Breakfast dishes, with two small helpers.

Putting away laundry, also with help. Halleluia!

Chicken care and feeding.

Kitchen science, on the cheap.

Safetytown USA, where we learned about fire safety, bike safety (“Wear your helmets, kids,” says Uncle Mario), and how to be safe near electrical wires and power stations, stray animals, strangers, and assorted other dangerous things. Safetytown is a mini town, with scaled-down buildings, working traffic lights, and a little pretend railroad crossing. We practiced crossing the street a lot.

Ours was a self-guided tour, which gave us some map-reading and reading practice. Lucas did a great job!

It also gave us lots of opportunities to sit and watch DVD presentations play. :-/  Still, the kids were mostly engaged.

We learned about not playing with matches or lighters, about “Don’t Hide! Get Outside!”, about crawling on the ground if there’s a fire, and having a family fire escape plan and meeting place. Although Lucas already knew a lot of this stuff, I think it was Asher’s first introduction to “Stop! Drop! Roll!”

There was a boring trip to the grocery store, made somewhat less boring by buying crummy Chinese potstickers, chow mein, and egg rolls for lunch.

We watered the garden where it was looking thirsty.

We watered the boys, who raced through the hose spray.

I fetched 17 glasses of ice water for thirsty humans. That water cooler idea is looking really good in the heat of summer.

We made mango, orange, yogurt pops.

The 4 p.m. tantrum came right on schedule.

Two storybooks.

Some math and language arts practice.

Piano practice.

Lucas tried on his new gi to show me. He looks so handsome and grown up.

Quite a day, no?

I’m a bit behind on sharing all the things we’ve been up to. Here are some shots of our summer nature table this year, all of which were taken in June. (It’s the end of July now! Holy moly!)

My new favorite easy-peasey craft is to create these watercolor circles. I wrote a tutorial about this for Earth Day here. Of course, you can have fun creating these using all kinds of colors. Since I had these lovely tie-dyed-looking circles, I decided to incorporate them into our nature table.

I had a wreath from the dollar store on hand, and I taped on our painted circles to make a kind of large flower. I’m used to having a wreath up above this piano top nature table of ours, so this seemed to fit the bill.

As usual, I have some of Lucas’s watercolor paintings framed in black frames on the wall. These can easily be changed out for something new, but so far I haven’t done it. I’m very fond of these three paintings. I’m 39 and I’m still a sucker for rainbows. The kids love them, too, so we’ll just go with it. (Daddy’s penchant for modern art is indulged at his office.)

I also framed this beautiful painting Lucas made in third grade. It gives me a lazy, summery, contented feeling to see it there in the center. I kind of want to fall asleep on a picnic blanket in the middle of that lovely meadow and wake up with just the mildest of sunburns.

On the right is another painting by Lucas, which he made at grandma and papa’s house.  I like its tropical paradise imagery that certainly matches our temperatures, if not our actual proximity to the ocean.  And it seemed to go nicely with a beach and ocean made of playsilks and this lovely wooden tall ship model, which is still “in progress” I am told.

We’ve added other objet d’art, such as a pretty ceramic fish, some seashells, an orchid plant (to go with the island feel), a sailor puppet Lucas made in kindergarten, a particolored goat from Mexico that was a gift from GG and Mimi, and a wooden horse we made for Asher. Now that we’ve been to the woods a few times this summer, we have some pinecones and moss and other goodies to add.

And here’s my secret: I create levels by wadding up scrap paper and placing it underneath the silks. This gives the look of rolling hills or sand dunes, and can even help create wintery gnome caves when the season is right.

Finally, we had to add a second summer nature table for a while because this mermaid aquarium we made was just so darn cool. We created this for a Little Acorn Learning ebook and it graced our home beautifully for weeks this summer.

Asher and I are spending more time together lately, which means I have to come up with things to do for us to enjoy the days. Meaningful work is one of the keystones to happy preschoolers, so I’ve been roping Asher into some household activities for some fun and frolic.

That’s his own dirty clothes that he’s washing. The novelty of this activity was very appealing to him, and he likes that he got them clean. It didn’t take long for him to figure out the best way to have fun was to stomp the clothes clean. I showed him how to rinse them and then hang them up on the patio chair backs to dry. Presumably he did that before he sat in the basins to splash and play because when I came back to him (I was gardening), he had hung all the items up to dry.

Earlier this week, we decided to bake some muffins together. I have a lovely strawberry bread recipe that works well as muffins, too. And since we have zucchini from our garden we grated some to add to the recipe. Asher took to this task beautifully as well.

The muffins are yummy, and now I know to cook them 22 minutes instead of 25. We ate some right away, as soon as they came out of the oven and were cool enough to eat.

Strawberry Zucchini Bread

1 c. strawberry puree (2 10-oz packages of frozen berries or two pint baskets)

1 c. grated zucchini

4 eggs

1 c. vegetable oil (my next task is to figure out if I can substitute coconut oil)

3 c. flour (all-purpose or a mix of all-purpose and whole wheat)

1 1/2 c. sugar (you can use less if you want)

2 teaspoons cinnamon

1 teaspoon baking soda

1 c. chopped nuts (optional)

Note: If you want to make these muffins extra healthy, you can add a couple of tablespoons of ground flax, protein powder, or a 1/2 cup of rolled oats. These all make good additions.

Combine strawberry puree, zucchini, eggs, and oil. Blend in sugar, cinnamon, and baking soda. Add flour(s) and nuts, if using. Batter will be pinkish! Pour into greased and floured loaf pans (9 x 5 inch). Bake 40-50 mins. at 350 degrees. Cool completely before removing from pans. Makes two loaves.

Muffin variation:

Pour batter into greased muffin tin (or use papers). Bake at 350 degrees for 22 minutes. Watch closely. Makes about 18 muffins.

Although I don’t think he has ever seen one, I can’t help but think of this as Asher’s iPad. He calls it his “video game board,” chooses games, and pushes buttons while wearing a serious game face.

Asher has copied Lucas in this practice of making up his own “video games” out of paper. Lucas recently made paper DS-style handheld game devices for both himself and Asher. They hold these and push buttons and make wicked-cool sound effects. Both are masters at leveling up in these games.

Some might say my kiddos are deprived since they don’t have real video games of any sort. I say they are creative.

In a way, it was kind of his night. Independence Day celebration + 9-year-old boy + adults with fireworks money = Opportunity!

Because you have to test,

have to experience things with all of your senses,

as close as you dare.

You need to observe others displaying both prudence

and risk—to figure out why and when and how.

Sometimes you have to feel danger in your own hands

to learn exactly what makes it dangerous,

learn to harness and create with it,

learn to celebrate it, and ultimately to transmute it into experience and beauty.

Yep. Tonight I begin. I was delayed slightly in this, my most recent, foray into madness. But that was a temporary setback, a mere postponement. Tonight I step into my first oil painting class with a humble, fearful heart. Nevertheless I step because my friends believe in me—so much so, they’ve funded my class fee as a birthday gift.

Yesterday evening I went to the art store and bought $200 worth of oil paints and canvas, much of which was on clearance.

OMG. That’s a lot of money for a lark, a whim, a hobby!

Yep. The voices in my head are really loud about all this, and mostly they are unkind. The harpies are out in full flight, screeching about how ridiculous is it to start this. Who am I to think I might paint? They’re dive-bombing me with doubt and scornful comments. It’s too expensive. It’s impractical. I don’t have enough time to fold all the laundry or work to earn my living, so what in the world do I think I’m doing taking a painting class?

And yet, I’m going. I’m going to try this because I’ve always, always wanted to. And because if a girl cannot find a way to fulfill a dream once in a while, what’s the point?

Both art and living share this: they are a messy, dangerous process. Might as well get messy.

Yesterday was Asher’s last day of preschool. My angel boy is moving on from StarBright Garden, where Ms. Pati has taken such good care of him and provided so many opportunities for growth and friendship. We will miss her very much, and will miss this glorious garden that was so nourishing and beautiful. This swing is where Asher has spent a great portion of every day.

These girls are some of Asher’s best friends. We are delighted that they live in our neighborhood, too. In this photo they are helping work on Asher’s Fairy House. He only wants to do crafts sometimes, but when the girls and Lucas and I got involved to help him with his Fairy House, he finally got into it for a while.

Here is Asher’s Fairy House up close. There is a bark house and a bark fence, with a glass cobbled pathway. It’s got pinecone “bushes” and dried flower “trees.”

Chip-chop, chippity chop. The kids cut up vegetables for their Friday soup. Having meaningful work to do as a group is so great for them. They feel like big kids when they are given responsibilities, especially those that involve using tools like knives. After two children at preschool I now realize that it’s perfectly normal for kids this age to be very helpful with chores and household tasks at school, while they are doing it alongside their friends, and to be resistant and uninterested in such tasks at home. I try not to take it personally.

This is one of Asher’s very best buddies. They’ve been at preschool together for two years now.

Snack time is outdoors at school on lovely summer days.

Table centerpiece: a Fairy House. The kids have been working on these all month.

They’ve eaten up all the cherries, but the plums are getting ripe now and the kids have been snacking on these beauties.

These lemons hang so heavy and low, if you’re not careful you might bonk your head on them.

The bunnies and chickens get all the veggie scraps. There are seven chicks this year. The beans are growing up long poles in the garden. And little S can often be found among the raspberries, picking and snacking.

Matches gets lots of love every day.

This beauty is the one Asher says he’s going to marry. Can you blame him?

We are hoping to have play dates with friends over the summertime. I haven’t shown all of our beloved friends here, just a few. I’m so pleased that he’s made good friends at StarBright, and has learned to socialize so well.

Some of these children will be in Asher’s kindergarten next year, and that will make for an easy transition. So much of what he’ll do next year is like the StarBright rhythm, soI expect it will be like slipping on a familiar hat: story time, circle time, snack, outdoors play, indoors play, cleanup, etc. They are beautiful days full of discovery and joy, rhythm and seasons. What a lucky boy he is!

Lucas just had his fifth piano recital. He played two fairly long pieces of music: the theme from Star Wars and “Colorful Sonatina,” with three movements. “Six whole pages of music!” he would like everyone to know.

We are so very proud of him. He worked hard for this one, and to ensure that he got in all the practice time he needed, I made a “14 Days of Music” chart to track his practice sessions. I put two rewards on the chart: one at seven practices for a dessert of his choice (cookies and cream ice cream) and one “book reward.” He worked for that book reward, having decided long before he achieved it that what he wanted was a Missile Mouse graphic novel.

This is my not-so-great shot of Lucas just after he finished playing. He was happy and relieved to have it behind him, I think, and proud of how well he played. After the recital cookies, we went straight to the bookstore to buy Missile Mouse. He came straight home and read it cover to cover!

Can you think of a better reward that a new book? No, I can’t either.

I love that my kid is motivated by reading books! Lucas has four different books going right now, I think. I don’t know if he switches between them when the reading gets difficult, or if he just enjoys having several different stories to dive into. Right now he’s reading The 39 Clues book 1, Stuart Little and a Jack and Annie Magic Tree House book (I have no idea which number). He also picks up grandma’s book about Samurai once in a while, which is way over his head but totally cool nonetheless.

He’s now pushing the books he has read on me and Ian. He thinks Ian would enjoy Missile Mouse. And for me, he recommends the Spiderwick Chronicles. “Mom, I think you’d really like this one. You should borrow my book and read it.” And you know what? I am. And I will, whenever he says that because it’s totally wonderful that he wants to share his discoveries. If we can geek out about the books we enjoy together, I’ll be a happy mama indeed!

Faery Riders

When the moon is round and white

The Faery Riders shake the night

With song and laughter going by:

I love to hear the noise they make,

The pine trees hear it too, and wake;

It fills the room in which I lie.

I hear the trumpets long and loud,

I hear the voices of a crowd,

I hear the horses prancing by:

All night they pass, and pass, and pass,

But not one little blade of grass

Is trampled down or turned away.

If I could see their faces plain,

Or run beside the bridle rein

Of Mab the Queen, as she comes by:

I might know all the Faeries know,

And follow, follow where they go

Before the sun climbs up the sky.

But though I hurry might and main

To look out through the windowpane,

I never see them passing by.

Just when I reach the window sill

The music stops and all is still:

Only the wind is passing by.

—Ella Young

(I wrote this last night and then my computer hiccuped and I gave up.) Happy Belated Father’s Day to my dad, who is a marvel and a rock. He is always there for me. I love you, Dad! I didn’t get to spend Father’s Day with my dad this year, but I know he’s having fun right now.

We did spend part of yesterday with Ian’s dad and Mimi, and had a marvelous lunch. We enjoyed Ian’s amazing grilled chicken (cooked on his new-for-Father’s Day grill), strawberry almond green salad, corn on the cob, and oatmeal raisin walnut bread. GG and Mimi brought the salad and a homemade apple pie that was to die for!

And for the record, there’s no one else in the world I’d rather be raising children with. My beloved husband Ian is a wonderful father in every way.