"Mom, can I do school?"

My almost 3 year old has been sick as a dog all day and the first thing he says when he wakes up starting to feel better is "Mom, can I do school?"  This kid.

He specifically asked to review his colors.  So I grabbed the color ribbons because I thought I could get away with doing an easy "school" lesson.  But nope.  He wanted the whole display board on the counter like we always do it.

Here he is, so weak, sitting at the table as I ask him his colors.  He has his brothers All About Reading lesson on the table in front of him.

I thought that would be the end, but he wanted to continue.  I hadn't really seen or spent much time with the bigger boys all day, so I called them out to join us.  Peter opened a market which was something we got with our day 1 of Nursery Rhymes.

Adam rolled the cube and would count out the money to buy the item.  I read the directions on this game a few times, I wasn't sure exactly how we were supposed to do it but I went ahead and wrote a number or a "price" for each item on the cube cards themselves.

 Here he had counted out 2 dollars to buy a carrot from the market.

 Comparing his purchase to the cube card.

 He was very happy with his purchase, which was an apple, and now he wanted a real apple.

 So I brought him applesauce and got a thumbs up.

 Next I got out day 2's supplies.  On this day we learned the rhyme "A Song of Sixpence".

So we baked a pie.  Mother Goose Time provided us with the pie tins, the starch noodles and a recipe card to make our own play doh.  Again, this impromptu "school" time was followed by a full day of a two year old puking and laying on me.  So putting together a recipe in the kitchen was not an option.  Instead I got out our already made play-doh.  It worked just fine, but I do look forward to making our own, we never have, and I know all the kids would love it!

Adam flattened a top and bottom for his pie and I showed him how to layer it in his tin.  Then Lachlan made just a top for his pie and pushed the filling in and then set it in his pie tin.  When it was all done baking he dumped it out and I said it was like an upside down cake.  My poor children and their lack of experience with cooking and baking.  GG, if you are reading this, I think we need to come bake a pie at your house!?  GG stands for Great Grandma but she was my Grandma first and we spent many summer days picking buckets of blackberries on her farm knowing our reward would be one of her blackberry pies!

Peter made me a birthday cake.  My birthday is next in line in the birthday craziness for our family.  It goes like this Christmas, January (Lachlan's birthday), February (Peter's birthday then mine) and then March (Adam's birthday).  Jeff was the only one left out of the mix, he has to wait until October.

 I was cutting out the bead cards for the next activity involving the awesome manipulatives (Check out our giveaway) and Adam reminded me that he could do that part.

 I only had one left and handed it off to him.  I had my camera ready with a low f/ or aperture 1.8.  That's the top photo, see how blurry the cards are?  I had plenty of time to adjust my camera because he sat there, making sure that his scissors were perfectly lined up before he started cutting.  I bumped my f/ or aperture up to 3.something and now you can see the cards a little more clearly.  Just in case you wanted a little photography lesson mixed in with your preschool run through.

Our pocket cube was already in use so I set these cube cards face down on the table and had him flip one over and then scoop those beads from the bowl into the pie tin.  He had already done this a couple of time successfully by the time you get to the moment captured here.  Adam needed to grab a blue circle but he said it was just too hard.  The reality was, he was just getting tired.  Poor sick kiddo.  This is where big brother stepped in to help.  Makes my heart so happy.  I almost didn't take a picture, I was just enjoying the moment.

 This help and support from brother really motivated him to keep going.

 The two older boys kept recreating their pies and this was Lachlan's finished "balloon pie".  

All in all this time together was maybe about 30 minutes.  But it was so precious on this super rough day.  Normally I shy away from diaper only pictures of the babies.  But I just had to make an exception because this moment was so exceptional.  My little guy spent all day puking and sick and Mother Goose Time was his first request!!!  How amazing is that!?!?!

This isn't the first time he has asked me to do "school".  He loves school time because it is together time.  He often says "teach me Mama, teach me."  Melts. My. Heart.

I call these moments "Mother Goose Moments" and I treasure each and every one.