6-29-06

We just returned from Asha's friend, Sophia's house We had never been before and when we drove up Maya said, "It looks like Joy Adams' house!" Joy Adams was the woman who raised Elsa the lion cub in the African bush in the 1950's (I think). We watched the movie "Born Free" that was filmed on location in the 70's. Sophia and her mom live in an old bus and a seies of tents - one for sleeping, one for the shower, one for the kitchen, etc. situated among the hale koa trees and it really does feel a bit like the movie looked. The big excitement of the visit was the 2 kittens who were born at Auntie Liz's but now live with Sophia. The 3 girls played with them the entire visit. Very tolerant cats!
Now Cyrus and Maya are navigating the ditch in the small kiddie pool. Much to mine and Billy's surprise it does float and they have taken to spearing prawns from it as they paddle and pole it along with a long bamboo pole.
No horseback riding today as the horses are all being vaccinated this morning so C=M will both go to golf and I have promised to read "Prince Caspian" if they finish at the dich before we go.

6-28-06

The wooden train set emerged for the first time in a long time today and by mid morning an elaborate track had taken over the living room. This evening I noticed that the puzzletown box is out too and slowly villages are coming to life. We are reading the "Chronicles of Narnia" series right now so most often any role playing involves the characters from those stories and the playmobile knights have been added to the train set up as the kings and queens of Narnia.
We were late to meet Asha's friend, Sophia, at the park today because I am running on slow mo and then we ended up picking up the Andrew's kids and bringing the boys' bikes with us too. Yesterday we completely missed Asha's ballet class because I somehow lost an entire hour and didn't even realize we were running late until we were half way over the maountain road! Luckily Asha was not devastated like I feared she would be but decided instead that she would just ask Miss Heidi if she could do Maya's class instead. She did and it was fine. Maya had already planned to ask if she could try the next level class as she is feeling "bored" by her class. The next level is much more technical and serious with lots of bar work and Maya LOVED it! We'll see if Miss Heidi thinks she should continue.
The other day Asha came home from her last day at Miss Liz's all excited because she had held baby Isabella for the first time - before this only big sister, Moorea, had been allowed to do so as she is the oldest. Asha informed me that she was big now and old enough for us to get our own baby! She wanted to know when we could go get it and did we have to go to Kona to do so? I told her that babies take a long time to grow in mommie's tummies and she pulled the photo of me at the beach pregnant with Maya off the fridge and asked if that had taken a long time to get that big. I said yes, but that I was done growing babies in my tummy. She said, "OK, so where are we gonna get our next one cause I am big enough now!" And it is true, we seemed to have crossed some invisible threshhold where life is feeling easier in some sense. Like we are leaving the "little one" stage behind. It is bittersweet, but a bit more sweet than bitter.
We had our first successful indoor Monarch emergence today. The chryssalis that we watched form will be next. It was amazing how fast the in and out of the chryssalis happens. We watched it form in less than 10 min. It was sweet to hold the newly emerged butterfly and feel the heavy wettnes of it's beautiful wings brush against your skin. We put it in Edgar's cage so it will have crown flower as it gets ready to fly and will release it outside tomorrow morning.
Aikido and tennis today. Cyrus brought home the entry form for the Mauna Kea tournament in July and is going to play in it for the second year. Maya is getting ready to test for her 9th kyu in Sept already when we return from the mainland.
I keep thinking about "Where the Red Fern Grows" and how well it portrays an unschooling life in so many ways. I am especially taken with the adults in the story and how they support and love this boy so unconditionally. There are many beautiful examples of adults taking a young boy's life and loves seriously and meeting him where he is and helping him facilitate what he needs and the amazing way that in doing so everyone gets what they need. It is no surprise that with the gentle and caring adults as his examples, the grown up Billy is gentle and caring. He always knows that he has the adults in his life on his side and they prove it again and again. I was also struck by how openly and often Billy cries in the story. Tears of joy, releif, pain, sadness, loss, unusual in a story about a boy coming of age, yet he is never chastised for it when it is witnessed. It is a story I have always wanted to read, but had I read it any sooner, I'm sure these would probably not be the first things about the story that would have struck me.

6/27/06

The day began at the Kohala hospital so that I could have my blood drawn before eating. I have been so tired and hope that this testing will help find some answers. The kids ate potato chips in the car for breakfast because by the time I was ready to go they were all STARVING! A frequently abused term at our house IMHO! Cyrus and Maya's regular morning phone calls to check in with the Andrew's and Martin kids resulted in an invite to Naomi whose parents were in Hilo. We ended up bringing Josh back too and after light saber fights, a hunt for and introductions to Edgar the Jackson Chamelion, trampoline dramatics and some time spent trying to fix some things on the old iMac which resulted in them watching some funny old home video all of the kids are at the ditch where they are testing the seaworthiness of the small hard-sided kiddie pool as they attempt to pole it downstream with a long bamboo pole! The ditch is low today - only about 1 foot of water - which may seriously hamper their efforts!

Yesterday we went to Kona for my Appt with Dr. T and listened to "Where the Red Fern Grows" on tape - it was exactly the length of the car ride! And it is a book I'd never read either. What a fantastic sounding childhood - it even made coon hunting sound great to me! We stopped (a little late) at hula on the way back because Asha couldn't stand to miss it! Maya got a new Hula skirt last week that she hadn't worn to class yet and was adamant that she would NOT go without going home to get it first!!- but if we had we would have missed it completely. In the end she went right in when we got there and joined right in - But not without first registering her compaint!

Off to Waimea for Ballet in a while - maybe Cyrus can stay with the Martins when we drop them off. Otherwise I'll remind him to bring a good book- he seems to be reading several at time right now - just like I do!