Palo Alto Tender Tracks Wednesday 9/12/2012

September 12, 2012
Foothill Park-Slippey Sliddey
Waning Crescent Moon
Day 2

Zara was here today and back from her grand trip to be with family in Bulgaria.  She jumped right in.  Miska came with his Tender Tracks shirt and warm clothes for a day that went from cold to, finally, quite warm. Davey was his happy and alive self along with Julians quiet, observant yet ever present nature.  Jasper did not want Mom to go right away so she stayed for circle.  Once he settled in, the rest of the day was a yummy piece of cake  for him and on the way home his eyes slowly, slowly, closed into dream and rest world.  Duncan had a lot of fun RUNNNNING,  playing, slipping and slidding all around.  Juliet had Mom with her during circle and afterwards, showed signs all day of being  an easeful and happy camper. Serena is learning how to be with Mom and share her and making beautiful strides with this as she opens up to playing with all the children and receiving Audrey and I while Mom is there.
Gathering, play, circle, play, getting in the bus, sharing stuffies and then driving to Foothill Park. We had a grand time with it all.
When we got there  we all went to the bathroom, at different intervals.  While Zara was on the toilet she said there was a frog in the toilet.  When I looked in I thought it was just some poop that somehow got stuck right at the top of the underside of the toilet bowel. When I flushed however I soon discovered that it really WAS A FROG!!!!!!!  Mindy finally coaxed it out of there and it began to hop, hop, hop to the other stall.  Davey CHASED IT and tried to catch it.  He coaxed it a bit further around and then I was finally able to pick it up and get it outside where all the children came around and were able to see it.  It was the size of a silver dollar with a great black stripe on it’s face.  We thought maybe it came around because all the way to the park the children, particularly Duncan, were singing Froggie songs and telling Froggie stories!

As we walked to the “slippey-sliddey”( for those that don’t know it is a Bay grove with a little hill and lot’s of Bay leaves that make everything very slippey!) we wound up in three groups, each of us teachers with a few children.  Jasper, Kaden, Juliet( at times) and Julian were with me.  As we walked down the path I spied a Cotton Tail rabbit run into the bushes and Julian was able to see a bit of it as well.  When we all got there we began lunch but still were wondering where Mindy, Serena and Miska were.  They finally came and Miska was VERY involved with eating the Mustard Plant flowers. Miska’s Mom knows all about plants and it is clear by watching him.  His joy and ease with eating these flowers was a highlight of my day. He was, what looked like, BlISS eating these delectable flower heads.  I must say that I don’t like them so it was fun to see his joy.

Between eating there was a great deal of figuring out what were the best ways to get up to the top of the slippey sliddey without falling down before you got there. Audrey takes the prize for being the Best Train Conductor for all going down together on this hill. Julian went with me thinking I would be fun.  I shared with him that I really am not the best with slidding down the hill and when we had gone down, he concurred!   Audrey had just the right pants for sliding on her bum down the hill with all the children.
Juliet worked quite a bit with frustration and concern with getting up the hill yet made it finally after  many times.  She radiated with a smile that only comes from the experience of knowing  “I DID IT!”

Serena and Juliet later were at the bottom of the hill with Miska and I started to pretend that I needed a warm blanket and began covering myself with all the Bay leaves. Then, can you guess what happened?  They all, one by one, two by two came down and covered me up, covered me up covered me up with such joy.  Mindy then took over and they covered her up , covered her up , covered her up and what fun we all had!    It was finally time to go so we packed up and took our time wending our way back.  Jasper had earlier gathered some acorns for “mommy” yet lost them so we took some time to find her some more right where we found the first ones. Ease came and off we went.
Miska was impecable with his remembering the exact trail we took to get to the Slippey Sliddey and led some of us back that exact same way, though there is another way to go as well.

This was a beautiful second day and I look forward to more to come.