A sick girl, a frustrated mama, paints, and a kitchen garden

Last week, Felicity was sick.  Poor girl lost her voice and in a whisper, prayed to God about the frog that ate her (she got a little confused with the "frog in your throat" expression).  I set Felicity up on the couch and was trying to think of something for the boys to keep busy with so she could have some space.  Logan suggested paints, which I thought was a great idea.  But as soon as Felicity heard that the boys were painting, she whispered that she was "all betta (better) now" and joined them at the table.

Yes, Logan is wearing two hats....backwards.  Whatev.

I love Felicity's left hand held in a fist of concentration.

Handwriting has been an area of frustration lately and I've been trying to encourage it through different medias so I had Logan paint some W's, our letter of the week.

I gave Kian water, a paintbrush, and construction paper, and showed him how to dip the brush into the water and "paint."  He was excited to see the wet marks on his paper and for a while he so very carefully dipped and painted.  I was so proud.

But he is, however, a one year old boy and the delicate concentration soon turned to experimentation.  First he tasted his paint brush......

....then he dumped his water out and sloshed his hands around in the puddle.....

....and finally he drank the remaining drops.  I was so proud.  :)

He tired of painting once his water was gone so he wondered off to the play room to have some alone time with his toys.

Due to a busy week that kept Zac away too late on too many nights, and a sickness that is still moving through our house, I was pretty drained and frustrated this day.  I decided it would be good to get outside once the painting was over, since Felicity was feeling "betta." 

I took some frustration out on my kitchen garden which is now bare of anything productive.  It was once grass, which we tore out to make room for the garden and each spring we battle away at the grass weeds that try to constantly take the area back over.  Kian and Logan helped by picking up my uprooted grass clods and making a pile in the center of the garden for me.  Kian just kills me with his chub.  We poke and rub his fluffy soft belly all the time so when he gets free from a shirt, he too will rub his belly.  :)

Logan was thrilled to find worms as I dug up the grass weeds.  We made a nice clearing in the corner and I'd holler each time I unearthed a worm and he'd come and transport the little guy to our "worm pile" in the corner.  He later found a slug so I used the opportunity to discuss the differences between slugs and worms and how one is useful in a garden, and one is not.  He was very interested in that and I think I may expand on it and turn it into more science lessons.

Here's a view of our kitchen garden after I worked off some frustration.  Before this morning, most of the fenced area was all grass weeds.  So I was happy with that morning's progress.  It's just a small kitchen garden, but it works.  And though on that day it wasn't producing anything for our kitchen, it sure did relieve my frustration.