Why?

Derek and I have had many discussions about the water cycle as of late. He is so full of questions. (Mostly "why"s; those are the hardest. Gotta teach that kid "how,"; much easier to explain.) When we go over the Blue Bridge after taking the kids to school he'll ask if the water is going to the ocean. He knows that the water came from the waterfalls and streams in the mountains. The other day he asked why there is snow on the mountains and it again reminded me how miraculous our world is. I explained to him that it snows on top of the mountains in the winter and then melts in the summer and comes to us by the river when we need it most. Natural water storage! The Creator thought of everything.

However, as most often is the case, he kept asking "why." I'm starting to ask him what he thinks. This time I told him because it's pretty and we can play with it. Then came the other word I hear a lot. "Oh."

Tonight on the way home from taking the three older kids to play practice Merian was telling me how she wanted to ride a taxi. One of the questions she had was where they were located so she could catch one. I told her that in places like airports and big cities, like New York, they just waited around for when people needed them, but in other places you have to call for them.

Without missing a beat she starts, "Here Taxi, Taxi!"

I meant with the phone, Merian.

Eliza has been kind of bossy lately. I know, that's shocking for a two year old. Today she was quite upset because I wouldn't let her do something she wanted to. I was ignoring her tantrum, but Derek calmly explained to her, "Lizie, if Mom says no you can't do it because you need to be good and choose the right and then you'll be happy." I loved watching him calmly explain things to her just like his older brother and sisters reason with him. He's becoming one of the older kids. He's always proudly proclaiming, "I choose the right!"

Megan had been studying hard for her semester final in vocabulary. However, because of our slow/late start she crammed a whole semester into a few weeks and was having a little bit of a hard time remembering everything. I convinced her she needed to move on and just take the test instead of spending more time studying. She reluctantly agreed and did pretty well. It made me laugh to read the questions she bluffed her way through. It reminded me about when we first moved to the Tri-Cities and she was introduced to a whole new way of doing math, where explaining why your answer was correct was just as important as getting the right answer. I admire her for always taking a stab at it and it makes me smile to see what she comes up with.

Part of the test asked questions involving the vocab words (in italics). The object was to answer the question in a way that would show she knew the meaning of the words.

Q. Do you plan on studying humanities when you matriculate into a university?

A. That depends on whether or not I'm interested.

Q. Would you expect members of the gentry to be genteel?

A. It is likely that some would. (I gave her a second chance on the one's I felt she needed to describe more and she did pretty good except for this one. She then added: There is often genteels in gentrys.)

I love having my kids at home and learning with them!!!