Stuff we are doing...

I love summer.  It's awesome.  We have been falling into a fairly nice rhythm.  My children rock the world and don't usually get up until about eight o'clock.  I mean, this rocks the world in summer....we have breakfast, which of late I have not been cooking, and  we do "chores".  Elsa cleans out the girl bunnies' cage, feeds and waters them, I feed, water and move the chickens, and David is supposed to change Jerry's water, which frankly only sometimes happens.  Then, a little clean up and we sit down to work on reading--I read some summer stories from a Waldorf book (I think, but am not sure, that you are supposed to read just one, over and over again for the week, acting it out and stuff, but I don't do that part--we read a bunch), then Elsa works on her easy readers and David listens.  Sometimes we have been playing Go Fish with this set of alphabet cards--I am realizing that Elsa does not necessarily know all of her letter sounds, but both of us are too bored by the Hooked on Phonics drill approach.  I am still conflicted about homeschooling--I really want to, but I am nervous about my organizational skills and also she does not necessarily want to do it.  She is curious about what it would be like to be in school all day.  She also does love to play with other kids.   I think she is torn.  I think I am going to sign her up for the Primary School in town...and if she doesn't like it, I will pull her out.  Or, if I suddenly get up my courage, I will just do it. 

Anyway, we have done a little of this and a little of that.  We spend a lot of time at the creeks.  We haven't been going to the pool that much, but we are signed up for lessons next week, so we will go then.  I only feel like it is safe right when it opens, or at around 4 in the afternoon, because there is no shade and it is incredibly crowded.  We had fun picking some Queen Anne's Lace and putting them in food coloring and water and watching them change colors.  It is an old standard, but lots of fun.  David got really, really, really got into mixing the colors for the various Queen Anne's Lace...and he is quite pleased that it actually worked, pointing it out to Daddy every night at supper.  He is really becoming a little boy, and I think some of his intensity comes from me forgetting that.  He wants to do things himself.  He has also been on this amazing drawing kick, drawing "maps" and other things that are vaguely representational.  It's pretty amazing, although I do find markers all over the house, sometimes with their caps on.  We are working on it.

We go to the library once a week--I basically told the lovely children's librarian that I could never keep up with summer reading programs, and really, my children don't need a reward for reading (or being read to, really), but she just hung onto the program and did it for me, so they got a free book last week. 

David has been wearing a lot of costumes lately.  Generally, in the morning, after he gets his underpants on, he wants me to tie on a play silk like a cape.  Sometimes he wears his sword in his underpants as well.  And then he sometimes falls asleep like that.  I have a picture of him that I haven't put on the computer (what is the difference between downloading and uploading anyway?) yet at yoga class, wearing a cape, pirate hat and sword.  It's awesome.

Our neighbor brought this turtle over to us the other day.  He found it in the street, and thought the kids might like to look at it and keep it.  They did want to look at it, and probably would have wanted to keep it, but I was not interested, so we are  "keeping" it in our yard.  It's somewhere out there I am sure.  I actually took this picture so that when we went to the library, we could look up what kind of turtle it was, because that sounds kind of educational, but I forgot.  We did get a couple of books on owls though, and are reading another Burgess book, Whitefoot the Mouse.  So, that is sort of educational, right?  I do wonder what kind of turtle that is, though...