When Nature Calls - Cattails

Barb over at Handbook of Nature Study is graciously hosting a Charlotte Mason approach to nature study. This series from her "Outdoor Hour Challenge" is the "Autumn Series" and this week's nature calling was Cattails.

I used to drive this overpass and see houses way out yonder and wonder who lived there. How does one even get there. I found out. We live there now. This area is on the outskirts of the Great Dismal Swamp so finding cattails should be easy. In fact, maybe there are some in my back yard.

We stand on the deck and zoom in a bit. We look left.

And then right. No cattails.

So the boys and I drive around to the next street where Sushi lives. She has a pond behind her house and I am pretty sure I remembered seeing cattails out there during one on my walks.

We are not dissappointed. Well maybe a little because they are

so scraggly

and we can't touch them.

I'm late getting to this, so I'll leave you with just these photos and when the boys and I finish our notebooking, I'll come back and post those pages.

Thanks, Barb!

~R

Adult Time?

WARNING Self-Righteous Post Alert

If I'm wrong, I don't wanna be right.

Forget socialization. This is the question about being a stay at home mom and homeschooling that boils my blood. Some of you may take this personally and for that I am truly sorry. This "logic" applies to me and my brood and if you take something away from here, then I'm happy to be of service.

Adult Time? "I need me time." "I need to be around other adults to feel complete." "I would go crazy being around my kids all the time." People actually wrote these things with regard to their children.

On that same thread about socialization, so many folks claimed they could never homeschool because they couldn't stand being around their children so much. ??? They needed that time away to be an adult. To do adult things.

My first instinct, because I am hot headed is to ask, "Why even bother having children if they disrupt your adult time so much." "They didn't ask to be in your way, a hindrance to your personal growth, so why torture yourself so."

But I try really hard to squelch that nasty part of myself. Karma and all that.

Now on the one hand, I get it. I really do. When my boys fight over who has more dirt in their pile, I want to throw the towel in. When they've reached their hundred questions per day limit, I want to throw the towel in. When I just want to read one more blog chapter or go to the bathroom by myself, I get needing that adult time.

And I get that some people want it all. Not everyone wants to stay home or homeschool. Career and families? Perfect! I love it! But if you start making comments like those above, using your career to avoid your children, then shame on you.

The way I see it is this. I'll probably live to see my eighties, maybe my nineties. I take reasonably good care of myself. The period of time my children are with me day in/day out? A mere 18 years. So mathematically, assuming I live to 90, I spent the first third of my life a free bird. I'll spend less than a quarter of my life caring for my children and then I'll have about half of my life to again do as I may, including taking a crap in private. (I don't actually want to work out the fractions, so don't add that up, pretty please.)

And then I'll hope that my adult children want to call me from time to time to chat.

That span of time the kids are in our home is so short. Sure, I'll gripe and complain from time to time. But in the end, I'm glad I didn't miss one single minute. I'll be glad I was there when...

But that's just me.

~R

Sing Along

BN and Me, 9-16-09

"Yes, I wear a muffin-top blouse, a muffin-top blouse, a muffin-top blouse. Yes, I wear a muffin-top blouse, so I can hide my fat."

Don't you love muffin-top shirts? It's sad that we live in a society where this style has become the norm, but it sure is wonderful for mommas who delivered 9 and 10 pound babies.

I will lose that baby fat. I mean, really, my baby is only five years old. Give a girl some time to recuperate, right?.?.

~R

Literal Pete

We visited Jamestown today and looked at a life size replica of a "middle class" home. Pete said the people who lived there must have been rich because of all the things they had compared to an earlier living space we saw.

I said, "No, this home belonged to a middle class family."

Pete: "This isn't a school, it's a home."

Me: "No, not class as in classroom, middle class refers to the family's income standing. To make it simple: poor, middle, rich. These folks were middle of the road."

Pete: Why were they in the road?"

I give up.

~R

Iscream for Icecream

At dinner tonight, Pete said he was too full to eat anymore.

Let me backtrack. Pete was outside playing with friends and had to come inside for dinner.

So Pete is too full and to clarify this point to us he said, "Even if there was ice cream in the freezer right now, I wouldn't even want that because I am too full."

BN and I said okay fine, go outside and have fun but remember that you get nothing else later. (This is a pitiful bluff because both boys know that if they feign hunger, I feed!)

So Pete runs outside and not 10 minutes later he runs back inside and says, "I want to get ice cream from the ice cream truck and I'll even use my own money. Pleeeaase."

So much for being full.

We told him no.

Boys - 1846, Us - 1.

That's, right. We bad. Ahem.

~R

Kick in the Ass

I need one. I can't get going this morning. We need to pretend do a little school. I want to call my sister and see if she wants to hang this afternoon.

Have I shared my favorite new curse word? It Fruitcake. I know it sounds benign but when you use like this..."where the fruitcake is my pen?" or "are you out of your fruitcaking mind?", it gets a little raw.

I like it. It rolls off the tongue quite smoothly. I use it A LOT.

Everyone say hello to my Mom. She came across my blog and unfortunately she'll see what a potty mouth I really am. Oopsie.

BTW, anyone have a mouse die in their wall before? I think one died in ours and it is starting to smell. I hear it can take a month to be rid of the smell. Ugh. The little fruitcaker!

~R

What!?!

~R

Me? A Serial Killer?

I have to get my ACL replaced.  Not repaired, replaced.  About three years ago BN and I left our children, for the first time, in the capable hands of my mother and my sister while we stole away to the mountains for a little couple time.

It was our first time staying in a bed and breakfast and we were going to ski the weekend away.  Yes, I said ski.  Get your minds outta the gutta.  Although there should have been plenty of that too.

So anyway, we arrived, we toured the bed and breakfast - sooo lovely and serene.  Then spur of the moment decided we would get in a little early ski time that evening.

So off we went and I made it down the bunny slope to the lift with no problems.  BN showed me the real bunny hill, apparently the 50 feet or so was a transition spot for one of the black diamond hills.  Who knew?  It looked like a bunny slope.

Anyway, next pass we went the "right" way and it was going fine until I came upon a cliff (BN said it was a small mound) and I pointed those skis inward at the toes as far as they would go and I leaned forward to stop the momentum, and suddenly I heard a loud *POP* and I was on the ground with my right leg bent awkwardly under me.

BN had already whizzed by me, so I crawled my way over to the side to get out of the way of all the toddlers, still with pacifiers in their mouths, sailing by and then BN and ski patrol were there to haul me off.

My doctor says we can do this one of two ways.  Remove a small part of a ligament from my knee to replace this shredded one or use one from a cadaver.

Anyone seen that movie where the guy gets a hand transplant and then starts committing murder.  At least I think that is how it goes.  I haven't seen it, but it makes me wonder about having a murdering knee.  There I am walking along and suddenly *KAPOW* to some unsuspecting passerby.

I just don't know.  Any cadaver users out there?

~R