Winter Themes

We looked out the window today at the rain and listened to the wind, watching the leaves falling. The trees are almost completely bare. It's time to change our cozy room table from bright, colored leaves to evergreens with lights. We bring greenery and trees and lights into our homes to remind us of freshness and life and to counteract the gloominess of the season.

All the energy of the trees is going deep into the roots. The bears that we have been "hunting" for weeks (with our binoculars and cameras) are snuggling deep in caves for the winter. The frogs and turtles are burrowed in the mud and so much of our world seems to be sleeping. This is the season for staying warm and cozy. We are thankful for food to eat and warm clothes and home.

I love this time of year and the richness of the story of Christ's birth. We celebrate the mystery of ife, the sacredness of birth and the shining blessing that newborns bring. In this season of increased darkness, the light of Truth shines brightest.

It's also a time when we give each other presents! Little elves are busy, busy making things to give away on Christmas morning (it's so much fun to have secret surprises!)

Pink Play Dough

Bunny Rabbits in the Garden

Put salad on the kids' plates and more than likely it will be met with pickiness. But put them near the garden and they can't stop nibbling!!
Today especially they couldn't stop eating the greens.

But then, who could resist?

Happy Fall

What a beautiful day today. I raked a pile of leaves and Nayelli right away jumped in. The others soon followed. Halloween pumpkins served as perfect pails to collect nuts and leaves.

There was an occasional slight breeze that would send leaves floating down; some twirling fast, others lazily flip-flopping their way to the ground.

We sang one of my favorite chants:

When I rise, let me rise like a bird, joyfully.

When I fall, let me fall like a leaf, gracefully.
With no regrets.

I love this photo of Nora, captured just as

she looked up to see a falling leaf.

I love Wyatt's soulful, contemplative look here. I had just asked him, "Where did all these leaves come from, Wyatt?" he didn't answer for a while, then said, "Tree" in a quiet voice. The mood of the season.

I threw leaves in the air and took this shot at the same time. Nayelli was trying to catch the leaves in her

pumpkin.

musings

Just had to write this down - so funny.





Wyatt and Nora are busy playing with the bean tray. I am in the kitchen preparing for the day.


Persi: (in a stern voice to Nora and Wyatt) Go in the kitchen! GO!


Ella: (calling from the kitchen) Persi wants Nora and Wyatt to go in the kitchen. Persi? Will you say that in a friendly way? You can invite your friends to come in the kitchen with you.


Persi: (to Wyatt with sweet voice) Wyatt, you come in kitchen?


Wyatt: no


Persi gets frustrated and tries to pick him up.


Ella: (now in the living room, with quiet sing-song voice) Wyatt can say yes. Wyatt can say no. Wyatt can say maybe so.


Nora: I can say yes or no, too.


Persi: (standing now with arms waving open, her voice dramatic and sweet and strong) Friends! In the kitchen we eat snack!





I couldn't help it - I burst out laughing. I wonder what would have happened without that interference. I asked, "Who wants snack?" and all said, "Me!" And we all clean up the beans (teamwork!) and go in the kitchen for snack.





All this has me thinking about leadership and authority, manipulation, persuasion, and the balance of power. To be invited to do what I want you to do offers you a choice. If I ask and you say no, I do the sometimes difficult work of letting go of the outcome. As an adult, leading this little tribe I am responsible for, I often must communicate "what we are doing" with no choice involved. I have a handful of skills that creates an atmosphere of cooperation and harmony, such as acknowledging the child's message, "You say 'no, no, I don't want to' you really don't want to!" often diffuses resistance and the child will comply with my request once he/she feels heard.



In case your wondering what the kids are doing while I'm sitting here musing, check it out:
We made blue play dough today!



I think there's a bit of "election blues" in all this, too! Will we ever get to the point in public decision-making where we can communicate clearly, acknowledge the other position and make choices based on the good of all concerned?

As one of my teachers would say, "Stay in the question!"
I don't have answers. One question leads to the other and I try to be present and aware of as much as possible in each moment. I'm aware that the simple things I try to model for the kids: that I am intently listening without judgement, that I care about their tender feelings, that I will always do everything I can to maintain safety for all, that I will provide a peaceful space to be in by maintaining a dependable rhythym to the day, that I will never condone violence . . . . . these simple things are NOT present in our public, shared space. As we try our best to maintain harmony in our homes and treat each other with respect, we are in dissonance with the prevailing culture. That's why creating community, creating culture is so vital. That's a big reason I'm so delighted ddoing this work.

Meanwhile, the kids are done with play dough, and I gotta go!

I'd love to hear your thoughts on all of this!

Play Dough Fun

This very rainy morning we came in from feeding the fish, jumping on the trampolines and riding Wonder, the horsie and the children got right to work making playdough. Usually it takes a while to come in because it is so much fun on the porch but today all I had to say was "Let's go make the playdough" and they were all lined up at the door. The excited giggles started when I handed out the wisks, spoons and scrapers. I let them put their hands in the flour (so soft) and scoop the cupfulls. Such enthusiastic stirrers! In this picture Nayelli is taking her turn putting one spoonful of Cream of Tartar in the bowl. We decided together on green, although Wyatt was dissapointed - he wanted blue and said several times "Next time blue." Yes, we made quite the mess and what was even messier was everyone "cleaning up" with brooms and the mop and spray bottles and sponges . . . finally when the dough was ready and everything reasonably cleaned up they all played happily for a long time.

Nora enjoyed cutting the dough with her "knife" (popsicle stick) into smaller and smaller pieces and giving some to everyone else. Later she collected some back from the others and made a "big tree."
Wyatt smashed, pounded, squished and squeezed and had such a good time. When Nora asked for some of his dough, he right away generously gave her a big piece. He also created characters with pieces of dough and "walked" them around the table to visit the other children's dough.

Nayelli created a little landscape and animated the cookie cutters to hop around. She also often paused her own play in order to watch intently what the other children were doing. Lots of smiles and laughter. She is so fascinated with the other kids, content at this point to watch and a bit shy when the others engage with her. (but not shy at all if she sees something she wants!) She was the first to be finished playing and joined me at the sink on a stool to wash the dishes.

Persimmon right away began creating little characters. She looked at her dough with the eyes and chuckled and laughed! She later added feet and ears.

I loved that everyone was so happy today! Some days there can be squabbling over toys or turns, but today there wasn't a cross word. We played choo choo train with boxes first thing this morning, then the finger puppets rode the train, too. The kettle whistled and it was tea time before going out on the porch. The rain continued all day but we were cozy and happy inside.

.

Welcome Nayelli

We all enjoyed Nayelli's company today!

And she fit right in . . . .

We went to visit Ms. Faye and her magical yard. The children were fascinated by her little bridge.

What we ate today

Lola made plenty of orange juice this morning and we had some banana, soy crisp crackers and raisins, too.

Lunch was peanut butter and jelly sandwiches, broccoli, cucumber and cherry tomatoes, sunflower and pumpkin seeds, and, everyone's favorite . .. . Pirate Booty! I'll admit it, I use the pirate booty to bribe the children, "Finish your broccoli and you can have more pirate booty" If you don't know what it is - Pirate Booty is a health food version of cheetos. Yummy with no artificial ingredients. Everyone had a bowl of plain yogurt with a little maple syrup in it for dessert.

Everyone ate really well!

Windy Day

It was finally windy enough to fly our kites. They really flew and the kids ran up and down the street watching them fly and twirl.

Good Day and a New Puzzle!

I found this great puzzle at the School Supply store and put it on the shelf without saying anything. It has windows and doors with shiny locks and bolts. It didn't take long for Wyatt to find it and all three kids to get excited. It kept them busy on this rainy day.

We also practiced for the show on Thursday. What will your child be for Halloween? Nora says she is going to be a baby and Persi says a dinosaur. Wyatt says he doesn't know. Decide soon and let me know so we can practice the part of the performance when they are in their costumed character.

For snack we had Wyatt and Mommy's cinnamon toast (yum!) and fresh-squeezed orange juice that the kids helped squeeze. For lunch we had quinoa pasta Mac and Cheese, "not-dogs" (vegie hot dogs), brown rice with raisins and peas, cucumber with ranch. Everyone ate well!

What we ate today

Hurrying to finish this as the kids are waking up from nap! I can hear Nora singing in the bed and Wyatt is sitting in the chair in the kitchen barely awake. Persi is still sound asleep.

Today we had for snack: home-made by Lois apple sauce.
Lunch: We made lentil soup today! Yesterday we picked the last of the beans that dried on the vine so today we opened the pods and put the beans in the pot with onions and carrots and yummy lentil soup mix. We ate it with a dollop of plain yogurt.
We also had rice cake with peanutbutter, apple slices and ginger cookies.

Persi and Wyatt loved the soup, Nora did not - she mostly ate the rice cake and pb, apple slices and a bowl of yogurt.

Painting!

Monday morning my plan was to make fancy invitations for our upcoming party and performance.

Nora said, "Ella I NEED to paint." There went my plans.

It worked really well for the children to paint one at a time. We used a large pallet with the primary colors. I didn't say much about it, just let them experiment with mixing and putting it on the page. Later we noticed and named all the colors on each painting.

We made simple little invites and raced the cars across the kitchen floor while waiting for a turn to paint.

Little Routines

Here's the kids in the little hallway outside the bathroom after they are all clean, changed, with hands washed. They do puzzles while waiting for everyone to be finished and while I get the bathroom clean.

I'd like to have a small basket of dress-ups available as well since the big mirror is there. Anyone have hats, poncho, easy-to-put-on fun clothes?? I also need a little gate so the kids don't go running around, but stay put till we are all ready to run around.

I'm so proud of each of the kids! Oftentimes I don't need to say anything - hands are dried, go do a puzzle - sit at the table, put your napkin in your lap - etc. They are getting used to the routines of our day and are generally so cooperative.

Getting Ready for the Party!

We are getting excited about the party next week! We've been talking about costumes and have been practicing a little song and game for when we are wearing our costumes. There's growing excitement about the show the children will be performing. We are practicing the show and imagining where the parents will sit to be our audience.

It was fun to make invitations. I hope you got yours.

Here's details:

Date: Thursday, October 28th

Time: 12:15 till 12:45.

Please come on time or a little early.

Send a costume with your child - it should be comfortable to move in. No mask, please.

Wednesday, October 13

I was hoping to finish our kites today but the air was completely still. No wind at all. So we are waiting for a windy day for our kites and we hammered nails instead. There is a small stump by the slide that I drove a nail partway in and the children took turns hammering with a small hammer. Nora was the most interested in this activity and stuck with it the longest. All the kids were happy and involved at the end and we celebrated when the nail was all the way in. Persi made a connection with the drumming poem that we say "Dum Ditty." There's a part that goes: whack, whack, whack! and Persi started saying this with the hammering. It caught on and they all were taking turns hammering and saying the poem line.

We also planted and fertilized the basil by the fish pond. Those poor, dying pots of basil that I meant to plant back in the spring! I told the plants I was sorry and promised to water them and all the kids said they would help remind me. So now they feed the fish, and water the plants. They continue to really enjoy taking turns jumping on the trampoline and riding Wonder, the horse, too.

Lunch today was baby carrots and spinach with Ranch for dipping, sunflower seeds, corn tortillas with cheese, garbanzo beans, and for dessert Nora and Mommy's rice crispie treats with blueberries, nuts and chocolate-big treat! We had almond milk to drink which they all love. Everyone ate everything! Persi especially liked the tortillas, not so much on the seeds. Nora and Wyatt had 3 servings of seeds. Wyatt especially liked the beans. I served them cold, right out of the can as a finger food.

Please bring wipes next week! The seventh generation ones are nice - no chlorine or perfumes. I rinse the other kind, so any kind is fine.

Food suggestions: crackers, cheese, fruit. Don't feel you have to bring food but if you can, its appreciated.

Thanks for all the sweet support... its been a tough time as you know and I feel so lucky to count each of you as friends.

Yay! I finally got this set up!

Hello sweet families of Nora, Wyatt and Persimmon!
I hope to post here each day and let you know the things we did, how things went and what was for lunch, etc.

Right now Nora and Persi are drumming, Nora making up a story/song as she drums. "This is far away, this is far away and cozy." Persi sings back, drumming the rhythm of her words, "Wyatt comes far away. Sing about far away." Wyatt is marching in the rhythm around the room.

I'm so happy with how they play together. I still intervene as needed to model compassionate concern, or make suggestions for communicating but their need for my help is way less than when we began a little over a month ago.

For lunch today we had cucumber with ranch, turkey on wheat, cheese cubes, rice cakes with apple butter.

It was a good day!