Winter Wonder "What Was I Thinking?!!!" Land

Today, my wonderful (and dare I say, brave) mother-in-law came over to watch the kids while Jody and I deducted them (we did our taxes). Still managed, however to fit in a little bit of schoolwork today. Days of the week review and several addition problems. For our history lesson on Native Americans, we practiced weaving.


I read the next chapter of Red Feather and it was, from a parenting view point, strange. It was telling about a game Native American boys played called War. They would get on their war paint and find a hornets nest. Then they would jump on it, thus causing an angry reaction from the hornets inside who then stung at will. If you got stung and cried, you didn't get to do the victory dance at the end. My first question was "Where are their mothers?" Turns out that the parents didn't seem to mind this game. This was before epi-pens, emergency rooms, and venom extractors. This story showed me that although attitudes of parenting have changed, little boys have not. They still do dangerous and, well, dumb things for amusement. I'm just glad there aren't many hornets nests here in the burbs. The only thing Jack would jump on right now is a 1 pound bag of M&M's.
I can't really dog the parents of those Indian boys. In my close to five years of parenting I have made some good decisions (no, really, I have! Don't ask me to recall any right now though, okay!) I've made alot of bad decisons. Thus was the case yesterday when at my dad's house I decided the kids needed to be one with nature. It was snowing and cold and a bit windy. So, I bundled the kids up and dad and I took them for a short forray down the logging road. One word repeated half a dozen times... dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb dumb! Did I mention DUMB!!!! Lillie was good for about 2 minutes and then her whine generator kicked in. Poor girl's alot like her mom...doesn't care too much for roughing it in the cold. Jack was oblivious to the dangers of frostbite on his nose, a few times declaring that he didn't need his jacket...
It ended with me packing Lillie back to the house because she complained that she could no longer walk and my poor aged father having to carry Jackson after he took a nosedive over a limb, and rose from the frozen ground with a mouthful of dirt. I fear I have disgraced Charlotte Mason! Something tells me she might laugh with me...or at least at me! Well, at least I didn't let them jump up and down on a hornets nest...that must count for something.