Tender Tracks Tues. Day 3

September 18, 2018
Waxing Gibbous Moon
Lake Lagunitas

Today felt like our first truly official Tender Tracks day. It was just the seven children, Ruby and I, no parents. The Sun was warm, cool in the morning, warm out from under the trees, coat worthy under the trees. The Redwood Cones continue to drop and Luna still LOVES to gather, so, that happened.

Theo is warming in and settling to the rhythm of the day. Josie, though she did not want to let go of Mom at first, did SPLENDIDLY!!!throughout the day. She played with all the girls with absolute delight. Eamon wound up holding Ruby’s hand on the way back at the end of the day and Holden held mine. This has not happened before. The boys played with each other throughout the day with, what looked like, a great deal of fun and happiness. Any difficulties they communicated through it. And, I know, as is the way with humans, that things will arise, obstacles will show up, and opportunities to learn how to move through them will present themselves. Ellie, really enjoyed playing with Josie and Uma. All the girls just simply had fun with each other creating homes, running away from the boys, playing chase, and building a home during the last half of the day in a Redwood grove. But, oh yes, Ellie gets very scared when the boys chase her and cries and comes to us. Eamon in particular is incredibly kind and stops IMMEDIATELY, when asked with a kind and gentle heart and words. Josie we thought liked being chased because she smiled so much with it. Yet, later in the day she said no, that was not the case so, we asked the boys to not chase the girls unless they say yes and they all agreed to this. 🙂

The day began where the boys ran over the creek and to the other side of the creek where the rocks to climb are. They figured out how to get up and into the spillway but, alas, we are not allowed to climb up there so, they came down and carried on in other places.
Josie and Uma ran to the log to climb across the creek to get to the other side while Ellie and Luna helped me set up circle and Ruby was busy tending to something in the bus.

Then they all wound up together where the boys were discovering things like Banana Slugs and such in and around the water. I called them in and they made their way. It was more challenging for Josie as she got herself up the rocks and had a harder time getting down. Ruby was there the whole time and they finally made it over to us.

We had a story called “A House with No Doors, No Windows and a Star Inside.” This came with apples where we FOUND stars inside. We got to eat those, sing our songs and have a sweet circle. They then played, gathered more cones, ran around until we got our packs and made our way to a new place.

Up the big stone stairs we went, all together. When we got to the top we took off our layers to cool down then kept going. The children heard of the many ways to find our way back and to notice the landmarks to help us get to where we are going as well as find our way back. They also learned a bit about what to do when you are lost.

Earlier Luna and Ellie thought that they were lost. I told and shared what to do if you really do get lost and from that point on all the children began to practice. Right before we got to where we landed for the afternoon, I looked back and they were all huddled together trying to hit rocks together, yell Help, Help, Help and use their whistles. It was a beautiful site to see them ALL working together and practicing what to do if they did indeed get lost.
For your FYI: the universal signal if you are lost is three claps, yells, rocks hit together, anything that you can make three sounds, then stop, wait, then do it again, and again and again. Also, and particularly for children, stay exactly where you are or find a near by tree and stay right there.

When they all arrived at our spot they fanned out and began to play near the creek, build in the Redwood “homes” and explore, explore, explore. It was lunchtime soon afterward so we all gathered and ate up. Some, more than others. They know now what to do at the end of lunch: put all your food away, drink water in our end of lunch “drinking party” and to say “May I please be excused” when they wish to go play.

There was much face painting with rocks that I think Ruby found, and a pooping party for one as I took Luna out to the woods to do so. The girls and I built a fun little house, they all figured out how to slide down a part of this smooth Redwood bark.

Theo got his foot wet and we could not find him for a small bit as he was very sad about this. We found him behind a tree. We changed his sock and, all was well. Phew!

When we had to leave they all happily found their way back, into the bus, and really wanting to have Ruby draw the picture of the day. We remembered the Deers we saw, the Crawdad tail they found, the little birds and more. At the beginning of the day they listed the many things they wanted to see and kept noticing how they did not see them. Well, here is a partial list: Dinosaurs, Bear Sloths, cub bears, Unicorns, pink birds….. And so another beauty filled day happened and, oh yes, We now have a Weather watcher stick, a stick with a string with a feather attached to it. We noticed the wind on the stick and we put three notices on the stick for three days that we have been together.