This one is through our local library,  Dove Library and books reported were Ella Sets the Stage (Miss S) and Crazy Day with Cobras (Mr. G).  This past year Mr. G started reading longer chapter books on his own, and in our family when you become a solo-reader, you get a reading light. I love seeing him curled up on the couch, silently reading or laying in bed at night reading. It’s the one thing I’ll let my kids stay up late for - reading.

WAIT - that was the “summer vacation” of my childhood, now days there are lunches, snacks and places to arrive on time. Summer Camp! So many options - sports, art, water play, YMCA, local parks & rec, private places. I’ve received several different threads of emails from other parent’s sharing their summer camp plan, all of us trying to coordinate so our kids’ summer vacation is fully scheduled. When did this happen? I suppose its due partly to working parents, needing to keep their kids cared for; and partly to stay at home parents, needing to keep a little sanity in the house; and partly, but probably a small part, due to the child’s interest.

We don’t let our kids sit still any more (myself included). We’ve become a scheduled, orchestrated, keep-them-busy-until-bedtime society. It’s hard to resist the temptation to click “enroll” when all your kids’ friends are signing up. So I’ve tried to strike a balance. We’re doing a few camps, a few trips, and I’ve left lots of unscheduled time on the calendar. My husband and I both use Google calendar and often that is our mode of “communicating” what’s happening to each other (surviving 10+ years of marriage is a topic I’ll save for another post) so sometimes I even schedule “don’t schedule anything” on the calendar. Crazy, huh?

This week my 7 year old is in Art Farm, a local art camp set at a farm. It’s a little hidden gem in our patch of suburbia: take a dirt road across several bridges of a meandering stream, arrive to a clearing nestled below huge, old tress to find llamas, chickens, ponies and art stations setup outside.  (When I dropped him off this morning, I confess I wished I was attending). This is our first camp of the summer.  I’ll post back to share how it goes.

How do you approach your summer plans?

First, though, I must confess what happened this morning, back in my real world where school is almost starting and I’m making decisions about what/where/when in the busyness of our lives: two babysitters showed up at my house, at the same time. Yes, I had booked two wonderful girls to care for my kids without realizing I had booked them. There’s that thing they say about losing brain cells when you have kids — well, I lost a few.

I’m fortunate to have a little time each week to myself, hopefully to nurture myself so that when I am with my kids, I’m more relaxed. Mothering with grace, as they say.

Onto fairies. My girlfriend S. told me her daughter L. started getting into fairies, so she (the girl) wrote a letter to the fairy. The fairy wrote back, this went on for about six weeks with L. writing each day to the fairy - or, actually, fairies — sometimes she wrote ten fairies in one day! She’d ask them questions, asked for a wand, and the fairy/fairies always wrote back. Finally she asked for a fairy house, and the fairy replied that she couldn’t build a house but that perhaps Grandpa could help and presto, there is now a little fairy house nestled in her back yard among the tall trees.

I love this story because first I got to witness my son and L. explore the fairy garden together, and we couldn’t pull them away. I also love it because writing and reading weren’t the primary focus, but obviously in her attempts to communicate with the fairies, L. was working on these skills. Too often when I want to “teach” my kids something, I do it literally, sitting down to practice letters or read sight words, but its so much more fun (for kids AND parents) to teach in disguise - to explore a fairy land or pirate land or outer space and do a little reading, ‘riting & ‘rithmetic along the way. Thanks to S. & L. for sharing their fairies with us.

To end today I want to share this shot of my daughter, listening for the sound of the ocean. . . . it reminds me to just stop, and listen:

The main activity our family uses is the ABC section - basically it opens up an alphabet and your child can click a letter, go through a serious of phonics & little songs that correspond to the specific letter. The approach to phonics is similar to Leapfrong’s videos & educational activities. (Be sure to have your volume turned on!)

After letters there are different levels of reading, depending on where your child is at, where they can go through a story right on the website and start learning sight words. There’s also a section of holiday activities, always updated for the next batch of holidays (did you know there’s a grandparents day? And that it’s coming up soon?!?) My son loves the holiday section because, like me, he’s a sucker for celebrating the seasons and these activities prompt him to learn about different reasons to celebrate.

All in all, I give StarFall a thumbs up for kids 3-6 (or so). Enjoy!

Why do I feel compelled to get out and “do” things?

I grew up on a ranch out in the middle of nowhere. The closest neighbor was at least a mile; the closest general store about five miles, the closest movie theater forty five minutes. Most days “going” somewhere meant walking down to the barn or riding my bike along country roads. I spent days not going to town - not going anywhere outside of our farm-world. Now I know as adults we have a tendency (I have a tendency) to romanticize our childhoods - I’m not saying it was all a bed of roses. But it was simple, in terms of activities, and I see that I’m going a little overboard with our schedule.

The community I currently live in is about mini-vans, playgroups & playdates, soccer moms (and spanish/gymnastics/music/dance/karate-moms). I’ve read a lot about the over-scheduling tendency our society has gravitated to, and from what I can tell it only gets more difficult to manage as children get older & are competing for college acceptance letters. Where’s the balance between giving our children enough space to simply be versus exposing them to enough activities that they have a chance to flourish as swimmers or musicians or gymnasts?

One of my good mom-friends has started Tuesday-home day; the one, sacred day of the week where she stays home all day with her kids. Her and I are still in the pre-school years so we have this luxury - for one more year - of dictating our schedules rather than having the school system dictate it for us. I like this idea, and am reminding myself to spend more time at home, staying put for a day or even an afternoon for unscheduled, unspecified play.

Try it. Stay put and see what happens.

These questions – my golly, where do these questions come from? I was struggling to answer them. I wanted to tell him to believe in everything – in god, in spirituality, in all the angels above, in scientific evolution. I have to be careful, I need to explain this right, I was telling myself. I want to give him a clear picture, an understanding that was like fresh grass after the rain; clear, clean, crisp and inspiring.

But first I had to explain believe. What does it mean to believe? I thought about the service I went to for the little boy who was killed in my neighborhood, and how the parents believe they will see him again. How do I explain this belief? How do I explain heaven? We talked for awhile, me muddling through his questions. ‘Can you see God?’ he asked. I tried to explain how you can see him in things that happen around you, in nature, in kindness.

He seemed to accept my answers — for the time being. I’m simultaneously thrilled and horrified that he’s asking these questions. He turned five yesterday — YESTERDAY — and suddenly I see how grown up he has become. I’m honored that he trusts me to ask me these things….and now I need to tap into my mothering network to find out how other moms have handled this.

So, what do you say when your child asks you about God?

Then towards the back are begonia fields where you can dig up your own plants and take them home. These are real, flowering begonias ready to spruce up your own garden. In my experience, I see that my kids love planting and seeing things grow, and this is a great way for them to contribute to their own garden. (Other seeds my kids love: carrots (which take about two months); sugar snap peas (which take only a week to poke out of the ground, and about 21 days to produce edible peas!); pumpkins (planted in spring for Halloween) — those are few ideas that I’ve done with my kids.

So yesterday I tried my own little experiment; I went without my laptop. I decided to spend the day with no checking of email / surfing the web / grabbing info on my “machine”. I don’t know about you, but I’m a technology junkie; my laptop sits on a corner desk in my kitchen, accessible to everyone in the family but used primarily by me. This works when the kids are busy with their own little activities, or eating lunch, or watching a show: I can sit for five minutes and “just check my email.” Admittely most of my world is online - that’s how I communicate with all of my friends, my playgroup, my sons preschool, heck it’s even the primary way I communicate with my husband, via instant messenger and google calender which has become the bible of our scheduling-life. So going for a full 24 hours without all these things I “need” was certainly deliberate, noticeable. I needed to schedule a hair appointment and call our dentist, both whose numbers I’d usually search for online. But I was able to find them without the net. I needed to send out birthday invitations, and addresses are online. But I found old printouts and my - yes, written, bound address book which had many addresses.

Here’s what else I did: spent time with my kids, uninterrupted by emails that would send my mind into different directions thinking about….? whatever those emails make me think about. We painted rocks at the craft table. We did puzzles. We read stories. We built a huge train track on the floor in my bedroom. I noticed that my kids didn’t ask to watch a show (which is their usual request). They were with their Mom, and she wasn’t preoccupied. She was there, present, for the first time in along while.

So — how do you incorporate the necessary evil of technology into your life? Do you login to the net only after the kids are bed? Do you allow your kids to go online? If your not a technology junkie, what are your other vices and how do you deal with them? Where do you draw the line?

Saying to your child, “put your shoes on because we’re getting into the car, okay?” is NOT telling them to get to the car, it’s ASKING them if they’d like to put their shoes on to get in the car. It’s a question, not a command. So, a typical kid will hear the inflection in your voice as you ask “okay?” and think, hmmm, do I feel like putting on my shoes, or continuing to play as I am doing?

Once you tune into “ok” you’ll be amazed at how many times you say it. “That’s not how we treat out sister, okay?” I said tonight, while reprimanding my son. “We’re going for a walk, okay?” “It’s time for dinner, okay?” My gosh it drives me insane to think of how often I do this!

So, I intend to strike those two little words from my daily vocabulary to stop confusing commands with choices, and ask my kids questions only when I truly am giving them option to choose.