Iveyrock

We have been sick, and it’s been rainy – we’ve been looking for low-key, home-bound things to do.

Water and dish soap. We started inside…

…but Micah was not content watching from mommy’s arms. So we moved the whole deal outside.

Micah quickly discovered that eggbeaters are fun, but arms work even better – if you splash hard enough.

I had so much fun watching my kids.

Ian spent his time deciding on the best way to make bubbles, and the best use of the bubbles once they were made.

Chava carefully decorated her arms.

And my Micah – oh, my Micah.

I will admit that it ended in a bubble fight. No pictures of that – I was busy running.

My birthday chairs

So what do you do if…

Your son comes and tell you there are “strange creatures” in a bucket in the backyard.

And upon further investigation, they turn out to be mosquito larva.

And as you go to dump the big bucket, your children decide that they need some, to have.

And as they watch their “flippers”, they start asking all sorts of questions and making observations.

“Mommy, what do they eat?”

“…. maybe they eat SOUND!”

“Mommy, they swim down into the sand when they see me looking at them.”

“Mommy! Maybe mosquitos don’t bite because they drink blood; maybe they bite because they are scared of us!”

Meanwhile Chava is putting sand into her water, and stirring it up for them. And trying to hold them in her hands… ”

So, what do you do, as a homeschooling mama, with two buckets of mosquitos on your back porch? Do you leave them there? Or dump them out?

I suspect we’ll have many similar dilemas around here…

I recently told my Mother-in-Law that if I had a brand new house, I would take a Sharpie and scribble on the wall. Just a little bit, behind a dresser. Nothing noticeable, but enough that I knew the blank paint was permanently marked. And then I could go about my business of living.

As we are coming out of a couple of weeks of being stuck indoors, I am finding myself in need of that Sharpie. I am elevating my daily chores to a level that they just don’t deserve. I am worrying about my house, and the more I clean, the more I see that still needs cleaned. And I am forgetting to just be with my children. Forgetting to hear their questions, laugh with them, see how they are growing and learning every day.

I am creating emergencies where there are none. If I don’t get the breakfast dishes off the table before lunch, we will still all eat. I don’t need to yell at the child that interrupts me (again), as I’m trying to get to some little thing. This is not crucial. This is not life. Because a week from now, even I won’t remember the day that I didn’t get the floor swept. My kids certainly won’t care.

But what they will remember are the lessons that I am teaching them. I have not been living out the words I say to them daily. I have not been taking a breath before I speak. I have not been listening to the way my voice sounds. I have not been asking once, and then counting to ten before I ask again. I have not been respectful with my words. A week, a month, ten years down the road – what do I want my children to remember? That this day, I got my chore list done? Or the time that I left the dishes on the table, and danced around the living room with them?

I can choose, every day, to show my children that people are more important than the things in our lives, or I can choose to show them that we are ruled by the things around us. I have been letting my petty anxieties dictate my actions. I have been letting my schedule rule me, instead of free me.

My walls are already nicely marked up, so I don’t plan to pull out my Sharpie this week. But I have put myself on an official break from my housekeeping schedule. I am letting the dust build up a bit. I am reminding myself to take myself a little less seriously. To take my time a little more lightly. And that I will never have this day again… I can choose what I will take from it.

As Ian pointed out to us, today we tried three new things.

The weather has been beautiful this weekend, after weeks of rain. Our first new thing was a trip to a park that we have never been to before. We really enjoyed it, and I hope to go back.

The kids got to play in the creek, and discover some wildlife. Ian was excited to hold a worm, as he’s never seen one before. (what kind of childhood is this, I ask you? I don’t know why there aren’t worms in our back yard… )

Our next stop was a new library. Daddy and Ian read some books, while Chava, Micah and I poked around. The library is a little smaller than our usual, but it has a really good selection of children’s books.

Our third stop was a new place to eat – a hamburger joint, to be exact. The older two got to try their first fountain drinks. They didn’t like drinking the carbonation, but Ian enjoyed watching it and asking all about how it works. Chava was a little slap-happy, since it was about her bedtime. She had fun dancing to the music, and playing with the kids in the booth behind us. Micah slept through that whole experience.

It was a good day.

And when we got home, I realized there was a fourth ‘new thing’ in our day…

Ian says that all the meat eaters decided to eat plants.

My new bathroom hooks.

A little update on our plants…

The Fly Traps

They’ve grown traps, but so far we haven’t seen any close. I’m thinking we might need to transplant them soon.

Tomatoes

Look, more than one!

Kiwis

I’m not actually sure what to do with these. In all honesty, I didn’t expect them to sprout. Upon doing some reading, I’ve discovered that kiwis should grow in our climate. However, you need a male and female plant, and the male plants are rarer. So I need to keep four or five vines, if I want to get fruit. Also, the vines are apparently very, very strong. One website I checked mentioned pulling down gutters. Not sure what my home owner’s association will think of that…

This was fun. The kids are obsessed with touching the flour when we bake, so I’ve been meaning to let them have some to play with.

There was basically no clean up, since we were outside.

And this was the first time Micah really got to participate.

This post.

I have written a lot about our art projects, and I think it would be easy to get the impression that we only do art all day. While it is true that we do a good bit – at least something every day, some days much more – it isn’t the only thing we do around here. As school is starting up again, and I have been thinking about preschool, I have come back again to my main goals for my family.

I have several priorities for our time, access to art supplies being one of them. But even above the specific goals that I have, my over arching desire is that my kids have free time.

I want my kids to have time to just be kids. I feel like above almost anything else, this is a gift that they can never have again. Although there is a lot of pressure to teach kids very early, I am not worried that a lack of direct “teaching” at three or four will be an obstacle for my children later in life. When they are thirty, they will have learned to read, do basic math, tie their shoes. What I want for them right now is what they can never have at thirty – time to just be four. Time to just be two.

I want my kids to play in the backyard every day. I want them to get dirty. I want them to find out what happens when they fill that hole up with water. (A toad pops out! Who knew? We’ve been wondering what that hole was all year.) I want to be able to do art projects that get messy. I want time to say, “sure, we can read that book. And that one too.” I want them to use their muscles, and their senses, and their brains. I want them to invent and investigate. I want them to get bored, and find ways to fill up the boredom. I want them to learn that life is hard, but it is good, and it is worth living.

And writing it all down, it seems so straightforward. But the truth is, it’s hard. There are so many ways that our days get filled up with stuff. There are so many things that are good to do, that can very quickly add up, until there is no down time. It is sometimes hard to trust that my children won’t loose out because I am not sitting them down to teach them their letters or numbers. I know that my kids spend their time differently than some others their age, and it’s sometimes hard to believe that I am not holding them back.

But then I watch our days together, and I am again struck by the magic of just being a kid. I see how much they sink into their play, and how much they learn from it. As an adult, I fight for every minute that I am truly just living. I treasure their ability to be in the moment, and I want to protect it.