December 19

The boys both had fevers as of dinnertime last night, so no school for either of them today — to put a positive spin on it, we got to extend Christmas break by two days (Simon was out yesterday too). So, what do you do when all three kids are kind of/not really/but actually kind of sick? Make a rainstick!

Rainsticks are really cool, and ours turned out better than I imagined. We used a poster mailing tube almost as tall as Clara and about 4.5 inches in diameter, 136 2.5-inch nails (I didn’t actually count; that’s what it said on the box), and a mixture of about 2 cups black beans, 1/2 cup red lentils, and 1 cup pearled barley (all the rainmakers I found in the pantry, too old to trust for good eating).

But the best part: the kids happily hammered nails in that tube for very close to an hour and a half. In fact, I think I was the one most ready for the box of nails to be empty. They all did so well with the hammer. They were proud of themselves, as they should have been.

DPP pics from past years: 2006, 2008, 2009, 2010, 2011, 2012, 2013