{life with a curious and crazy 10 yr old}
She’s an opportunist for any moment to scooter; keeping not one, but two scooters in the car just in case she can convince someone to scooter with her. When we finally made it to the Farmer’s Market (after a long Winter), Duende was less interested in the farmy bits than the paths for scootering along the river. She saw a pair of Mallard Ducks, an otter, and some old car tires (the latter she was convinced ended up by the river because someone drove their car down there rather than just threw their trash in the swamp). And though it was a small market this week (not quite in its ‘real’ season yet – but jumping in early due to the calm/bright weather) we managed to get a little something from everyone – Duende convincing us that we needed a cinnamon roll snack (mmmmm).
Duende is also excited to have all kinds of backyard games – badminton, frisbee, a ball to kick. And Josh just got her (and him) baseball gloves/ball to play catch. It’s likely we will pull out the horseshoes and bocce soon – keeps us out of trouble. Meanwhile, indoors, we’ve been playing some ‘Destination: Mars’, ‘Sushi Roll’, ‘Taco vs. Burrito’ card games, ‘The Game of Life’ (the new one does not impress me) and busting out some old favorites like ‘Battleship’ and ‘Clue’. We still have not mastered a few of our Winter Solstice games (as our regular game room/table) is packed with the things from the studio (which is being reconstructed, in fact – I think Duende is helping to mud/tape the sheetrock today) like ‘Azul’ and ‘Ticket to Ride’ but when we can find them and that room again, we will family-game-night it up!
She’s preparing sweetly for my birthday already (she’s been planning and saving her ‘odd job’ money for over a month now – my birthday still isn’t for a couple of weeks!) and then in 2 months after mine is hers. What to do, what to do…she really wants to go camping but I don’t think we are there yet (not only with traveling anywhere, of which we are not comfortable doing, but also with the homestead animals we care for…) but maybe we can find a couple adventurous hikes and drives that might interest her, and a picnic – this gal loves a picnic. I’m hoping one of these years we can splurge for a whale/puffin watch – a gift for all!
Lately she’s also been working on updating her dollhouse (repainting the walls, washing curtains, sewing blankets and rugs), climbing trees and harassing chickens, cleaning up the road frontage (where she found a poor dead Chickadee, so she made her a nice little grave) and the car, and finding opportunities everywhere.
Rock Bottom Homestead 