On to lighter topics... The Rebel Bakes

My recent view at the computer.

I made pretzels last week.

Lately I've been wondering what makes me an "everyday rebel" particularly when I'm posting pics of knitting and sewing like I'm some kind of Martha Stewart. Which, I'm not. Actually, I think Martha Stewart is an evil minion of Satan sent to earth to make everyone else feel inadequate in all things domestic. I don't let it get to me though, I'm the queen of the dirty house dinner party. In fact, it is possible that if you end up at my house for a dinner party, you'll find yourself cooking. Or maybe folding laundry so you have some place to sit. Or clearing the table so we can eat on it. But just when I was thinking I was at least trying to become Mrs. Steward, I go and make that last post.

Right. I remember now. One second I'm making pretzels and the next I'm writing about controversial birth topics. And you didn't even hear what I was talking about while I was making the bread. Ah yes, that's right, I do have rebel moments.


I'm working on being content. Not just with stuff but with circumstances. And with who I am. I've long held the belief that if you kind of don't like your circumstances you should learn to be content. If you really don't like them then get off your butt and change them. Reality has served me up a double portion of "It-ain't-always-so-simple" and had me reevaluating. Meaning: If you really don't like your circumstances sometimes you just have to suck it up. Or the nicer way of saying it: develop more contentment. So I've decided I'm discontent with my level of contentment. I'm working on that.

Homemaker is a difficult term for me. It sends shivers down my spine and I feel as though someone has died. I avoid it. I also avoid baking. Not because of shivers up or down my spine but because I'm terrible at it. Did you know that baking is really more science than anything? Chemistry to be exact. This fact explains everything. It's really not the science as much as the directions but science, particularly the chemistry variety, likes directions. I read ingredient lists as suggestions and measurements and directions as a road map: this is one way to get there but there is this other way here and another way here... and maybe we don't really want to go there anyway. But science isn't really about suggestions, not if you don't want to blow things up. Did I mention I was terrible at baking? Jeremy is good at baking. Like, talented, even more so if it involves chocolate. It's kind of disgusting. Disgustingly yummy and his time in the "lab" is making me fat. But I digress.

This last week, I didn't avoid baking. Nope, I rushed in and embraced it head on tackling baked goods that were even lacking in chocolate and, in an atypical but noteworthy event, required following directions! *gasp*

Also noteworthy: they didn't come out of a box.

You have no idea how hard this is for me, the following directions part that is. The box part too for that matter. But I did it and started with a recipe a friend on Facebook shared for soft pretzels. I am never paying $3 for a pretzel at the mall again. I can't believe I'm going to say this but not only were they edible, they were delicious! And yes, I realize I'm bragging but I don't care. I made something yummy that was baked. You bet I'm going to get braggy about it. Oh yeah, and Evangeline helped.


I'm really hoping the whole "you're going to get worms if you eat raw flour" thing I used to hear as a kid isn't true because seriously, Evangeline ate cups of the stuff.


This past week we made multiple French country boule loves, two baguettes which were better than any we've found in stores here, dinner rolls, whole wheat sandwich buns, walnut sticky buns, whole wheat country loaf, savory kolaches, flatbreads, homemade pizza and the soft pretzels. They were all delicious, actually. I couldn't believe it this morning when I looked at my plate for breakfast with an omlet and whole wheat toast and thought "wow, I made all that." The ingredients may have come from the store or farmer's market but the actual cooking and baking was all mine. MINE! Even the bread.



And here's the kicker: it tastes delicious and I have enjoyed the experience.

Move over Martha Stewart! My bread is awesome and piles of laundry is the new shabby chic!


I will continue making bread. The secret? I found out making bread doesn't have to be difficult! Thanks to the recipe I'm following I can see myself making fresh dough to bake into various breads every other day. Courtesy of my neighbor, I'm exploring the recipes in Artisan Bread In Five Minutes a Day and getting inspiration from their wonderful website and blog. This book has quickly moved to the top of my wish list, I'm going to have to return it to my neighbor eventually and I am so going to need my own. Every time I make a batch I am surprised at how easy it is and how fast I'm done.

School snacks ready to be packed up.

I felt all kinds of Little House on The Prairie sending the girls off to their little homeschool classes last week with a snack of homemade bread or pretzels wrapped in red gingham sandwich wraps, fresh canteloupe in Mason Jars, their steel water bottles and a sweet little cloth napkin tucked inside. Holy crap, I need to write something controversial again quick!

Summer, parting is such sweet sorrow

Exploring some math concepts together with The Piano Man from my perspective at the sewing machine.

"School" has started. Our relaxed version of schooling that includes freedom, structure, cultivating individual interests and curiosity, self-pacing, exploration, and exposure to ideas and subjects is under-way as the seasons shift. Not that it ever stopped, we just explored other subjects with a different level of freedom and self-guidance. We are once again participating in 2 different local university style classical education programs for homeschoolers. The classes the girls are taking this year are once again exciting and of their own choosing. Earth Baby is taking Greek 3, Latin 2, Jr. High Spanish, Writing and Literature 7/8 (it's actually high school level, and she loves it!), high school drama, advanced drawing, and another art class. The Storyteller is enjoying a writing class, Spanish, drama, zoology- swimming creatures, art, Latin 1, and Ancient Roman and Greek architecture. Lolie is taking a math games class and she wanted to take a reading class I think mostly to have fun discovering new books. She is also taking drama and Spanish as well as an etiquette lunch to learn how to eat a meal with polite manners. Good thing I guess, she won't get that here! All of them love the 2 days a week managing their own schedules and visiting with friends. Squiggle Bug and I love our time together to do things like make playdough, scones, dance to whatever music we want, build elaborate castles of blocks or whatever strikes our fancy, play with baby dolls, go for long walks and swinging. We like to pretend it is fall and made up a song this week about the leaves crunching under our shoes as we walked and the vibrant colors of the season. We can dream, right?

Squiggle Bug enjoys a hot walk in September doing our new favorite family activity- geocaching!

My sewing machine is whirring, the knitting needles are clicking, books and patterns being marked for ideas, yarn being fingered, etsy and craigslist being perused for more ideas and maybe a few deals, dress-up themes being discussed for October 31st, whispered conversations abruptly halted when another family member walks into the room, secret measuring and knowing giggles with side-ways glances echo off the walls of our home. But the ultimate tell-tale sign of the seasons shifting has been the Christmas music books making their way to the piano as we select what we want to work on this year. I am constantly humming the favorites I want to arrange for us to sing this year and will set about determining keys and parts soon so we have ample time to learn them comfortably.



I refuse to think about the fact that if we are turning our attention forward to Halloween and then Christmas it means that Smunchie is closing in on her first birthday as well. Nope, impossible, she's still a newborn, right?

Though the weather has cooled off a touch with a hurricane that made landfall only 150 miles away, we don't actually expect real change to the weather until well into November at the earliest. A fact we take into consideration when planning our Halloween costumes. Still, it feels as though we have begun to bid summer adieu and from this point out and shorts and t-shirt days will be mere stragglers of an Indian Summer. We pretend that you can't actually wear shorts and t-shirts all year here. I sit here and right this in a tank top and summer skirt. Same outfit I'll probably be wearing at some point in December.

For years we have been listening to the 3 big girls beg to visit a waterpark but the hot temperatures, fair skin, and high cost made us balk at the idea. Thanks to some friends passing along some free-tickets, we were able to have one last horrah this summer by enjoying a day along a chlorinated lazy river, 3-story swirling tube slides, jumping fountains, fabricated showers, artificial wave pool, water obstacle courses and more. The weather had cooled off nicely with only a high around 91 degrees and even for our not-so-summer-fun-loving selves we had a good time. Sunburns were avoided, dehydration kept at bay and we enjoyed our buddy system for the day. Smunchie still hates water so she was less than thrilled but was mostly content to ride along in the lazy river as long as she wasn't getting wet and was able to breastfeed at the same time. It worked. As long as I didn't think about the SouthPark episode with Pi Pi's New York Splash Waterpark too much. *shudder*

I wasn't able to get too many photos, I was far too busy enjoying the waterpark experience but snapped a few of Smunchie staying dry on the beach.

Saving dishes

I'm not a fan of dishes. Well, that's not true, I like dishes and all different types too, stoneware, glass, ceramics, china, and whatever else there is. What I should say is I don't like washing dishes. I suppose a dishwasher is supposed to make that chore easier but I'm not sure ours really does that. With the exception of most liquids in a cup or glass, we pretty much have to wash each dish before putting it in the dishwasher because it's not like the machine actually gets food off anything. Which makes me wonder, what's the point? I imagine we could use the cabinet space more than the appliance.

But since I also don't like waste and I have some crunchy tendencies, not to mention the prohibitive cost comparisons, we don't use disposable dishes either. Shoot, we don't even use disposable paper towels or napkins. So I wash dishes. Thankfully, I have helpers.

The Storyteller joyfully does the dishes. Can't you tell? That's joy all over her face.

These helpers help a lot, they know how to load and unload the dishwasher, scrape the plates, wipe down the counters, and put away the silver ware. And they have a magic talent. They know how to make the dishes, specifically glasses, multiply. Hot from playing outside, get a clean glass and a cold drink of water! Enjoying a captivating read? Keep a fresh glass of water close by. Can't sleep? Grab another glass and fill 'er up! Even more sweaty? Yep, more water! Can't find your glass from 5 minutes ago? That's ok, grab another one and drink up! And if you had something other than water in your glass you certainly don't want to rinse it out and re-use the glass that would be gross! So, GET ANOTHER GLASS! Yay!

Not yay.

Now, don't get me wrong, I love that the girls can chug some water and stay well hydrated, really, I do. I'm thrilled that I generally don't have to worry about their fluid intake on any given day. But I can't say that I appreciate being able to count how many glasses of water they'd had before noon just by the number of glasses cluttering up the counter. Particularly the ones that were full with only a few sips of water missing. Though I watered plenty of plants by pouring the contents of abandoned glasses into their pots, I was in desperate need of a solution. And I really didn't like having to wash all those glasses so many times in an effort to have glasses on the shelf.

We tried tape on the counter tops with names so you could get a drink and put your glass back right in front of your name. I attempted to enforce that for 2 weeks but failed miserably. Then it was designated spots, The Piano Man always keeps a glass by the sink so he can fill it up with water and just knows to set it there when he's done so it is ready for the next time. Important fact to keep in mind as to why this works for him and not for his children: He's 20-something years older than the oldest child in the family. That and I'm their mom, my DNA is in the mix too and I have a hard time remembering where I put my purse. The next effort in having the girls use the same glass all day was to label the glasses but the labels got lost, wet, removed, whatever, the point is that didn't work either.

Our glasses and the glass markers.

Finally I decided to try personalized glasses but I wasn't about to order glasses with their names etched on them. Instead, I pulled out the plain glasses we had from IKEA and picked up a set of glass paint markers. For a few days we talked about the idea of creating a custom glass, each of us designing and decorating a glass in our own unique style and the girls got excited. Thinking it was going to be quite the time consuming production, I procrastinated a few days until Lolie couldn't stand the anticipation of creating her very own glass and pestered me to no end. However much work it would be it was worth doing to get her to stop. I shouldn't have worried. The glass paint markers were simple and easy to use once we got the paint flowing into the tip of each marker. I helped the girls get going with theirs and figuring out some of the tricky maneuvering required for some of their designs. The Piano Man joined us and it wasn't long before we had 10 distinctly different glasses full of color, whimsy, energy, individuality and character. Setting all the glasses on a tray to put in the oven to bake the paint I was delighted with our mis-matched matching family glasses.

9 of our set of 10.

We have rainbows, flowers, butterflies, birds, stripes, swirls and polka-dots, hearts, a colorful henna-tattoo inspired glass, our family initials, and people jumping from mountain top to mountain top (I admit, I scratched my head at that one) decorating our glasses and "set" is proudly displayed on a shelf between the kitchen and dinning room. The light shines through them in a colorful display creating our own small stained glass collection. The most amazing thing though is that they are usually at least a few on the shelf at all times with the exception of those that are in use at any given moment.

It was really simple, wash the glasses, prep the surface by wiping them down with vinegar, shaking the paint down to the tips of the markers and getting creative. After they were painted they had to sit for 24 hours to dry and then bake for 40 minutes at 325 degrees. Each of us enjoyed seeing not only our own glasses come to life with color but what everyone else was doing as well. My original plan was to have us each create a cup for ourselves and one for guests and everyone in the family would use their personalized glass. However, we all enjoy the other glasses so much that every morning we pick a new glass. Today I have the purple people jumping on green mountains. A fun family project that has miraculously cut down on the amount of dishes.

A Custom Designed Interactive Game

"I'm bored." My 8 year old sauntered in, conjuring the most bland expression she could devise.

Looking up from my dinner preparations I assessed the situation. One sister was playing outside happily, another was reading in her room, one was napping and the other was, well, on me.

"I'm bored!" She reiterated with an exasperated emphasis. "Can I have something to eat?"

"Eating because you're bored isn't a good idea, you don't want to start that. It becomes a bad habit with health consequences that can be hard to break. We're going to be eating before long anyway, I'm making dinner. Think you can wait?" I asked.


With a sigh she grumbled that she could wait, making it clear she didn't want to.

"There's nothing to do, can I play wii or watch a movie?" came next.

Coming off of a couple of weeks of sickness, we had resorted to watching movies, playing computer games, and wii far more often than usual as a means of distraction from fevers. Though we had also read, knit, played games and fit some school work in, often just laying on the couch was all we had energy for. It was even worse when I was the one sick, the last to come down with the virus it became a free-for-all. In just that short amount of time I was hearing something that had, just weeks before, been rare in our house.


"On a beautiful day like this? When we're healthy and there is so much to explore?" I was tempted to inform her that when I was a kid, if I complained about being bored I'd be given an unsavory chore to do such as pulling weeds. Realizing that wouldn't be helpful and she had, in fact, worked turning over the garden just earlier that day and enjoyed it, I racked my brain for another idea, inwardly cursing the effects of excessive movie-watching and video game playing on my daughter's imagination and play. And her increased ability to whine.

"Why don't you go play outside with H? She's having a great time." I redirected.


"I'm tired of playing that, I want something fun, like a game. Why can't I play wii?" whined L.

"We've had a lot of screen time lately and we don't want to miss out on all the other fun there is to be had. It is the middle of the week, no screen media during the week, only on week-ends. If you'd like to play a game, you're welcome to pick one and ask your sisters to join you. I can play too once dinner is in the oven." I made my suggestions, hoping something would sound appealing.

No go.



After more suggestions that were shot down quickly by L, who had apparently done everything already, I got an idea.

"You could build an obstacle course!"

"A what?" she puzzled.

Encouraged that she didn't shoot it down right away I went on.

"An obstacle course. You could design one and then we could all run it."

"What would I build it with? We don't have anything." she was starting to whine again.

Instead of pointing out that we do, in fact, have loads of stuff and suggest some that would be ideal for an obstacle course, I decided to give her the opportunity to be creative on her own.


"Whatever you can find." I said. "Look around the yard, check out what's in the house and car port and see what you can put together to create a fun and challenging obstacle course."

At this point I should point out that if you try this with your children be sure that anything that could be truly dangerous for them to scavenger should be put safely out of their reach with clear instructions that they are only touch those objects with the assistance of an adult. Saws, boards with nails, lawn equipment, etc. could be very enticing for obstacle course building.

Mulling over the idea for a minute, L stood chewing on her lip considering the possibilities. A moment later though she gave me a doubtful look.

"Ok, I'll try it. I don't think it will actually be fun but if you're not going to let me play wii..." her voice trailed off.

"Let me know when you're ready for us, I can't wait to run your course."

A short while later, maybe 45 minutes or so, an excited little girl bounded into the house.

"I'm ready! It's ready! I just did it and it is so much fun!" She could barely catch her breath, bouncing up and down and gesturing to outside.

"All right!" I said. "Let's get everyone and give it a try!"

We rounded up the family and invaded our front yard. L explained the course, walking through it herself and giggling with delight at some of her ingenious challenges. There were a few elements that would have been tough to accomplish or possibly dangerous for those that were either smaller or larger than she so we discussed and agreed upon some modifications. There was a balance beam of two reclaimed fence rails I had still around from an art piece, jumping on, yes on, not over, Coke cans she grabbed from the recycling (yes, sometimes we drink soda, I know, I know!), running with one foot in a bucket, racing holding a ball between your knees, running to the finish line (a jump rope held up) holding a branch sticking out like a tail, and a few other funny tasks as part of the course. Everyone took a turn running it to the cheers of the rest of the family. It didn't matter who got the best time, we just had a blast. All of us thanked L for sharing her creation with us and after Jeremy and I went inside to finish the last of our dinner preparations, the girls continued to run the course and make alterations, constantly improving and devising knew challenges right up until we called for them to clean it up and come in to dinner. All through dinner we laughed as we reminisced about our Olympian feats of front yard athleticism. Plans were soon afoot for the next obstacle course to be built.


This has now become one of our favorite family activities. Since the first one we've had to toss crunched cans into a pitcher (one actually got in!), bounce on a ball a few feet, hop through a swing, balance on a skateboard, kick soccer balls, and more. The girls get very creative in coming up with daring exercises for us to try. Setting up an obstacle course for the family to enjoy together gets more of an enthusiastic response than the weekend chance to watch a movie or play wii. Which is exactly how we like it. Not that they are ready to give up Mario Kart or anything. ;)

To Grow Imaginations- part 1

A shoe zoomed by my head with a “swoosh” sound effect from my three year old. I looked up from my perch on the couch just in time to see the tiny homemade fairy with crazy yarn hair and a little stuffed giraffe fly by tucked into one of my daughter’s sneakers. The shoe was followed by a wooden toy boat loaded with more homemade fairies and various small wooden animal shapes bobbing along in the air supported by my 5 year old’s arm. Following the boat was yet another shoe, this one sparkly and red from last year’s Dorothy costume for Halloween with more fairies, tiny people and animals tucked inside with my 8 year old daughter providing sound effects. I paused in my reading to see if I could catch the tale being woven with flying shoes, boats, funny fairies, and wooden animals in the amazing minds of my three daughters. They called back and forth to each other with the voices of fantasy play about a magical land they had to reach before nightfall. Though it was early morning, nightfall was apparently coming quickly judging by the urgency with which they encouraged each other along. I couldn’t catch it all but their land of fantasy sounded truly fascinating.

Like most parents, we’ve experienced the fun of picking out just the right toys for our children for holidays and birthdays only to have our youngsters captivated by the wrapping paper and boxes over the gifts we selected for them. At first I was slightly hurt by their apparent lack of appreciation of all that I went through to find the perfect gift, hide it and then wrap it up for them. Actually, they did seem to appreciate that last part a bit but the toy itself was profoundly neglected in favor of the packaging they had ripped apart. Eventually my disappointment gave way to rationalizing their choice, they were so young and when everything was cleaned up they could see and play with the toy properly. Besides, when they got older their appreciation and anticipation of the gift inside the packaging would grow. I told myself that for quite sometime.

With three children close in age it didn’t take long for the toys to begin pilling up and still the boxes and wrapping paper were the best part. We began to assess the situation of trying to keep the toys caroled and I noticed that I was less than thrilled with them myself. Not just because they were regularly under foot and actually not played with that often but because most of them were an ugly nuisance. The colors seemed tacky, the beeps and whirls down right irritating, the music out of tune, and they seemed to rob my children of something that I couldn’t put my finger on. It didn’t help that there were just so many of them! I was overwhelmed with the shear amount of toys available, how to pick which one to play with at any given moment? Did they even matter any more? One thing was certain, the toys were in the way of our lives but I wasn’t sure how or why.

Woman Uncensored

A couple of months ago I stumbled across a blog with a very outspoken few posts. It was a new blog, there were only a few posts. I ended up going back a few times and started following her blog and facebook. I love her frank, tell-it-how-I-see-it style and gutsy way of taking on issues and the conversation her posts often generate. So I was really honored when I was asked to be a guest blogger on her blog.

The recent death of Lydia Schatz from child abuse got me thinking. This particular case is extreme but it still triggered questions and memories from my past and made me reevaluate our discipline decisions. I believe that her parents were convinced they were doing right by their children. They were taught be "experts" that this was what they should do, for the child's good. They put those experts words and advice over their daughter's cries. This to have a happy household. Externally everyone thought they were happy. Odd how often that happens, abused children in what looks like the perfect family, everyone looks very happy and well-behaved. Jeremy and I have been reminded to put listening to our children, to allowing them and God show us what they need. Yes, I'm sure our past baggage factors in there as well but then, shouldn't our past experiences be a part of educating the decisions we make now? To be honest, I have a hard time wrapping my brain around hitting a child being a means of communicating love and concern for someone's well being no matter how controlled the hitting or even how rare. The blog post I wrote for Woman Uncensored is bit of our journey regarding discipline. I'm so honored to be asked to share. Check it out.

On coming home

We are home, safe and sound. Sunday afternoon we rolled into Houston after a crashing at Renovare, the beautiful home of our dear friends Tom and Laura in Hunstville. These wonderful people offer their lake-side home in the country as a retreat to friends and family and as I was reaching a place where I couldn’t continue driving we called and asked to stop there for the night and they graciously set-up beds for us and gave us a warm and comfortable place to stay the night. We were so well taken care of and wished we could have stayed for the baptism taking place in their backyard Sunday morning following the worship gathering of their church but E’s tummy bug and our extended absence from home put us on the road midmorning.

It was strange coming home. Jeremy and Helena had split up from the rest of us for him to drop the van off to be checked out so 4 of us got to the house alone. The leaves had almost all fallen from our big tree out front giving us a crunchy carpet leading to the house and we immediately got to add those leaves to our living room when we tracked a bunch in. The house seemed strangely still and quiet and when we found the keys left by our friends we let ourselves in. You know what my first thought was? Not “oh, it is so good to be home!” or “I hate coming home to a messy house” (though I really do and tried to avoid it, it was very clean 2 days before we left but then the girls’ packing moved out into the living room and we were sunk) not even a thought of relief and happy to sleep in my own bed after nearly a month. Nope. Those totally normal responses to coming home after a long trip which most people have weren’t even on my radar which of course means I’m not normal. Shocking revelation, I know. Instead, my first thought was “Ugh, I hate these walls, I’m so painting this week.” All while unloading the van and house cleaning to get rid of the closed house smell I fantasized about colors. Jeremy called to let me know how things were going and I informed him about my ideas, he took it in stride particularly considering he hadn’t even been home yet. Ok, ok, he laughed at me. Fine. But then he was pretty cool about it. Even when I said I wanted to paint the walls deep purple.

So we’ve been home for about 4 days now and have already found ourselves adjusting back to the old routine pretty well. By adjusting I mean “Look, chaos continues to reign!” This is normal for us, thank you. The girls were thrilled to get back to their homeschool programs on Monday and Wednesday, granted, the reason they were excited to get back had more to do with their friends than the classes but hey, excited to “go to school” works for me, whatever the motivation. I have yet to do real grocery shopping, I’m dreading it so we’re doing the “run to the store for a few things” to get us through meals. Tomorrow I have to bite the bullet and actually go shopping, the list is in progress and frighteningly long but a menu plan is being laid out to keep me from forgetting anything or getting too overwhelmed. Yeah, right. The poor girls, our limited food options mean that almost everything they ask to eat is met with “we don’t have that.” There will be mutiny if I don’t go shopping soon.

Going back through my France posts I realized how completely boring they were without pictures. This weekend I’ll be making brief posts (in between grocery shopping, tree decorating and painting- yes, we are actually painting the living room!) sharing some of our photos from the trip. They won’t be the “look, here is the Eiffel Tower” type posts, use google images if you want to see stuff like that, they’re better anyway. They’ll be more of the “isn’t that cool graffiti and look, there’s the castle grounds Jeremy grew up on, isn’t that just sick?” type of pics. Hope you enjoy!

My baby is no longer a baby.

It happened suddenly and even though I suspected it would it is still a little sad. She still has the chubby cheeks and the little barrel belly with a little nose and pouty lips, she could still pass for a baby. Until she stands and walks across the room or dances to music on the stereo thus solidifying her place in toddlerhood. Unlike our other girls, Evangeline didn't go through a trying to walk phase, she simply didn't seem interested. She never held onto our fingers taking tipy-toe steps and giggling. There were no tottering attempts to stand and haltering steps followed by a plop on her bum. Content to crawl and cruise, she was far more interested in climbing: onto the couch, onto chairs, into cabinets and drawers, up the bunk-bed ladder, into the bath tub, onto tables and beds. After figuring out the up she started working on down and is pretty good too. Occassionaly we'd see her let go of the couch or chair, take a 2-3 steps and reach for the next piece of furniture in her way around the room. That was it. Nothing else to lead us to believe she was actually interested in walking. I started praying that she'd walk by Easter to properly show off the dress I've made for her, in white.

She started Friday, I wasn't with her for the first time in over a week. Jeremy and the girls were listening to music when she decided she wanted to dance with them. She left the couch and walked to the middle of the room to contribute her fancy dance moves. They cheered and she clapped for herself before continuing on to the table. She crawled a few more times but more and more she was spotted walking around from object to object pausing every now and then to clap for herself. By the time I got home she was napping and I was given reports from her excited sisters as to what amazing feets she had accomplished. When she got up she acted as though she had never done such things, crawling and cruising just as she had the day before. But then she remembered, stood herself up in the middle of the room and walked over to pick up a toy. There it was, it really happened. I couldn't pretend everyone else was making it up. I clapped and cheered for her and she clapped and cheered for herself.

She hasn't looked back. No falling or tottering, she is practically running now and loves to dance to any and every music she hears. She bounces, rocks, sways, and turns circles in her little dance. Asserting her independence, she doesn't walk TO people, only away and she doesn't see the point in holding hands. The only time she will walk to someone is if they are holding food but we all know that she's walking to the food, not the person. When friends were over Saturday night they commented how it looks like she's been walking for a little bit already, I suspect she's been doing it for months when nobody was looking.

So good bye baby, hello toddler!

Cave paintings and lizard soup

In history the girls and I are studying about ancient times, primarily the early nomadic people around Egypt and Mesopotamia before those places became Egypt and Mesopotamia. We've learned about the fertile crescent, how the people moved from place to place based on food sources, what they wore, how they hunted and gathered, what they ate(lizard soup anyone?), how they lived and how we know these things about them. Cave paintings, stories of their daily lives (which seem so much more interesting than mine!) recorded on walls of stone using fingers, leaves, sticks, and paints from plants and stones created thousands of years ago. I suspect, though I have no proof of this, they were compelled to make these rudimentary works of art not to record history for us thousands of years later but because they were moved to create and they created from what they knew, as simple as that. In examining cave paintings and then creating our own I found myself wondering if there was a designated "artist" in the community or anyone and everyone contributed when they felt so moved. Certainly there were those that had a natural talent for various arts but was it limited only to those that were declared masters and their students or was everyone welcome to dip into the thick and chunky paints they created turning their fingers orange as they smeared the goo on the cave walls. I have no idea but it's kind of fun to consider.

The girls made their own cave paintings. I like books, I love books and I can read history like it's a novel, completely fascinated by what people before us have done. This works for me. Not the girls so much. There are reasons to believe that if I want these lessons to stick with the girls we have to move beyond reading a book. So they create images of their own, in a sketch book, that reflects what we have learned, we call this "Waldorf Inspired." Vocabulary, dates, places, maps, and depictions are recorded there in their own hand sometimes following my lead in a crayon drawing, at other times creating their own original representation. Our cave painting experience went beyond our sketch books and onto several panels of dry wall left over and being tossed from our neighbor's post-Ike renovations. Set up in the "garage area" (just a small carport type thing), the girls used left over paints from the same renovation, leaves, sticks and their fingers to create paintings that depicted nomadic life in the crescent circle. They had a blast. There are now blue, red, rust, and orange-y paint smears on the grass in our backyard where they wiped their fingers clean and several sheets of dry wall leaning up against our house warping in the humidity making them even more cave like with their rough paintings of history. I'm not sure how much of this lesson will really stick but I know they won't forget cave painting or lizards soup- I know because that was part of their cave painting.

Pictures of our history lessons: