Taking a Nature Walk on an "I'm bored" Summer Day

Picture source: www.mrjacksfarm.com

It has been miserably hot here since about mid June so we have been staying inside with the blinds closed, the curtains drawn and the lights off, cave man style to save energy. We only have one family car, so Eric takes it to work and it leaves us with few options of how to fill our hours. There's only so much coloring a kid can do before she starts speaking whine-ese and repeating the phrase "I'm bored" like a broken record. She loves movies but I hate having her planted in front of the TV for hours on end so yesterday morning, before the whining could start I decided we would go take a nature walk.

Bella's "yuck" face!

Unfortunately, I didn't take pictures of us on the walk, because I was having too much fun! We just walked around the lake in our neighborhood and picked "samples" (aka leaves). I would have Bella run up and grab a leaf sample and we would talk about the tree or bush it came from, she would smell it and see if it smelled good and then we would put them in our "sample box" (the compartment in the stroller handle). After we picked a sample from pretty much every tree, bush and interesting piece of grass out there I walked her to the playground and pushed her and Vivienne on the swings, and even let Vivi go down the baby slide!

When we got home we had a snack of apples and water, and Vivi had this Dole "fruit squish 'ems" thing. I can't say precisely what it is about this thing that is so nasty, but it is just absolutely repellent. Eric bought them because we had a coupon for them, and it's essentially baby food so we thought we could take them with us when we went places and give them to Vivi, but they are gross! It might be that they have the color and texture of grainy applesauce and the odd flavor of blueberries, like, extremely potent blueberries. Whatever the issue, none of us liked it. Vivi and Bella made the funniest faces when trying it, so of course I had to try it myself. Yuck. After that I just gave Vivi an apple slice and let her use her two teeth to chomp on it a bit and gum it all up.

Bella's rubbings! I can't identify all of these - there's Juniper,
Crepe Myrtle, Red Oak, and some kind of evergreen, and I
don't know what that cat-tail looking thing is.

After snack we sat down with some paper and crayons and made leaf rubbings! We talked about each plant sample again and how to make a leaf rubbing. I had intended to press each sample and keep it for a scrap book, but Vivi got grumpy and needed to be nursed and put down for a nap and then afterwords I just forgot about them until this morning and they're all dried out! I suppose I could still press them if I had some clear contact paper or laminating sheets but I don't, and it was fun enough that we could do it again and I will save those instead.

The trick about doing something like this in the Texas heat is to do it well before noon. We left the house at 9:00 AM and got back before 11:00, and we were all still sweaty and tired! Thank God for air conditioning!

Learning the Ropes...Again

Vivienne and Isabella, April 2013

It's been about a month and a half since I started staying home with my two daughters, on purpose this time. I was a stay at home mommy for 13 months when I was unemployed between February 2010 and March 2011. I had all but given up hope of getting another job when I was hired to work for Texas PTA as the Communications Coordinator. Working for a non-profit really changed my perspective of what I do for a living. Instead of looking at things from a sales perspective, I was using my talents to work toward a goal, which seems so much more self-actualizing. I loved working there but after Vivienne was born it became a lot harder to afford daycare, and then when the tragedy in Newtown, Connecticut happened in December 2012 I developed separation anxiety and I began feeling like I needed to start spending my time with my children instead of at an office while someone else raises them. This is not to say that I feel judgement for anyone who chooses to work, I just really, very fervently wanted to be the one to raise my children, see all their milestones and teach them their first lessons in life. This is my passion, just as some people's passions are their careers.

It has been interesting so far, Bella is much more advanced than she was when I started back to work, she talks incessantly and has a wild imagination that is very entertaining for all of us! I am trying to teach her the alphabet and she has the classic bright-child problem where if she doesn't know the answer to a question she will make one up. When I point to a letter and ask her, "What letter is this?" if she doesn't know it, she will make up some inventive new letters like "Key", "Co", "Bo" and "Bum". Vivi just sprouted her first tooth, and when she's not teething is just about the sweetest natured, mild mannered, easy-going child anyone could ask for. Whenever I'm feeling overwhelmed or exhausted I can just pick her up and hold her and her serenity seeps into me and calms me down.

I hope that this blog will be the personal side of my professional blog, and I expect to be able to write more often now that I'm staying home with my sweet babies. Thanks for stopping by!