We are T-5 days. It's a mad scramble to get things done before we leave on our grande-finale trip next Thursday. As the more "formal" (cough, cough) part of the school year winds up (winds down?) I'm assessing and wondering what it is that I most hope that the kiddos will take from this year. There are a lot of answers, and I'm sure that I'll be exploring them in the last six weeks of this experiment... But for now I'll mention what has surfaced post-birthday season (read: post pizza, cake, ice cream, etc.) -- I hope my kids are learning proper care of their bodies by mostly/usually eating and drinking well.
I will be the first to admit that the scheme has been filled with treats. Every outing, bribe, trip, etc. has food as a key ingredient. What I'm counting on, is that they realize that treats are for special occasions (this year has just had a lot of those...), not for every-day-consumption.
Specifically, one area where I felt we are falling short is the amount of water we take in every day. In an effort to get the kids familiar with what eight glasses of water feels like, we have been making daily tear-away flyers like the ones we see all over this city ("guitar lessons!" "dog walking!" "French tutoring!"). While they find a strange satisfaction in tearing off the tabs, we have yet to have a denuded flyer come the end of the day.
I wonder stupid things sometimes -- things that can't be answered... like, statistically speaking, would learning the habit of drinking a healthful quantity of water lead to a higher quality of life than learning the chemical structure of H20 -- in the long run? I'm not sure how you could set up a study -- you would have to gather a group that never learned anything regarding the periodic table of elements... and then whittle off those that drink eight glasses of water a day (the amount necessary to rid the body of waste efficiently), and then see if they are happier than another group who did learn the chemical make-up of water, but are not drinking enough of it... Again: I wonder stupid things. And all that wondering often spins around the same theme: how to use time/resources most efficiently, for not only are our mortal lives finite, but within that the different stages/opportunities in our lives are finite.
