Animals, Computers, Sewing and Drama

Today was a big day for us. The main elements are stated in the title. The morning was spent with our homeschool support group at a local library. One of the families had their grandparents in town from California and they shared slides of pictures they took while spending time in Zimbabwe. There were many different animals including elephants, lions, crocodiles, impala, hyena, wild dogs, baboons, giraffes, wart hogs, zebras and many others I am not recalling off the top of my head. The kids were interested and Rhiannon and Ciaran both wanted to ask a million questions.

This is a struggle I have often with the two of them, they are very curious by nature and asking questions is a big way we learn around here. The kids are very open with asking questions and would ask questions, especially from interesting adults all day long. Sometimes there is that brief embarrassment for them when they ask or say something strange, like today when Rhiannon said out loud when she heard how many gallons an elephant drinks “I would be drunk!”. Othertimes there is that brief embarrassment for yourself when they keep asking constant questions and they are making and forward progress impossible. Most of the time it is this fine line I walk of wanting to let them ask their questions and have them answered and wanting to teach them to be more respectful and that they can not always have every question answered immediately. A balance between respect and not killing that burning desire to know and the satisfaction of receiving an answer. Anyone have some good tips on how to handle this one?

After the slideshow and the many questions we celebrated a little girl’s 5th birthday. She is important to our family and a close friend of the kids. I made her a little purse and a shawl in her favorite color (blue) and we picked out a really cool Monet puzzle book with multiple pieces of his artwork, I think she liked them. The kids enjoyed a treat of Rice Krispy treats. Mom, you will be happy to know that one of the kids adopted aunts even gave Sirah the treat I did not want her to have!

We ate lunch and dinner (sad) on the road today. As we headed over to another friends house for the afternoon where I traded some computer expertise for some sewing. This dear friend is assisting in making my Barriss Offee jedi costume for the opening night of Revenge of the Sith. I helped her install Adaware, SpyBot, Firefox, Piccassa2 and some other things on her computer. I gave a very mini lesson in Firefox and tabbed browsing and set up the primary tabs for each computer using member of their family. Cleaned up some stuff that did not belong on there and helped introduce them slowly to some of my favorite computer programs (gmail, firefox, and piccassa2 for a few). Of course I would have done this just to help her and she would sew just to help me but it worked out nice that we could help each other at the same time. The kids all played in a room between us and we took turns with them, though she covered them much more than I did. We spent more time then I thought there but I left with a nearly finished skirt (Serona did most of it but she made the waist, sewed it up and did the top hem) and promises of a jedi cloak to follow. She now has a more cleaned and tuned computer and some new programs to play with.

Then we headed to a theater production put on by a homeschool theater troop. Two members of our homeschool support group were in the production and it was fun to see them up on stage! This was the second production of one of them, and the first for the other. It was great for the kids to see their friends up on stage and even Sirah loved it. Of course everyone knew when an animal was on stage as Sirah would keep saying the name of the animal and/or the sound they made the whole time. I kept trying to keep her in hushed tones. Our kids gave their friends flowers and Rhiannon proceeded to tell each of them that "You rock!", a new one for her. On the way home both Rhiannon and Ciaran procceeded to tell me that there were kids their age or younger up on stage and can I please find a play for them to perform in? Guess I won't be able to avoid the drama bullet for much longer.

Winding down here now. I am actually getting ready for a weekend trip with some girlfriends. Four moms (including myself) from our support group are going on a "Mom's Trip" from Friday to Sunday without the kids, the first time I have ever gone off on a "vacation" just for myself! Bless the dads and pray for them to survive. I am of course kidding, Serona and each of those fathers will do a great job as they are very involved with and giving to their kids naturally. We should have a relaxing weekend of chatting, hot tubbing, crocheting, knitting, snacking and movie watching. So needless to say blogging will be scarce but relaxation will be high! Hope you have a great weekend.

Peace,
Tenn