Wednesday, June 20, 2012

Trees, Rats and Bathtubs

Upstairs, we have a bath and a sink which we are not changing in the foreseeable future. Noah loves bathing, but it's much too cold for Eug and I right now (and, with cold weather, our solar geyser has only been providing enough hot water for Noah. 

How do children not feel the cold??

Or the rain, apparently. Noah wanted to stay outside and play with rocks in the rain. We let him.
One tentative foray into unschooling has been to allow Noah to watch the cartoon Kipper any time he wants to. It's certainly not all the way unschooling (it's just Kipper, and he can really only watch an 8 minute clip again and again), but it's been refreshing to let go. I was a bit surprised that he really only wants to watch at the beginning of the day (maybe 8 minutes X 3, a blessing when Eug is making us coffee) and in the late afternoon (maybe 8 minutes total).

My dad came over to help cut our tree, which will make our wall collapse if it keeps growing (and prevent me from growing food in the little back area) It's so wonderful to have sun in the back now. 

Not sure if you can see the scissors in Noah's hands, but he's been helping to take the leaves off the branches-  the leaves we'll compost at my dad's, and the branches we'll put aside for a year to dry, then use as firewood.

Mushroom Pizzas. Mushrooms seem to be in plentiful supply at the moment, so I'm grilling them with tomatoes, bacon, cheese and garlic.

Observatory (note I avoid saying "our house") has a pretty serious rat problem. We have some holes in our floor, and pictured here is a potato a rat tried to drag into his home. No more humane traps. WAR.

Poor Eli. His picture follows a potato so that you get the full measure of his cuteness.


5 comments:

leah said...

Our forays into unschooling include no set bedtime and the kids don't need to wear shoes until someone yells at us. It's going pretty well so far.... but no TV. That's obviously from the devil, although I don't have any firsthand experience with Kipper ;)

Bridggymama said...

KIPPER! Awesome. love the kipper. and the pictures of your boys are adorable!!

Concrete Gardener said...

One of Eug's biggest culture shocks in Cape Town is that people go out without shoes. Of kids, he's not sure how their feet avoid getting cut since the street has broken glass (and people are always taking off Noah's shoes at the playground). Of adults walking around the supermarket barefoot, he hasn't said as much... All to say you can come here and they'd never have to wear shoes.

While I may share your views on TV I've created various loopholes in my mind, including Kipper on Youtube (for Noah) and illegally downloaded movies (for us). I wondered if it's a sign two children is our max.

Tiff said...

After reading this post, it occurred to me that my mother and father might have unintentionally 'unschooled' me.

Eli is much cuter than the potato.

Concrete Gardener said...

Tiff- I could totally see you as a product of unschooling, in the sense that you genuinely love nerdy stuff. If Noah and Eli could be as obsessed with insects/baking/English as you are, I'd consider that learning style a raging success.