Coming out of Hibernation

I feel like I am finally coming out of the fog that had consumed me for most of the past 7 weeks. Just a few days before the flood back in May we found out that I am pregnant. Great news, but it made our sudden relocation even more challenging. The first trimester is just pretty miserable. All I wanted to do was sleep and not think about food. I had no energy, and honestly even the smallest task seemed insurmountable.

So, it was really nice to come home from Abby and Adam's wedding in New York and discover that I didn't need to nap EVERY day (just once or twice since we've been back!) and that unstacking the dishwasher or planning something fun to do with the kids was not completely out of the realm of possibility.

Before the storm (and before I got pregnant) I had talked to my friend Suzy about doing a weekly summer art play group with our kids. I didn't think it would every happen, but we finally got that going last week. It was AWESOME!!! We taught the kids about gyotaku, the Japanese art of fish printing. This was how Japanese fishermen would record an especially large or beautiful catch. Traditionally Japanese fishermen would use ink but we used tempera paint.

We started the lesson by going to K&S World Market, the local Asian grocery. They had all kinds of fish, on ice and in tanks. We saw octopus and squid as well as sardines and red snapper. Suzy's kids were particularly fascinated by all the things you could buy in the meat department (chicken feet, duck heads, cow tongues and pig ovaries to name a few). We took our time looking at all the interesting things that we don't usually see in our grocery store. We let the kids pick out a fruit nectar to have as a treat with lunch. For lunch back at the house we picked up some delicious dumplings and noodles.

There was a minor shoving "altercation" in the frozen food isle which resulted in a bloody lip for Elliot. Tears were shed and the store manager brought over popsicles for all the kids. That was very kind of him and exactly what Elliot needed both to distract him and keep down the swelling from his fat lip.

We choose a fish based on it's interesting scales and fins and modest price tag (I think it was $1.50). Suzy gave a great and very detailed lesson on fish anatomy and then we got down to fish printing. We cleaned the fish with dish soap and dried it carefully and then painted it. The kids pressed newspaper down on the painted fish to get the impression. The kids really enjoyed it, especially the rainbow fish at the end when everyone added their favorite colors. I don't have a picture of Oliver's rainbow fish print but it's pretty cool.

Suzy is so smart and is an incredible teacher. I am so glad to be collaborating with her on this. I really am looking forward to this Friday's activity. She is planning this one so I'm not sure what it is yet.

Another activity we did recently was a science project involving making a litmus test from cabbage water. This was a lot of fun namely because it involved pouring and mixing. We cooked up a purple cabbage (you can also just grate a raw cabbage, but this seemed a bit easier) and used the cabbage water to test the pH of things we could find around the house. Orange juice and rice vinegar (acids) turned the purple water pink, baking soda (alkaline) turned it blue. Crabtree & Evelyn hand soap inexplicably turned it green and baking powder turned it milky light blue. Pretty neat. Shaving cream didn't do much and balsamic vinegar turned it brown (which I think was a result of it's strong color not it's effect on the cabbage water). We still have some cabbage water left over so we may try some more experiments another day.