Palo Alto Tender Tracks Wed.March 19, 2014 Day 25

Waning Moon
Hidden Villa

Well, the children are truly leaving or have left their three year old dreamy selves and are immersed in the world of the “Wild and Wonderful”, so named by Louise Bates Ames Ph.D and author of Your Four Old.
They  were indeed wild and filled with Spring time aliveness throughout the day.  They were laughing, joking, playing, giggling, running, loud and EXUBERANT!  Basically, they were very fun and funny. And, they were able to settle down regularly with little effort on my part.  🙂
While we drove to Hidden Villa they were given the task to MAKE BUTTER!  Yes, we made butter by having Fresh Cream in a little jar with two marbles in it. They had to shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake, shake…… all the way to the farm.  Anissa, was so delighted with shaking. If only you could have seen the determination in her and the strength in her arms as she SHOOOOOOKKKKKK  that jar!   When we got there it wasn’t quite the way I wanted it to be however, for unknown reasons, yet, butter good enough it was and so, after playing a little bit we went to circle for some new songs, and a story about Sean O’Hollihan, a leprchaun and Mrs. O’Malley.   Mrs. O’Malley taught him all about finding the gold all around you instead of going to far off places and rainbows to find what gold/beauty is right in front of you.  We spent the rest of the day looking for the Gold in things and eating Leprechaun food: miners lettuce and chickweed mostly.
The children were amazing with where and what they found gold in: sticks, stones, flowers, leaves and the like.  The best part was when we settled down at a place they haven’t been to before and were playing around, what did they find?  GOLDEN  NUGGETS!!!!  They were nestled inside so many of the trees that we were near.   They had such a good time with finding these magickal treausres!!!!!
Particularly, Jasper, Emme and Aurora. Aurora was the first to find one, then Jasper and then Emme.  Nareya really wanted to find one and some how, when she and Bosch were playing by a tree,ONE WAS THERE!!!   Natalie was just in delight to be RUNNING all around with her friends and she played a lot with Emme and Aurora.   All the children were in constant state of exuberance as they played in the creek, found water, threw rocks, found stones, ran races, petted sheep, held each others hands, walked on logs, discovered leaves with many colors……Bosch had most of them laughing and laughing with silly games he was playing with them, Anissa was delighted to eat lunch with Bosch. He gave her a small piece of his chocolate croisant he had for lunch and she had a JOYFUL look of, Wendolyn look what Bosch gave me!  We all laughed.   Emme was beside herself with joy in finding golden stones, Jasper was in a similar boat.  Eric delighted in playing in the creek and looking for golden nuggets and he too found, two? I believe.  Dalhia was happy in the creek playing and running up and down the creek bed as well as eating wild foods.   Aurora and Natalie were eating wild edibles, exploring the nooks and crannies of trees and Natalie created a game of throwing rocks in the water with Dahlia that the two of them loved.  I think that gives a teeny bit of info on them.
The day just was, well, thrilling.   I think that would be a good word to summarize.