Thursday, September 06, 2007

not so back in the saddle....

So, today, the second day of school for all the other Philomathians, (Philomathematics? Philomathematicians?) of school age, I had a day out with some other home schoolers planned. It is a bit odd to have that first day come and go, and our friends in the neighborhood gone. They will get over the first week of school and be able to play next week, but for now, everyone is occupied during the day and too beat after school to be a good playmate. We were munching down the last bit of scrambled eggs with herbs, and out the door, nearly on time, with a snack, lunch, and water to boot, headed toward the farmer’s market then a hike on Bald Hill with these friends we always see at the co-op and say “Let’s get together!” But, it was not meant to be, apparently, because here I sit, since just about that time, in bed with my ankle wrapped up and the edamame on it. (they were older and more expendable than the peas.) A sprained ankle! After I howled in pain and probably really freaked the kids out, Robert was fetched and doctored me right up with arnica and an ace bandage and the ice pack, and sent me to bed.
I don’t think being on my bum in bed really suits me. However much I sometimes fantasize about lollygagging about in bed all day, not having to attend to all my mama duties, and the other stuff of life, well, it really sort of sucks! I didn’t actually stay in bed all day, but enough of it so that I am already sick of it. I thought, gee, maybe I’ll get some of that knitting done. I only have about 10 projects started. I think I knit 4 rows of the stripy sweater. My knitting baskets (3!) are all in a big ugly mess next to the bed, looking like a cat had a party.
The kids seemed to get over the surprise of me being hurt fairly quickly and moved on to wondering what to do, since our plan had been foiled. I suggested going outside to enjoy this splendid September weather. It was, of course, one of the best weather days of recent memory. Gus and Ella went off and built some kind of structure by the enormous vertical root system of the big fir that went over last December. I haven’t been down to see it yet. It’s one of the first things on my list when I can walk a little more smoothly.
Luckily, Lucy was having a hard time finding something to amuse herself with today. She came in after a short while, and I helped her do the knitting mushroom. She, too, was bored with knitting quickly. So, she went to check out our newly acquired stack of flash cards. She seems to enjoy figuring out what you’re ‘sposed to do’ with them, even if much of it is over her head. She brought in the telling time flash cards and we had a bit of a time learning about telling time. We moved out to the table, and she brought some phonics cards. Going along with the theory of letting kids come to reading and writing when they are ready, we haven’t done too much alphabet stuff with Lucy. She does seem to know all of the letters, and most of the lower case as well. She was cruising right along and then she came to this card with a picture of a BUG and a BUS on it and it had ‘Uu’ at the top. She looked at me, confused and said, ‘Mama, can Bus start with a U?” Then I explained that it was about the middle sound ‘uh’ instead of the first sound. I said, “There are other words like that, too, like: Gus, and what’s that called that we eat in between breakfast and supper?” Lucy: “NOODLES!” Ha! That’s when I called her a noodle head and she got mad at me for calling names. I guess I have to work on my social skills a bit.

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