tim & cait: January 20-26: Back to school

I have stayed away from posting these for a while, mainly out of laziness but I like reading Cait's sister Lauren's weekly summary posts so much, and I feel that it really helps me to connect with her family, that I will attempt it once again.

Monday: We had our last day of non-school for everyone for Martin Luther King day. We didn't do anything specific for the holiday, although we did go to a lovely Martin Luther King dinner for the community on the Friday night before. It was nice because it really seemed to represent all aspects of the Madison community, from a high proportion of homeless people, university professors, families and college students. It gave us a great chance to talk to Atticus about a number of different topics, including racial discrimination and wealth inequality. Of course, we had to talk at a very basic level, but I think he learned something. Monday night was supposed to be the night I was to be a guest on the Mormon Sunday School podcast, but it fell through.

One of our only photos from the event. Atticus is doing an interpretation of being oppressed. Or something.

Tuesday: The first day of school for everyone (except me, of course). Atticus had a half day and Tallulah had a full day. Lulah was very happy to be back, but Atticus had and is still having a hard time adjusting to his new school. Hopefully this gets better. We had a lecture night scheduled for that night, which is a community discussion night about random topics of interest that was started by our friends the Stoffers. However, the night was really cold and we didn't have anyone show up. We did end up with a very clean house though, so that is a plus.

Lulah is excited for school

Atticus, not so much

Wednesday: More school for Atticus and Cait. It was a long day of classes for Cait as she still tries to figure out her line-up of classes for this semester. At night I had a meeting with the FUS library committee of which I recently became the Chair. Apart from doing some major re-shelving and cleaning after a long holiday break, we mainly planned for shelving the large donation of children's books we recently received, but we also talked about my plans for sponsoring a reading parents playgroup/bookclub, where the parents would come during regular play-group hours to discuss a book while the kids played in the awesome childcare space. I hope it works out, because it is kind of my ideal playgroup situation.

The library

Thursday: Today I did actually participate in the recording of the podcast. Check it out: part 1 and part 2. Part 1 is designed to be a more traditional Sunday School experience although it still might feel unorthodox for some, while part 2 delves deeper into what might be difficult issues for some Mormons. Just fair warning. I really enjoy the discussions on these podcasts (I've done one in the past) and I find it a helpful space as I attempt to reengage Mormonism after roughly a year of mostly and intentionally stepping away.

Friday: Our University provided free baby-sitter came over today. I went to whole foods to work on grad school applications and do some shopping during my always too-short break.

The local turkey's we saw on the way back from school

Saturday: I went to help clean the Mormon church in the morning. We go to enough Mormon activities and don't pay any tithing that I felt it was a good way to do our part. Also it meant that I got to hang out with the Chambers, who are our good friends in the ward and fellow anti-capitalists. I could tell the missionaries who were there having a meeting were wondering who I was. The Chamber's son M. who is the same age as Atticus came over to play as Cait went to Costco with his mom. We went to FUS at night, joined by our good friend Brad. Atticus participated in the CRE banner parade, where each class makes a banner to present and hang for everyone to see. Atticus really liked walking in the parade. And then we had what was probably our coldest walk home yet.

Sunday: I took the kids with me to teach my CRE class. Atticus had come the last week to help make the banner, because Cait filled in for an absent teacher, so it was nice that he got to march in that banner parade too. Then I took them shopping for a few more essentials. We knew a big cold front was coming, so it was nice that we were able to get so much shopping done this week to stock the shelves.