Anybody Out There?

I've moved to a new location! If you're still interested in following along on our crazy adventures, you can find me here:  realchilddevelopment.com

Study, study, study

That's what I've been up to!  I'm teaching Child Development at University of the Nations in Tijuana in February and in San Jose, Costa Rica in July.  It's been so fascinating studying and preparing, I'm loving it! 

How to proceed

I've been on a little break from this blog space as you can probably tell.  And now coming back into it I'm just not feeling so sure anymore. 

I started this place a little over a year ago just for me.  It was like a visual journal to document my homeschooling ups and downs.  A place to process, pat myself on the back when things go well or vent when things go not so well.  I feel like I'm learning so much too and I want to be able to write about it. 

I just never imagined that so many people would actually read this. 

And now I feel a little insecure, a little too open or revealed.  I want to be real here, but I'm not sure how far to go.  So anyways, that's where I'm at right now.  I have tons of thoughts and tons of notes and journal entries and things I'd like to write about. I'm just not sure how to proceed. 

Any advice?

What to Do When You Have a Baby

"So here you are with your eggs in one basket.  What are you going to do about it?  Well, enjoy yourself!  Enjoy being thought important.  Enjoy letting other people look after the world while you are producing a new one of its members.  Enjoy being turned-in and almost in love with yourself, the baby is so nearly part of you.  Enjoy the way in which your man feels responsible for the welfare of you and your baby.  Enjoy finding out new things about yourself.  Enjoy having more right than you have ever had before to do just what you feel is good.  Enjoy all sorts of womanly feelings that you cannot even start to explain to a man.  Particularly, I know you will enjoy the signs that gradually appear that the baby is a person, and that you are recognized as a person by the baby.

Enjoy all this for your own sake, but the pleasure which you can get out of the messy business of infant care happens to be vitally important from the baby's point of view.  The baby does not want to be given the correct feed at the correct time so much as to be fed by someone who loves feeding her own baby.  The baby takes for granted all things like the softness of the clothes and having the bath water at the right temperature.  What cannot be taken for granted is the mother's pleasure that goes with the clothing and bathing of her own baby.  If you are there enjoying it all, it is like the sun coming out, for the baby."

-D.W. Winnicott, The Child, The Family And The Outside World (Classics in Child Development)

My Little Elves

Merry Christmas!

We had a hard time getting a good family photo this year!

We got some good ones of the kids, though.

Kai James, 7

Ezra William, 5

Jude Paul, 3

Koa Jeffrey, 1

4 brothers

I love this one, too.  But the winning photo is...

Ta da!  Merry Christmas!

From sunny Costa Rica, wishing you a joyful holiday season filled with love and laughter!

So, I know I said I was taking a break...

But we're having so much fun, I just had to share a few things!

We're having such a great time with our tadpoles.  I've been printing out some pictures and the boys are writing the dates and things to keep in their binders.  The first page was a photo of their habitat. 

Ezzy wrote, "I will always love my tadpoles!" next to his picture.

Kai decided to write step by step instructions.  He wrote:

How to make a tadpole habitat
sand - water- rocks - muck - container
step 1 - put sand in container
step 2 - get water from river or lake
step 3 - get tadpoles in water and muck
step 3 - pour the water and muck into the aquarium

Next is this photo dated November 28.   Ezzy wrote, "Today my tadpoles have legs."  Kai wrote, "This is the day my tadpoles had back legs."

This is one of our tadpoles on Dec. 2

And now on December 3, this one is really starting to look like a little frog - amazing!

 Here's another little activity I made for Jude - some black-eyed peas in a bin

 He wanted to pour some water and stir, and add some color, so I let him do this in the kitchen, this is with cracked corn.

Well, then I started wondering if I could dye the beans Jude was playing with.  So I looked online and found some instruction - simply soak them in rubbing alcohol and food coloring.  Let them soak for one hour, stirring every fifteen minutes or so to distribute the color evenly.

Then let them dry for the rest of the day.

Here are the results!  This is a mix of cracked corn and black-eyed peas. 

 Perfect for just playing with or all kinds of art projects, mosaics, etc.

 So then we decided we wanted to dye some noodles.  We got a variety of types.  You just place them into ziploc baggies, add the tiniest bit of white vinegar and food coloring, mix it around inside the bag, then open the bag to let it dry.  It dries fairly quickly. 

 Here are our results.

 We made some necklaces and strings.

Good fine-motor skill practice.

 And a happy, chubby baby watching everything!

I pulled out our Christmas tree and stockings, which were under our bed.  Kai was very excited about this and got inspired to dress up like Santa.

Ezra made this decoration all by himself (notice the dyed beans for buttons!)

This is Ezra's gingerbread man.

Kai's gingerbread man decoration.

And Jude's.  Yeah, Jude doesn't really like coloring very much, but he wanted to be included!

I had another thought this week.  Have you ever heard people talk about how much more they are able to enjoy their grandchildren once they are grandparents?  Well, I was thinking - let's have that enjoyment now!  I don't want to wait until I'm a grandparent to truly enjoy my offspring!  But the question is - how to do that?  There are so many stresses and pressures to face each day.  I think most times the answer lies in allowing God to transform my character, my reactions, my responses, to create the kind of home environment I want and be able to really love and enjoy my boys each day. 

Taking a Little Break

I am sad to say that I am taking a little break from this lovely space here.  I have absolutely loved my time spent blogging - it's helped me to process, to document, record and remember all the precious moments of our days and learning.  But, I have another project that is consuming me and every spare moment that I have, so I'm going to have to put this on hold for a little bit. 

Thanks for bearing with me, I'll be back soon!  And in the meantime, I'm sure I will find time to at least post some fun pictures every now and then, because I won't be able to help myself! 

Happy Thanksgiving!

Science at Home

We have some fun science projects going on around here right now.

We decided to try making our own bean sprouts using lentils.  Soak them for a day, then drain and keep them in a jar covered in mesh or cheese cloth and rinse them out each day.

Here they are starting to sprout!

The most exciting thing in our lives right now is that daddy brought home a bunch of tadpoles from the river.  We made them a little habitat so we can hopefully watch them sprout legs and turn into frogs. 

The boys are absolutely amazed and completely thrilled.

  "I can't believe we have these," Ezzy says in an awed whisper.
 

Reading "Tadpole to Frog," which is very important reading right now!

A Colorful Week

A theme of our week might be shaving cream and food coloring.

I made this batch of shaving cream with food coloring for Jude to play with. I thought it would be fun to squish and mix it. Doesn't it look delicious? Don't you want to just dive right in?

Jude had a lot of fun with this.  So what else have we been up to?  Well....

We played in the rain.

I made spaghetti for dinner and dyed it different colors, just for fun.

They just thought this was the greatest thing ever. I have never seen three boys eat spaghetti so fast.

Ezzy painted his face red- that was a surprise.

Kai made scrambled eggs by himself.

 We made tin can telephones - they actually work!

 Another shaving cream activity (see, I told you it was a theme for the week).  This one is a little different in that it is half shaving cream and half white glue.  This makes an incredible finger paint!  It could also be used to make a collage, but we didn't do that.  (Ideas from:  Not Just Cute)

Ezzy's making a sunset.

We went to the Farmer's Market and bought lots of fruit, then had a fruit-cutting party.

Now we have bags of fruit in the freezer ready for smoothies!