What the Swiss are Hiding

It's chocolate.

Did you really think I was going to talk about politics? That, like riding motorcycles without a helmet, and eating bleu cheese in the evening, are strictly prohibited.

By my husband. But he is away.

But I will be good.

Back to the Swiss: a dear friend here (who happens to be Swiss) invited the kids and me for dinner tonight. It was delicious. Those of you who know my dislike of long conversations will be surprised that I can talk with this woman for hours. I don't even know what we talk about. I just know I enjoy her company immensely. Her husband is a missionary pilot who is sleeping in the bush somewhere tonight, so we felt an immediate kinship since my husband is sleeping in a nice hotel somewhere tonight. But I'm not bitter about that.

Anyway, it was a lovely evening. Looking in her refrigerator as we prepared dinner, I noticed a slightly orange glow coming from the top drawer. Where most people keep yogurt, or leftover salami. But don't keep them together, or the salami will make the yogurt taste dodgy.

Much to my delight, the glow was caused by the chocolate pictured above. When I asked to take a photo of it, she covered up some other chocolate that was not Swiss. "Someone sent it to us" she apologized for the lesser cacao delight. I found the whole experience hilarious, and made a note to include eating Swiss chocolate in my "things to do the next time I'm a place where Swiss chocolate is available."

In other news:

The kids and I were in the banda this morning, reading and playing Dolch word bingo (if you've never played Dolch word bingo, you're missing out! It's never too late to start.) and playing a few rounds of Rory's Story Cubes.

After a few minutes, we saw this bee:

Although we just studied insects after finding another dead bee, we took a moment to study this one.

I flipped it over with my finger after a few minutes, to show the kids its wings.

And to our dismay, it started crawling around, and flew away. I kid you not. It's a miracle!

Our friend Esther came to play in the last week; she and Henry had fun feeding our rabbit. His name is Flopsy Hopsy and we inherited him from some friends who left recently.

We call him Flops, or just Flop, most of the time. We are all about syllabic conservation here.

One of my favorite things we brought with us was this hammock. It's made in a village in Mexico, where they grow cotton and make amazing hammocks from long, thin cotton threads. Pay no attention to the grammatical errors on their website. You may not fully understand this until you live in a country where you have the language of a two year-old. The hammock is amazing. And strong. All four of us can fit in it, and the kids enjoy cocooning in it while I swing them to and fro.

Henry picked some fruit from one of our trees. I can't remember the name of it (see language deficiency reference above), but it is safe, and tastes kind of citrus-y. Here he is washing the fruit before we gobble it up.

We've been following the Bible curriculum of The Gospel Project. We recently talked about Adam and Eve, and sin, and repentance (what parent of a five year-old doesn't talk about this weekly?). Here is Ruby's interpretation of the moment Adam and Eve realized their sin in the garden. At the bottom, Adam and Eve are in heaven. It is very important to Ruby that stories have a happy ending. I love that girl.

Henry is Five

He may be six by the time I post this. Poor kid.

Ruby and Henry each wanted smaller, age-specific parties this year. For Henry's, we had several of his best mates over for an afternoon of food, games and general revelry.

The kids loved fighting with water balloons. The little guy whose feet are visible in the upper left of this photo, Josiah, is super quick and never got touched, despite drenching most of the others with his great aim.

 I love this photo...Henry doesn't realize he's about to be soaked!

 Activities for the kids included a scavenger hunt, for which Myrtle, our tortoise, was supposed to be the big-ticket item. Myrtle, usually extremely reclusive, thwarted my plans by appearing in the middle of the yard in full view, before they were even looking for him.

Please pardon Myrtle's bare bottom. We're not sure what's going on there.

Fortunately, the boys were thrilled to feed Myrt a tomato.

 For about thirty seconds. Then they wanted more games.

One unplanned activity I went with, because it was happening anyway and because the boys loved it, was building a huge fort out of all our furniture, cushions and blankets. Boys are so non-complicated.

 Henry has started having tea most afternoons. Ruby often makes it for him. No joke. He prefers masala tea, black with sugar. He is very particular about the sugar spoon and the stirring spoons being separated. He is very much his father's child.

 Ruby had a sleepover with her best pal Happy on Henry's birthday, and Henry had his pal James over as well. Not one to spend excess time or money on a cake, I drew a Superman H on his cake with colored frosting we brought from the states, and he was thrilled. Boys are SO low maintenance!

 Collaborative Lego game, where each kid got a bag of legos and passed around a creation they took turns building. I love that five countries are represented by children in this photo.

 It was one of those steamy-hot days we get used to during rainy season, and it did rain on and off all day. When it wasn't, we played another water game with sponges and buckets outdoors. Must. Get. Loud. Children. Outdoors.

Ruby and Happy having a quieter moment before the wildness set in.

Our son. He's five.

Five years and some days ago, I drove myself to the hospital (after Ruby was born, we decided there really wasn't much reason to have the whole family there all day), and thirteen hours later, our sweet, strong, smart son was born. I love this little person!

It's All in the View

Caught a full rainbow this morning after the rains; when Ruby came outside to see it, she explained to me how a rainbow is made visible, and that Roy G. Biv is an easy way to memorize the colors. Then, looking at the flood in our front yard, she explained the water cycle to me. This was all before breakfast.

An hour later, we were warming up for the day (a little stretching, a little joint compression game, a little sensory work to music and dancing around), and we were kicking as we danced. Ruby, who shares my (once) super-flexible genetics, said, "Look how high I can kick!"

She proceeded to kick her right leg with such force and agility that she kicked herself in the face, knocked her glasses off and fell over. We all laughed. Hard.

The more I press into my children, spending time with them, looking them in the eyes and really listening to only them when they talk, looking at them when I talk to them...the more I spend true quality time with them, the better our relationships become. And the better our relationships become, the more time I want to spend with them.

Please understand: we are not perfect. Even this morning, between our sweet moments, we had more than one tantrum per child, a nasty argument between them, and it is still quite possible that I will be disowned as their mother or uninvited to next year's birthday parties by the end of today. We haven't had electricity much of this week, and one of our four water tanks is leaking, causing us to run out of water every 2000 liters. We just got done having a huge conversation about how we all make mistakes, and how we must learn from them and keep living life.

Even with all the shortcomings of our family and life situation, we can choose to concentrate in the fun and beautiful moments, small as they may seem. Or, we can choose to live in conflict, chaos and fear. Which will you and I choose today?

It really is a lovely road.

Birthday Week!

 Birthday week for Ruby meant all things girly, lots of indulging in what she likes (reading) and dreaming of things to come. Stretching her birthday over a week this close to Easter required some calendar wrangling, and we started a week before her birthday this year. Holy Week deserves due attention too, after all.

Friday night was the first Big Event of Ruby's week, featuring a sleepover party. Ruby helped me make cupcakes the day before, and the girls each got to ice and decorate theirs with super special toppings like chocolate chips and Reese's Pieces that you can't get here.

 And of course, everyone got to eat their candy. Which may have put a few little tummies over the edge.

 We watched Charlie and the Chocolate Factory, the old version. I like the candy tie-in and also the fact that author Roald Dahl lived in Dar es Salaam as a child and was inspired to write the story by this enormous concrete factory that overlooks the city.

The girly-ness of it all was almost overwhelming at times....

 Ruby's best pal Happiness came early and stayed late...they are so good together! This is a perfect snapshot of their friendship - they aren't always doing the same thing together, but they love each other. After the rest of the kids left Saturday morning, Ruby read one of her new books (Snow White) to Happy while Happy blew bubbles across the book for atmosphere.

 Now this is going to revolutionize Ruby's life: after months of trying, I have finally mastered French braiding. This child's thick, curly hair is tricky at best to style in tropical heat and humidity.

 Grandma sent some window clings for the kids and they've been having a ball with them.

 Great investment: the trampoline we got on sale at Game last summer has been a huge lifesaver. We are on it at least once each day. Everyday is like summer!

 School has gone on for us while the other schools are out. Don't worry - we will take a few days off this weekend. And next week. And we spend plenty of time each day playing and having fun. Who says education has to hurt?

Anyway, Henry found this artifact in the yard this week, and we put it in vinegar to try and clean it a bit. It has been working happily all day. We're on a water unit and have conducted all sorts of related experiments and activities, might as well throw a little acid in there.

It turned out to be a penny that we pressed at Conner Prairie before we moved here. I have no idea how it got in the yard, or even to Dar.

 This is homeschool - Ruby reading to Henry in the hammock. We do a lot of reading out here. Today's selection was Ruby's choice (hey, it IS birthday week!) - Robin Hood. Happy seven years to my girl!

Ruby is Seven

Reminders

This week I was reminded of where we've been with Ruby-girl, and how far we've come.

We were playing a game together, one of a set we play often that helps teach social skills. Each of these game boards has a different focus, and the one we played yesterday focused on idioms.

Usually, Ruby loves these games and begs to play one more time. Usually, she tries to stay ahead of me and finish first. Yesterday, however, she froze up after her first turn. After that, she tried to manipulate the die so that she only landed on the spaces I had just landed on and explained. Tears were in her eyes for much of the game as her chin quivered, a breath away from crying.

What was the source of her pain? You're on cloud nine! Don't spill the beans! You're on thin ice! Cut it out!

These and other sayings that are such a part of our daily life were terrifying to Ruby, because in her literal understanding of the world she has no idea what people mean by saying such things. In our game, players land on a space and explain what people really mean when they say, "Your eyes are bigger than your stomach!" or whatever the idiom.

A couple of times, her answer was, "it means they don't like you". This broke my heart as I realized how confusing life can still be for my little girl who has worked so hard for each step of progress. Social cues that are effortlessly understood by most children must be studied and learned by others. For these children (and adults!), navigating social situations can feel like an endless test they are constantly on the verge of failing.

So I sat there yesterday, trying to explain simply yet logically why someone would say, "You're in hot water!" to someone who was not actually being burned by hot water. Or why, when someone says, "Time to hit the books!" they really mean it's time to study or read, not that you should hit the books with your hands.

And I remembered other places we've been with Ruby:

• temporary bouts of paralysis
• seizures
• huge regressions in development
• specialists and tests with no answers
• being given a variety of grim labels for our child
• tears and prayers and hurting hearts
• amazing therapists of many kinds
• going on a diet the 'professionals' said wouldn't work
• seeing the diet help our daughter dramatically
• reading research for hundreds of hours
• praying and praying and praying some more
• searching for and finding a homeopath skilled in helping children like Ruby
• being amazed with the progress we saw from said homeopathy
• making great friends who share this journey

By the grace of God, Ruby's made so much progress, and I'm thankful for that. Today was a good reminder that we're not done making progress.

After that round of Idioms, there was no "Just one more game" from Ruby. I left it out, however, hoping she would look at it in her free time.

Tonight, as she and Henry were playing before bed, being silly and pretending to discipline each other, Ruby went to the table where the game board was. After a few seconds, she declared, "Henry, you're in hot water!"

My heart is a little more joyful tonight.

Field Trip: Njiani

Our little homeschool co-op is planning one formal field trip per month (one cool thing about homeschooling is that you get field trips as often as you want!) and this week we went to a local furniture designer's shop to see what she does and try our hands at designing.

After a tour of her shop, which included talking about furniture function and materials, we went outside and the kids got to draw their dream furniture. Ruby drew a very ornate throne (above) and Henry drew a series of tables and what looked to me like a wine rack. He said he couldn't tell me what it was because it was a secret.

He is a mysterious little person.

After drawing their furniture, they were given some clay and sculpted their furniture. This is Ariana's drawing and model of a gorgeous room divider Catherine has in her shop right now. The original piece is made of wood and handmade lace.

Then, just for good measure, the kids each got a wooden soap holder to sand, varnish and paint if they wanted to. Ruby got one made from coconut wood:

After a brief clean-up, we all enjoyed lunch at Njiani, prepared by Catherine herself. The kids also enjoyed playing in the large garden there. We look forward to seeing how it develops as play areas are added!

Note: As of October 1, Njiani is open Tuesday through Sunday, 7 a.m.-7 p.m.

Beach Day at School

We're in the middle of Beach Day at our new homeschool, which I hope to make a weekly event. You may think I blog an awful lot about the beach and/or ocean, and it's true that we are here quite often. But that's largely because it is the main place to go here for any kind of variety/entertainment/refreshment. The Indian Ocean has become our park, Children's Museum, Conner Prairie, Zoo, Eiteljorg, canal, White River and everyplace else that we enjoyed in Indianapolis. And really, who wouldn't like to have school with tide coming in twenty yards away? I am so excited about how well this is going!

Ruby and I came prepared with a couple of school books (The Tale of Three Trees and The First Christians) and worksheets, some observation activities and our Bible, which is bin one each day at home.

However, our day has been hijacked by a tiny, one inch long gecko lizard that somehow landed on my backpack, which was sitting upright between our lounge chairs near the beach. This little guy, named Echo by Ruby, has spent the last 45 minutes shedding his skin inches from our noses.

Beginning with his tiny toes (which Ruby reminded me are covered with thousands of tiny hairs), he used the zipper seam of the bag to slough off his leg skin, then rubbed his nose against the zipper until it looked like he had on a Lone Ranger mask. Seriously, this little lizard has performance in its future...it just keeps staying on the backpack while we watch it.

Ruby is faithfully noting each event:

"He has four toes on each foot!"

"It is EATING IT'S SKIN!!!"

"Do you think that lizard will go to heaven when it dies?"

"How many fish will those men catch today?"

"Why did God make crows? Just to steal our food?"

"I'm going to catch that crow and get my food back!"

"Is that boat sinking?"

After a short break with the mask on, Echo continued pulling off the rest of his old skin, pausing several times to eat loose skin around his legs, and to just plain rest. For a lizard smaller than a child's finger, this is hard work!

I wish I had my camera here with its macro lens to take photos of all this action. It's been a perfect school day for us, with fishing boats showing up just at the right time in The Three Trees when they build the boat from the second tree, the gecko providing a great observation opportunity, and Ruby and I having great talks about all of it.

The last of the old, dull tail skin is being eaten by Echo, and he's now looking quite fresh and dark brown. We're back to rhyming words, reading books, counting ants and stones and sorting shells, and describing the beauty around us as the tide rolls away. And I'm very thankful for this time with my daughter and that we jumped into homeschooling with both feet.

First Day of School!

After a bit of a rough start, our first day of homeschooling was fabulous.


It seems that Ruby, despite our numerous talks about the mechanics of schooling at home, thought there would be more students present in our home today. And she was fine, right up to my, "Let's get going, Ruby!" to begin the day. The meltdown was intense but short, and I was thankful that the first box of the day held directions to read Proverbs 3 and had a worksheet/discussion sheet we enjoyed going through.

Ruby loves reading the Bible, and to assert her free will in the matter, she insisted on reading through the entire Old Testament, up to Proverbs, before we could begin. Thankfully, it was a children's Bible, but it still took us about 90 minutes to get to Proverbs, as we read each story and she asked questions. But really, who's going to tell their child, "No, honey, you can't read any more Bible today."

One funny detail: Ruby and Henry have been wearing "laser zappers" on their forearms this weekend, and Ruby made mysterious drawings on hers each time she completed a task today.

We talked Proverbs, practiced handwriting, reviewed math, started a lapbook about fruit of the Spirit, read to each other about the Greeks, and really enjoyed spending time together. We have two weeks until we begin the Tapestry of Grace curriculum; we're starting in unit three of Year Two (pre-colonial America), which should tie in nicely with our scheduled trip back to the States in the middle of the school year. Our survey of history from creation through the Renaissance has been cruising right along, and we should arrive in Jamestown right on time. :)

Several people have asked about curriculum; these are guidelines for the year:

Tapestry of Grace - History, Geography, Art, Literature
Legends & Leagues - Love their map-building exercises!
Apologia Zoology 1 Flying Creatures of the Fifth Day - Science
We are also doing quite a bit of Ocean-themed science this year - one good thing about living here!
A Reason For Handwriting
ReadyWriter (we need a LOT of handwriting help at the moment!)
Calculadder - Math review/mastery of tables
Math-U-See - Math building
Drawing With Children - Ruby loves to draw and wants to learn more about art
Draw Write Now - Did I mention we need handwriting practice? :) With great drawing lessons built in.

Ruby has also decided she wants to learn Spanish, so we are putting together a curriculum for her. Seriously, I wanted to teach her French, or at least Kiswahili since we live in East Africa. But she insists that Spanish is the only language she is interested in. So Spanish she shall learn! And so shall I!

We certainly aren't going to do each of these daily. Between swim lessons, play time, music of some sort (still working that out), service learning and living, I think we're going to be as busy as we want to be. Armed with the state standards and a slew of great ideas, it looks like a grand year from where I sit.

Happy Friend Day!

One positive side to living in Dar is that every day is like summer. As long as you love summer weather, you're gonna do great here.

Henry and Ruby spent one such recent day with dear friends Sarah and Meshack, hanging in this great Mexican hammock in the banda, and generally having lots of giggly fun. It was SabaSaba, or seven seven in kiswahili - a national holiday where local trade is celebrated with a big trade show downtown.

To sweeten the mix further, we added more dear friends, Hannah and Zac, with their precious daughter Zara, and we all went to a local hotel so the kids could splash in the pool (it DOES feel like summer, even if it is really the middle of winter here).

Seriously, I mean precious!

Len was able to join us for part of the day and the kids took full advantage of this by sitting on him as often as possible. It helps that he works across the street and can wear his swim trunks and rashguard to work, instead of his previous uniform of a suit and tie.

 The hotel we were at brought in a small inflatable climber/slide and also had a plastic slide there...this is big news for Mbezi Beach where we live! Kind of like Camby, IN installing a roller coaster.

SO thankful for a special day with friends! It's been a heavy kind of summer (will write more on that when it's processed a little better) and we need days like these to laugh and unwind a little!

Ruby's Heart

Yes, another bug post. We found this gorgeous, but mortally damaged, moth in the back yard, and spent some time studying it. Its wings did contain every color of the rainbow, and some I've never seen before.

The tips of its wings never expanded and stiffened properly, so it couldn't fly. But Ruby spent over an hour watching over it, shielding it from the wind and hungry birds. I love that little girl's huge heart.

After going in to find a suitable container to keep it in, we returned to find it was gone...Ruby prayed for it and seemed to handle losing it well. There will be many, many more creatures to love and protect in her future, I'm sure.