The quickest way for a parent to get a child's attention is to sit down and look comfortable.
~Lane Olinghouse

The Importance of Play

‎"When we treat children’s play as seriously as it deserves, we are helping them feel the joy that’s to be found in the creative spirit." ~Mister Rogers

A thought for today...

"Our most important task as parents is raising children who will be decent, responsible, and caring people devoted to making this world a more compassionate place."
-Neil Kurshan

Potential

“What do we teach our children? … 
We should say to each of them: 
Do you know what you are? 
You are a marvel. You are unique … 
You may become a Shakespeare, a Michelangelo, a Beethoven. 
You have the capacity for anything.” 
-Pablo Casals

"When children feel good about themselves, it's like a snowball rolling downhill. They are continually able to recognize and integrate new proof of their value as they grow and mature." -Stephanie Marston

Leaves

How silently they tumble down
And come to rest upon the ground
To lay a carpet, rich and rare,
Beneath the trees without a care,
Content to sleep, their work well done,
Colors gleaming in the sun.

At other times, they wildly fly
Until they nearly reach the sky.
Twisting, turning through the air
Till all the trees stand stark and bare.
Exhausted, drop to earth below
To wait, like children, for the snow.

-Elsie Brady

Education

"Every child should have mud pies, grasshoppers, water bugs, tadpoles, frogs, mud turtles, elderberries, wild strawberries, acorns, chestnuts, trees to climb. Brooks to wade, water lilies, woodchucks, bats, bees, butterflies, various animals to pet, hay fields, pine-cones, rocks to roll, sand, snakes, huckleberries and hornets; and any child who has been deprived of these has been deprived of the best part of...education"
~Luther Burbank

Early Summertime Fun

Then followed that beautiful season… Summer…
Filled was the air with a dreamy and magical light; and the landscape
Lay as if new created in all the freshness of childhood.
– Henry Wadsworth Longfellow

There have been lots of giggles around here lately - not only have we been able to get the water table back out, berries are coming on! Yum! :)

All of us collect fortunes when we are children — a fortune of colors, of light and darkness, of movements, of tensions. Some of us have the fantastic chance to go back to their fortune when we grow up. Most of us don't have the chance — that is the tragedy.
-Ingmar Bergman