{this moment}

Following Soule Mama: {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.

Homemade Popsicles

I picked this popsicle mold up a few years ago off of Freecycle, but I often forget about them. The littles, however, never forget. So when the hot weather rolls in and the faces of my dearest little ones are flushed red before they even walk outside, they are sure to remind me that homemade popsicles are just the thing to cool them down!

While popsicles may sound indulgent, when you make them at home they can be both healthy and refreshing! I tend to use teas for my popsicles, so anything I can make tea out of is game to be frozen and sucked down. The ones in the picture above are made with lemon balm tea, a favorite around here and SO easy to make. Just pour some almost boiling water over some fresh or dried lemon balm leaves (the dried leaves make a stronger tea), let it steep for a few minutes, and pour into the popsicle molds. I love to add a leaf of lemon balm to each popsicle, but even though the kids love eating the lemon balm from our garden, they always balk at something green in their popsicles. I don't get it, but I humor them. ;)

Our new favorite this year is strawberry-basil popsicles. Doesn't that sound scrumptious? They're a little tangy, a little sweet, and oh so very good. Since we live on a very small suburban plot we do our best to make the most of every edible plant we grow. This is a wonderful way to show your children just how many uses your garden has! Here's our recipe:

You'll need (for 6 popsicles):
A handful of fresh or dried strawberry leaves
6 Fresh strawberries
A handful of fresh or dried basil leaves
Water

1. Place your strawberry and basil leaves into a small pitcher or other pourable vessel. Add to these enough water to fill your popsicle molds, heated to just before it boils. Remember: dried leaves will make a more pungent tea, so be aware of your little one's tastes.

2. Let the strawberry-basil tea steep for at least 5 minutes.

3. While your tea is steeping, halve or quarter (or otherwise chop them to suit your desires) your strawberries and drop them into the molds.

4. Carefully fill your popsicle molds with the strawberry-basil tea mixture, adding or removing the leaves as you see fit. If you have the same type of Tupperware molds I have, you don't want to fill them all the way to the top because you need to add the bottoms, and this will cause leaks. Fill them to nearly full.

5. Place your popsicle mold into the freezer for at least four hours, preferably overnight, or until they are completely frozen through. Enjoy!

It's Official!

Yes, the picture is very bad on purpose...

Somehow in the day-to-day of things I forgot to mention that we finally got our homeschool approval notices. Yeah! When I showed the kids Airius said, "oh, I'm so thankful! Now we can be together as a family again!" While that is a sentiment that my husband and I share, it isn't something that we had talked about with the children. Perhaps he overheard us talking at some point, but it seems equally as likely that that is just how he truly feels.

Now we can be together as a family again. Indeed.

For the (Humming)Birds

We have a deep fondness for winged creatures here. The children argue over who gets to haul bird food out to our feeders, even in the dead of winter with snow up to their waists. But there has been a gap in our bird feeder collection for awhile now. You see, we had yet to procure a hummingbird feeder. Today, my industrious little ones decided to remedy that situation, and thus was born this humble offering to the birds:



Nothing fancy, I assure you. Artisan blown glass it is not, but it was fun to make! First, we scouted our house for anything brightly colored that might attract our most elusive visitors. We used two red plastic party cups, one plastic drinking straw, a length of red cotton yarn, and our imaginations. Here's how we did it:

Step 1: Using a pair of sharp scissors, stab four small holes toward the bottom of the cup, spacing them evenly around the perimeter. (Adult supervision required with sharp scissors!)

Step 2: Stab two small halls near the top of the cup, spacing them evenly around the perimeter with your scissors. This is where you will hang your string.

Step 3: Using the other plastic cup, cut out four flower shapes. Poke a small hole into the center of each flower, large enough to fit a drinking straw through.

Step 4: Cut your drinking straw into four equal pieces.

Step 5: Insert each drinking straw piece into the center of a flower piece, then push it through one of the holes at the bottom of your cup. Be sure that your straws are pushed downward into the cup, meaning that the end inside the cup is touching the bottom. You may even want to carefully hot glue the straws to the bottom of the cup. If the straws are not facing downwards, you will have a sugar water fountain on your hands!

Step 6: Draw your string through one hole near the top of the cup, pull it through to the other hole, draw it through again, then tie the two ends at the top to make a hanger.

Step 7: Mix 1/4 cup of sugar into a full cup of warm water and stir until the sugar is dissolved.

Step 8: Fill your cup with the sugar/water mixture and hang in a place outdoors, away from predators (like cats!).

Finding Imagination

It's been a rough couple weeks here. Phew! The children have been bickering with each other, whining constantly, and sometimes just out right defiant and mean. Needless to say, this mama has been feeling a little lost and overwhelmed. Last night it all culminated in one fine moment wherein my normally sweet 6-year-old daughter called me a name which shall not be repeated on the world wide web. Oh yes, she did.

As angry as I could have been over it, at that moment a light bulb went off for me, and I simply took a deep breath and closed my eyes. I realized that my children have spent approximately the last nine months in a structured, unimaginative environment: the public school. Now they've come home, and while they are incredibly happy to be here and never want to leave, there's a little loss as to what to do with themselves all day. They are... *gasp*... bored.

Don't get me wrong, I do plan activities for the day and involve them in my daily routine. Even still there are times in the day when they either aren't interested in doing what I'm doing or must occupy themselves. I've come to realize that I am not here as 24-hour entertainment (though 24-hour love still applies ;).

So today I've again been faced with the "but what can I do"s and the "I wanna watch tv now"s, but instead of trying to run to the rescue I just say, "it's okay to be bored. Think how relaxing it is to do nothing." And they huff and puff and blow off to find something to do.

It's time to reawaken those precious imaginations.

Another Visit from the Tooth Fairy (Otherwise Known As: It's Difficult to be a Twin)

Airius (6 1/2 years old) lost his second tooth yesterday evening. It had been a long time coming since the permanent tooth had already surfaced behind the milk tooth. He was fascinated to hear that this phenomenon is often referred to as "shark" teeth. Sharks are, after all, his most favorite animal in the world. As you can see in the picture, the Tooth Fairy brough him a whole dollar and a piece of iron pyrite in exchange for his tiny white tooth. He was thrilled!

Not so thrilled, however, is his twin sister. She has yet to lose a single tooth or even find a wiggler. Even though she knew this was coming and I told her the story of how I was the last kid of all the kids in my second grade class to lose a tooth, there were many tears this morning. Sometimes it is difficult to be a twin and live on someone else's timeline.

For those of you who may be visiting this site and do not know much about Waldorf education, there is significant talk in Waldorf circles about the change of teeth as a signal for first grade readiness. Keep in mind that this is only one indicator of first grade readiness, but I mention it here because there is an interesting case with my twins. Airius, who has now lost two teeth, picked up reading very quickly in his public school kindergarten class. He is very eager to read and will put in the effort to sound out words rather than ask an adult every time he comes across something new. On the other hand, Annie, who has lost no teeth, still shows little interest in learning to read. She was the first to write and distinguish letters, but she makes little effort towards reading and will come to an adult immediately upon encountering ANY words. I don't know that there is necessarily any correlation, since Annie seemed far more ready for school in just about every other way, but it's food for thought.

Here's hoping that the next visit from the tooth fairy requires a new pouch for an eager little girl...

{this moment}

Following Soule Mama: {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.

Annual Rain Romp: A Family Tradition

The kids have really been feeling the transition from school to home, and not necessarily in a good way. They are beginning to miss being with their friends six hours a day, and while they enjoy the freedom, it's been an adjustment from the structure of public school to the carefree breeziness of a summer at home. We're working on our rhythm here at home, preparing for the days of homeschooling in the fall, but it's still a work in progress. (I think, perhaps, another post is due on that subject.) There have been several meltdowns in less than a week's time, and let's just say that I've had plenty of opportunities to work on my peaceful parenting techniques. Phew!

Luckily, today brought along the opportunity to gather us as a family and enjoy one of our annual traditions, the Rain Romp! There is much talk in homeschooling, and especially Waldorf, circles about the importance of time outdoors in all weather for the children, and this is one of the ways that we enact that around our house. When the summer rains come, we put on our swimsuits and run outside to dance, splash, stomp, and play in the droplets. We don't have a swimming pool at our house, and there isn't a lake or coastline for hours. This is a quick, easy, and very frugal way of getting in a little water play. It is certainly not the same as swimming, but it's extremely FUN! (Oh, and just because we call it an annual tradition does not mean that it happens only once a year.)


Airius playing the "mud bongos"

When my brother and I were children we lived in a tiny house on a dirt road that was surrounded by deep ditches. To us these ditches were chasms deep enough to swallow us up, magical lakes, or the sea itself. When it would rain enough to fill the ditches our mother would (sometimes) let us swim in them. The water was murky and laden with mud, but we didn't care in the least. It was amazingly magical for us! Oh, um, and we lived right on the shore of Lake Erie! The lake held a magic of its own, but swimming in those ditches was... out of the ordinary I suppose. It was special.



This is the magic that I'm trying to capture for my children with our rain romps. It's not that we can't go to the YMCA and hop in the pool, but dancing in the rain is a little outside of the norm in our culture. When the rain comes, even warm summer downpours, every child in our neighborhood is called indoors. Except mine. I can see their eyes sparkling as they watch the clouds forming, nearly quivering with anticipation. And when I give the go ahead... Oh! They will be out of their clothes and into swimsuits in five minutes or less for certain!



Just a word of caution: lightning is a real concern, especially if you are in a place with trees nearby. Also, sidewalks and grass both become very slippery in the rain, so exercise caution and be sure that your little ones are aware of the dangers!

You can see pictures of last year's rain romp at my old homesteading blog here.