Bliss Beyond Naptime

SS Wednesday: Backwoods to School

Since we last left off, Edie has started to attend this Waldorf homeschool enrichment program on Mondays and Tuesdays. It's going along really sweet though the drive is pretty epic (thank goodness for podcasts!) and Kale sure misses his 'Didi Bird' on those days (they sure make up for it with the deep imaginative play when she is at home - usually involving Kale going to school and Edie being the teacher. Love it all until it comes to the recorder lessons part.)

The decision for us to homeschool, as is the case for a lot of families, is a multi-layered one. Many factors come in to play in ours; the temperment of our eldest, my leanings toward Steiner philosophy that make it hard for me to expose Edie, who's still such a dreamy child, quite yet to the somewhat more head-centred cirriculum at the public school, and loving the simplicity of the flow of our days.

But there is the other side of the coin as you can probably imagine.

Edie's now at an age where she is curious to be around kids her age more and is hungry to learn in a really structured setting. For now, this arrangement is fitting our needs and I have to say that this teacher is probably the best first grade teacher on the planet so, really, it was almost an impossible opportunity to pass up.

And let's be honost; there are two other, perhaps more Kwow-centred reasons I'm all over this new arrangement. First of all, I have such stellar plans for Bliss Beyond Naptime that involve me diving deeper and dirtier into its tagline: dreaming up soulful strategies for creative families.  With me having all of Monday (well, from 8:30 to 2:30 while she's at school anyway)  to myself, you can find me in the library in town working on this mission. Can you say bliss?

 

And second of all, I get to sew up some 'first day of school' type of dresses. I had her pick out a couple of patterns from my favourite Japanese pattern books. She chose two dresses from Carefree Clothes for Girls so far (the pink one's the Cinderella Dress and the blue one the Lace Doily one). She also picked out a skirt from Girly Style Wardrobe  that I haven't started yet due to another, more subtle leftover bug that renedered me energy depeleted this weekend.

Yes! To tired to even sew! Scary, no? I'm much better now, though, thanks.

 

I love these books. The attention to detail is so inspiring. For instance in the Lace Doily dress they suggest to sew the collar with gold thread afterwards for embelishment and so I did because i wanted to be just as cute as the picture. But then that detail was so subtle that even when I was pointing it out to Edie, two inches from her nose, she was like, "where?"

 

And then the patchworkings on the pink dress? Edie was a little opposed to the idea. I did it anyway and told her I could rip it out if she still 'doesn't care for it' (the h-word has cropped up here lately and that's our newest distaste filler). Turns out I don't think she minds them so much. But of course she doesn't ~ they're cute!

So, I can cross off another of fantasy of mine materialized. Primarly the one of my daugther going to school and having her teacher say "isn't your mother clever." Oi! I just realized, after the realization my ego was talking there quite loudly for a second, that Edie's first grade teacher has an English accent just like mine did (we don't live in the UK to first time readers by the way)! Ah, the sewing circle of life.

It's Just Not in My Nature. Table.

Is it obvious by the stretchy attempt at a punny post title I'm suffering from a head cold? The whole family's afflicted but if you had to have a cold this is the one to get. Feels like a cleanse in a way and even though we're sick enough to stay inside, and not be too industrious lest we over exert ourselves, the energy levels are just right for lots of what we like to call cuddle puddles on the couch and quiet activities that have that apres ski like vibe I love like board games, knitting and lazy day crafts;

Like setting up the nature table!

Typically we take down the advent garden and Nativity scene on January 6, day of Epiphany, which we did and then I would set up the winter nature table for the kids to wake up to. This year, Edie was really excited about participating and trying her hand at needle felting. So, even though I'm uptight about her playing with pokey, tetanus-laden objects, I obliged and, miraculously, she didn't hurt herself and the whole experience was a magical, collaborative affair. Together we basked in the periodic sun bursts that have been far and few in between these days, laughed at our duck/snowman hybrids and drank loads of licorice tea to keep our sore throats at bay.

I would love to see your nature table by the way. Or let me know what's lurking on yours for we need some inspiration to add some more oomph to it over the next couple of months. Leave a link to any pictures you may have floating in the blogospheres in the comments below if you feel so compelled and enjoy the video tour while I cleanse out my nose for the 100th time this morning!

 

 

Change is Good

Ah, the six and half year change. It was apparent that something was up  with my little girl a few months ago; complaints of boredom, lots of scowling, crying herself to sleep most nights. I'm not sure how to pinpoint what made the turn around happen but a few factors seemed to have come into play at the same time; teeth lost, flu like illnesses came and went, a lot of wheat was eliminated from her diet and she made her first special little friend. Oh yeah, and if she ever said she was bored I would make her sort out the change jar.

After the Christmas holidays I saw emerge a happier, though slightly 'edgier', eloquent little girl that's really into exploring her creative side. She's always been kind of crafty but now it's different. Every second sentence began with; "I have this great idea for a project" and then she would disappear with scissors and glue in hand and would crank out something ingenious.

But then after that she'll say she's bored. I couldn't believe it but the change sorting lost its novelty.

My usual come back to "I'm bored" has always been "only boring people are bored" but I think the intention behind these words usually flies over their shortly stacked little heads. These days the utterance had a different flavouring to it so I felt it time to explore some way out there options. This was when the thought of passing over some aspects of her education over to someone else first popped into my head. And I have to admit I got pretty excited with the prospect of freeing up some time to tackle some of the projects I have tucked up my poofy pirate shirt sleeves.

 I asked the Universe for a compromise between homeschooling and putting her into a full time situation. Universe delivered in the form of rave-heavy, amazing Waldorf-inspired early childhood educator that is offering for the first time, a grade one class that we'd be able to attend just twice a week. Though it's a long drive for us, and me being the mother of all homebodies and Edie having never been up before nine in the morning (though at Christmas this year Kale did yank her out of bed at the God forsaken hour of 8:30) we'd thought we'd try it out to see and... it was so worth it!

I arranged loving childcare for Kale so that I can stay in town the whole time on Mondays allowing me the opportunity to put my nose on the grind stone on my projects which was pure bliss. And when it was time for me to scoop her up on that first day she immediately asked me "I get to come back tomorrow, right?" . I said absolutely. And at the end of the second day the teacher reported that she's fitting in like she's been part of the class for years.

The current status is I'm feeling content that both our needs are seeming to be met in a new, surprising way. I was thinking crazy thoughts there for a while like moving into town so we can have her in the Waldorf school but that didn't feel right after a few realtor tours. And even right after I confirmed our spot in the twice a week class I got a bit of a panic attack about turning a page in our heavily home centred lifestyle. But so far so good and we'll take it week by week for now.

 A great indicator that we're on the right track for now is I've been listening to her humming twinkle twinkle little star all morning long while she's working on a "Happy Neighbours Pot Luck" sign for our dinner guests tonight. That's a good sign me thinks!

Fleece and Thank You

I might have to rename the blog The Edie Show for I'm just gushing about her growth spurts this week so much but, ack! ~ a knitting mama's dream just come true; I taught her how to knit last week and she's caught on like wild fire and already has a project list that will put a raveler's queue to shame.

Speaking of fire, there we were, knitting by the wood stove together. Just need Pa to pick up fiddle playing and life will be perfect! Actually a weiner dog napping in a basket, gently roasting beside the fire, will make the scene complete.

I picked up the book the A First Book of Knitting for Children which I'm pretty thankful for for it provided me with a sweet verse to chant while she went though the motion of her first couple of stitches;

Under the fence,

Catch the sheep,

Back we come,

Off we leap.

Which I'm pretty thankful for for it slightly more magical than what I was ready to sing;

Stick the fork in,

Poke your pickle,

Fish it up,

Then spit it out.

Ah, who knows? All I know is she is all over it and is currently working on her first project; a case for her recorder. We are using the yarn we have built from scratch. From the visit to the sheep whose back it came off of, to washing the fleece.

I wrote an article over at rhythme of the home a couple of years ago that outlines the steps we took to get the off white fluff somewhat white again.

And there was a lot of nit picking that took a good long while though wasn't the worst way to spend a glorious warm and balmy Indian Summer afternoon. But that didn't stop Edie from saying, oh, about a hundred times; "If we ever get sheep they're definately going to be wearing sweaters so we don't have to pick out so many gribblies!".

And so we picked, washed, carded, spun and dyed with marigolds from the garden that Edie planted from seed. When I shared this story with Craig he said he felt like he was watching an episode of Portlandia. I laughed so hard after he said that (just like I do everytime he utters something). Have you seen some Portlandia? So funny, totally pokes fun at us mindful, sustainably concious types. Here's a snippet. Why don't you pull out your current knitting project and poke your pickle while you watch it?

 

Brave New Girls

Though I wasn't 100 percent on board with this idea I have to say the timing was pretty impecable with Craig taking Edie out climbing for the first time. This picture was taken on Sunday and on Monday we introduced the letter "M" during our main lesson. In the continuing story our letter introducing saga the Prince (aka "P") scaled a mountain, got scared (that's when "EEEEE!"s got introduced) and was awarded his second golden star for overcoming his fear. Thank God for the therapeautic effects of Waldorf schooling (mostly for me after seeing these pics) because, yeah, she got up pretty high. Brave little girl.

And look at who else is a brave little girl: I had the great, great pleasure of hearing Kim John Payne speak in Nelson. The talk was on Friday, I stayed overnight at a dear friend's house and was able to attend the Saturday morning workshop on The Soul of Discipline. If you get the chance to attend one of his lectures I highly recommend it - he's so funny, inspiring and his messages are so mindful and important. The talk touched upon the history and different aspects of popular parenting styles and offered some practical strategies as well as the reasons why we might want to consider cutting out some habits such as the "Good job!"s and presenting constant choices to our children who have yet to develop the decision making bits of their brains.

At the intermission I introduced myself to him and he sweetly asked permission to have me talk a bit about my Simplicity Parenting Leader Training and the workshops I will be offering in the spring. So I said that was cool, because, well, once in a while I put out a vlog so how bad can speaking to a gymnasium full of parents be? Well, after my spiel and midway through answering some questions, my whole face started experiencing some major twitching action. Like Smile! pout. Smile! pout. But really fast. Like I had Tourrette's. My ladies who were there told me they didn't notice, which is sweet, but .... yeah.  So I either have to find me some Toastmaster meetings quick or limit myself to only one latte before introducing myself to my mentors! There is, of course, always Botax but that wouldn't be very Backwoodsy of me, would it?

Illiterally So Excited...

I can't type long for today's the day I've been dreaming about ever since I decided I was going to follow the Waldorf process of introducing letters to teach Edie how to read and write. That plus I slept in big time this morning (I totally needed that!).

We've been practicing form drawing the last two weeks; drawing out shapes in the sand, in the air, on each other's backs, in mashed potatoes and into her main lesson book. Today, after our morning chore and walk to the mailbox, I'm going to be sharing a story about Queen Q, Prince P and King K (a far distant relative to Princess K-Wow) and then instruct her to draw them into her main lesson book.

In four weeks we will have gone through twenty of the letters (the remaining letters will be taken on after the holidays) and by the end of the school year she will be reading from her own 'writing'.

Edie said the sweetest thing to me at bedtime a couple of weeks ago; "things are going to look so different to me after I learn how to read." So true, Little Girl! Savour a little longer this magical world of no message in sight but just the task of simply taking it all in.

The School Bus Is Leaving!

That's how Craig's been luring Edie out of bed this week and later when she recounts this to me, she moan's "Why does he keep forgetting I'm being homeschooled?!". Edie's the cute! The first day of Grade One she dressed herself in her fanciest dress and requested I help her out with making this extravagent (for her) up-do. She was so excited about the unfolding of activities and it particularly warmed my cockles how earnestly she dove into the Tuesday morning chore of helping Mama clean the bathroom.

Together we made a weather tree and will be glueing on a new leaf according to what the weather was like on our morning walk before our lessons start...

And then after some yoga and the first chapter of Winnie the Pooh we hit the beach with the intention of making the most out of the last bit of summer heat we have been blessed with. I have to admit a partial ulterior motive was to use this as a form drawing opportunity but...

... seeking out seaweed to make a fairy house with both old and new friends proved to be a just as rich, if not more so, learning experience.

I had to pry Edie away from the beach fun to keep a date with those wooly critters you see up there. We got to hand feed them and then trade eggs for a couple of pounds of their lusciously greasy fiber. We're later going to wash it in the tub outside (I wrote a how to article on this for Rhythm of the Home last year), card it up, and dye it with marigolds from the garden before we introduce knitting with sticks next month.

After our sheep date it was supper time and then Edie proclaimed she was super bummed because we didn't have music lesson as was clearly laid out on our itinerary. So Mama quickly rolled out the Waldorf-inspired karaoke machine and busted out her classic Fame routine; complete with legwarmers, headband and mid-air splits. Anything to keep Mama's little baby from crying! Once Crisis Cry Baby was averted I explained to her that sometimes it's not possible to do all that we want to in one day but the important thing is to fully embrace the fun from what we can squeeze in. Ugh ~ I feel her pain sometimes though! So that's why... I'm going to live forever and I'm going to learn how to fly - HIGH!

Loft Nest Monster

We had plans to go camping this weekend. Unfortunately, the Red Tent goddesses smiled down on me, hard, and I thought it best that I, being major bear bait on Sunday, have the family go on without me while I stay at home and get a few homeschool related tasks put to bed. For example, I wanted to make both Edie and Kale painting smocks that actually fit, firm up our schedule, pour through the many inspiring Waldorf books we have resting on our colour-coded bookshelf (strangely, they all seem to reside in the yellow section!). Plus, I wanted to surprise the kids with an Autumn nature table and fall books nestled in their book basket.

Might I add it was pretty trippy to be in the house all alone for 24 hours? First time in seven years! I survived on smoothies and lattes, netflixs playing various chick flicks on my laptop while I sewed, and loads of talking to myself without the kids thinking I'm trying to engage with them. Unhealthy? Perhaps. But man I got lots done without having to worry about dishes or bedtimes and that crazy lady talking to herself business seemed to have propelled me to work faster and practice my foreign accents.

The peruse through the Waldorf book collection and Donna's curriculum I'm following really got me excited about the rhythm we intend to follow to flow through the task of learning to read, print and exploring math this home school year. We're not going to be adhering to this too rigidly of course but enough so that the structure will be clearly established bringing predictability and progress through the curriculum though allowing flexibility to veer off when this thing called life deems it necessary at times. So far, what I've come up with this is this:

6:00 Mama wakes up; meditates and yogas

6:30 Milk Miss Daisy

7:00 Breakfast is made and served by Dada while Mama gets to work on shop/blog stuff

9:00 Household chores (Monday vaccum, Tuesday laundry, etc)

9:30 Walk to mailbox

10:15 Morning verse then main lesson (form drawing for the first couple of weeks)

11:15 Kids frolic while I get lunch ready

11:45 Drop off Kale to Craig's office so they can hang while Edie and I do Lesson A (recorder for the first bit) together, undisturbed

12:15 Craig and Kale join us back in the house for lunch. After that, Mama tea time, kid quiet time until...

1:30 Read Aloud. I read the kids a chapter from a book while cuddling on the couch. We're going to start off with Winnie the Pooh!

2:00 Lesson B (Handwork - Yippee! For this we are going to learn how to knit. Tomorrow we are off to a friend's sheep farm to see her ewes, score some fleece which we will wash, card, dye, spin and learn to knit from!)

3:00 Closing verse and schools done for the day :)

 

Nerdy enough for ya? I have to admit I've always been the hugest back to school nerd around. Even back in my teens when it was probably more appropriate to call it 'Back to Skipping School'. So one fall schedule, one and a half smocks, two lattes and a green smoothie later, I  thought it best to leave my sweet and crafty loft nest (ooo, Loft Nest Monster! Changing post title now), get some fresh Valley air and hop on my trusty cruiser, Prozac, to take a quick jump in the river.  And brace myself for jumping into this adventure called Grade One! Back to school nerds unite! Do you have some kind of homeschooling plan, or unplan, laid out?

Concrete Example

I was upstairs sewing when Edie poked her nose in from outside and yelled "Mama! Come quick! Bring the camera!" I just about fell off of my swivel chair (which I happen to do about once a day anyway because the seat's not screwed in to the rest of the chair) and went running out. Running these days takes an enormous amount of coordination because of Kale's teething that's been full on causing him to be quite clingy. Imagine me wearing just one massive legwarmer on one leg all day long. You can see by my mutant sihloutte above what I'm dealing with these days.

"It's me!" she says as I hobble up the gravel path leading up to the house. The kids were exposed to sidewalk chalk for the first time in their lives when we went into town yesterday. They were happily playing with the stuff just outside my favourite store ever while I did some last minute Easter supplies shopping. Apparently, everytime someone walked by the shop, Kale would look up from his work and shout out "Maplerose!" like the world's cutest sandwich board.

They didn't want to leave the chalk behind and I promise them that one day, oh, yes, little ones, one day we'll have some kind of piece of concrete for them to draw on with chalk. In my head I started envisioning a patio area in front of the sliding door since Craig told me a wood deck is totally out of the question (high maintenance he says).  But a concrete patio might serve several functions; hopscotch, tether ball, tennis court... Can you chalk draw/rollerderby on flagstone?

 A little stick drawing, drawn with a stick, in the sticks. Stick! The sticks girl's chalk!

 

Moss-ive Attack

We've been spending greater parts of the day traverssing the backwoods much since all the snow has dissipated. And here we have that little window between chest high snow and head high ferns that makes it possible for a two and a half year old to frolic through the forest relatively easy and without his mama lugging him around like a sack of potatoes for most of the time.

 

I'm really in love with cush and green  carpeting much of the forest lately, and since I love staring at the terrariums over on Etsy , I decided that whipping up a couple of our own would be fun with the kids. Plus, it would be pretty cool to have some fairies as roomates, don't you think?

Off we go seeking the fattest, greenest globs of fairy lawn to house our fairy friends. Check out Barney, the Barnyard Cat. Guarenteed that kitty is by our side on any venture in the woods. I swear that cat is part dog!

I found these little jars at the thrift store for less than a dollar each and the moss is like dirt cheap (ha, ha) so this project was very much to my accountant's (aka Craig) lichen. Then with some roving from my stash I quickly needle-felted some mushroom houses to reside on this pristine mosstopia. There are front doors and Edie insisted that the button cap cabin have a teeny weeny chimmeny on top.

So now we have them planted side by side on our budding spring nature table. We overheard one little fairy living in one of the houses saying to a friend how he thinks the neighbour is actually quite a fungi. Success! Now we just have to mist it with water every few days to keep it fresh and not crunching up into a super organic scouring pad. Something tells me the kids are going to like taking on that chore!

PS: Today's the last day to sign up for the Backwoods Mama Spring Sew Camp. Tell your oh sew happy friends, please! And if you seamstressed about not signing up yet, it's not too late. If you could join us too that would be sew awesome! Sign up and more info can be found here.