One of our recent nature walks is featured on Imagine Childhood. We are grateful that our little local adventure attracted Sarah’s notice via our Flickr photos, and that she asked us to participate with other families from all over the world!

There are so many marvelous things to see and feel and discover when you hit the trails. Just pick a general destination, pack along some water and snacks, and let your children lead the way.

Why a donkey? I don’t actually know, except that it’s small and doesn’t matter. I think that appealed to me. And this pattern is more challenging that the lamb and duck that I’ve knitted in the past. I’d been feeling a lack of handwork even though I’m discouraged because the sweater I was knitting for Asher would no longer fit him if I actually finished it—yes, it takes me THAT long! (Oh, and he hates sweaters.)

Anyway, this donkey has been a good way to practice (remember) how to increase and decrease stitches, and to read a pattern. The trickiest part was increasing in the center of the rows to produce the neck of the animal. There was MATH and everything! It was a great boon to have my friend Dakini_Grl (an accomplished knitter) over for dinner the night I first attempted that! She’s the BEST. It’s actually looking like a donkey now.

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This morning, Asher and I counted ten snails in a three-foot by three-foot area. Fortunately, they were in a neighbor’s yard and not mine. As we walked to school, we found shapes all over! Circles and rectangles and triangles and squares and even half circles. We found them in pavement, in lawns, on houses, on mailboxes. Two water department access openings in one lawn made two eyes and another circle was the nose, Asher noticed. We saw a brown squirrel hop up a telephone pole, using his claws to grip—hop, hop, hop—like a lumberjack with spiked shoes and a belt, and then he sat on the top of the pole. He booted a bird off this tall perch. Asher said, “Silly skwool!” We also worked on the concepts of near and far. As we get nearer to school each day he says, “We’re nearer, Mom. We’re getting nearer.” Counting cars went like this: one, two, three, four, eight, sixteen. (Sometimes it goes in the traditional order you would expect.) We made Important Observations. For example, one neighbor has a flowerbed with flowers of every color of the rainbow—even blue! Asher observed, “That tree is like a man. Why’s he all tall and fuzzy like that?” My hypothesis: “Because he’s a tree?”

II

After school, Asher begged to have a snack and a “couple minutes out of the bed.” That’s his delaying nap tactic. Fine with me. I know that if I try to put him down too soon after coming home, he’ll fake it. He’ll go through all the motions of going to nap, listening to three or four stories and snuggling close with his hand down my shirt, and then he’ll bolt the minute the last story is done. So today, we sat in the window seat and watched as the weird thunderstorm pelted the garden with rain, blew the trees about, and pounded on my flowers. Asher asked for some celery with peanut butter. But we were out of celery, so I gave him carrot and some peanut butter. He’s 3 and he isn’t set in traditional food pairings. And with rain pouring down, what else was there to do but pull out the camera?

III

Dinner was freezer pot sticker dumplings and organic broccoli—because sometimes you don’t get to the store for, well, too many days in a row. While we ate, Lucas and Daddy did math. We practiced our 12s times tables, the last set that Lucas has to recite to get the final star on his math chart. The after-dinner discos of the last few nights have been brought to us by They Might Be Giants and Schoolhouse Rock. My favorite? “Conjunction Junction,” which we heard tonight. Lucas wanted “Lolly, Lolly, Lolly Get Your Adverbs Here.” Ian’s partial to the patriotic songs, but then he’s weird. He played David Bowie (of course) singing the Door’s “Alabama Song (Whiskey Bar).” Asher’s question: “Why those creepy people singing, Dada?” Somehow the subject leaped from David Bowie to the film “Labyrinth.” Which Lucas has never seen. Nevertheless, he immediately registered his deep hatred of muppets. I might finally have hit on the key concept, might just have pulled out the lynchpin in the whole muppet phobia. “Lucas, you want to someday see ‘Star Wars,’ right?” He emphatically nodded yes. “Dude! It’s full of muppets! YODA is a MUPPET. Muppets are cool.” We’ll let him process that and see what happens.

Asher has been very musical today—well, he’s been musical a lot lately. He sang a song about mooshy, mooshy zombies over his oatmeal this morning. Ian jotted it down.

“I don’t like no (mooshy, mooshy),

No I don’t like no (mooshy, mooshy),

I don’t like no mooshy, mooshy zombies!!!”

As Asher and I walked to school today in unseasonably chilly weather, he was on a hunt for a good, stout stick to carry. I steered him away from the sticks lying beneath the neighbor’s oleander trees and we found a perfect one about a block down the road. It’s got a gentle curve and two small branches near one end that look quite a lot like the hilt of a sword. Eureka!

(Now you have to imagine that all *s below are little tongue clicks.)

“I’ve got a sword!

I’ve got a good sword! * * *

It’s really, really big!

It’s got a sharp, pointy end! * * *

I like my sword!!!

I like to fight. I am strong.

I like to fight bad guys! * * *

I like to fight bad guys! * * *

Bad guys are BAD!

I fight them with my SWORD! * * *

I am a GOOD GUY!

I FIGHT THE BAD GUYS!

Sword, sword, sword, sword.

Sharp, sharp, sharp, sharp.

* * * * “

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.

I’m a great admirer of Andy Goldsworthy and Richard Schilling (escher) on Flickr. Here’s what I made the other day out of orange Chinese fringe flower leaves (which are usually purple) and photinea leaves, while my boys cavorted and bickered and we all waited for Daddy to come home. It’s derivative and monochromatic, but kinda neat nonetheless.

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It starts with a bed-a-bye snuggle, sometime before the morning music …

somehow, there we all are.

Four abed, snuggled under, breathing.

Daddy’s the bravest. He rises before the rest.

Then mama feels guilty, smells coffee brewing, and slowly emerges from the nest.

Big boy bounces up, right up!

Mama and big boy go to his room to pull out clothes for today’s many adventures.

“But I’m not ready!” he complains.

(Mama doesn’t blame him. She’s not ready either.)

So they sit together on the green carpet. Perhaps a cuddle?

Arms enfold ten wiggly elbows, ten knocking knees.

“Either this lap used to be bigger, or you used to be smaller.”

(Giggle)

And there she is, just an arm’s length away,

Emily Mouse, doing her “evening” chores, having a before-bed drink

of water from the upside-down blue bottle.

Gently, Mama says, “Maybe Emily misses you,” thinking, it has been a good long while

since you held your mousie friend.

OK. He reaches for her, cups her gently in two astonishingly large hands

lined and crackled with dirt,

graced with broken nails

and calluses—

curious hands

that move a bit too fast.

White mouse whiskers, sniffing, twitching.

“Wow,” mama says. “We have had Emily for a whole year.”

“Yep.” White mouse moves over dingy T-shirt,

is corralled back into workaday hands.

To herself, Gently now … careful …

“How long do mice live?” Mama wonders cautiously.

“Two years, or a little more.”

Hmmm …

Emily’s fur is stroked, ears scratched by one nubby index finger.

Even. More. Gently …

“What do you think that means?”

…

Blue eyes flash, then seek refuge in the green carpet.

She will die someday. Sometime.

“Maybe soon.”

“Let’s give her lots of love until then, OK?”

“Yeah, Mom.”

“And lots of petting. And kitchen scraps!”

“Yeah! I wonder if we gave her a whole sweet pepper, would she eat a hole and crawl inside it?”

“I don’t know. Let’s give her one and see.”

Eggs are ready. “Time for breakfast,” says the Daddy.

Littlest boy sleeps on …

…

II

Lucas and Grandma leave.

Existential dilemma faced and dressing for a rainy school day accomplished!

Phew!

Mama sips coffee

until …

“MAMA!”

Sleepy one emerges into a quiet house.

“My jammies are wet. I want a kiwi.”

Never before. “A kiwi? Really?”

“Yes.”

Well, then. Diaper change and then Mama goes looking …

Hallelujah! A kiwi. One.

“I have to peel the fuzzy brown skin off.”

“And then I eat it up.”

It vanishes before Mama’s eyes. Three gulps tops.

Then the cold eggs follow.

Mama sits by his side.

“I’m ready for some holding now,” he says with certain faith, and climbs over.

A small egg fills her lap.

“I’m a baby bird in my egg.”

Ah. “And I’m the nest?”

“Yes. And the Mama Bird.”

Pecking. Peck. Peck.

“I’m pecking!

“I’m hatching! Hatch!”

“Hello, Baby Bird! Welcome.”

“You’re my Mama Bird?!”

“Mmmm-hmm …”

“I hatch again!”

(Repeat)

“Are you ready to fly, baby bird?”

“Yes!”

“Let’s put on your red rain feathers.”

“Hurry, Mama Bird! Let’s fly!”

All the way to preschool.

I’m really happy with my mural! In fact, it’s just getting better and better with more detail. The challenge may be figuring out when it’s actually done.

I have a tiny problem in that I would like to find a good, easy way to draw in the stems of the berries. My tiny brush won’t do the line cleanly and efficiently enough to satisfy me. I’m hoping that there exists a sort of paint pen that will do the trick.

I’ve had Lucas help me a little bit with some of the watercolors. He wants to paint with the “acrylicals” so badly, but I won’t let him just go to work (yes, I’m a control freak that way). I’ve promised him that he can help me paint the lion’s tail tuft blue, and I’m hoping that will satisfy him. The tail is the key element in the storybook. The lion’s tail keeps changing color and the little red bird is very curious about it. She finally finds out that he has been painting pictures with his tail tuft on the walls of his cave at night. In this scene, it’s blue from his painting a lake the night before. Here, he’s gathering berries to use their juice to paint the little red bird on his wall. Lucas’s favorite color is blue, and we’re going to use the “acrylicals” to do it. I may try to make the tuft the very last thing I do on the mural. That way he can help me finish it!

I’ve added a stream at the bottom and some hills in the background on the right. I’m kind of working “off book” now, as most of the fill in work is being inspired by other Kleven pictures or my imagination. My wall is bigger than the illustration I’m emulating so I’m winging it in certain areas.