Boys In The River

We are into the solid, golden days season. Every morning begins chilly and the boys shiver in their t-shirts at the breakfast table because A has opened all the windows the night before to get his fill of fresh air. By noon everyone is barefoot and many bare-chested, all in the sunshine on the lawn and every hand filthy and filled with sticks and rocks and whatever else they're digging up and tying together with pilfered yarn.

Today we went to the park downtown so the boys could suck the nectar out of clover blossoms, skateboard around on the sidewalks and end with a good splash in the river. I sat on the river rocks next to a Guatemalan daddy whose two little boys were in the river too, splashing and grinning. He told me about working in a local kitchen and showed me pictures of himself grinning with his chef knife, hotel pans and kitchen whites.

He said:

         "I cook 300 lobsters every Saturday night. I bake them in the oven for 15 minutes and then pull them out, slice them in half for serving." 

Today was his day off.

We watched our boys collect sticks and stalk minnows, fall in and take turns helping each other to the opposite bank.

I collected clam shells for the baby and lined them up on a rock, one of my boys fell in and we all laughed and the man cocked his head at me and added,
"I grew up on a river like this....in my country. We were always swimming."
"I have a ticket to go back this month."
I asked, "For how long?"
He grinned, "Two weeks."

We team-worked together, counting down the five minutes warning to our collective children and then he hunted wet shirts and unrolled leg cuffs while I hefted the baby on my hip and encouraged boy goodbyes and we wandered slowly back up the sidewalk to the car.

"Mucho gusto." I told him, when we reached our cars in neighboring parking spots.
"Nice to talk." He said and our boys waved muddy sticks to each other out of the car windows.

I should have asked for a picture of him and his sons. It didn't cross my mind.

Fiber Arts Surprise

Love it when my kids surprise and amaze me.

I tried to teach Ru to finger-knit a while ago but I wasn't doing something right and it kept falling apart so we ditched it.

That was months ago....then yesterday, he comes and finds me and says, "Hey Mom! Look what I figured out!" And there he was....finger-knitting...all by himself!

He has been knitting madly and at last count I think he'd made something like four or five scarves. Time to find some projects he can make and stash in our gift box out of finger-knitting strands.

Reading, Writing and Skateboarding

This week we learned that Ru's favorite skateboarding instructor is moving to Florida. Sending out a tribute to Burton for all of his laughter, unruffled coolness, his persistence, and his example of rubberized bravery.  I am so excited about the things I am watching the boys learn at the skate park. I am really grateful for Burton's hand in it all and hoping for a grand future for him in his big leap towards his print shop dreams in the land of sunshine down south.

Skateboarding is a fabulous way to learn to belong to a group, to embrace failure as useful and expected and to learn creativity in a kinesthetic form. Ru has always been a mover and shaker. I remember catching him trying to ride his scooter off a wooden chair balanced in our Lazy Boy recliner when he was just a toddler. I love being able to press into those proclivities and direct him into a place where he can flex who he is and grow wiser and more savvy in the process. I kinda thought the idea of skateboard "lessons" sounded ridiculous at first, it seemed like a really upper class, poser kind of idea. I have to say though that it basically amounts to open gym time in a skate park with a big brother or two on hand to give you pointers whenever you want them, low pressure, expansive, and whatever speed the kids who show up need at the moment. Sometimes there are games of tag and "double dog dare ya's" happening and sometimes everybody's lining up to try a new trick together single file. Its as playful or organized as people want and I appreciate that. Its been such a great release in the middle of this frigid, endless winter to have a place where my 7 year old could go blow off steam. He goes to sleep like an angel on the night of his skate class. Love it.

I'm kind of intimidated by being a skate mom but I'm really excited to see my boy take off so avidly towards something he loves. I want to get over my own worry about coolness and his ability to push past his bumped knees and keep going. I am expecting to spend a lot of time at the outdoor skate park in town and I think having a board or two in the trunk is kind of a given now.

Now if I can only figure out how to safely allow Pom to learn. He sobs when Ru skates because he's so jealous and spends all his time trying to climb on the board whenever he gets the chance. Hey. I'm watchin' yard sales this summer y'all! Time to get him a board of his own. If this kid can do it, then so can Pom.

Lego Distraction-ating

Started working on my second major Lego build in my life tonight.The boys and I are putting together this one, Dee's big Christmas present this year.

Its good to have a project after dinner when it is California Week (the one week a month that A is spending in Cali). We just got a little bit of it done, the first four or five pages in the instruction manual....a layer of bricks on the base piece. The baby was so exciting he kept stirring the box full of pieces and sending them flying and then climbing up onto the table in his excitement. Super silly!

Dee loves to build these scenes and really enjoys hunting for the next required bricks in the "Big Pile" of materials but he gets worried by the complexities of the big picture and feels all nervous and stressed that he'll "do it wrong." He actually is a pretty good team player with Ru who has bravado for miles and loves to read out directions but doesn't have the patience for hunting for the exact bricks specified. If I'm around to pluck a baby off the table and lend encouragement and the occasional long fingernail for prying bricks apart....we make a great construction crew. Nib is so far not really old enough to join in and follow directions. So he usually does his own thing next to us, building some imaginary design and we bargain with him for bricks we need off of his structure. It works. He's peripherally involved and free to do what he likes and generally occupied on the same topic.

Love these Legos but wondering what my organizing future holds for storing, constructing and displaying them. Right now the boys aren't anywhere near organized or motivated enough to possess a lot of them or to have one of those incredibly pleasing sorted-by-color file drawer storage cabinets that are always floating around on Pinterest. It would be a mess. So right now they all live mixed in a big glossy rainbow in a small tub with a lid. My in-laws have an astounding amount of Legos leftover from raising their 7 children and my eyes widen every time we are there to visit and they bring in the GIGANTIC Rubbermaid tub with 5,000,000 bricks in it. Is this in my future? 

I am not equipped. 

Learning How to Wiggle Our Ears

The giant maple tree in our side yard is fruiting out giant, slightly yellowed oyster mushrooms in a ruffled column high up on the trunk. We're finally getting a bunch of them after all summer without any luck, although unfortunately the tiny, rounded beetles that love oysters as well as I do did not go on vacation to Hawaii and so they are having themselves a buffet without so much as a by-your-leave. I wish I'd gotten a few of them too while they were still fresh and tender but I don't begrudge them their fair share of toughened, shoe-leather stage fungi. Nature is a beautiful thing, a little something for everyone.

The boys and I are watching a little How It's Made today. A fun rainy day indulgence. There are certain things I feel sludgy about my boys wading into for mindless entertainment (video games....argh!!!!) but I don't feel so terribly bad about this show. For one thing I also enjoy it so its more of a group activity and we stop it all the time to clarify points, quickly google rabbit trail questions (unschooling!) and add our comments which keeps it from getting too mind numbing. Today's clever piece of knowledge from the most recent episode:

Mainstream peanut butter contains trans-fats...they're added to make it a nice creamy consistency and be sure no oil rises to the top of the jar. "Natural peanut butter" is just peanut butter without trans-fats dumped in....and sometimes without sugar or salt.

I had no idea!

In other news...Ru has learned how to wiggle his ears! We're still working on tying his own shoes, reading smoothly, blowing bubbles from bubble gum and whistling but really, why get humdrum about life skills?!? He can learn those things later....when all the other chumps who never did learn how to wiggle their ears properly are trying to make up time. He's slightly magical really. I've asked him to give me ear wiggling lessons but apparently its a very subtle and mysterious art. He has yet to figure out how to explain what in the world he does to make them flap. Truth is, apparently..... he's not really sure. He says, "I just move my ear bones!" Duh.

Little Pom is grabbing things these days which is such a pleasing stage, so self-satisfied. He gloms onto handfuls of my hair, wads of clothing, things I'm trying to eat, ear bud cords, receipts and whatever else comes between his two grabbers. I think he loves the new power. Nothing like the ability to start controlling your own destiny...even if it starts in small territories like The Things One Chews On.

Happy First Day!

We're off! Galloping along on a new school year. I think last year was a fake out...this year is when it really all begins. I have a first grader and he's almost an independent reader. I'm officially schooling at home at this point, no denying it...the two years of pseudo-school before this were excusable. Maybe I was just keeping my kid home extra long but now, there's no dodging that bullet. My kid is with me in the grocery store in the middle of the morning, time for random strangers to start asking..."Why aren't you in school?!?"

We started the morning of our First Day of School with a celebratory ride around the block to the elementary school. This is where the boys would be going if they weren't being free-schooled outside of the system. We all piled into the van and the boys excitedly noted kids along the route with backpacks and lunch bags, all headed off to school too....and when we got to the school we rolled the windows down and hollered, "Happy, happy First Day!!!!!!!" There was a lot of giggling afterwards and a little bit of extra cheering as we rounded the block headed for home. I think we can safely say that the school year was begun with gusto.

 I totally had the first verse of Revolution by the Beatles going full blast in my head. Most of us only change the world in teeny little ways, this feels to me like some small piece of it for me. I believe in freedom for children to explore the world, for unconventional ways to learn, and for love to be one of the biggest lessons on the syllabus.

We've got all kinds of subjects on the docket for this year: Ancient History, Science Explorations, Name Writing, Reading, Addition and Subtraction, Potty Training, along with a couple of extra-curriculars in the form of an indoor sports education course and a fall semester outdoor wilderness skills class. I think we'll have some very busy, very happy boys at our house.

I have a little pile of genuine school books now. Just like a real teacher. We have safety scissors and glue sticks and lots of erasers in our school bin and there's been an inaugural trip to the library for new story books for the preschool set. I plan to leave off there though, I need  no more traditional teachery items: instead throw in a few sea shells, a Kitchenaid, some flip flops and my camera. We've got all we need. The world is our classroom, and we're all of us teachers, even the short ones with dimples. Wonder what I'll learn this year in my classes?