Making the decision to have a child is momentous. It is to decide forever to have your heart go walking around outside your body. ~Elizabeth Stone
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Summer 2010 is in full swing! I love this time of year so much. It's when my granddaughter visits me in the mountains. She first met Chippy just before she turned two years old - that was three years ago! She loves to fly fish and go birding and hiking with a camera. She also loves sitting around a campfire making smores and telling stories.
She learned a couple of good lessons this past week. One, I had her do all the wood gathering for the fire on the second night. She realized how much effort it takes to get a nice size fire going. She also experienced the dangers of flying sparks and why certain fabrics are safer to wear. A small spark landed on her while she was sitting on my lap. I helped her flick it off but not before it melted two small holes in her sweat pants. She didn't get burned, but she saw first hand how quickly fire can burn and why fire retardant fabrics are important to wear. It spooked her in the kind of way where she gained a very healthy respect for fire while not becoming fearful.
I teach her to not kill bugs unless they're causing havoc in the house. I have killed large, biting spiders, and ants that infiltrate the kitchen, but mostly, I try to let them live and release them back into their natural environment. We caught a large bumble bee on the window sill with a jar and released it outside. We also scooped up one, small spider and put it on the ground. I encourage her to examine bugs when we're on hikes. Sometimes we'll look up information about them on the Internet at a later time.
High Altitude Dragonfly
Children can so easily be made to fear bugs, or to mindlessly kill them, but when they see an adult respecting insects and showing curiosity and interest, they will readily follow suit.
The Little Photographer
Here we are out "birding" with our cameras. My granddaughter took the picture of me below. I gave her a camera on her 4th birthday last August.
My granddaughter took this of me in June 2010
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