Lord, That I May See

I thought I would post about some of the Montessori work that I've come up with for Turtle. I can only seem to manage thinking of and putting together one new work per month and so only have about five, all of which you'll see here. I have this desire to come up with/buy the stuff for/give lessons on about 8 more this month for when after the baby's born. Yeah, right. For this first one I saved concentrate juice lids for a couple months and then cut a slit in the lid of a coffee can. It's a bit hard to "restore" because the lid is hard to get of the can, and then, after removing the discs, hard to put back on. This one is done with bamboo skewers and a parmesan cheese shaker.

SORTING Turtle doesn't quite get the point this one yet. I think she kind of knows what she's supposed to do, but she thinks it's hysterical to combine the colors on purpose. EVERY time. SPOONING For this one, she mostly gives up on the spoon after a couple tries. Her hands work much better. :) I re-present every so often, but she like to do things HER way. OPENING/CLOSING For this one, I just collected a bunch of little things with different ways of opening and closing them. These are all the things I have, but I only but out 5 or so in a basket at a time. Sometimes I put big coins, like car wash tokens in here for her to discover. Zippers are still quite challenging. Homeopathic remedy tube and a cork in a stand I scooped the lipstick out of one of mine that I didn't like. This is a distracting one, because it the lipstick has to get applyed in the middle of the work. HOW she knows its for putting on her lips I don't know! I never wear lipstick. Jewelry cases are...

Yeah, so I know it. I'm huge. :) I have probably 5 shirts that actually fit right. People say nice things like "pop out" and "explode" and "big baby" and "any day now?" Yes, I'm just short-waisted and my husband is big -- what can I say? And no, not any day, rather I have 5 weeks left. *Sigh*

It's been a long day. My husband has been gone since 5:30am and, after a brief 5-6pm stopover at home, is gone again, till maybe 11pm. So, I was lonely today. But these are some things that made today good. ________________________________________ Dancing to Strauss in the kitchen with Turtle and her teddy bears A little companion that rolled, walked through and un-raked all the leaves I raked up in the yard A "ug" (hug) from Turtle, obligingly given when I really needed it The nice man in Blockbuster who let me have his two free movie rentals My dear husband NOT shooting a deer this morning (shh! don't tell him!) so that my pregnant-woman-raw-meat-aphobia-ness didn't have to go nuts when globs of hair-covered, practically-pulsing, red-dripping meat were carried into my kitchen and strew all over the counters and sink. Whew.

Why, when one sees cookie sheets, does one feel the need to place them (EVERY time!) on the same specific chairs and designate them "beds" for bears to go "nigh-nigh" on? Where does such an idea come from?

This post has been forming in my mind for some time now. As the year slowly ends and fades to winter I am reminded why spring is still my favorite season -- though there are fall days that make me rethink that choice. And yet, there is something, some elusive, fragile, haunting quality abo ut the fading of the year in the autumn that tugs at my heart, that awakens thoughts that are both too melancholy and too beautiful to bear. Autumn embodies the quote [that I used to have] on the heading of this blog: "Two of the greatest gifts of God to man are light and color." Light and color abound in autumn. Light so cool and crystalline and yet so warm and soft. Color so fierce and so vibrant it takes your breath away. And yet, and yet, the color and the light are bittersweet, like an ache in my heart that makes me look away that I might not fall too much in love. When this ache comes I want to stop looking, stop feeling and walk away. For nothing stays the same and autumn...

Making banana bread "Scrubbing" the stool Window washing And for really serious work, you need a really serious hat!