Silkies by AlishaV at Flickr

So I returned from our vacation feeling good, but I noticed a scratch in the back of my throat, and my glands were swollen. *sigh  Well, after spending the weekend getting the house back in order, getting our clothes washed and replaced, and dealing with some hard stuff (one of our chickens dies…more on this in a bit) I started noticing a cough and a more prominent sore throat. 

So that brings me to today.  My voice is not doing well and last night I was not in a position to record but didn’t feel comfortable not kicking something out today and I wanted to blog about a couple of situations that occurred since we got back.  Things I think you will be interested in. 

First, when we arrived back home we could not find one of our Silky chickens.  We looked all over, in their cage, in their coupe, all over our large yard.  Now, it’s important to mention that our birds (we have chickens and ducks) are more like family to us.  They are producers in that they lay eggs for us, but we see them as a part of the Gibson system and not just an asset. 

Well, one of our chickens EB (short for Ebony…can you guess what color she was?) was dead.  She had gotten stuck underneath a water dish that somehow flipped over on her.  It was very tragic for us since we value our birds.  But it was a beautiful opportunity to allow our kiddos to practice grieving.  We used all of the techniques we discuss here at FPN (click here to listen to Episode 23 of Talking to Your Kids About Death) and it worked perfectly. 

I dug the hole and the kids were allowed to grieve however they wanted.  Anna wanted to find a solution to what happened while talking about being sad.  Grant wanted to say some nice words about him having “loved that chicken.”  Momma (Corrie) cried and said EB was her personal favorite.  But it was good practice on the micro-scale. 

The second noteworthy thing occurred during our play yesterday.  While we were playing a very diverse and moderately complicated game (that’s my daughter Anna for you) we were able to discuss a barter economy today.  Anna’s game involved Grant as a shark in the ocean, Cora a sea turtle in the ocean, Anna a coyote in the desert, and me a desert frog.  Anna and I teamed up to catch lizards to eat.  Grant, the shark, was able to amass a ton of fish, and Cora had extra sea turtle eggs.  Grant wanted some of our lizard but we had too much fish.

But guess what we needed?  Sea turtle eggs.  So we discussed a barter economy where Grant could trade his fish for eggs, and then the eggs for our lizards.  The kids (ages 3, 5, and 7) picked up on this flawlessly.  It was really neat to watch, after some education, as the barter economy picked up and flourished. 

Moral of the stories today?  Every single instances mentioned today can be used to teach a lesson.  One about how to express emotion during loss.  The other an economical model through something as simple as play.  And it was effective.  Get involved with your kiddo and teach em’ tha good stuffz and don’t forget: it’s all about the relationship with your kids. 

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