Ladies and Gentlemen...

HELLO~ So, last night Aiden and I had a discussion about his hair and the knots that had seemed to have taken over. His hair was down past the bottom of his back when it was wet except where it was so knotted that it looked similar to (but not as good as) dreads.

I think he had just finally had enough of it always being in his face and also not being able to run a comb or his fingers through it. So I asked him if I could cut his hair on Sunday and he said, "Well, I'm not sure." So I don't know exactly how it happened, but we negotiated our way down a long path and ended up agreeing on a haircut for a toy.

Now I know what my unschooling friends are thinking, that this goes against all the rules of respectful parenting and unschooling I know. And I know it doesn't make it better, but I've been very upset that I made that agreement with him ever since it came to be. I even discussed it with him late last night~that this somehow turned into a bribe and that I didn't want that to be why he was cutting his hair. He said he understood and said he would decide about the haircut in the morning. I told him I would buy him a toy regardless of his decision because I had already agreed to do so, but it would not be so he would or because he had cut his hair. I also already told him that we would NEVER be doing this again for a "profit" and he agreed this was a one time thing.

Anyway, he woke up this morning with a HUGE smile on his face because he was going to get a haircut AND a new toy. So now I will live with having tried to BRIBE my son into getting a haircut. Anyway, we got through the whole ordeal, and as you can see the results are pretty amazing if I must say so myself.

Grandmom is coming over for a visit tomorrow and she had offered to take Aiden to get his toy, but he just could not wait until tomorrow. So I took him to Toys R Us and he picked out some new "Fun•Keys" to add to his growing collection. I'm hoping that we can go to David's for a wonderful organic lunch tomorrow instead.

Aiden's Front Tooth

By the way, Aiden's front left tooth (from the view inside his mouth looking out) fell out yesterday. Actually, he asked me to yoink it out of his head. His adult tooth pushed the baby tooth pretty much right out. My baby...

Busy Day

My head woke up at 8:20 a.m.--VERY early for me. Keeley was up shortly after that. We went downstairs and I poured my first cup of coffee while he watched Peep, Chirp, and Quack. I asked him what he wanted for breakfast and he said banana muffins! So I started making banana muffins knowing full well Aiden wouldn't touch them. When I got them in the oven I started a second batch--this time I put in frozen strawberries. Those are Aiden's favorites. When those were ready to go in the oven the banana muffins were ready to come out and that's when Aiden woke up and came downstairs. While the second batch of muffins were baking I started cutting up the curd from the goat's milk cheese I started making last night. I got the whey strained out of the curds and into a cheesecloth to make Feta when the strawberry muffins "dinged". Aiden went right for them! (During the course of the day he ate at least 6 of them.) After the cheese curds were in the cheesecloth and hung to dry I started scooping the pulp out of the butternut squashes I had baked a few days ago. When that was done I scooped the pulp out of the acorn squashes I had baked at the same time as the butternut squashes. I had my hands on the sweet potatoes, but thought I'd better eat something before I passed out. So I cooked myself a bagel and fried egg sandwich, on top of which I put some roasted green peppers. DELISH! After I ate I unloaded and loaded the dishwasher (may have already been the second time today) and I offered the boys some food which they both turned down. MUFFINS! After I loaded the dishwasher I took the curd and mixed the appropriate amount of salt into it and put it in my homemade cheese press (two stacked round cake pans) and got it into the fridge. I then realized it was time to start fixing dinner and all I had was a stewing hen, so I had to stew a hen. Then Uncle Frankie stopped by to say "Hi!" He stayed to visit for about 4 hours. Keeley took a nap while he was here and Aiden stayed and told stories and we all talked. It was nice. Dinner: the meat was pretty tasty, but a little tough (of course) and so everyone ended up eating leftover Chinese food and cereal. I felt like I had stood up and cooked ALL DAY and we had leftovers and cereal for dinner. Oh well. It was a good day anyway. Busy, but good.

Beautiful day

I finished blowing up the dragon pool today. I started last night and when the compressor Frank gave us started to squeal and putt, I decided it needed a break. So we finished today and filled the pool with cold water. The boys had more fun with the hose than they did in the actual pool, but the water should be warm enough tomorrow to get in. Keeley just LOVES to dig up bugs. Aiden couldn't be more opposite. He'd rather not even get muddy. Two nights ago, our next door neighbor kid, Philip, came over and the three of them set up on their ends twig/branches that had snapped out of other trees. They made a little forest installation. It was so pretty (no camera close by or I would have snapped a shot). The next morning Keeley knocked one down by accident and Aiden knocked the rest just for fun. Keeley's taking a bath now to wash the mud off his body (most of his body ;) and Aiden is waiting for him to be finished because he wants to take a non-bubble bath. Oh, yesterday we all baked brownies that took about an hour to cook and they STILL weren't done. Next time we're using a cake pan instead of the square one. Still, YUM! Tomorrow afternoon we're going to the tire park to play with our other unschooling friends. I'll even do some hula hooping with my friend Beth if the boys will let me take some mommy time. Till next time...

Tuesday, June 23, 2009

Aiden decided we should write the story of our days as unschoolers, so I'm going to start with today. The boys had a very nice day of imaginary play, a few arguments that they quickly ended on their own, and lots of running, bouncing, and laughing. They had spaghetti for breakfast. No sauce, just pasta. We played "tickle monster". That's were I pretend to be a robot that tickles if the boys get too close to me on my bed. They love that game. We always get huge giggly moments from tickle monster. Keeley wanted to do a few "poofs" (that's where I fluff up my comforter so there's a HUGE air bubble trapped underneath and he jumps into it with a huge "HA!" I was able to get a few loads of laundry done while they played a Wii game together. Aiden and Keeley ran around in the back yard after dinner catching lightning bugs. It reminded me of when Ton and Roland were living with us for a few days on their way back to their homelands and they had never in their LIVES seen a lightning bug. My boys were THRILLED they were able to catch them and put them in a little jar. We looked at them for a few minutes and then Aiden counted them as they flew out of the mouth of the jar. There were 21! Keeley switched to big boy underpants today for the first time! He'll practice again tomorrow. Quite a day. I LOVE UNSCHOOLING!