Charlotte Mason Would've Loved My House

All these years of encouraging Nature Study with my kids have backfired.

I wanted them to learn to identify trees/birds/flowers.  To observe butterflies and clouds.  I envisioned family nature walks, hand in hand, where we did bark rubbings, picked flowers to press, spied birds, and spotted rainbows.

Somewhere, things when wrong.

MY kids want to fill my house with things I pray I don't find in my bed.  They want to dig up every last grusome detail of a Bloodsucking Conenose's behavior and then systematically fill me in at the dinner table.  What is this Conenose that I was happily ignorant of five minutes ago when I was mashing your potatoes?  "Mom, did you know that it climbs on you at night and sucks your blood while sitting on your mouth?  They call it the kissing bug."  Lovely.  Remind me to keep my mouth closed when I sleep.

They want to 'capture and keep' everything they find as well.  For further observation of course.

"Mom, trust me, this cricket can't get out of his tiny jar.  He loves it in there."  He did not.  

"Mom, those little tadpoles won't go anywhere, they can't."  Ah, but they could. 

"Mom, just one more glass jar.  I need it for my 14th crawfish."  Sure thing, we don't really need drinkware anyway.   

While I do feel slightly betrayed by Charlotte Mason and all the Nature Study books/articles I've read in the past, in truth I am glad.  The kids are learning.  Observing.  Identifying.  Consulting resources.  Gathering and internalizing information.  Preparing them for a lifetime of independent learning.  Til then I'm checking my shoes before I step into them.

2011 Vacation Slideshow

I had SUCH a great time making this. We had a wonderful trip and made many memories. I've done my best here to put them in the order they occurred. It is my hope that this video captures a small fraction of what I have stored in my heart.


(Don't expand because I saved this video in an easy to upload format because it was so long :)

Skunked Up

Our beautiful inside golden retriever Lucy, has become an outside dog.

Here's Why

I question the existence of these creatures. I mean, really....

Anyway, she was 'skunked', bitten, scratched, and all around whipped by a creature 1/10th her size.

Soooo....we have had her groomed shaved, bathed, and taken to the vet. She is on antibiotics, some kind of lotion stuff that I don't touch, and she is a TERRIBLE patient. She will not take her medicine, so we have to stick it in a spoonful of peanut butter to get her to lap it down. Add to it that she looks like a lion (they shaved everything but her face and tail...it is hilarious) and she is just PATHETIC.

Alright, I'm getting to my funny kid story point. The other morning, Ben was giving Lucy her daily dose of anti-skunk pill and H~ comes outside to watch. She looks at Ben and asks:

Watcha doing Daddy? The dishes?

Uh, yeah, gross.

Take heart, if you come over for dinner, I will use the dishwasher.

The inside one.

The Broom Horse

S~ has taken to eating crackers in a VERY messy way. So today, I had her clean up after herself. I don't know if it is entirely appropriate for a mother to find humor in a daughter's struggles, but I did. It was incredibly funny to watch this short little thing trying to handle a broom. To move it so as to sweep up all the crumbs...under the table...


However, after I gave her the green light to put the broom away, she turned, straddled it, slapped it's rump, and yelled "CHARGE!!!" and rode that broom all the way to the laundry room!

Kind of reminded me of an old blog post from 2007...

Arsenic and Old Lace is one of my favorite movies. Hilarious movie. In the movie, the sisters have a slightly insane relative (brother I think) that lives with them. He thinks he's Teddy Roosevelt. Every time he climbs the stairs he brandishes his saber and yells 'charge' all the way up to his room. Kind of repetitive in the movie, but humorous.

Funny thing is, I don't think my son has seen this movie. Nevertheless on his way up the stairs to get his sister out of her crib this morning, he grabs a swimming noodle, you know the really long kind, holds it up and yells at the top of his lungs..."Sonora, have no fear, Sir Nate the Great is here".

Charging ahead,