Ginny (in fake horror): Girls, where are all your toys??!!
Emma (matter of factly): They're all packed up!
Ginny (more horror): So then what do you do around here?
Emma (after some thought): We read books
This is, actually, true - but not as bad as it sounds. About 75% of their toys are in various boxes right now, and since we have to keep the house show ready, we only allow books in the family room now. Since we have been going to the library so often, they are getting new books to read every week or so. ** (see note below for slight digression)
I captured this picture on a weekend a few weeks back when I found the girls totally immersed in "Quiet time" and reading/playing quietly. The silence was golden, but so was their focus and absorption in their activity.
** A few weeks ago, the theme of our week was Hearts/Valentine's Day. (Don't ask, yes - I have "themes" each week for which I organize afternoon activities with the kids.) So one afternoon that week, I checked out a book from the libary called "The Human Body" from the library hoping to teach the kids about the human heart. It was in the kid's section -- one of those DK brand books that contain lots of real pictures, but was more like an encyclopedia -- and more appropriate for teenagers than preschoolers. The book is actually a little gory/creepy - besides a human heart, it contains big colorful pictures of skeletons and mummies, etc... The first time I showed the book to the girls, I tried to go right to the page where they explained the heart, but Emma, true to her nature was transfixed with all the other pages detailing the human body. Since that day, she reads the book almost every day, and asks Arturo questions about veins, and various other body parts. FYI, she has also been equally inquisitive about my surgery, asking me over and over again how the doctor "cut me open" and "sewed me back together again..." She is really amazed by it all.
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