Raindrop Quote

Hubry, while cleaning out the bathtub drain: "Oh man, look at this clump of hair.  No wonder the drain is clogged.  Where do you think it came from?"

Raindrop, in her usual imaginative way: "The other night I was taking a bath and I leaned my head way, way back.  As I was leaning my head back my hair went down the drain and it sucked it down.  So that's how it got there!"

So now we know how all the hair got in the drain.  It came from the child with the least amount of hair on her head, but the most amount of imagination in between her ears :)

I really do wish I could transcribe more of her stories; they have a true sense of magical realism.

Planta genista

We have been enjoying Draw and Write Through History (thank you, Katie!) by Carylee Gressman and Peggy Dick.  I have The Vikings, Middle Ages and Renaissance edition.  There is cursive copy work provided with the drawings in the book, though we never use it.  We only use the drawings as they supplement our readings from An Island Story, and then we use our own quote from the chapter at hand. Although the book is geared towards 8 year-olds, my 7 and 5 year-olds have really been enjoying drawing the pictures.  It is frustrating at times to Bro, but I just help him here and there and try to encourage him.  These are their latest drawings, which I really liked :)

Paddy, Jerry, and Robber

Chapter 12: A Lumberman and Engineer

Paddy

American Beaver (Castor canadensis)

How to Draw a Beaver Tutorial (We're free-handing this one)

*According to Kaufman, kits are born fully furred with their eyes open, and they are able to swim within an hour of birth! They are the largest rodents in North America.

1. He is the biggest and smartest of the rodents in this country.

2. He has webbed feet (but not webbed fingers).

3. He uses his tail to warn his friends of danger by slapping it flat on the water.

4. He eats mostly bark, but also mushrooms, grass, and leaves in the summer.

PBS Nature: Leave it to Beavers

Chapter 13: A Worker and a Robber

Jerry

* According to Kaufman muskrats are in the same family as voles, mice, and lemmings.

1. Muskrat (Ondatra zibethicus)

Muskrat Coloring Page

1. He eats apples, clams, vegetables, and even baby birds.

2. He can swim under ice.

3. He is social and sometime shares his home with a few other muskrats.

Wild America Season 10 Episode 7: Old Man Muskrat

Robber

2. Brown Rat / Norway Rat / House Rat (Rattus norvegicus)

Brown Rat Coloring Page (Plate 1)

1. He prefers dark places.

2. He has 10 or more babies at a time.

3. They carry terrible diseases.

Practice Run

The kids had their practice races tonight for Kilometer Kids.  They did a great job, and both worked so hard.  Songbird hadn't run more than 1.5 miles without stopping before, so I was interested to see how things would go for her. She also gets a side-stitch almost every time she runs (why???).  But tonight she was on fire and ran the whole thing without stopping in 29:30!!!  I think that's a great time.

Bro was pretty much smoking, and he ran an 8:12 mile!  I ran the first mile with Aida, then hopped over to run the mile with Benjamin (and almost couldn't keep up), and then hopped back over to join Aida.

I'm so proud of their hard work and (mostly) good attitudes.  They do a great job at KK encouraging everyone to do their best and have fun!  Such a great neighborhood activity we stumbled into:). The race is just over a week away...

Prickly Porky

Trying to figure out the best way to keep up with this ever growing assignment.  I think I'll make weekly posts keeping track with what we're doing, but will continue to keep the whole field guide back in mid-August..

  

Chapter 11: A Fellow with a Thousand Spears

Prickly Porky

North American Porcupine (Erethizon dorsatum)

North American Porcupine Coloring Page (Plate 59)

1. He eats bark, twigs, and leaves.

2. He is nocturnal.

3. He likes to eat salt.

4. His enemies include the fisher, the panther, and the bear (animals who know to turn him over and eat him from his tummy).

5. He is a Plantigrade mammal - he puts his whole foot flat on the ground (like bears, coons, and men).

This is another short Marty Stouffer video...

Wild America Season 11 Episode 7:The Prickly Porcupine

Quote

After a conversation about country accents, Bro proclaimed: "Mom, I know how to speak Woman!"

Then he proceeded to speak in a really high voice. :)

How do you Know I'm Beautiful?

Tonight while tucking Songbird into bed, she said she wished she had bright red hair - fiery red!  I asked why, and she said because it would be so beautiful.  Then I stroked her face and her hair and said how beautiful I thought she was.  I told her that God made her hair flaxen and eyes brown, and that they were so beautiful that way.  She then asked, "But how do you know I'm beautiful?"  I said, "Well, I look at you every day."  Then she said, "But you don't look at me all the time."  I told her that I didn't have to look at her all the time, that I knew her already, and that she was beautiful. At this she smiled and was satisfied, and I marveled at her innocence.

She is so lovely to me.  My precious, forgetful, distractible, strong, beautiful animal-loving girl.

Projects

Earlier this week a friend of ours from Athens was in town and came to join us for dinner.  He, like my husband, is a professor and spends a large part of his time in the world of academia.  I've spent enough time around academics to know the lingo - "what's your field," "what classes are you teaching," "what projects are you working on," etc.  After my husband and our friend had spent a bit of time talking about their various endeavors, our friend looked over at me. He was wanting, I think, to include me in the conversation, and asked, "What projects are you working on right now, Kelly.?"

I was tongue-tied.  I made a quick mental scan of my day, and as I thought about how to translate my daily tasks and cares into "project" lingo,  I was left speechless.  There are a lot of interesting ways I spend my time - most of which directly involve the education and care of our children, but none of them seem to cater to this "project" lingo.

I've been thinking about this all week now, because I don't think our friend was trying to belittle what I do in anyway, and I think he was genuinely interested in the things I've been up to.  But what's had me thinking is how hard it is to quantify the things I've been up to.  So how did I end up answering the question???  The very way he asked it.

I eventually said I've been enjoying making sourdough bread, and that I love making yogurt and drying herbs from the garden.  I probably mentioned the rabbits (or maybe he did after I said I don't really have projects per se), and I might have said something about my nature notebook and learning about mammals.  But those things are only tiny dots in the whole picture.  Because none of those answers make mention of the children, or the fact that everything I do is done in relation to them.  Because that is my job right now - I work at home with the children - teaching and training them, and it is a highly relational job.

So much of what we do as parents is unquantifiable.  I think of the many hours we've been laboring over table manners in our home - keep your knees and feet down, hands asleep in your lap, wait to eat until we pray, have thankful hearts for the food - only to see glimpses of these very manners here and there.  I certainly couldn't tell our friend - "Do you see how well my children are behaving at the table?  That's one of my main projects of late."  For one thing, they weren't really behaving very well at the table, and for another I didn't really expect them to be as it was 8:00 before we sat down to eat and they were already tired and hungry!

I also couldn't tell my friend, "Did you notice how Bro just sacrificed his own desires for the good of his sister?  That's been another one of my main projects."  This is, in part, due to the fact that Bro's sacrifice probably looked like an ordinary act of civility to anyone on the outside. But Hubry and I could see what a victory it was for Bro because we've been in the trenches with him - constantly praying, reminding, encouraging, and training him to love and protect his sisters.

Anyhow, all of this has had me thinking - how can I be better prepared to answer this question next time it comes my way?  I think part of the tension I feel is that something about the project terminology hints at solitude...