adventures on the path to unschooling

To keep the kids awake in the afternoon when they're usually ready to fall asleep only to wake later in the evening and subsequently want to stay up all night, i've been taking them for walks in the afternoon.

We walk to the park around the corner, and then around the streets if there's no other kids to play with at the park.

I pop M in the wrap and she drifts off to sleep with the steady plodding motion my steps make, and the kids and i explore all sorts of finds on our way along the path.

Today we saw a bird bathing in the water trough under the bubbler - which is presumably designed for dogs. The kids loved it... seeing the bird in "that pooey dirty doggy water" that i wouldn't let them touch a day earlier.

We also saw many varieties of plants, flowers, berries and seeds.. we looked at and talked about dog and human footprints in cement, patted a kitten that was a few months older than ours, looked at and felt some interesting driveway textures and even found some weeds that were taller than me (not even in my garden!). We laughed at how huuuuuuuuge our shadows were in the afternoon sun and came back exercised, chilled out and ready for dinner. It is a lovely transition from playtime to dinnertime and as long as i'm organised with dinner earlier in the day and weather permits, i would like to make it a daily thing.

It's really lovely to just walk... without any agenda, purpose or rush, just enjoying each new discovery as it reveals itself and talking about it for however long there is interest or questions from the little sponges on feet.

I'm still no closer to deciding what format our home educating will take place in... time will tell but i'm in no hurry.

There's sure to be lots of adventures and learning experiences when we head down to my parents' farm in a few weeks.

I'm still keeping the home educating thing on the downlow with them. I can't be bothered having yet another thing they'll try to derail once they catch wind of how "out there" it is... according to them, i do glean all my information from whacko internet sites afterall.

So homes educating will no doubt be added to the contraband list of anti vax, homebirth, extended breastfeeding, co sleeping and who knows what else they can't stand about the way i parent!

Oh how boring it would be to have parents who respected our parenting decisions.. parents who recognised that what we do is not about them and we aren't doing our thing in order to put down their parenting choices. Uh huh... emotionally mature parents would be so flippin' boring to have.

Jokes aside, I do feel slightly apprehensive about what will unfold when i go down there. It has been a long time since i have been in their territory, i am guessing it's 2yrs at least... and our record aint all that spectacular. We tend to tolerate each other for the first couple of days, but i get wound up and up and up by my highly strung mother and fight the tension with my whole being to the point where i'm ultra relaxed and laissez faire which she thinks is too relaxed and therefore i'm not parenting responsibly. I'm not even speculating about that last bit. They told me on a visit up here a bit over a year ago that i wasn't being a good mother because my kids were up late (while they were visiting) and cos i make it difficult for my then not even 2yo daughter to be able to visit them by still allowing her to breastfeed.

Anyway, this post is not meant to be a vent.. more of a case of me airing my feelings about my impending visit.

So.

Gosh it's too much for me to post it all at 1230am when i am going to be feeding M several times before i get up in the morning! Torn.... cos if i don't do it now it might not get blogged... but i'll process it anyway so it doesn't really matter.

talk about a monologue blog. haha!

i'm going to bed. Good night and sweet dreams.