Poetry Teatime: Slowing down
Today is the day we finally initiate Poetry Teatimes. I love this idea at BraveWriter of slowing down, doing something different, and, of course, reading poetry… Turns out, the kids love it too. They are so excited, helping me get out plates and candles and such.
Our poetry teatime begins. We have the difficulty of getting Charlotte to leave the dishes where they are set. Ava is so frustrated with Charlotte for messing up her table setting. I try to have a mini-chat with her about lowered expectations, but Wyatt starts chasing Charlotte, so we have to shelve that one. We all get seated, tea is poured, and munching ensues. Kids are content as they look through poetry books to decide what we’ll read. They are genuinely interested and I’m pretty pleased with myself for getting this far.
Ava reads first. She chooses “From the Passionate Shepherd, to His Love” by Christopher Marlowe. She sighs wistfully at the end and says, “I just love poems that have ‘thee’ in them.” She is a peculiar 6 year old, and I just can’t get enough of her.
Wyatt chooses the poem from Where the Sidewalk Ends where the guy is sitting on his own head. I remember he is the only boy in this tea party. Charlotte tears her Jamberry board book in half, at which point I notice a suspicious dark spot on her pillow and realize I haven’t taken her to the bathroom in an hour. Shooot. Everything grinds to a halt while I change her and start pillow clean up. During this interval, Wyatt and Ava get into a heated discussion about who should get the last square of (gluten free) rice crispy treat. I solve the dispute by eating it myself. Everyone agrees this was a sensible solution (ha!).
~Danielle
From her blog, Further Up and Further In.
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