October 31, 2011
Happy Boo Day
This column was originally printed in the October 26, 2011 edition of the Barrow Journal.
Happy Halloween and Turning Forty
When you’re a child, having a birthday on Halloween is a pretty cool thing. Besides cake and presents, you also get to dress up in a funny costume and go trick or treating. You get invited to parties, and though they aren’t for you, everyone pays you special attention.
When you’re an adult with children, having a birthday on Halloween is a pretty cool thing, but only because it’s easily forgotten.
My five-year-old is so excited that Halloween is coming. He decided several weeks ago that he wanted to be a ghost. Since I’m not a crafty person, we went to several stores the other day looking for a costume. Why are ghost costumes so hard to come by? Sure, we could just throw a sheet over his head, but I wanted something more creative.
We finally found a ghost costume his size, but it has a scary mask with it. He doesn’t want to wear the mask, but he’s happy with the rest of the costume. I tried talking him into wearing make-up or at least a white hat, but he doesn’t want that either. So, his costume may look a little incomplete, but he likes it, and that’s all that matters.
As for my two-year-old, I’m hoping he’ll be happy with the Peter Pan hand-me-down. Since it’s a non-frills costume (which we needed when the eldest was this age), I’m hoping it’ll work well for him too.
We’ve done a little decorating. “Little” is the key word. As I said, I’m not a crafty person, and decorations tend to stay subdued at my house. But we’re slowly adding on to them each year, and my son and I have made a bat and pumpkin out of construction paper. We strung some pumpkin lights in our activity room and a few paper ghosts on the front porch.
I’m happy to report that the small pumpkins my son grew this summer and harvested in August are still firm enough to sit on the porch without attracting flies. Unfortunately, his second crop of pumpkins is not going to be ready for the holiday. The plants are flowering right now, and I doubt they’ll survive the winter, but you never know in this unpredictable Georgia weather.
We still have to visit a pumpkin patch, attend a Halloween carnival, and read more Halloween books. But behind all this ghostly activity, I am aware that I will be reaching the summit and climbing “over the hill” on Halloween.
Once she reached the age of forty, my grandmother told everyone she was 39 for about 42 years…until the day she died. My mother takes a different approach. Sometimes she’ll tell people she’s older than she really is because she wants them to think she looks great for her age.
At least for now, I don’t mind telling people I’m forty. I think I’ve earned my age, and I’m looking forward to this next decade.
Perhaps some will argue with me (and I welcome that because I’m still learning on this journey), but I think by the time you are forty, finally you have a grasp of the myriad of emotions, possibilities and disappointments that life offers. You have probably lived enough to see or be touched by most of them.
At forty I know I’m extremely lucky. Though I have lived through heartache, disappointment, lonely times and humbling times, I have kept healthy, and I have not suffered severe tragedy. But I’ve watched disease and tragedy touch the lives of loved ones, so I know how easily it could happen to me. I try not to take my life for granted.
Not all my dreams have come true, and this still stings. But I hold onto this tiny card I found in the packaging of my one of my son’s toys: “You know what? Not all dreams come true. But that’s okay because you can always make new dreams.” It’s attributed to “Katie, age 4.”
It doesn’t surprise me that such wisdom comes from a four-year-old. I have gained more wisdom from rearing young children than I ever had in my previous, childless life. And the best perk of homeschooling is that I get to explore the world and learn along with them.
They have taught me that happiness is truly in the small details. It’s in the everyday routine and the little discoveries we make along the way. I think this is why I love photography too. It has given me a keen eye for small details, light and shadows. Everyday objects come alive in the right light.
If there’s anything I hope to instill in my boys as they grow older it is not to forget those feelings of wonder. I want them to hold onto their curiosity. The world begins to get darker as we grow older, but that doesn’t mean those small joys are gone.
So I’ll be sneaking candy, lighting jack-o-lanterns, and following my boys’ lead on my birthday. Hopefully there won’t be any trickery. Just smiles, giggles and treats.
Happy Halloween to all of you! May you receive lots of treats and no tricks this holiday.
October 21, 2011
The Ultimate Field Trip: Edisto Island, South Carolina
I usually don’t share so many photos, but I can’t help myself. Recently I had the opportunity to take my boys to Edisto Island, South Carolina for a few days. I think vacations can be the best learning opportunities of all. This trip was no exception: from learning patience (the first day was stormy) to getting to touch real, live ocean animals. Anyone who follows my blog will know that my five-year-old has always been crazy about ocean animals, so this trip to the beach was extra exciting.
We’ve been to Edisto Island once before when he was one-year-old, but I’m so glad we got to go back now that he’s five. And it was my 2-year-old’s first trip the ocean too, so that was really exciting too! If you’d like to learn more about the island and our visit, please click over to my newspaper column at the Barrow Journal. Below I’m going to share some of our photos and discoveries. Thanks for taking a peek!
One lucky thing about the storm was all the shells and critters that were washed ashore! Above is a horseshoe crab. (It was not alive.)
We found so many shells.
The starfish were so cool.
The condo we stayed in overlooked a lagoon complete with an alligator (we only saw him once), beautiful white egrets, blue herons, fish, turtles and mosquitoes!
We also went to Charleston, South Carolina (my birthplace). Above is a photo at the Children’s Museum in Charleston. A wonderful, inexpensive place, if you visit Charleston with your kids.
We saw lots of boats on our trip too! (Since my father loved boating, I felt right at home.)
Where are some places that you have taken your children on vacation? What kinds of discoveries did you make?
July 12, 2011
Picnic at the William Harris Homestead
The other day I took my boys for a picnic at the beautiful William Harris Homestead in Monroe, Georgia. It’s something that I don’t do nearly enough. I have written before about my connection to the Homestead. It’s also a place that I love to photograph, and I’m planning to do a another round of photos soon with my new camera. I posted more of these pictures on my photo blog, if you care to see them, but I thought I’d put a few here because the Homestead is a wonderful place for homeschoolers (or anybody!) to visit. It is a wonderful way to learn about life in the 19th century, and it’s open to the public on the 1st and 3rd Saturday of each month from 10-2p.m. You won’t want to miss Heritage Day either. It is coming up on September 24, 2011! Click here for more information about that.
The flowers are just stunning at the Homestead right now!
My eldest son was too busy picking green beans for me to take his picture, but my youngest was “trapped” in my viewfinder when he climbed into this big, wooden crate!
June 21, 2011
Just for Fun: Our Trip to Anna Ruby Falls
a dusky salamander (probably)
Yesterday, for Father’s Day, we drove up near Helen, Georgia and went to see Anna Ruby Falls. This is a great trip for kids, though, fair warning, it can be a bit touristy. (Yesterday there were a lot of people, but we’ve been there mid-week and it was very quiet.) The trail to the falls is about .5 mile long, but it’s all uphill, so it seems a little longer. It’s all paved too, which makes it stroller (and wheelchair) accessible. I think that Smith Creek, which runs along the path, is even more beautiful than the falls.
Yesterday I had my 50mm with me, which is my smallest and lightest lens, and that is why I like to take it on day trips. It’s perfect for getting up close to the flora and fauna, which is what I wanted to focus on this time. (Last year I had my wide angle and got some beautiful images with it.)
My son loves to look for the salamanders that can be found along the trail. We only saw one yesterday. (Maybe all the people scared the others away?) One of my dearest friends is a herpetologist, and she told me this salamander is probably a “dusky salamander,” but she’d have to hold it in her hand to identify it properly.
Ahem. I don’t have any good photos of my husband or kids, but that isn’t exactly my fault. They just weren’t in the mood to get their pictures taken. But I’m thankful that I have a wonderful husband and father who was willing to watch the boys and help them throw rocks and sticks into the water while I rambled along with my camera. (After all, it was father’s day. That means he gets to watch the kids, right? lol)
We love getting out into nature and taking hikes, and we’re looking forward to when the boys get older and can go on other day hikes. There are so many in the North Georgia Mountains! As much as my four-year-old loves it, however, his favorite part was going to the gift shop at the visitor center and getting a keepsake. In this case, he picked out some toys that represented the life-cycle of frogs. So that was educational!
Yes, it was a good day and “field trip.”
Lucky us, the rhododendron was blooming!
April 5, 2011
Thank You for Subscribing
I wanted to take a moment to give a heartfelt thank you to whoever noticed my recent post about homeschooling a preschooler with a baby in the house and then put a link to it on simplehomeschool.net. My daily life with a four-year-old and 19-month-old is so busy and chaotic that I don’t have time for much blogging or to promote this blog, but I felt very warm and fuzzy to find out that some people have found it and are subscribing. Thank you.
I write a weekly column for a small, local newspaper on motherhood, homeschooling, daily life and other stories. It comes out in print each Wednesday, and then they post it on their website sometime during the week, usually over the weekend. I link my columns to this site, and whenever possible, I write other blog posts on homeschooling. I have so many ideas, but oh so little time! I whittle away at my ideas each night during my precious “hour” of me-time and snatches of time I get here and there, and I’m always surprised at how much I can accomplish by using my time wisely. I think I accomplish more now than I did when I had time.
This blog has gone through many incarnations, and recently I moved it to WordPress and decided to focus it more on homeschooling, (though my columns are not all about homeschooling). There are a few people who I met online long ago when I had only one child (who blessed me with long, three-hour naps!) and when I had more time for blogging, photography and writing fiction. For those of you who are still visiting me (you know who you are), I thank you too.
Please leave me comments sometime so that I can get to know you. Homeschooling is a lifestyle and a journey, and we can all learn from one another!
