Making Slime for Halloween

Peanut - 4

Peanut turned 4 this past week and I thought I'd steal from brood mama and write him a letter...

Peanut, my best boy, you are amazing. As a friend recently said- you do everything with your whole heart. There is so much happiness and excitement inside of you and you live at a pace a touch faster than anyone else. Your upsets are the same way: quick, enthusiastic and often distractable.

You want to be friends with everyone but have your feelings hurt easily. I worry about people crushing your light, especially myself. Everyday is a challenge to make sure you are supported, not smothered and guided, not caged. As someone who is more likely to evenly plod through life I am protective and usually overwhelmed by your running, skipping, crab-walking, dragging, worm-slithering gait. 

You love pretending. You love animals. You are almost always pretending to be some animal and you are very particular about how they, and everyone else, should behave.

My boy you are SO social! And not just with children. You are just as comfortable talking some adults ear off as you are playing with their kid. I recently watched you at the park convince a woman to leave her lunchtime power walk to push you on the swing. And after she said she had to get back you followed her for a lap so you could continue your conversation. Deciding to homeschool you was a decision I didn't take lightly for this reason. Luckily you love your church and dance friends.

You are a great, if often overly enthusiastic, brother. You love your sister and are quick to help, play with, and laugh with her. She lights up for you as for no one else. As she gets older and more able to hold her own I see only great things for the two of you.

Peanut you often see things in black and white, to the point we have had to cut off all superhero shows etc. I hope you can learn to reserve some compassion for people you feel have done wrong. You are protective of your friends, which I love!, but I worry you villianize good people making bad choices. Please remember to be kind to both the underdog and the bully, they often are secret underdogs.

I want to be careful of this next part because I honestly believe that thinking of yourself as a hard worker will serve you better than thinking of yourself as a genius will...but Peanut you are so smart! You know more about dinosaurs, and mosasaurs, and mammal-like reptiles than anyone outside of career scientists. You have your Bapa's love of facts and tidbits and at least some of my concept organizing. You really can learn anything you want to and I hope you choose to learn both deeply and varied.

Peanut you were not a cuddly baby; you wanted to be up looking around and experiencing life. But luckily for me you have changed your tune. You love to touch and be touched and cuddled and wrestled and squeezed. This is the thing about the you you are right now I'm most afraid to lose as you grow up. Keep cuddling me and Bapa and Little Cat- we need you!

Oh one last thing to make sure you are thoroughly embarrassed one day (you have no sense of embarrassment now)- you are always naked! And I mean ALWAYS. You may have to base your career choices on which require the least amount of fabric.

Love, Mama

Logic

If...you play in your toy room for 10 minutes while mom is putting the baby down for a nap

Then...mom will have approx 2 hours of time to read/play/do science just with you

If...you come in to talk/whine/ask questions every 30 seconds

Then...the process will take up to 40 minutes

One day he will understand. Or I will buy a cage.

B is for Bat

Wow not only am I really behind on posting these but I took almost no pictures of B is for Bat!

Well anyway to start off I made him bat wings, which he loved for about 30 seconds...

I made a really simple bat cave he could hide out in and read his bat books.

Together he and I fixed our real bat house that fell last year (don't worry it was unoccupied) so it can be rehung.

We also tried something new I've been wanting to incorporate, which is online searching for information. We googled bats, we looked for information that was relevant. We talked about people being able to post information themselves which gives us lots of perspectives and some info that is wrong. 

We also went to the Oklahoma City Museum of Modern Art. 

There he drew a bat for his art project. They had super cool kids backpacks filled with activities to do at the museum. We loved the Halo Amok exhibit by Wayne White (but there was a docent there so I couldn't take pictures). No docent in the glass and light exhibit...

Oh and from the gift shop he chose chocolate covered insects which he ate and loved. Since bats eat bugs it was thematic right?

White Bear

"The white bear. The most fearsome predator. It eats anything that moves- seahorses, tiger cubs, even other bears"

- Peanut (direct quote)

Jamie Outerson

Peanut has an alternate personality:

My name is Jamie Outerson. I am five years old and a grown up. I live over in Stillwater with my wife Chole, who is four and our daughter Ellie, who is two. I drive a scooter home from work. But I am a stay at home dad. Chloe is a stay at home mom. We are rich. When asked how I made all my money I reply "out of little bits of spiders." I am a dentist that helps dead people but I am not afraid of aliens that are little. We have a pet Komodo dragon. We get meat for it from our refrigerator back in Stillwater. It likes to eat gazel, bison and bull. I like to eat those meats too. I am a tiger and Chloe is a cheeta. We got married at the temple that looks like Chloe's house. I like it when it is raining like a rainstorm. I like thunder. 

C is for Cloud

With clouds I kept it pretty simple, just the three main types: cumulus, cirrus and stratus.

We matched numbers/words/numerals.

We made a cloud by microwaving half a bar of ivory soap.

We took walks and drives to identify clouds and played the 'what does that cloud look like' game. I was really excited by Peanut's imagination in that game. Six months ago he wouldn't have understood.

We read lots of books from the library about clouds since I didn't have any really good ones at home. And we watched the Magic School Bus episode on weather! 

For our display art we did a three medium picture for the three types of clouds: chalk for cirrus, paint for stratus, and 50/50 mix of glue and shaving cream for cumulus. (I forgot to get a pic of this before I hung it)

The Bed and Draped with Children

Lately we've just spent a lot of time cuddling in bed and playing. Little Cat has figured out how to get from the big bed onto Peanut's bed, which is half a foot lower, and loves to ambush him.

We went to a friend's high school graduation

And we went to the Paseo Art Festival.

Ox was 'draped with children'- direct quote Old Lady

Everyone had a lot of fun

Myriad Gardens

So this past weekend we went to Myriad Botanical Gardens. It was during their Okla-gnome-a Celebration and there was tons of fun stuff. We went with Grammie, who took a class on orchids (but again I got no pictures of her!).

We played at the splash pad

Then in the children's garden

Peanut got to paint a gnome

And frost (and eat) a gnome hat cookie

We looked for bugs in the edible garden (hello, perfect tie in to I is for Insect week!)

Admired the knitted cozies they had everywhere

Did some exploring (there was a gnome scavenger hunt)

Went back to the splash pad

Peanut got a balloon sword

And his face painted

We ended the day with a children's concert by Monty Harper.

It was a great day! Did I mention all the activities were free with our year pass?