Making friends.

Today we had an outing where my girls met two little boys just their age. While I talked to their mother, all of the children were shy ...

then friendly ...

then playful ...

and, finally, the best of friends.

For my social butterfly eldest, it was a very, very good day.

Classic.

It's a bunny, not a cat, but still, this picture made me startle.

Doesn't she remind you of someone?

Fitting, since her favorite movie right now is My Fair Lady.

She's still a bit too young for Breakfast at Tiffany's.

I heart Audrey Hepburn.

Shapshot Sunday 08-23-09

Coming in just under the wire today.











How it began.

Other snapshots -

Heart Rockin Mama

Garbage - a card game for young kids.

This is one of our favorite card games. We don't do a lot of card games because Hannah can get very competitive which leads to tears and tempers flaring and general pouting. And that's just me. Her behavior can get hairy also. So we add certain options that make for more cooperative play (like sharing a card that you don't need but you know someone else needs).

The game is called Garbage and it's a game that is easy to learn and fun to play. We use really big cards, seven inches tall, that I got on clearance years ago. They're made by Fundex. They're easy for the young ones to hold and see.

Players: 1 - 4. This is a good solitaire type game for kids. If you want to play with more than four people, use two decks. Ages 3 + (depending on how much you're willing to help).

Setup: Dealer deals eight cards to each player. Remaining cards form a pile between all players. Players do not look at their cards but place them face-down in front of them in two rows of four. Players mentally number each card beginning with '1' and ending with '8'. (We use numbers written on little pieces of paper above each card until the child is able to remember what number she's assigned to each card.)

Play: First player draws from the top of the extra card pile. If the card drawn is any number from 1-8, the player places it face-up in the correct place and looks at the card it replaced. If that card can be used to replace any of the other numbers, use it (and keep going until you get a card you can't use) - if not, place it on the discard pile. (For example, player draws a '2' card and puts it down in the '2' spot. They then look at the card that was face-down in that spot, which is a '7'. They put it in the '7' spot and look at the card they replaced from that spot. It is a '10', so they put that in the discard pile.) The next player can use the discarded card or pick a new card.

When a player has replaced all eight cards, the round ends. All players turn in their cards and the next round starts. In this round, the player who won the last round only has seven cards to replace while everyone else does eight cards again (this is obviously another place where we bend the rules a bit - when we play, all players go down a number instead of just the winner of the last round). After this round is over, it goes down to six cards and so on until there's only one card left - the first player in that round to get an 'ace' wins the game.

I've mentioned before that math, as a subject, is a difficult one for me to feel confident helping my children with. Games like this really help the child learn number concepts but keep math from being separated from life (and into a subject) and help keep me relaxed about something that is far too easy for me to get wound up about.

Today we ...

Today started out with nachos - the latest and greatest gastronomic obsession of the littles.

Then chores - egg gathering, animal feeding and watering, inspection of garden for pests.

Flower gathering.

Dress-up.
'Hello Pony' play.

Tea party set-up.

Cookies made specifically for a tea party.

Then the tea party.

Reading. Reading. Reading. And Reading Eggs on the computer.

Another casualty of too-hot-to-go-outside syndrome.

Girls taking a Reading Eggs break to play with fairy-ballerina-mermaids.

Flower petal sandwiches.

Yoga.

Jumping on the beds.

Play with Aradia.

Setting up a butterfly.

Checking the work.
Drop off huge box of items at the thrift store.

Go to the used book store next door.

Go to the WalMarts to pick up a kitty litter box. Hope I don't regret this.

"PRESENTING!!! An act with two kids on their bikes! You have never seen anything like it in your life! PRESENTING!!!"

Putting the goats back in their pasture, fixing the hole in the fence.

Eating dinner at twilight.

Watching Garfield now as we wind down.

Right this minute.

Annika Pink Princess is throwing a 'bewy lovely tea party' for Princess Irene.
Complete with a 'written' invitation, complete cobbled together tea service, and chocolate chip cookies she asked me to make for it. She's a surprisingly gracious hostess for a two-year-old.

The sickies.

Poor Gray. He has the sickies. He spent most of his day in some variation of this position.

I wish I could do that when I was sick. Curl up and get comfort from someone I trust completely.

Between that and the hot, hot weather that drives us indoors, the girls have been discovering new computer games. Zoombinis was a surprise hit with Ainsley,

while Hannah explored JumpStart, Seymour Skinless, and Reading Eggs.

There's also been a lot of reading, cuddling, plays, pretend, and a game Hannah made up in the car today where she starts a story and we take turns adding to it (when it was Ainsley's turn, she had the main character boiling cheese, flowers, and grapes for lunch - she almost got herself kicked out of the storytelling, but saved herself by giggling so hysterically that Hannah didn't have the heart).

In the morning and evening we do our outside chores and get any outside playing in that we can, including the pony rides. Once the temperature soars to the high 90s and even to 100, I try to keep my redhead inside, which means I have to keep all of the kids in. This afternoon, she had too much energy, so we went to the garage and inspected our barn swallow friends.


Their chests are starting to turn brownish today - they were gray yesterday. It's startling how fast these little creatures grow up.

So we're staying busy, and our summer's flying by.

Do you have a sperm name?

We were working on Hannah's 'Secret File' (more on that in another post) and she asked what my full name was. I told her and she said, referring to my last name (which is different than hers), "Now that's your sperm name, right?"

"Um, what's a sperm name?"

"It's the name you get from your father. He's the one with the sperm."

Oh dear. Reproduction lessons (goat reproduction, if you must know, though the tie-back to humans isn't that hard for a little mind) are coming back to bite me.

Cuisenaire rods - a purchase that was worth it.

Right before we moved, I sold a lot of stuff on eBay. One of the things I bought with the proceeds was a box of wooden Cuisenaire rods.

(Hannah's first time playing with the rods)

These have been on my wish list for several years now. This seemed like the perfect time to buy them - I had the money, they were up for a good price on eBay, and I thought that Hannah was finally old enough to enjoy them. (I didn't think about Ainsley because I have some set thoughts about math and one of them is that math is a school-y subject, and only a child of a certain age would be ready for toys that are made to teach math concepts. I have some unschooling of myself left to do.)

(Ainsley's first time playing with the rods)

When I put them out the first time, both girls approached them in their own characteristic way. Hannah asked how she was supposed to play with them, Ainsley dumped them out and started building stuff.

I didn't answer Hannah directly. I started messing around with them, making daisies and staircases and modern art and while I did that, I mentioned that the rods were made with specific measurements that fit together in interesting ways. She started doing her own thing, and we were off.
She ended up, as she usually does, ending up doing what the makers of the rods intended children to do with the rods - making mathematical connections.

Every time since then that we've gotten them out, it's gone the same way.

Ainsley builds things - buildings, farms, playgrounds, bridges ... And I've been surprised at the mathematical discoveries she makes from non-directed play. The bridge supports have to be the same size, or it won't work. The pigs have to be smaller than the horses who can't be too big too fit in the barns. The parents in the playground are taller than the kids, whose size has to be adjusted to fit onto the swings. Little things, but quite striking when you watch her little mind work them out.

Hannah pushes different ones together and tries to find which other rods will line up exactly on the side. Then she adds some to the top of the second row and makes the first row and a third row equal. She makes up games and recruits me to play with her. She measures different things with the rods, trying to use as few rods as possible to measure the length of something.

Grayson's little regimental soul is fulfilled with lots of colored sticks and a box full of dividers to put them into.

So if these have been on your 'maybe' list or your wish list and you get a chance to get them, my vote is to give them a try.

Right now, my children just having fun playing with them, but if I notice a desire for more, I have this to check out.

Math is the one area of homeschooling that I have to remind myself to calm down about. Very nervewracking.

The Octopus' Happy Life In His Cottage and Sad Death (which was also in his cottage).

Hannah cut the legs off of one of her pairs of pants to make shorts. I'm not sure why she didn't just wear one of her pairs of shorts, but I wasn't home at the time, so by the time I got home it was a done deal.

She took the legs to her daddy and told him "We need to make something with these." So they made puppets. They used buttons from their button jars and ribbon and sticks from their Creation Station (a box with 'stuff' (scrap ribbons, sticks, game pieces, puzzle pieces, plastic lids, lots o' stuff).

Ainsley's is a ghost. Hannah's is an octopus. And I got a puppet show out of the whole deal.

Introducing Octopus.
(he had stage fright)

"Once upon a time there was an octopus.
He was exploring the ocean and came to an octopus cottage. "How lucky am I?!?" said the octopus. (He was very lucky, by the way, Mother. There aren't very many octopus cottages in the ocean.) So he settled into the cottage and ate all of the food he could find.

Now here's the very scary part, Mother. Don't be scared.
A SHARK found his cottage and it tried to eat him, but he wouldn't let it. He sprayed inky black stuff ALL OVER the shark and he said GO AWAY SHARK!!! and the shark went away."

Ainsley: "AND THEN THE GHOST CAME! Hi, shark!"
Hannah: "I'm not a shark, Ainser, I'm an octopus."

Ainsley: "... ... ... ...BOO!"

Hannah: (trying her best to ignore the ghost stealing the show) "So then the octopus had lots of children in the cottage and they all grew up and he was a Grandpa Octopus."
Ainsley: "A grandpocopuss? What a grandpocopuss?"

Hannah: "No, Ainser, A Grandpa Octo... Oh, you're frustrating me."

Ainsley: "The ghost said goo'bye. Goo'bye ocopuss!" (ghost exits stage right)

Hannah: "Thank goodness. Now, here's the very sad part. He died.

The end."

There was an encore, of course. Several, to be honest. And many more to come, I'm sure.

Our first caterpillar-to-moth experience.

Back on July 21, Hannah discovered this little guy in her flower garden.

I was sure that he was going to be a huge, fantastically beautiful butterfly and excitedly looked him up on some very cool butterfly identifying websites. He wasn't on them. So we kept him alive until he went into his cocoon.

Or partway into his cocoon anyway. Look at that. When a caterpillar makes a cocoon that has his butt hanging out, can you say he did a half-assed job?

His butt isn't hanging out of course, but the way he designed his cocoon - sleek on the top, rather form-fitting on the bottom - makes it look like he left it hanging out.

And it moved, too. If you picked him up, that little butt end would flip back and forth. He's been in there for over three weeks. Last week I showed him to my sister and told her that I change his soft grass every few days. I wondered in a half-joking voice if he was really dead, just having 'tremors' (maybe like a chicken's body after the head is removed?), and would be doing this for the next twenty years, and wouldn't that be funny? In a fully-joking-because-my-sister-is-a-nut voice, my sister said that she would think it was funny if I kept changing his grass for the next twenty years.

Tonight, while I was making pancakes, I heard Hannah say "I've never seen that kind of moth before."

Ho-ho! What's this?

Oh, he was gorgeous, just hanging there on that grass. He'd climbed out of the jar and onto the longer grass stems to dry his wings.

I wish I had better pictures, but this camera is just not working properly when it comes to light exposure in the house. I should get it looked at. Sometime.

He was big. As long as my pinkie. We took a few pictures (the ones of him drying out his fully spread out wings didn't turn out at all - his 'under wings' were hot pink - so pretty), inspected him with the magnifying glass (sucker had HUGE eyes), and then when his wings started doing a furious 'flying in place' type of movement, we ran him outside to the patch of weeds in the flower garden that he was found in. He took off (have I mentioned that he was quite big?) and Hannah cried about missing him for a few moments.

We're lucky she saw him when she did. We almost missed him altogether. After how strange I thought he was *in* his cocoon, to change his grass tomorrow and have him missing would have been even more strange. I do wish that I'd have noticed him sooner so that we could have done some actual gentle measurements and maybe had a better chance at getting good pictures, but that's the adult-homeschooling-parent in me talking. My little girl was thrilled by what she did get.

ETA:

Jessi asked in the comments what was left of his cocoon - I'm really glad she asked because I'd forgotten to look. I went and dug through the dry grass and the brown shell was there, with a white milky substance inside. I could manipulate the tail end and stretch it out quite a ways. Very cool.

My friend Lindsay fixed the pictures up for me. You can check out her pictures here and here. Much clearer. Thank you Lindsay!