SOME TIME LATER

This is not an image from a kaleidoscope but the dried up dye for Easter eggs.

Iza is always curious on " how do things look like SOME TIME LATER ? "

It is her observation game ... certain things look like as they are at a particular moment, in state which we are most familiar with, but they will change their form, color, smell, volume ... with time.

She has once pleaded for watching the change of state of an opened egg. The 28 days of observation was recorded here ( II, III, IV ). It was nothing serious and no great findings, but it was a fun guess game!

I tried to recall how iza first got started ...

Maybe ... this was it ... a piece of dried up glue she made at 2-3 Years old. She squeezed some glue onto a lid and placed 4 cotton buds into it. It then turned into something semi translucent, elastic and the buds were frozen as they were. I know it is nothing special to us. To a child, it might be something incredible.

About the dye ... originally, I was a bit reluctant to keep the pot of dye ... as a person easily irritate by disorganization, I got mad with iza's "here a bit and there a bit" ... and, I thought it would just remain as its original color which was a dark green. To satisfy her curiosity, I agreed though I did not fancy on this. But, she was so excited and said,

" I think it will turn into jelly. "

I thought she was silly ...

After almost 2 months, the dye has totally dried up. Instead of turning into opaque pigment of dark green or turning into jelly, it becomes crystalline in form.

The change of color is dramatic. For the dye, we originally mixed the same portion of red and green of organic food colorings. Out of my expectation, we did not get a dark grey or dark brown, but a dark green mixture. The red was dominant by the green. The dyeing result was magical too. The exterior of eggs became purple and the interior turned emerald green. From the dried up dye, we do not see traces of purple or red, but crystals of green, cyan, blue on the bottom ... some yellow and lime around the rim. I must admit that it is far beyond my imagination.

There was another day I saw iza dissolving a soluble crayon and mixing it with glue ...

I thought she was making her own acrylic paint :) In the dried up specimen, we found traces of blue, violet, cyan and some magenta ... so beautiful.

On the other day, she suggested another fun game ... using Easter eggs shells to make color pigments again.

We ground the red egg shells with small amount of water ... but it did not turn back into red dye ... then we put some red organic food coloring into it and let it dry again.

She then shared some portion of the mixture onto another plate ... and added some talcum powder and shampoo. It was no longer a liquid but a thick paste ... After 2 weeks, we discovered that the color of the first specimen will change during rainy days. The color of the second one with talcum powder is comparatively stable. Baby powder really serves its purpose of keeping dry!

Always we do not plan ahead for "experiments". Every case, I'm just following iza's instincts and be her helper. For our child, what is invaluable is not the experience or knowledge from the "experiments" but the enlivenment of CAPACITY OF LISTENING TO THE GENTLE VOICE IN HER HEART... the innate sense of wonder. This is what I miss, the most, for the whole school year. I enjoy watching iza following her passion, her inner call ... to wander, to question, to examine the wonder-filled world around her with SPONTANEITY. We aware that this sense of wonder and the capacity of curiosity will fade if we do not intentionally keep it alive ... the best we can do is to do LESS, to abandon the impulse to teach, to allow aimless activities, to accept messiness (!) ...

In this Summer, we plan to have no Summer course. It's the time to set our child free from programs and structures. It's the time to response to the calling of SPONTANEITY again. I can't wait anymore for the Summer holiday! It is only 2 days ahead.

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THE MAGICAL TWIST

Iza showed me this.

My inherited tendency, my perceptive eyes, told me that it was

A SHIP

she's sending me.

" Mama, for you ...

A BLUE WHALE."

A magical thing has happened in my brain.

I suddenly saw a BLUE WHALE.

Do you see a BLUE WHALE?

What a twist in my perception!

Did a chain of chemical reactions happen in my brain ?

Now i can always see this a BLUE WHALE ...

Even when i post it right now ...

I see the tapering body, the fin and tail ...

I feel so fortunate to have this natural born time lag in connecting a thought and my verbal response ...

Always, it is a disadvantage.

But i can see its edge here.

This has happened for more than 3 weeks ...

I could still experience the magic ...

If you can delay a second, you will see a totally different picture or hear a different story.

I recall an episode in the The Little Prince.

" Whenever I encountered a grown-up who seemed to me at all enlightened, I would experiment on him with my drawing Number One, which I have always kept. I wanted to see if he really understood anything. But he would always answer, "That's a hat." Then I wouldn't talk about boa constrictors or jungles or stars. I would put myself on his level and talk about bridge and golf and politics and neckties. And my grown-up was glad to know such a reasonable person."

I just think what other possible responses would a child have ...

May be she is like iza. She will strongly protest her thought ... which makes a grown up feel disturbed and annoyed ... on her side, she will also find the person disturbing and annoying too. She will then reserve her innate thoughts and feelings to herself.

Maybe she is someone without a firm belief to herself. She will follow whatever you say and will abandon her original thoughts.

May be she is a little good one with tons of patience. She may not be masking her feelings or thoughts like the Little Prince. Whoever misunderstands her original thought, she will keep explaining ... but how long will she insist to do the same thing to the same person who always misinterprets her. She is still a nice little one but will find that person not the right one to share her thought.

......

This is something i always know but only feel how powerful this is till i encountered with the BLUE WHALE.

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PLAY

Almost for 3 years, iza swims every week all year round ...

Remembered her first lessons, she whined. Refused to even make a move. Just stood there ... for the whole course of time. I could not figure out what happened to this brave little child who extremely loved to play with water ... till she told me on her 4th lesson ...

" It is not playing. You need to follow every instruction.

Many children think it's fun ... but I don't think so. "

Her interpretation on playing stroke me and made me recall this incidence.

She was asking for toys which were without instructions. In her words, these were the play dough, papers, pencils ...

At that moment, I just felt this child need more freedom.

To me, playing was anything apart from work or school ... I did not aware the significant difference between playing with and without "instruction" or "guidance" ... Especially, in these days we all emphasize on learning through playing ... eventually, we have lots of intellectual games and toys for our children. We hope they will be intellectually trained up through playing. We maximize the benefits of playing ... and we forget something.

Till one day (at the time iza was 5.5Y already) i came across play therapy ... this made me rethink what is "playing" ...

"Play therapy is generally employed with children aged 3 through 11 and provides a way for them to express their experiences and feelings through a natural, self-guided, self-healing process. As children’s experiences and knowledge are often communicated through play, it becomes an important vehicle for them to know and accept themselves and others. "

Apart from our die hard belief in intellectual toys, we are so passionate on teaching our children through their creative playing. We are so eager to demonstrate on how to construct a car with Lego, make a little rabbit with play dough, draw something which look like what we think it ought to be like ... We do like to interpret what our children's act on their imaginary play and creations before they tell us ...

Playing without "instruction" or "guidance" is a kind of self-guided playing. Through the process, the children create their own rules, follow their feelings and emotions, flow with their imaginations ... it is a platform which they actualize their thoughts. Through actualization, they come to realize themselves. The more we intervene, the least they assert themselves.

There is a sense of alienation of emotions in those highly designed toys. The simplest "toys" allows the maximum interpretation and imagination. "Toys" can be anything. That might be the reason we enjoy least in those highly designed "theme parks"... feeling being constricted ...

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JIGSAW OF THE WORLD

i love to observe silently when iza is very focused ...

throughout the years, i find her scraping together in her mind her own jigsaw puzzle of the world ... tracing and fitting together ties between geography, ecology, history (especially chinese history) and people ... i would wait patiently to see her finding the knots in architecture, art, music, film ... in her map, one day.

i need the patience,

i need the strong will

to keep silent.

iza, you take the lead, i will follow.

A glowing globe ... sea animals reveal when the light is on ...

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her little collection on atlas of the world

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The label under "The gentleness of being a mother" will be a series of sharing on raising of my child. I'm a bit nervous when i was asked by a tender mama on sharing this ... in reality, i always feel weak and lost, and still searching on how to be a mother, a companion of my child ...

As reading a beautiful post by Kenza, i'm enchanted by her conviction on sharing between such beautiful ties knotted across the world. A little sharing is tying a tiny knot in spreading the gentleness of being a mother ... Thanks to Kenza for sharing this wonderful art of "Messenger with a Letter". Thanks to Ayshik mama.

This first post is about my reflection on the role as mama ....

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