Cedars' best friend Laura

I never had an imaginary friend growing up. I do although remember wanting to be just like Harriet the Spy after watching a play at the Minneapolis Children's Theatre. I remember immediately falling in love with her every move. I remember fondly carrying around a little notebook in my pocket to write down all the clues within my imaginary spy life! I remember going to bed dreaming I was her. I remember this same thing happening after watching Pippi Long Stocking. Cedar also has a love for Pippi after seeing her old movies. In fact he truly believes she can lift a horse and throw him into a sea!!!! I love how much Cedar trusts in characters.

When Cedar was born I hoped he would have some imaginary friends. And then Orien and Truth. I don't think they have any. They believe in gnomes and fairies but have yet to truly see any. Just last week we were at the park where a little boy has three imaginary friends..and it was so sweet to watch him talk about them being on the see saw with him that was the boy named 11:45! (apparently the time he always eats lunch)

Now Cedar has a new best friend. Her name is Laura Engels Wilder. Truly she is his new friend. She was a surprise friend! He was obsessed with the series Magic Tree House. He listened to them when he woke, during quiet time and went to bed. At Christmas I had encouraged Mimi to get him the Little House on the Prairie tapes. From Christmas on he has fallen deeply in love with Laura, Ma, Pa, Carrie, Mary and Grace! I think if asked he could recite hours of stories as he has now listened to over 24 CD's. I am sure he listens to at least 3 hours a day of Laura's life! For a while now he has been begging us to help him build a kid size log cabin to play in and make sure to make it just like Pa. No nails just slit wood puzzled perfectly together! (We are going to do this for Cedars Birthday party!!)  Cedar has even mentioned at times who his friends are in "real" life and Laura popped up at  number three,  then the rest of the Engels family before going on to local buddies!! It has become normal conversation, almost his only conversation with me during car rides and hikes, lunch time to tell me stories about Laura. He says if he had to be someone it would be her! Some of my favorite topics have been:

While Jody and I were laying our hard wood floors Cedar says " Pa cut all his own lumber, milled and and layed out the floors in in one day!"
Or how much Laura desperately wants to be outside with Pa, working on the farm doing chores, etc"
How boring Sundays are. They aren't allowed to run or play in the house. Laura hates Sundays!
Laura really wants to help build their homes, drive the wagon, and she just isn't supposed to do those things!
How Mary picks on Laura, and Mary isn't fun. She is blind but as Cedar said " her fingers can see to knit all day"
That Laura got a spanking. (something he knows nothing about) but it was a special spanking on her Birthday!
Or the many more about animals, problems, moves, places they have lived, friends Laura plays with.
The huge Minnesota blizzards there were so full of snow the trains couldn't get through for days.

or just now as I am typing Cedar comes wandering up to me holding a pack of nuts and says " May I have these mom, may I?" and I say, "why did you say it that way?" and he replies " Laura has to use "May I" when asking her Ma for anything!"

I am so thankful for Laura. She has really completed Cedars love for books and stories. I see a little guy who if just for a day if not forever would love to live as she does. Horses, wagons, gardening, hunting, wandering, friending Native Americans, and living outside. I can't wait to hear of the next way he relates his world with hers.

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"Mommy"
I hear my little Tuthy say next to my pillow in panic.
She wakes from every night time and nap with this intensity for me.
It sounds like pure love...and a sense of loneliness no one should feel
She has always slept with me...at this point always will.
most mornings I am not there for her,.I have headed out to the gym with Papa next to her.
I can't feel guilty for that "me" time but  this day I do.
"I cry when you go to cross fit" she says
we cuddle closer. I kiss her and tell her "I love you"
she snuggles there for a long time.
the boys hop in bed and we all snuggle and read books.
And all is perfect on this kind of morning.
And I can't feel guilty for leaving tomorrow.

simply doing

When I think of parenting and those all important teachings..nothing ever seems more important that the gift of caring for one another. When I define Family it is simply that caring for each other with pure love and kindness...not that follow through always comes smoothly.... I guess a lifelong journey  in a family.

Over the last 2 weeks Cedar has been fundraising for St.Baldricks. St.Baldricks it the largest non-profit organization fundraising for money for curing childhood cancer. This is Cedar's third year. I keep it simple for him. There are sometimes kids who get sick, an illness known as cancer, and they need scientists and doctors to find a cure for them and end this yucky illness. Cedar deeply cares about others. In groups he tends to become a cheerleader for the "everyone can join in" kind of kiddo...He senses that feeling of being left out, uninvited, or bullied as such a raw and unnecessary way to spend time with others. And so for him St.Baldricks is really just a simple way of helping other kids. It also helps that his papa has been participating as well..It's a boy/man bonding part of our family and in this scenario I am the cheerleader! And so today I am proud. I am proud he spent time making $470.00 and then shaving his head at the St.Baldricks party! I am proud of him when we got home Orien really wanted to be like his big brother and shave his head. I am proud when he helped with this and hugged Orien with a deep heartfelt hug afterwards and today woke saying he has SOOOO much fun at St.Baldricks. I am proud when he says he can't wait to do it again and Orien responds yay, I like short hair..and Cedar replies " I like short hair too. I really care about kids"
Today I feel proud and full!

cedar and jody before shaving

After!

The Starbucks Team

Orien and Cedar Brothers! St.Baldricks Boys!

Truthy, Orien, and Cedar all hugs!

Mud and Sun

Our days have been filled up away from home and finally today we had a "normal" day! Apparently needed as the skids have insisted on being outside ALL day digging in mud, jumping on the trampoline, taking off layers, adding shorts and leaving the boots behind! Apparently 50 degrees feels like summer in winter! It has given us a day to re-group, begin a new LA block and relax into our own surroundings!Truthy sporting her bare feet on the worn out trampoline!

This is  Cedar creation...a muddy filled mess I believe this must be "under construction" and a started concrete idea!

 We did manage to have our usual mid morning snack, calendar, and poetry time followed by our re-call and drawing from our fairy tale, " Delgadina and the Snake" Cedar wanted to do his own drawing so I added mine as well. He started with the little girls hut and proceeded to add bits of the story I tell!

It feels great to be back in the swing of things!

and then march comes

There is something different about March! The snow still sits on the Mountains in heaps, the cold winds howls from time to time, the mudroom is filled with books, skis, snowboards, hats thrown about...but non the less March is a welcomed difference!! Today we celebrate MUD, warm sunshine, the first of fairy tales read on the deck in months, skiing on packed snow and ice covered lakes while sweating! I am ready for this welcomed change. It seems January came in and out ever so speedy and February was a bit of over kill between FREEZING weather, illness, and house chores..and so WELCOME MARCH! A tank top, grilled burger all led to this perfect day! It seems we have kept to our Enki rhythm ever so lightly...and I see a shift coming keeping the outside nature time a priority while carefully dancing the school dance to keep Cedar filled up! We had a great February working with the "Four Friends" a math block following a fun story with Miss Mini Minus, Paddy Plus, Max Multiply and King Dominick Divide. Cedar really enjoys numbers, word problems, worksheets and games so this past month was perfect for a cold indoor kind of month!
In Short this is Cedars drawings as we spent a week with each character. Drawing, reading there verses, and working with word problems relating to addition, subtraction, multiplication, and division. In the end he wanted harder work! I think it was a perfect light way to introduce some old and new math processes!

Miss Mini Minus
"So for each creature grand and poor
I leave a gift at every door
Four, Three, two, one
Till everything I have is gone"

Paddy Plus
"How nice to gather two or three
Someone has left them here for me
So round, so soft, so good to see,
I'll add them up so happily"

Max Multiply
"Ten...I'll scoop with both my hands,
Carry twenty in my pants,
Thirty...I'm not nearly done
Forty now I have just begun"

King Dominick Divide
"As King, I give you this command.
An equal share for every hand.
And when to each has come his share,
The joy can bloom so sweet and fair"

Cedar cruising on a warm, dry, February day!

Truthy doing what she does best, tending to her babies while playing! Mud diggin'

Orien taking the small steps! He says when he is 5 he will peddle this bike all by himself...for now a little holding on from me and a walk back up the hill was enough! This parenting is a work in progress..how to teach w/o teaching!!!

Cedar at Cub Lake one of our favorite places to play in the woods

Happy Orien in the fresh falling snow

the 3 kiddos they are truly the best

fresh snow, happy kids, woods time= happy family

Cedar on his board ready to go, Daddy getting on his new board, and Truthy on skis!

Cedars first chair lift with papa

Riding down!

Cedar and his friend Kahill skiing across Sprague Lake

Truthy and her mountains!

Team Bailey/Eamonns

Kahill, Cedar and Orien (Orien decided wandering and ice crawling was a great choice!)

Orien!

But besides our math, writing, fairy tale verse readers we were outside whenever possible! Cedar has officially ridden his first chair lift and gone down the hills with his dad on snowboards, we have wandered at closing time in the Denver Zoo, wandered many a woods, stomped on thick ice at Cub Lake (Rocky Mountain Natl park) favorite place, cross country skied over frozen Sprague Lake, kicked many soccer balls in the front yard, biked, and simply made fresh air, woods and sunshine our priority and that always seems to feed us all! And so I am ready to welcome spring/winter/summer/winter/spring season!!!!!