My Girls

My girls have been a source of amusement to me lately, so I thought I'd share their latest antics.

Cassie, my youngest, is 6 1/2 and is lovable, cuddly and at the same time a wild gal. She is my jump roper and attends a class once a week to perfect this art. She climbs trees and ladders as high as she can go (much higher than mom is comfortable with). She can hula hoop and skip with a hoop and do other fancy tricks. She would rather teach herself how to jump backwards and do cross over tricks with her jump rope than to work on endurance techniques. She's six. She wants the fun stuff.

She is also incredibly perceptive and has a vocabulary far beyond her age. Once when she was 4 we were driving through a parking lot and some kids were playing in the parking lot area where cars were driving. Looking around she said, "It is very inappropriate for children to be playing here". All I could do was agree wholeheartedly. She is not afraid to speak her mind.

So yesterday, while I was toweling off after Water Aerobics, she said, "Mom, why do you exercise?"
"To get skinny" I replied.
She looked me up and down and then said, "Well, it's not working." I nearly died laughing. I could see this coming from a mile away.

My other daughter, Stephanie, is 14, going on 15. She is becoming an independent lady. She has been attending a youth group at a local baptist church for the past few months and is really enjoying it. Today she told me that they were planning a paint ball event soon. She actually expresses a desire to go!

I'm thinking to myself, "Is this really my daughter? Or is she my husband's daughter?" More like the truth. Thankfully she has a strong dad who isn't afraid of a little fun that involves running. I was never good at running......but this isn't about me!

So while pondering my daughter's courage, my husband pointed out to me an important fact I had not considered. This summer Stephanie is going to spend time with her best friend from 2nd grade, whom she hasn't seen for 6 years. She has some trepidation about this because her friend is planning all kinds of activities that sound a little more daring than my daughter's normal slow walks on the beach, and the occasional water park day. So my husband's premise is Stephanie wants to do the paint ball thing in preparation for her visit with her friend! Kind of a "gear her up and toughen her up" event. Aiy!

So here's to my two girls. So different from their mom. Yet with many great qualities. And they did inherit some stuff from me. Like writing and art.

A Day in the Life of Cassie

Yesterday was such a great unschooling day for Cassie, my youngest daughter, that I thought I'd share what she did.

Cassie woke up around 9am and immediately started to be bothered by her older brother Eric. Typical conversation emanating from their shared bedroom consisted of "Errriiiicccc!" and "Casssssssiiiiieeee!" as they greeted each other and complained about whatever the other one was doing. Not to be daunted for long though, Cassie bounced out into the living room where she gave her dad a very long morning hug. On the table she spotted her "passport" from the previous day's geography fair that she attended with the Guam Homeschoolers.

"Did you know I have a passport to go to the moon?" she asked her dad, then eagerly showed her the "moon" sticker she had in her passport booklet. Her dad was notably impressed.

Around 10am, I loaded the kids into the car to make the drive into town and to my driving school office. On the way, Cassie sat quietly in the back seat, looking out the window and singing along to the songs on the CD I was playing (Voltaire in case any one is wondering). I love listening to her sing to herself.

At the office, the usual "I'm hungry" complaints began, so I told the kids to make themselves ham sandwiches. I love that they are at an age that, for the most part, they can feed themselves. For the next three hours, Cassie contentedly amused herself in various activities. She found the Story time Felt dolls we had used the night before at our display of international costumes. So her first play involved these dolls and a felt board with a meadow and trees as background. For at least a half hour she occupied herself with these, singing, telling stories to herself, making up situations for the dolls to dress up in different costumes. I was busy inputting receipts and clearing out my inbox so didn't catch all that she was saying, but I could hear her little voice prattling away.

A while later I looked over at the table to see what she was up to and found her occupied with a microscope. She was intently setting it up all by herself (I had first showed her and her brother how to use this very cheap microscope about 3 weeks prior). She figured out how to shine the light so she could see through the lens, change slides and find things to look at. I wasn't sure if she really had it set up properly until she came over to me and said, "Did you know salt looks like a square?" She then bounced off to find more things to look at under the microscope. She even went out to the beach and brought in some sea weed, sand and other interesting items she found. Unfortunately Eric finally noticed what she was doing and had to get in on the action and refused to let her show him how it was done. The two of them are so different in this way. She is willing to listen and follow directions, and Eric is like a bull in a china shop, barging his way in, knocking stuff over and then wondering why it doesn't work for him, refusing to listen to any form of instruction. So after separating them, Cassie was able to finish up some of her experiments in peace.

Some other things she did included drawing pictures, looking at some scholastic book fliers and picking out books she wanted, making herself a bowl of oatmeal as an afternoon snack, riding her bike behind the building, and playing at the beach. She also played some on the computer, once Eric gave up his spot.

At home in the evening, after eating dinner, she practiced her jump rope, played with her hula hoop (where she has learned to hula for at least 6 or 7 turns now), watched a few episodes of Corner Gas with me (wonderful Canadian sitcom), and then fell asleep laying on top of me on the couch. It won't be long before she is too big to do this, so I treasure these moments.

And that was a very typical day in the life of Cassie, my 6yo.