Palo Alto Tender Tracks Tues. Oct. 23, 2012

The MT. View Car wash and Stevens Creek Open Space Preserve
First Quarter Moon
Day 16

Today we celebrated Aoife’s fourth Birthday. And, her wonderful Mom came to join us for the day with snacks in hand.  All the children were so happy to celebrate her day and stayed so very present  for and with her during circle.  Prior to circle we picked some leaves from an Indigo plant in order to dye our capes on Thursday.  It was nice to be able to share this with the parents that were present at the beginning of the day.   After circle there was lovely play and some did not want to stop this fun but alas, we needed to go to in order to wash the bus and then get to where we needed to be to paint it!   Into the bus we all went and the passing of stuffies commenced.  As we drove though the internal world of Ganesh was filled with great vigor and volume.  Jill brought some attention,  games and songs and managed to steer the volume into a softer direction.
The sky was a movement of gray, white, blue, gray, white, blue and the air brought varying temperatures throughtout the day ending with much warmth.
When we got to the Car wash having water sprayed on them produced squeels of glee that encircled our little washing stall.  The children cleaned that bus up far better then I expected as the old colorful hands were not parting from the bus as easily as I expected.   But alas, they did great!  The real fun came when I turned on the air blower.  Evan, Emme, Alice, and Geissell in particular, really liked getting the air blown all over them.  I really wanted to use it more for the fun of it for them then to blow dry the bus!  We checked our work and it was good but oh dear, how will we ever clean the INSIDE of the bus?  That question never did get answered but, we are musing over this I think/hope!
The ride to our final destination was again filled with much volume and Jill worked her best with some goodly amount of success.  What was it she got them interested in?  Well, something for sure.  When we got there they pilled out and started to go on some adventure down the parking lot. They were called into a different direction and then lunch was to be opened.  Well eating was pretty rough for Alice and Emme as they whipped off their shoes and wanted/did go straight into the creek.  Evan went back and forth in it as well and Jill and I gave a valiant attempt at aiding Alice in particular, to eat lunch.   I do hope this was of help Mom’s!
Giselle sat at the picnic table to eat yet was so sweetly quite engaged with everyone else that were sitting on the ground.  And Miu, got creative with not wanting to sit on the ground and took her lunch out and sat on her backpack.  Paul had a bit of a cold today  and was far more quiet then usual and Aoife seemed delighted to have her Mom there!
Evan swore he saw a Crawdad in the water and I made some fishing poles.  He put some meat on the end, per instructions, and tried to get a crawdad.  There were some more fishing poles made and then we wound up sitting on the bridge and throwing different things in the water to see if they would sink, float or race well down the stream.  But things went down to a little waterfall. Miu raced down there and invited us all to go on a journey so we all went accept Jill, Giselle and Paul who stayed at the picnic area and finished eating?  Aoife and her Mom headed back as we went further down the creek trail but the rest of us carried on with Miu in the lead to explore this area.  Kaden, Evan, Alice and Emme did not have shoes on and we were getting into Berry bush territory, the land of tiny thorns.  I gave them as much support with watching out for these little painful things so they watched on and kept going.  I spied a Purple ball and, Evan actually went all the way in the water to get it.  He, Alice and Emme REALLY all wanted it so there was some struggles around that. Kaden and Miu were not so interested and Kaden went further exploring.  It was time to turn back though so that we could finish lunch and paint the bus before we had to leave.
The rest of them greeted us with glee, lunches were somewhat finished and I went to prepare the bus.  When I came back a great game of kick the purple ball was going on.   And, the girls were making a “goal”/stick in the dirt and building up the base, for the game. I think after a time everyone or almost eveyrone was over there building up that stick as the goal post.  Gisselle and Aoife went to go get water from the creek in a bucket I gave them and were aided by Aoife’s Mom.   Then, up to the bus we went.
Instructions were given and painting the bus commenced.  WOW, it looked great at the end.  Jill brought them into something at the end, I think they were birds because then they just flew around the bus to see how beautiful it was and then back onto the bus and we made our way back.  Jill read them a book that I brought about tracking different animals and oh yes, right as we were leaving there was a Deer spotted walking into the wooded area near the parking lot.

Just a few highlights from Jill about the day:

•  Washing the bus = kids screaming on top of their lungs, filled with laughter, excitement and joy!
•Kayden playing soccer with Evan – totally keeping up with him, enjoying that he was close to taking the ball away from him!
• Sitting with Giselle at lunch while everyone else was exploring the creek and hearing her say “I love Tender Tracks”.  She was so content just sitting at the table and finishing her lunch!
•Kids playing in the creek.