Rosebank Farms

Last Saturday we took a trip to Rosebank Farms on Johns Island for their Egg'straordinary Egg'stravaganza (heh). They advertised a hay ride, an egg hunt, an appearance by the Easter Bunny, and the regular farm staples--ducks, pigs, cow, horse (miniature!), turkeys, chickens and naturally--bunnies. There were also supposed to be refreshments available and, best of all, kids three and under were FREE! Woo hoo!

As is often the case if we don't start getting ready to leave at least 4 and a half hours before we need to, we were late. We had missed the hay ride. And the egg hunt. And the Big Bunny. Well, we sort of missed him.

And yet, the half-full glass nearly reached the brim by the time our visit was through. Here are some of the highlights:

Chasing bunnies all over the farm.



Getting beautiful fresh flowers for our Easter dinner hosts. (Thanks, Millers!)


Receiving jelly beans from the farm worker who felt sorry for the boys with the empty Easter baskets.


Giving hugs to the severed head of the Easter bunny who was abandoned among the asparagus, green beans, and parsley in the farm market. (We had already met the bottom half of EB near the refreshments table.)


The best part of all, naturally, was how the farmer (the half-dressed EB, himself) let Ben and Will drive the tractor. Well, not actually drive it, but they got to pretend like they were. And this tractor made those lawn mowing tractors at Lowe's look pretty weenie, I might add.

So, all in all, our Easter egg cup truly runneth-ed over.
Thanks, Rosebank Farms! bawk bawk.

"Long Live Play"

I stole this title from our good friend, and my former early childhood colleague, Kiersten (aka Kiki). She left a comment on my other blog referring to this photo of Will. You can go read it here.

She didn't know the story, per se, but she knows me and how I roll, so (did you catch that hip phrase "how I roll"? I am so cool.) she understood the significance of the photo and that there was probably a story behind it.

It's a short story, with a smallish plot, but it has a happy ending. It goes like this:
Will likes to use blocks, beads, cars, green beans, etc. to line up and make trains. Here he is playing with the blocks from our Music Blocks machine.
While making trains and crashing them, and making them again, Will made a marvelous discovery--he could make a square. Very very exciting news that caused him to jump up and shout "h'ray!" and also, inadvertently, knock awry his creation.

This made Will a bit sad and he commented, "My 'quare is gone!" With a bit of encouragement, he spent several concentrated moments on the task of reconstruction.

Until, success! A more cautiously reserved "h'ray!" was expressed and properly caught on 'film'. This was a very proud moment, indeed. And one of a million moments that I am so privileged to witness as a stay-at-home-mama. So blessed am I.

ADDENDUM:

Oops! Got all misty-eyed there and lost the initial intent of this post.

So, you see, I did not ever sit Will down and introduce the concept of 'a square'. He's two. He's spent the better part of his life figuring out the world and how to communicate about it. Descriptors like colors and shapes tend to be a big part of that.

Being a human being, Will was born with the drive to connect with others. It starts with baby goo-goo eyes, watching our every move. Then the coos and cries and body language that develop while learning to interpret how best to get needs met. Smiles, giggles, and squeals bring delightful results, while cries, grunts, and wails prompt the offering of comfort. Being surrounded by speech, Will observed and imitated. He started with labels for objects. Added labels for actions. And on and on.

And he did this, learning how to talk thing, all without anyone showing him how. It is fairly well accepted that babies learn this very complex idea of language all on their own. Nobody teaches a baby how to do that. Is it too far-reaching to expect that learning adjectives (shapes, colors, etc.), in order to describe something to another person (mama, perhaps), is just another natural occurrence? I don't think so.

But the story above is about more than the fact that Will can name a shape. If I were more in 'teacher mode' I could spout off the developmental milestones, cognitive objectives, and geometric principles displayed. I'd wow you with my professional jargon and maybe throw in a few educator acronyms for good measure.

Basically, though, it boils down to this: play is how we learn. Just how babies 'play' with language (volume and pitch of cries, babbling, facial expressions) in order to master it, kids 'play' with concepts (um, let's say geometry) to gain mastery.

In fact, play is how I learn best. I got a new camera for my birthday last year. How did I learn how to take nice pictures? No, it wasn't the instruction manual. Nope, didn't take a class. I played around with it. Tried different settings. Did something cool. Couldn't figure out which buttons made it do that (My 'quare is gone!) So, I messed around with it some more until I figured it out.

And isn't this how we all learn new things--cooking a new recipe, trying a new software program, sampling a new craft? Can you think of a better way to pick up a new instrument? a sport?

Me neither.

So, Long Live Play! H'ray!

Think Capistrano!

For the past several weeks there has been a bird who arrives every morning around 7 and attempts to fly through our windows. You can hear his beak hit the panes throughout the house as he tap tap taps while flapping fruitlessly until his feet gain purchase either on the sill or the screen. He is persistent and not completely clueless, as he will try one window than another. The boys love running around the house from room to room following the bird. "He's back!" "He's in the kitchen!" "He's at the front door!" Great early morning entertainment.

We've mused on why the bird is so persevering. Does he really find our home that inviting? Does he know we keep millet and sunflower seeds in the pantry? Did he once nest in a tree where our house is now standing? Perhaps it's one of those inborn, imprinting things that is somehow programmed into his tiny prehistoric brain--"I must return to 33 latitude, -80 longitude!" Sort of like the swallows of Capistrano , which, funnily enough, are due to return
tomorrow--St.Joseph's Day.

I know very little about the phenomenon, but was reminded by, of all things, Grover from Sesame Street. The Elmo's World portion of the show was devoted to penguins. Grover had traveled to the South Pole and was trying to encourage the penguins to fly somewhere warm. He was stymied when the penguins told him they could not fly. "Well, try! You need to flap your little birdie wings, like this!" While he and the birds are madly flapping away he shouts out encouragingly, "Think Capistrano!", which the penguins join him in chanting before realizing it's hopeless and they dive into the ocean for a swim.

Man, I love the Muppets.

Mark thinks I ought to post video of our feathered friend, but for now all I have are these stills.
We may have to build him a bird house.

Goodbye Snow, Hello Strawberries!

I could have titled this "Why I love the South."
You saw my last post, yes? All that snow and coldness and hats and mittens and boots? Well, not here in South Cackalackee, no sir. On this fine March afternoon, it was strawberry picking time. With giant, juicy all natural (no pesticides or other icky chemicals on these guys) berries! See?
The boys were pretty impressed with the rows and rows of strawberry plants. We had one plant in our garden last year that gave a pretty good yield, so they knew what to look for (not the green ones!) and that you have to look under the leaves sometimes.
Will found the task of bending over to pick the berries far too much trouble. He preferred to sit himself down in the middle of a row and grab what he could from that position. Ben couldn't resist tasting a few while filling his bucket, and in the end, neither could Will.
Ella Rose chose to sleep through this adventure, but woke up as we enjoyed our bounty in the car.


How lucky are we to have access to local, (almost) organic produce that we harvest ourselves??? The children get to see where our food comes from, and although we didn't get to meet the farmer, they have at least an idea that there is one. And at $1.50 a pound, a fantastic bargain, no less! Ambrose Farms will definitely be seeing us again.
But not until we finish off our 10 pounds of strawberries. eeep.

Photos from Chicago

Check out my sister's blog here for more photos from our trip home.
We took all the kids to the Picture People studio for a portrait for Grandma's (BIG) birthday. Mimi's got 'em up. My copies have yet to be unpacked. So, go there. Tell her I sent you.

http://mimisphotos2008.blogspot.com/

Snow!

We are so lucky!! Grandma started a snowman for us the day before we arrived. There was just enough of the white stuff left for us to finish him off. He didn't last long, but he was loved while he was here.

There are more snow photos on my photo-a-day blog, here.

Sweet Home

We're heading back to ChicagoLand next week for a visit. Mark has to travel to Yuma for work, so the children and I are going to spend some quality time with Grandma and Papa. We're all driving home together, then Mark will fly to AZ from O'Hare. It's a long drive--about 17 hours. That estimate is really conservative, too, considering it does not take into account wee babies with wee bladders who will need feeding, watering, and exercising (not to mention referee-ing, cleaning, empathizing, and cuddling.) This will be Ella Rose's first road trip. She is generally pretty content in the car, as long as she is fed, dry, and not over-tired. We're not pushing our luck, though, so this will be a 2-day trip. The half-way mark is Nashville, where we'll hang out with Kiki (Kiersten) and Randy, who have graciously allowed us to use their driveway as a rest stop when we came through last with the RV (and that is another story...). No RV this time, though, so we'll get to mess up the guest room. :)

Change is hard. Especially for Ben. He benefits from lots of warning of 'things to come'. We remind him Sunday morning that the next day is Monday and Daddy will go back to work. He needs the time to process and get himself ready for the experience. Our trip will be Big Change for him. I figured I'd better start today in preparing him. It went down something like this:

Me: We're going to have a busy weekend, Ben.
Ben: (is circling between me on the couch, the chair by the window, and the fireplace "it's hot, be careful" he says often)
Me: In 2 days, that's Friday, we're going to get in the car..."
Ben: in the car!
Me: Right. And we're going for a loooooong drive.
Ben: a looooooooong drive.
Me: And when we stop, we're going to be at Kiki's house!
Ben: (excited) Kiki's house!
Me: We're going to sleep at Kiki's house...
Ben: then go back to our new house!
Me: no, no. We're going to sleep at Kiki's house and when we wake up we'll play with Kiki. And then we'll get back in the car again...
Ben: and go back to our new house!? (getting nervous, pacing)
Me: nooo, not our new house. We're going to take another looooooong drive to Grandma and Papa's house!
Ben: Papa's house!
Me: Right. We'll get to see Grandma and Papa and Auntie Anna...
Ben: and Kiki...
Me: Well, yes, but not at Papa's house. We'll see Kiki first, then we'll go see Grandma and Papa.
Ben: Then we'll go back to our new house. (furrowed brow, wringing of hands)
Me: We're going to stay at Grandma's for 8 days.
Ben: No!! Go back to the new house!!
Me: Oh, Ben, I know you're nervous, but we're going to have so much fun at Grandma and Papa's. It's cold there and there may be snow. We'll see Auntie Mimi and your cousins. Maybe we can go to the zoo or the museum. Remember the library right by Grandma's house? We can go get some books and puzzles...
Ben: Dadda? (really really nervous, high pitched voice, troubled face)
Me: Hmm. Well, Dadda is going to go to work when we're there. He's going to go on a plane... (thinking, and yet ignoring "abort! abort! Information overload! Shut up now!)
Ben: Go on a plane with Dadda?!? (nearing hysterics)
Me: Um, no, Buddy, Dadda has to go to work. We're going to stay at Grandma and Papa's house.
Ben: (starts to cry) NOOO!! Dadda go to work!! (runs around hitting things--the chair, the pillow, falls to the ground) Go back to the new house!! AAAAHHHHH!!!

At this point, our conversation ends as Will needs help with something in the other room. Ben becomes distracted from his meltdown by this interruption and seems to get it together more quickly than usual and on his own.

Several minutes later, I'm feeding the baby when Ben approaches me and says out of the blue, "snowman?"
With that gift of knowing context where there is none offered (that I, apparently, was given when I became a mama) I respond with a smile, "you bet! If there's snow at Grandma's house, we'll definitely make a snowman!"

So, how cool is that?

In the afternoon, we went to the GoodWill and bought mittens.