History Lesson

The kids and I had a tea party today. And yesterday. They were both relatively calm. We used to call them Boston Tea Parties. No one drank anything, and the goal seemed to be "spill the most tea." Well yesterday's was minimal in spills and today's was even better. Aside from Cyril's motor boat noises and Cyprian asking if we wanted to hear him burp, it felt civilized.



I think Pippin thought he won the gold medal.

We had a talk about the real Boston Tea Party, which led to a lesson on the revolution, which brought up the Star Spangled Banner, which led me to sing it for the kids, which brought on fits of laughter from all corners. Why couldn't they have come up with a melody we can all sing? The range is a bit far flung for the ordinary warbler. 'And the rockets red glare' really got them rolling. Well, I decided we will work on it as a group. No chance of becoming a von Trapp family, but it will be easier for some of us to hide our contributions in a group setting. I hope.

It is such a pretty song though. And not just the difficult tune. I was getting teary-eyed just reciting the words. So I picked out our next book to read together "Betsy Ross and the Flag". It is one of the books my mom gave me. Its from the 1950s and has a big "Discard" stamp from the library it belonged to. It really is too bad. I have several others that seem to be from the series- one on George Washington, one on Florence Nightengale, and another one I can't remember. It seems sad that a lot of our nation's history is not being passed on. So I've decided we'll spend some time studying our founding. The Greeks and Romans have been fine, but I think something a little closer to home might be easier to grasp. And besides there are wars and Indians and lots of exciting things. And we can have tea parties.


This morning, Shane was home for a bit in the morning and was treated to breakfast by the kids. Kateri and Pippin made scrambled egg whites with feta and tomatoes.
Audrey showed off her espresso making skills and whipped up an Americano. And Cyril ran out to grab the paper for Papa. It was cute to see them all so eager to take care of Papa. And of course Kateri did the dishes afterwards. And then asked to wash the toilets. Again.