Carrot Cake, Stepping Stones and an East Coast Excursion

Here's what we've done, or I've planned in so far this week in the 'homeschooling' department:

~ Yesterday we baked a carrot cake because for as long as I can remember after his 3rd birthday party, Jacob has been talking about his next birthday. He tells me he wants it to be at our house (since none of our parties ever have been - if we could get this addition done already then we might actually have room for more than five people at once), he wants carrot cake, and he doesn't want kids there. This last stipulation I think is due to my attempting to be the hero at his last party when he couldn't blow the candles out. I did the parental thing where you kind of blow on 'em over the kid's head so he thinks he did it himself. Well it backfired when Jacob turned his head to the right for some reason, and then turned back to see the candles had been blow out. I can still see the look of shock, the disappointment, then the crumpled face and the tears. Really. I have it on video. It's actually pretty funny. But anyway, Emma was just to his left so she got the blame. Thus, he wants no kids at his party because they will steal his fire. I am a bad mom.

~ I've been all over creation looking for this special glaze I think exists. I want to do a sort of mosaic project thing on old plates I have. I think it will be a neat project for me and Jacob. He'd totally love it and it will encompass certain values I hold dear: One or more of the 3R's, creativity, making gifts instead of spending money on them, etc. I can't find the crap and I don't have a kiln so while I was at JoAnn Fabrics today giving up on finding what I was really looking for, I settled on a kit to do mosaic garden stones. Mothers' Day is coming up so that's good timing for the grands.

Let me pause here to confess that I now know the real reason I have chosen to homeschool. It is an unconscious desire to have an unlimited need for all things crafty from JoAnn's. I'm not the generic scrapbooking, pattern-following, crocheting suburban mom (nothing against those of you though, I'm in awe of your ability to create something worthy of selling or displaying)...I feel more like an artsy, free-forming, go-crazy-with-color free-spirit type. I don't really identify with a place like JoAnn's, but I definitely do love wandering around there in a sleepy-like dreamland haze. Um...I think you can tell the way it makes me feel by my over-descriptiveness.

I've always been like this..I want those things just to have them; to surround myself in beads and glitter paint, colorful fabric and unpainted trunks. It's not that I'm a girly girl, I find excitement in these things on an energetic level. I have all these creative urges, but no channels from which they can emerge. I want to learn how to sew so badly. I don't think I need to be able to make clothes, but I want to be able to alter them, to make them unique. And I've turned it into myself again...but Jacob, I know he'll love all those projects too.

~ Lastly, I took Jacob and his cousin Marisa for a walk at my mom's today. It was beautiful out so I couldn't resist being in a good mood and eager to play pretend with them. We began our walk with the idea in mind that we were going to Disney World so I decided a fun way to introduce the east coast geography would be to pretend that we were going through each state one-by-one. As we passed through each state I talked all about them and the capitals, things like that. I don't know, maybe it sounds silly, but I thought it was a creative way to implement learning. A part of my 'vision', I suppose, is that I want a lot of Jacob's learning to take place through interaction with nature. I want him to appreciate it and respect it, and be part of the generation that will finally make up the critical mass of people who will save the world from ourselves.