Scientific Tickling

Ryan came to wake me up one day and tried to get up out of bed immediately by tickling my armpits. He soon found out that I am not ticklish there. He proceeded to check other places to find my "tickliness". I told him that I am not ticklish, but he kept checking. By the time he got to my feet, I found the whole adventure so funny that I was already laughing. Once he touched me feet, I burst into peels of laughter. "That proves it!" he yelled. "Ba has tickliness!"

Next he went to Mimi and tried tickling her armpits. She didn't laugh. He moved all the way down to her feet. By the time he got to her feet she was laughing out loud. "Mimi has tickliness, too!" he cried.

"Who is more ticklish, Ba or Mimi?" she asked him.

"I need to experiment," he answered. He proceeded to tickle each of us until we were laughing so hard we asked him to stop. He could barely breathe himself he was laughing so hard. "Ba can't not laugh, so that proves she has more tickliness than Mimi" was his verdict.

Now he comes in every morning and wakes us up by checking for our tickliness. Today he decided to see which was more "tickly" tickling with his fingers or blowing raspberries on our feet. "Now hold still," he instructed. "This is very important. If you move you can ruin my whole experiment." He tickled each way. By the time he blew raspberries on the soles of my feet I was laughing and squirming and pulled my feet away. I accidently kicked him. "Hey you kicked me!" he yelled.

"I'm sorry Ryan, but if you tickle my feet I might jerk away."

"Right. OK." He pretended to write on a pad. "Note: Be careful when preforming tickliness experiments."

"You are definately more tickly, Ba. Mimi doesn't kick me."

I guess I am. After all, you can't argue with rigorous scientific testing.

Breaking Things

Not too long ago, Ethan threw Ryan's favorite Planet Hero figure (Zip) from the second story window. It broke. There was upset all around. After things calmed down, I asked Ethan why he threw Zip from the window, and he said he just wanted to see something break. I told him that we could do that in a way that wouldn't involve any one's treasured things and wouldn't hurt any one's feelings. I wasn't sure how that would look, but I knew we could do it.

We stopped at Goodwill one day to check out the books and I found ceramic cups and mugs for ten cents each. I bought them and brought them home. Today we pout a tarp outside the front windows and dropped about a dozen ceramic cups, two mugs, and the remains of one broken bowl we had in the house from the front windows. Ethan was thrilled! He and Ryan had a blast dropping them, retrieving them, and dropping them again.

It was one of those moments when it was just easy to step outside the box. I love those moments.

Travels and Friends

We've been very busy for the past few weeks. We went on a trip which started out in Plymouth, MA at an Unschooler's Camp Out. Where Ryan met a new friend, Mauve, and found she shared his love of sticks.

Ethan, Declan, and Will discovered a sunny place to relax.

I managed to get all the kids in one photo. This was Ryan's fire, but he decided to share. He built lots of fires on this trip and learned "black smithing" which is, apparently, the art of blacking one end of stick so that it can be used to write on rocks.
Next we went to Grammy's cabin in NH. The fun with fire theme continued there. Grammy liked the fires.
Ethan built his first fire with a little help from Ryan and Mimi.
In honor of In spite of it being Learn Nothing Day, Uncle Gareth showed Ethan a how to use a bow and arrows.
Mimi and Ba took the guys for a canoe ride. Of course anyone can ride in the canoe. It's much more challenging to get pulled along in an inner tube.
Ethan spent hours following the ducks in the pond. He quacked at them and they were very accommodating. He got really close to them. After a few hours, he announced that being a duck was great, but without feathers it gets pretty cold even if the lake is warm.

Water always looms large in our family, so went to Jacob Riis Park last Tuesday and caught some gnarly waves.
There were a few wipe outs, but both Ethan and Ryan are ready to go again tomorrow. They say this is the best beach in the world. I have to agree. It has been my favorite beach since childhood.
Amazing water fun continued at Jean's wonderful potluck. The food was yummy and there lots of cool unschoolers. Jean lives mere blocks from the ocean, so naturally, everyone headed there for an afternoon swim. It was a great time to catch up with friends, old and new.
I couldn't resist posting in this photo of Kim. Gotta love a girl who knows what to take to the beach.
Finally, we went to see the new Harry Potter movie on Sunday. Ethan wanted to wait to see it at an Imax with Ryan, all 3 mommies, Aunt Jo, and Uncle Joe. We met up in New Rochelle, NY and while we were walking to the theater, Ethan decided to pause to let Wolverine hang on a tree.
All in all, a very satisfying and refreshing few weeks.