Plateaus

Every once and a while you get so that you seem to know the kids well enough to anticipate and avert possible 'trouble spots' for the day or perhaps the kids seem to know well enough the boundaries and care very little to push past them. Whatever the cause of it, I like to think of these brief periods as plateaus in motherhood. I tend to feel relatively confident in my growing skills as a mother and the children seem fairly happy with all the activities and content in my affection for them. Mind you, the operative word is 'brief'. Not too much time passes when once again I'm reminded that my children are their own little people, long before the Lord gave them to me, and I am still getting to know them and they likewise are learning to get to know their own likes/dislikes/energy or tolerance levels, etc. Before I'd torture myself with trying to figure out just what it was that turned our meandering pace into bucking bronco ride, nowadays I'm much more okay with it. I think I'm just learning to enjoy the quieter moments and see the little person I've been given and viewing the more rocky periods as a chance to learn more about them - or myself which has often been the case.

Anyhow, we managed to have a couple of fun days in a row at school, the zoo and Imagination Avenue.





Market day at Isaac's school, where their gardens were harvested and the children could sell and buy flowers, popcorn, veggies and chips with tickets they had cut themselves from construction paper.



Isaac's latest story started with George the Caterpillar from Eric Carle's story.

I managed to get a culture pass for the zoo, which meant it was a free trip - can't beat that! Keila loves animals and was a little incensed when I said they were only to look at and not to touch. When she saw the size of the typical animal, she wasn't so keen on petting anymore! ;0) Isaac wasn't so enthralled but enjoyed pretending he was an explorer just like Diego.



Isaac has the best conversations with Keila. In his very grownup voice, he explains his latest plan. This one was about digging the pumpkin out. Apparently he was delegating to a rather reluctant participant.






Finally something safe to pet! I love the shot of Keila giving the lion a kiss on the nose. The one with the wild boar is where she's rubbing it's ear, something similar to what we do to Sunshine, our rabbit. For whatever reason, it makes Sunshine shudder and then clean her face and ears afterwards.



A real animal to pet?! At long last! Keila is in heaven.

This baboon loved sitting by the window observing the absurd humans that laughed and gawked at everything she did. I suppose we did look a little ridiculous, but when do you get to see the animals at a zoo so close up? So I insisted on a picture. Isaac reluctantly moved close enough for a quick shot. The one of Keila was my attempt at what I've seen professional photographers do. Somehow they can hold the camera away at arms length while, get a perfect shot while never once looking through the lens. I was holding Keila at the time, she objected to being close to the baboon, so this was a pretty good attempt, despite the glare off the glass. I just have to chuckle at how distraught she was in the pictures since only minutes before she was mad I wouldn't let her crawl over the fence to touch the zebras!




After our morning outing, they came back in the afternoon to play happily on something Isaac terms the burrito bed. Looks cozy to me!