Chickens, Potlucks, Flowers, and Bees

Busy as bees these last two days! Tuesday we dropped Cameron (and his carseat) off at camp and then headed out to the deepest darkest depths of wine country for a playdate with one of Cassia's friends. She's one of the 4-H little sisters and is normally very shy in groups. It was fabulous to be able to see her in a one-on-one situation and really see her personality come out. It also made me realize how incredibly LOUD my daughter is, lol. The other girl kept holding her hands over her ears and saying, "Cassia! Must you be so loud? You're hurting my ears!" LOL. And I thought I was just oversensitive to it.

But we had a great time. The girls played house and restaurant and Jungle Girl on the rope swing. We ate pizza and ice cream. We swam in the cooled down hot tub. It was a really nice time. In fact, we stayed so long that we were almost late to our dinner date! I was very thankful that one of the other camp moms, MomS (whom I've known for over a year), had offered to bring Cameron over to her house to play with T6 after camp and then bring him with her to the Unschooler's Potluck that evening. Camp is in her town and the potluck was in ours. Anyway, we had just enough time to drive home, throw the toddler slide that they had given us into the backyard, grab our potluck dish, and leave again. I didn't even bother to take Cassia (who was asleep anyway, lol) and Greyson (who was not) out of the car.

The Unschooler's Potluck was nice. I felt really comfortable with these people. Of course I already knew about half of them. The kids had a blast. There were so many kids there and there were chickens running around in the backyard and a tree house that Cassia got stuck in more than once, lol. I was so happy to see Cameron again but he barely looked up from his LEGOs to say hi. MomS said that she was shocked that it was his first time alone at someone else's house. She said he's a very secure kid. That's a great thing to hear - I wish I were more secure, lol. He was tired though! When it was time to leave he burst into tears, demanding that he must have another cup of apple juice before we could go. It escalated into one of those things where you just can't help laughing because it's so insane. He just kept repeating his juice demand all the way home - where he finally calmed down. (And no, he never got any more juice.) Phew!

I'm still processing what I got from the gathering. We had a very powerful talk. I'm still not entirely sure what my game plan for next year is... no, I take that back. I think I still have the same game plan I'm just not sure how hard core we're going to approach it. I guess Cameron will end up calling the shots on that one. One thing I did take away from our gathering is that it *is* about what's best for the kids, not what's best for me. The other big thing is that whatever path is chosen, interaction, respect, and purpose are key. Even in unschooling you have to purposefully interact. I have a tendency to just live and let live, so a more formal approach may in fact be what's needed to keep *me* on track. The kids are perfectly happy to just play by themselves all day so I would probably never see them if we didn't sit down for school, lol. Anyway, I left there with a full head and a full heart. I'm not sure if I will continue to go to official "unschool" activities or not. I don't know that they accept half-timers. ;) I may try to start up a Classical get together or two. Since most of my friends seem to be unschooling, I may end up needing more support from the stricter set. Or I'll just keep frantically begging Meesh to call me in the middle of the night to straighten my head out. ;)

Wednesday, Cameron was supposed to get a ride to camp from another local mom, but he refused to go. He said he didn't want to ride in someone else's car two trips in a row. So I drove him. And then we came back home for twenty minutes before leaving again. Cassia and Greyson and I went to the Lavender Bee Farm for a tour. Oh the smell! It was just lovely and we learned so much about bees! Well, I did. She learned which people got annoyed and which people laughed when she poked them, stepped on them, pulled on them, bumped into them, and talked over the tour. *sigh* Just when I got Cameron behaving like a human being on tours, now Cassia has taken over the class clown role. Oh well. Someday they'll all be grown and well-behaved and I will miss their nymphness. At least that's what I hear. ;) Anyway, the beekeeper said that she had "quite a personality!" I think it was a compliment, lol.

We left there (with a jar of lavender honey, a silky lavender sachet, and 4 honey straws) with just enough time to pick Cameron up from camp 30 minutes late. Ooops! Luckily she does aftercare and was already watching two of the other boys. I would've charged me if I were her, lol. Thankfully, we had nothing else to do today so we all came home to relax. It's been a long week already. I can't imagine if Cameron were in school and I had to do this Pack Lunch, Drop Off, Pick Up thing every single day for 9 months. Gah. No thanks. He is soooo tired from it. And I'm already out of good lunch ideas, lol.