I love the light bulb moments, the time to reflect and ask questions, the time to focus. I love how we’re doing life at the moment. There is nothing all that contrived, nothing dull. Every day brings a new revelation. I love it that Master Nine and I have had long discussions about Chaos Theory and the butterfly effect as well as tackled big questions such as “does God exist ?” I love it that he counts backwards from 0 (-1, -2, -3, -4…) and works out algebraic formulas without even thinking about it (for instance: Mum what’s 365 + ? = 400 when trying to work out exactly how many days he had to go till an event). I love it that in the past four months, he’s worked out how to put together a blog with banners, links, and organised, interesting content, has read a book about website marketing (not that he’d know it in those terms) and implemented the advice to increase traffic to his website,  has learned teamwork and delegation skills by sharing his blogging responsibilities with others, has figured out how to use a variety of widgets, and writes constantly (He loves capital letters, probably because he’s so excited about his blog posts), has learned to use Photoshop including skills in cropping, reorientating photos and images (geometry…not that we call it that), using layers, animated banner ads and resizing images (percentages, understanding of pixel count). I love it that a discussion about jumping off a bridge into a boat led to the discovery that everything falls at the same rate regardless of mass so long as the air resistance is the same and I love it that he tried to test it out by dropping a bottle to the ground at the same time as himself (ouch!). I love it that we were on the bridge at the time.

I love it that he has gained more independence in getting his own food and clothes but that he still wants me to do it for him, because it fills his love tank… I love it that we have talked about that, while snuggling under my bed covers during a thunder storm with his two younger brothers. I admire his ability to make friends online and his wisdom at making sure the nine year old in Canada, really was a nine year old. I love it that he didn’t hesitate to call his new friend and then downloaded Skype to make sure he could call for free. I love it that he tweets and that he sticks to a set of rules in terms of who’s allowed to follow him to safeguard himself! I love it that he learned how to fish and didn’t get discouraged when he didn’t catch anything, I love it that he’s keen to give it another go.

I love it that he’s worked out what he needs to do to get a job at a certain place by a certain time and that he’s willing to do the work to get there. He’ll probably change his mind, but then again, he might not. I love it that no one’s told him he can’t do that or that he’ll have to wait until he’s a grown up to try. I love it that his eyes sparkle when he sees a well designed object and wants to replicate it, and thinks he can! (ie. a walled pond with a water fountain). I love that one day he figured out that everything was made from the same stuff and I love that he takes a keen interest in current affairs shows on TV. I love that after watching a documentary on lightening and storms we had a whopper of a lightning storm that knocked the power out! It was good timing! When Master Nine was in school I never new what he was learning or if, indeed he was retaining anything.  We missed so much! Now I notice every little thing, every little “ah ha!” I love the excitement, the thrill that comes with an accomplishment or a discovery and I love being there to help solve problems when they arise. Children learn. We can choose to make it difficult by sending them on a twisted, rocky path or we can choose to clear that path for them to decide their own way. I choose the latter.

Preface: Yesterday my son D was sent home from school because the learning support teachers said they couldn’t manage his behaviour. He was shafted from one person to the next and finally they sat him in the office until I was able to collect him. So today, D and L didn’t go to school (L said he had a headache). This is what we did instead…

This morning D and A got out the mat with the car track, and raced their cars around it to see who was the fastest, pretending they were race car drivers. Then A decided to do some colouring-in while L played “Line Writer” on the computer and D practiced on the Mario Kart Wii game. Then we found a cool science experiment on the internet looking at what happens to an ice cube when you drop it into a jar of cooking oil. In the instructions it said to float the ice cube on the oil but our ice cube didn’t float…. It just sank to the bottom. We watched as the ice melted and released little bubbles of oxygen into the air. The ice cube looked silvery, kinda like mercury. Eventually all the water settled at the bottom. From this we figured out that water has a higher density than oil and that oxygen likes to find a way out, even if trapped.

Then we went to the school for a visit with the special education teacher to discuss D’s “behavioural problems” and the fact that they were having trouble getting D to do anything for them. As we were discussing this, D and A were playing beautifully in the corner with a dolls house and their cars and then they were playing make-believe with the plastic dinosaurs. L was lying on the couch reading his Andy Griffiths and Paul Jennings “Just Annoying” book. After we finished, I asked D to pick up the toys and put them back in the box so we could go to the shops. He did so with little prompting.

At the shops, the boys got a little over-excited and over stimulated, so I focused their attention on finding items on my grocery list. It became a game. It fizzled a bit when they didn’t know what the words were so next time I’ll make sure I have pictures. While at the grocery store L figured out that 1kg of icing sugar was cheaper than buying two packs of 500g by three cents.

When we got home a storm rolled over and the boys went downstairs and placed Lego pieces in the new drainage pipe Wayne had placed in the ground and waited at the other end for the Lego to spew out of the drain pipe. They experimented with putting the Lego in at different points to see if it got stuck. Then L and A played “Trampoline Poison Ball” which involved jumping around and over a variety of objects on the trampoline. Then L decided to write up a set of instructions for each variation of the game “Poison Ball” he came up with, while D stayed downstairs to play and draw pictures in the mud. When I went downstairs there was mud splattered everywhere!

Today we covered science, ecology, engineering, drama, social science, maths, art, physical education, writing, and reading. Of course, while doing all these things, they didn’t learn a thing, did they?