Marin Tender Tracks Tues. May 5, 2015 Day 59

Waning Gibbous Moon
Lake Lagunitas

Today was a very unique day as the natural world was visiting us in some of the most beautiful and warming ways along with explorative joy, walking with pushing, shoving and struggling as well as playing together, and discovering wonderful things. It was a full and rich day with curious interpersonal challenges for the children. Enzo however showed incredible maturity as all he wanted to do was joyfully play so if anyone gave him an unpleasant action he simply stated what he wanted, went to one of us adults and or removed himself.  Ariel seemed mainly tired yet had no upset towards others.  Velia was filled with pushing yet when rerouted to just hugging me she went for that and when Michelle offered her other options that would bring more ease and kindness she got it and went for that.  Nico was playing, as he has been, more and more with the boys yet was very pushy with his sister and the girls along with Julian and Theron.  At one point Theron was pushing Julian and Julian was very calm. He pushed Theron back, Theron got upset and Julian said ” well you pushed me so I pushed you back.’ At which point Theron just said, “Oh” in a tone of, well that makes sense and I won’t do it again then.
They were all working things out and it just was very curious to Michelle and I as to what was really going on on our first day back from Holiday.
As she noticed with her children, who just had a lot of transitions from holiday activities, the challenges can show up in all manner of ways and this could very well have been what was going on.
Because of just coming back from being away from each other I chose specifically to go to our very familiar place, Lake Lagunitas for familiarity. When we got there Theron stated very clearly how I had made a wrong choice. At the end of the day he was VERY upset that we were leaving.  When I easefully reminded him what he said in the morning and how now he doesn’t want to go he gave the most beautiful, playful and understanding smile. It appeared to help him get up and move toward the bus to go home.
And now, back to the beginning of the day.   They all ran out to play and then Velia and Hana had to poop so, since the potty wasn’t with us today we went to the port a potties and all was well.  Ariel joined us.
The girls really like to watch each other poop and see what it looks like.
We had circle with a wonderful sequential tale called One Fine Day by  Hogrogian, Nonny.  You can find this in the Marin Library system.
It is sequential  type story which led them into a treasure hunt where they needed to find cards with plant pictures on them so that we could hopefully find these plants along our walk for the day.|
They were laminated with string to hang them around their necks.  Hana was really into these and looked throughout the day to find the plants that matched her card.  Velia loved them to as well as Julian. Julian did find his plant right as we started our walk. It was the plant Horsetail. You can   go to this website to see some of the photos of it and maybe you will recognize it: http://www.ediblewildfood.com/horsetail.aspx
Our intention was to also find the Cattails and see if we could harvest some but alas, some women were sitting right in the spot we were to go to so we went a little further.  No Cattails there but there was water and a board where they could make “Chocolate Milk” like they did when we went to Tara Firma farms.

We played here for the rest of the day making fishing poles,finding things to make as the anchors on them, finding plants and, they found several Dragonfly empty nymph bodies.  Velia kept asking “is it real, is it real?”
The wonderful nature connections were:
Enzo was stalking in a Redwood grove when Michelle heard the Dark Eyed Juncos sending out Alarm calls.  She wondered if it was a scared Mother as it sounded that way. Enzo stopped and right there in front of him was a nest with four little blue eggs. The Mother had flown off so Enzo, Theron, Julian, Thea and Nico got to see this.  Michelle had taken some pictures and during circle we got to see this.  The rest of us wanted to go see it but we needed to let the Momma come back to continue taking care of her eggs.  Michelle checked at the end of the day and the Momma did come back. Phew!  During circle a Momma Junco circled and  circled us. While I was telling the story Michelle got right up to her and almost fed her straight out of her hand.  There were young juvenille juncos giving their Begging call right near us as well.
When we began our journey and right before Julian found his plant, Horse tail, there was a Mother Turkey and her little ones going up the hill next to us. We watched for quite a while.  All day we were surrounded by bursting Spring from plants, birds, bugs and air.
A full and rich day with vibrant expressions.