(no subject)
23.8
Quinn is sitting next to me twisting one of my Rubik's cubes to make letters on it...I, U, C, H...
Today we made books (construction paper covers, white drawing paper inside, all folded in half to A5 size and stapled on the fold). The wrote and drew in/on them with crayons and coloured pencils, cut out shapes to glue inside, and used stickers.
At night after their bubble bath we made chocolate cupcakes.
This stuff is mundane, we do things like this regularly, but i never write it down and should sometimes in case they forget their nice memories later.
24.8
Quinn asked me last night what "ladies and gentlemen" meant. I explained it superficially then elaborated one what people mean as far as expected or observed behaviour, concluding with the point that he can be considered a little gentleman already if he tries to always be kind. He got a sad look and said, 'but I'm not a good person, because I do bad things.' And went on to talk about when he accidentally caught a guineafowl up in a string he was playing with and injured it so badly (it got stuck in a bush and pulled its own leg out of the socket panicking) that we had to slaughter it.
It reminded me of a Dharma talk on depression by one of my favourite Buddhist monks, Ven. Ajahn Brahm about people only seeing their mistakes, and carrying around 'their chickenshit in their basket instead of the eggs.' I didn't use that story, or the one about the brick wall in that sermon but I went with the basic idea and reminded him that he tries to be good, that this and most other really terrible things that happened have been accidental, and that there are a lot of GOOD things he does.
So he asked me what the good things were and I mentioned how he helps his little brothers, he even washes Jack up in the bathtub when he poops his pants, he makes sandwiches for them both, he draws pictures for people and folds it up and puts it in their mailboxes to make them smile, he helps me clean up, he closes up the barn at night so the fox doesn't come in, when one of our hens was a clucky with two chicks he always made sure they made it into the barn at night since they often didn't on their own, and so forth. That seemed to make him really happy so I hope he doesn't forget it again soon.
Quinn is sitting next to me twisting one of my Rubik's cubes to make letters on it...I, U, C, H...
Today we made books (construction paper covers, white drawing paper inside, all folded in half to A5 size and stapled on the fold). The wrote and drew in/on them with crayons and coloured pencils, cut out shapes to glue inside, and used stickers.
At night after their bubble bath we made chocolate cupcakes.
This stuff is mundane, we do things like this regularly, but i never write it down and should sometimes in case they forget their nice memories later.
24.8
Quinn asked me last night what "ladies and gentlemen" meant. I explained it superficially then elaborated one what people mean as far as expected or observed behaviour, concluding with the point that he can be considered a little gentleman already if he tries to always be kind. He got a sad look and said, 'but I'm not a good person, because I do bad things.' And went on to talk about when he accidentally caught a guineafowl up in a string he was playing with and injured it so badly (it got stuck in a bush and pulled its own leg out of the socket panicking) that we had to slaughter it.
It reminded me of a Dharma talk on depression by one of my favourite Buddhist monks, Ven. Ajahn Brahm about people only seeing their mistakes, and carrying around 'their chickenshit in their basket instead of the eggs.' I didn't use that story, or the one about the brick wall in that sermon but I went with the basic idea and reminded him that he tries to be good, that this and most other really terrible things that happened have been accidental, and that there are a lot of GOOD things he does.
So he asked me what the good things were and I mentioned how he helps his little brothers, he even washes Jack up in the bathtub when he poops his pants, he makes sandwiches for them both, he draws pictures for people and folds it up and puts it in their mailboxes to make them smile, he helps me clean up, he closes up the barn at night so the fox doesn't come in, when one of our hens was a clucky with two chicks he always made sure they made it into the barn at night since they often didn't on their own, and so forth. That seemed to make him really happy so I hope he doesn't forget it again soon.