Why There Are Tiny Capsules of Spit in my Freezer.

We spent a few hours last Thursday at the Discovery Center in Springfield. It's a wonderful little place, and I highly recommend it for parents of elementary aged children. There are many, many displays, and the workers are actually interested and helpful.

The kids got to run on a gigantic hamster wheel (human wheel?) to generate electricity.

Isolate their own DNA from cheek cells (ie spit. eww.)

And dress up as both Japanese school-children, and Japanese emperors. (There were other countries represented as well, but Japan had the coolest costumes.)

Of course the most exciting thing was drinking out of the toilet. It's the little pleasures in life that bring the most joy.

Bubble, Bubble, Toil and Trouble

Mim wanted to do "something creative in the kitchen" so I set her to making some hobo stew for lunch. She went through the cans in the cabinet and chose several that she thought would go well together. Zaya helped, but mostly by making faces and switching out the Basil Oregano Diced Tomatoes for Fire-Roasted.

He was also unimpressed with the appearance of creamed corn, going so far as to say that it "looks like barf". I can't completely disagree with that, but I did try to downplay the resemblance.

Here are the ingredients of the T-Kids Hobo Stew:

1 can fire-roasted diced tomatoes
1 can creamed corn
1 can chicken broth
1 can black beans
1 pint jar green beans
1/2 cup dried pasta
1 shake Italian seasoning
1 shake poultry seasoning
1 shake celery seed
3 shakes smoked paprika
1 shake basil
2 shakes salt
5 turns ground black pepper

It was a big hit. That's probably the most vegetables Zaya has eaten without coercion in a long time. Now I know what to do to add a little nutrients into their diets. No one mentioned barf even once, which I call success.

I Smell Something Burning...

Tonight on the U.S.S. Bedlam. (Also known as Zaya's bed.)

Cast of characters:
Zaya - A little boy with a big imagination
Crimson - A plush dragon with a hot temper
Blankeet - A blue and white striped blanket that achieved sentience just this year
Lillian - A sheep and long time faithful friend
Mommy - A tired woman who has been convinced to come and snuggle before bedtime

Mommy: (crawling up onto the U.S.S. Bedlam to perform snuggling duties) Zaya, I see that Lillian has joined the crew. Do she and Crimson actually get along?

(brief silence)

Crimson: (deep, throaty voice) Well...sometimes I do dream about mutton...

Lillian: Eep! Help! Zaya help! He's a cannibal!

Mommy: He would only be a cannibal if you were a dragon. He's just a carnivore.

(Lillian slowly edges away from Crimson.)

(Mommy gives a Blankeet wrapped Zaya a hug)

Mommy: Whenever I snuggle with you, I'm automatically snuggling with Blankeet too.

Blankeet: Tssssst.

(Crimson comes and snuggles between Mommy and Zaya)

Crimson: Meep

(Lillian piles on top of Crimson)

Lillian: Maaaaa

(Mommy hugs the whole huge pile and doles out kisses. She clambers out of the bed and exits stage right.)

(Mommy then realizes that for most of the time, she didn't actually get to speak with Zaya. Who was, ironically, the one who requested the snuggles in the first place.)

Doodle-time

Here are more examples of the ways my children entertain themselves when they might otherwise be getting their school-work done.

Zaya saw a picture on the internet of words that were self-referential. (i.e. the word exit where the 'x' was a running man and the 'i' looked like a door) He was inspired, and decided to add a little extra fun to his Bible notes. These words are from separate sentences, by the way. I did not have him write notes about dead people.

Mim has a book which gives you a prompt and part of a drawing, then asks you to complete it with your own ideas and imagination. The text on this page was "What would you take on a desert island?"

She decided she would want to take a large house, on a large boat. I think she's missed the point in some way there, but at the same time it makes sense. If you're imaginng anyway, why not take a house, and a big boat. It means you're not really "stranded" per se, but I suppose that didn't appeal to her.

The thing I enjoyed the most was the "ocean-water filters" in the attic of her house, (There are also bottles of water there, she says.) and the pile of lemons and limes in the basement. She said those are included so that no one will die of scurvy.

Works for me.

Clip Clop? Sploorge?

This is what I found when I walked into the kitchen this morning. Mim has turned her big brother into a "pack amoeba." It's like a pack mule, but with fewer cells. A lot fewer.

I find it interesting that her special doll gets a bed of pillows and silks and a free ride while her much loved brother is used as common stock. Ah. Siblings. It's so sweet.

Frankly, she's lucky that she has such a laid-back brother. He doesn't do everything she says, but he certainly does a lot more than I would. One day he's going to assert himself and give her the shock of her life, but so far they play together very well, with only the occasional spat that requires parental intervention.

I do frequently hear things like, "But I don't want to be a Pokemon!" from Mim or "But I don't want to build with Legos!" from Zaya. By and large, though compromise is the watchword, and when it isn't, I go on my spiel about sibling love and getting along and not driving Mommy crazy. It generally does the trick in that they would rather play something with each other than listen to me lecture. Whatever works, really.

Cabin Fever Cure

Yesterday, we had our one beautiful, warm day in a several week spread of lousy, coolish, dampy kind of weather. We had to go to the park, because it would have been criminal to hide away in the house when it was cloudy and warm and smelling like spring outside.

The ground was covered with wildflowers, which made me happy, as you can imagine from my previous posts. The kids took a little rest in a particularly soft patch. I didn't try it myself, because I might not have been able to get up and go on with my day.

We walked around the pond, tried to sneak up on all the sunning turtles, and sat in the gazebo (on an island in the center) to eat sandwiches and read about the Aztecs and the Incas. Ironically, we were reading about the city of Tenochtitlan which was a city that was built up in the middle of a lake.

Every time we walked past a large rock or group of rocks, the kids had to clamber around on them for a while. They are irresistibly drawn to rocks of all shapes and sizes; maybe there's some mountain-dweller blood in the family line, or maybe they're just adjusting to living in southern Missouri instead of the plains of Oklahoma.

Today it is cold and wet. The wind is blowing, and the sky is covered with clouds. It's supposed to be that way for a while again, so I'm glad we took advantage of our one day of spring time. My sunshine battery is charged and that should get me through the cold fingers and sweater-wearing of the next two weeks.

Theobroma Cacao - Educational and Delicious

This week we're studying the great Native civilizations of Central and South America. We read a book today about chocolate, which is related, right?  It talks about the history of chocolate, and how it was used by the Olmecs, Mayans, and Aztecs. We also got in a little explorer talk, since they were the first to bring it back to Europe. (The kids love learning about the explorers, because we get to feel all smug and superior since we know what the world looks like, and they didn't. They just laugh and laugh.)

We learned a lot about Cacao trees and Cocoa pods, which have to be pronounced differently, and are very confusing. The kids decided they desperately needed some hot chocolate after we finished our book, and I couldn't argue that need.

We did some Mayan math today too, learning how to use a base 20 system, and how you would write your age, or do a story problem. They wrote their numbers up to 50 and did some tricky math problems without realizing that's what they were. Ah, deceptive math is so much fun.

This is the kind of day that makes homeschooling so special. It's a little too chaotic to be an everyday method, but it works well for those cloudy days when noses are runny and coughs are creeping in, and everyone starts out a tad cranky.

Unfortunately, now we need to go do English, Spelling, Vocabulary, Science,Writing, Bible, Spanish and etc. I suppose we could write and diagram some sentences about chocolate? Maybe I'd better just stick with the books. There's only so much side-tracking I can handle before the guilt becomes too much.

Must produce well-educated children to prove my worth to the world!