How many miles to Babylon?

How many miles to Babylon?
Threescore miles and ten.
Can I get there by candle-light?
Yes, and back again.
If your heels are nimble and light,
You may get there by candle-light.


I leapt out of my seat, waved the book of nursery rhymes at Jonathan, and shrieked, "Look at this! It's a Babylon candle! I found Babylon candles! It's like in Stardust!"

Jonathan is used to my reading habits. He put down his book that he was reading, accepted the tome of nursery rhymes, and agreed, yes, it was definitely where Neil Gaiman got the idea for Babylon candles. I have tracked down a reference in its native habitat!

 If you don't remember, Stardust is a fantasy film from about ten years ago with Claire Danes and Robert de Niro and a bunch of people. The hero and the star do, indeed, travel by Babylon candle. The movie makes a joke of it -- the star knows what they're called, but as the hero had never heard of them, he refers to them as "bubbling" candles and she corrects him. I hadn't realized they were a thing outside that story.

The wiki page on "How many miles to Babylon" mentions that it used to be a game like sharks and minnows, where the kids stand in two lines, sing the song, and the "shark" tries to catch them when they run back and  forth. I'm thinking we need to start playing this game again.

Because traveling by candle-light is definitely the coolest.

We're up to Greece now

Since we talked about the Iliad and the Odyssey today, I was browsing some illustrations for them. I showed Meg a gorgeous one of the one-eyed monster (Cyclops?) that tried to eat Odysseus.

"Why do giants try to eat people?" asked Meg.

I considered. "They ought not to do so. It is evil."

Meg accepted that. "Well, in Heaven if there are giants, they'll be a lot less pesky."

Poem of the day: My Shadow

We were talking about that time Hook stole Peter Pan's shadow, which reminded me of the Robert Louis Stevenson poem about the little boy's shadow. I mentioned it to Meg, and rather to my surprise she wanted to hear it. 

My Shadow by Robert Louis Stevenson
From Child's Garden of Verses

I have a little shadow that goes in and out with me,
And what can be the use of him is more than I can see.
He is very, very like me from the heels up to the head;
And I see him jump before me, when I jump into my bed.

The funniest thing about him is the way he likes to grow--
Not at all like proper children, which is always very slow;
For he sometimes shoots up taller like an india-rubber ball,
And he sometimes goes so little that there's none of him at all.

He hasn't got a notion of how children ought to play,
And can only make a fool of me in every sort of way.
He stays so close behind me, he's a coward you can see;
I'd think shame to stick to nursie as that shadow sticks to me!

One morning, very early, before the sun was up,
I rose and found the shining dew on every buttercup;
But my lazy little shadow, like an arrant sleepy-head,
Had stayed at home behind me and was fast asleep in bed.

And she liked it! It made her laugh and everything. Poetry win.

My writing, elsewhere

My two most recent posts over at HSLDA: falling in love with pharaohs and nature studies.

Classical music

My writing elsewhere: I've got another post up over at HSLDA. This one is about classical music, and I was really proud of how those pictures came out. I even found a sunny day to take them. :-)

Bonus exclusive picture of Kate for my blog readers. She liked the maracas better.

Meg and Kate updates

Meg is five years and one month old, and she can read on her own. She knew letters and sounds at two, so I was confident it would come eventually, and for the past year or more she has been putting the sounds together laboriously. I am pleased to report the skill is here. No printed matter is safe - she'll sound out chalkboards, packaging, web pages, yarn labels. "What does that say? Wool----spun."  She can follow along the song overheads at church, which coincidentally makes her more likely to sing and less wiggly. (YES!) She is reading the species names on all her animal puzzles and books. (Yes!) She reads the Dick and Jane books to herself, because she likes them and I don't. (Yay!) She reads board books to Kate. (Yahoo!) So basically this development is thrilling to me.

Jonathan read Meg the first chapter of The Phantom Tollbooth and distressed her by shutting it without putting in a bookmark. She was astonished when he opened it right back to the correct place.
"Daddy, how did you do that? Are you MAGICAL?"

Meanwhile, while Meg reads everything that will hold still, Kate has started moving. All. the. time. She goes everywhere, grabs everything. She pushes dolls around in the doll stroller (she loves dolls), pulls all the books off shelves (she loves books), drags things off tabletops (Mommy's toys are so interesting, and is that coffee?). She climbed up onto the couch by herself (she loves the couch!). She brought me a whole pile of craft paper (because paper is so cool), having located the drawer, opened it, and helped herself. She's learned to wipe her nose with a Kleenex and trot over to throw the dirty one in the trash, which is adorable, and also I keep the Kleenex up high now.

This afternoon Kate mysteriously appeared all wet, and we thought perhaps she'd gotten Meg's water bottle? The dampness just smelled like water, so we weren't too worried until I went to take off her wet things and discovered squelchy toilet paper and splashed water all around the toilet. The toilet had not been flushed. It was disgusting. That girl got a bath so fast she didn't know what was happening and everyone, especially Meg, has been informed that the toilet MUST be flushed, I'm not even kidding, and also SHUT THE BATHROOM DOOR. ALWAYS. The Nodwick blogger, about three years ago, ran a post about the sirens who live in dishwashers and toilets, and sing a song only toddlers can hear. We don't have a dishwasher, but apparently we have an especially alluring cadre of them in our toilet.

In the "just cute" file...

Me to Kate: "Can I interest you in a mouse and a maraca?"
Kate took them and started shaking both.

Historical discussion

Tonight at dinner, I ranted (briefly) about Henry the Eighth's burning of libraries as he dissolved the monasteries. (How many manuscripts of Beowulf might we HAVE if he hadn't been such a dork??)
"Henry the Eighth was a corkscrew!" Jonathan announced.
Meg agreed with us. "Yeah, he was sharp and wasn't careful with his words."

All conversational roads lead to Octonauts

Meg managed to boggle even me today by bringing in the Octonauts. It all started so innocently, too. We were listening to a CD of Greatest Hits of 1949 and I had to try to explain the whip-cracks in the Mule Train song. That led to a description of a whip, which led to Indiana Jones, which led to the Ark of the Covenant. Then we had to talk about the real Ark, as opposed to the Spielberg version, which led us directly to the Meg version.

Me: "It was a box covered inside and out with gold, and it had two long sticks to carry it by. There were statues of two angels on top. And Moses put the Ten Commandments inside."
Meg: "Why?"
Me: "Because that was how God told them to make it."
Meg:  "They should have colored pictures of Octonauts and put them on the box. That would have been more fun."

Boggle, boggle. I pointed out that Octonauts hadn't been invented yet, and furthermore God wanted people to think about Him when they saw the box, and they could make statues of angels but they couldn't make statues of God because they didn't know what He looked like. Meg still felt Octonauts would be much cooler.

Jonathan, inventively, said that angels are like Octonauts in a lot of ways: they go on missions, they help people --
Meg: "The way angels are NOT like Octonauts is that they DON'T HELP SEA CREATURES. They could probably help a land creature, but they aren't much of a swimmer."

Wounded kid

 Poor Meg got her four-year-old shots last week. It was pretty traumatic. Afterwards, she commented sadly, "Shots. Nasty, nasty shots."

We've been all about Egypt around here, especially the Sphinx (pronounced Spinks). So when we watched The Prince of Egypt, she leapt up, grabbed her book about How the Sphinx Got to the Museum, and started identifying everything in the movie. My favorite moment was when she decided Hatshepsut adopted baby Moses.

"I think in our world, Sanajay snakes are dangerous and I shouldn't touch them because they're poisonous." Meg
"Yeah, I think you're right." Me
"Because then you'd have a WOUNDED KID!" Meg

Update:
Speaking of... snakes?... Meg is currently building an elaborate fort out of cans of tomatoes, library books, and a baby blanket. I asked who the fort was for. "It's a JAIL! It's a nice little happy jail."

Advent

Meg narrated as she did the advent calendar. "We'll put the star up there [on the top point of the stable] so they can have light." Jonathan and I laughed, so Meg defended her placement. "And God said, let there be light!"

Then she started using known board book forms. "Mary, Mary, what did you see? A great big angel looking at me!"

I tell you, this is exactly like classical education. You have a scheme of words and make up your own version to that pattern. Meg does it so naturally.

Persephone is put to bed, clean and a little soggy

Tonight we let Meg have a little cup of pomegranate seeds to nibble in the bath.* Of course the bath got everywhere, pomegranate cup, Daddy-splashing cup, ducks, Daddy, and all, and it was time for the Meg to come out of the bath.  Jonathan dealt with the bathwater first, and while his back was turned, Meg slipped out to come leap on me and my laptop and generously drip all over au naturel, to the musical shrieks of "Get down! Watch the computer!"

Jonathan came along with a towel, and when Meg was dry, pajamaed, and put to bed, discovered that the Daddy-splashing cup had maliciously covered the tub drain so the water wouldn't drain.

I tell this story, not just by way of personal encouragement that these things happen to other people, but also because I found it amusing that I was pounced on by a girl literally wet behind the ears. Metaphor strikes again.



*Doesn't that sounds luxurious and Romanesque? We're starting classical education early. Obviously.