Mara

3 years ago I bought these huge Learning Walls ( scenes in black and white on a huge white cardboard background in a variety of themes) and just found them again. I moved some furniture and they now take over almost 2 whole walls in one room of the house to be painted on and decorated and basically doing with as they please. My 3 y.o. has always loved painting on anything he can think of (Harold and the Purple Crayon is one of his favorite books), and I have had to come up with lots of creative ways to accommodate him and his dad's wishes at the same time, but found lots of ways to do so (a roll of paper suspended from a string from the top of the door, paint that can go on glass etc.).
And yes, I was vegetarian (even vegan) once and when I was pregnant with my first I started to have cravings for fish. I did not give in to them thinking my now ex was going to be critical. My protein was always low, even though I had lots of beans and soy protein shakes etc. etc. and gained 45 pounds eating what I thought was healthy). I still feel bad about not listening to my child when in utero. When he was about 10 months old we were visiting a friend and I had cooked some fish for her. He just crawled over to her plate, grabbed it and gobbled it down. Since then I have never restricted any food I or my children would like to try. Sometimes we talk about how the different foods make us feel (Lucian called the peas they picked yesterday superpowerpellets, and said they make him feel strong, Doritos give him a headache and he does not want them anymore etc.). But also just if that is what we want to do -
Mara


----- Original Message ----
From: "gailbrocop@..." <gailbrocop@...>
To: [email protected]
Sent: Wednesday, June 25, 2008 11:00:13 AM
Subject: Re: [unschoolingbasics] Re: the veg thing




In a message dated 6/25/2008 9:24:22 A.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
theresefranklin@ verizon.net writes:

LOL- I am sure you are going to say that I should allow them to
paint my walls... in which I will just sigh and hit delete)

____

I'm smiling just remembering how much fun we had visiting Kelly's house
quite some time ago and painting the walls of the music room with our own art or
quotations. The room looks awesome and I would love a room that my kids and
friends had painted.

I've been following this whole thread and remembering our lives before
unschooling when I used to say things like..."We just don't....... ......(fill in
the blank) ----watch more than one hour of TV a day, allow guns in the ho
use or even watch things with any violence, eat at McDonalds! Really, I said
and believed all those things.

I look at the close relationships I have with my kids who are now 15 and 18
and I know it would not have been possible if I had continued to control and
micro manage them with all my "We just don'ts"

They are so thoughtful and make such good decisions because they have been
trusted to decide what they eat, when they sleep, what they paint on the walls,
what they watch on TV and how they choose to spend their time. They learned
to make their own decisions through seeing choices their parents made,
ongoing discussions, and trial and error. I have changed my vocabulary to not
include the phrase.. "We just don't..." simply because it limits possibilities
that might be amazing.

I would hate to think I had missed those hours watching "Friends, That 70's
Show and Family Guy with them because it was more than an hour a day. And
the amazing potato guns that we made that shoot potatoes half way across the
river. And Pulp Fiction....we would have missed that too. And those late
night runs to get chocolate shakes just because I didn't like McDonalds... would
have missed all that. So many memories that we share that make up the
kaleidoscope of our lives are just because I got rid of "We don't do that in our
family and replaced it with...."Why Not?" And "Yes, let's find a way to make
that happen."

Just that simple thing made their lives so much bigger and all our lives so
much richer.

I certainly would have thought it someone was crazy 7 years ago if someone
had said "Why not let your child paint on the walls" My journey from "Why
not watch more than one hour of TV a day" to "Why not paint on the walls"
didn't happen overnight . However, I am reminded every day that changing my
vocabulary helped me to change my parenting and the result has been remarkable.

Glad for this thread because it reminded me about Logan wanting to paint on
some walls and thinking we could get the paint today.

Gail

http://gail- hummingbirdhaven .blogspot. com/

************ **Gas prices getting you down? Search AOL Autos for
fuel-efficient used cars. (http://autos. aol.com/used? ncid=aolaut00050 000000007)

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swissarmy_wife

this reminds me...

There is spray paint that can make a chalk board on the wall. I
remember seeing it a few years back.

I also saw white board paint at home depot a few months back. you can
turn your whole wall into a dry erase board!



--- In [email protected], Mara <mamadeluz@...> wrote:
>
> 3 years ago I bought these huge Learning Walls ( scenes in black and
white on a huge white cardboard background in a variety of themes) and
just found them again. I moved some furniture and they now take over
almost 2 whole walls in one room of the house to be painted on and
decorated and basically doing with as they please. My 3 y.o. has
always loved painting on anything he can think of (Harold and the
Purple Crayon is one of his favorite books), and I have had to come up
with lots of creative ways to accommodate him and his dad's wishes at
the same time, but found lots of ways to do so (a roll of paper
suspended from a string from the top of the door, paint that can go on
glass etc.).

Jodi Bezzola

--- On Wed, 6/25/08, swissarmy_wife <heatherbean@...> wrote:
 
~~There is spray paint that can make a chalk board on the wall. I
remember seeing it a few years back.~~
 
And this comes in some really fun colors!  I just got some in green to paint a chalkboard on the lower half of one of our kitchen walls.  Jade & Skye are VERY excited!
 
Jodi




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swissarmy_wife

I LOVE that idea! My wheels are turning now. I don't really have
kitchen walls... but maybe my hallway? Or the younger boys room?
hmmm....

--- In [email protected], Jodi Bezzola
<jodibezzola@...> wrote:
>
>
>
> --- On Wed, 6/25/08, swissarmy_wife <heatherbean@...> wrote:
>
> ~~There is spray paint that can make a chalk board on the wall. I
> remember seeing it a few years back.~~
>
> And this comes in some really fun colors! I just got some in green
to paint a chalkboard on the lower half of one of our kitchen walls.
Jade & Skye are VERY excited!
>
> Jodi
>
>
>
>
> [Non-text portions of this message have been removed]
>

diana jenner

~~There is spray paint that can make a chalk board on the wall. I remember
seeing it a few years back.~~

It gets better -- there's a kind of paint with metal in it you can put down
*under* the chalkboard paint and have a chalkboard you can use magnets on --
ANYWHERE!!
--
~diana :)
xoxoxoxo
hannahbearski.blogspot.com


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Jodi Bezzola

Ooh, I'm going to check that out for sure.  I like it when it gets better than what my girls are *already* over the moon about!
 
Jodi

--- On Wed, 6/25/08, diana jenner <hahamommy@...> wrote:

From: diana jenner <hahamommy@...>
Subject: Re: [unschoolingbasics] Re: the veg thing - painting on walls
To: [email protected]
Date: Wednesday, June 25, 2008, 9:21 PM






~~There is spray paint that can make a chalk board on the wall. I remember
seeing it a few years back.~~

It gets better -- there's a kind of paint with metal in it you can put down
*under* the chalkboard paint and have a chalkboard you can use magnets on --
ANYWHERE!!
--
~diana :)
xoxoxoxo
hannahbearski. blogspot. com

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