Self Centered and Selfish. Check!

This morning has already been a challenge.  I guess I should say that last night started the challenge;that dreaded battle of going to bed.  It is rather hard to convince a stubborn 3 1/2 year old that sleeping is not a waste of time...specially when he is the one to tell you that.  Even after a massage with essential lavender oil, it was a fight to get my child to sleep.

After a restless night of sleep, ups and downs, we finally started our morning at 7 am.  I had hope for the day.  After all, 7 is way later than the usual 5:30 am.  Surely this must mean the boys are rested.  Right?  Wrong.  It was not transparently going to be a bad day.  Pierce asked if he could do the dishes in the sink and make toast as soon as he woke up.  Yeah!  It was going to be a great day!  And then I served the breakfast he chose.  Toast with scrambled eggs.  Apparently, it was not what he wanted after all.  He ate his toast that he made.  That was not the problem.  The problem was that the minute I got up from the table to serve myself a cup of coffee, he threw his plate of eggs on the floor for the dog to eat.  And there is started.

I brushed it off.  After all, I am completely exhausted since I was the one up all night.  Plus, the world knows I do not do well on no sleep.  It is painfully obvious with the swollen eyes, lack of gallop in my step, etc.  I just explained to him that was his choice, and he would have no other food until lunch.  After a couple of tears, he understood.  Great!  Let's move on with making some Christmas gifts.  Yippee!

It started well again...both boys were so excited to be making a watercolor painting for Nana.  The main reason?  They were able to paint on a canvas.  That is a big treat in this house.  We taped off the N in the middle, and I made the water colors, and let them go to town.  I sat next to them as they mixed colors and were so excited to see what they would turn out to be.  When they were done, I gave them a piece of paper, and took the canvas downstairs to dry.  While I was down there, I switched laundry as well, and came right back upstairs.  I was shocked!  There were water colors EVERYWHERE!  I was gone for 2 minutes.  In that time frame, they managed to get water colors on every wall, window, couch, pillow, and each other.  Apparently, they learned that water colors splatter really well when you shake the brush.  It was partially my fault for leaving; but I trust that my children will make good choices.  And this time they didn't.  So I handed each one of them a Mr. Clean sponge, and told them to have at it.  There would be no more painting until they were done cleaning.

Did I raise my voice?  Yes.  Do I feel horrible about it?  Yes.  But I was shocked.  And I am human.  The final straw of the morning, was when I gave them a fun bath.  You see, I had them paint the jars for their cousins that we are going to put bath salts in for them.  Carter had a horrendous time following simple directions, but Pierce had a blast.  However, they both ended up covered in MORE paint, so I set up a fish tank bath.  I colored the water blue, put in their Toob fishes, and made an awesome bath for them to play in.  All was going well until Pierce bit Carter's back.  Yes, he bit his little brother.  Why may you ask?  Because Carter had Nemo and he wanted it.  He bit him so hard, he broke skin.  And then I yelled.  It was if I was a completely different person.  I threatened to call Santa.  I told them we were not putting up Christmas lights today.  And then I sent both to bed, since it is obvious they needed sleep.

I always read them a book before nap, and I brought out the book that they have been asking for; Winnie the Pooh's Thanksgiving.  I started reading it for them, since they stopped crying long enough to listen to me.  And I felt horrible for yelling at them.  I hate it.  That is not me...I don't think.  I think I am usually pretty darn forgiving.  Except for when it comes to hurting each other.  As soon as I started reading the book, they both got out of their beds, and started pushing and hitting each other over who was sitting in my lap.  And that was all it took.  I was done.  I yelled at them again, telling them this behavior is beyond unacceptable.  Children or not, hitting and fighting is a big no no in our house.  We use words.  Not fists.  Not our bodies.  Words.  I tucked them both back in, told them I loved them, and left.

Then I wrote a post on Facebook listing the morning events, and asking myself why did I choose to be a stay at home mom.  Now obviously, I will never regret it.  Obviously, it is just a tough day.  What I thought would happen would other moms saying, "I wonder that sometimes too" or "Don't we all get to that point?"  What I was not expecting was somebody telling me that I need to get MY priorities straight, and that I was completely selfish and self centered.  I may be immature at times.  I may be a stickler for rules, and sometimes a bit over bearing.  However, one thing I am not is self centered and selfish.  I don't know how many times I have written on here and on my personal page about how thankful I am for my husband and his family giving up so much for me to stay home with my boys.  I don't know how many times I have written that even when you are having one of these kinds of days, there is always a light at the end of the tunnel.  But yet I am self centered.  Yet again, a mom cannot support another mom or understand that this Momma is overwhelmed and offer encouragement.  Instead, there seems to be this need to tear each other down.  Why?!  Why do we do this to each other?

If what this person defines self centered as giving up anything for my children's benefit, barely taking time for myself, and always making sure my family has food in their bellies, then I guess I am.  If this person defines self centered and selfish as not going out with my husband on a date, or going out with friends because I don't want to impose my children on anybody, then I guess I am.  We all have our moments of why.  We all ask ourselves would our lives be any better if we had chosen a different path.  However, I know at the end of the day that even with my children not acting like their typical selves, I would not trade this for the world.  I would sacrifice my career and financial independence again in a heart beat.  You have one shot to raise your children the way you would like them to be raised.  One chance to make the world a better place by teaching your children responsibility, compassion, and empathy.  One chance to make them understand why there are rules in society.  So to that person that decided to kick me while I am down, thank you.  You have made me realize that if I define self centered and selfish as I did above, that is exactly who I want to be.


And by the way, we are all human.  We cannot be perfect.  Yelling at my children is something I hate.  It happens.  I will choose not to dwell on it all day.  I will choose to explain to my children that yelling at them was wrong and apologize.  I will show my children that even grown ups make mistakes too.

That Golden Hour...or two

It's that golden period in the middle of the day for us stay at home moms.  The period of silence, where all you hear is the sound of your fingers on a keyboard.  The part of your day where you can actually get some cleaning done without little hands helping you.  That sacred part of the day where you can take a deep breath, do a bit of yoga, and re-center yourself.  This part of the day I refer to as nap time.

I know I have been extremely lucky that my 3 1/2 year old has taken naps up until this point.  Everybody has been saying since age 2 that he is going to stop any day now.  Well, I think that day may be coming very soon.  And not for just one of my children, but for both.  Yesterday, neither of them took a nap.  I grimaced when they both refused to go lay down in their rooms.  And I thought I was so smart by saying you have to sit on the couch and watch a movie.  I was hoping to outsmart them and have them fall asleep (this has been the case in the past).  But alas, they thoroughly enjoyed the Christmas movie I put on that starred their favorite Mickey Mouse characters.

When they did not sleep, I already had the rest of the day mapped out in my head.  Fighting, crying, not listening, melt downs, etc.  Every worst case scenario was playing right in front of my eyes, yet they hadn't even moved from the couches yet.  Then I took a breath, and thought to myself - why am I setting our day up for failure?  Why am I trying to think of this as a bad thing?  So I cannot read my own book today and relax.  But you know what?  I was able to have some extra unplanned time with my beautiful boys, and if it ended up with there being a melt down, I would know why.  And I could cuddle them and help them get themselves together.  What was wrong with that?  To also add to it, they were the best children ever all morning, so how dare I think they were going to turn into these horrible, unrecognizable creatures?!

I got out yet another bag of cranberries, 2 scales, some sweet potatoes, an ice cube tray, tweezers, and plastic eggs.  I put everything on the coffee/chalk table, and told them to go at it.  I put my phone away, and I was able to really see how they could think.  I was able to see them learning, creating, and just being themselves.  Maybe I was wrong.  Maybe that beautiful nap time was not the golden hour.  Maybe this was the golden hour.  Nowhere to be, no class or play date to be at, no distractions.  No time constraints.  It was just my boys and I.  I was wrong.  Watching them learn and explore; hearing them talk about the pilgrims finding cranberries, that is the golden hour.  I thoroughly enjoyed seeing Pierce figure out that if you put 3 big cranberries on one side of the scale, and 3 small cranberries on the other side of the scale will still make the big side sink, since they are heavier.  He thought that was the coolest thing ever.  Even though they were the same amount (3), they were not equal.  This was the golden hour.

I know it is not going to be a bed of roses everyday.  And I am still going to offer them the time to nap if they want it.  No matter what we do, they are horrible sleepers at night.  Carter sleep walks, and Pierce sleep walks and talks.  But, I am no longer going to force them to nap.  They know their bodies.  They know when they need the extra sleep and when they no longer need it.  I need to trust my kiddos more.  They know a lot more than I give them credit for.  Today, Carter came up to me and asked for a nap.  And Pierce decided he needed one too.  They also had a hard time following directions this morning and focusing; they knew they were tired.

Now I am here writing this while I wait for my boys to wake up.  And yes, I guess I can still say it is nice to have a break and to have that quiet.  But it is no longer my golden hour of the day.  This is just my down time.  My golden hour will come at some point today, when we can sit down together and work on something as a team.  That is the golden hour.  That is what matters the most.

Moon Dough Explosion!

A few weeks back, I was looking for something to occupy the kiddos for that gap between dinner time being finished and bath time to begin.  In the past I had made moon dough, but the boys were MUCH younger, and I don't recall them playing with it for that long of a time.  Actually, I don't think Carter was old enough to play with it at all.  So, here was my latest moon dough creation;  Lavender Moon Dough

I made the "dough" the same way you normally would; 8 cups of flour to 1 cup of baby oil.  I used the cheap stuff from Dollar Tree, but I am sure that any type of baby oil would work.  Then I added 3 drops of lavender essence.  It smelled awesome!  And the boys loved the aroma as well.  We had so much fun scooping, dumping, making dough castles, and the best part was that it lasted a few days!  That was before we forgot it outside and it was rained on.  Oops!

We were having so much fun downstairs, even Daddy had to come down and see what we were doing (hence the pictures.  Thanks Dan!).  Super easy to make and tons of fun.  Hope you all enjoy it as well!

P.S.  It is not the easiest to clean up and will make the floor slippery.  However, as I am sure you know by now, I am not a mom who worries about a mess.  Mess = play.  Play = learning.  The End.  :)

Can I have a re-do? Please? ***Updated 9/17 with pictures***

Today was the first day I truly felt like a failure for homeschooling the boys.  I should have known not to even attempt it, considering the boys have massive colds, and I have had a headache since last night.  But, against my own self judgement, I decided to attempt school anyway.  And my lame reasoning?  I didn't want to get them off schedule again.

Every morning we do school has been a challenge to convince Carter to come downstairs to the school room for our lesson of the day.  He would rather stay upstairs where Papa is getting ready for work, where his room is, etc. He is not a morning person by any means, and it takes him a while to wake up.  However, Pierce is the complete opposite and wakes up asking for school to start.  Now.  So it is a fine balancing act with these two boys.  Once Carter comes downstairs, both boys can be side tracked by the various centers I have set up.  It is not a large room by any means.  But I managed to set up a dramatic play center, a kitchen area, craft table, desk, and then our morning circle.  As of yesterday I had added a sensory table as well, and that proved to be a MASSIVE mistake.  Not even a big one.  MASSIVE.  Both boys knew what was in there, and neither wanted to pay attention to me.  At all.  They just wanted to play with the colored and scented rice.

In retrospect, I cannot blame them.  I mean it is a fantastic sensory experience, and this week we are learning about our 5 senses.  At the time, I could not appreciate the fact they just wanted to explore.  I wanted them to do everything I had prepped for, and I honestly became annoyed with them because they wanted to play.  However, they did one activity with me; they did use the mirrors and the homemade face paints to decorate themselves.  They were naming the different parts of their faces while doing it, and they had a BLAST.  After that is when everything went downhill.  To the point where I feel like I acted like a 2 year old, picked up all of my lesson planning stuff, and huffed upstairs leaving them downstairs to play.

Then I thought about my actions.  And thought some more.  And I felt horrible.  So I went back downstairs and apologized.  I will always be the first to apologize to my children when I have done something wrong.  After all, they are learning from me.  I explained that me huffing upstairs was not a great choice, since I should have been more understanding that they wanted to play and were not feeling the greatest.  I then asked them what would make it easier in the morning to transition to school, and what would make it so that the toys were not a distraction.  And this was the response I got from my overly intelligent 3 1/2 year old.  "Move all the toys downstairs, and move the books and art upstairs.  This way Carter doesn't have to go downstairs, and we cannot play with toys."  Wow Pierce, I honestly did not think about splitting it up.  I was so focused on having that perfect school room with the centers like you find in an actual preschool, that I lost my mind.

Both boys then asked for smoothie and a movie time, and I did not complain.  I made them their favorite pumpkin smoothie, put on Little Einstein, and let them watch as much as they wanted.  I never let them do that; but they obviously needed some down time.  I got to work rearranging EVERY part of the house they are in, including their bedroom.  I will post pictures once I finish doing the annoying cleaning parts, such as washing walls and such.  But I have to say, this new layout is like a breath of fresh air.  The computer room already had the shelving with all of our school stuff on it.  I was bringing things downstairs for the week.  So I chose that room as the distraction free room; they have books on the floor for them to peruse when they would like, the easel, and their alphabet carpet.  This will be the room where we do books, morning circle time, and most of our crafts.

For their bedroom, I brought up the craft table (which is just a coffee table I had painted with chalkboard paint on top) and finally hung up the 4 mirrors I bought at Ikea.  I had Pierce help me with that, this way I could make sure they were at the appropriate height.  The mirrors may not be straight, but it is their room and their choice.  And it looks kinda cool to have them not completely perfect.  On the craft table I put simple choices for play.  They love their maze, Noah's ark, stacking blocks, and a massive shape puzzle.  That is it.  Underneath is a basket that has their "electronics".  The Lego table that was in their room is now downstairs with the rest of the toys.  What is in their room is all they have for toys upstairs...well, minus the car mat and cars I put in their closet.  They go back and forth with that, and I did not want to take a chance on any mildew downstairs.

The downstairs is surprisingly laid out well, and somehow much more open.  And again, as an after thought, this was a good time to move things around.  We have some cold weather coming in, so we will be starting to stack wood in the basement again.  That would just be another distraction for the boys.  And at least if they feel it is too hot, we can pick and choose what toys come up for the day.  And only the day.

I was given a couple of hours of quiet and regrouping time by my awesome husband tonight once he came home.  I went to our library and hid upstairs reworking lesson plans and also creating new ones.  At this point I have them all laid out until Halloween.  I got rid of the time in the book, and just divided our day by 5 different activities and ways of learning.  I also reworked this week so I can have a do-over on today's lesson plan.  I'm sorry Pierce and Carter for not setting a better example today.  However, I am glad that we worked together to create an awesome space that you both love.  Please sleep well tonight so we can have fun tomorrow.

And to everyone else, thanks for reading this.  It made me realize by writing that bad days are certainly going to happen, and to not let it eat at me all night like it has all day.

From our face painting adventure...def doing this again.

Pierce and Carter's Room

Our "school" room.  Where we will do crafts and books

The Basement; aka where all the toys go.  No more distractions.  And no more mess upstairs.  :)

Oh Mr. Scarecrow...

Yesterday was the final lesson planned for our fall fruit and vegetable week.  How could you not talk about celebrating the harvest, fruits, and vegetables, without talking about scarecrows? And oh boy did we have fun with our lesson.

First up was circle time.  We started off getting our wiggles out, and the boys chose to do the airplane song.  I am realizing that the boys REALLY do listen and pay attention, even when you think they don't.  And I should also know by now that when it comes to my boys, they learn a song the first time through.

From getting our wiggles out, we transitioned to reading a couple of books that were about scarecrows.  The one book that the boys LOVED was The Little Scarecrow Boy by Margaret Wise Brown.  This also happened to be the book that we based our craft off of.  I had pre-glued 5 craft sticks together and cut out little hats for each scarecrow.  The boys glued their hats on, as well as wiggly eyes, and used markers to draw in noses and mouths.  Pierce became even craftier and started cutting the top of the hat to make fringe.  Not quite sure where he got the idea, but he had a lot of fun doing it!  Both boys attempted to create the scariest of all faces so that no crows would come near the house.  :)

They also did a color by shape.  Carter did not quite understand it, and I certainly did not expect him to.  Pierce did understand it, and worked so hard to stay in the lines.  He is really loving these various color by shapes/numbers/letters, etc., that I am finding, and will have to keep finding them for him. 

The boys also worked on matching apple cards, tracing, and Pierce worked very hard on cutting on the lines of some various cut outs I had found.  Carter did a fantastic job of matching the apple cards I had.  He even knew the difference between checkered, striped, and polka dots.  Go Carter!  And Pierce was such an awesome big brother by trying to hand Carter the cards I asked him to find.  

Pierce and Carter said they absolutely loved the work we did yesterday, and they loved the fact that I took them to the park after school so they could run and play.  We did the playground, walking trails, exploring the river, and the paracourse at Rockwell.  I loved the fact that for the first time in a long time, they both napped at the same time, which gave me some much needed down time.  Yay!

This upcoming week is our All About Me week.  We kicked it off by attending Family Fun Day in Terryville today, exploring everything and trying to think of the senses that we were using.  I also did 4 batches of not only colored rice, but scented rice.  We have yellow rice that smells like lemon, green rice that smells like vanilla, orange that smells like almonds, and pink that smells like anise.  I am going to have them mix it all together in a sensory bucket on Monday, mixed with some pom poms to provide a different texture.  Ironically enough, one of the vendors at the event today had done the same thing.

I am going to sign off of here, and head back to playing color square basketball.  Once I get enough pictures, I will be happy to post how we played this game.  Have a great night everyone!

To play hooky or not...

Here is my first moral dilemma of homeschooling.  I have told the boys that we will do school Monday and Friday mornings, and Wednesday afternoons.  They ask me every day what the day of the week is, and then they tell ME our schedule now.  However, they already knew that school on Wednesday would be a little different, and would be completed right after the gym.  This was due to a make-up tea party with the fab 4, to make up for the night that Carter decided to fall on the back of his head on a tile floor.  I was morally alright with that, since they would still see their buddies, and they were still doing school.

Then everything went to the wayside when I heard the weather forecast:  90 degrees on September 11.  WHAT?!  90 degrees!  Beach day!  But wait, the boys have school...but WAIT it is SEPTEMBER and 90 degrees when the ocean is at it's warmest point!  And there I debated with myself and a wonderful friend almost all night, and even that morning, about whether it was alright to let the boys play hooky.  I mean, I certainly do not want to start bad habits.  Eventually, they are most likely going to end up in public schools, and will have attendance requirements to meet. Therefore, it is my job as a homeschooling mommy to make them understand that going to school is mandatory.  So,  here was the final verdict:

I just couldn't pass it up.  I made it to the beach 4 times all summer.  That was it.  My final reasoning for going was that the boys would still learn something, even if it wasn't part of our themed lessons.  And, to be honest, I am really glad we ended up taking our random trip.  The boys met some other kids, and had a blast playing with them for the 4 hours we were there.  It also turns out, one of those kiddos lives about 5 minutes from our house.  What are the chances of that?!  The boys were so proud of themselves for different reasons.  Carter actually went IN the ocean, and played.  Pierce rode in the waves and swam under water.  They each accomplished something they had been working on all summer, and now it finally feels like summer can end.

It also meant the boys had make-up school this morning, before we did our scheduled apple picking adventure.  They each had a pumpkin that they could decorate, and that sat with them this morning for story time.  I thought they would really go all out decorating the pumpkins, but they didn't.  To be honest, with them being out late Tuesday night swimming, then being out all day yesterday from 9 am until 6 pm, with only 1 hour for naps, they were fried by this morning.  But we were all troopers, and painted the pumpkins to the best of our abilities.  They also had fun telling me all of the colors that they wanted to use on their pumpkins.  

From there we did a counting puzzle, and played with our "new" Super Why game that our neighbors were giving away.  I was really impressed that Pierce was starting to understand the word families, and trying to rhyme.  Carter even attempted to play...and I modified it so he had to find letters.  Yay!  He knows A and V.  Yippee!

Then we started off the fun.  My wonderful friend found an edible pumpkin clay to make with canned pumpkin and cornstarch.  Add in a few spices, and it smelled AMAZING.  And while it is edible, it is pretty disgusting as Carter found out first hand.  :)  The boys lasted about 15 minutes with this activity, and really got into sculpting and cutting out shapes with the cookie cutters.  I even fell in love with the texture.  

I had already planned on going apple picking with the boys today, and had previously posted the information in one of our home school groups.  It fit in perfectly with our theme of the week (fall fruits and veggies), and plus it would be just plain old fashioned fun.  We traveled over to March Farm in Bethlehem, and tried out their mini corn maze as soon as we got there.  It was the perfect length, before Pierce started to worry about us getting out.  Carter didn't quite understand to NOT knock the corn over at first, but hey.  I'm sure he is not the only kiddo to ever knock over a stalk of corn.  They also have an AWESOME play ground, with little "houses", a couple of climbers, pavilion, bike track (with bikes supplied), and of course the sand and tire pit with all sorts of equipment to dig with.  Yes, we spent about an hour in that play ground.  I sat to the side this time, and did not jump in the pit.  The reason being?  I want them to be comfortable enough to introduce themselves to other kids and try to play, without me prompting it.  That is one of my big social goals this year for both boys.  

Following the playground, we finally made it to the apple orchard.  Carter was alright picking apples, as long as he was able to hold the bag.  Pierce was ever so gentle, and remembered how to pick them from one of the books we read. 

 Once we came home, Carter fell asleep, and that left Pierce and I to making some homemade applesauce.  He doesn't remember me making it last year, and he was so excited that he was able to use the apple corer, peeler, and slicer, with some adult supervision and assistance.  

The best part?  Eating the homemade applesauce right out of the crock pot.  :)

All in all, we had an awesome past couple of days.  The boys were able to learn about tides, seaweed, crabs, and salt marshes, as well as learn about what I had planned.  I have to conclude, that if I want the boys to use their world as a classroom, then sometimes I just need to bend a little.  And this time, I am so glad that I did.  

Soapy Oobleck. Yes!

About a week or so ago, Pierce took an entire container of baby powder and blew it all over his bedroom, hallway, kitchen, and living room.  It was a case of I was outside with Carter, and Dan thought Pierce was outside as well.  I had mentioned to him that we should try to make a play dough out of baby powder, and we finally did.  

I had Pierce combine apple scented soap, baby powder, and cornstarch together in a bowl.  I did not measure ANYTHING, so I cannot give you any measurements either.  I thought it would turn into a play dough, but it actually turned into an oobleck that you could shape, and then it would all melt together.  Even though it was not the intended outcome, both boys had so much fun with it.  I did make a second batch without the baby powder, and it was way more like regular oobleck.  The boys had a blast with it.  

One word of caution if you attempt to make it.  The clean up was NOT easy.  Due to the amount of soap in it, it became super slippery and almost impossible to get off the floor.  BUT, I will totally make this again, and remember to put a towel underneath.  :)

Chocolate Play doh and Bubbles. Oh yes.

I had decided that for the last few days of summer, I was going to leave the choice of activities up to the boys.  I gave them certain guidelines, such as we had to find things at home to do (since I was trying to get them adjusted to being home and not constantly on the go), and it had to involve things we already had.  Pierce and Carter decided they wanted to make play doh, and they wanted to make coffee play doh.  Seeing as my coffee supply was low at the time, and that is my treat in the morning, I convinced them to make chocolate play doh.  Everything else that transpired was thought up by them, and them alone.

Pierce decided that his beloved teddy bear named Mica, was going to have yet another birthday party.  Mica has a lot of birthdays...we have a pretend wooden cake that we purchased from Melissa and Doug, and it sees a lot of action.  Anyhow, he asked me for some candles and beads so he could decorate his cake.  At first, since Carter was occupied with his car at this point, he was not going to share any of that delicious, make your mouth water, play doh.  All I had to do was walk away and suddenly he wanted to share with me.  Yay!  It was so soft, smelled so fantastic, and molded into a perfect birthday cake for his precious bear.

Eventually Carter joined us and had a blast making his own cake as well.  They both became completely engrossed in their pretend play, and even started giving Mica an age (29...thanks for rubbing it in Pierce.  lol).  Pierce man did become a little discouraged that I would not light the candles for him, so he used play doh as his pretend play.  When it came to "blowing" the candles out, he picked the doh off of the candle.  Perfect problem solving.  Go Pierce!

This was all Mommy was allowed to play with...

After about 45 minutes of playing with play-doh, it was time to move on to something new.  I had read on pinterest that if you use a whisk with bubbles, it makes some really awesome stiff peaked bubbles.  And since we had left our dinosaurs out in the mud while we were enjoying ourselves in Rhode Island, it made sense to clean them.  Ta da!  The Dinosaur wash was born.  The boys wanted cups so they could practice pouring, and each of them had their own whisk to make their own bubbles.  They had so much fun, and it was great to watch them learn and explore.  

Once the dinosaurs were clean, we added food coloring to the water, to see what would happen to the bubbles.  They figured out they could make some really cool patterns in the bubbles with the food coloring, and had a blast doing so.  However, I forgot how tall Carter was.  I placed the package of food coloring on the railing while I ran in the house...I came back out 2 minutes later and the color was EVERYWHERE.  Including on the deck that had not been sealed yet.  Oops!  Sorry about that...

It is amazing what these boys will think of when left to their own devices.  I love it.  I hope they never lose their sense of creativity, and the amount of confidence they have to carry on their own experiments.  The world is a classroom, and everything around you can be used in one way or another to learn from.  What are you going to choose today?

Apples, Apples, Apples!

School was fantastic today.  Again we started out the day with an action song, and then settled into reading books.  Pierce was hilarious, and wanted to turn the pages so he could be the teacher too!  I love it!  Hopefully this means that my love of teaching is being passed on to at least one of my boys.  :)

Anyhow, I had taken my own critiques and planned a lot for today.  I certainly did not want to be left without options and things to do, just in case the boys powered through everything I had originally planned.  Well, it turned out to be a great thing that I upped the level and gave them harder stuff.  First craft we did was make our own apple trees.  Instead of giving them a paintbrush, I left them with cotton balls and red paint to make apples.  They both loved this, and I loved it because I was watching them figure out how to grasp them the right way in order to make circles.  Carter's tree is on the left (Apple fall!) and Pierce's tree is on the right.  They had to glue everything down.  All I did was pre-cut the shapes.  I think that pretty soon I am going to have Pierce cut his own shapes.  That is certainly a skill we need to start practicing.

The next thing we did was cut an apple in half to reveal a star pattern on the inside.  In one of the books we read this morning, it was mentioned that the pattern you see on the inside, is determined by how you cut the apple.  I then gave them paper plates and had them make their own apple cores.  They painted the top and bottom with the red paint and cotton balls, and then glued seeds into the middle.  Unfortunately, I do not have a picture of them on the computer I am using, so I cannot include them tonight.  :(

I also made a sensory bin for them as well.  I used bird seed as the base (it gave them something to scoop and pour, plus provided yet another texture).  I then added fake pumpkins, squash, and apples, with real hay as the final touch.  They used their scales to measure which pretend item weighed more, and they had a blast with the bin.  Yes, it went everywhere, but that is what they make vacuums for.  Carter even stepped into the bucket to see what it felt like with his feet.  I never even thought of doing that! And can you guess where the pictures are?  That's right, not available right now.  :(

Next we moved on to tracing the letter A with Wikki Stix.  The boys were first introduced to Wikki Stix at a restaurant in Laguna Beach.  Instead of giving them crayons, they received these to keep them busy.  All of us fell in love with them.  They are reusable and can be used for stand alone statues as well.  However, I just wanted Pierce to get used to using them today, so I had him trace the letter A with them.  Once he got the hang of moving them to where they should be, he had so much fun making different color combinations.  I attempted to have Carter trace as well, but he was not having it today.  And I am not going to make him do it.  After all, he just turned 2.

The final indoor part of our "schooling" for today involved sorting apples into small, medium, and large.  Obviously it was challenging for Carter, and he had more fun sorting by color.  I thought this would be a challenge for Pierce, but he made no errors and was done within 2 minutes.  No joke.  But he loved it.  And that is what counts.  He had even more fun trying to teach Carter how to sort by size.  Again, Pierce is trying to be the teacher, and it makes me have that happy fuzzy feeling on the inside.

We took a break from school to head over to our favorite skate park.  There was NOBODY there, so I did not need to worry about anybody hitting the boys again with their bikes.  And of course, since there is also a playground next to the skate park, that means that we were able to sneak in some more play time.  We then went over to the grocery store and picked up what we needed to make homemade macaroni and cheese in the crock pot.  Yum was the response that Pierce and I received about our cooking.  We have been cooking a lot together, and I honestly love that we do it while Carter is sleeping.  This gives us the chance to have our serious chats about why Ampy (my dad) is in heaven (a big question lately), why dogs have fur but we don't, when is mommy going back to college (I want to get my masters), etc.  Not to worry, I get my questions from Carter while we snuggle after his nap, but his questions usually involve things such as, "Where Papa?" or "You sweaty?"  

The final bit of (unplanned) schooling was weeding the garden.  Pierce called it harvesting, and stuck to that all night.  We were harvesting the weeds so that the other plants could grow really big.  I let him use the scissors (obviously with supervision) and he had a blast cutting weeds apart.  He then started cutting off the berries on the tree so that Carter could smash them into the ground.  I love to see how the boys are helping one another and doing things together.  

I honestly could not ask for better children or a better life.  I have learned in my lifetime to Cherish today. There is no promise for a tomorrow. It does not matter how young or old you are, when your time is up, it is up. It may not be fair, it does not seem right at all. Too many questions will forever be unanswered, but at least you are guaranteed this moment right now. Cherish it. Live it. Rejoice in it.  Pierce and Carter, one day when you see all of this and read this blog, I hope you remember those words.  Never lose your sense of curiosity, and always strive to be the fantastic people you are.  I love you boys to the moon and back, always and forever.  

Homemade Watercolors...the Natural Way

While riding along the Farmington Valley Bike Trail, there were a ton of beautiful wildflowers in bloom.  And of course, my creative side asked, "What can we do with these flowers?"  I know that in the past and present, various cultures would use flowers for their natural colors to dye various textiles.  So why couldn't I turn them into watercolors, or something to paint with?

Pierce, Carter, and I had a blast picking a variety of different colored flowers.  We also found some berries (I think grapes), that we used as well.  Unfortunately, Carter fell asleep in the car on the way home, and Pierce was not going to wait to make these until Carter woke up.  Pierce was way too excited for that.

I had Pierce take guesses in terms of which flower would be the darkest, the lightest, and what color their pigment would make.  He had a lot of fun guessing.  Then we started picking the petals off one by one and sorting them by color into various containers.

Now I needed something that would cause the pigment to run out of the petals, and into the water.  I did not want to use vinegar, since the flowers smelled way too fantastic.  Instead, we used boiling water and a masher.  I poured the water into the dishes, and Pierce got to work mashing the petals to help release the pigments.

And here was the hard part; we had to wait for them to cool off before we could use them.  And what is the best way to not obsess over it?  Convince your 3 year old to take a nap, because it would make the time go faster.  Yes!

Once both boys woke up from their naps, we got to work straining the petals and getting ready to paint.  I was a little surprised that the purple flowers were not as vibrant as we had thought it would be.  And the yellow flowers turned more to a brown color than a yellow color.  

And here was the reactions and the fun part.  Paint time!

While we were in Rhode Island the last 5 days, Pierce kept asking what color do you think this flower would make?  And he desperately wanted to make more water colors.  I think next time we are going to experiment with leaves.  After all, fall is coming.  Right?

Homemade Light Table

I've seen these popping up on Pinterest all over the place, and I finally decided to make one.  I decided to empty out a tote that has a see-thru bottom, flip it upside down, and put a camping light on the inside.  Most of the ones I have seen use Christmas lights, but I did not feel like digging around the basement for those.

For various objects to start the light table exploration, I had found these awesome see-thru cars at the Dollar Tree.  They are all neon color, but it really comes through on the table.  I also took different colored translucent binder dividers, and traced various shapes onto them.  Not only was this fantastic for shape recognition, it was great to play with color mixing and see what would happen.  It was not as dramatic as a transformation as I was hoping for, but it did the trick.

Carter did not get a chance to explore, since he was in bed early that night.  However, Pierce and I had a blast going through the house to see what would work.  We found that our music scarves work great for the light table.  We can layer them to change the color.  He also learned that by folding the scarves, they became more opaque than translucent.  (sneaky mommy also taught him how to fold in the process, and now loves folding towels).  We also picked up lake weed and mica to look at the following night.  

The light table has become a part of our classroom.  I cannot wait to purchase x-rays from Amazon so the boys can see what their bones look like.  I also have some translucent counters on our way, and I know the options are endless for exploration and learning.