• My Favorites for 0-3 Yrs

  • Knowledge which is acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind.Plato

    The object of teaching a child is to enable him to get along without a teacher. Elbert Hubbard

    Education is not filling a bucket but lighting a fire. William B. Yeats

    An educational system isn't worth a great deal if it teaches young people how to make a living but doesn't teach them how to make a life. Author Unknown

    We all die. The goal isn’t to live forever, the goal is to create something that will.Chuck Palahniuk

    To bring up a child in the way he should go, travel that way yourself once in a while. Josh Billings

    The mother's heart is the child's school-room. Henry Ward Beecher

    The historian is a prophet in reverse.Friedrich von Schlegel

    It is a thousand times better to have common sense without education than to have education without common sense. Robert G. Ingersoll

    Education would be much more effective if its purpose was to ensure that by the time they leave school every boy and girl should know how much they do not know, and be imbued with a lifelong desire to know it. William Haley

    It is easier to build strong children than to repair broken men. Frederick Douglass

    Education is a better safeguard of liberty than a standing army. Edward Everett

    I have never let my schooling interfere with my education. Mark Twain

    [Education] consists mainly in what we have unlearned. Mark Twain

    That best academy, a mother's knee. James Russell Lowell

    The formative period for building character for eternity is in the nursery. The mother is queen of that realm and sways a scepter more potent than that of kings or priests. Author Unknown

    The primary purpose of a liberal education is to make one's mind a pleasant place in which to spend one's time. Sydney J. Harris

    The whole purpose of education is to turn mirrors into windows. Sydney J. Harris

    For the unlearned, old age is winter; for the learned it is the season of harvest.The Talmud

    An ounce of mother is worth a pound of clergy. Spanish Proverb

    Education is not preparation for life; education is life itself. John Dewey

    Only the curious will learn and only the resolute will overcome the obstacles to learning. The quest quotient has always excited me more than the intelligence quotient. Edmund S. Wilson

    Much education today is monumentally ineffective. All too often we are giving young people cut flowers when we should be teaching them to grow their own plants. John W. Gardner

    Don't worry that children never listen to you; worry that they are always watching you. Robert Fulghum

    Education is too important to be left solely to educators. Francis Keppel

    My idea of education is to unsettle the minds of the young and inflame their intellects. Robert Maynard Hutchins

    If you don’t have a plan for your life, someone else does.Anthony Robbins

    Education aims to give you a boost up the ladder of knowledge. Too often, it just gives you a cramp on one of its rungs. Martin H. Fischer

    Feelings of worth can flourish only in an atmosphere where individual differences are appreciated, mistakes are tolerated, communication is open, and rules are flexible -- the kind of atmosphere that is found in a nurturing family. Virginia Satir

    You cannot teach a man anything; you can only help him find it within himself. Galileo Galilei

    I am not a teacher; only a fellow traveler of whom you asked the way. I pointed ahead--ahead of myself as well as of you. George Bernard Shaw

    I try not to dance better than anyone else. I only try to dance better than myself.Mikhail Baryshnikov

    If the doors of perception were cleansed, every thing would appear to man as it is, infinite.William Blake

    The object of education is to prepare the young to educate themselves throughout their lives. Robert Maynard Hutchins

    The world makes way for the man who knows where he is going.Ralph Waldo Emerson

    There are no seven wonders of the world in the eyes of a child. There are seven million. Walt Streightiff

    The important thing is not so much that every child should be taught, as that every child should be given the wish to learn. John Lubbock

    One good mother is worth a hundred schoolmasters. George Herbert

    Too often we give children answers to remember rather than problems to solve. Roger Lewin

    Education is a progressive discovery of our ignorance. Will Durant

    It is little short of a miracle that modern methods of instruction have not already completely strangled the holy curiosity of inquiry... I believe that one could even deprive a healthy beast of prey of its voraciousness if one could force it with a whip to eat continuously whether it were hungry or not... Albert Einstein

    Nothing is more terrible than ignorance in action.Johann Wolfgang von Goethe

    If you want children to keep their feet on the ground, put some responsibility on their shoulders. Abigail Van Buren

    But, good gracious, you've got to educate him first. You can't expect a boy to be vicious till he's been to a good school. Saki (H. H. Munro)

    Mother love is the fuel that enables a normal human being to do the impossible. Marion C. Garretty

    You send your child to the schoolmaster, but 'tis the schoolboys who educate him. Ralph Waldo Emerson

    The great difficulty in education is to get experience out of ideas. George Santayana

    Motherhood has a very humanizing effect. Everything gets reduced to essentials. Meryl Streep

    Dance like no one is watching. Sing like no one is listening. Love like you’ve never been hurt and live like it’s heaven on Earth.Mark Twain

    There's nothing that can help you understand your beliefs more than trying to explain them to an inquisitive child. Frank A. Clark

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June 11, 2010

Wild Bunny: Lessons in Life & Death

Our daughter rescued a wild bunny from the jaws of our dog a few weeks ago. Last year our dogs found some newborn baby bunnies, but I thought they were too new for us to save. This one looked a bit older.

Raquel was so excited to have a cute, baby bunny as a pet.

We were a bit nervous, but figured it probably wouldn’t bite her, and it never did. I wondered about the challenges of trying to keep a huge wild hare as a pet in the future, but decided to just wait and see what would happen.

We’ve been eating goat yogurt made by a friend of mine, and it just so happened that there were baby goats at the time. So I thought the raw yogurt would make fairly good food for the little rabbit. We tried some stuff from the local farm store, but the bunny wouldn’t touch it.

Raquel just poured the yogurt in her hand and the bunny lapped it up. The other kids loved the bunny also.

Most the time Raquel kept the bunny (who she named Skyler) to herself, but when she shared everyone was happy.

The bunny came out of shock within a day or so, and was social and fun.

One time she left the bunny unattended and it hopped off. It took us a couple hours to find it, hiding behind a cabinet. Things got a bit dramatic with Raquel wailing in despair and then screaming in elation when the bunny was found.

The bunny started eating food out of a dish. Gradually Raquel spent less and less time snuggling because of school and other activities.

One day the bunny got really weak. Raquel spent a whole day nursing it back. I think if she had spent one more day, the bunny would have been all right.

But we didn’t think much of it, and Raquel went to school as normal the next day. The bunny didn’t survive. Raquel was so sad. I felt badly that I hadn’t been more aware of the bunny’s needs myself.

Sometimes as a mother I walk a fine line between managing things myself, and letting my children be responsible enough to learn the tough lessons and consequences of life.  Losing pets can be hard on the heart of any mom, and it has been on mine.

But as I reflect, it was a joyful experience that taught us all some valuable lessons.

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5 Comments

  1. April says:

    Jenni,
    We had this similar thing happen to us. My husband nearly ran over a bunny left in the back yard while cutting grass. Our baby bunny only lasted one day. We thought maybe the momma bunny knew something was not right with this one and did not try to move it to safety.

    It was a good experience for us all, however sad to see the bunny die. I agree, sometimes it is hard for me to let my children take ownership for something and learn that lesson for themselves…the heartbreaking yet inspiring moments of being a mother.

    I just came across your site, and am interested in checking it out. Thanks.

    April

  2. Em says:

    Great words of wisdom at the end. I think that is a tough decision, knowing what lessons they have to learn by themselves and when to help manage. Part of the lessons we learn as Moms!

  3. Loved this…my daughter rescued bunnies before! We never had one survive either. This bring back so many memories…she is now 19!
    Yes it is a fine line to walk…and so many fine lines to walk through parenting.
    Blessings to you and yours,
    Janette

  4. Gary Arnell says:

    We once rescued a baby duckling from a cat, nursed it and released it some weeks later at a lake on a golf course miles from our home. We were delighted the next year when it returned to our home with its mate! Wonderful memories for the whole family.

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