Inspired by SouleMama {this moment} – A Friday ritual. A single photo – no words – capturing a moment from the week. A simple, special, extraordinary moment. A moment I want to pause, savor and remember.

Yes, I know it’s June 1 today but this post is full of May flowers that I’ve collected over the last few weeks. What’s crazy is that at this very moment, it’s hailing and pouring rain. This is not the sort of weather that summer roses are accustomed to around here. Yet perhaps I can conjure summer with these beauties. Above are “popcorn” roses at Mom and Dad’s house.

Bearded iris

Lilac dipping low over the swimming pool

Mom’s perfect calla lily

“Daybreak” rose

Zany gazania

Coastal California poppies and other wildflowers

Sunny ice plant

“The Earth laughs in flowers.”  —Ralph Waldo Emerson

The May Afterschool Enrichment Guide ebook, published by Little Acorn Learning is now available!. Publisher Eileen Foley Straiton creates marvelous ebooks that are perfect for homeschooling, preschool programs, and families. They are full of crafts, stories, poems, songs, activities, caregiver meditations, recipes, holiday celebration ideas, and more. Little Acorn Learning also publishes seasonal and festival ebooks, childcare menu guides, and lesson plan guides.

For this May ebook, I was delighted to create an original song, a bee and honeycomb mobile craft tutorial, a tutorial on making a Mother’s Day yarn necklace, and a piece about hosting a very scientific and super-sweet honey-tasting party.

Here is a peek at what the May guide contains:

Week One, May
May Day, Dancing

~Enjoy a May Dance Song
with Sheet Music!
~Make a Miniature Maypole for
Your Nature Table
~So Many Verses and Songs to Share with the Children
~Meditate on Living Your Life in Rhythm Like a Beautiful Dance
~Practice the Pennywhistle or Flute and Play ‘A Dance’ (click to hear
sample above) – also Recieve the MP3 Version to Listen!
~Make a Finger Woven Mother’s Day Necklace
~Learn About Walpurgus and Celebrate
Spring in the Swedish Tradition
~Read Books that Were Handpicked for You to
Celebrate the First Week of May!

Week Two, May
Flowers, Unfolding

~Make Felted Flowers
~Share Verses and Song Celebrating Growth
and Blooming Life
~Grow Eggshell Seedlings to Transplant into
Your Garden
~Make Flower Crowns to Celebrate Beltane
~Design a Beautiful Flower Window Star
~Make Edible Flower Ice and Share a Pitcher of
Colorful Lemonaide
~Meditate on Blooming in Your
Current Conditions to Bring Joy
and Love into Your Surroundings
and Find a Life of Peace

Week Three, May
The Bee, Community

~Read Sweet Stories About These
Beautiful, Life
Spreading Creatures
~Host a Honey-Tasting Party in Your Own Backyard!
~Sing Songs of Honey, Nectar and Bees
~Make a Honeycomb and Bee Mobile
and Hang it Over Your Nature Space
~Play ‘When Bees Come Out’ (see sample above)
on Your Penny Whistle or Flute and
Receive the MP3 to Listen!
~Bake Honey Buns and Serve with Fresh
Honey Butter
~Make a Commitment to Get More Involved in
Your Local Community

Week Four, May
The Caterpillar, Transformation

~Make Caterpillar and Butterflies Out of Nature
~Create a Wool Caterpillar
~Needle Felt Butterflies
~Make a Cocoon
~Share a Story Verse as You Introduce Your Creations
to the Children
~Make a Pom-Pom Caterpillars
~Transform Your Current Situation by Living
Colorfully in the Present Moment
~Play a Sweet Caterpillar Cocoon Game using
Silks with the Children
~Sing Songs and Fingerplays of Butterflies,
Caterpillars and Change

http://www.littleacornlearning.com/index.html

Easter morning breakfast, including homemade apricot “sunny side up” pastries, from [amazon-product text=”Artisan Bread in Five Minutes a Day” type=”text”]0312362919[/amazon-product].  My family ended up joining us here for an early Easter morning celebration.

Treats from the Easter Bunny. On Easter Eve, we put out fresh carrots on this rock. In the morning we always find nibbled carrot ends, fresh fruits, flowers, and Easter baskets full of goodies. This year, there was a gift for the boys to share: a butterfly garden for watching caterpillars turn into painted lady butterflies!

Asher was quite amazed by the chocolate bunny in his basket. (Funny thing is, after eating a couple of bites on Easter Day, my children haven’t mentioned their Easter candy since, even though there is plenty leftover.)

Unwrapping the butterfly garden.

Here’s Asher showing off the bunny and egg I made. Lucas got one, too.

Early morning egg hunt. There were some coins in the plastic eggs!

Around the middle of the day, we had some free time to go for a nature walk. We revisted Miner’s Ravine in Granite Bay. It sprinkled on us a bit. The boys ate plenty of miner’s lettuce.

We found the trail blocked by an enormous fallen pine. Lucas thought we should forge through the branches.

My love.

At Miner’s Ravine there is a huge outcropping of granite. Lucas nimbly ran up it. He also climbed trees. We saw lots of butterflies and beetles, munched on miner’s lettuce, and wandered for a little while.

Then we headed over to grandma and grandpa’s house for an Easter afternoon. VoVo made yummy ham for sandwiches and Aunt Kellie made a gorgeous salad. The boys hunted (the same) eggs again and they came away with toy motorcycles from Easter baskets. It was a wonderful holiday.

April 29, 2011

Dear Lucas,

It’s practically the eve of your 9th birthday. Tomorrow we will spend much of the day cleaning our home, baking, and decorating to get ready for your birthday party—your first-ever slumber party.  It will be a busy day, and not all fun stuff. Together we will succeed in making the space ready for five of your dear friends.

This year, you have asked for a homemade apple pie instead of a birthday cake. I am surprised by this; somehow it seems too much like me and my preferences for it to be your wish. So often I see our differences and dissimilarities most clearly. But there are moments when I see myself in you, like when you get nervous before a big event and begin to wish you could be elsewhere, or like when you pore over a new book, exploring it with your hands and running its cover against your cheek, or like when you express your outrage when someone acts in a way that hurts you, accidentally or not. All of these characteristics in you remind me of myself.

I have seen you grow so much this year it boggles my mind. (I suppose I say that in every birthday letter I write to you. It is always true.) In the last year, I have seen you learn how to read music (both treble clef and base). I have listened with eager ears as you have learned to play songs on our piano, sometimes struggling, sometimes leaping forward in great ah-ha moments of inspiration. Your fingers are at home on the keys; your ear is better than mine ever was, and you seem to memorize songs after hearing them only a few times. This is both a tremendous asset, and also a liability because you are capable of skating along at times, not having to pay attention to the notes on the page. But I understand. It’s a foreign written language, and it’s so much easier for you just to remember all the sounds. You are getting better at paying attention and focusing on the music. You don’t like to work at it, and yet, when you master the task, it’s clear that you feel very proud of yourself. You have tackled some tough songs this year, including one called “Hogwarts March,” from a Harry Potter movie. I am pleased to see you working hard at piano—I mean, of course I want it to be enjoyable for you. I also want you to learn how to go after something you want, try and try and try, and earn your reward. You have been playing for a year now. You have said at times you want to quit, but then you seem to buckle down and achieve the next goal, which fills you up and readies you for more. I’m not inclined to let you quit because you’re good at it.

Another skill that seems to have ballooned is your reading. This gives your father and me so much joy we’re filled to bursting. You are unlocking the greatest thing ever, word by word, book by book, and you seem to know it. You say, “I’d rather read the book first before I see the movie.” You and your school friends discuss books! You come home with requests because so-and-so said such-and-such book was the greatest book ever. You know what ragged right means. You want books because they’re funny, or a bit creepy, or mysterious, or clever, or long and with sequels. And I am in heaven.

Still, I hold back a bit. I don’t push books on you because my showing too much enthusiasm for a story can ruin it. Secretly, I buy books for you all the time, and store them so that at the perfect moment I can give you one as a special gift, or just a now-you’re-ready-for-this surprise. It makes me feel like Santa Claus, and each time you unwrap one or I pull one off the top shelf, I hold my breath. Will you feel the same draw, the same magic as I do? I long to share this feeling with you, to have this one thing at least tie us together in companionship our whole lives. But even more fervently I wish that you will fall in love again and again with reading.

Reading is a big part of third grade, as are spelling tests. You have been bringing fourteen spelling words home to study most weeks this year. When we all remember to work on them together, you tend to ace the quizzes. I’m finding it’s surprisingly tricky to encourage you to care about whether you do well. Often you do, so that’s great. But not always. So we are all learning to negotiate new concepts of expectation. We parents are learning how to negotiate new concepts of parenting. Because you go to Waldorf school, you haven’t been struggling with homework for years already, for which I am grateful. We are not in the habit of having to work on school tasks at home. See? The spelling words are our mutual training ground. Not only do you have to get into the habit of doing schoolwork, but we have to get into the habit of helping you develop good habits! (That teacher of yours is quite clever.) I admit we have a ways to go in this area. Next year, you will have homework to do regularly.

***

May 1, 2011

You remain, as ever, exceptionally creative. Perhaps the best part of this characteristic is that you aren’t afraid of it. You go with your creative impulses without hesitation. I see this in your engineering of objects, in your drawings and paintings, in your imaginative play. There is nothing too big, too hard, or too wild for you. You also seem to seek out the different path. The Moken Kabong shelter project was a good example. You were tasked to build a human shelter model based the shelter of a genuine people. You were the only child in the class to build a boat shelter. While belonging is important to you, you take your individuality seriously. I really like that about you.

You love dragons and ninjas, secret agents and explorers. You love science perhaps more than anything. You want to be a Mythbuster or a chemist or a doctor when you grow up. Something sciency, no doubt. Sometimes you say you want to be a veterinarian.

You are fond of games now, especially complex ones with many rules. You are becoming a good chess player, playing sometimes with adults. I need to remember that you need opportunities to play games. Since gaming isn’t my favorite way of spending time, I need to hook you up with others who do enjoy games. Fortunately, we have a lot of friends who enjoy such things. And your dad is a great sport about this stuff; he’s always ready for a game of chess or whatever.

You invent plenty of games, too, creating cards with creatures that have magical and elemental powers. You talk of hit points, damage, spells, and +4 strength, +1 armor. The games are not confined to paper, though, for your creatures ride on your shoulders and you can fling them into battle, with sound effects and physical confrontation. Asher is a willing participant in all your fantasy worlds. Since you answer his every question about the game with complete confidence, he is content to play by your rules most of the time. Just don’t tell him he has lost all of his powers! On a recent car ride, you and Asher played a verbal quest game like Dungeons and Dragons—I think you called it Tentacle—where you were the GM and Asher had to make choices in his quest. Sometimes his choice was wise and he was rewarded by leveling up. Other times he was penalized, like when he fought and killed a good luck dragon. I suppose you have played this with your friends at school, but I was amazed at how engrossed the two of you became in the game. You were both thinking on your feet, so to speak, and it was awesome.

You (perhaps with friends) have invented a martial art, formerly called Twidlywinkies but recently redubbed “Hai-ya!” The first iteration of this martial art has been around a year or two, but you’ve recently been training your brother in Hai-ya. You are taking him through the ranks, awarding him new belt colors (playsilks) when he does well. Rainbow belt is the highest achievement, after black belt. There are five styles of Hai-ya, from what I’ve gathered: Dragon, Crane, Tiger, Panda, and Snake, which you conveniently swiped from the Kung Fu Panda movie. You say you are training several school friends, too. You would dearly like to take martial arts classes, and we may be coming to that sometime this year. The discipline you would learn in such a class would do you good, I think.

You enjoy shooting hoops, walking on your stilts, and riding your scooter and your bike. We have been letting you ride around the neighborhood alone a bit. Recently you rode off to the local park for a solo adventure. You love to climb trees and every time we go to pick up Asher from preschool, you shimmy up Ms. Pati’s grapefruit tree. Daddy has seen you climbing up our redwoods in our backyard, which are a bit too little still, I think. Now you can do the monkey bars! (You tried for a long time without success, so this is a big accomplishment.) So far, you aren’t interested in playing organized sports. You lament about not having enough free time, though your time is mostly your own. Filling it with sports practice I think would be odious to you. I wonder if and when you will ask for this, and if it’s our fault that you show so little interest in sports. Have we raised you to be just like us?

Overall, I have to say this last year has been much easier than previous ones. You are not as challenging as you used to be, or perhaps I should say, you aren’t challenging as much of the time. You seem in some ways less spiky than before, and are quick to show affection. You give compliments pretty freely, which is a delight. You often tell me and Dad that we are “the best parents ever.” Usually, when we are frustrated with you, it is because you are frustrated with your brother and are fighting with him. You and Asher provoke each other like crazy. You react to him as if every little thing was the most horrific offense, which naturally feeds the fire. You give him such delicious rewards for bugging you, so he does it as often as possible. We are trying to teach you to disengage, walk away, and ignore it when Asher needles you. I fear your choleric personality is a big obstacle. But siblings fight. Brothers fight. And Asher now is a force to be reckoned with.

But I have to also say how much love and devotion I see in your relationship with your brother. Asher looks to you for leadership, for courage, and for a role model. He would like to do everything you do and tries hard. You two are thick as thieves, as they say, completely intertwined with one another. You are best friends and worst enemies, as the cliché goes. You hate to be apart from one another, long to be together, and yet when you are, there is a maddening pattern of good, beneficial play and then angry bashing. We roller-coaster through our days like this and it drives us bananas. You are like powerful magnets, drawn together and compelled to play out dramatic hurts, betrayals, forgiveness, and camaraderie again and again, from dawn until sleep. It is difficult to live with, but I think it’s good relationship training. You are learning trust, how to negotiate, what consequences come from acting badly toward someone, how to forgive and be forgiven.

Sometimes you ask to have your own room again, and I feel bad that I took over your old bedroom for my office. I know sometimes you would really like to get away from Asher and have some private space. You are coping as best you can: You have claimed three personal “desks” in the house as your private places. You and Asher still sleep together sometimes, though, so it cannot be so bad.

A few months ago, you went through a rough patch and were feeling quite depressed and maudlin. You would sometimes get upset and say things like, “I shouldn’t even exist. I don’t deserve to live.” We tried hard to hold you safe and let you feel all your feelings. This “9-year change” business is hard, and dramatic. You seem to need us to acknowledge your pain, but also to act confidently through it. We don’t spend much time trying to convince you to feel differently, for that way is useless and also gives too much attention to the theatrics. We just hold the space in which you can (safely) suffer and try to show you that the suffering is temporary and that we love you despite it. I don’t know what more is in store for us in this changing stage. You’ve just turned 9, so there may be more pitfalls to negotiate this year. But no matter: We love you always.

I admire the way you make friends, Lucas, and I must say, it seems to me you have made some good ones. Your school buddies are great kids, and you get along well even with those classmates who aren’t your best friends. You are especially good in one-on-one situations to my eye. I’m proud that you are considerate, that you remember your manners, and that you make friends with adults as easily as you make friends with kids. You are warm and open, eager to share your experiences and eager to learn from others. I am proud that my friends like having you along, that they tell me what a fun, clever, ingenious kid you are.

***

May 2, 2011

The party is done now. It was a rollicking good time; “best birthday party ever,” you said. There were balloon fights and stick fights and spy-on-the-parents secret agent games. We watched “Mythbusters,” we ate Daddy’s marvelous hamburgers and you and your friends devoured a whole watermelon in mere minutes.  You and your buddies stayed awake until midnight.

We were all pretty wiped out by the next day, your actual birthday, so we spent a kind of low-key day, enjoying each other’s company, and opening presents from me, Dad, and Asher. You are thrilled that we gave you your own, first pocket knife and have kept it with you every waking hour since then. We expect every stick within a two-block radius to be whittled by you in the coming months. You have already carved for yourself  and your brother new wands, with which to have magical duels. Daddy was certain that you are ready for this; it’s a big responsibility to own and use a knife. We trust that you will take it seriously, and not use it recklessly.

We spent the evening of your birthday at Papa and Grandma Syd’s house. You begged to go swimming—the water was 62 degrees—and we let you. You proudly showed Papa your new pocket knife and he admired it. At the moment you’re enjoying time with VoVo and Aunt Kellie and you’re probably receiving more gifts.

There is no question about it, Lucas. You are beloved. Lucas, you are such a mysterious treasure to me and your dad, and every moment we find ourselves having to stretch and grow alongside you, just to keep up. You are delightful and warm, courageous and sensitive, and oh-so smart. You are our shining sun, our inspiration, and our initiator, for without you we wouldn’t be who we are today. We love you for everything that you are and everything that you are becoming. Happy birthday, my dearest light.

Love,

Mama

I mentioned before that we were planning to plant a tree in memory of Nana and in celebration of Earth Day. Well, the four of us had a brief little memorial ceremony, and it was lovely.

* barley, to sanctify the earth

Dear Tree,

Blessed be.

* libations of water, to water the tree and signify our pure intentions

Nana’s favorite color was blue, not pink, and in her later years she wore more gray and silver than anything else. But Nana so enjoyed Easter, and I think she would be pleased with this pink dogwood because it will always bloom in springtime. May it live a long and happy life like she did.

(Many thanks to Starhawk, Diane Baker, and Anne Hill for their inspiration in the ceremony, which was adapted from Circle Round. Thanks to Ian for digging the hole.)

Easter in the Woods

This dawn when the mountain cherry lifts

its frail white bloom among dark pines,

and chipmunks flash small happy paws

along old tumbled boundary lines,

this golden morning when the vixen

nuzzles her five young foxes forth

to roll in ferns in the Easter sun,—

again the woods know soft green birth.

Snuffed by a puffball infant rabbit

are yellow violets by the spring;

among half-opened apple buds

a wood thrush tilts his head to sing.

Risen is He! And they are His,

who scamper under warm blue skies,

who nibble little fists of grass,

and gaze on earth with shy glad eyes.

—Frances Frost

O thou with dewy locks, who lookest down

Thro’ the clear windows of the morning, turn

Thine angel eyes upon our western isle,

Which in full choir hails thy approach, O Spring!

The hills tell each other, and the listening

Valleys hear; all our longing eyes are turned

Up to thy bright pavilions: issue forth,

And let thy holy feet visit our clime.

Come o’er the eastern hills, and let our winds

Kiss thy perfumed garments; let us taste

Thy morn and evening breath; scatter thy pearls

Upon our love-sick land that mourns for thee.

O deck her forth with thy fair fingers; pour

Thy soft kisses on her bosom; and put

Thy golden crown upon her languished head,

Whose modest tresses were bound up for thee.

Earth Day is Friday, April 22—tomorrow! Even if this holiday isn’t something you grew up celebrating, you can bet that your kids are aware of it and eager to participate. Over the last few years, we’ve been doing a bit more to honor the ideals of this day and our kids just eat it up. Here are a few ideas from our family to yours.

1. Plant a tree: This is every bit as appropriate on Earth Day as Arbor Day. This year we’re planting a tree for two reasons: My great-aunt Nana passed away last fall, and we will plant a tree in her honor and in honor of Earth Day. We have chosen a beautiful pink dogwood for our back yard.

2. Make a terrarium or a dish garden: I wrote a tutorial about how to make a moss terrarium for Little Acorn Learning’s April Afterschool Enrichment Guide, which is full of amazing activities, recipes, poems, and much more. You can find it here: http://www.littleacornlearning.com/.  Here is an in-progress shot of the dish garden we made yesterday. We used moss we collected on a recent trip to the foothills and wheat grass seeds. Lucas included a spiral of small stones we found in our yard. We are adding beeswax bunnies and Easter eggs to it.

3. Go on a hike, take along a trash bag, and pick up any garbage you may spot along the way. (Kitchen or latex gloves come in handy for this activity.) Recycle those things that you can. Note: don’t let children pick up certain kinds of trash, especially anything that looks like it might be medical waste. Many communities have park or creek cleanup days that need volunteers.

4. Do a science experiment. For young children, seed projects are great because they are fast. Here’s what we did last year. Some of our pumpkin seedlings even survived the transfer out into our summer garden and we harvested pumpkins in the fall from our Earth Day experiment! I don’t know about you, but I love cycles like that.

5. Start a worm farm: All you need is a boxy container (a styrofoam cooler does the trick nicely—I know styrofoam is lame, but it works well for this project), and a container full of red worms from the bait store, or else dig up the worms yourself. Put some normal garden soil into your container, shred some newspaper into small strips, wet it all down, and add your worms. Poke a few holes into the container for air circulation. Then put in your vegetable kitchen scraps daily. Stir once in a while and keep it moist but not wet. Before long you’ll have loads of worms (and worm babies!) and great soil for your garden. (It helps to have a plastic or metal container underneath the whole worm bin, to catch any drippings. These drippings make excellent fertilizer.)

6. Learn about the weather or the water cycle. Check your local parks and recreation department for children’s nature classes or day camps. Try this page of links at The Water Project for science experiments for kids.

7. Read books about caring for the environment with your kids. Last April, I wrote about quite a few children’s books we recommend for Earth Day. Adults can check out the works of Richard Louv, Rachel Carson, David Sobel, Robert Micahel Pyle, and Bernd Heinrich.

8. Start a vegetable garden! Good Friday (also Earth Day this year) is a traditional day for planting seeds and seed potatoes. Lucas is outside preparing his garden plot. We have worked into it our soil full of worm castings  from last’s year’s worm farm. That should give our garden a good start!

9. Make space in your yard for wild creatures: add a birdbath, places wild creatures can use for cover, and plants that attract bees, butterflies, and birds. This spring I’ve seen birds actually bathing in and drinking from my birdbath. It was very cool!

10. Take your recyclables in and redeem them for cash; donate your family’s proceeds to a charity such as NRDC or National Wildlife Federation, or any number of other worthy charities. Better yet, if you can support wildlife and habitat restoration efforts in your own community, do that.

That’s 10. I bet you can think of dozens more. If you have a nifty idea to share, please do so! Happy Earth Day!

A darling old friend of mine asked me to make some Easter eggs and bunnies for her to give as gifts for Easter. The 2.5-inch egg bases are a paper mache with a cutout and are from the craft store. The needle-felted bunnies I made from scratch fit nicely inside, with a bit of colorful eyelash yarn that looks rather like Easter basket grass. Making these has been an exciting project and super fun, but also a little bit nerve-wracking. I mean, what makes me think I can paint well enough for someone else? (Hear that? Those are the Weasles of Doubt and Fear talking.) The above design is cherry trees in blossom.

Here is a kind of wildflower design, with daisies and California poppies.

A low-key meadow with butterflies. This one isn’t quite as girly, in my opinion.

Here is one with red roses that wrap all the way around the egg.

A kind of stylized bamboo design, meant for a male recipient. Simple and elegant, I hope.

More butterflies and bearded irises, which are now in bloom.

English country garden in spring, with azalea, Spanish lavender, and white Queen Anne’s lace.

Wisteria vines in bloom.

I also have two others that feature bright tulips and delphinium flowers. There are ten egg and bunny pairs in all. I am shipping them out to my friend today. I hope she likes them!

In Washington D.C. they are celebrating the National Cherry Blossom Festival, called the Sakura Festival.

Here at home, there is a fantastic Japanese cherry tree right outside the third and fourth grade classrooms at my son’s Waldorf school. It’s magnificent.

Mrs. M, the Eurhythmy teacher, was inspired to have a little cherry blossom  poetry festival with our third grade to celebrate spring. On Friday, the last day of school before spring break, the third graders wrote poems about springtime and cherry trees and hung their poems in the cherry tree.

Cherry blossoms feature heavily in Japanese poetry. The blossoms, sakura, symbolize the beginning of spring, purity, and also a kind of melancholy, for like the blossoms, life is short and beautiful.

The people of Japan have been on all our minds and in our prayers lately, although I’m not sure how aware the third graders are of the recent earthquake and tsunami in Japan. It’s hard to think about it. One tourism website I looked at had this to say: “This year’s cherry blossom season will be overshadowed by the tremendous loss caused by the recent earthquake. However, we believe that the blossoms will serve as symbols of hope and resilience and a source of motivation along Japan’s road to recovery.” 

There’s no doubt that these blossoms are exquisite and ephemeral.

Life is such a sweet mixture of joys and pains, celebrations and disappointments, and even exultation and tragedy.

Sometimes it hurts to live life fully; to do so means opening ourselves up to all the beauty and pain around us. It hurts to be human. It is a joy to be human.