Other typical unschooling days
DD 14 and I get up at 6, she goes to the shower, I get breakfast things. I wake dd 9 up at 6:45. She and I usually sleep til 8 or so and my husband takes dd14 to school on his way to work, but he is working elsewhere this week. dd 9 could stay home and sleep or whatever by herself til I get back, (1hour), but she wants to come this time to take pictures as I've told her how nice the early morning light is. So we're out the door and on the way to school I point out some misshapen trees on a ridge that I'd like to photograph, but dd14 snaps 'this isn't the right light for that-you should do it in the evening'. I try not to react and we discuss the relative merits of silhouettes .I realize this harshness is the way I have treated her at times :~(
We see a hot air balloon being blown up and dd 14 and I explain to dd 9 that we had seen one yesterday in the same place but couldn't tell if was being inflated or landing. So we deduce it is being inflated as they usually can't land in exactly the same place, and besides, need a bigger feild. After we drop kk14 off for her 7:30 choir, we pull over by the balloon and watch and take pics as the flame inflates it and it takes off. DD9 asks how it goes up I tell her about how the hot air makes it rise and why they have to fly in early AM. We see them turning the flame on when they want to go higher.
It's cold and we get back in the car and she pretends the car is a hot air balloon because we have turned the heater on and -oh no- will it take off? She pretends or is really alarmed, not sure which. Well, what's the difference between the balloon and our car, Danielle? "It's heavier" (was this schoolish of me to ask this?). The we talk about the gas that makes our car go forward, and that makes the balloon go up. We stop and put gas in the car and get hot chocolate.
Then we stop at a lake we pass for the pictures. But she is cold and not interested. So I go and take a few and we see a kind of small waterbird we have not seen before and speculate about whether they are babies or a new kind. And she runs to the end of the dock so I can take a picture of her. We do stop and take one pic of the trees but I think will try again with a zoom. Home and I do a few things, she watches 'an adoption story and comes running to me to tell me how neat it is that an adoptee from Seoul went and adopted a baby from Seoul when she grew up. And Su Lee, the 'boxcar children's' cousin was adopted from Seoul, too. We look on the computer to see if it's possible for us to go to a drag race with Erica Enders, who was featured in the movie Right on Track, but it looks like it will be too far and expensive. She is worried Erica Enders will retire before she gets to see her race.
We catch our guinea hen because she has a string caught around her feet, and Danielle helps me cut it off. We talk about how much better 'tag a long' feels and she says 'I really do want to be a vet'. I tell her when I was a nurse I liked that too, being able to help someone feel better.
Then we go to my mom's house, bid adieu to my cousin from Norway and his son, 20, who have been staying with her but will be gone for a couple of days, and I do a few things there. I dust, Danielle declines to help (do I have to?-No, you don't). Usually she would help, but maybe she is testing to see if she can really say no.
I better stop here, sorry so long, a nice busy morning in all.