I always do like looking back over the entries I have made that were “a day in our life” so I’m going to try and record another one here today…
JediBoy and I got out of bed at 7:30 after half an hour cuddling and listening to NPR in bed while PisecoDad showered. I did a quick check of my email and I could hear JediBoy in the kitchen talking with PisecoDad before he left for work, saying I wish you could stay home. Sigh. They both hate weekdays.
We shared breakfast at 8:00, then worked on his “Link book.” JediBoy decided this weekend that we as a family should create a new book about The Legend of Zelda. Yesterday we worked on some - I’m generally the scribe and he and PisecoDad do the artwork. This morning, we made two or three new pages. As we worked, JediBoy talked about finishing this book and making “the fourth Link book” today. He’d like to make a book where Link actually rescues Princess Zelda. I’ll post some pictures tomorrow.
After a trip back into the kitchen for a drink, JediBoy came out talking about finishing his HOP chart today! At his request, we’ve been working through the Kindergarten level of Hooked on Phonics, including the progress chart taped to the wall. Not my style, usually, but the motivation is there for him, and I’m thrilled that he’s so excited about it. I had planned that we would finish in two more weeks, so I showed him how we could break it down, and that we could do it by the end of the week if he wants to work hard, or by the end of next week if he wants to work just a little bit each day. He said he’d like to work hard, so we’ll give it a go, but I’m not going to hold him to that, of course! As we talked and drew, we listened to my new Puppini Sisters cd and danced to some of the songs.
At 9:00 I remembered JediBoy’s antibiotic, which we’ve been crushing in honey. He didn’t want to take it - even the honey can’t completely mask the bitterness - so I tried to teach him to swallow a pill but he wasn’t able to do so after a few tries. After we gave in and crushed it into honey with a little Ovaltine mixed in (and called it his Chocolate Honey Delight), JediBoy asked me how people make honey. Well, people don’t make honey, bees make honey.
This was an anti-cleaning lesson for me: just last week I’d brought upstairs eight boxes of picture books from the basement. I was trying to be Organized, Efficient and Neat and so I had sorted away almost five boxes worth to freecycle or donate. But here he is, teaching me that I really can’t get rid of anything after all, because the very book I needed to read to him today had been on the “donate” pile - The Honey Makers by Gail Gibbons. We read about honeybees and beekeepers, and he was very interested, especially to learn that the majority of bees are female and that only the queen lays eggs.
After that book he asked for more books “about nature, or green, or trees, or insects, or something” so we went through our basement finds and read more books we hadn’t read before - I Like Caterpillars, How to Hide a Butterfly, Praying Mantis: Garden Dinosaur. After reading these, JediBoy went outside for about ten minutes to hunt for insects but didn’t find any. He was especially hoping to find an “insect using camouflage.”
At 9:45 I suggested trying to find some bee dance videos on You Tube. We spent an hour doing that, and watched 18 videos, some a few times each. Words cannot fully express how wonderful that hour was. He sat on my lap so we shared plenty of touch time, sideways hugs and little kisses and hand holding. We were both so content to be together and excited to see what we could find. I loved every moment. Our three favorite videos were:
Bee Dance (Waggle Dance) - This is a one-minute clip showing and explaining the directional waggle dance, and was perfect for giving him a quick look at what the Honey Makers book talked about.
Honeybee Waggle Dance Experiment - This clip runs about a minute and a half, and explains an experiment that was done with three dishes of sugar water. The experiment showed that the bees did go to the dish which had been visited by the forager bee whose dance they watched. After watching the video once, I had to make a diagram on a piece of paper and slowly explain it to JediBoy, and once he understood what was going on, we watched the video again.
Honey Bees - Life Cycle - This is a ten-minute video explaining the life cycle in some detail, with good shots of, for example, and actual pupa removed from the cell so we could see that stage. As I watched the video I doodled pictures of egg, larva, pupa and bee, along with the number of days for each stage (3, 6, 12). When the video ended, JediBoy wanted to add the number of days a bee is alive before it dies, so we estimated 60 and he wrote that in. He was really fascinated by this video.
At about 11:00, JediBoy made another short trip outside, and then asked for more books. We read two more insect books in the living room (one general book about insects and spiders, and one book about fireflies), but his body was needing more activity - he was stretching and twisting and turning while I read, and I eventually suggested that he try going outside again. That trip lasted a little bit longer, but he was disappointed that the only insects he spotted were wasps and bees. He asked “How was the first queen bee born?” He has been very interested in origins and creation lately. I’m not sure how to tread the line between his sweet childish ability to believe in Big Mama and creation, and explaining well the scientific facts of evolution. I gently suggested, “Well, maybe a god made the first queen bee, or maybe they evolved from something that was already here.” Today he was quick to jump to the evolution side of things, especially after we learned that many insects were alive on Earth before the dinosaurs. Last week we had an interesting, if not especially helpful, discussion about primate-human evolution. For a day or two he was puzzled about how “monkeys turn into humans” and asked me if I had ever been a monkey! Hmm. We’ll have to keep working on that one.
Shortly before noon, JediBoy went to PBS Kids for about fifteen minutes of online games. Today he particularly liked the Postcards from Buster Connect the States game. He offered me a turn, but then wandered away while I was playing. He needed a little of that imaginative play time - as I stayed at the computer to check email, read some news and write a bit, I could hear him next door in the playroom digging through bins of Legos and action figures and weaving a story aloud. Sometimes he likes for me to be involved, but often he wants to be alone in that room with the door shut in order to create his world in private.
I’m not sure exactly how the next two hours passed, or in what order we did these things. But, JediBoy played with his Legos and created some kind of army to ride in the back of his delivery truck. He asked to check on the sunflower seeds that we’re germinating - our Lemon Queens are sprouting well, but the Citrus Sunflowers aren’t doing as well. We checked on the mice and crabs and watched the mice play. JediBoy talked about how much he’d like to have a praying mantis for a pet. I caught up on some blogs and did some planning on the computer. I went back into the playroom with JediBoy and literally tripped over a box of Explode the Code workbooks I’d picked up at a garage sale last summer. I explained what they were, and he was interested in trying them. Unfortunately, the first one was half-written in by the previous owner. I tried erasing the work but JediBoy could still easily see the markings and was just following along with what he could make out. So after about ten minutes playing at the beginning of book 1 I handed him book 1 1 /2. He was doing okay with those, and enjoyed the reading, decoding, Xing and picture finding, but he did not enjoy the writing parts. Maybe we’ll use these occasionally but not do all of the writing? Maybe we can use a moveable alphabet to allow him to spell out the words without actually writing them?
We emerged from the playroom to find to our surprise that it was already 2:00. So we had some lunch and checked the mailbox. Then JediBoy looked through books and played with his dolls (he was a prince, taking Dora, his princess, to a ball) while I talked to PisecoSis for half an hour. When I got off the phone, he asked what we should do and I mentioned reading, only because he had been so excited about it earlier. He was glad to give it a try and we after working through a few pages of short -e words, JediBoy read a particularly hilarious (to a 4 year old, any way) phonics reader called Rag Gets Wet.
This is Rag. [a dog] This is Ben. [his owner] This is Ed the vet.
Ben dips Rag in the tub. Is Rag wet yet? Yep!
Wag, wag, wag. [the especially hilarious illustration of a wet dog shaking all over everything]
Is Ben wet yet? Yep!
Is Ed the vet wet yet? You bet!
We were rolling on the floor laughing again.
After that, we needed our extra-quiet and calm afternoon time, which usually hits us around 3:30 or 4:00. Today, I pulled out of a bag the DVD I had happened to pick up at the store yesterday because it was only $6 - The Magic School Bus: Bugs, Bugs, Bugs! We watched the episode on bees together and then JediBoy watched the two on Ants and Butterflies while I worked on the computer.
Once PisecoDad gets home, it’s hard to continue to quantify the day. We had dinner, and they left for the store (we were out of one prescription and naturally thought of a list of other things we couldn’t live without) while I left for choir. I’m not sure what else they did while I was gone, but I got home just fifteen minutes ago and JediBoy’s asleep. I’m heading up now to enjoy some quality time with PisecoDad before we’re too tired to talk.
In so many ways, it was “just another day” - but it was so much fun, and we had such a great time reading and talking and watching videos about insects, and being together and being connected. I’m glad that my “just another day”s feel so good!
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