Red & Yellow make WHAT???

I love our neighborhood co-op preschool. I taught about mixing colors the other day and the kids loved doing this mixing activity in an ice tray with droppers. I thought we'd spend about 5 minutes doing it, but we actually ended up exploring with it for over 20 minutes! I was fascinated as I watched them learn and investigate. One of the highlights of motherhood for me is the opportunity I have to teach my children. I cannot get enough!

For St Patricks Day

Just had to sneak this photo in of cute Vivi first. All of my children have adored this swing!

On to the holiday. The kids woke up to find a leprechaun had turned our milk GREEN! And they got to try out a new cereal, Lucky Charms! I love making holidays magical around here.

My Boy

My sweet little David has the most inquisitive mind. From the time he could barely walk, he would open the drawers in the kitchen and bend down to look under neath them then open and close them again and again to see how they worked. His desire to figure out how everything works is constant. Something else that fascinates me about his mind (and also makes me smile) is how he just determines what something should be and that is the end of it. Lucy is constantly asking me what and why about things in her environment, but not David. David just figures it out on his own and that is good enough for him. For example, we were at a school and they had pilgrims made out of white paper plates with black hats on them. David, not having a clue what a pilgrim was, activated his background schema and pointed to the pilgrim plates and said, "Snowman!" It made perfect sense to me. And what I love about his observations, is that they always do make so much sense to me when I think about it. Other observations he has made include: his leap frog writing tablet is his, "other ipad", a picture of Peter & Andrew was, "Jesus", I drew a diamond once and he turned his head a little and said, "a square", there was a picture of a bee in a book we were reading and I asked him, "What does a bee say?" to which he responded, "Buh" (for the letter). 

He is such a sweetheart too and he loves his sisters. The other day when Lucy had to go to dance class, he just stood in the doorway crying and saying, "My Wucy! My Wucy!" over and over again. Once when I put him down for his nap while Lucy was still finishing her lunch, he was asking me for things; "My blankie", so I tucked his blankie all around him. Then it was, "My Buzz", so I gave him his Buzz doll. Then he looked around and in a sweet voice said, "My Wucy?" 

When Vivian is crying he'll come find me and say, "Oh no, Vivi!" Then he'll toss some toy her way and say, "Vivi, wook." He sure tries. Vivian loves to watch him, especially when he is in movement-she just giggles when she sees him. 

I love when he is tucked in for bed at night and I snuggle up to give him a hug and a kiss. Then I sing, "Mr. Sun" (to MY Mr. Son-it has always been my song for him) and he just giggles and smiles while I sing. Then he often asks for me to sing it again-and I do. I love him. I love having a son. I love the challenges that make the sweetness all the more enjoyable. He is our boy and I am so thankful to be his Momma. 

Adding . . .

Ever since I can remember I have had this funny habit of adding street addresses together when I see them. For example if a house number was 1326, it would be 1+3+2+6=12 in my head. I'm assuming some adult in my life told me to do this as a means to challenge my brain or perhaps just to keep me occupied. At any rate, it is something I always do. Or at least it is something I always USED to do . . .

Then today I was on a walk all by myself for about an hour and out of nowhere I caught myself adding the numbers again. At first I laughed that I had picked this silly little habit up again that I had not done for a few years and then I thought more about this. I realized that I had abandoned this little game at about the same time I started having to keep my brain preoccupied with the many needs of my children. Clearly the demands of motherhood had shoved this useless task right out the window as a means to make room for more important things like keeping my children out of the road or passing out graham crackers to help calm a crying toddler and so on . . .

I'm not sure I miss playing this simple game, but I did realize that I miss having the moments to clear my mind. Giving myself time to just wander in a direction it wants to without always having to answer to the latest fire that needs to be put out. I think I need more of this in my life. I really enjoyed it . . .

Happy little Vivi