Sick!

We had to stay home from Fiber Arts yesterday. Owen went to bed sounding a bit gravelly and woke up with the most adorable souding hoarse throat. Does that make me a bad mom that I think it was cute? Well, it was :-D Bridget was a little sniffly but she's been sniffly for a few days so it was nothing new. But then she woke up tired and gravelly this morning. She's sitting and playing with Barbie dolls while sipping chamomile tea with honey.

Yesterday I was just tired, tired, tired. It was one of those days where I wished the kids would watch more tv, LOL! Finally around bedtime I started sneezing and sniffling so I guess the lack of energy was it coming on. So I'm bummed about fiber arts (did I mention how much we all enjoy it?) but the kids had a great day yesterday.

First, Bridget worked for the longest time on her pine needle basket she started Sunday. I don't know where she heard of these (online? a kit in a catalog?) but she told me Saturday she wanted to make one. She went in the backyard and picked up a whole bunch of pine needles for it on Saturday. On Sunday she googled instructions and found this site which told us that our pine needles are "short" but they still can be used. I started it for her and helped her with thread changes but she did everything else. Sometimes it amazes me how long she can sit and quietly work on something she's actually interested in! Wow.

I watched the movie "Accepted" the other day. It was recommended to me by an unschooling friend and I, in turn, recommend it to anyone who unschools or simply thinks there should be more choice, creativity and joy in education :-D Oh . . . . no, it's not a documentary. It's a comedy that takes inspiration from Animal House in more than a few parts. Seriously though, worth watching. And funny :-)

Anyway, I told Bridget about the movie and she thought it sounded cool. I didn't even think of showing it to her. It's PG-13 with lots of swearing and a few (minor) sex jokes so I decided not to show her. But after I told her about it she said she'd like to see it "some day" so I'm rolling it around in my head for now. Yeah, I'm obviously not a radical unschooler even if I do lean that way at times.

But ANYWAY . . . I was telling her about what some of the characters were learning. One was learning cooking by just hanging out, alone, in the kitchen and making things. In the beginning the things he made were gross (I know that from a deleted scene - I wish they'd left that in!) but by the end he's making awesomely delicious food that everyone loves. No teachers, no cooking school, just him in a kitchen. Didn't I read an article about some tv chef who learned that way? I can't remember.

But after that conversation Bridget was inspired to get cooking, LOL! She already does plenty on her own, simple things like sandwiches, toast, cereal. Now she wants to actually cook more. This past weekend she learned how to boil eggs. I can't count the number of times she ate boiled eggs this weekend (I was only with her the first time) but my carton of eggs is down to one.

Then we moved on to pancakes and we had a problem. Owen is usually the little chef here so of course, he wanted to make pancakes too. Bridget wanted to make a batch all by herself. Finally we decided each kid would make his/her own batch while the other kid did something else. So Owen watched tv while Bridget cooked and then we switched. I gave some advice but otherwise, Bridget did these all by herself, including the cooking.

Then Owen brought the sculpy clay out and the kids ended up making a whole bunch of "sculptures" (as Owen calls them) which has continued into this morning (I had already baked a batch before breakfast).

There was also a TON of imaginative play yesterday. I was treated to a play of Jedi Knights fighting which was strangely reminiscent of Monty Python (Bridget kept saying "well, at least I have my hand" and then Owen would cut off her hand with his light saber and she'd say "at least I have my arm" and he'd cut off her arm). I asked her if I'd shown her the Black Night scene from Holy Grail. I don't think I have and she said it didn't sound familiar but she wants to see it now.

The most interesting, and hardest for a tired mom, was when Bridget made up some words in her own language. She wrote a page full of words and phrases in her language with English translations next to them. Then she copied the page for me. She kept coming up (paper in hand since she didn't have it memorized) and talking to me in that language while I would quickly scan my paper for the translations. It was . . . . tiring. I wish she'd done that on a day I wasn't so tired but I went with it as well as I could. Eventually I realized that even Owen had a few words memorized.

Phew! I think that was it. Well, along with Bridget taking over 100 photos yesterday, a few movies watched, a tea party by Owen's request, the usual time spent reading and a quick errand run to pick up medication and drop off some movies (the kids didn't even get out of the car). All that on a sick day ;-)