Jumpin' Jive

We have bounce-ability!! The trampoline arrived today and I managed to get it set up with the girls' help. Not the safety enclosure, but we will get that set up tomorrow afternoon after C gets home from work. We could not resist trying it out, being extra careful without the net:

I love how much exercise you get without even feeling like you are working. Five minutes of jumping and my heart is beating hard! With this all winter and the pool all summer, I have no excuse not to get in shape. A and E were not ready to stop jumping tonight, even though it was dark and cold. They were quite grumpy when I insisted I needed to go inside and call it a night! Gotta get that net up, and then they can jump all day if they want to.

One more thing to mention. A was watching Reading Rainbow today and they had a Tromp l'oeil (sp?) artist and a book about optical illusions on there. She got quite agitated when she could not figure out how it worked. I tried to show her some rules of perspective and how optical illusions twist those rules to fool the eye. I got out my art books to show her perspective rules, drew a picture on the chalkboard, showed her some sketches in my old highschool sketchbooks. She got more frustrated, saying "I don't know how to do it". But she refused to even try. I told her to be patient with herself and that now that the idea was in her head she could take her time and figure it out. She said she wanted it out of her head! Too late. I have a feeling that art and all of this she was introduced to today will be a big part of her near future. E and I played with the camera, doing trick pictures. I could not get it focused the way I wanted, but here is one of the pictures we took. "I'm squishing your head!" That was fun and E took it all in stride. She does not have the drive to KNOW things RIGHT NOW like A does and can enjoy something at face value. A enjoyed doing the pictures, but I think she sets a very high standard for herself when it comes to understanding something. Such a perfectionist! Now, I wonder...where did she get that from?