Tuesday, September 14, 2010

Tales from the Trenches: And she walks with me and she talks with me . . .

(Quick, name that hymn that is running through my mind!)

K- and I are blessed to be just a hair under a mile away from school.  Last year our walk was more like a nag and sometimes a drag, but this year, the walk is just known to be what happens.

On the first day of just us girls walking K- said, "You know mom, I really missed our walks."

What do we do on our walks?  We work on math facts, we dodge orange barrels just like the cars do, we watch as we walk through the now 2 "dog poop alley" areas, we talk about the kids, things that happened in the day, things that are upsetting -- in other words, life.

The other day, I had to laugh.  K- has had this nasty little girl making yucked out comments to her and even to me.  The little girl noticed that K- had her "stick unicorn" with her and made it very clear to us that "toys aren't allowed in school," why did we have it and exactly what was going to happen to it since it was not to enter the school.  I told her that we walk about a mile to school and K- likes to ride her unicorn, Sparkle. 

"You walk?  Well, don't you have a car?!" 

"Well, yes.  It is good exercise.  It's a good day."

"It is NOT a good day!" 

K- looked at her like she was nuts and said, "No, it's a great day!"

A fellow walking mom chimed in with, "In fact, it is a beautiful day!"

I told M- that we walk in the rain, sleet, snow and heat and as long as the snow isn't up to my hips and it isn't lightning, we walk.  She was amazed. 

I love that we have our walks.  I love that it means just as much to K- as it does to me. 

Smiles in my day:
-  Hubs caught a fish today just as big as his lure.  He actually suggested that I put it on my blog with the title of, "My eyes are bigger than my stomach."  I laughed that he suggested that I blog about it!  :)
-  We decided to register our property as a monarch waystation and will be doing monarch tagging here at our house.  While we have a small city lot, we do meet the 135 sq ft requirement.  We have the plants that draw the monarchs and we do have host plants.  (Milkweed.)  We participated in monarch tagging this weekend and had a lot of fun!
-  K- called me at work to report that she hadn't been good at the doctor's office while there with her dad while he got a few shots.  We had a discussion about her behavior, what she thought went wrong and when she asked if she could watch TV even though she had already lost it, I said, "What do you think?"  "Um, no, but that's okay mom, I can just play in my bedroom."  No battle because of no.  No pester hester.  It was delightful. 
-  Bath tub flash cards with K-.  As she gets her bath, I review math facts and her word box vocabulary.  I even have her spell her spelling words out loud.  Hey, I'm all for multi-tasking. 

Have a great day!

6 comments:

Rach said...

"In the Garden" or some such. "I come to the garden alone, while the dew is still on the roses. And the joy we share as we tarry there, the Son of God discloses. And he walks..."

Now to read the rest of the post. It's a good think I like this hymn since it will be going through my head all day long. ;o)

Rach said...

Oops, messed up a bit. Haven't sung that one in over 12 years...still a favorite, though. :o)

Anyhow, I'm so glad you all have that time to walk and be together. That is wonderful!

I want to see Hub's fish. ;oP

Rach said...

Oh, and yeah, one more thing, I think it's AWESOME you're going to do the monarch thing! I want pix! :o)

Bailey's Leaf said...

Did I mention that we had In the Garden (you are right!) played at our wedding. My aunt, a world-trained opera singer, sang it during our unity candle lighting. My grandmother wanted it played at her funeral just 6 months previous and her church refused. It was our way of honoring one of her last wishes.

Glad I could get it stuck it in your head. ;)

Rach said...

It kept me company all day, as did He. :o) Thanks!

What a wonderful tribute to your grandmother. I bet it was beautiful. :o)

ChupieandJ'smama (Janeen) said...

The monarch station is so cool! And I think it's fantastic you can walk to school. I wish we could, but we would have had to start yesterday to get there tomorrow:)