The Ages I've Got Now & What They Entail

Recently my sister, Utah W, sent me some links to great creative play blogs. To say they're great would be a total understatement. They are gold. Especially for me. I have a five year old who likes to spell and play numbers games, and then, beneath him I have a three year old and two almost two year olds, who need entertainment and stimulation. If the whole group is going to function in  a peaceful, happy, and progressive way, I need not only a plan, but a rotating schedule to accommodate the needs of both my older son, and my younger girls. I'll clarify: while the two older kids have kind of become each other's "twin" or team mate, during unstructured play, the line of division between ability levels splits the group differently during other activities like arts and crafts, or homework. The three little girls are all toddlers, kind of, while SA is nearly six, and capable of lots of higher level thinking games, etc. Chess for example, is right now his favorite thing. The little girls obviously can't relate. The little girls, on the other hand, love walks in the stroller. SA would rather not. Its tricky to satistfy everyone, simoltaniously, and if we're honest, it always has been.

I was telling my friend, Michelle, this morning on our walk that one of the things I think people most frequnely misunderstand about Jed and my lifestyle is the schedulle we keep the kids on. It seems strange to others that we work carefully with the clock, but really, if I am to keep the best mom to child ratio, then its important that naps and bedtimes are stagared just so, and that during each childs lowest ratio time that I am able to connect, teach, love and enrich to the best of my ability and resources. Schedule tricks are one of my best weapons in my arsenal of great parenting. People beyond young parenting years, or people who haven't had four children in less than four years, don't get it when I say no to activites that comprimise naps, or take tired people places they don't want to go.

Anyway, historically, I've always lived at least half my life out and about, leaving at least once every day, almost every day hitting a park or shopping somewhere, or doing a playdate. If you've followed my blog these past few years, you've seen I love farms, zoos, etc. But right now, with the babies the ages that they are, about 22 months, and my newly three year old CC, its been getting trickier. The whole group does better without any kind of indoor stroller time. There goes the shopping outlet. And the weather has been a titch bad. So we've been mostly indoors. Also, dont forget that one person is in half day kindgergarten, so our window for adventrue pre-naps is much shorter than before. And there are lots of sick kids around, so even with jackets, I dont really want to go to the park. Lets just say, I've been on the hunt for some new at home ideas for little kids.

 I've really liked looking at the blogs Utah Wen. referred me to. My favorite is Imagination Tree, which you can find in my blog roll. This morning when SA was at school, the girls and I made her moon dough. It was incredible. I dont want to spoil that post, so Ill just leave it at that.

Anyway, just in case its not coming accross, Im running whats kind of like a small preschool here. Its logistically really complex. Its important I dont miss a beat. I need to have things ready in advance, and be full of new ideas to feel like Im doing my job the best that I can. All I can say, is thank heaven I found vitamin B12. Together we can do anything.

The pictures on this post are things I was drumming up before I explored my sister's blogs. You can see I was nearing the end of my good ideas right about when the rain started to fall last week. It was time for something new.
Expect more "things to do-ish" posts to come " :)

SA thought of making crowns from found objects (thats my visual art training coming though in my vocab ;). His was pretty cute.


One rainy afternoon we made book towers. We were the builders, the babies were the breakers.



I really try to get the kids outside whenever I can, and one day the two bigger kids wanted to make a club house. They actually fashioned a working boobytrap made with ballanced sand buckets. When one gets lifted, a beam pops up and warns the occupants of an intruder. Clever. CC used a paintbrush and a cup of water to "paint" the whole thing before SA wrote the No Trespassing on the front.