Friday, February 29, 2008

The First Movie- being there fully

I published MD's first YouTube movie yesterday. It is less than a minute. He has been wanting to make movies to post. I can finally get them uploaded to the computer. He said he is going to make lots of movies. He also got a Shining Stars cat ( he got to name a real star Cute Kitty)and has been playing that online together with Roblox. This week has been a week where I have posted on boards very little. I have spent the week playing with my kids. On Tuesday I had help to clean the house. I finally got the play room organized so I could bring the big box of Playmobil for the children to play. Needles to say that the house is back to "normal" in one day. Yesterday I just played with the kids. I did not clean anything. It looks like a tornado came by or did it?
I have been thinking about Lisa Heyman ( another unschooling mom who just passed away so young) and Hannah ( Diane Jenner's beautiful daughter who also is no longer here with us).
What if today, this moment , was the last moment you had with your children? What would you be doing them?
I got to go buy my Gigi her OINK ( a Shining Stars pig) that she wants.
Then I will be back home to make some more movies with MD.
I will be with my kids and I will be enjoying them because that is what Lisa would be doing right now.


Sunday, February 24, 2008

Happy Girl

It was finally warm enough for Gigi to go outside for longer than 5 minutes. We got all dressed up in barn clothes and headed to got help Daddy do chores. She had so much fun. I got a few minutes caught on tape and you can see her smile.
The house became a nightmare. Even Nene, MD's beloved cat, found a mouse and walked into his bedroom with a dead little thing as a gift. She just left it there in the carpet in front of him.
As a disclosure for those who may be thinking :"Oh my!! She has mice in her house" . Yes we do. With all the grain out in the farm as soon as it gets cold they are in the house. The cats help a lot but it is impossible to get rid of the pesky creatures.
Today I was talking to a friend of mine from Sweden about how here in the US they are more and more pushing kids to learn to read earlier. She is also and uschooler and we have many great talks about children, parenting, partners, family and life in general. As I recall in Brazil kids where not "alphabetized" until they were 7 or 8. Why do they want kids her in the US to be reading at five or else they are labeled learning disable or behind?
I hear about people teaching their kids to learn as early as 3 even 2. It seems like the more they push younger kids, more hours, more school days, less recess... the worse it gets.
Also the amount of time kids spend here is just way more than in my time. In my time in Brazil you either went to school from 8:00AM until noon or 1:00PM until 4:30-5:00PM all the way until you graduated. So no one stayed in school as long as American kids do.
I went to a Brazilian private school all my life until 11th grade when I did go to private American high school. In my experience the Brazilian school covered more subjects even deeper than the American school.
Not that it was "better". I can talk about all the damage my brothers and sister suffered in school there. I did a little better in some ways. But I still studied to pass the tests and not because I wanted to learn. Talk about a waste of time!
I was fortunate to have a mom who when I wanted to come to the US to work for a dog handler at 16 year old supported me all the way. I left school for a year and it was a life changing experience. She was always that way. She would wake up and it would be too beautiful of a day to go to school so she would just declare that we would go to the beach or hiking and not school.
Well it is almost 1:00AM and I will stop rambling and go to sleep.
Good night.

Saturday, February 23, 2008

Introducing my fabulous children.

MD (a.k.a. Mario) is my oldest. He is 5 and a half years old. His birthday is June 24th. He was born an intense little guy. I think that is why found Attachment Parenting and Unschooling. I have learned so much from him. He is a pretty intense child but also very loving and caring towards mom, dad, little sister and all the animals we have. He worries about everyone.
His passions right now are Mario and Roblox. He has even built a game at Roblox.com under his Roblox name Mario555555. Check it out!!!!!!He is a big kid and usually others think he is older just because of his size. He loves making friends and playing pretend .
Gigi (my little cowgirl) is a very active 2 year old. Right this moment she is playing piano as I type and singing. She is nonstop. We call her "tornado girl". She gets into everything and like to play with flour, rice, anything that feels good in her fingers and ,...well .....whole body.
She loves the cows an there is nowhere she rather be than out helping dad with the cows.
Unfortunately this winter has been too cold and she is seldom out. Gigi also LOVES her guinea pigs Sugar and Buttercup. She loves her Little Pony toys, farm animal toys, books, and stuffed animals.
Here are the videos I made of my life's treasures:


Thursday, February 21, 2008

The first day and introductions.


I am starting this blog today to journal my life with my kids. I have been inspired by blogs that I have been reading written by other wonderful unschooling moms and dads and their amazing children.
I have done many things in my life, I have graduated from Law School, moved to a different country, worked in many different fields, lived in 5 different states in the US, traveled a bit too but the most important thing I have ever done in my life was to have my children.
Funny thing is that I used to say that I did not know what I wanted to do when I grew up. I used to say that until I was 36 and had my first child.

I now know that there is nothing I want to do more in life right now than be with my two amazing, inspiring, beautiful children.
I am also so lucky to have a husband like Brian. He is the hardest working man I have ever met.
He is a loving, caring, supportive father and partner. I also think he is hot so that helps!:)
So here it goes world......