Lightbulb Day

We had our Lightbulb Day celebration last night. It was a kind of modified Lightbulb Day, because I decided we needed to do the zoo for school instead of create our inventions game. So we didn't do games, just the usual gathering around the fire, lighting candles, talking about human inventiveness, and celebrating our favorite inventions. A little discussion about the invention of fire gave Madison the opportunity to give a little lecture about hominid development (she's been reading about human evolution lately) and then she remembered a Cherokee legend, Turquoise Boy, which talked about the invention of horses as transportation for American Indians. (We studied American Indians last month.) She regaled us for 10 minutes with the story, and remembered far more details than I had.

It was all fun, but perhaps not as much fun as in years past because I didn't really have my act together. And so, Madison, my little glass-half-empty-phase girl, designated it as "the worst holiday we've ever celebrated." Was it bad? No, it was good, it was just "the worst." I had to explain that we only use "worst" in cases in which something really is bad. Otherwise, it's "lowest ranked." She decided to continue on the negative track, though, and pronounced it "worst." She really liked the little hand-held computer game we gave her, though.

Anyway, we really did have a good time. Here is a photo of Ella whacking at the Lightbulb pinata. Yes, she's on a stool, yes, she's wearing a blindfold, yes, she's using a bat, yes, she's right in front of our brick fireplace. Yes, we're probably bad parents, especially after the brick-diving incident from earlier this year.