Palo Alto Tender Tracks Thursday Jan. 23, 2014 Day 36

Waning Gibbous Moon
Martins Creek

This was a wonderful day yet filled with falls, poop accidents, and lot’s of peeing by many.  For Finn, his first full day without Mom. He was just so filled with excitment, enthusiasm and wow, he is very adventerous and beautifully fearless. He had a couple of falls but was non plussed by any of them.  Or shall I say, he cried and was able to let his tears flow and then dry up when he was done and get right back up and into climbing and the like.   Cole was fine yet wound up having some loose poop that was a bit startling I think for him. He however had no trouble asking for help. Thank you Cole’s Mom for keeping that great bag of extra clothes.  It is evident that you are a teacher because you also put a spare plastic bag on the bottom for the dirty clothes!
I enjoyed watching Ridham and Zac as they played together a lot today.  Ridham was quite involved with his usual full games and Zac was engrossed with following him and understanding what he was sharing.  They played for a long time together in the afternoon.  Julian, Juliette and Finn spent a lot of time together today. I enjoyed looking at them all at one point when they were lying on a rock together looking like they were looking over the edge into the empty pond near by.  Later Finn and Julian spent  a good amount of time exploring a quiet part of the creek. This was one of the places that Finn fell, cried and I came to see how he was doing.   Zara and Eden and sometimes Serena, were all very busy with their house games as well as exploring with everyone else further up the creek.
Our day was an easy and long flow before we ever really got to our destination.  When we got to Martins creek they clearly needed to stretch their legs so they immediately went down and explored the big, dark culvert. Serena and Ridham didn’t want to go in so I stayed with them and the rest just had a GRAND time exploring this.  Finn had NO problem going into the dark and was delighted with it all.  We then came back to have our circle and snack which they were very ready for.
The story was inspired by some of the more unpleasant language that was being used one to the other last week.  You can find this story in Brothers Grimm. It is called in some of the versions Mother Holle.  It is about, as usual, a kind and generous young girl who is left to live with a very unkind step mother and step sister.  Long story short, one was given a gift for her industrious self of gold and jewels coming out of her mouth every time she spoke and the other, who tried to get the gift while still maintaining unkind ways. She wound up having frogs, and snakes coming out of her mouth when she would speak.   The emphasis came after the story when each time the children used kind and courteous words one to the other it was noted that it was like gold and jewels coming out of their mouths!  How could this be?! Cole and Zac, in particular, latter in the day, said please tell it again tell it again!  All the children showed signs of liking it when we noted gold and jewels coming out of their mouths. They just would laugh, giggle and think this was fun and funny.

Our focus today was to make rain rattles so when we got to our spot Serena, Zara, Eden and Ridham really wanted to get started!  They were the ones with me. The others wanted to take the much more involved way to our place, climbing through the creek bed, so they came a little later.  This was just fine because that enabled me to cut off the bottom of the gourds for just four children at one sitting instead of 9. The children then had to find sticks that fit into the gourds open end.
Finishing these rattles will take a couple of weeks as next we need to find just the right pebbles, beans or such to put in to make the right sound, the right stick and then the making of natures glue to glue the handle in.  Then, if they wish there will be painting them with rock paint and cover them with raw egg white to”varnish” the paint.  So, much to do. This day was just a beginning.  They all had fun with it in the middle of all their other adventures and explorations.
It was a delightfully explorative and full day.