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Wow! It's 2009

It just keeps rushing by. How did we arrive at 2009? Along with the New Year, I'm seeing big changes in Levi. He has had a sudden rush into "big kid-ness." Suddenly, he is "too old" for his hat and gloves with the Batman symbol on them, has announced he wants "plain" pajamas--no more of those juvenile designs on them, and has taken a sudden step away from his stuffed animals. Adam was snuggling with Levi in bed the other night after their reading time. Adam told me that finally Levi kicked him out so he could turn his light back on and read!

Levi is approaching what Waldorf calls the nine-year change, a time that the child first truly experiences himself as separate from the world, giving new rise to fears, criticism of adults, and loneliness. He hasn't' quite started rolling his eyes yet or saying directly that we (his parents) are stupid but we're getting close. I'm hearing "Moooooommmm" a lot more than I used to!

Oh, goodbye little boy!

Levi's Doings

Levi's program celebrated a Fall Festival and All Soul's Day/Halloween. At the Fall Festival the kids did a play depicting part of the Legend of Hiawatha. If I read this story in my past, I have forgotten it. Again, I'll recommend reading it. It's a powerful story about forgiveness. Hiawatha and Degondaweda forged a peace and confederation of formerly warring tribes that our founding fathers turned to when they designed our government.

At the festival, we are also able to enjoy the fruits of the kids' labor. We left with a goody bag of elderberry syrup, calendula salve, essence of chicory, and honey and comb from the program's hives. They syrup was made from elderberries picked on the farm and then cooked along with other herbs and spices to make a healing syrup. For the salve, the kids soaked calendula and comfrey in olive oil, strained it for the essence of the flowers and then combined with beeswax to make a salve good for applying to cuts, burns and scrapes. The chicory essence is a general pick-me-up and said to give one a "glad heart."

Each of the kids also came home with a bowl they had made from a gourd. The outside was decorated by wood burning. On the inside, they glued vegetable-dyed gourd seeds and Indian corn kernels. The seeds were further held onto the bowl with melted beeswax that then hardened over the seeds. They also made rattles--carved the stick handles, soaked and stretched animal skin, sewed it with rawhide string and put corn kernels inside to make it rattle.

Lions and Tigers and Bears, Oh My!

Okay, so we're missing the tigers. But not much else. This is the sign I found on our neighborhood bulletin board a few days ago:

RESIDENTS OF LOP

PLEASE BE AWARE--

A MOUNTAIN LION AND A BEAR HAVE

BEEN SEEN ON THE WEST SIDE OF THE LAKE

IN THE LAST 2 DAYS

Now, I have to be honest that I find this more intriguing than frightening. I would LOVE to see a mountain lion in the wild--provided I knew I would be safe which, of course, I can't be provided. Its exciting to me to live in a place where the wildlife is still there--right there!

We do not let the kids or dog go outside alone after dusk. And we've learned, thanks to a CD by a local musician who sings for kids, what to do if we encounter one:

Remain calm (right!)

Back away slowly and don't turn your back

DON'T run

Make yourself look as large as possible by spreading out your arms and waving

Yell

Throw rocks, sticks or anything available if the lion becomes aggressive

Fight back if attacked

They are actually elusive creatures who are not seen all that frequently except that the spring time seemed to bring several of them into town. They are most active dusk to dawn but they do hunt during the daytime too.

Study up so you'll know what to do when you come visit!

Michaelmas

One of the center points of Waldorf education is the natural world and our connection to it. Waldorf schools celebrate the passing of the season with seasonal festivals. Michaelmas is the fall festival. It gets its name from the story of St. George and the Dragon. If you don't know the story, it's worth reading because I cannot do it justice here. So . . . the really, really short and non-poetic version is that George, a knight, is called on to save a princess from a dragon that is terrorizing the village. The villagers have been feeding it sheep, then their own children to appease it. It seems that next, the king's daughter will be sacrificed. George fights the dragon. In some versions he calls on the angel Micheal to help him and he either slays or tames the dragon.

Metaphorically, the Michaelmas celebration is about the coming of the dark (less daylight) and about us entering and battling our own darkness and dragons. None of this is said the the children. They experience the story directly.

So . . . the little kids each went on a quest to mark Michaelmas. One at a time, the children were dressed in a golden cape and given a sword. They then crossed a river of flame (a shaking red play silk), crossed an icy raging river (blue play silk the ran down a wall into a bed around a tree), crossed the dragons spines (a set of low pilings on the playground), and rescued the princess. After the rescue, the were each knighted and had a star bestowed upon them. The stars ones the children had each "stitched" (as Oliver insisted, NOT sewed) out of yellow felt with beautiful blanket stitching around the edge. My child can sew? The blanket stitch? Cool.

They were all so proud of themselves. The celebration ended with an all-school picnic on the campus.

They Weren't Looking Where I Was Going

Yesterday, Oliver came dashing into the house holding his hand out to me. He had a big scrape on the heel of his hand where he had torn the skin away. He had been riding back from the lake with Adam and Levi when he crashed.

"What happened?" I asked him.

"Well, two people were walking side by side like this (he uses his fingers to show people walking along) on the road. I came up to them and they weren't looking behind them and I ran into them. Then I fell."

Ah, the egocentric mind of the 5-year old.

Sorry, but . . .

you're going to have to forgive my waxing poetic about living here for . . . well, the rest of my life. I fell in love with Colorado a long time ago when I moved here (the 1st time!) with my mom and stepdad in 1978 between my sophomore and junior years in high school. I left CO to go to school in the Northeast, chasing the quintessential New England college experience. I got it . . . and a husband. Our lives took us far and wide and I had put a return to CO in the back of my stack of wants. We both loved it here--and were married in 1986 in Aspen.

And now, many years later, we are back. Another apology--I tend to get really hokey so get out your hankies if you are susceptible to tears. I was driving back from Longmont, a small town about 10 miles east of Boulder, last Saturday on a long 2-lane country road. I watched people para-gliding, gliding, horses running through fields, all under bright blue skies and heading straight toward to mountains. Here's part of a song I heard, an old favorite of mine by Jimmy Buffett:

My old red bike
Gets me around

To the bars and the beaches of my town

There aren't many reasons I would leave

I have found me some peace . . .

I have found me a home

I have found me a home

I would give the rest of everything I own
'Cause I have found me a home

It's the small things that are big. I have my very own boulder in my back yard--several, in fact. I love to go out there in the morning, sit on my rock and drink a few sips of coffee. I love walking around the lake and seeing all of my neighbors and their dogs doing the same. I love leaving our neighborhood, turning out onto Hwy. 36 and seeing the Front Range looming. I love seeing hundreds of people on bikes--serious bikers on long-hauls and lots of people just getting around town.

The photos with this post were taken at the lake at our neighborhood. It makes me so happy to see the kids spending their time jumping off of the dock at a mountain lake, searching the beach for frogs, snakes and spiders. They also spend tons of time riding their bikes around the house on their "BMX" course. The beach at the lake is about 0.8 miles from the house. The kids love to ride their bikes down there while I walk with the dog. Then everybody (dog included) swims. I swim too, on days when I can brave the cold-mountain-lake temperatures!

We often see hot air balloons floating in the air in the early morning. Sometimes I don't notice them until I hear a loud whoosh of air, the sound of more hot air being put into the balloon. I look up to see one above me! We often see them now on our way to take Oliver to his kindergarten.

One of my goals, now that the kids are settling into their fall activities, is to start exploring some of the open space and hiking that is right our our back door. This weekend, Adam took his mountain bike to a large open space parcel just over the ridge from us called Heil Ranch. Now I'm anxious to explore there too.