almost as straightforward as the others.

Kind of.

Creativity

It wasn't that hard staying off of social media. Most of the appeal for me has been in interacting with friends, and as algorithms became more sophisticated at hiding my posts I felt less invested in sharing on Facebook.

What's been surprising is how little I have wanted to say. My mind isn't coming up with quips suitable for a general audience like it used to. I don't feel like making clever blog posts about our adventures. Honestly, I didn't even take any good pictures of my kids when I wasn't on Instagram for 10 days.

But that doesn't mean I haven't been creative. My mind is constantly coming up with classical pieces combined with Primary songs and hymns. I'm coming up with bedtime stories for the boys. And sometimes I'm still funny (though I don't know how to show that side around kids I work with at school or church).

Maybe in order to immerse ourselves in the bigger creative endeavors that make it onto bucket lists, we have to set aside the smaller creativities -- the tweets, the funny texts, the online communities that rob us of our energy. I know lots of people felt muted by the social media fast, but maybe there doesn't need to be as much talking in the first place.

Or maybe there are just times and seasons for everything, and right now is the time for me to be creative on the piano keyboard rather than the computer keyboard.

And in the meantime, there are always the archives!

I'm . . . not that glad I live in a world where there are Octobers

October 2015 (Michigan): I'm working at my desk on a Sunday afternoon when I look over and see a chipmunk run into the house. I don't remember why the door was open, but the chipmunk took advantage of it, at least for a few seconds.

October 2016 (Connecticut): I'm sitting on the couch looking at my laptop one evening. Kevin is out shopping. Kids are in bed. It's incredibly peaceful. Then all of the sudden, something furry darts out under my legs and scurries away. I realize that I just saw a mouse and stay standing on the couch until Kevin returns. And thus begins a long battle over the next several months. Several mice lose their lives in the battle, and I lose my mind every time I hear any sound.

October 2017 (Connecticut) : It's been a few weeks since the exterminator came, and we feel confident that we are finally mouse free. Kevin goes to Allerton, Illinois for 4 days. He tells me when he comes back that he killed a mouse the morning he left, but he didn't tell me then because he didn't think I wanted to know about it. He was right. But this still means the exterminator was not totally successful, so the war against the mice must continue.

October 2018 (Utah): After 4 months that only produced a half inch of rain total, we are blessed with a downpour of rain over the course of a few days. There is a pump outside the boys' window that is noisy in the night, and in the morning my mom and I investigate to see if there was an animal in the window well that was making part of the noise. There wasn't, so we open the window to get rid of the mustiness that came from the rain. I open my bedroom window a crack as well. It's cold so I close the boys' window pretty quickly but forget entirely about my window.

That night when we go in the room is pretty cold, so I finally close the window. As we're falling asleep I hear what I think is a scratching sound right behind my head where the window is, but I heard one the night before and it was a false alarm, so I'm sure this one is too.

Then at 2:30, I wake to a thumping sound. I open my eyes and see Kevin hitting the curtains. "I'm sure there's something in here," he says. We turn on the lamp and use his cell phone as a flashlight. We (or at least Kevin) search and search under the bed and behind the curtains. Nothing. We decide that we're just crazy but decide to look around one last time.

"There you are," Kevin says to the little brown thing hiding behind a shelf in the corner. And thus begins an epic battle involving shoes, shifting shelves, closet doors, and one terrified little rodent. At the end of the battle, we can only see its tail. The tail twitches for a few seconds, and then all is still.

The next few minutes are dedicated to cleanup. The next few hours are dedicated to trying to fall back asleep amidst fussing from a teething Jacob, trying to forget that an animal was right next to my head while I slept, fretting about other creatures who might have also entered the house during the 14 hours of easy access, and wondering if hantavirus is still an issue. But when morning finally comes, we find out it was a vole, not a mouse, and only voles fall into the window well and can't get out. So at least we won't get bubonic plague.

Maybe it's not a world with Octobers that's the problem. Maybe it's just a world with rodents.

But they sure seem to like October a lot.

Visions by night, again

In my mind's eye I saw a calendar with the church curriculum on it. On one day it said, "We will no longer be using the Teachings of Andrew Jackson in our quorum meetings." A few days down it said, "We will no longer be using the Teachings of Zachary Taylor in our quorum meetings."

Dream me asked my dream mom about it, and she said they were phasing those out when she was a young adult, and they weren't that uplifting.

General Conference better come fast because my mind is making up some pretty wild rumors.

Thy seed shall multiply

I walk Joseph to school most mornings. As we walk, we usually talk about math, though sometimes he wants to learn about different countries or science.

As we started our walk today, I asked, "What's six times seven?"

He was quiet for a little while. Then he said, "42!" I asked how he got it, and he said he added 7 six times to get it. I then asked what seven times seven was. Forty-nine.

Then I had an idea. What's six times eight? This one took him a while before I reminded him he could just add 6 to 42. Oh. 48.

"49 is right next to 48, and 7 is right next to 6 and 8." We tried again with 9 times 9 (81) and 10 times 8 (80). "81 is right next to 80, and 9 is between 8 and 10." He needed some help with 9 times 11, but by then he got the pattern.

"What is 10 times 12?" Easy, 120, he said.

"What is 11 times 11?" Our walk became quiet again as he thought about it. Then he said it slowly. "One hundred  . . . and . . . twenty-one."

Then that gave me an idea. I explained that 11 times 11 is 121. Then 111 times 111 is 12321. He then got that 1111*1111 was 1234321, 11111*11111 was 123454321, and 111111*111111 is 12345654321. By then he was happily skipping on the sidewalk, laughing about what a silly trick that was.

The crossing guard watched him skip and grinned at us. We crossed the street and walked along the long sidewalk to Joseph's school. "Everything in math has a cool trick to it," I told him as he headed for the door.

Someday math might not be as fun for him. He might get bogged down in adding fractions or graphing inequalities like I was. But for now, math is place of joy and discovery, and I'm glad I get to witness it.