This makes me laugh.



I'm on the right in each collage,
and Karsten is on the left.

Does anyone else have a 3-year-old who continues to pine for more gifts to unwrap?

One who looks longingly into the corner where the Christmas tree stood and says, offhandedly, "Any more presents?"

A child who peers into backpacks and bags hopefully, thinking maybe a bonus gift was forgotten inside?

Here's what's helped us stem the disappointment of humdrum, non-present-opening life between Christmas and his birthday:

Giving each other pretend gifts wrapped in pretend paper.

A story: My old church supported several Karen refugee families from Myanmar. The Karen are a Christian and Buddhist ethnic minority group in Myanmar (Burma) who were forced from their homes, their villages destroyed, and fled from violence and ethnic cleansing in a Burmese civil war into hiding in the surrounding jungles. Not the pretty Jungle Book jungles but mountainous ones that grow cold and inhospitable, with little food to forage.

The fortunate ones were able to cross the border into Thai refugee camps. The very fortunate ones were able to make their way from Thailand to settle in other nations, such as the Karen community in the south Seattle area. This was not their wish, though. They miss their homes desperately and find it hard to adjust to a new life in a new land where they're definite minorities. As one woman said in an interview with CNN: "[I]f the situation in Burma changes, I hope to go back to my country."

Here's the part of this experience that has stuck with me for years now. A group of internally displaced Karen people still running and hiding in the mountain forests wrote our church for assistance. We raised money regularly to try to get supplies to them and sent words of support and encouragement. In this letter back to us, they asked in particular for one thing: a bone saw. They had been performing amputations on horribly injured members of their community with whatever sharp implements they had to hand. They wanted a bone saw to ease the process.

THAT is what a refugee is. It's a person who's thankful for a bone saw. It's a person whose current greatest wish is an appropriate instrument to perform major surgery in the open air of a jungle as they're running for their lives.

My kids are all night owls, which means they tend to gain energy as bedtime approaches. To help them calm their bodies and minds, I started a simple nighttime relaxation technique with the older two. My nine-year-old appreciates it the most and will ask for it nearly every night. Mikko and I both have the characteristic of needing a looong time to fall asleep, and he can get anxious about it. This sort of relaxation time helps put him at ease.



If you already have a background of relaxation scripts, you can adapt ones you love. I called upon my own childhood, when my parents offered me some simple relaxation ideas when I kept stealing into their room each night to whisper that I couldn't fall asleep, and my experiences with Hypnobabies childbirth hypnosis, which helped me through three unmedicated births.

Have your child lie down and begin in a calm, soothing voice:

Squeeze your toes … and your feet … and your legs … all the way up to your bottom [or whatever word you use; we're a butt family].

Have them practice isolating each muscle in turn. Mikko has coordination difficulties so at first had to use his hands to assist him in highlighting each body part to contract; however a kid needs to do it is fine.

He wanted to do the shortest video ever.



I think he succeeded.

This is appropriate field-trip attire for an unschooler. Take notes.

While I was at the playground on a warm summer's day, I was amusing myself trying to pick out the homeschooled kids.

It all started because Alrik, in his sparkliest My Little Pony shirt, was trying to play with a group of boys who were not at all interested in playing with him. I sized up their appropriate-length hair and matching gender-specific clothing and concluded that they probably all went to school together and weren't open to a newcomer. (Fair enough.)

After that, I glanced around to try to locate some easier targets for his overtures. Where my weirdo unschool kids at?

I saw one boy with longish hair in long sleeves and unmatched shorts. Possible.

I saw one girl in head-to-toe but unmatching pink leopard print. Maybe.

I saw one boy in patterned leggings. Probable.

Then a kid arrived in Christmas jammies and rainboots. Definitely.


Among some unschooler friends of mine, talk turned to school uniforms on little kids, and we decided to make out a list of appropriate school attire for unschoolers. Shannon compiled the following list, and I will add to it:

Every autumn, we take photos in front of
a sweet maple tree outside our home
as the leaves change colors.



Karsten: 22 months
Mikko: 9 years
Alrik: 5 years

It's easy and fun to DIY a scavenger hunt for your kids. Scavenger hunts are great options for so many occasions and reasons:

• Interactive birthday party activity (the prize could be presents for the birthday kid or goody bags for guests)
• Practice with reading and logic for young learners — it's so fun it won't seem like homeschooling!
• Practice reading a target language for multilingual learners
• Holiday fun — we used this to lead our kids to their Easter baskets
• Rainy day fun
• Just because!

Remember, the hunt is fun on its own — the prize doesn't have to be anything fancy. It could be a favorite stuffed animal who's "hiding" or a couple of coins … er … pirate doubloons.

All you need to do to set up the scavenger hunt is write down clues and hide them through the house or yard. The last clue should lead to the prize. Simple enough, but here are seven tips to pull it off like a boss.


Tip #1: I find a good number of clues is around 8 — it's enough to keep kids interested but not frustrated. Aim lower for younger kids and higher for older.

Tip #2: If you have multiple locations to plant clues, vary location as much as possible between clues. For instance, have one clue be outside and the next inside, or one upstairs and the next downstairs, the next in the basement and the next in the attic. Most kids have a lot of energy, so take advantage and run them around.

I've often thought that dandelions are a child's perfect flowers.



They grow everywhere.

Craft with your kids and make these DIY "stained glass" tissue paper & parchment paper Valentine's Day cards! These sweet Valentines are easy and fun to make, and so pretty when they're done.

I was able to wing this with supplies we had around the house, so I hope you've got these or similar materials at hand as well:

Supplies:

• Parchment paper
• Construction/colored paper
• Scotch tape
• School glue
• Scissors
• Markers, stickers, paints, stamps — whatever you want to use to decorate!

They've got a pleasing 3-D textural effect to them that suits the season.


I've included some ways to pop in some easy practice with writing, even for pre- or early readers.


Get your artsy side in gear, and make some cute and friendly Valentines for all your loved ones!

Here's the full tutorial and our fabulous creations:

You want your kids to enter into learning because they want to, not because they have to.

Quiz them on a topic.

Make a lesson out of it.

Tell them what they should know about it, and make them present what you deem as important, in a format you consider appropriate.

Mikko's been watching some Wild Kratts episodes lately and inserting random factoids into everyday conversations. (Did you know hummingbirds beat their wings in a figure-8? Now you do.)

One in particular on "The Gecko Effect" struck a chord, and Mikko decided he needed a pet that could walk up walls. We started researching together on YouTube about what lizards make good pets, what kinds of geckos are best for kids (with younger siblings & kitties) to keep, and what gecko care entails. We went to the pet store to talk with a worker there about what gear is necessary and price it out, and we got to hold a crested gecko (eep!). We browsed the local shelter's adoptable lizards to get an idea of what rescues are available.

Mikko's learned the differences between leopard geckos, crested geckos, and tokay geckos, and how geckos differ from bearded dragons, iguanas, and chameleons. He likes the climbing ability of the tokay and crested, the ability to regenerate a lost tail of the leopard and tokay, and the ease of care of the crested. He's nearly decided on getting a crested gecko once he's saved up his allowance, but he's trying to decide if a potential lost tail is a deal breaker. ("Mama, you're a master sewer — can you sew the tail back on?")

He knows so much about geckos now — their habitat, their origin story, their endangered status, their classification and cold-bloodedness, how some of them lick their eyes clean since they don't have eyelids, how the hairs on their foot pads enable them to climb straight up flat surfaces despite not being sticky or shaped like suction cups.

What I could have done to ruin his enthusiasm is this: I could have insisted he watch a particular video and take notes. I could have assigned him a book to read. I could have told him to take his knowledge and make a diorama and write a report. I could have quizzed him on arcane facts and marked him down if he forgot something he had deemed irrelevant. I could have cut him off if he asked questions that weren't in my plans. He could have learned just enough to complete the project and pass the quiz and then forgotten it all again.

Instead, I'm just letting him absorb it all. He's asking questions, discovering the answers (with my facilitation but not my agenda), and crafting his own priorities.

Here is the face of a child telling me what he knows about geckos:


Unfettered, unprompted, excitedly teaching me in turn what he has learned.

Here is the face of a child telling me what he knows about Power Rangers:

He doesn't need a Power Rangers quiz or book report. He's just taking it in and proving he knows it by giving it back out. With the joy of a natural learner, he assumes that everyone wants to learn something new.

Alrik took it upon himself to practice numbers & letters in a drawing app on my phone called KidsDoodle. I could have made it a task he had to complete and insisted he got them all "right" (like that backwards 7 at the bottom there). But he's been pushing himself really hard the past few weeks to learn how to recognize and draw numerals, and he comes up with play-based ways like this to help himself practice and master them. He's also been playing Go Fish and other card games.

This isn't me saying I get this right all the time. This isn't me saying I never make learning into a chore or a task to be completed on my terms. This is me reminding myself that even when I step out of the way — especially when I step out of the way — learning happens. And it happens in a joyful, natural, organic way that sparks curiosity and stays with the learner far longer than if it had been forced because of a curricular need or a parental worry.

To demonstrate, here are a few fun facts about geckos Mikko has passed along to me. If I get any wrong, count that as my fault as a student, not his as a teacher.

• Leopard geckos do have eyelids, but most geckos don't, which is why geckos lick their own eyes. Mikko thinks this is an endearing feature.
• Leopard geckos are good climbers but not of flat surfaces, because they lack the right kind of paws. Crested geckos climb, climb, climb straight up walls. Cool! I think our cats will think so, too, so we have to keep them carefully separated.
• Tokay geckos are bigger, tend to bite, and are wary of human interaction. Probably not the best pet for young children!
• Leopard geckos demonstrate their health through big fat tails.
• Geckos are nocturnal. Since Mikko is, too, this works out.
• Geckos are surprisingly light and soft (says the woman who has now held one!). But: They do like to jump, which can be quite startling. (Ask Karsten….)
• In the wild, geckos eat insects and fruit, and many pet lizards must eat live (moving around!) insects, such as crickets and mealworms. Crested geckos can make do with a lizard chow powder that the pet store sells. This is a point in the cresties' favor, methinks.
• Geckos don't eat every day. How dainty!
• Geckos tend to drink drops of water off the plants in their enclosure or dripping off the sides. You have to spray their cage down twice a day to keep it nice and humid.

Over the years of helping our little pumpkins enjoy pumpkin-patch excitement, Sam has come up with a few tricks (treats?) for involving little kids in carving a jack o'lantern without losing any fingers in the process.

You could go with just drawn-on pumpkins if you want to make the easiest choice, but if you want to wield a knife and really cut that pumpkin up, here are our best ideas for toddlers, preschoolers, and elementary folk.

You can see the tips in action in our video, and I'll also describe below:

28 seconds of his own rocking choreography:



Clearly I need to get this kid signed up for dance classes!

Continuing on from two months, here are a few photos from February. (That's how caught up I am at photo editing.)









We interrupt the baby programming to bring you Cat on a Computer.
Must be warm.


Brothers. (And another cat.)