Leaf Rubbings

My goal ever afternoon is for the TV to not be turned on in the time between the kids and I getting home from school and other activities, and when Gianluca and Elena come home from work. Sometimes I get off easy, and they're home already. Sometimes I stay at the playground longer just to have less time for it to be an option. I can never talk them out of turning the TV on, though, once they get the idea in their head- any pleading for them to find a book, colour a picture, play nascondino, learn to knit, fall on deaf ears. Or rather, ears who decide to only selectively understand English.

"Turn off the TV."
"Non ho capito!"
"Spengere il TV."
"Non ho capito!"
"You do too ho capito, that was Italian."
"Non ho capito!"

Today on the walk from school to Greta's dance lesson, she started collecting a few leaves. I think she actually needed a couple for school, from the jumbled explanations I was getting, but I immediately began to think of the leaf rubbing projects we did at Holden, the Outdoor Y, and Girl Scout Camps- finally, a good plan for when we returned home! I put the leaves she chose in my bag, and kept quiet until we actually got home an hour or so later. Then I quietly got out my journal and my crayons, chose a leaf from the bag, sat down at the dining room table, and started a rubbing.

Suddenly, I had two children who had been running all over the house and acting like monkeys standing quietly next to me and watching. IT WAS MAGIC, PEOPLE. MAGIC. The silence didn't last for long, though because they started asking me- in ENGLISH, no less- how to do it! So I showed them. It took a few tried for them to get the right crayon pressure and such, but they got it!

After a while, I asked them if they wanted to go outside and find more leaves. They didn't understand. Instead of running for my dictionary like I have before, I simply repeated the sentence closer, and in small segments.

MORE MAGIC. They worked together and supplied each other with the vocabulary the other was lacking to figure out the exact translation of my question- they even repeated it back to me in both English and Italian, so I knew they weren't just agreeing blindly! I was completely blown away!

We went outside to get some more leaves. There wasn't much variety on the street, but we found three or four kinds, so it was good enough. Luckily I had taken a small container with me, so it was easy to say when it was time to return to the flat- I think otherwise we would have been out all evening collecting leaves!

The activity didn't last as long as I had hopes once we actually got back to the house, but it was still enough to keep them away from thoughts of the television, and learn something new. Marco learned very quickly that darker colours were better, and even started layering and mixing colours to make unique designs!

Greta was doing well with the rubbings before we went after more leaves, but when we returned she had somehow decided she would rather just draw them. Close enough, right?

And I just decorated the next few pages of my journal, as I usually do when I'm bored. I'll have to remember to start carrying the right kinds of pens and markers to write over the crayon for the next few days!

Even though in all it lasted less than an hour, I consider it a VERY successful afternoon, and one of my favourite days so far. It helped that I was in a good mood from having what can ALMOST be considered a real conversation in Italian while I was at the playground- an older gentleman came up to me and complimented me on the fact that I was writing (in my journal) by hand rather than on a computer. I didn't catch every word, but definitely enough to get the gist of it- and then I didn't completely freeze up when I tried to answer. Now, my Italian was far from grammatically correct, but it was full sentences. We had a short conversation about where I was from, and what I was doing in Cremona, and then he went on his way, but it made me so happy!