Ani and I have had fridays to ourselves this fall...which I dearly love. Having one-on-one time with my kids is something I savor like a sweet treat. When I dropped off Eliza at farm school Friday morning, I had a few twangs of "aw, I miss coming here" - the fire was going, the air was promising a beautiful clear and crisp autumn day, and I had brought zucchini bread and a big pot of potato leek soup for their lunch. Then I remembered the reasons I was not compelled to facilitate again this fall. I apparently have a problem with over-committing and setting boundaries. Mmmmhmmm. I said yes way too much and over-extended and then felt burnt out and a bit resentful. Plus...there is the whole "time" thing. By which I mean, this town runs on its own concept of time, and it is the one thing that drives me crazy time and time again. For example...I'm dropping her off at 9:20 and while there is a volunteer farmer tending the fire, there is not a facilitator in sight for a program that begins at 9:30. What this meant for all of last year is that my kids and I would hoof it there an hour early to set up and be there to greet kids...and then everyone would be late! That's a whole lot of waiting.
All right. Got that off my chest. But I figured there might be a few of you who might be wondering why there are no pretty pictures of The Farm this fall. I love the farm and I love the program, I just did not need to be responsible for it right now!! Luckily there are some wonderful people who were ready to step in and be with my kid and teach her what they know about ecology. She's happy, and Ani and I get our days together ---- ah! That's where we were!
There was Blokus and Katamino for the morning. Some good book-reading. Then we were off in search of what the Native Americans around here called wahoo - winged euonymous, or burning bush. We didn't want to miss its magical pinkness...
The one who told stories up and down the trail. The one who, when she heard that white and red oaks aren't producing many acorns this year, put back her stash, electing to just collect caps and - "do squirrels like dried mango?" - leave the rest for the animals.
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On Saturday the physics department at OU hosted a Physics Open House and I thought it would be fun to go for a bit and see some of the kinds of shows Dan and I used to do at the Pacific Science Center in Seattle oh so many years ago. We were there for five hours. Five. That is a lot of physics (oh no! merely the tip of the iceberg!) and the girls were enthralled.
...fun with microwaves (we might have been the only ones in the room not in possession of a microwave, and the demonstration of what it does to various objects - marshmallows, lightbulbs, soap - did not convince me that it is a good thing to use for food you intend to eat!)...I think Eliza mostly liked playing school at the desks.
fun with liquid nitrogen...
We saw their hovercraft working, we went to a class on lasers and a demonstration on air power that was pretty wow. We even sat through at 50-minute Physics of Music class. Ani wanted to be in the front row, while Eliza sat in the back. Ani spoke with the professor just about the whole class, answering his questions, making observations, reminding him of things he had said at the beginning of the class...I didn't hold her back, as it was a family physics day for "kids of all ages". I figured it kept him on his toes, and I loved that it never occurred to her that she shouldn't share her thoughts with him - since he was doing so much talking, surely he'd want to hear what she had to say!
Looks like magic, doesn't it?
1 comment:
I so wanted to go to that!!!!! Izzie was there for a while though.
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