Exciting News

Well, I have a lot of news to share. First up, I got food poisoning! This was my own stupid fault, for walking past a plate of pork BBQ that had been sitting out on the counter for several hours and thinking, I shouldn't let that go to waste. I spent from 2:30 Wednesday afternoon to 6 am Thursday morning throwing up. Yesterday I was flat on my back sipping liquids. Steve and a variety of different babysitters have ended up doing almost all of the children's school this week, what with the FunFit classes and then me being sick. The corn necklace activity from Earthways was a huge hit with Leah. She was so proud of herself and they really are so beautiful! The sack race was fun for Leah and Natalie but too hard for Rebecca. We have postponed corn husk dolls until I am 100% up and running.

For those who have been searching high and low for The Yoga Garden Game, I finally found a company who is still selling it! Natalie came home from school with a Montessori catalogue (For Small Hands) and there it was on page 34. They also sell a lot of cooperative games, like the Orchard Game, Granny's House, and Princess. These are standard Waldorf catalogue offerings. I would recommend this catalogue to any family with young children, whether you consider yourself Montessori or not, because they have a wonderful collection of child-sized cooking tools, gardening tools, and housecleaning tools, as well as wooden knives, forks, and spoons, craft kits (like rolling beeswax candles) and other cool stuff. We placed a BIG order, since 15% of our order is given back to the school in the form of a gift certificate so they can buy classroom supplies. And I now have a stash for upcoming birthdays for a year or two. I especially loved the Fish Bank. Natalie actually needs a place to keep her money, now, since she won a dollar at the County Fair for her 4-H project! It was a glass stone with a picture of a pelican glued to the bottom. I am not sure why, but they gave her a ribbon and a prize. She was pleased as punch.

I am also thrilled to report that Steve and I will be going to the Whole Parent, Whole Family conference in Boulder CO later this month. We have never been able to afford to go to Rahima's conferences before, but we got a "scholarship" since Steve is doing some of the audio recordings for her. He is free, I am half-price, and we also get a full set of the recordings made at this conference! We made our flight and car rental reservations online yesterday (we are flying into Colorado Springs Airport instead of Denver because Steve has some weird thing about the Denver runway) and will be staying at the Boulder International Hostel. I am super super excited about this. It will be a good hands-on look at compassionate parenting skills (something we both need to work on) and I am trying to divide my workshop choices between homeschool skills and parenting skills. Keynotes are "Integrating Brain, Body and Heart: Revelations from Recent Brain Research" by Tim Burns, "Fostering and Preserving Your Child's Creative Spirit" by Regina Mason, and "The Rebirth of Play" by Joan Almon. I also signed up for

"Hands-On Math for the Early Grades" with Barbara Dewey
"Handwriting as a Transformative Tool" with Jennifer Crebbin
"Creativity and Discipline: Discussion Session" with Regina Mason
"Storytelling" with Barbara Dewey
"Passionate Parenting" with Lori MacKinder

I initially wanted to take "Knit a Unicorn" (see VIDEO!) with Kristi Karima Burns, but Steve kept pointing out that I can knit at any time and if we're spending hundreds of dollars to go to this conference (courtesy of him doing some weekend side work, a major computer cabling job that took days and days -- thanks Steve!) I should get something out of it that I can't get at home. But the unicorns will be on sale at the vendor tables and I'd like to get three, one for each girl. I'd also like to get a copy of Kristie's book My First Herbal: Learning Herbs through Fairy Tales at the vendor tables, if available. She has a workshop to go with this one but, again, if I can get the gist of it by buying the book, I would rather just buy the book and do a different session. I chose the Vimala Alphabet for session B. I am very excited to learn about this -- I have been considering changing my handwriting for a while now (Steiner recommends this to help with personal growth) and learning about a new alphabet should be really inspirational. Jennifer Crebbin, who teaches that session, also has a book out (in this case I will buy the book and attend the workshop; in the case of handwriting, I think I would gain a lot out of seeing it in practice). If you are interested, it will be carried shortly by Steiner Books and is called Supporting Soul Development Through Handwriting: The Waldorf Approach to the Vimala Alphabet.