Palo Alto Tender Tracks Tues. April 2, 2013

First Quarter Moon
Day 53
Hidden Villa

Jill, Alice and Evan were gone today and Aoife’s Mom came to help out.  It was wonderful and I believe Aoife enjoyed this very much!  Giselle was filled with much happiness to have Aoife back and she herself will be gone on Thursday.  Paul came a bit sullen yet perked up after a bit. Taz was happy and delighted throughout the day along with Kaden. Miu was irritated on and off about a few things that she did not like and was free to express these annoyances and also was quite  happy throughout the day as well.  That leaves Emme who was in hog heaven most of the day filled with fun dances, playing in the water with Taz and Kaden with great fun and loving animals, plants and all of life.
Aoife’s Mom has never been to Hidden Villa and she came on a day when there were LOT’S of people.  This subsided at about Noon or so.
When we got there the kids played for a while on the Hidden Villa “play ground” while I got the circle time together. Then we had songs, snack and a story called “One Fine Day.” I told this story as it is a sequential story with each part of the tale building upon the other. These parts were used as clues for the children to look for throughout our day.
When we were done we packed up and made our way to find our first part of the story, A Cow, and then grass in a meadow that the cow might eat, creek water, and….on it went. We found the baby cow but not before we gathered and ate lot’s of chickweed and miners lettuce.  I wanted to gather chickweed so that I can make them something for snack with it on Thursday.
The baby cow was precious with it ‘s big brown eyes and soft fuzzy fur.  Taz and Kaden found the meadow further down the trail and then we back tracked to find the creek and a place to eat.
They stayed at the creek for quite a while eating, playing, exploring the water, finding great rocks, climbing on stumps, Aoife being a baby bird feeding from her Mom, Giselle on a stump happily eating, Paul sitting very still with his lunch meat on a string and stick as bait for a crawdad, Miu and then Giselle, Aoife and Emme on and off climbing on a tree and on and on this type of play went.
It was getting close to time to check out the pigs and look for the rest of the parts from the story; a chicken, an egg, a maiden, a blue bead, a seed and a farmer.  Well, most of these we didn’t exactly find and to add to that, there were no baby pigs. However,  I was able to get a friendly chicken to hold right away and the children got to hold it too.  Taz was very fun to watch as he came up to it and petted it. This did not happen a few months ago.  They all wanted to hold this chicken and each one got a turn.  What a WONDEFUL chicken this was to allow all the children to hold it!
Then they all played in the pig cage which is one of their most favorite games!!  But alas, we had to go back.  Miu was very unhappy as she thought the day went by just too fast!  And, I do believe it truly did.
The ride back was sweet and peaceful.