a piece of my childhood

When my mom arrived from the Philippines a little over a week ago, she brought a stack of books that she had saved since my childhood, even a few that were from her childhood. I didn't recognize most of the titles she brought, save for the stack of Little House books.

One book in the stack, however, kept drawing me in repeatedly. I really had no recollection of the cover at all, but something in the pages, as I flipped through the book, spoke to me in an oddly familiar way.

As I pored over the book for the third, fourth and fifth times, an air of intimate awareness rushed from these pages as different projects jumped off the pages at me. I'm sure I had a connection to this book. Why don't I remember it more?

In the last week I've sat with my various children showing them the projects, gauging their interest to see what we might glean from these pages. Unanimously, they found this book to be a wonderful resource, and I'm sure we'll be poring over these projects again as new seasons come and go.

For now, we're giggling over the 70s presentation but also admiring the various turkeys and getting busy on turkeys of our own. Finn was particularly partial to the "prickly turkey", which is the turkey whose feathers are made from pinecone "pokes" (both are Finn terms).

There are many other lovely turkeys to create within these pages, including feather turkeys, indian corn turkeys and yarn turkeys. Although some of the projects in this book I'd never try (melting styrofoam, anyone?), we've found many of them to include natural materials and perfect for the kids to handle on their own.

As I helped Finn put the finishing touches on his "prickly turkey" yesterday, I found myself exceedingly grateful for this piece of my childhood returned to me.