My Latest at Crafting a Green World: Bread Sculptures and our TIRE SWING!!!!!!! (and drama)

a tutorial for making edible bread sculptures

(such a great sensorial activity, especially for my girl who spends most of her day reading)

and a discussion of what is probably my kids favorite thing ever:

TIRE SWING!!!!!!!

helping Daddy

giddy with anticipation

gotta throw a rock over the right limb--tricky, tricky!

just swinging on the rock was pretty fun

putting tubing around chain to protect tree limbs and kiddo fingers

drilling eye hooks into the tire

hooking the tire to the chain using locking carabiners

Success!

and, because a new toy is nothing until it's a comedy prop

Thank goodness for a happy new toy, because our home is all about the drama today--the girls and I came home from letterboxing this afternoon to find a notice on our door from Animal Care and Control, saying that one of our neighbors had complained of a "chicken smell."

I'm not being one of THOSE people when I tell you that there is no such smell; the chickens were at a friend's being chicken-sat through Sunday, and I swear that even if the animal control officer had jumped into her car and raced over the second that she got a complaint this afternoon, four chickens can't put up a smell in three days.

Also, we take care of them.

Unfortunately, we are absolutely in the wrong in that, although we sent in our application for a chicken coop, Animal Control hasn't contacted us to set up an inspection yet, but I've been letting the chicks spend time in their new outdoor coop anyway to get used to being outside, knowing full well that having chickens without a permit is expressly forbidden. And so, I imagine when the control officer came by and saw no one home, she took herself a little stroll around our house, and what did she spy with her own eyes?

Yep. Four chickens in an unlicensed coop, duly noted on our form.

Oops.

Seriously, though--what happened to just saying to your spouse, "Do our neighbors have chickens? What's up with that? I'm uncomfortable with the idea of chickens. Are they even allowed to have chickens? I know! I'll go over and talk with them about their chickens! I'll express any concerns that I have, share my fears that chickens will smell, and hear their answers!"

Wouldn't that be a nicer course of action than saying something like, "Our neighbors have chickens! I hate and fear that! I'm going to call Animal Control and report them! But what if they're allowed to have chickens? I know! I'll make up a lie and say they smell! Then they'll get in trouble, and maybe those dreadful chickens will go away!

So Matt called the animal control officer's phone number left on the form, especially since she told him "to call ASAP," got no answer, and left a message. And the chicks are still in their coop, although now I'm wondering if I should squeeze them back into their brooder. Or borrow a bigger brooder from my friends. Or write a letter to all our neighbors mentioning how clean our illegal chicken coop is and how fresh it smells. Or give the boy chicks back to my other friend so that we're only keeping two illegal chickens, not four. Or put the chicks back in the brooder, clean the coop out, and deny ever having chicks in the coop just in case she didn't actually see them, after all.

I do NOT like unresolved issues. I like clarity, and a clear course of action. I like neighbors who discuss potential issues before calling up The Man. I like animal control officers who, after instructing someone to phone them, answer their phone.

Here's hoping that this time tomorrow, I'll also be saying, "I like how Animal Care and Control responded so quickly and was so willing to help us solve our problem, and how they handled our violation in a non-punitive manner! I like how we found a basket of muffins on our porch this morning with a note that read, 'I'm sorry I lied about your chickens. I actually love them. Of course they don't smell.'"

It's just as likely to happen as not, right?

Reading and Writing

Syd's still plugging away!

writing words in her speller's dictionary

reading a bit of an early chapter book at the library

Syd's still practicing every day, and getting a little better every day, but she still gets so frustrated and upset over unlocking unfamiliar words that I'm feeling like quite the troll mother for keeping her at it (although to be fair, five minutes ago she got so frustrated and upset over following the directions barked out by Willow's Bop It! that she shouted "I hate you!" at it).

I've got a couple of other strategies to try out soon, however. My friend Tina suggested having Syd choose board books to read, which is brilliant--each one is short, easy, completely do-able, and yet...a real BOOK!  It sounds like a great confidence builder, and great practice normalizing book reading. I also suddenly remembered reading on someone's blog once that they had a kiddo who, too, lacked the confidence to read a real book. This blogger--and I wish I could remember who it was!--wrote out every word on one page as a flash card, had the kid read those, then ordered them just as they were on the book page, had the kid read those, and only THEN presented the kid with the actual book and the actual page that she wanted him to read. This is also pretty brilliant, since we could spend days working through the actual words in the book, I could stagger the words that I know will be frustrating, and then, after having done all the hard decoding work already, Syd could have the satisfaction of reading an entire book smoothly and easily, just as she most wants (and expects she should be able to, sigh) to do.

This will likely wait until after our road trip, however, which is in just a week and a half. Until then, Syd's pretty happily working through the Montessori Green Series and a book of little reproducible easy reader mini-books (she copies them, fills in the blanks, illustrates them, staples them, and reads them over and over to anyone that I can force to listen to her--they've got some decoding to be done, some composition, some storytelling, and lots of great repetition and confidence-building in the reading). I might just hide the public library's reading form altogether until we're back home again (and she's forgotten that she pitched a fit and tried to throw it away), and then try my new strategies.

One day soon, this kid will be reading fluently, easily, and happily. One day soon, I'll find myself getting pissed off because she won't put her book down to empty the dishwasher, or put away her laundry. I'll gear up to chastise her, and then remember how short a time ago it was that reading was the most frustrating, most miserable thing I'd ever made her do.

And then instead of griping, I'll grab my own book, sit down next to her, and read beside her for the rest of the day.

Zooming through the Montessori Green Series

Sydney is just about a reader!

Our journey through to reading has been, shall we say... eclectic. Syd loved the Bob books... until she didn't.  She loved the moveable alphabet... until she didn't. She loved any kind of reading app on the ipad... until she didn't. I never could get too comfy in the game, never could plan for any one method to take us all the way to the finish line, because the kid would inevitably eventually decide that this way was no longer the way for her.

Only two things have remained consistent for the past two years:

1. Syd is surrounded by books. My goodness, I can't imagine children who could be MORE surrounded by books than these two children here. They have their wall of picture books, chapter books, non-fiction books, comic books, magazines, and encyclopedias in their room. They have all the picture books, chapter books, non-fiction books, comic books, magazines, and encyclopedias that belong to me and Matt to explore (except the sexy ones, which are on high shelves). They have our entire bookshelf in the living room devoted to all our library picture books, chapter books, non-fiction books, comic books, magazines, and encyclopedias. They have the library itself, which we visit two to three times a week (a few weeks we've visited up to six times, Foursquare tells me--yikes!). They have their magazine subscriptions. They have me inter-library loaning the latest Rainbow Fairies paperback for them from England (Thanks, IU Libraries!). Syd has her own CD player and her own ipod just for audiobooks; she's got our family stereo and our car stereo and the ipad for more audiobooks. She's got twenty digital books and audiobooks every two weeks from our public library's digital library. She's got me and her sister who constantly have our own noses in a book, and me and Matt to read to her, and ample time to keep her own nose stuck in a book (or, lately, a Smurfs comic book) many hours of the day
2. Syd has read out loud every day. Sometimes she's been proud to, sometimes she's been reluctant to, often she reads the same book over and over, often she succumbs to a giant temper tantrum if she can't figure out the next word, but she always reads. At least for my kids, "normalizing" something is the only way to get past certain roadblocks. If they are required to brush their teeth for two solid minutes every night before bed, eventually they will both stop pitching a giant fit about brushing their teeth for two solid minutes, you know? Even if Syd read that same damn book with "Mat sat" in it for a hundred times, she was at least practicing the notion that she is a reader.

Lately, at just the very cusp of being able to read for REAL real--as in, regular early readers that are actually interesting to a kid, not graded-level reading instruction readers that try to make something interesting out of three blends, five sight words, and all the consonant-vowel-consonant words you could ask for--I've been seriously grooving on the reading review train. Like the pedal bicycle that Syd can ride but refuses to because she lacks the confidence to try and the patience to struggle, Syd *can* read, but lacks the confidence to try and the patience to struggle. And unlike the bicycle, whose pedals we took off so that she could join family bike rides at her own level, I'm not ashamed to say that I am much more insistent, firm, and demanding with reading. I won't read her the directions on the box of macaroni and cheese or jar of soup or canister of oatmeal because I know that she can read them, even if she has to stop and throw a fit halfway through. I won't read her the directions on game cards, or the menu in restaurants, or the quiz questions on her Summer Reading Program form.

Yes, yes, I know, terrible parenting, but you already knew that.

To mediate that, though--back to the reading review train! As her life outside of school becomes suffused with reading for herself, straight into the deep end of the literacy pool, her reading lessons during school are super easy, all about going over phonograms that she already knows and adding and reviewing sight words. We love the Montessori Reading Series, and for our school lessons lately, we've been zipping through the printables of the Green Reading Set from The Helpful Garden:

I printed, laminated, and cut out the letter and phonogram cards, and kept one single, unlaminated copy of the word bank for myself. To play, I write one of the words on our dry erase board. Sydney reads it--


--and then I erase it real quick, with much fanfare and fuss. Then Sydney uses the letter and phonogram cards to build the word again from memory--

--and she reads it again after she's built it.

Syd really likes this game because it's do-able for her, so she has that happy feeling of accomplishment and mastery as she works, but it's also still a really great activity, since she's got to hold the word in her head and recreate it from memory, then read it again as her own construction.

For some reason, Willow is really intrigued by this activity, too, and likes to jump into Syd's work:

Very occasionally I can channel her enthusiasm into actually helping Syd--

But not for long, of course, because then otherwise, how would sisters fight?

The Second Girl Plays Softball

It was the day of Willow's first softball practice last year, and thus the day AFTER softball registration had closed, that Syd decided that she, too, really, REALLY wanted to play softball, too! Never mind the fact that I had probably asked her four times in the preceding weeks if she was sure she didn't want to play, and she had every time said definitely not; nope, decisions in the affirmative cannot possibly be made until it is exactly too late, because otherwise you can't sulk for an entire softball season.

And so for that whole softball season--every practice, every game--Syd was restless and bored and grumpy. She couldn't manage to find an activity to bring to settle herself, and she couldn't stop thinking (and talking!) about how she wanted to play, too, and not playing wasn't fun, and she wasn't having fun, and the only thing that would be fun would be to play softball, which we would NOT let her do, and it wasn't fair.

Sigh.

This softball season, Syd said yes and Will said no, so we still have only one softball player! And she's happy to be on that field, let me tell you:

Matt and I LOVE going to her softball games. They are a highly entertaining form of slapstick comedy. We cheer, and we clap, and we laugh our asses off:


It's VERY important to have a good sense of humor in Six-and-Under Softball.

Although a good game face doesn't do you wrong, either:

And oh, my goodness, having one of his kids on a team sport is basically Matt's idea of heaven:

Even though Willow isn't playing, she generally manages to keep herself entertained. She digs in the dirt, or cons her dad out of pocket change to buy junk food, or, mostly, does this:

The experience is going about as well as it possibly could for everyone, thank goodness. Syd's enjoying herself, doing pretty well, not fixating on her failures (this alone makes softball a great experience, and a big deal), and learning all that good sporty stuff. Her sister is cheering her on and keeping herself busy. Her dad is thrilled.

And her mom is getting a LOT of reading done there on those bleachers.

Sunday, Unexpected

Sometimes you start out with a typical Sunday, no plans, lots of home-time. Maybe you'll finally get through that entire sink full of dishes. Maybe all the laundry will be folded. Maybe you'll do some baking. Maybe you'll order that chicken coop kit off of the internet.

Holy smokes, the shipping for that chicken coop kit is almost as much as the chicken coop! So you shift into research mode, get the numbers for all the big farm and ag stores within an hour or so from your house, and delegate the telephoning of said farm and ag stores to the husband.

And lo! The Rural King an hour away has exactly one chicken coop kit left, in the receiving department, not even on the floor yet! Huzzah!

The husband offers to go and buy the coop, but you, imagining an afternoon that is now not the family afternoon of your fantasies (Bike ride! Softball in the park! Dishes! Laundry!), insist that an hour's drive to Columbus, Indiana, is the perfect way for the family to spend a Sunday. You can listen to an audiobook in the car! You can stop on the way back for a hike in Brown County State Park and a visit to the nature center! You can check out the chicks in the Rural King!

The husband agrees (resignedly, perhaps, since HE likes to listen to AM sports radio in the car), you force the girls into clothes and shoes, you pack lunches and the microscope and an audiobook retelling of the Battle of Gettysburg, the kids pack books and toys and headphones so that they don't have to listen to an audiobook retelling of the Battle of Gettysburg, and you're off!

Wow, that audiobook retelling of the Battle of Gettysburg sure is vivid!

Wow, those kids can sure eat a LOT of apricots!

Rural King is, of course, uhMAZing. Poor Matt is left to negotiate the Great Coop Purchase while you and the girls hold baby chicks and check out the horse tack and try to figure out the soonest length of time before the girls will need new cowboy boots (the girls are not best pleased by even your most generous estimate).

Loading the coop kit into the car requires removing one of the back seats and then putting it back, and some swearing, but eventually it's done and you're on your way out of town when--what the heck is THAT?!? Is that seriously an insanely giant glass-fronted indoor playground right downtown? The van basically squeals to a stop so you can all go and check it out.

Holy smokes, it IS an insanely giant glass-fronted indoor playground right downtown!

And thus an hour passes quite amiably. You and your husband get to actually, you know, talk, without having to say anything in Pig Latin, and the children are pretty happily occupied, too:

The children are deliciously tired as you get back into the car, but, being children, they're all revved up to go again by the time you enter Brown County State Park, buy your season pass (Another item checked off of the to-do list! Woot!), visit the nature center, and figure out which hike you want to do.

Mile and a half, to the lake and around the lake and back again, uphill and a shit-ton of stairs all the way back, so yay for healthy exercise (is what you tell yourself). The hike has ravines for the kids to run up and down, and the lake has huge bullfrogs to spy on, and water to "fall" in, and tadpoles to hunt, and a conveniently tossed-aside empty water bottle left by some horrible litterer that is actually perfect to transport the tadpoles home in, and you only have to hike off-trail to pee once. 

You contemplate stopping for dinner on the way home, because the hour grows late-ish, and you DO drive right by that one ice cream shop, but common-sense prevails, for one of the components of Sunday pre-road trip, back when it was just your typical family day at home, was chicken in the crockpot for dinner. So chicken you have, you force children into the shower, you zoom them off to bed, and then you settle yourself down with a lite margarita (yes, you do drink those now, and you don't care what the haters say about diet alcoholic beverages, because you like them just fine, thank you) and the newest episode of Doctor Who.

Which, can we talk about for just a minute? I just need to tell you that in the 50th anniversary episode, I really, really, REALLY want there to somehow be yet another rip in the universe so that we can see a happy Rose and 10.5 and their four children traveling around and solving mysteries in a TARDIS grown from a piece of coral that the Doctor/Donna secretly handed off to them before they left.

And also? I know people love River, but I'm over her. Over. Her. I never liked that plot, where Amy and Rory didn't get to raise their own baby, and Rory didn't even get to hold the real version, just the flesh copy that they thought was real at the time, and instead their infant was raised by Silence creepos and turned into a psychopath who's redeemed as an adult by the love of her parents and her love for the Doctor, and I don't buy the Doctor falling into a relationship with River because even though she's all "Spoilers!", she is continually spilling info about his future with her, and he HATES that sort of shit, and couldn't it have just been a well-crafted plot on her part in the first place to put it into his head and manipulate him into being with her?

That is all.

My Latest over at Crafting a Green World: A DIY Balance Bike, and a Vintage Embroidered Pillowcase Refashion

a tutorial for converting a pedal bike into a balance bike

and a tutorial for converting a pillowcase into a summer top

with much bonus chick footage, apparently

 

In other news, the fabulous food pantry where we volunteer has big, wonderful changes afoot: it's moving to another, much larger space! With that space, it will be able to be open more hours, so patrons will no longer have to stand in line outside waiting to shop; it will be able to stock more food of a wider variety, giving patrons more options and power to make their own food choices; it will be right on a bus line, making it less stressful for many patrons to get there; it will have a bigger parking lot, so patrons in vehicles won't have to waste gas circling the block or risk getting a ticket; and it will just be BETTER, with a teaching kitchen on-site, loading docks, a pallet jack (my back says hallelujah to that!), walk-in storage coolers and freezers, and a small demonstration garden.

The pantry isn't *quite* as close to us anymore, but it's still not that bad at just about a mile. I'm fixing to go make the girls sandwiches for lunch, and then we're going to head down the road that mile to an orientation in the new space.

And, and, AND...

We're all going to ride our bikes!

A Scene from the "School Room"

Embrace the chaos!