making… bread with my littles.
laughing… at Ellie helping Brenna fold the laundry.
loving… that 15 minutes of quiet scripture study has become a consistent part of our daily routine.
using… my craft space just a minute here and there– right in the middle of the action, just like I had hoped.
It was one of those days I just needed. Not totally smooth and predictable, I think it will be many, many years before I have a day like that, but the time flowed and we flowed with it, and I’m happy.
Today we sat outside in the fresh spring air and finished reading The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe. It’s kind of like coming full cirlce. Just before Brenna turned three she pulled it off the shelf and brought it to me saying, “Read this! Read, read, read, read…” Well, I took it and opened it thinking, “She’ll last two seconds and then I can go get something done.” But, instead, we finished the entire book in two days. I figured she wasn’t really getting what was going on, but realized that she was playing with her plastic animals calling one Aslan and asking for protection from the White Witch.
I’m glad that I’ve kept up with the reading novels, even though my kids are so young. I think adults often underestimate what kids are capable of understanding. We also think they’re not listening when they really are. Jonah has not been one to sit on my lap and listen to a book without pictures, but he knows everything that happened to little Sophie in The BFG and loves Harry Potter. He normally plays with toys and comes and goes out of the room as Barry or I read, but he gets it none the less. I love it that his play is based on Shel Silverstien poems rather than Bob the Builder or Dora. I’m thankful that this is something I stumbled upon and stuck with it.
Brenna’s almost five now. I thought it’d be fun to post a list of the books we’ve read since the first time we read The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe.
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
Charlotte’s Web
Stuart Little
Little House in the Big Woods
Little House on the Prairie
Farmer Boy
On the Banks of Plum Creek
Trumpet of the Swan
Black Beauty
The Mouse and the Motorcycle
The BFG
Peter Pan
Charlie and the Chocolate Factory
Matilda
Harry Potter and the Sorcerer’s Stone (w/ Dad)
Harry Potter and the Chamber of Secrets (w/ Dad)
The Magician’s Nephew
Where the Sidewalk Ends (w/ Dad)
Falling up (w/ Dad)
A Light in the Attic (w/ Dad)
The Lion, the Witch, and the Wardrobe
I’m not sure what we’ll start next. We may just continue with the Chronicles of Narnia, but Spring is getting me itchy to read Laddie again and share it with my family.
I read Laddie by Gene Stratton Porter last week. It was so wholesome and lovely and uplifting. It filled me with graditude for my family—my exemplary husband, my creative children, and my dream to educate them and grow with them. The Stratton family is my model. We will be like them, and someday Barry and I will stand in the place where we started and look out over what we’ve created and be overcome and overjoyed. It is a book I will read over and over—by myself and with my family.
I have started my study of child psychology and educational theory today by reading Erik Erikson. He was an artist who moved to Vienna and was trained in psychoannalysis. He study Freud and worked closely with his daughter Anne Freud. They ran a little school and studied the children and how they learned.
Anyway, I wish I had a background in Freud for reading Erikson. I need to figure out exactly what the ‘ego’ and ‘super-ego’ are. From what I’ve read today, the ‘ego’ is a person’s innate self-love, and the ‘super-ego’ is what we call a conscience. But, a child isn’t born with a conscience. The ‘super-ego’ develops within a child in response to their need for adult approval. The conscience is a created authority inside the child’s head that defines right and wrong the way he thinks adults would do it. This mechanism keeps his behaviour in check because the need for adult love is so strong.
I don’t think I agree with that.
I guess it’s a question of nature vs. nurture. Is conscience something we’re born with, or is it learned? There are clearly people that don’t have much of a conscience–is it because it was never nurtured into them, or that it was nurtured out of them?