This year was busy by our standards. We were part of two 4-H clubs and the girls had two projects in each club (including dog which met once a week). Each project requires it's own section filled out in their 4-H books. The past month was spent finishing off their books which need to be turned in by June 10th.

The books are a glimpse into the school world I left behind long ago and one the girls have never had to put up with. There are so many sections to fill out - leadership, public speaking, community service. This year we had a flood of emails along the lines of "here's a community service project, it will look good in your books!". Not, "here's a community service project, wouldn't it feel great to do this and help out your community/these people". Like grades in a class, "better study for that test so you can get a good grade", not "better study so you can learn the material and know more stuff".

Ay least since we unschool, the bureaucratic aspects of the 4-H process touch us, but do not change us. The kids (especially H) have always wanted to help people, to help people. The grade is irrelevant.

H and S got to make necklaces, and see a watercolor presentation. They came home with a pile of monster drawings. The girls sang at the filking both nights. S participated in the Pirate panel and made foam swords for herself, H and C (C was really happy to get his sword, but he's still too sick to get much use out of it).

H made some earrings during the necklace panel, and then donated them to the Charity Auction.

The girls told me it was a good Con Suite because they had three types of licorice. But not all on the same day. The first day was purple.

It's weird for me. A few weeks ago M took C on a plane trip to visit Opa and Grandma. This weekend, M has H and S with him at a local Con. I'm staying home for this one because C turned up sick yesterday morning. He was complaining a little, then wandered into my room a couple hours later telling me he must be sick because he just threw up.

Yeah, fevers and vomit, the two symptoms that definitely say you should not participate in an activity involving several hundred people.

He probably got sick from his final Cloverbuds activity. They met at a park we had never been at before, picked up trash, played on the playground, ate some snacks, then C and I hung out for an extra hour or so to play. Plenty of opportunity to pick up a nice new germ.

Anyway - new experience - my kids are at an age where my presence is not absolutely necessary. We can split forces and Hubby can whisk them away for fun things without me. And not just a couple of hours of fun things - all day and all weekend long fun things.

Thus all is right with my world again.

C and M got back from their trip to Opa and Grandma's today. They flew out for Dita's Birthday.

At one point they were going to have dinner; C had been promised Chinese food and wouldn't let Opa talk him into getting In-n-Out instead.

On the way home from picking the boys up from the airport, C started listing food he would like for lunch; Chinese, Thai, or stir-fry (Mongolian). I like his varied food preferences.

I know we haven't done a whole lot this week, but it still seems a blur. I'm tired and stressed, and my mind is numb. Nothing major has happened. Everyone is fine. I'm just off.

M just told me S has decided that since the wall we are building is part wall and part fence it is a wence.

I responded that it could be a fall.

M told me S ruled that out because it was already claimed for a season.

For the past few months, S has been using a certain nightly ritual. I wanted to write it down before she grows too old for it and I forget.

After I have answered the all important questions, "What are we doing tomorrow?" and "What's for dinner tomorrow?", S says her good nights.

S: "Night. Night night. Nighty night. Nighty night night. Good night. Good night night. Good nighty night. Good nighty night night."

Then:

S: "I love you."
Me: "I love you, too."
S: "I love you, three."
Me: "I love you, four."
S: "I love you, five."

I realized late last night that it had been 31 days since I put two goose eggs under broody chickens in our first day zero for goose eggs experiment.

When I went to check on them I fully expected to find dead birds. Instead they showed evidence of having broken through the membrane into the air pocket, and there was movement.

I brought them inside and tried to help by breaking a hole through the shell to give them more air (last year we determined the goslings can't get through the shell on their own). It took my breath away when I heard a cheep as soon as I broke through on the first egg.

We lost a lot of sleep monitoring the goslings. I picked at the shell to help them, but I may have done too much. I helped the first one hatch around 5am this morning. It survived another 5 or 6 hours. The second one (I interfered less with this one, hoping the different handling would give it a better likelihood of survival) I helped half hatch a little while before we lost the first one. I really thought it had a chance, but it died about an hour later.

Apparently I like smashing my head against a block wall over and over, because I put two more eggs under our chickens today.

Then I buried the dead goslings under C's fruit tree. They were with us for about twelve hours, long enough for me to have enough hope to feel pretty rotten when that hope was dashed.

I'm including photos behind a ( lj cutCollapse )

It's been decided. In a couple of weeks M is flying out to visit his family and he is taking C with him. C is 7, and upon reflection I realized it's the same age H was when she took a solo plane trip with Daddy.

My freak out is not on that level, but I am feeling a little stressed over the idea.

We spent all day at the County Fair yesterday. The girls won ribbons on all their entries, including some blues and lots of reds. After looking at entries and animals for a couple of hours we got the kids their wrist bands for unlimited rides. S(10) and C(7) were more inclined to ride the scarier rides than H(12). The only thing stopping C from riding as many different rides as S was his height. He wasn't tall enough for some of the height minimums, but he was able to ride many more of the big kid rides this year than last year. After riding the big roller-coaster C said, "That was really scary, let's go again!"

Since I went a little overboard with pictures, I'll hide them behind this ( cleverly constructed livejournal cutCollapse )