Music, music, music.....

Well, this week I'm participating in the unplugged project at Unplug Your Kids. The theme is music and I have a long video of Olivia singing a spring song that I wanted to share with you but I can't get it off my camera. Since it has taken me 3 days to even be able to attempt to get the video off my camera I have decided that I had better post some pictures of the jam session. I will keep trying to get the video up here.

Sitting in the 1st Spring Sun

Sitting in the 1st spring sun and watching you play,

Right now no one is as lucky as me.

I can truly see you for who you are,

~one a talkative, busy, animal lover

~the other a quiet, agile, explorer

Although I often dream of a home belonging to us

I wouldn't ever trade that for today (or any day) spent with you.

I have been really wrestling with my perceived need for a larger income so we can buy a house lately and have been considering getting a job somewhere. I have also been wondering if maybe I should just put the girls in school and increase the bottom line a bit. Really saying no to a free Waldorf education where Dada would be up the hall is quite hard some days. Today I was reminded of why I shouldn't do that :).

I have never claimed to be a good poet (or a poet at all for that matter) but this morning while the girls played around me and I sat in the sun I was moved to compose this. I thought I'd share it with you.

Of Felted Balls and Swimming Lessons

Today Olivia started a new set of swimming lessons. I know that I only briefly mentioned the lessons so I will catch you up........

She really wanted to take lessons. She has never really done anything with a stranger without me before (what most children experience when they enter pre-school) and she did not fair well when in the middle of her first ever lesson the instructor played a "bubble monster" game. After that we had a few lessons that started in tears. I offered for her to stop taking the lessons but she insisted that she really wanted to. In total there were 10 lessons by the end of them all she ever talked about was her swimming lessons. She LOVED her instructor and was so psyched to take more lessons.

Today she started the new set. She had been warned that there may be a new instructor and said she knew that and that hat was fine, although she would prefer to keep the same one. There was a new instructor and she started the lesson in tears again. It just breaks my heart to see her crying on the pool side. She knows that I would never make her stay in the lesson. She could have walked away anytime but she chose to sit on the edge of the pool crying.

At times like these I start thinking: Am I failing her? Do I need to just push her into uncomfortable situations so she gets desensitised. I know my mother, and most other members of our society, would recommend these things but they just don't sit well with me. In the end after I had spent a great deal of time worrying she was smiling and having a grand old time. I wish that I could just be the strong, self assured parent who never doubts herself but I guess no one is 100% sure of their parenting choices all the time.

On a brighter note I have finished the needle felted ball I was talking about in my last post. It is the first in what will, hopefully, be many such balls. Some of the balls will be intricate and some won't. Here it is, the first needle felted ball for my shop.

I hope you like it as much as I do. Oh and here's a sneak peak at what I will be listing tomorrow. I love this ball.

That is enough talk about my shop for a while. I promise to get back to posts about my regular life now.