First there was a hayride, pulled by these guys….

We learned about the plants and animals that live in the area. Did you know bears need to eat 25 pounds of food per day to get ready for hibernation?

Then we learned about tin smithing and what it was like to be an apprentice.

We then got to practice our mad tin smithing skillz.

Master tin smith. Oh yeah!

We learned how to make cider with a pioneer era cider press. Always wary of the bees…..

Apples only, please. Finger cider doesn’t taste very good.

Choosing the right apples was crucial…..

We learned about traveling by covered wagon. Did you know the kids had to walk pretty much the whole journey? They walked a good distance ahead of the wagon and moved all of the large rocks and filled in holes so that the wagon could pass, and collected kindling. Buffalo dung was often used for kindling. Did you know that each family member could only take two sets of clothing? While the pioneers usually bathed once a week, while traveling, they may only bathe once per month! (Upon hearing this, several of the boys crowed, “Lucky!”) Sounds like quite the stinky journey.

We learned all about living in a small log cabin. Kids had to empty the chamber pots every morning! And you know that saying about the bed bugs? Yeah, they really did bite. Ewww!

After a quick break for lunch, we got to have an apple tasting. We tried six different kinds of apples and some fresh cider. Did you know there are pink and purple apples? Pink apples are called Pink Lady apples. One type of purple apple is called the Arkansas Black. The Boy’s favorite was the Golden Delicious. The Girl says she liked the Arkansas Black.

Then it was off to the orchard, where we learned the proper way to pick an apple. Did you know if an apple is not picked properly that it will be 5 years before another apple can grow in that spot? We also learned to never pick up an apple off the ground because after eating their fill at night, the bears mark the ground…and the fallen apples….with their scent. That can’t make for a tasty apple. We saw bear fur and bear scat.

Because the orchard is 100% chemical and pesticide free, we could eat apples right off of the tree.

Then we got to pick pumpkins….although there were not too many left.

It was gorgeous…..

All in all, everyone had a good time…and The Boy and The Girl made it almost four whole hours without fighting. I think that has to be some kind of record.

The ingredients are gathered, and The Boy prepares to read the recipe…

Yeah, so we don’t have one of those cool, little sifter things…..

Look at the face on The Boy. I would say he is not a morning person, but this was after lunch.

Ready to scoop our fresh pumpkin puree. No canned stuff here. Nope.

A little bit of shell is okay, right?

Doesn’t look like much yet…..

But it tastes pretty good……

We burned the muffins a little…..

But the bread came out just right……

This is waaaaaay too much butter. Waaaaaaaay. We made a second batch with the seeds lightly coated in oil…much better.

Here are some pictures of pumpkins, pumpkins, and more pumpkins…..

The Girl painted this pumpkin, then The Girl and The Boy came up with adjectives to describe our pumpkin to use in their pumpkin journals.

The Boy came up with the idea for the shish kabob skewers…of course.

Those white pumpkins are called Lumina pumpkins…..They were actually very pretty….before they were attacked by Sharpies.

We measured and mixed the ingredients and then stirred until it was ready to knead.

That was good for a few minutes of entertainment.

(Notice the shiner The Girl is sporting in these pictures.)

We began making beads. The recipe made enough dough for a lot of beads. The dough began to harden up a bit as we were rolling (and rolling, and rolling, and rolling) our beads. Stopping and rekneading ( is that even a word?) helped. Then we poked our holes with a nail and placed them on a cookie sheet to bake. Actually, I did most of the poking because the beads smooshed really easily.

We had so much dough that I thought it would be cool for The Girl to make a hand print. And she threw in a paperweight for her dad for good measure.

When we removed the beads from the oven, most of their holes had baked closed. @%$#%! I repoked (How about that? Is that a word?) all of the beads that I could.

I spent about 15 minutes getting all of the paint and things ready. The Girl painted about 5 beads before she declared she was done. Well, awesome, then. After I convinced her she hadn’t painted enough for a necklace, she begrudgingly came back and painted a few more. She painted the hand print and paperweight the next day.

All in all, the project was a good one. It was easy to make the dough. The hand print and beads turned out really well before we baked them. They didn’t look as nice after…and the shape changed a bit. If we decide to use salt clay for something in the future, I would like to try it with the alum. Now where does one hang a fluorescent pink keepsake?

These are the pictures The Boy and I took after hitting send on a certain email. An email containing another set of interview questions. Interview questions for …..come closer….closer………..closer…..Ha! I’m saving it for the end….See you at the bottom, baby!

Adam Savage from Mythbusters! Woooooo Hoooooo!

The Boy loves Mythbusters…so much so that his number one item on his Christmas list was “Meet the Mythbusters”. The number one thing! He had it right above motorcycle. The Boy’s supercool new blog friend arranged the interview. The Boy has been pretty excited since he found out…but it really hit home as we attached his questions and hit send. As you can see in the pictures, I am sure. Oh yeah. Read a bit about it from The Boy here.

So see, I have been busy.

Any of you who also read The Boy’s blog, know that he has been doing some interviews. Some gracious and interesting people like Matthew Baldwin of defective yeti, Sarah Brown of Que Sera Sera (and the lovely mind behind Cringe), have been brave enough to be among the first to be interviewed. As well, as non-blogger, Cat, who runs a pub in the U.K., and several others with interviews in the works. Know what an electro chemist does? Neither did I…you will after you read The Boy’s upcoming interview with Josh.

So yeah, and why all of the interviews again?

Well, in keeping with the “Please God, Let The Boy Learn to Tolerate Writing, Reading, and Learning” thing I have going….The Boy is taking on a project of enormous proportions (especially to a nine year old). He is going to make a book. No, not like a construction paper, finger paint type book - a real live, hard cover book. His goal is to interview 100 people (holy crap!) about where they live, things they do, things they love, things they are afraid of, etc….and put it all together in a self-published book with some of his photography. Cool, right? Right. Know what is even more cool? He is going to sell copies of the book (fingers crossed) and give all proceeds to the ASPCA.

Why in the heck would he want to do that?

Because it is helping with his social skills - causing him to come up with questions relevant to the person being interviewed as well as those who may read it, and not just asking about topics that he is interested in. Because he is learning so much about different places and people. (Have you ever interviewed an astronaut or a woman who is working at the North Pole tagging polar bears? The Boy will be doing just that.) Because completing a project of this magnitude will give him a sense of accomplishment. Because The Boy is completely discouraged about his academic abilities, and having a real book, full of his work, with his name on it will be such a boost for him. Because it is fun!

So how does this involve me, exactly?

Well, 100 is a lot of interviews. A whole lot. The boy needs volunteers. People willing to answer some interesting questions, and of course, be in a book. He has several people who have already agreed to be interviewed that he is working through (it takes him awhile, so if you are waiting to be interviewed, you were not forgotten! The questions will come.) but he needs more! You don’t need to be a navy pilot or polar bear tagging scientist to be interviewed. Come one, it’ll be fun. If you are super cool, you could put one of these buttons on your somewhere to help The Boy get the word out.

The day’s lesson featured pictures of said organs for the kids to color in and glue to a life-sized tracing of their bodies made on butcher paper. Oh, joy.

Upon seeing the testicles, The Girl shrieked, “LOOOOOK! A BUTT!!” Cackle. Cackle.

“No, that’s not a butt. That’s the boy part.”

“Nooooo, boys have WIENERS!” she said, as if I were clearly a moron.

“Those are also boy parts. Those are the testicles (Ugh.)”

“TESTICLES? TESTICLES! TESTICLES!” More cackling with some bonus dancing. This time The Boy joined in.

Order was restored and we began reading…although every time The Boy got to the word “testicles” there was Beavis and Butthead-like giggling from both sides of the table.

Now onto the female parts…

“The ovaries hold the eggs.”

“Eggs?” The Girl wrinkled up her nose. “Like a chicken?”

“No, not like a chicken. They are small…”

“BAWK! BAWK! BAWK!”

“No, not…..” Groan.

We managed to move ahead and get to the worst part. (Yes, it got worse.) The part where I draw the weird, diagram that is so clearly shaped like a cow head. We somehow plowed through the egg moving from the ovaries and down into the uterus and possibly meeting with the sperm. Oh, the sperm.

“It SWIMS?” The Boy asked, incredulously. “How?”

“Well….,” I venture, “It has a sort of…(sigh) tail.” I picked up a marker and drew a little sperm with a wiggly tail.

“Like a tadpole!” The Boy grinned.

“Yes, yes. Like a tadpole.”

“Ohhhh! Let me have a marker. I wanna’ draw a SPERM!” cried The Girl.

“Erm…maybe later, okay?”

“So yeah, but how does the sperm get in there?” asked The Boy. “Wait, I know. The man pees on the girl, right?”

“NO! Um…no….”

“Is it kissing? It’s kissing, isn’t it?

“No…..,” I buried my face into my hands and began massaging my temples, hoping to alleviate the twitch developing in my eye. When I uncovered my face many, many moments later, they were still there. Drat.

“Mama, I know what a doctor calls the little tail that a boy has. It’s a penis.”

“Yes, you’re right.”

“And that….,” she motioned again to the picture of the testicles, “that is the butt.”

Ack. “No. The testicles are the other bits. The things that are behind the little tail,” I clarify…and notice I am using my hands to gesture. I shove them under my legs.

“That’s the part that hurts when you get kicked there,” The Boy chimes in.

We forge ahead, with me muddling through an explanation of X and Y chromosomes how they make girl or boy babies.

“If the egg gets here and there is a sperm, a baby can start to be made,” I point at the cow’s face on my diagram.

“Yeah, the baby grows, when it’s ready to be born, it turns head down…goes down this tube and comes out the woman’s butt,” The Boy interjects. Hmm, he had started off so well….

“Not her butt,” I correct.

“No, another hole. But it is real close to her butt,” he concedes.

“EWWWWWW!” The Girl squeals.

I decide we’ve learned quite enough for one day. We move on to have the kids color in the pictures of the parts to glue onto their paper bodies.

“Here, it says to color the testicles purple. Do you want to color your testicles light purple or dark purple?” I ask The Boy. (Tee hee.)

The Boy jumps out of his chair and does a little dance, shaking his pelvis around. “I don’t know! You tell me!” he crows.

“Just color your testicles, okay?” Can’t say I’ve ever used that sentence before. Ever.

“Mom, will you help me cut out my testicles?”

“Cut out my testicles too, Mama!”

“Here! Here are your testicles! Come here take these! Take your testicles!”

“Just a little glue, okay? You don’t need a lot of glue for your testicles.”

“Go help your sister glue on her uterus.”

By now, the cat has joined in the action because he has a thing for stretching out across the butcher paper when we roll it out. He sniffs at the fresh glue an begins to sample it.

“Loooook! The cat is licking your testicles!”

“HAHAHAHAHAHA!”

“Cut it out! Don’t lick my testicles!”

“HAHAHAHAHAHAHA!”

Then my phone rang. Ahhh, saved by the bell.

It was The Husband.

“What’s going on?” he asks.

“Oh, you know. The usual. Just doing some school.”

“Your uterus is glued on crooked!”

“There’s too much glue on my testicles!”

“What are they saying?”

“Nothing. Just, you know, studying the body. Let me go into the other room, ” I move the phone away and call to the kids…”Finish gluing your testicles and then turn on the Magic School Bus show about digestion, please.”

“Where are you going?” The Boy asks.

“I’m just going to go in the other room to talk to Daddy and take some to Advil,”….and scrub my brain with Lysol.

“By the way,” I tell The Husband,”The Boy wants to know how the sperm gets to the uterus to meet the egg. I told him you would tell him when you got home.”

“I don’t know,” The Husband says simply.

“What?”

“Nope, don’t know. My sex talk would be see there’s these birds and then there’s these bees……..”

Genius. Why didn’t I think of that?

The Boy has Sensory Integration Dysfunction. It seems to have gotten much milder as of late….it was much worse as a newborn, infant, and toddler. When The Boy started school, he hated it from the minute he started. HA. TED. IT. We managed Kindergarten. First grade was worse. Second grade worse than that. Third grade was unbearable. Starting in first grade, homework took hours. HOURS. Sometime 4-5 hours to finish 30 minutes worth of work. There was crying, screaming, hiding under the table, and wailing from The Boy. Pleading, cajoling, bribing, rewarding, and crying from myself. The nightly battle consumed our lives. We always thought it was due to the SID. This year, as he began third grade, things really went downhill. He couldn’t keep up in class. He didn’t know cursive. He was failing spelling. He was miserable. He began acting out. He began to say “I’m stupid.” and “I suck at this!” At the end of our rope, we had him asessed. He was diagnosed with dysgraphia, processing and sequencing problems. Writing wasn’t just a pain to him, it was a huge battle. An uphill climb. We decided to homeschool. His hatred of school has clouded his love for learning. Since November, I have been trying to reclaim that. It has involved a lot of thinking outside the box. I was looking for a way to encourage him to write. Something that inspired him and sparked a desire. I came up with the blog idea and presented it to him. He was intrigued by the thought that people all over the world would read his words and see his pictures. He grinned at the prospect of someone he didn’t even know writing a response. And so we blogged. He composed the first post with not one complaint. I helped him make his thoughts clear…reminded him to use complete sentences…and encouraged him to keep on track. The next entry went the same way. Woot! Grammar, creative writing, and communications class all in one package! As of now, I am typing, while he dictates. (He is learning to type). Today I had him type the first two sentences himself. He painstakingly searched out the letters…losing his train of thought and forgetting his sentence at each new word. It was a struggle. He resisted and complained…there were almost tears, but he did it. The first two sentences on his own! Baby steps. The words are his and are awaiting an audience. A word of encouragement. A connection. I am asking anyone who loves nine year old creative writing to take a peek and leave a little hello. It sounds so overly dramatic, but your brief comment really will make a difference in the self worth of a boy. A boy who really needs to feel like he can be good at this whole writing thing. So could you? Would you? Please pay him a visit?