Prior to last month it's made a lot of sense to have the kid's books all over the house. There's been stacks of nature books, Winter & Christmas books, books by the toilet (!), books in their toy baskets, books in bags for Lola's house, library books, reference books...It goes on. Supplemented by magazines like Click, Spider & Baby Bug, it's been a theoretical literary haven. Except... That there's been no way to read because it was impossible to find the book one wanted. Or mama was unavailable to read because she was clearing out the dangerously slippery magazine trail. Poor Real kept "biting the farm," as the boys would say, every time he'd slide onto the floor.
I can't believe it never occurred to me to have all the books in one place, so that when I say, "Put your books away," they know what I'm talking about. They know where I'm talking about. I know where I'm talking about. 'Cause really, I'm the one putting these books away. And right now, I'm just loving it. I think it's so hard to model good, earnest work when the work is thankless & uninspiring. It's easy to give kids the impression that homemaking is a burden. But I think it may be just as easy to show them that caretaking is a pleasure. Love made tangible & accessible.
I'm excited for them to have an easy system to step into.
It's also nice to have all the toys out of their room, save for the peaceful & industrious gnomes in their treehouse & sweet Snowpea, who's always content to sit quietly. I made him for Mahal when he was 10 months old. Then he was Lake's. Now he's Mekhi's. I suspect at the end of the day he will be mine.
(Feng Shui tangent ~D & I are very sensitive to energy & have a hard time sleeping if there's too much going on where we sleep. The boys are the same. Stuff makes them really restless. I'm especially uncomfortable with mirrors, lights or corners in the same room. That's why we put the rainbow cloth over the corners.
In China, they consider sharp corners a danger. A company can sue anybody who constructs a building with corners pointing at their place of business. They usually will present evidence that corners are directing bad energy towards them & killing profits! It has the same effect on vitality. This is also why most of the furniture in our home is soft & rounded.)
Shh! Books sleeping.
Cute set up.
And your veggie won tons look tasty too.
Posted by: MB | March 09, 2009 at 09:03 AM