I was first exposed to the term attchment parenting back before I had my first child. I resonated with me on a deep level during my pregnancy. Once she was born attachment parenting just felt right. After a few months (eh, maybe more like a year or 18 months) I stopped thinking about it so much and realized I was just ‘doing it’.

Over the years I grew less and less needful of any label for my parenting. Rather than seeking out authority to guide me I sought my inner voice when faced with a new parenting challenge. This weekend my family went for a bike ride and I realized that even our bicycling set-up reflected my parenting style perfectly.

As a family of five we have found that while it is not impossible to enjoy sports as a family, it can be challenging. This will obviously change as the children grow (the youngest is just 20 months now) but neither Brian or I wants to wait around to start doing things at some elusive and magical date in the future when the kids are bigger. So we began playing around with the different biking scenarios. The first step a couple of years ago was adding a bike trailer to my bike to tow just the two kids we currently had. This worked fine for two under 25lbs each (we grow ‘em small!). Then we added another little cutey and the search began for our next method as she grew big enough to come along.

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As I sit here and write my kids are playing with their cousins Emily and Jake. I can’t help but notice what a drastic change comes over their play when they have this particular company. It takes on a completely different quality, becoming both more active and more giggly. Em and Jake are 13 and 12, old enough to have ideas and plans and better things to do than play with a 6 and 4 year old- or at least that is what pop culture tells us. But there is nothing more fun to watch than these teens playing… I mean really playing. Instead of sitting in front of the tube or asking when they can go to the mall both of them are currently involved in an elaborate chasing game with the kids.

Their are pillows strewn about the room, playsilks draped on chairs, a bunny hopping under the couch to escape the running feet all around. It’s unbounded excitement and fun, even though their was an offer of popcorn and a movie. Now of course my own kids can’t keep their clothes on in this heat, so their are little tighty-whitey tushes all over the place! And now they are hiding Em’s shorts from her since she has on a dress-length T-shirt.

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My two oldest kids have been interested in games since they were each just about 2 years old. Rhys, now 20 months, is also starting to show a general interest in just what is going on when we all gather around the big colorful board on the floor. And some days she doesn’t even try to eat all the game pieces!

When Sage first showed an interest in games at a playmate’s house I of course had to get the first game that I remembered loving as a child- Candyland! She was barely 22 months when she first began to ‘play’ this with us. It was more an exercise in parental patience than anything, but still it was fun. Then the reality hit when she turned three and really grasped the concepts of playing a game. She was in love! But, I was both bored to tears and unispired by the games we could find on our regular toy store shelves.

Don’t get me wrong, theris nothing wrong with a game from my own childhood… Candyland, Chutes and Ladders, Cooties. All are fine, but they just didn’t get me excited to get down on the floor and play with her.

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I thought I’d give a bit of a look at what we have been doing for the summer.

Sage has taken an interest in Native American life and especially the horses. So, we have been reading about them and we just started a teepee project together. I am trying to figure out what to make the teepee out of, we’re brainstorming together. She has been making eleborate horse villages where the horses take on all the traits of real horses and combine them with some humna charachteristics.

The library has been our best friend lately, and the baby has even stopped ripping all the books off the shelves every visit! Today there were some new summer-help library staff in the children’s library. I was so greatful, since our library apparently has a policy to only hire the dour, rude or shy type of librarians. I especially like the ones who when they find out you homeschool, can no longer meet your gaze without disdain. At least the younger ones are nice and happy to help.

Torin found a book today called Captain Flinn and the Pirate Dinosaurs. It’s not our usual fare, but it cracked me up because the title was so obviously a draw for the “boys’ boy”. I mean pirate dinosaurs? why not just have them all collect bugs first and then fly into space… I think we’ll have covered all the ‘boy’ bases then. A sure best seller.

Rhys has even jumped on the book bandwagon this summer. Of course her interest is more of the obsessive “read..me…read..me….boooooooookkkkkk!” type. Her current favorite is One Moose Twenty Mice book from Barefoot Publishing. And it’s actually not a bad choice for reading oh, 100 times a day.

At least I can’t blamethe kids obsiession with books on anyone but myself. Tonight I’ll start a review list of Must-Reads. I’m a bit obsessed myself!

~jo

In some ways it seems that you must have imagined how difficult and confusing it was. You can’t really imagine that you went through it. It must not have been horrible, you remember distinctly how much joy and love you felt through it all…