College for Kids rocks!

I spent yesterday in a migraine agony, and M left at 3:20 this morning to catch a plane. I've spent tonight working like crazy to catch up on my chores from yesterday and do both mine and M's from tonight. He's in CA (my true home) and I'm in WI and very unhappy. He texted me from the plane (which was delayed of course) to tell me he was sitting across from Ron Jeremy (the porn dude). I hope they enjoyed a very special flight together. I also hope he stripped down and took a bleach shower when he got to his hotel.

What was cool about yesterday was that when I finally got out of bed and staggered downstairs to let the dogs out, there was a gift waiting for me. I have lantana in one of the deck planters, and I got to watch a ruby-throated hummingbird work on them for quite a while. I LOVE LOVE LOVE getting to watch hummingbirds up close! It was so restorative. Until Chloe decided to see what I was looking at, caught site of the bird, and barked like the big cowdog she is. She takes her job of protecting me very seriously, and I suppose with such a sharp beak that little bird posed quite a threat. Thanks, Chloe.

L is having a fantastic week at "college", and she wishes it was longer. She loves her teachers--they both sound wonderful! She's also made friends with everyone in her class and has managed to get their life stories. She took her camera yesterday and took pictures of her projects and her friends.

In "Exquisite Corpses", they are making and binding their own books. They are using so many different media and materials--even some that I've never heard of. She's made the front and back covers for her book and made the paper that will be the pages. She took in tons of things she collected from the garden (flowers, buds, leaves, seeds, etc) and from the birds (feathers) and had enough left over to share with the rest of the class.

This is her gouging the dragon into the rubber. She will be using the carving and a resist technique to paint the cover of her book.

They are working on several projects for her art/drawing class, including a group-drawn project that they screen printed onto their College for Kids t-shirts. Each child was given a body part to draw, and Luce was so excited that she got the head. She got to decide then which creature she would draw, and she chose a wolf.

She takes a bag lunch each day, and the kids eat lunch in the college cafeteria. My mom and I both offered to go in and have lunch with her, as some of the parents do. I was even going to bring Taco Bell for her! After being reassured several times that she could answer either yes or no and neither of us would be upset or hurt, she finally said she would rather just eat with her friends. I love all the time with her that I can get, but I think it's so damn cute that she's having fun with her friends like that and wants her own private 'kid time'.

I came home this afternoon to find our package of science supplies had arrived--finally! I ordered some supplies and equipment for the first portion of our experiments this year. L, being my daughter and thus having no patience, couldn't wait to start digging through the box. She found the buttload of magnets and prisms and hasn't been able to leave them alone. She is having so much fun playing with magnets right now. We had to have a very serious talk about the magnets, however, as some of them are heavy duty and would easily fry any computer they get close to, and with the strength of some of them, they probably wouldn't have to be that close.