This week I'm going to offer you my notes from my little notebook I've been keeping:
9/19 : Kiernen helped me make an apple/strawberry crisp - he chopped the strawberries and some of the apples; he got out his stool and his apron himself (his idea for the apron), and when he'd finished, he put his apron away without my asking him to. He insisted on his own knife and cutting board for this, to cut the fruit, which I gave him. *
* An aside to this, when I was little (remember Kiernen is always asking me to tell him these stories, which I oblige, digging deep into my memory for things to share with him about my childhood)....When I was a little girl, about 4 or 5, my mother would let me cut my own oranges with a sharp kitchen knife. Neither she nor I knew "better", so I was pretty adept at using a knife. One day my 10-year-old friend Macy came over to play, and as a snack, my Mom had given us oranges. Of course I wanted to cut mine up, so my mother asked Macy if she wanted to cut hers up. She said yes, and I don't know if my mom asked her if she knew how to use a knife and she said yes, or if she just assumed Macy could since her 4-year-old could, but in any case, my Mom handed Macy a knife with which to cut her orange. Macy proceeded to cut off the tip of her finger, for which we brought her to the ER and called her parents. Oddly, Macy never came to my house again after that.
I share this story because I suspect that it might have something to do with Kiernen insisting that he be able to use a knife and cut fruit. And who am I to tell him that if he feels ready to handle a knife that he cannot? How does one learn, after all, to be adept with tools other than to use them one's self?
I am careful to let Kiernen know the safe way to handle the knife, and how to hold the fruit and make sure to pay attention to where his fingers are in relation to the knife. I let him know not to wave the knife around, and that it is a tool, and using it is fairly serious business. After all, Macy!
Lots of wellness time – riding bikes with friends, on one foot! Kiernen and his friend A were practicing balance in Hancock Square (in our common house) today, showing me how they could ride using one foot – balancing on the back of the trike and pushing off, then raising the foot into the air (A was on a scooter). They were so delighted with themselves – a new trick!
Even later in the playroom, lots of interactive pretend play – making ice cream for friends out of blocks and passing it through the window like a store firstly, then taking an adult friend prisoner and covering her with pillows and tying her up with a scarf. They then pretended she was a train and sat on her, taking turns being the conductor, the driver and the fireman (a position created so that everyone would have a job – way to be inclusive, kids!).
They play moved to Kiernen’s house, where there was dollhouse pretend play with long storylines. (Kiernen says, “This is Chapter one/Chapter 2/ Chapter 3, etc). I love listening to him do this type of play, but I find I need to listen in a way that he doesn’t know he is being listened to, otherwise he stops and becomes impatient with me. If only I could be a fly on the wall, or set up a hidden camera, because it is so fascinating to listen to how he processes his world, and what it looks like in play.
Ecology/plant care – He pees for my tomatoes! Kiernen still uses this potty that has a removable bowl – sometimes. When he does, he says, “Mom, I’m peeing for your tomatoes!” He knows that the tomatoes like the nitrogen in his pee, and also that I’ve got to use it right away, lest the good stuff evaporate out. So he lets me know immediately so I can take action.
Life skills – He puts all of his shoes back into the front closet where we like to keep them and he helps pick up his toys to ready the house for vacuuming. He has become more agreeable to this over time, and I have definitely noticed that when I let him know what I need (“I want to vacuum the house so we have clean floors and our feet don’t get dirty when we walk on them, can you please pick up your toys so we can vacuum?”) he is much more likely to comply, rather than my just giving him some random directive (“Pick up your toys now.”).
Also getting his allowance – counting the money, reflecting on what he’d like to spend it on and whether he’d rather save it or spend it. Right now he is saving his allowance for the Lego Death Star (which coasts $400 and will take him until he is maybe 6.5) and using his “money for his jobs” for other things he’d like to buy (usually other Lego).
Building Lego with his friend Alex (who is also sometimes his babysitter) – Alex has a great collection of Lego from his childhood that he enjoys bringing out and sharing with Kiernen when he watches him. Kiernen LOVES being watched by Alex because he gets this time of uninterrupted pretend play with the bigger boy.
On Sundays we now have Video Game Day – and what do Kiernen and his dad play? Star Wars Lego (the videogame). Yes, of course. This is great for them as bonding time, because Dad gets to share an activity he LOVES, and Kiernen is learning problem-solving in tight situations, and that hand-eye coordination that seems so crucial to his generation.
We watched the heaviest rain we’d ever seen here - it was in the morning, and it was raining so hard we actually took notice. We first went out into the covered glass atriums to watch it pour down the glass, and then outside onto our (also covered) back porch to watch how it was pouring outside. Later it stopped, and the sun came out, followed by another period of rain, followed by rain mixed with sun. It was as if the sun and the rain were having a bog of a disagreement about whose turn it was to be out that day.
9/20
Today was hazelnut picking at Garside Fruit Farm – a farm we’ve gotten lots of great fruit from in the past. This time, though, it was u-pick, and let me tell you, picking hazelnuts is not as easy as it might sound. There are two ways to get hazelnuts, and both of them involve waiting for the hazelnuts to fall rather than trying to pick them from the tree.
You can either sift through what debris lies on the ground underneath the hazelnut trees (usually lots of shells and little sticks and leaves), or you can rake all of the debris into large piles and sift through the piles. We tried both ways, and in the end decided that the raking/sorting method was the most effective. There was this Jay there when we went in, yelling at us to get off his property, that these were his nuts, that we needed to GO. We decided to tough it out, even when the squirrels joined in yelling at us.
But fun nonetheless, and the property was beautiful.
Kiernen helped by using a stick to sort through the pile – it was wet and dirty, and he opted to fashion a tool for himself rather than get his hands wet and dirty. Ingenuity!
There were also a couple of breaks during harvesting to have some lightsaber battles – after all, Star Wars can be incorporated into anything.
After we’d gathered our haul, we went to the garage where they keep the fruit and the scales and chatted with Gary Garside, the father of the man who generally posts the blog and the Craigslist ads, Richard Garside. He was apparently a beekeeper back in the day (Gary
We brought the hazelnuts, the plums, the apples home and set the nuts out to dry for two weeks, when we will eat them and relish every single one for all of the work that went into finding them. Not an easy task this year, as harvests were sparse with the mild summer and frequent rains.
For my birthday the same evening, we went bowling with friends. The kids learned a few different ways, figuring out how to get the most out of the ball for their throw.
We celebrated even one pin being knocked down, because wow, it is difficult for a little person to get that heavy ball all the way down those lanes! We took turns, counted the balls, noticed whose name it said when it was their turn, and Kiernen learned how to use his Dad’s Blackberry as a camera, since I’d forgotten mine.
Kiernen found a little resin house with a bird on the outside on the free table. When we took it home, we looked inside and there was a little nest, and something interesting happened. He had noticed there was something mechanical inside the roof of the house, and he asked if it played music. As he was holding the top of the house upside-down and looking at the nest, it began to chirp. Aha! We talked about how it was either solar-powered or that the light might act as a trigger for the sound (also solar-powered). Science!
9/21
After some shopping and errands, Kiernen very much wanted me to make myself a birthday cake, since we’d had no time to do it the day before. He cracked the eggs into the bowl, measured and sifted the coconut flour, and poured in the vanilla and baking soda. He licked the spoon and the beaters when they were done. When he was finished, he asked me to “untie the shoestring” on his apron (it ties with a shoestring, and ever since I told him where it came from, he refers to it as such). He hung up his apron in the closet (again!) himself.
Much pretend play with two of his older friends, Josh and Cole (both 6). Kiernen excitedly showed them the cooled off “layer” of the cake we’d made (there were 3), then informed me it was time to make the frosting because it was cooled off. (My noticing there was his keen sense of observation and timing).
We’d gotten his mattress pads, so we finally were able to fully put his bed together, mattress pad, sheets and all, and ready it for him sleeping on it in his own room for the very first time – MUCH excitement about this dearly-anticipated event – Kiernen was beside himself!
After dinner we took my cake next door and shared it with our neighbours (friends) in their home. Kiernen insisted there be singing, and led the “Happy Birthday” song, helping me blow out the candles when it was (almost) finished.
At bedtime, we laid together in the bottom bunk and read, “Richard Scarry’s Best Word Book Ever” (we love the Richard Scarry books). He asked me to show him/tell him what all of the words were, so I pointed to the object and he would say what it was as I then pointed to the word. He was delighted with this – such an interest in words and what they are lately.
Kiernen decided to climb up and sleep in the top bunk all by himself (sniff!). Ten minutes later he decided he wanted to come and sleep on the bottom with me, because “I keep thinking about snuggling you.” (my heart grows three sizes and then melts). Of course he did.
9/22
Went to the garden to pick kale for kale chips. Picked strawberries and kale, and Kiernen noticed a bee on one of the sunflowers, so we watched her for awhile – lovely little girl. Her face was all covered in pollen and she was just having the greatest time collecting more – it made me wish hard that I could keep my bees here by my home, so I could watch them more often.
The finches were enjoying the sunflower seeds – it definitely was a day I wished I’d brought my camera – so much happening in the garden! Kiernen helped me pull some turnips, and we talked about how they turn purple on top and pop out of the soil when they’re ready to be pick, just like carrots and beets do. He was excited to go through and find the ones that were ready and to pull them, and he asked me to make them into a soup for him to eat later (which I did).
On to the trampoline – I live for these moments. Time disappears when we’re alone on the trampoline. We jump briefly, and he immediately begins asking me to tell him stories about when I was a little girl.*
- An aside to this one – when he was younger, we’d go out to the trampoline to jump, and then we’d lay down and nurse and look at the sky. I’d tell him stories or just talk, and we’d snuggle and lay on the trampoline, then eventually we’d get up and jump again. I think he has this association with us being alone on the trampoline, and now it gets recreated through my telling him stories as I snuggle with him on the trampoline.
We jump for a spell, then we sit and cuddle and watch the chickadees hopping around on the tree nearby. We listen for their song, and the song of the finches, who are also flitting about. I tell him stories – of the boys putting my kitten, Whiskers, in the mailbox and having to call the postman to come get him out. Of when I said ‘feces’ at age three. Of when I caught a salamander. Of the girl who ate dirt (phonetically pronounced tu-RIE-ya) so I would push her on the swing, of the time when Cameron put a grasshopper in my shirt.
We play with the static electricity on the surface of the trampoline – making seed pods that have fallen from the trees jump when we put our fingers close to them. The story of ‘feces’ sparks a whole discussion about the different words people use for ‘poop’ and ‘pee’ and in what context (at home, around friends, in the medical field).
We hold hands as he jumps some more, and all through it, we laugh and laugh. We holds hands and he runs in circles on the trampoline – I let go and he falls, bouncing and laughing. We do it again and again until we both fall, laughing, and then it’s time to go in because we’re hungry. This is my bliss. THIS is being present.
We go in and we photograph some chairs for a neighbour to put an ad on Craigslist – Kiernen brings his Lego club “magazine” (read: marketing tool) to peruse while we do this.
At home, he wants to watch a video, and he spells out the letters on the cover: “O-P-E-N-S-E-A-S-O-N.” I tell him what it says. He asks what the other words are. He is always wanting to know this these days, “What does that say?”
We are going to make labels for all of the items in our home so he can see the words for them: ‘toilet’, ‘sink’, ‘jar’, etc. Our friends (teachers) did this for our son when he was young, and I found it a delightful idea. Kiernen’s recent interest in words reminded me of this, and so we’re going to do it, too.
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