A Week, Briefly (10/9/17)

Little Princess was baptized during a small but sweet service.  It was a grand day for her--for us all!

Monday
The mornings are cool, and the afternoons are warm, warm, warm.  The autumn weather couldn't be more perfect.  We accomplished an astonishing amount of work:

Teen mentor meetings
Academy
Symposium
Reading lessons for Brother and Ladybug
Auditory therapy (new review product) for Super Star, Beowulf, Brother, and Ladybug
Independent work by everyone age 8 and up
Chores
Errands

And a great deal of unsupervised play that is consistently joyful for me to contemplate.

It took me a while to figure it out, but Beowulf is holding his pencil in his non-dominant hand.  He's a lefty!  When I switched it, he was much happier, but he needs help to put the pencil in his hand every time.

Little Princess drew a whole porcupine family.

Yes, I do have a pencil grip for Mister Man, but he took it off the pencil--that's it, in his other hand!  Interestingly, I'm seeing that Baymax holds his pencil the same way.

Porcupine by Brother

Both Nature Angel and Little Princess are sewing clothes for their new dolls.  First Nature Angel was using hot glue to make no-sew outfits, but a brief internet search turned up a handful of free printable patterns that got her to pull out the sewing machine.  She's got a gift for understanding patterns and how to put them together.  Though Little Princess is a couple of years younger and a couple of years less coordinated/experienced, she watching, copying, and learning from her older sister.

Then Nature Angel organized scavenger hunts for the Elementary 8 in the early evening.  Because most of them are non-readers at this point, she drew picture clues, and they happily hid and found clues for hours.

This game called for creative thinking, critical thinking, and physical activity.

There could be no school or teacher/parent led activity more thought-provoking or engaging than what they did of their own volition.

It is a significant joy for me that when I call them in for baths and dinner I am met with, "Nooooo!  We're playing!  One more game?  Please?!?"

It has taken over 2 years to teach them all to love being out-of-doors this much . . . for them to exhibit behaviors that were taken for granted a generation or two ago.

In the late evening, the older girls--all of them exhausted from a full day of academic pursuits--rewatched a portion of E.T. in preparation for their essays on how Steven Spielberg used Peter Pan and Tinkerbell imagery to reinforce themes of magic and rebirth in E.T.

Then we crashed into our beds.

And some of us didn't even make it to bed before crashing. :)

Tuesday
Whew!  It got cold!  We bundled up and headed outside anyway, but we're still too used to the warm temperatures of early autumn, and we shivered until we were hungry, so we headed home for a snack and some history/science read aloud time.

We spied these mallards from the shoreline, and we watched them for a looong time.

The toughest lesson of the morning was a lesson in obedience for Mister Man.  He found a dollar in his pocket, and he was so, so, so happy!  After giving him time to show it to everyone and fold it and unfold it and wave it in the air a few times, I advised him to put it away for safe keeping.  He really struggled to do this, because he wanted to admire his lucky find.  Just as we took the turn in the trail to head home, he pulled his dollar out, a breeze wafted by, and the dollar flew away.

We searched and searched and searched, but that dollar was gone.

His heart was broken.  

Super Star and Belle biked to and from the library handling our returns and hold pick-ups for the second week in a row.  It's a tiny bit of independence, but it helps me greatly, and they seem to be enjoying themselves.

Rose Red and Pixie spent the day at work.

I gave 5 piano lessons.  Super Star was having a sulky teen moment, so trying to give her a lesson was a fail, but the rest of the kids were happy for some one on one attention at the piano.

It's super fun when Lola and Baymax come to the piano bench for a turn.  They each open a piano book and play random notes, singing made up lyrics about whatever strikes their fancy.  They are happy with just a minute or two of attention, and the memory leaves me smiling for hours.

Nature Angel and Little Princess continued sewing their hearts out for their dolls all afternoon.  These are some well-dressed dollies!

In the evening, Rose Red left for her HR meeting with Old Navy, and the rest of the girls ages 8 and up went with Sir Walter Scott to the church for activities.

Pixie and Super Star had a mechanic come teach them how to change a tire, check oil, and a couple of other bits of basic car knowledge.  I'm glad because we've failed to teach the girls that ourselves!

Belle learned how to crochet plastic grocery bags into waterproof sleeping mats to donate to a homeless shelter.

Nature Angel made pizza, and Little Princess did yoga.

The half dozen littlest ones stayed home for stories with me.

Wednesday
It was still cold in the morning, so we opted for school at the dining room table until after snack time.  Then Pixie and the Elementary 8 and I headed out the door for a new nature trail.

We only walked a quarter of a mile or so of the almost 4 mile loop, but we stopped to enjoy the amazing land bridge/cave!

Deer track

Just in case we missed one of the signs . . .

Pixie took all of the good pictures, but she hasn't sent them from her phone to mine, so we don't have them. C'est la vie.

Then we hurried home for lunch and Symposium because Rose Red had another work training session scheduled, and Pixie had a dance exhibition to celebrate the opening of the new building for her dance school.

Even though Rose Red's training was cancelled (she found this out when she got to work), it was a full evening of driving around, moving laundry, making dinner, outdoor play (the day warmed up a lot!), and dinner was ultimately served at 7:00 pm!

It's a good thing lunch was so late after our explorations.

In fact, I've noticed a decided change in the structure of our days.  For well over a decade our evenings (for elementary aged kids) followed this rule: "Dinner at 5; baths at 6; bedtime at 7."

There may have been some variations of 20 minutes here or 30 minutes there, or a change for a special evening out, but it was essentially the same every night.

But of late, I've realized that baths before dinner is really, really pleasant.

And we've begun to have a substantial snack at 11 am, so we don't have lunch until 1 or 2 pm, and that makes dinner not need to be on the table until 6 or 6:30 (or 7).

It has been a natural change, and it feels good.  It allows our morning to be long enough to give everyone attention for school, and/or it allows for our long nature outings.

Of course, now the weather is changing, and we'll want to be indoors in the morning and out-of-doors in the afternoons, but we'll figure it out.  For now, we're in a really good place.

The littles and I finished The Well-Wishers, and the older girls and I began The Keeper of the Bees.

It was a satisfying literary evening.

Thursday
Dance day.

The morning was cold again--not cold in temperature, because it was nearly 50 degrees, but the 100% humidity made it the kind of cold that seeps into your core and leaves you shivery cold no matter how much you run and play.

So the kids wore coats and hats and took turns coming into the dining room for some table-time school with me.

Then we had our Academy at the table, too.

Pixie choreographed and danced all morning in preparation for our afternoon practice time.

Other teens did independent schoolwork.

Super Star had a job interview at Menchie's.  That's where Pixie works, and there's an opening.  The boss said she'd like to hire Super Star, but unfortunately the day they need covered changed from a day that was perfect to a day that we can't get her to and from work.  So it may not happen.

But then again, it might!

In the afternoon, we danced.

I gave all my 0-12 month baby boy clothes to a friend who is having a boy in a few weeks.

It hurt.

But it was good to share.

How is it possible to be done having babies when I so long to keep having them?  I know I'm older; my body is giving clear signals of being done.  I also know my home and heart are chock full of a dozen gorgeous blessings!  It just seems my mind ought to cooperate with my body and the fullness of  my home, so that I could feel content instead of hungry, hungry, hungry.

At any rate, the darling, tiny clothes have a new home and will protect a new, precious soul quite soon.

The day warmed up, so we planted our bulbs and some clover as ground cover.  The evening was so utterly perfect that I lingered with the kids--me, quietly; the kids, noisily.

Between the digging, the planting, the watering, the child-laughter, and the sharing of good hard work, my heart was at peace for the evening.

Friday
Warm weather is back for a little while.

"Oh, Mommy!  Look!  A fairy house on the tree!" exclaimed the little girls.  And the fungus growing on the trees does form a perfect platform.  Then when moss grows on it, it is even more perfect.  We're all wanting to paint tiny wooden fairies and leave them the next time we walk there. :)

I think this little pavilion is an outdoor place of worship.  I hope we didn't desecrate it with our games of make believe.

Brother spent huge amounts of energy making sure to leave a trail for us to follow safely.

I laughed as I watched this movable forest.  I couldn't help thinking about Birnam Wood moving to Dunsinane (MacBeth).

The "labyrinth."  I'm willing to bet it was more than 1/4 mile to actually follow the whole pathway to the center.

Under a railroad bridge.  We had a fine time making echoes.

The nature trail is also a fitness path.  The kids had fun exercising.

Just below is a river.  The water was perfectly undisturbed and crystal clear, so we could watch the fish darting around in the water.  We enjoyed that for quite some time.  There were dozens of fish!

The Elementary 8 and I walked close to 4 miles--counting the cool "labyrinth" we found.

In the end Nature Angel carried Lola, and I carried Baymax, but they walked well over 2 miles on their own little legs.

In the afternoon, this crew spent time with Sir Walter Scott while I took the teen girls up north to our book club meeting about The Count of Monte Cristo.

Pixie greeted me with exciting news.  Her hip hop teacher has a dance team separate from the classes he teaches at her dance school.  He says she's really talented, and he's invited her to be his guest for the rest of the semester to see if she would like to join his team next semster.

He's trained professional dancers, America's Got Talent dancers, and he has a whole host of other really impressive stuff on his resume.

Pixie is over the moon.

And cautious . . . because we don't know if the dances are clean and the costuming modest.

She says, "I really hope this is a blessing instead of a test, because I really want to dance with him, and I really don't want to have to walk away from this!"

Either way, she's a winner in my book.


(linking here)