Tuesday, April 20, 2010

Fly Away Home

Imagine if you will:

You look out the back door of your house to check on your four lovely children. You see, to your amusement/dismay, four crawling forms, bottoms to you, two of those bottoms stark naked, crawling away from you into the neighbors' yard, stalking the elusive Mallard Ducks that have taken (contrary to their own best interests) to visiting our neighborhood in the morning and evening. This is what Marmot Dad saw tonight while I was busy putting sheets on our bed. I'm devastated that I didn't get to see it myself.

But it points to a larger trend/mania in our home: BIRDS. The kids are smitten with birds and birdwatching. I bring to wit two birdwatching notebooks, produced by M and E, entirely on their own and without any parental prodding or suggestion.

Here's E's Bird Notebook:

peacocks:

swallows:

black wing (she means red-winged blackbird):

Canada geese:

woodpecker:
yellow head (blackbird):

ducks:

kestral:

ospray [sic]:
killdeer:

ducks redux:

And M's notebook:

titled "A nonficten Book about ducks"


5 comments:

CSIowa said...

I happen to know that this behavior is the expression of a gene sometimes referred to affectionately as the "cardinal" gene.

I don't know what to say about the naked bottoms.

book publishing said...

Endearing post, love the notebook.

Johanna said...

Your kids are so literary! My kids would never in a million years actually write something down without being prodded to do so. Except, of course, for those charming "signs" that say "Stay Out" and "No Boys Allowed" that they post on their doors!

SCS said...

Ah yes, the cardinal gene. MD laughed the other day when the Marmot Babe jumped out of a moving stroller to get a better look at a magpie.

And my kids are literary because they have no other choice. I just took away all their toys (tired to DEATH of picking them up or telling them to pick up toys) and I don't let them watch TV, so what is there left to do?

Johanna said...

Yeah, that hasn't worked so well with Andrew. He's had no toys in his room for close to 2 months (the only things left are books) and we don't do t.v. - it does weird things to his mood. Still hates writing. It's really cramping my homeschooling style! I didn't really realize how much writing is involved even in elementary level learning. Makes the day long!