Fall is here at last, despite many attempts to push it back until it isn't there. A couple years ago when people would ask me what my favorite season was I would often say that it was fall. But then I sat back and reflected that I didn't really like fall the best, it just sounded cool to say I did. (Much the same with colors. I used to say that my favorite color was blue but then I realized that my favorite color really was neon orange.) In fact I really disliked fall because it was cold. But this year I am finding myself actually looking forward to it. Of course there are still the aspects to it that I dislike such as the weather and and starting school, but all in all I am actually looking forward to it. I'm sure that you have read or heard me talking about speech and debate and co-op but I have to bring it up again because it has a lot to do with me looking forward to fall. They both start when the school year starts, and they provide comfort in the midst of my schoolwork. Last year we started getting out of the house more and getting involved in more activities. I am very excited for these activities to start up again.
But, as I mentioned previously, fall does come with its downsides. We can't play outside as much as we do in the summer, due to the weather getting colder, and the dreaded school work starts. We just finished our first week of school. We were trying out our schedule and seeing if everything worked out. My schedule is a lot more full than it used to be because I am studying for my Bat Mitzvah, which includes learning to read Hebrew and memorizing big chunks of Hebrew. Dan has taken to "helping" me in Rosetta Stone, which is the program that I am learning Hebrew from. He likes to point out the answers that he think is the right ones. I am trying to teach him a couple words of Hebrew without him realizing. He thinks he is the one helping me so I don't want to tell him that I am actually trying to help him. I'm realizing that he is pretty good at recognizing the words with a little help. But even with the downsides to fall, I am still looking forward to it more than I have for a couple years.
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Around three weeks ago, Kaleb opened his computer and found on the browser that someone had searched for hotels in Michigan. He promptly told us about it and we began speculating. I won't bore you with all of the speculations but eventually we agreed that Mom and Dad were going on vacation without us! As soon as mom came downstairs (it was the morning so it was only us awake when we saw the browser) we mobbed her with questions. After calming us down she told us that we were thinking of taking a family vacation. This of course brought on another torrent of questions, most of which were, "Where are we going?" She answered that they didn't know yet and that they were open to suggestions. Well I'm not sure that was the smartest thing to say because she certainly did get suggestions. Each of us had a different place that we wanted to go to, from The Grand Canyon to Mars (Not really but it might as well have been) . Mom gave us the answer that all kids around the world dread, "We'll think about it." Every night afterwards we asked Mom, "Did you talk to Dad about it yet." And every night she would say, "No, you guys have to go to bed earlier (which is another thing kids hate) because I haven't had the chance to talk with Dad alone yet. Finally the day came when only the older kids were up and Dad starting researching more hotels. There were many hotels that they looked at, but finally Dad called us over and asked us what we thought of a certain hotel that was possible. He showed us the video about it and pictures. I'm sorry to say, but it looked... awful. Not the inside of the hotel, which actually looked rather nice, but there was absolutely nothing fun about the surroundings. Apparently it is a golf place in Branson Missouri. We were as polite as we could be about it, but we tried to drop hints that we didn't think it looked like the most interesting thing. After about ten minutes we stumbled upon a hotel that looked like a blast! It had an indoor water park and several attractions near it that looked amazing. As soon as us kids set our eyes on it we decided that we would go there. At this exciting moment Mom broke into our thoughts by telling us that Ben and I had to go to bed! Imagine that! Me and Ben, who had not been sent to bed earlier than Kaleb and Koryn for a long time, had to go to bed! Once we got in bed we got up in intervals of about five seconds to find out if it was available. In about twenty minutes Kaleb came upstairs snickering,
"Hey guys guess what, the hotel that we wanted to go to burned to the ground!" We were not dunces enough to believe this and immediately demanded that he tell us the truth, the whole truth, and nothing but the truth. He responded by saying, "I'm serious." And that was all we could get out of him until Koryn came up and confirmed it. We all could see the humor in it, (I mean, a hotel burning to the ground! That's pretty random.) but were all bitterly disappointed. It looked like we would be stuck with the boring golf place (which we had not so politely named the place in Branson.) after all. It was true. We were going to Branson, Mom and Dad said. Trying to make the best of it, Kaleb looked up attractions in Branson and much to our surprise there were actually tons of things that sounded really cool such as, an amusement park, zip line parks, and a mountain roller coaster! We asked Mom if she would let us go to these places and she told us that we would probably do at least some of these fun things. So now if you walked up and asked me whether I was excited to go on vacation, I could truthfully say yes! Baseball is great to watch. It may even be my favorite sport to watch. But if a random onlooker decided to watch our private at home baseball games (which usually consists of me, Kaleb, Ben, Claire, Maddie, and Dan) they might find it even more interesting than normal. I was just looking at a question that said, If you could change one rule of your favorite sport, what would it be? This got me thinking about a recent baseball game that I had taken part in. Actually I take that back. I took part in the later part of it. I had been observing the game for a long time, and had decided that it would be something interesting to do, as I was very bored. I was right. I was immediately disposed of by being placed in left field. (On the left side of the basketball hoop, which was second base) Unfortunately if they were really trying to dispose of me, they completely failed. Dan immediately hit the ball right to where I was. I dived for it, but Kaleb got there first. He threw it to Ben on second base and Dan was safe on first. Next came Maddie swaggering up to home plate. I was playing first this time and I had a better view of the pitcher. Because of this I saw the "surreptitious" look that Kaleb gave Ben, which obviously meant Be easy on her. Maddie immediately saw this and loudly exclaimed, "Don't be easy on me." I started to yell to Kaleb to throw me the ball because Dan was stealing second base, Claire was jumping up and down, yelling at Kaleb to be hard on them, and Ben was laughing at the whole thing. By the time everything had been straightened out with Maddie, Dan had stolen third base, and I was disappointed that I didn't have the chance to get an easy out. Claire and Ben's at bat passed uneventfully and they both got on base. Then came Kaleb's turn which brought up a dilemma for Kaleb and Ben. Up to this point Kaleb had been pitching. But of course he couldn't pitch to himself. (You never know. With us it may have been possible) Which left me. This wasn't a dilemma for me. I simply stated that I could pitch. This statement provoked another round of amused glances between Ben and Kaleb. I ignored them and argued my case until they relented and let me pitch. I realized that Dan was the only other person who was trying to get them out, but in spite of this I began. I started by eyeing the baserunners suspiciously and then wheeling around and throwing the pitch. To no surprise of anyone, it was a ball. I laughed and shrugged it off. Actually in reality, I got really mad at myself and gritted my teeth. After staring at the baserunners with a look that would make any major leaguers stay on base if they valued their lives, I concentrated on throwing the next pitch. Right before I threw, I heard a scuffle behind me. Apparently Claire had just stolen third. I may have been right about that look scaring the major leaguers, but I was certainly wrong about my siblings. I took a deep breath and threw. Kaleb immediately hit the ball, which left it up to Dan to field it. Don't get me wrong, Dan is a very good player, but the ball sailed right over his head and landed in the grass which was classified as a home run. I was next at bat, which meant that absolutely everyone was against me. Great, just great. But I held my own by hitting a single. And the game went on like that. With the little's shrieking to us about not being easy on them, but at the same time accepting a rule which stated that, for them, the foul balls counted as hits, with Ben and Kaleb casting looks to each other at different times, and with me watching from first base. Thinking back to the original question, I decided that for our family it wouldn't be possible to change only one rule in our favorite sport. We would all suggest different rule changes until Dad or Mom would have to calm us down, and say that they were all good suggestions, and that we didn't have to come up with just one change. At this we would all disperse to play a game of baseball that, who knows, may have the batter swinging with a broom and the pitcher throwing oranges instead of baseballs. But all in all, I have a sneaking feeling that it would be the most interesting game of baseball that history has ever witnessed.
I'm sitting in a fold up chair next to one of many science fair boards, listening to our science teacher introducing us.
"So lets give a round of applause for these kids!" Clapping is heard. "We are going to take the next fifteen minutes to look at their boards and ask them questions. I groaned inside, thinking how embarrassing it was going to be to have no one come to my board. I was surprised when actually a lot of people came to it, especially female adults. At first I was a little confused, but then I pieced the puzzle pieces together. Some of you know that my experiment is titled, "Which Disinfectant Works the Best." I realized that all the moms were trying to find out which disinfectant did work the best. The first one came over to me, glanced at my title and asked, "So which one did work the best?" I smiled and explained, "Well if you look at the graph, the results show that the pine-sol worked the best. Also you can see it in the picture right here." She looked a bit surprised and said that she thought vinegar was supposed to work very well and that she would have to try pine-sol. Then she moved on. Well that's one! I thought to myself. Next came a bunch of seven year old girls who were obviously excited because they had done something like this before. "It was so cool when we did it!" I smiled again and said, "Well it is cool isn't it?" After vehemently agreeing they moved on. Next came another woman. She glanced at the title and inquired, "So which one did work the best?" That's strange. That's the same question the other lady asked me. I thought. But outside I smiled again and said, "Well if you look at the graph, the pine-sol worked the best. Also if you look in the picture you can see it." She nodded and, vaguely murmured something about her using vinegar, then moved on. Another lady came, looked at the title, smiled, and queried, "So which one did work the best?" Wow this is really getting creepy. A thousand thoughts went through my head. What if this is some sort of a prank! No! What if they are robots and they are programmed to say that! Or, as the sensible part of me said, They are just normal humans who don't know how to read a graph! No that wasn't my sensible side. It was my nonsensical side pretending to be sensible. Adults who don't know how to read graphs, Ha! They probably didn't notice the graph or didn't read it! There. That was my sensible side. While all these things were going on inside my brain, I was automatically smiling and explaining about the graph and picture. She was excited because apparently she had used pine-sol to clean out the cabins at some camp. Anyway it went on like that until it was over. It was quite funny to see all those people, oblivious to the fact that other people had asked the same question, asking which disinfectant did work the best. Altogether it was a success and was very, very fun and funny. Speech and Debate. That sound like the most boring thing you could ever do.
If that is what your thinking you might change your mind when you hear Leah Johansen doing a dramatic reading of her donut books or when you hear Kaleb and Luke Holan trying to find smart ways to insult each other, which is their idea of fun, or when you hear a heated debate going on about if Abraham Lincoln with superpowers or a senior citizen bowling team with superpowers would win in a fight. That is definitely not what most people would expect when they walk into the building. They might expect something like a couple rooms where there is a couple polite debates going on about a couple of topics that nobody understands. Instead what they'll find is clusters of kids joking about different affirmative cases and how this case is horrible and this case is bad but not horrible and how funny it would be if someone ran a case called nuke China and how much they would be destroyed in a round if they did. Walking a little bit more into the building you might find a couple debates going on. If you went into one of the rooms you might find two teams debating politely. But what you didn't see was before when the two teams were joking about how much they would cream each other in the round. You might wonder how any learning goes on with all this joking. But that is a mistake. What if it were stiff, quiet halls with long, dry boring lectures going on, where all the students were reserved and strangers to each other? Which atmosphere do you think you would benefit from the most? The atmosphere of friends helping other friends and having fun or the atmosphere of boring lectures and reserved strangers? You can probably now see why I love speech and debate, and why I think I have benefited from it so much already. Last year Kaleb and I were signed up for a science class. I started the year a little bit nervous wondering if I were going to be the bottom of the class the whole year. This terrible, horrible thought motivated me to get good grades and study, study and ... study. So I threw myself in and determined to understand everything they were talking about if it killed me. Fortunately, I did not have to go to that extreme because I understood everything they were talking about anyway. I have to give a lot of credit to our teacher because she explained everything clearly. In the science book there was a lot of complicated diagrams and charts but she explained them. Although she tried her very best to explain everything nicely some of the kids did not study, the result being that in class they were confused. But the main reason Mom signed us up for the class was because of the labs. Throughout the science book it has a lot of really interesting experiments. Most of them we can not do at home because we do not have the right supplies. But in the class we do the experiments there and the teacher provides the supplies for everybody. But we don't just do experiments, last week we split up into groups of the girls and the boys. Each group had to draw a diagram of the human body. We were allowed to look at the book for a backup. We had to do the main structure of the skeleton, digestive system, lymphatic and endocrine system, and nervous system. Both groups got the basics right but the boy's diagram turned out looking like it had a pig snout for a nose and the girl's diagram had tiny legs. The whole class got a good laugh out of them. The boy's diagram was titled "A Diagram of Kaleb Koch." That shows you a little bit of the kind of humor Kaleb and his friends have. Anyway you can probably see that Kaleb and I had a blast this year. But the class is not yet done. We are going to end the class with a science fair and Kaleb and I are scrambling to get everything ready. My experiment is titled "Which Disinfectant Works The Best." The title in itself is pretty self explanatory. Through this class I have felt my interest in science go from "Oh it's interesting" to "I love it!" I have had so much fun in this class and I hope next year I will go on to the next level!
When people say they have a pet they don't usually mean a hermit crab. When we say we have a pet it could be either of the following: a hermit crab (which is definitely not normal), a gecko (still not normal), or a fish(which is more normal, but definitely not uninteresting). The hermit crab and gecko have sadly gone into our past, the fish hasn't. The loving name bestowed upon this fish is one of great honor and dignity. Our fish proudly bears the name of: Fineas Pompilius Sphyrna Osphromid. Most people prefer to call him Finn. This aristocratic name can give you a little bit of a taste of our sense of humor. To get this name I went through a book that had a bunch of Latin names for sea creatures and picked the most impressive of those names. The name was mine to bestow because I am the rightful owner of Finn as he was a wonderful birthday present given to me by Grandma and Grandpa. I grew increasingly fond of Finn, but I didn't know quite how fond I was of him until the day when his heater stopped working without us knowing. It was a very fearful experience. I was at Walmart at the time, while Kaleb was changing Finn's water. Kaleb apparently felt the water and realized that it was way colder than it was supposed to be. He changed the water to the right temperature and called me at Walmart to get a new heater. Fortunately, we found one that worked and brought it back. We had a little trouble installing the new heater, but with the help of our neighbor and friend we got it to work. Thankfully, Finn has managed to live a full year and we hope that he will live a good while longer. Some people don't understand how I could be so fond of my fish. Well, first of all he's my very own, second he's quite a nice quiet and peaceful pet, and third he is very beautiful.
As I mentioned before, we didn't have such good fortune with our other pets. Our gecko was a nice pet until we realized that our house was to cold for him so we gave him to some friends. I was too young to remember our hermit crab. All I know about it is that one day we found the poor thing dead in its cage. I don't know how that came about but I have hopes that it just died of old age and nothing else. Claire has long been begging Mom to get a kitty, but, as Mom has repeatedly told her, we can't have a cat because Mom is allergic to cats. As you can see we have had a good bit of adventures with pets. I'm only glad that we have managed to take care of Finn well enough that he is still happily living. People often ask us if we help Mom cook meals. They can't imagine how Mom can do it herself. Well, Mom does most of it, but we do help her. Usually the routine is this: Maddy or Claire cook eggs for breakfast on Friday, while Ben cooks breakfast on Monday and Wednesday. On Tuesday and Thursday we eat oatmeal. On the weekends it varies. And yes, we do make 24 eggs for breakfast. But the point of this post is not to tell you what we eat, the point is to give you a little chunk of what our "conversation" is like at the meal table. Let's take a normal "relaxing" dinner for our example.
Everything starts out peacefully. But soon Dan jumps up in his chair pointing frantically to a piece of chicken and shouting something like, "Wow look at that, the piece of chicken looks like a duck!" Mom: Guys, our table voices are like this. (demonstrating with her voice) Koryn: (Leaning forward eagerly) "Dad is there anything interesting that went on today?" Kyra: "Oh no! Claire spilled water!" (Dad jumps up as if electrified, and begins giving orders) Claire: (Mournfully) "I didn't mean to." (There then begins a mad rush to grab a towel and sop up the water) (After everyone settles down) Kaleb: "So Dad, you were going to tell us some interesting news." Dad: "Nothing much happened today in the political sense, if that's what you mean." Ben: "You always say that!" Kyra: "That's true! There has got to be some interesting news, political or otherwise." Kaleb: "Come on! Did Klaven say anything interesting?" Mom: "No Maddie, you have to eat your peas!" (Maddie starts sneaking her peas under the napkin while nobody is looking) Mickey: (Banging his spoon on his highchair) "Somebody butter my bread!!!!" Koryn: "Ask nicely Mickey." Mickey: "Somebody butter my bread please!!" (tacks on the word please as an afterthought) Ben: "Anyone want to hear the joke I came up with?" (Ben tells a ridiculous joke) Kaleb: (Lamely) "Ha." (Everyone else is too occupied to react) Ben: "Want to arm wrestle?" Etc. For guests, our meal table might be quite overwhelming. But for us, who are used to it, it is actually quite fun. You can only guess what is going to happen next! Theater camp sign up sheets are out. That means Koryn and I are constantly talking to mom about which camp we should go to and when to sign up. On the sidebar of my page my description says I am a drama queen. That would give you a hint that I absolutely love theater. Koryn has the same passion for it. So when Koryn saw the email saying that the sign up sheet was out we immediately began planning. However we met a problem almost right away. The two theater camps that were available were, Shrek The Musical and Vintage Hitchcock: Live Radio Play. The Vintage Hitchcock one didn't seem so interesting to us but Shrek was a musical and there are a lot of great singers at that particular theater, so we would probably get a very lame part, which did not agree with Koryn and I in the least. Looking back on the previous years I realized that there were problems like this every year, and every year everything worked out great and we all had a amazingly fun time. So I thought it out and decided that I should just trust in the Lord and not worry about it, because I'm sure whatever camp we'll go to, we'll have a wonderful time. Even if we don't get a great part we can still enjoy the time a lot. You can probably see from this post that I take theater very seriously, but for me it's a way to sharpen my skills and have a fun time doing it.
I woke up today thinking, Sunday, big work day. (We are jewish so we celebrate the Sabbath on Saturday.) I am not looking forward to another dull boring day.
As it turns out, when I look back on the day it was not boring in the least. The day started out as usual. Sunday is shopping day, so the boys and Dad go out and shop while the girls stay home and clean. But the night before, Mom made it quite clear that it was not going to be our normal routine of picking things off the floor and cleaning the kitchen counter. No, today we were going to dust, change sheets, vacuum, etc. So when the boys left we started dusting and doing other jobs. Eventually we made it into our room and started clearing off my dresser. My dresser is the first thing you see when you walk into our room. It's huge. The only part of it that I feel really belongs to me is the drawers and the little space above the drawers. But there is much more to it than that. Above the drawers is a whole tall piece that has little cubby holes and spaces where you can put your stuff in. Unfortunately until today my brothers and sisters have found it a very convenient place to put their stuff and the stuff that doesn't really have a place. So until now it has been cluttered with books, toys, and other random things. As I was saying, we started clearing off my dresser. A couple minutes laternfound Koryn and I with Curad gloves, dusting the dresser. I looked through the stuff that was stashed there and saw things that brought back memories and things that I picked up, looking at with disdain and promptly marching them to the garbage can. When the boys came home the chaotic scene of putting away groceries started. Mom sitting near the fridge with ten bags of groceries around her would begin the tedious job of sorting foods into going in the outside fridge or the inside. Fortunately, today was not as much food as we usually get, and the job got done quicker. Then came lunch. Dad began the job of splitting sandwiches until each kid had a good lunch. After lunch we went outside to enjoy the beautiful weather. I made straight for our hammock, which is next to our trampoline, and closed my eyes and tried to rest a bit. Unfortunately, when you are one of nine you rarely get peace and quiet. A bunch of the other kids made straight for the trampoline. When they got on they promptly began wrestling, passing the the football, and doing flips. As you can imagine, this was far from quiet. So instead I settled down to watch the games and fights on the trampoline. After a while the littles were the only ones left, so they began to "take turns" doing some "cool move." It sounded a bit like this: Maddie: "No Dan, you are behind Claire." Dan: "No, I'm behind you!" Maddie: "You are not!" Dan: "I am" Maddie: "Fine." Claire: After Dan does a flip "Dan, that was your turn." Dan completely ignores her and goes on doing "cool moves" Claire: "That was you turn!" Ben, seeing what is happening, sticks out his foot and accidentally ruins Dan's flip. Dan: "I get three more turns because Ben ruined it!" I think you get the idea. When the littles were all in bed for their nap, we began to fold laundry. Well, we were folding laundry placidly when the doorbell rings. Kaleb jumps up to answer the door. Since me and Dad where hidden from view I tried to guess who it was by their voice. I came to the conclusion that it was Anna and Abby, some neighbors who are friends with Claire and Maddie. I knew whoever it was, they were asking to play. I whispered to Dad, "It's Anna and Abby." Dad, trusting me said, to Kaleb who was at the door. "The little girls can play in a half an hour." So Kaleb dictated that to the neighbors and came away. We eventually figured out that it was not Anna and Abby it was actually Iris and Haden. Iris is a friend of Koryn and I, and Haden is a friend of Kaleb and Ben and Dan. When we figured that out we had a dilemma. Us older kids needed to do a bunch of things that afternoon, but we couldn't run after out neighbors and shout "Actually not." Dad got all worked up and began to say something like this: Dad: I thought it was Anna and Abby, so I agreed that the little girls can play. If Iris wants to play with the little girls that is fine. Or she can pretend to be Anna and Abby, that's also fine. Of course he said that jokingly. We finally got it figured out and we had fun playing with our various friends for an hour. I could write on and on but I think you get at least some idea why today was not dull or boring in the least. |
KyraThey call me the drama queen. And that's partly what I'm here for; to show you the drama of living in a big family. Archives
September 2017
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