books and dragons

I managed to capture some photographs of the rare Cave Dwelling Northern Dragons in their natural habitat. They are quite difficult to photograph as they move quickly and are known for their spectacular fire breathing abilities. They do however like to show off their flying skills, and will occasionally let a photographer close while practicing their latest flight tricks.

The red dragon is known for his fearless leaping and diving.And the smaller green dragon, although more cautious with his takeoffs, is quite quick and has a very unusual spike pattern on his little green head.

Here you can see the dragons curling up in their den where they will rest after their arduous flying sessions.


Thank you dragons, for letting me photograph your magic!

I also have been meaning to do a book post of what we have been reading and enjoying around here. Here are a couple current favorites.

This book was a birthday gift for Perry and it is great. There are lots of terrific projects in here from paper airplanes (that fly ever so well!) to zip lines and climbing walls. The boys have been pouring over it and Perry seems to like it too! Ari and I are currently enjoying Mr.Popper's Penguins at bedtime. Lots of giggles and nothing too scary for the wee lad. I remember enjoying this one when I was a kid.

And Stuart Little was our last chapter book. Cute and engaging and silly, and again with nothing too scary or suspenseful. I am on the hunt for more along these lines if anyone has any suggestions!

I am really enjoying Full Moon Feast that I got for my birthday. It has a years worth of seasonal recipes and essays and the food philosophy and recipes are very much in line with how we are eating these days. The honeybee lemonade from the last post is from this book.

And Dorian's favorite books right now for bedtime reading are Blueberries for Sal (with the "scary part" glossed over slightly- he was quite scared of bears for a bit last summer when one came onto our property, but he requests this book ever and over, so maybe he is working things through?) and the Tomten and the Fox. Both are lasting favorites in our home and both have plots and themes that really speak to my boys and are very familiar to them- berry picking and storing food for winter, (and being wary of the bears who are also storing food!) and a winter farm with animals that need to be protected from forest creatures. And we have our own Tomten that lives here that Ari regularly leaves out oatmeal for, so Tomtens are beloved to both boys.

There are many more, but this is a little sample anyway. I'd love to hear if any of you have good chapter book recommendations, we are moving through them fast!

a book post

I've been wanting to do a book post for awhile now- books are so central to our days, and now that we've truly entered this realm of imaginative play, where story lines are acted out and played over and over, the quality and content of the books we keep in our home seem even more important. I've gotten quite a few questions about kids book lately, so maybe I'll write a few posts on the subject -because it is a topic I have quite a lot to say about! (And for the record, I am only linking Amazon as a convenient Internet resource for reading about the books, not as a suggestion about where to purchase your books from. Local and indi is always good when you can swing it.)



There are a few books that have really been making their way into Ari's play lately. This seems like such a telling sign that they are meeting him at his developmental level and have really sunk in deeply. Some of these are:



Owl Babies: A board book that has been with us for awhile. A simple story about some baby owl siblings who are waiting for their mama to come back to their hollow tree. Many mornings when Ari crawls into bed with me he becomes my baby owl. There is usually some flying and flapping around the room involved in this game too.



The Brambly Hedge stories, particularly The High Hills: These books are just so incredible. The details on every page are enthralling and the stories as so simple and sweet. The characters are mice who live have lavish parties and go on many exciting adventures. Ari regularly pretends to be Wilfred the mouse, shouldering his adventurers pack and helping to get us all out of trouble with his rope and ice pick.



A lot of Otters: I think this is the book that started the Baby Otter game, or maybe we bought it because he was playing Baby Otter? Either was it is a magical story and the illustrations are luminous. We love a lot of Barbra Helen Berger's books.



The Tomten: This classic was part of Perry's childhood and him parents bought us a copy long before we actually had any kids to read it to. The farm in the story looks so much like our own, and we see Tomten footprints everywhere.



Home for a Bunny: A thrift story find that Ari really took to. A bunny looks for a home and finds one.



I've mentioned Ollies's Ski Trip before, but the characters- Jack Frost, King Winter, Mrs.Thaw, have become a part of everyday discussions about winter for Ari. He's been commenting lately on how often Mrs.Thaw has been visiting lately, and he is not pleased.



We've also been enjoying Shirley Huges books from the library. We have Dogger out right now and it is a favorite. And I have been meaning to thank Cybele for the sweet package awhile back of this Shirley Hughes book that has become beloved around here. Thank you so much Cybele!





We have just recently added the reading of a "chapter book" to our evenings, noticing that Ari was ready to follow a more complicated storyline, and also needing something that would help to slow him down before he entered into his bedtime routine with his Papa. Ari is still too young to follow a single story through from day-to-day, so I have been trying to find books that are collections of stories with a unifying theme. Right now we are reading The Barefoot book of Animals, from the library which we've been enjoying. I think I'll try and track down a few more of these collections.

And a few of Dori's favorites:

Really anything with pictures of babies or farm animals goes over well with this guy right now. The above picture is a thrifted Old MacDonald golden book. He loves it a lot.

Everywhere Babies is one that he loves and I love too. The families depicted are beautifully diverse, the rhymes are cute and loving and just right for wee ones.

Welcome Song for Babies and Mama Mama/Papa Papa were on heavy rotation today.

Winter (And Spring, and Autumn, and Summer too...) I wrote about these books when Ari was small, and now both boys love them a lot. They are seasonal wordless board books and something about them appeals to babies and kids alike. (And you should follow that link just to see how little and cute he was!)

Hush: a Thai Lullaby is a favorite bedtime book. As is Grandfather Twilight. And now, I am off to bed too.

Goodnight!

time together

I've had some one-on-one time with both of my kids in the past couple days. It is so precious to be able really focus on each of them for a short while. Dori and I played with the silks and dress ups. We read and sang songs and danced and read books and more books while his brother was off skiing and playing with his grandparents.

And yesterday Dori went down early for his nap and stayed asleep longer than usual so Ari and I had some extra time for snuggles and more book reading together. We spent a lot of time looking at his "quiet time book." I've been wanting to share this terrific book here since we got it awhile ago. It is called "In the Town all Year Round" and it is such a good one. It is a wordless book that follows dozens of characters through the seasons. There is so much to see on each page, but the images and themes are gentle and sweet- a kindergarten is built, a baby is born, children prepare for a lantern festival. It works really well as a quiet time book- Ari will spend ages pouring over the pages on his own. And it makes for a lovely mama-kid-time book too.

joyful steps

Our baby walks! Dori has been walking for just over a week now and he is ever so proud of himself. Oh that baby toddle with the gleeful grin is just almost too much for a mama! This past weekend I took the boys to a family dance (so.much.fun!) when Perry had an evening work commitment, and Dori was walking all over the hall, trying to keep up with all the big kids. I was getting teary watching his shaky but ever-so-determined little steps away from me and into the sea of children. Oh baby boy, you are growing so very fast.

I wish I had some better pictures, the light is so tricky these days and I've been less inspired with photo taking. And no, we don't always dress him in smocks. He is wearing one of the preschool paint smocks for a project we were working on that I hope to post about soon. Though I do often look longingly at the pictures of the little boy in one of our favorite winter books- "Ollies Ski Trip" by Elsa Beskow, published in 1907. Smock, striped stockings under short pants and long curls. Why don't we dress baby boys like that anymore?
Though my new little walker could probably do without the clogs or the button-up boots. And he's got a ways to go on the curls.

beanmama

Fava beans from the garden. Illustration from a favorite book.
I'm heading back outside into the sunshine after some days of rain. I'll draw a name tomorrow.

See you then!

the baby recommends...

Ari is becoming quite the book connoisseur. He has been enjoying us reading to him for awhile now, but I am starting to find him in this corner all my himself, flipping though books without encouragement. As I mentioned before, I am a bit of a book-o-holic and so we have a good sized collection of baby books, but Ari has clear favorites. I though now and then I would review some of the books that have been baby tested in our home.
We sing a lot at our house. I was raised in a household that was always full of music and it is just natural for me to sing through the day, we've got our "going-on-a-walk" song and our "changing clothes and diapers" song and our "getting into the car for an adventure" song. So I enjoy books that we can sing too. They also have the added bonus of holding a baby's attention longer than spoken stories do. Hush Little Baby by Sylvia Long is the traditional song we all know, but Long has changed the rather materialistic words (mama's going to buy you all sorts of things to make you stop crying!) to images from nature (a hummingbird, a sunset) or simple household objects (a homemade quilt, a storybook.) The characters are as anthropomorphic as they come, bunnies in PJ's and rocking chairs, but I have decided I don't mind the talking animal phenomenon- humans around the world have been using animal characters in their stories for a very long time. And these bunnies are cute and loving and the mama sews and plays the banjo. What's not to love?
Winter is part of a series (Winter, Spring, Summer and Autumn surprisingly,) by Gerda Muller that is in every Waldorf classroom and on every Waldorf reading list. These are wordless board books with simple illustrations of regular seasonal activities, skating and building snowmen and reading books by the fire are some pictured in the Winter book. I liked the idea of having books that change with the seasons and that reflect what is going on outside, but the appeal for Ari seems greater than this somehow. He LOVES this book. We "read" it nearly every day and have since he was bout 7 months old. I'm not entirely sure what it is is about it, but it is certainly a hit. The best part for Perry and I is looking for the odd pencil-lined ghost images that Gerda apparently forgot to erase before going to print. I'm looking forward to pulling out the Spring book, but am trying to resist the urge until there is at least a hint of green out there. And finally, this funny little book is the most recent favorite of our little book lover. The cartoonish line drawings in Barnyard Dance are pretty basic (can you tell that Ari's favorites are not necessarily mine?) but they are pretty cute and the rhythmic text is fun to read. Sandra Boynton is a lover of anthropomorphic animals as well, these ones are taking part in a square dance called by a cow with a fiddle. Having grown up attending family square dances (they are more fun then they sound, really,) I like the call-dance feel. "With a BAA and a MOO and a COCKADOODLEDOO/ everybody promenade two by two!" My baby finds it jolly fun.

Other books that are a big hit these days are ones with real pictures of babies and animals (as you can see here.) I've not found any that stand out particularly, although Ari clearly finds this one pretty tasty.

sunny

I've been reading a bunch of the "weirdness" memes going around, and although I am not particularly interested in divulging a list of my quirks, one that came immediately to mind that isn't too embarrassing is my extreme dislike for shopping. Sure the odd browse through a thrift store or stationary store is enjoyable (in fact I have I great love of stationary shops- all those pens! and notebooks! and folders and binders and day timers and paperclips... okay, maybe this is another weird thing...) but I despise shopping for things that I need, especially clothing. And if it is in a shop that has attentive and helpful salespeople that want to tell me about their product or comment on how great I look in an outfit I'm trying on, well, I'd rather gauge out my eyeballs with a spoon. But one exception to this (besides that aforementioned stationary and thrift shopping) is books. Especially kids books. I can accumulate kids books like nothing else. And though spending 25$ on a shirt is physically painful, this doesn't seem like much for a picture book. So its no wonder that bookshelves factor largely into our home reno plans.

One of my favorite bloggers started doing reviews of kids books recently which I have been enjoying greatly (oh good! more books to covet and long for!) and when I recently picked up this book at my local bookstore I decided I would have to jump in and do a review of it because it is just so great and needs to be known. After doing an internet search I was not surprised to find that I am not the only one who thinks this book is wonderful.

Sunny by Robin Mitchell and Judith Steedman is part of a series of books that uses bendy dolls, simple household objects and wonderful collage to create a hip and magical landscape. Pencils become telephone poles, doodles on black paper are chalk drawings, a ruler and empty wooded spool become a see-saw. I've not read the other titles in the series but this one is decidedly urban, which is a nice change from our usual reads. Sunny wanders around the city enjoying the noises he finds and decides to have a hootenanny with all his friends making their own clanging, rattling stomping music. The book also comes with a ten song CD full of fun upbeat kid songs with one rowdy tune by Veda Hille's kid band Duplex! whose CD we own and love.
Ari and I danced around to the tunes and I dreamed of crafting up some bendy collaging goodness. I look plan to try to track down the rest of the books in this series, Windy, Snowy and Chinook, and Gail.