Calebite

Caleb offered to take a friend's paper route today while they were on vacation. 

Before starting: "This is awesome! I can't wait to get a route of my own."

Halfway delivering: "All this work for only $10? My time is worth so much more than that. $20 at least."

When finished: "No way I'm ever getting a paper route. No way."

Summer days

Summer is speeding along.  As I pout about prolonged silence from my favourite bloggers, my own little space here is equally neglected.  Four children home in our little space, with these precious few months of good weather, means that we are constantly on the move, getting outside, being active, and loving it.

With advanced birthday money from us and my parents, we bought Caleb a kayak.  He had mentioned it a few times, since I have my own kayak in the garage.  I took him out for the first time last week and my heart could have burst open from the experience.  He hopped in the kayak and paddled away as though he'd been doing it longer than I.  He paused in the middle of the lake and sighed happily, noting how peaceful it was.  Then he paddled hard to cross the great width of the lake, because he had promised his brothers he would, and "a promise is a promise."  Now I really do have to get a roof rack so that we can bring the kayaks along with us on camping trips.

Yesterday I had my first paid workday (that wasn't for our family business) in a long time.  A couple of my friends have a video company and are moving from wedding videos into corporate work, and they have hired me as a freelance writer, and also to be assistant director on shooting days.  The job is so perfect in that most of the work can be done from home, but there are still a few days now and then to get me out a bit.  My priority has always been to stay home with my children, but this will allow me to earn a little extra money while we shift our business ventures.  I also applied for a proofreading job that is also done from home.  How wonderful to find work that can be done once the children are asleep, so that it doesn't cut into my time with them.

Speaking of which, we are about to launch a new business, James and I.  We are combining our film and writing training with our experience with seniors...to start making autobiographical videos for seniors who want to record their life story.

Finally, finally, finally, Juliette is sleeping through the night.  For the first time in over nine years, I am getting a solid seven hours of sleep a night.  Combined with the beautiful summer weather I'm about bursting with energy.

Lazy days by a friend's pond, soccer games, parks, bike rides, tennis, geocaching, ball hockey.  Reading, reading and more reading (Colin is going through 1-2 novels a day!)  Looking ahead to some camping trips, a soccer camp, and maybe getting Ben's training wheels off.  Life is good.

Calebite

Colin and Caleb have become voracious readers, and so our local library is once again being ravaged by their little hands.  Last week Caleb took out a graphic novel.  Yesterday he finished it, and was excited to share with me:

"Mom, it's called "War of the Worlds."  I thought it was going to be a history book about all the wars that have been fought by all the countries..."

(that's what he was hoping it was about?  Strange subject matter for a six year old.)

"...but instead it was about these aliens who come and invade earth."

He continued on, telling me the beginnings of the story.  Then, his vocabulary shifted, and he began to relate the story in first person:

"The next thing I knew I was in this cage.  All the others were adults.  I started looking around for some way to get the lock open....

...the aliens were coming down on us hard, and I was so afraid inside...

...the aliens were killing everyone around me, until there were only four of us left..."

I listened, amazed.  I know that the idea of a book is that you find yourself immersed in a world.  But I have never heard a child tell the storyline of a book in first person, as though they were experiencing it themselves.

"Then I was just too frightened by it all, so I tried to shake myself out of it and just finish reading it."

I don't know if he saw himself in the plot or if he drifted off in a daydream, but either way Caleb's imagination is more vivid than any other child I've met.