Category Archives: kids activities

the daddy fly and the larvae and the baby that hatched out

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Our days have finally become consistent once again after the big move and I can assure you it feels so very good.  Little boys that are rested.  A mama that occasionally has a moment to gather her thoughts before the scampering feet arrive.  A home with everything in its place and a place for everything (ok, maybe not everything).  A general feeling of rhythm, routine, and calm has come over this home and I quite like it.

Part of that has included a waldorf inspired circle in the morning.  Though I never believed I would have the tenacity to keep something like this up, it has become a part of our day that I truly treasure.  It gives my boys at least an hour of focused mama time where chores are done together and where I don’t try and pick up around their play.  We dance, we sing, we play hand games, we do yoga, we recite simple poems/verses, we paint, we bake bread and generally have a good time.  And though I do indeed admit a full on love affair with the waldorf philosophy, truth be told my boy feels the same way about something else, he loves letters!  I have put no emphasis on them whatsoever yet he hardly draws a picture without declaring it looks like one.  “It’s a half an “A” mama!  It’s an upside down “M” mama!  It’s a “T” for uncle T mama!”, he announces.  And the list goes on and on.  While I believe that literacy begins with a love of stories rather than a focus on phonics, I can’t deny my little one of something so solid that he feels inclined towards.  So I have begun teaching him a few letters here and there, basing a couple unique projects around them, and sometimes picking up a book that happens to have a story with that certain letter’s involvement.

For instance

F

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Flying Miles

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And we read Fledgling and made fairy wands and built an incredible fort (one whom I enjoy being in so much it deserves an entire post of its own).  Overall it was a lovely week.  I feel certain this inclination towards letters will be something he dives in and out of during his preschool aged years, but I don’t intend on putting all our focus on them either.  I believe his imagination will be best preserved through play and storytelling and movement and adventure and life in general.  And we will continue to do lots more of that too.

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Oh not much has changed over the last two decades.  I believe my imagination has been preserved quite well.  I use to play pretend teacher on a regular basis making intensive “workbooks” for this pretty lady when she was Miles age and now look at her;  All grown up sitting on my couch loving my boy.  These two they are something else I promise you.

waving (and winning) the banner of love -A GIVEAWAY-

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I decided to surprise myself last week on the thirteenth of February at ten pm and do some creating.  Lee was at the office, as usual, studying for some quiz or writing a paper (I can never keep track), and I decided to stay up late.  You see, as a rule, I hit the hay at 9:30, at the very latest.  I have no need to reiterate what my nights look like, for I have made it clear and obvious no one does any sleeping for any length of time around here.  So, I broke my precious rule and got to work.

This is what I came up with.  

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I set up a project the boys could make for their beloved daddy-o.  The next day, the boys had a messy yet satisfying time decorating their flags.

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I had a ball picking out sentimental fabrics from this ginormous pile of -to be used for something, someday- stockpile of clothes from the last 7 years of our lives.

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And I found the results of staying up late to be not so bad after all.  Of course everything must be done in moderation.  Don’t think I am going to go out partying anytime soon.  Though, wouldn’t that be nice?  I mean just once?  Sigh….

oh and to show off a bit… this is what my man came up with!  

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a bouquet of vegetables!  how appropriate!

And so to spread the love, I decided to share one with one of you!  And not just any banner.  A banner of your liking.  A custom banner of your choice up to 13 letters long, enough for a happy birthday tradition.  So…. for one drawing give me a comment.  For two, follow my blog  and comment.  For three, share this page somewhere, follow and comment!  In a week or so, I will tally them up, draw one out of a hat (I still don’t know how to do this random number generator bologna) and perhaps you will be adorning your house in a banner of your own.

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remember if you don’t play you can’t win!  

Winner is Beth W.!!!!!

another day in the life

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I am a social woman by nature.  It is the way I was made.  The way I remain.  Somedays it is quite clear my boy is following suit.  Somedays he clings to me like a sweaty shirt.  Both ways he is fantastic.

While the social aspect of nursery school cannot be duplicated, I am not altogether sure it is necessary at this point.  Yet.  None the less, in attempts to recreate some sort of learning environment, I make up some silly game to play about once a week or so.  Sometimes more if I am feeling fancy.  With the breeze in our hair the bugs were kept at bay.  The cooling weather reminded me that this is indeed a glorious place to reside.  This week we did a scavenger hunt.  It ended up more or less a bug hunt to be quite honest, with a teeny nap sprinkled in.

We watched the magic happen.  And the mad crows that always ensue such a feat.

We spotted a green lynx spider.  Fantastically fluorescent with a gait that is both eery and fascinating.  

The number of butterflies, dragonflies and hummingbirds gathering in our vicinity is something to witness.  I am being quite serious when I tell you there are no less than a dozen hummingbirds in our bottle brush tree at any given moment.  Fighting and bickering and chopping at each others beaks so intensely I fear for their demise!  Although I have not been able to capture an image of these lovelies I have spotted two different varieties.  Which is a first for me.  

The pressure to fill days with precise activities with exact times constraints does not exist in our home.  And now, it is so strikingly clear to me that this is the key to inspiring a life long learner.  I want a child interested.  One who see’s the beauty in the world.  Who notices things.  Who observes and is awed by the magic of mother nature herself.  

Yes, the days can be long and lonely out here in the sticks.  We might resort to talking to ourselves after ao many hours talking to one another.  Sometimes, we don’t talk at all.  (Which, for those of you who know me are probably picking their jaw up off the floor right now.)  But truth is I am starting to feel it out here.  There is a certain predictability in this house that without fail orchestrates our day, all the while sparking up something new.  The joy in our immediate surroundings surely does not go unnoticed. 

What is migrating/coming alive/making itself known in your neck of the woods?

Flying the coop

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While I certainly can’t say that a forty-five minute bout of chaotic soccer with Mama by your side is considered independence, it is something now isn’t it?  In my eyes it is blissfully sad and still, I am mourning the happiness from our sporty evening.  Oh it went something like this…

4:45- I was pondering a six p.m start time in a town about 25 miles away… and exactly how to deal with the impending meal.  In my mind a little peanut butter and honey, some leftovers of butter beans and rice and a bunch of snacks to and from would suffice.  Of course time slipped away, as it so often does, tying shoes and finding shorts, changing diapers, and chasing dogs and before I knew it, it was 5:20.  We had to go!  And how!  So, I hoisted the boys over my shoulder and made the mad dash.  I remembered the snacks were still in the kitchen so I headed back.  I plopped down the littlest boy on the one tiny stair that goes to the entrance of our house and hoped and hoped Miles didn’t wander while I jetted in as fast as my mama legs could go to retrieve the cups.  I swiftly made it back just in the knick of time to watch Rowan teeter off that step and take a good tumble onto the ground below.  I picked him up and rocked him silently cursing myself, when the dog escaped and the words I hoped I would never have to hear seeped out of Miles lips, “Rowan fell into chicken poop.”  Oh dear.

5:22- I buckled Miles in.  I gathered up the dog.  Took my stinky but calm baby indoors to clean him up.  I managed a little positive affirmation in between sighs of exasperation and a few hidden chuckles as well.

5:30- On the road.  We were going to make it, and I was determined not to let on that I have a deeply ingrained fear of arriving late.  Surely you can imagine the tension I create in my brain when arriving mere minutes late?  It is frustrating and I hope that I can knock it off one of these days.

6:01- Success.  It was a bit farther that I had imagined, but I see parents with little ones in tote scurrying to the field.  We manage to form a little huddle (a sports terminology I picked up tonight… clearly I have not been active in team sports so far in this life) and I stared at my shoes with Rowan in the backpack and Miles clinging to my hand.

6:10- Turns out the lot of us were waiting in the wrong location so I had to toss Miles up over my shoulder once again and bounce the two of them across the parking lot and onto the adjacent field.  Someone threw a soccer ball and some impossibly tiny shin guards our way and hollered at us to form a line.  A line?  A line.  3 year olds lining up.  I had to giggle.  Most of these kids had probably never heard of such a thing.  Or at least mine had not.  I hustled him this way and that, while the other parents did the same.  There was an onslaught of photography going on.  I refused to join the pack for some odd reason.  I suppose I figured the shots would be better in a few weeks when they got in the swing of things.

7.  The overall feeling was relief.  We made it.  Miles was happy.  Who cares if he refused to attempt the “soccer dance” (what they make you do if you touch the ball with your hands).  I had to stare down a little girl (a foot taller than Miles) who marched up to him, stomped her foot, and announced, “I am bigger than you.”  Come on girly, he makes up for it in style and charm.  Don’t you know nothing?

Ok, I suppose I took a couple…

Ah… so starting the age of planned activites is not something I feel completely ready to embrace.  I beleive this will be the only thing interupting our calm, quiet, subdued afternoons.  And it turns out, those are just the way we like it.  So long as you can through in the occasional soccer dance of course.