Writing on the Wall

The other day, A was playing in her room. She made and hung this sign on her door and I asked her what it meant. She said it was for The Save Baby Animals Center. She made it all by herself, figuring out the spelling on her own. Granted she guessed the first letter of 'center' wrong, but hey, I was impressed! I have been eagerly awaiting the time when she would try to write and spell things on her own. I expected it would be a fun stage to watch her go through and so far so good!

Leave the TV ON!

I guess it is National Turn Off the TV week. I tend to agree with Sandra Dodd when she says why don't we have Don't Read Any Books week. In a radical unschooling home, TV is no more important or damaging than books, or games, or the computer, or the backyard, or playdough, or forts under the dining room table, or art supplies, or baking goodies, or, or, or ANYTHING. If your goal is for the whole world to be open to your children, for them to learn from, television is an excellent source of information and exposure to the whole wide world. So why would you declare no TV for a week? HOW would you go about getting your kids to not watch TV? Coerce them? Threaten them? Convince them it is dangerous to their health and intelligence? Then what? Next time they watch it, they might be feeling bad about themselves because you said it was bad. Or they might know you were lying and then their trust in you will lessen. Not exactly the benefits the creators of this turn your TV off week intended, are they?

If your kid liked to lay around reading classics all day, chances are you would be proud. How about sit around watching Animal Planet or the History Channel? Why is that a sin and reading the thoughts and stories of some long dead writer a virtue? Why can't they both be valuable, simply because your child has determined them to be? For him. Who's life is it anyway?

Seems to me the core issue here is balance. Too much, or too little, of anything is potentially harmful. But who decides how much is too much, or too little, for any individual? That person? The mother? The "experts"? I tend to think the individual has that right.

Ok, rant over. Hope you enjoyed it!

Fun Weekend

We have been having a good time with my dad. Yesterday we went to a Folklife Festival, which had all kinds of food, crafts and entertainment from around the world. We ran into some friends there which made it extra nice. The big hit of the day was the Irish step dancers, just like Lord of the Dance. They were great! The girls bought bead rings from a Peruvian craft seller. It was a very nice little event. We will have to check it out next year, too.

Today, C took my dad flying for a tour of the area. When they got back we headed out to a local state park. We hiked to this little lake and had a picnic by the shore. The girls poked around the edge a bit and watched the ducks. Then we hiked up to the overlook spot. The girls were worn out by the end of the hike and wanted to go home. On our way out we stopped by the horseback riding place and inquired into going for a trail ride with the kids. They have to be six, so we can't do it until E's birthday this fall, but the guy was really nice so we will be sure to give it a go when she is old enough. As we were leaving, after looking at the horses for a while, the guy showed us their "pet" pony named Cleopatra. She was not in a paddock, just free to roam about and she came right up to the girls for some loving. We petted her for a while and as we walked to the car, she followed us. The girls got a kick out of that. I thought she was going to follow us home, but she just watched us drive away. Here are some pictures from the day:

Double Bubble

My dad is in town for a visit, so I might be too busy to post much, but I had to share these shots I got today while playing with bubbles with the girls. I loved the lighting and the joy on the faces! Enjoy!



In this last one, A looks so much like my mother. Just what I needed today. Yeah...not really. Having my dad here really makes me miss my mother. She would have loved to blow bubbles with my girls. In fact, here is a picture of the last time A got to make bubbles with her Tini (my mother's grandmother name):

The Hunt

We had a lovely Easter. I am not a morning person, but I got up extra early to help the Easter bunny hide the eggs in the backyard. The girls came down to check out their baskets of goodies and to search for the eggs. The light of the morning sun was so lovely to be out in. It was a bit windy, but warm. That bunny got really creative with the hiding of the eggs: light green egg in the bed of lettuce in the garden, purple egg under the purple lantana bush, dark green egg nestled in the leaves of the baby basil plant, apricot egg hidden in the apricot tree. That was fun!

The rest of the day went like this: church, including another egg hunt, home to rest and play and jump on the trampoline, dinner of ham, asparagus and scalloped potatoes, chocolate birthday cake for the hubby, and two rousing games of Blokus (the game the girls got for Easter) with the whole family before bed. Couldn't ask for a nicer day!

Noble Scientific Venture or Cruel Torture....You Decide

An innocent marchmallow bunny, blissfully unaware of the fate about to befall it:

The same poor creature, 30 seconds later, tragic victim of a microwave oven "experiment":We can blame our misguided behavior on this website: Peep Research

Eggs and Whatnot

Just had to show off one of my roses, which are doing great this year! The center of this bloom reminds me of the Audrey II in The Little Shop of Horrors, ready to suck some of my blood. We have the DVD of that musical and the girls have been enjoying it a lot. It was the first live musical I ever saw, off Broadway, back in high school.


We had a fun playdate Thursday. My friend helped me spruce up my blog template, as you can see. The kids had fun bouncing on the trampoline with their friends. It was warm, so they hooked the hose to the netting and sprayed a fine mist over the jumping mat. They got pretty excited about the rainbows the water made. I tried to get a picture of them sitting in rainbows, but it did not turn out too well. If you look closely at the smudge going across the lower half of the picture on the right, you can see that it is a rainbow. A is doing her best imitation of a cheerleader in the other picture.

Friday, Daddy was home with us and we did a little shopping. The girls had money to spend and wanted to go to Target. They picked out some littlest pet shop animals. A wanted a watch, so she picked out a pink Timex digital watch. We also got ourselves a new grill. Gotta love that tax return! Ok, actually I would rather keep my money all year and pay the government at tax time, but we can't seem to get our witholding just right. So, we end up with cash to spend. We got a nice Weber natural gas grill. It gets delivered Wednesday and we will have the gas company come hook it up soon after. Good timing, since my dad arrives for a visit on Thursday night.

Today, I was away from the family for most of the day, getting a massage and doing some shopping. But when I got home we jumped a bit and then we dyed our Easter eggs. With four people doing the dyeing, and 33 eggs to dye, it took us about ten minutes! I was a butterfinger, dropping at least three eggs and cracking them. We dyed them anyway, since we don't plan to eat them. We get our eating eggs from my friend who has chickens and wouldn't want to use those good ones for dyeing. So I buy the cheap ones, with the brittle shells, for the Easter baskets and hunt. Once you have had a good farm fresh egg, there is no going back to those mass produced supermarket eggs! Anyway, we got our eggs ready for the hunt tomorrow morning, which I am told must be done before we go to church. We will be up early, I guess. I am trying my hand at making hot cross buns for the first time tonight. They just came out of the oven and look really good. I'm glad because the plan was to bring them to share at church! Yum!

One more thing to tell. Ever since A got her watch, she has been the Time Nazi. Last night when I was tucking her in to bed, she said, "Wait, I want to watch it turn to 10 o'clock." And she proceeded to laugh maniacally as it did so. I kissed her quickly and got out of there fast! And today, she has been declaring all the clocks in the house incorrect and demanding that we fix the problem. If they don't all match her watch, they must be changed. I'm glad she is finally telling time so well and all, but don't you think this has gone too far?

I Have Just One Thing to Say

If God loves you unconditionally and feels no need to punish you, why do you feel you need to punish your child?

What a Wonderful World

What a glorious day! We met the Life Learners at a beautiful old park and had an egg hunt for the kids and simply enjoyed each other immensely. The kids played so well and creatively together. The moms had a wonderful time chatting and getting to know the new family who came for the first time today. I love this life o' mine! I am so Blessed. Psst, click on that one, you won't regret it!

The kids all rushing to find the hidden eggs.

E streeeeeetching to reach that egg.

Some of the kids discovering what their eggs held for them: Coins, stickers, necklaces, band bracelets, M&Ms, whistles, stamps. Lots of cool stuff. A was trading all her candy for "stuff".

The girls and their friend S. A and S were pretending to be horses (a horse?) and giving E a ride.

I don't have a picture, but one of the cool things the kids did today was to draw the world's longest chalk line- it was over 1400 feet long, as calculated by S above and one of the moms, and there were actually two side by side. They drew them all around the bike path surrounding this huge grassy area. They were wondering if the Guiness Book of World Records would be interested!

Funny story. On the way to the park we were listening to Rhinoceros Tap - wonderfully fun music written by Sandra Boynton - and there was this song called O Lonely Peas. E was asking me what that meant. I explained that the person was singing about the peas left on his plate, and how no one loved them and how he had to stay until he ate them and that he would be ninety-one before that happened. A said, "People don't really do that, do they?" meaning make their kids sit at the table until they finish eating their food. They were both shocked to learn it did happen.

Bubble Bath

It was 9pm. I was getting tired, but I could tell the girls were not ready to call it a night yet. I suggested a bath and they went for it, so we headed upstairs. I filled the bath for them, adding bubbles. They hopped in and proceeded to have a bubble fight, blowing mounds of bubbles at each other.

I ran down to get my camera, it was too good a photo op to miss. After a while the bubbles started disappearing, so I ran back down to the kitchen and grabbed the whisks.

I showed them how to whisk the water to make bubbles. We whipped up some more bubbles and they went to town, playing for almost an hour.

It's all fun and games till somebody loses an eye. Er, I mean, gets hit in the eye. Or something.

New Beginnings

It's been a while. I keep reading other people's blogs and forgetting to write in my own! My list of blogs to check every day has grown to 25 blogs. Not every one is updated often, but I find I check most of them every day. I have to figure out how to add a list on my sidebar so you can all see who I like to check with each day. Some of them are really inspiring! I am feeling I need to do my part, as far as posting to this blog more, to give back to the people who read this blog. Nothing is as frustrating as waiting for a blog to load and finding that there is no new entry! I have been guilty of that for far too long. So here I am!

I feel a new direction is needed. I am missing the every day writing thing I started out with. But I am not missing the have-to-record-every-detail-of-our-life method I was using. Most days there is a little story to tell about the girls, but when I feel I have to put down the whole rest of the day, I tend to put it off. Then the story is lost, and the details are lost as I wait for a once a week oppourtunity to write out the whole of our week. So, I think I will focus on the stories and not worry about the full life coverage I was attempting before, and failing at miserably. I will write about whatever inspires me each day. If the major events of our life get recorded in the process, it'll be a bonus! I've decided I want to remember the things that touched me, not the little scheduling details of what we did each day. Sound good to you all?

And now, completely out of character for my blogging style so far, I will post this entry and if I have more to say later, I will. The girls are very eager to get out the Easter decorations now, so that is what we are going to do today.