Tuesday, August 09, 2005

The Explorers

The girls have had a slight cold annoying them, not enough to keep them in bed but just enough to slow them down and make them cranky. We haven't been having formal lessons as they don't have the attention spans for them, but books were read and the Legos got a workout.

With the August heat on us they didn't want to go outside until evening. Brighteyes climbed the big tree behind the workshop. Sunshine tried to climb it, didn't get very far, and got upset. Then she decided if she couldn't go up she would go down.

The girls have gotten under the house before, but it's a converted trailer with lots of clearance beneath it. The floor of the workshop is only half as far from the ground. Sunshine got under on the end that's almost as far from the ground as the house is, but the ground slopes uphill from that point. She crawled and wriggled almost all the way to the front before she felt the space close in around her and screamed.

We heard the screams and came running. I cleared the space out from where I heard her cries coming from and could almost reach her, but she was too upset to reach for me. Brighteyes tried to go under from the front side but her head was too big. She went around the back to see if she could reach Sunshine that way.

Meanwhile her father reached in with his longer arms and pulled her out. Once her head was out and she realized that she really wasn't stuck she quieted down and pulled herself out. It looked for all the world like a birth.

We hugged Sunshine and reassured her that she was all right. She didn't look panicked though. She looked mad.

Brighteyes was annoyed because she had almost reached her little sister when Daddy pulled her out, and she had to turn around and come back emptyhanded. She wanted to make sure we had heard her under the house. We told her what a brave little girl she had been to go down there to help her little sister.

We told the girls to stay out from under the workshop in the future. "It's only half as high as the house," I explained. Sunshine immediately got up and looked under the house, ready to start exploring that territory. I laughed and we herded them in to wash up for supper.

Over supper they went over the details of the story again and again, telling each other and us what they would do the next time little sister got stuck under the workshop. My protests that it would be better if there wasn't a next time were ignored in favor of the entrancing prospect of doing a proper rescue.

The girls' most recent photo was taken at Mississippi Homeschool Day. They are in the pool photograph. Brighteyes is the second girl on the left further back than the others; you can see why we call her that. Sunshine is the one facing away from the camera.

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