Homeschool Pumpkin Picking Trip

In the pumpkin patch.

Panning for "gold". 

Ready for a hay ride.

Pumpkin chosen!

A little grump.

Another little grump.

Violet and the dragons.

A couple weeks ago our homeschool group went pumpkin picking at a local farm. They got to pan for gold, have a hay ride, play on the pirate ship, ride the broomstick, and pick a pumpkin. At $3 per child it was the best deal around. We had a bunch of fun with friends, took lots of goofy pictures, and came home with two cute little pumpkins.

This Moment, Friday, October 18, 2013

{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. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Apple Picking Day

Apple picking at our favorite orchard. We had the most perfect day. All the apples were ripe and perfect. Lots of little woolie caterpillars for little girls to delight in. And, of course, pumpkins to choose. A very happy day.

This Moment, Friday, October 4, 2013

{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. If you're inspired to do the same, leave a link to your 'moment' in the comments for all to find and see.

Sadness

This has been a hard week for me. I have wanted only to lie curled in bed, filled with sadness. I have done a pretty good job of carrying on with life despite the way I feel. My girls and I have done lots of beautiful nature walks, taking full advantage of this magnificent autumn weather we have right now. But I have carried my heavy sadness with me all week. Felt close to tears every day.

Tomorrow is October fourth. It was my due date for the baby I lost almost a year and a half ago. We would likely be celebrating his first birthday tomorrow, or sometime near the date. I have tried so hard to move past this sadness, to put it behind me and be over it. I think maybe I never will get to the point where I don't miss and want my little boy here with me. My arms and heart ache for him still, even as they are filled with my beautiful girls. I imagine what he would look like. He looked just like his big sister Penelope when he was born, so I picture him looking much like she did at 12 months. I imagine he would have had blond hair and blue eyes like his sisters. I know he would be beautiful.

I'm not always like this, this full of sadness over the absence of this baby. It's always there, but just now, when he should be turning a year old I find myself completely grief stricken over the loss of this child. I was well into the second trimester when I lost him. The second trimester is the happy one. The one where you feel good, no more morning sickness or excessive tiredness, and the baby isn't so big that you are uncomfortable always. You are well past the time when one worries about miscarriage. It does happen, but it is rare. And so he was a real baby to us. He was definitely going to be joining our family, we believed. I had bonded with him, spent hours talking to him, imagining him, loving him. It was not the same as an early miscarriage, which is heartbreaking in its own way. It was the loss of a child I loved and felt attached to.

The loss of this baby has been one of the loneliest things I've ever gone through. When people hear that you have suffered a miscarriage they don't know how to react. Most people ignore it, and the rest seem to assume it's something that one gets over with quickly and moves on. But for me this was huge. This was the loss of my son, whom I loved with all of my heart. He had a name, and a beautiful little face and a place here with us. I miss him terribly and I want him back. Every day. But tonight I long for him so badly it aches. I want to make him a birthday cake and sing to him with his daddy and sisters. When we are out on our nature walks I want to feel his sturdy body in the back carrier while I hold his sister's hands. I want to show him the changing leaves and see the blue sky reflected in his eyes. I miss him, so,so much. And nobody knows, and I'm all alone with it.

This evening I took my girls to the playground. Another mother came and sat beside me on the bench where I was knitting while my girls played with hers. Her girls, each a year older than mine. Dark eyes and hair and skin. So beautiful. She is from Pakistan and dresses in beautiful clothes from her country. Her English is hard to understand, but we chat frequently anyhow. We have had these broken little conversations for years, the same things I talk about with most mothers at the playground. Sometimes it takes several tries before one of us can get the other to understand something. She laughs easily and is pleasant company, I have always liked her. Tonight she asked me if I would have any more babies. I didn't want to answer the question, so I asked the same one back instead. No, she said. She has had three c-sections and the doctor told her a fourth would be dangerous for her. I thought she only had the two girls, I said to her. She had one before the two I know. She was born with something wrong, she died. "Oh, I'm so sorry" I said. "I lost one too. It likely would have been his first birthday tomorrow". "I'm sorry" she said, her eyes filling with tears. And we just sat there together, in tearful silence, watching our beautiful girls play. And for the first time since I lost my beautiful boy I didn't feel so alone with my sadness. Happy birthday my sweet baby Eamon. I will always love you.

Homeschool in September

Cormorants 

Gathering some mugwort for her little pillow project.

Wiggly hermit crab.

Lots of little things in the tidal pool.

Bigger crab.

Stuffing her pillow with wool she found at a farm at some point and saved.

Off to dance class!

Ready for ballet!

Ready for tap!

Lining up tons of toys to represent all of Pings family.

Working on sorting sizes.

Illustrating a part of the story Ping.

Cutting, her favorite thing to do right now.

Buoyancy experiment.

Making a paper Ping.

Doing some math outside with sidewalk chalk.

Lots of homeschooling done in pajamas over here!

The first book we started on this year was The Story About Ping. I was still recovering from surgery, so we were mostly at home, with one little walk down to the water. We made flags of China, found China on the map, drew the Yangtze River on a map of China - I was really surprised at how much Penelope remembered about China from last spring when we studied China for International Night with our homeschool group.

We learned about cormorants, watched a fascinating movie about them fishing for people on boats just like in Ping - they can count! They are pretty smart birds. Then we walked downtown to the water to look at the cormorants we have here. We discovered a tidal pool that kept the kids very happy for a long time and there was lots of crab catching going on.

We studied the illustrations in the book and did some drawings of water with reflections in it and used ripples to show water moving and things moving through the water. We also learned that Penelope can not stand the word ripple, which caused Violet to figure out a way to incorporate the word in nearly every sentence for a week. We also made some cute paper plate Pings.

We did some outside math in the driveway and also used toys to represent Ping and his family. Penelope was able to figure out exactly how many were in his family by doing this. There were a lot of little ducks on that tiny wise eyed boat!

Of course we had fried rice for dinner one night. We did a buoyancy experiment where the girls gathered a pile of things they thought would float and a pile of things they thought would sink. We were all surprised by some of the items doing the opposite of what we predicted. We also discussed water safety and how the little boy wearing a barrel was just like Violet wearing a floaty when she swims.

The girls also began dance classes. They love dance, they have been waiting so long to try it. It was a great first week of homeschool!