Being Outside

Saturday, the Spring Equinox, turned out to be an incredible 71.1 degree day, sunny, with not a touch of wind. I don't think it even got that warm all last June! Seriously.

The boys spent almost the entire day outside, M and Z in their forts or foxholes or whatever in the gravel pit, and E helping C out in the garden. After much cajoling I convinced them to go on a hike in the woods with me after lunch [the promise of Papa coming along too, before he had to head to the dreaded Town Meeting, clinched the deal. Can we talk sometime about boys, once they reach a certain age, preferring the company of their dads? Despite all Mama has done (and continues to do) for them. Ingrates.].

E, all on his own asked if we "could do that thing what we did last spring?" Meaning EarthScouts. I'm kind of bummed that EarthScouts didn't catch on like I'd hoped, and that I gave up, for the most part, after last spring (there was an entry in our EarthScouts journal from November). But I was happy that E remembered and wanted to wear his vest and carry his bag. Z wanted his bag, but I ended up carrying it (it was a handy place to keep the journal and camera, so I didn't mind).

Once we got down to the river, which is quite low, C crossed over on some willow logs, and M shimmied (or, rather, ooched) over after him and explored a bit on the other side. There are only a few days a year, in Maine, where you can sit completely still outside and not either be freezing your tukus off or being devoured by blood-sucking insects. This was one of them and it was oh-so-luxurious (though E and Z did come in after playing out all day on the much cooler Sunday covered in little red bumps that looked suspiciously like mosquito bites, and everyone in the family has now had at least one tick crawling on them, while poor Z has had two latched on behind his ears!).

As I sat and watched the boys throw logs in the river, and explore I kept thinking about the feature in this month's Brain, Child (yes I'm going to just keep dropping those words every five minutes, so get used to it), in which the author takes issue with the movement to get kids outside more.

Admittedly, I only read the first two pages because I got sick of her complaining about Richard Louv's tone is Last Child in the Woods. It's been a while since I read the book, so I don't remember much about his tone, but I've read plenty of books where the author's tone rubbed me the wrong way, yet the information was still valid, and useful. In any case, it was a gripe I thought worthy of maybe one paragraph, not two (or more) pages. I also got the sense she was trying to justify a family trip to New York City that she felt guilty about. I would love to take my kids to New York, or any number of other big cities, and I want them to spend as much time as possible outside in nature. I don't see why the two should be mutually exclusive, and I don't think anyone in the No Child Left Inside movement is suggesting they are.

Even if there were no measurable benefits to my kids in terms of gross or fine motor skills, balance, muscle development, a healthy dose of dirt, cardiovascular fitness, brain development or even the making of memories, I would know that being outside is good for them. Perhaps the best thing for them, because I can see they are happy. They are having a great time. And, on days when they don't get inside (interminable days and weeks of indoor recess because teachers and daycare workers don't want to get wet or cold), they are cranky, whiny, clingy, grumpy, mentally exhausted and physically wound up. They are royal pains in the buttocks on those days. In fact, I find it hard to believe that the crisis of kids not getting outside is as dire as it's reported to be, because who would NOT want to throw their kids outside when they start fighting, or whining, or begging for TV?

Out with the old...

This is my favorite load of laundry of the year:

(Is it possible to enjoy doing laundry? Yes, I was looking forward to doing this load for the last two weeks!)

I knew I was courting disaster washing all of the coats, mittens, hats and snowpants in March, but it was over 70 degrees on Saturday!! And even if winter is not over, I am over winter. (Here is the same photo, two years ago, only taken in late April. It is truly nothing less than a miracle that we will be hunting Easter eggs in grass, not snow. I may actually have to go out and actually create an Easter egg hunt this year!)

Of course it snowed all day today (not enough, or not cold enough, to stick, fortunately). I did leave out one coat each (yes, we actually own enough coats for each child to have more than one!) and they have plenty of fleeces, rain coats, rubber boots, etc. that they will not freeze. I folded most of this stuff away in the Coats for Kids bags, putting a few things in the "will still fit next winter" bins and some of M's stuff in the "will fit E and Z someday" bins. I just noticed the coat I bought M in kindergarten, which still fits, but which he suddenly decided makes him "look dumb" was not in this load. I hope he didn't intentionally "lose" it!

In other organizing news (I know you just sit on the edge of your seat waiting to find out what I'll be organizing next, don't you?), I dealt with my piles this weekend. Other than the box I showed you in my room (which stuff I had crammed in there in the months preceding Christmas, because I didn't have time to deal with it), I also had a much larger, much fuller box to deal with downstairs.

Things had really gotten out of control in the loose paperwork department, between papers brought home from school by each of the three boys, junk mail, magazines, forms, letters, things I keep putting off and never getting to (like correcting the address on and resending a Christmas card to my brother!!)

M was late (again) with his reading log the previous week and, though I do expect him to keep track of and remember it himself (in the hopes that by the time he's in middle and high school, I won't need to remind him to take his homework to school!), I did feel somewhat responsible because so much paperwork had accumulated on one end of the dining table, the end of the counter, the art table, the kids' table, the mudroom dresser and pretty much every horizontal surface that it was almost impossible to keep track of anything.

I forced myself to sit down Sunday morning and go through each and every piece of paper in both boxes and read, file, recycle or otherwise deal with all of it. I got our Census form filled out, and M's baseball registration. I skimmed and recycled several back issues of various magazines. I even entered our "Christmas cards received" into my spreadsheet and put them in the bag in the basement that I swear one year we'll turn into fabulous crafts (yes, I am an odd mixture of anal and slob). I gave C our property tax update form, which I'm pretty sure I should probably take back and deal with myself, because if I've got piles, that man has got mountains. We're a bad combination.

This happens every so often, the paperwork becomes so overwhelming that I have to spend a good solid hour or two figuring out what everything is, where it goes, catching up. I need to make a concerted effort to deal with things as they come in the door: cute art onto the art strings (which also need to be weeded; I just keep pinning new art on top of old!); tests, report cards and memorable school work into files; one-sided paper in the scrap bin; read magazines; file bank statements; give C the bills; fill out and return forms immediately; recycle anything not immediately necessary and useful. And maybe set aside five or ten minutes each day, or a couple of times a week to deal with those little niggly things like correcting addresses, sending thank-you's, etc. that I tend to set aside for "some day" and never get to.

Do you suffer from piles? How do you handle your condition?

Check it Out!

Guess who's in the new Brain, Child?

E's New Favorite Outfit

I made these bandanna pants for M when he was two.

He cried when I tried to put them on him. Even at that age he would not wear anything bright or showy.

E wore not only the pants (which are more like capris, or maybe gauchos now, at age nearly five), but also leg warmers on both arms and legs, and rainbow socks three days in a row last week.

Nature or nurture?

Finished!

I just finished this Simple Yet Effective Shawl over the weekend.

This has been my Process project. It's knit with sock yarn (Noro--yummy!) on size four needles, and you start out casting on seven stitches and end up with around 300 on the needles, so there's no end in sight for a long time. It's all about the knitting, not the final product (just before I finished--with only half a row left--I thought I had lost it, which would really have made it all about process). And it is the project on which I became a Knitter. Look, I even blocked it (unheard of!).

It turned out a bit ridiculously tiny (especially after all that process), but it's kind of nice to have on hand at work, to take off/put on as I get chilled/warm. In fact, I like it so well (the shawl? the yarn? the process?) I'm about to start another one in even more rainbowy yarn.

Springy

My attitude toward the early-melting snow (hurray!) has made me very unpopular among the winterophiles around here (and there are a surprising number), but Saturday, when I saw some tiny, tiny green plants poking through the gravel at my ex-step-mother-in-law's I almost jumped up and down for joy. And yesterday? Sixty-one-point-two degrees. Woo-hoo. Granted, I spent that lovely warm weather driving M to an eye doctor appointment and sitting in a completely windowless room, but still, it was out there, all warm and stuff. Want to know why I'm so excited. Look at last year's Spring Equinox here, and the year before? Seven degrees on March 11 (with photos of the previous year's Easter snow bunny). Explains why a little unseasonable warmth can make one giddy. I know I should totally shut up right now or it will rain for the next three months solid, but I'm just too spring fevery. Hurray!

I haven't done much to prepare for the season. Our Valentine's decorations still hang limp and dusty (and in some cases broken), but I did manage to refresh a corner of the Nature Table for St. Patrick's Day.

(See that oval object that, to the untrained eye appears to be a rock? It's a Leprechaun egg. Bet you didn't know they reproduce oviparously, didja?)

M was all excited with his idea for a Leprechaun trap over the weekend (he was going to bait it with fake pearl earrings), but ran out of time/enthusiasm before carrying it off. A couple of years ago, I made a little green elf shoe (I ran out of time before making the second one) and left it in a corner St. Patrick's day morning. M was so thrilled. He really wanted to believe it was from a real leprechaun. But being Mr. Logic Brain, had his doubts. He kept asking me if I sewed it (to which I prevaricated). I thought about making the other one this year, but I guess I ran out of time/enthusiasm too. Maybe next year, for the twins to find (guess I'll need to make two so they don't fight over it).

On Sunday the boys (the little boys, that is, M preferring to play games at the US Mint website--the closest thing he'll ever have to a video game machine, I hope) and I made some felted Easter Eggs, following the directions in the Spring issue of Rhythm of the Home.

It was fun spending a rainy afternoon getting all wet and soapy and using every color in the wool bag (they both wanted to make their eggs "rainbow."

I always seem to have trouble with weird lumpy masses when I wet-felt. I'm hoping I can repair them with the felting needle after I take the wooden egg out.

Finger-Knittin' Good

(Sorry, couldn't resist!)

Even though my mom was (and is) and expert knitter, I learned finger-knitting at school, from a girl named Aimee Hanson (it was probably the most benign thing I learned from Aimee; she had a shockingly detailed--if inaccurate--knowledge of sex for a second-grader).

I forgot all about it, though, until reading about it in The Creative Family. I tried to get the boys interested last fall, but it seemed too complicated and we got distracted by other things.

Then I saw this amazing bit of fingerknitted rainbow wonderfulness and was inspired.

I bought a skein of handspun rainbow yarn at the end of buy nothing month (33 yards of yarn makes for three very very tiny balls).

And got the boys going. First I started with M, who picked it up easily.


Then I worked with E over a couple of sessions, until he was able to work the yarn on his own.


But it's been Z who really took off with it.

Twice I've set him up with his finger knitting before I went away and have come back to the thing having grown by yards.

From the Waldorf Connection lecture on handwork (by Heather of Shivaya Naturals), I learned that this kind of activity can calm little ones, so that when the boys start bouncing off the walls or trying to kill each other after a long day, I get out the finger knitting.

The other day, Z was running back and forth between his room and mine, crashing into my bed on every turn, which really drives me bonkers.

"Do you need to finger knit?" I asked.

"Yes," he replied eagerly.

After he was settled in with his little rainbow rope he said, "I have a feeling about finger knitting."

"What is your feeling?" I asked.

"That it's magic," he replied.

I think he's right.