August 25: A delayed hike

A pretty typical day at home these days: school in the mornings, playtime for the little kids, and a bit of nature at the end. 

(copywork via The Flower Fairies)

We worked through a good chunk of morning time - geography, math, science, religion, and a few chapters of The Secret Garden. We even hit handwriting and copywork, with photographic evidence. You know, we also hit art. Our homeschool game is good right now, even if the kids do moan when I say it's time for school. 

We also discovered today that Anna loves tents. She can now climb up on the trampoline, which she loves to do. After Mary had built this tent, Anna crawled across the trampoline (avoiding bouncing), fell off the other end (her preferred dismount, rarely distressing), and then inside. And then she smiled. 

We took a pre-dinner walk to Sweet Springs. It was sunny but surprisingly cool; but for jackets and forgotten diapers, we might have stayed longer. 

surprisingly, the birds didn't like her energy

The Sweet Springs routine is this: we enter, run straight down the boardwalk to the bird viewing platform (it is an Audobon park, after all); after scaring away the sea birds, the kids hike through the poison oak to climb an accommodating eucalyptus. After climbing, we make our way toward the pond, back up to the entrance, and then knock over a few of the tree-stump stools to see what creatures we can find. 

prepping some eye kabobs

Lately, stick play has become a part of the routine. Boy play is so alien to me. Daily - hourly? - I have to remind the boys to stop hurting each other in the name of play. Adding sticks to the equation makes the play situation so much more...well, let me just say that I'm looking forward to the day the boys get glasses, because that extra eyewear protection will be much welcomed.

This visit, however, the kids got it in their head to haul a mysterious bottle from the back of the spring-feed pond. As Lucy explained, "there is a bottle there and I want to see if it has a message and if that message is a treasure map and then I want to find the treasure." 

(All 8-year-old girls speak in gigantic run-on sentences; I've been diagramming Lucy's friends and it's true.) 

The kids trod all over the sensitive habitat and poison oak, through some squishy marshy wetlands, and rescued some discarded bottle of booze. No note, although Thomas did say "we got you another bottle for free!" My love of free piles has been passed on. 

Sadly, though, the bottle broke, and we force-marched home with somewhat grumpy attitudes. 

(I would like to forget that evening, much like I'd like to forget this giant tick just free-ranging my bathroom.)

(Bedtime was EPICALLY horrible. Real birth-control moments.)