Happy Friday! Time for some Takes.
On Sunday Tony and I finally tried the new distillery in town. Like everything else, we could walk to it. We enjoy supporting local businesses, and were prepared to force down some pretty raw stuff, but thankfully it was all really good. They’re specializing in fruit liquors, many of which were a bit too sweet for us, but their wheat whiskey was surprisingly good, so we bought a bottle to have on hand. Their strawberry liquor was also good and I think will make a great base for a special Nativity of St. John the Baptist cocktail.
On Sunday night, Teddy’s hospital bed broke while he was sitting up in bed, and the head of the bed was in an upright position. Tony couldn’t lower it for sleeping. He moved him to the futon in the living room for the night and we were unable to lower the bed on Monday, so I started looking around online for a new hospital bed. Facebook, and our town, came to the rescue again when I put a call out in a local giveaway group asking for a hospital bed. I even offered to pay a fair price. Within a couple hours, someone who lived only a couple blocks away offered us an electric hospital bed for free. We picked it up Tuesday evening and it’s nicer than Teddy’s old bed and has a fancy air mattress designed to prevent pressure sores. Teddy loves being readjusted on the bed and allowing the mattress to adjust to his new position. Plus the buttons are easy to push so he can sit himself up now. As a bonus, a metal scrapper took the old hospital bed frame off our front yard within an hour so we didn’t need to worry about storing it until the next bulk trash pick up day. A feel good story all around!!!
Ever since Byron was cleared to drive after his last orthopedic appointment, I’ve been letting him drive to his physical therapy appointments. It’s been my first time behind the wheel with him and it’s been interesting to compare how he and Addie handle learning to drive. Namely, Byron laughs when he’s nervous, which caught me completely off guard as I was trying to direct him through a turn. Thankfully, his other habit is driving the speed limit or slower. But overall he’s doing fine with everything and thankfully it’s not Lent so I can always pour myself a drink or eat something sweet when we get home safe and sound.
On Wednesday I thought, for some odd reason, I would enjoy watching One Child Nation while I prepared dinner. The movie documents the fallout from China’s one child policy on various family members of the filmmaker and others in the country, as well as how the policy played a part in the country’s international adoption practices. It was fascinating to see how prolific the propaganda promoting the policy was through the country; billboards, songs, plays, operas, kids shows- all geared to convince people to adopt the one child policy and to gain their support in punishing those who failed to sterilize or tried to hide a pregnancy. I was especially moved by the testimony of a midwife who couldn’t remember every baby she delivered, but she knew exactly how many abortions she performed because felt they were wrong and she would need to answer for each of them one day. Now she only works with infertile couples in the hopes of bringing more children into the world, to make up for those she killed. I highly recommend viewing the movie (just maybe not while cooking dinner), with the warning that there are images of dead babies shown. (And FYI, I found that several of the negative reviews on Amazon were from Chinese people questioning the filmmaker’s motives and trying to justify the policy.)
One movie I did share with the kids this week was the 1994 action classic Speed. (Go watch the trailer- you know you want to!!!) As I told my kids numerous times leading up to family movie night, “I love this movie! It was my favorite when it came out! I owned it on VHS!!!” And everyone did enjoy watching it, plus, I didn’t need to remember to rewind it afterwards.
Lastly, who else has kids dying to dissect dead animals? Just me?
After ordering some science supplies for Addie one year, I started getting a catalogue from a science company that sells dissection kits and a wide variety of “specimens”. Fulton somehow got ahold of the catalogue, saw all the specimens, inquired as to their purpose and has been asking about dissection ever since. We’ve watched some dissections on YouTube, and while I’m not opposed to dissecting animals, I’m also confident that if I tried to do it, I would mutilate everything and wind up smelling like formaldehyde for days afterwards.
Enter paper dissection models!!! All the guts! All the science! None of the weird smells and risk of ruptured intestines!
Although the accompanying lessons are geared towards older students, I thought just having the completed model would be satisfactory for now. I bought the shark and squid models since we’re studying marine biology, and I finally completed the shark model this week. It’s SO COOL. The boys are being low key in their response but I love it and if I didn’t already have a beast of the year for 2021, paper dissected shark would be it. Definitely requires the assembly skills of a teen or adult, but highly recommended if you have traumatic high school biology memories you don’t wish to dredge up while teaching your own children.
How was your week? Write down all those memories and link them up below! Be sure to include a link back to this post so your readers can find the rest of the Quick Takes. I look forward to reading your posts!
One Child Nation is such a good movie! It is mind-boggling to see the people in it who defend abortion. I’m so glad that documentary was made; hopefully people can watch it with open minds and hearts.
One Child Nation was riveting. Sad, interesting. Thanks for giving it a wider audience.