Going to Chicago
As many of you know, I'm leaving dad in charge of the kids and taking off for Chicago for a few days for a conference. This will be the first time ever that I've been away from them overnight; David will think he's in 7th Heaven to have dad that long; Lauren will probably be slightly sad, but I doubt she'll be awful about it. Her worst frustrations will probably be in the morning since she likes to wake up early and come crawl into bed with me. Dad will just have to do instead.
I told Doug that if it were ME, I would take the kids out of their normal environment to get them distracted from the fact that mom is gone. And, say...go to grandma's house. Not only do you have a new environment there, but you also have an extra pair of eyes to watch the kids, and they love going to grandma's house! It's summer, they'll be restless, grandma has a swimming pool...this has the potential to be great fun (assuming, of course, that dad remembers to put a double layer of sunscreen on the kids (including noses and tops of ears!) and doesn't get distracted and let them drown).
Today we did NOT go to the free movie, though we tried. I told David we would go if/when he cleaned up his room, and while he was cleaning he sort of forgot about his mission and started playing instead, and we missed the beginning of the movie and couldn't go. This upset him, but hey. That was the rule. On the way we saw that Chesterfield is mowing down more trees in favor of building G-d-Knows-What on the land. This made David even more upset. "But that's the deer's home! Where will the deer live?" Well, they'll have to settle further back into the woods, I guess. Then he decided that all the bulldozers and landmovers would stop ripping up the bushes and pushing trees over if we simply spoke to them. "But Mom, if we just tell them the deer live there, maybe they'll stop!" He's half in tears by this point. I felt terrible for him, but still told him that they wouldn't stop. They don't care if the deer live there, honestly. I did say that there are some places set aside where development can't happen, and those places are called conservation areas. I drove a little out of the way on the trek back home and took him to the August A. Busch Conservation Nature Center. I turned off the road and parked by a small lake.
"Why are you stopping here?" asks David.
"Because I want to show you something. Hop out."
All three of us walked to the lake and I simply stood there.
"Now what?" asked David.
"Just listen. And watch." A long stretch of silence ensued, with a background of a great number of bugs and frogs chirping. "Can you hear the bugs?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Look...see the dragonflies?"
"Oh yeah...hey! I see a blue one!"
"I bet if we sit here quietly, we'll see more."
We sat and watched. More dragonflies buzzed over the water. Big, black ones hovered rather unsteadily, while the little bright blue ones zipped around over the rushes. Some big ones with white stripes on their wings came diving towards us, buzzing loudly past our heads as they tried to decide what kind of animals we were.
"Want to go for a little walk?" I asked. The kids agreed happily, and we dusted off and followed a little path around the lake.
"Does this look like a good place for animals to live?" I asked them. They thought so, and we talked about what kinds of animals might live here, and why. "This is called a conservation area," I told them. "It's land which is specifically set aside as a place for animals to live without having to worry about building or development." We did nothing more than walk around the lake, pick up sticks, brush our hands over the tops of the weeds, smell the wildflowers and listen to the birds, the frogs and the bugs. We put our hands in the lake water ("Will it hurt the fish?" asks David) to feel the temperature, and examined a green bug with big eyes that decided to land on the knee of my pants for a moment. We decided it would be cool to have a boat, and to paddle around the lake, and potentially go fishing, though I'm not sure David could go through with the actual cleaning and cooking of a fish. We saw a big splash at the edge of the water and surmised that it was probably a frog jumping in.
But what with it being Missouri and about 95 degrees, we didn't stay much longer than 45 minutes. We headed home and I noted that David was much happier and calmer than before. But he still wants more conservation areas.
So do I.
I told Doug that if it were ME, I would take the kids out of their normal environment to get them distracted from the fact that mom is gone. And, say...go to grandma's house. Not only do you have a new environment there, but you also have an extra pair of eyes to watch the kids, and they love going to grandma's house! It's summer, they'll be restless, grandma has a swimming pool...this has the potential to be great fun (assuming, of course, that dad remembers to put a double layer of sunscreen on the kids (including noses and tops of ears!) and doesn't get distracted and let them drown).
Today we did NOT go to the free movie, though we tried. I told David we would go if/when he cleaned up his room, and while he was cleaning he sort of forgot about his mission and started playing instead, and we missed the beginning of the movie and couldn't go. This upset him, but hey. That was the rule. On the way we saw that Chesterfield is mowing down more trees in favor of building G-d-Knows-What on the land. This made David even more upset. "But that's the deer's home! Where will the deer live?" Well, they'll have to settle further back into the woods, I guess. Then he decided that all the bulldozers and landmovers would stop ripping up the bushes and pushing trees over if we simply spoke to them. "But Mom, if we just tell them the deer live there, maybe they'll stop!" He's half in tears by this point. I felt terrible for him, but still told him that they wouldn't stop. They don't care if the deer live there, honestly. I did say that there are some places set aside where development can't happen, and those places are called conservation areas. I drove a little out of the way on the trek back home and took him to the August A. Busch Conservation Nature Center. I turned off the road and parked by a small lake.
"Why are you stopping here?" asks David.
"Because I want to show you something. Hop out."
All three of us walked to the lake and I simply stood there.
"Now what?" asked David.
"Just listen. And watch." A long stretch of silence ensued, with a background of a great number of bugs and frogs chirping. "Can you hear the bugs?" I asked.
"Yeah."
"Look...see the dragonflies?"
"Oh yeah...hey! I see a blue one!"
"I bet if we sit here quietly, we'll see more."
We sat and watched. More dragonflies buzzed over the water. Big, black ones hovered rather unsteadily, while the little bright blue ones zipped around over the rushes. Some big ones with white stripes on their wings came diving towards us, buzzing loudly past our heads as they tried to decide what kind of animals we were.
"Want to go for a little walk?" I asked. The kids agreed happily, and we dusted off and followed a little path around the lake.
"Does this look like a good place for animals to live?" I asked them. They thought so, and we talked about what kinds of animals might live here, and why. "This is called a conservation area," I told them. "It's land which is specifically set aside as a place for animals to live without having to worry about building or development." We did nothing more than walk around the lake, pick up sticks, brush our hands over the tops of the weeds, smell the wildflowers and listen to the birds, the frogs and the bugs. We put our hands in the lake water ("Will it hurt the fish?" asks David) to feel the temperature, and examined a green bug with big eyes that decided to land on the knee of my pants for a moment. We decided it would be cool to have a boat, and to paddle around the lake, and potentially go fishing, though I'm not sure David could go through with the actual cleaning and cooking of a fish. We saw a big splash at the edge of the water and surmised that it was probably a frog jumping in.
But what with it being Missouri and about 95 degrees, we didn't stay much longer than 45 minutes. We headed home and I noted that David was much happier and calmer than before. But he still wants more conservation areas.
So do I.
posted by Kelly at
11:11 PM
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