This IKEA swing was one of the best absolute investments I ever made. M loves to swing on it and put her head way back.
Afternoons in the courtyard, with bikes and chalk.
The second day, we had an overcast morning, the clouds were heavy with an impending rain storm and the children's moods were heavy as well. But we had a brighter lunch anyway. Ms. Claire was kind enough to give us her week's share from her CSA as she was on vacation. Wow, I haven't had a CSA share in about ten years when CSA was new to the City and let me tell you, a half share was a meager few radishes, a turnip and some green salad. Well, the CSA half share I picked up was from Lancashire Farms was huge, it fed us well into the weekend. There was yellow squash, tomatoes, jalapenos, two heads of lettuce, red beets, eggplant, carrots, small heirloom cherry tomatoes, dill, and that's all I can remember. When we came home from the woods, I sautéed lots of the veggies that I had cut up that morning with olive oil, salt and garlic. Then I made a quick pound of thin linguine. I added a salad and offered lots of fresh grated Parmesan cheese. Well, the results were fabulous. The children even dredged the yellow squash in cheese as if it were bread, and gobbled it up.
I never thought I would be able to manage quickly cooking up lunch for the children upon returning from the woods, but I was happy to see that with some minor food preparation in the morning while the children were playing( since I haven't been doing a puppet play), I was able to pull it off. So the next day I did another pasta meal and that went off without a hitch as well. I still rely on the magic orange crockpot, but adding in some fast yummy pastas in the middle of the week seems to work well. So we still have a rice dish on Mondays, Thursdays is magic crockpot bread which is a favorite, and Fridays is magic crockpot oatmeal.
That's what I like about working with young children, things need to stay the same for added comfort and security in a lot of ways, but there is always room for improvement, and you can tell right away when something needs improving and when something works.
Another things, that I am changing a little, is rest time expectations. I allowed C and Curtis to have quiet restful play...looking at books, drawings, etc in the living room, while I worked in the bedroom with the younger ones who need actual sleep. It went quite well. Curtis and C have been working a lot with a Pirate theme lately ( notice a lot of jolly Rogers, skull and crossbones, on kids clothing lately? anyone?) and they created a wonderful pirate ship right in my living room!
Though some days, even the big boys sleep. How to know when it's worth the effort to have them lie down. I really don't think you can gauge it by how much they resist...or how little...you just have to know the child and feel it intuitively.
As a matter of fact, after all the children left for the day, Curtis and I needed to make a Rite-Aid run. Now Curtis always asks to just look up the toy aisle. I almost never buy any treats for him in a store...I have been on the wrong side of setting that precedent with my older boy...but I let him look. And believe it or not, I found a foam, DIY pirate ship model that required a glue gun for assembly...for $3.25. I bought it and what fun we had assembling it after dinner. They had a few other varieties and I am sure you can find them online. It was recommended for ages 6 and up and Curt was interested and helpful enough that I knew it was a good project for him...he will be 6 in September.
On Wednesday, I decided to take the children to the "frog pond" or rather catchment basin located at the end of Mt. Airy Ave. You might be wondering why I haven't been taking the children to Carpenter's Woods everyday, as I promised in the beginning of the Summer. Well, I didn't go to Carpenter's woods, the week they sprayed herbicide. And then I just needed an adult change of pace. but also, I found the Carpenter's woods, after a long dry spell, gets kind of funky near the footbridge. There are too many mosquitoes because the water in the tiny stream gets too low and don't move enough, also the smell of dog urine, etc becomes noticeable. But after a huge rainstorm, Carpenter's Woods becomes fresh again.
Anyway, back to the frog pond. Curtis loves this place. We have taken nets here and caught and released many frogs. The frogs are huge..so big, they can jump right back out of a net. Curtis learned to tug on the net and close off the top to avoid such escapes. But those frogs are healthy, big and strong. There are also big logs floating out upon the green frog water where they like to sit and sun themselves. As the children walk around the basin, camouflaged frogs leap from the grass and make big splashes in the water much to the children's delight.
M was astounded to hear the sound frogs really make which is nothing like Ribbit. I can't even phonetically figure out how to write the sound the make...but if you have heard it you know it.
Also, there are a fair few horseback riders that go past and wave to us from atop their mounts. The children join in a chorus of "Horsey, Horsey!".
After finishing with the frogs, we walked on until we met up with Forbidden Drive. C and Curtis were collecting many worms along the way and even found a beautiful moth caterpillar who looked just like a rolled up Maple leaf. The best phrase of the day was C saying about a worm, "Sorry, Curt, I broke it by accident." Luckily nature is forgiving.
On Friday, they were all just so tired. I had a quick errand in chestnut hill, so I decided to stay down that end and just go to Jenks Playground. Curtis was thrilled to play with some older boys and the girls were content to swing on the swing set. This excursion seemed to fit well with their mood.
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