I want a tree like this in my backyard. They are absolutely wonderful for shade, climbing or tree riding (sitting on those branches and bouncing on them). Its a little corner of our favorite park lately. Just beautiful.

So, I am alive, if you have been wondering. Not very bloggy chatty, but fine otherwise. The weather – isnt that the topic one chooses when they dont know what to talk about? – has been quite hot, so the water fountains at the park are quite welcomed and a perfect place to play.

I am busy preparing.

Busy thinking up and organizing activities for the first term of “school”. Not ours, but all activities run according to the official school terms, so we have to follow them as well. I get heaps of emails and information from homeschooling happenings. Then I keep an eye out for other happenings. Then I think of more happenings on my own and then go on to look information for them. Its impossible.

So far we have heaps of sports this term. Miss Fab didnt want to do gym anymore, so we will do some easy going gymnastics, a group of kids will do a few hours of different sports every week. Acting. Writing with the author. Tennis.  Little B is the dancer, so she will do ballet and swimming. So exciting!

Where is the learning? Right there

Ok, I have also ordered the next chapter of Story of the World. Lovely CD collection of the history of the world from the very beginning to modern times. We listen to it when driving to and fro. I am learning so much from it, quite handy. Then this term we will try Math-u-See to keep up the math awakening that is happening with the big girl. From math hater, she is turning into a math dont minder. There is hope, I tell you. Maybe its not a lost cause. So we will try that program and her sister is interested too.

Now that little one is so open to learning. I am curious to see if this will stay so with no school to dampen that. Only time will tell.

I am busy preparing.

I am also working on the gifts and preparations for Miss B’s birthday. Handmade gifts, wrapping, bows… Cake. Cake transportation. That last one is needed as we are off on a trip for a few days and since I have an order for cake, it needs to be transported there safely.

And in the midst of all this, I have to endure long afternoons in the park, with glorious trees and water fountains…

Phew!

Trip means lots of photos! Excited?

I have a lot of dreams. One of them is of me enjoying a big studio in the house, where I spend lovely hours designing fabrics, meters and meters of them, then printing them and sorting them out to send to my extremely (of course) happy and satisfied customers. In my dream I am very good at it and the room is abundant in colorful graphic fabrics and big working tables.

Now back to reality, in which I have never done any such thing, short of doing hand prints with the kids on a t-shirt for Mr.Blab for fathers day.  The kids have been asking for aprons, ever since I said I had thought of giving them some as Christmas presents.  Cause they would not get that idea from just watching me. I seem to have no problem with the  wiping of food and gunk on my clothes while cooking. And I wipe a lot. Kind of in a daze. Maybe that is why they asked for aprons…to save themselves from ending up like me! With gunky pants.

Then I found this calico fabric, which seemed perfect for some printing play. And we went for it. We started doing the fabric making.

The kids chose their designs. Ms.Fab wanted to do cherries, so she cut off two circles on one stencil and the stems on another. Then she chose the colors and off she went.

Little B wanted an elephant. I was all prepared to draw this lovely specimen we have on a growth chart, but she insisted on doing it herself. So she did. And she drew the best elephant I have ever seen. I shall call him Elvis Elephant, as he looks like he has some wild stylish hair, dude.  I cut up the stencil and off she went.

Then the fabric dries for entirely too long according to a child’s time perceptions.

And here comes my part, just in case you thought I am just a lowly photographer in this story, not an actual contributor to beauty and aesthetics. I whipped out the sawing machine and turned the fabric the girls created into aprons. With frills!

I am no great sawing goddess. I dont use patterns and/or plans. It all happens in some sort of a creative mind blur. I have a general idea of what I am trying to do and then hope it works in practice as it perfectly does in my head. It rarely does, but I get close.

And there you have it.

It was so much fun, I want to do it again. But this time I want to be making the printing and designing.

I wonder what can I make out of the fabric…new pants probably?

I think I have mentioned it before, but I dont feel pressure to fill my kids time with activities. If they say “I am bored” for example, I dont feel like a bad mom shortchanging my offspring. It doesnt happen often, but if it does, I just say “then do something”.

And they do.

The other day we were secretly watching them do tribal dancing around a pile of sticks they had gathered and topped with red flowers in the rain. They were jumping and roaring and having the best time. We were a bit chuffed too, but that is not important.

Or they start with some bowls and water. Then drop some toys in and fill accomplished. But then they continue and run around the house and outside looking for supplies and back to their room. Until they have a little frog pond on their dresser! With no, absolutely no help from us, the grown ups.

Being free do discover and create is invaluable. There is nothing like making something yourself, not being guided to it. Free time, time to let the mind roam, throwing rocks for fun, hiding in a tree, picking your nose and tasting your boogers, space to find your interests or explore just for the sake of it is one of the best presents I can give my kids. Especially when one keeps in mind how little of it we have when we grow up.

Chuffed parent.

You dont expect anything out of the ordinary.

You are just minding your own business, enjoying the weather and a book or two.

Then out of no where, quite innocently and with grubby fingers, your kids put a smile on your face and give you hope for the future… With just a simple made up ‘paper ice cream’ order form:

We were discussing what to do for lunch yesterday. There was not a whole lot of choice in the house and the need for a shop stop was getting quite glaring. So nothing exciting was rolling off our brains.
Ms. Fab suggested Subway, as she quite likes the sandwiches there and it has been a backup plan for lunch many a times. We were not impressed. Then Mr.Blab reminded me that we had cabbage and potatoes, so that was that and we were having Cabbage and Potato curry.
Ms.Fab was not impressed. I told her to make her own lunch then, maybe a sandwich or something.

She did.

She is 9, likes mustard and makes a mean sandwich 

I have been boring you with blabs lately, so I thought some pictures might lighten up the place. And since I have been a bit slack lately, can you believe it!, I will use Ms. Fab’s photos for this.

Taken with my (quite heavy) camera that needs to be focused with a different button than the one you take pictures with.

He gets quite heated when we ask him to cook up dinner. Sheesh, those professionals are hard to keep happy:

He has some impressive afternoon tea skills. Notice the fingers!

Whats up sis?

She is not bad. Not bad at all.

..when one has a bigger sibling?

Ms.Fab has made this little unscrambling game for Little B – she writes the letters of a short word, usually three letters and then the four year old has to write it correctly. And she does it. And she writes these beautiful letters that actually look like letters. And they are loving it. Loving it! Its like a game of some sort, like an enjoyable thing.

Here we have ATM:

And she does the MAT her sister is after.

The last time I checked, she could barely write her name and not always in a way you could read – one letter will be here, the other upside down in the corner of the page and another maybe in a book somewhere you could never find out, for example.

This might be easier than I thought. I teach the big one, she teaches the little one and together they make a genius out of the boy. Yeah, that sounds about right.

.

I was a big city kid through and through. Give me streets, give me cars and crazy traffic, I was at home. We could find a play area in any nook or cranny and hidden parks, backyard stairs and after dark school grounds were our places.

Things have changed. The crazed city doesnt quite cut the mustard. The paved roads and manicured lawns leave me wanting for more. For something with substance and meaning.

The problem is that my green thumb is undeveloped. No one cared for it before, heck, no one knew it might be there. So the poor thing has hidden and wilted away, but I will revive it. I will CPR it. I will bring it back to life, shock it if I have to, cause I bloody need it. I bloody want to know why my bloody basil is not growing well.

Clear!

Peep…peep..BANG!

Yeah, the tomato is looking good, but those basils havent budged an inch in the last few weeks. They dont grow, dont die, dont change, just sit there, challenging my poor wilted thumb. So I dug out some plastic cups and made them little houses. It has been raining for awhile and I wondered if all that pounding and moisture might be making them unhappy.

But we dont despair. We forge forward. We cleared more land and I ordered some more organic seeds and we put the strawberry punnets to work – recycling you see.

Clear!

Peep…peep..BANG!

And then while I was digging, I found these bags that our king size sheets came in. They worked perfectly like a little hot house for the seeds to grow up in.

Now they better do that. Grow I mean. Cause if they dont, I will not be happy and Ms. Fab’s monitoring project will not work.

It is so satisfying. Even just watching them grow. Its best when I call to the girls to bring me some herbs when I am cooking and they run like mad to pick the greens. I get in a dreamlike bliss just thinking of the summer days when we can pick some green and purple tomatoes, yellow cucumber, chocolate brown capsicum, chill them in some ice water and make a fresh yummy salad to enjoy under the tree. Its so simple and yet so good for the soul.

So we are learning together. Getting dirty and messing about. Clearing weeds and mixing up smelly seaweed/fish fertilizers. Now lets see if the crop will respond.

Clear!

Peep…peep…BANG!

If not, we can always try again. Its way too fun not to.

.

Exploring.

Investigating.

Learning.

And no one needs to push, encourage or grade him for it to happen.

Who said this curiosity disappears when they get older?
Who said learning needs to be shoved down their throats?

Silence.

I am on a reading frenzy lately. Its good though, because I have mixed it up and now its a mixture of online and actual physical book flipping kind of reading. There is  no end in sight though and we splurged on a few more books today, so the need for more bookcases is almost urgent. It really doesnt help that Mr.Blab is an enabler in this department. He hears books and just follows it with “Buy it!”. Well, what is a woman to do?

So, I am sitting on the floor of the living room, not because of lack of furniture designed for sitting, but we do sit there often and have even put a whole soft pad for that purpose there, and I am reading my book. Caramel Popcorn is enjoying his new found freedom and checking the room out. There are lots of new things to touch, and eat and bash…and scratch, and tear.

Its a new period for sure. One minute he is here and the next..there! He is quite happy to do his thing. Yesterday he dug though some of the stuff in the office for quite a while, while we cought up on some things on the puters.

But lets not get too ahead of ourselves. His favorite place is still somewhere attached to me, and that is fine with me. He is alright to have around or on or anywhere really.

Dont mind the hair, it has needed a cut for…for…more than 5 months. But who can spare money for that! What? Those books in the background were gifts! Gifts I tell ya.

And we planted some things in the garden today. Almost looked professional with our compost and cow manure. Well, Little B did for sure, with her gloves and gumboots. She is growing that one too. Now she wants to learn to read and is working on her letter writing. All by herself. I wonder if a child is never scarred by the school institution, she will actually be much more self directed in her learning? Learning itself will not take on any negative connotations?

I have two huge posts waiting to be finished. I wonder when I will actually do that

And I need to excercise. All this baking may have gotten me out of scraping poo, but my butt is jiggling with jolly too. I believe its grinning like a bitten off cookie and has its texture too.

.

P.S. Hey! That rhymes!

All this baking
freed me from scraping poo
my butt,
in all its glory is jiggling with jolly too.
It grins
I know it it does
like a bitten off cookie
and sadly, it has it texture too.
Oh, strength overcome me
Its time
Its time to end the madness
of this baking coup.

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