"Mommy, why do people pee?"

And this is how unschooling works.

Dani is a few weeks shy of her 3rd birthday.  If you've ever had a toddler, I don't need to tell you how insanely curious these creatures are.  She wants to know everything, she wants to do everything "by myself", and she wants it all to happen now.

This past Monday I heard "Mommy, why do people pee?" from the backseat as we drove home after lunch at a Mexican restaurant (our power was back on, but there was no food in the house yet).  I gave her a simple short explanation and told her we'd look into it more when we got home. 

Once we got home I nursed Oscar while my laptop started up and then looked up a simple diagram of what the human digestive system looks like.  I showed Dani and we talked about what the different things did.  Then, we traced Dani onto a large sheet of finger painting paper and I drew in some of the organs so she could color it in and add stickers.

First thing, Dani added "green poop comin' out" and asked me to color in the stomach and esophagus pink with green stomach acid. She added food stickers from her activity book and then we drew in some food bits in the intestines.  I'm unsure what the green bit is under the arm though.  Obviously I kept it pretty simple here.

Aaron commented that he didn't learn that sort of thing til 5th grade.  I did the body-tracing and added in the organs when I was in 1st grade.  I remember them hanging on the bedroom door of the room my brother and I shared at the time.

Immediately after hanging this tracing on the wall Dani asked me to draw another one for her.  The second one was smaller on a sheet of 8 x 11 paper we had stacked on the art shelf.  She decided that one was her Daddy and colored it in.  The information seems to have stuck too!  The next day she talked about "food going in my body, and my belly, and poop comin' out" while pointing to the appropriate areas of her body.  She also talked to Aaron about chewing up her food and it going into her stomach while she helped him cook some dinner.

This particular happening has really showed me the power of unschooling.  I didn't think we'd be doing anything of the sort til she was at least another few years older!  But here we are....she's asking questions and we are doing our best to explore the answers with her.  She has no shortage of questions, I might add!  Dani had so much fun coloring in the very basic digestive system that I think I might cut out another tracing and some of the other organs she can stick on.  I also found some skeleton coloring pages online that she would probably enjoy.  Coloring is a favorite activity at the moment.  So is painting which I need to put out supplies for more often.

In other news....Oscar has decided he doesn't like to stay in one place.  He's not quite 3-months-old and already seems determined to wiggle and claw his way around on the carpet however slow a process it may be.  I give it a month before he's actually crawling. 

He is also very interested in toys...so Mama had better get sewing!

With the weather cooling down a bit now nature walks with both kiddos seems to be in the near future.  Oscar is digging the wrap so I'll wear him and take Dani around the neighborhood to collect things in nature.  Now seems like a good time to make some felted treasure bowls which I saw recently in Amanda's copy of The Rhythm of Family.  Gotta get knitting too!

Damn these children are amazing sometimes....<3