I've been enjoying a houseful of little people for the last couple of weeks and it's been lively around here! I have loved every minute.

But it also reminds me of the demands placed on you as a mother. Please understand the ideas I share through WEH are designed for busy mothers. Small and simple. Spontaneous and flexible with just enough rhythm to keep your sanity. Learning through everyday life.

It's so important to allow children their childhoods--there will be plenty of time for the academics when they are more developmentally prepared. Build relationships first.

Enjoy the journey. They really do grow up so fast!

Art credit: Mud Pies by Ludwig Knaus

"How infinitely rich our world! Man, live he ever so long, will have time to break off only one bough from an infinite orchard."
--Newell Dwight Hillis

Art credit: An Orchard in Spring by Monet

I just added a story about Robert Fulton to MASB 10. Is it coincidence that the two great inventors--Robert Fulton and Samuel Morse--studied art and were painters? "Drawing produces exactness of thought."

Art credit: Idealismo y Realidad by Juan Comba Garcia

"We shall never properly develop the higher natures of our little ones while we continue to fill their minds with the so-called rudiments. Children will educate themselves under right conditions. They require guidance and sympathy far more than instruction."

--Anne Sullivan, Helen Keller's teacher

Art credit: Children Painting Spring Flowers by Viggo Johansen

"In the best books, great men talk to us, give us their most precious thoughts, and pour their souls into ours."
--William Ellery Channing

Art credit: Lesende Frau by Paul Barthel

"Knowledge acquired under compulsion obtains no hold on the mind."
--Plato

Art credit: The Stern Teacher by Theophile Emmanuel Duverger

From a 1917 book on storytelling:

"And how much capable mothers might derive from Wordsworth's poetry for the spiritual nurture of their children. Capable mothers are, alas! comparatively few; but forces are now at work which are increasing the number of such mothers, and will continue to increase it more and more as the ideals of true womanhood are more and more realized and exalted."

--Hiram D. Corson, The Voice and Spiritual Education

Art credit: The Lesson by Emanuel Phillips Fox

"The very greatest things--great thoughts, discoveries, inventions--have usually been nurtured in hardship, often pondered over in sorrow, and at length established in difficulty."

--Samuel Smiles

Art credit: Woman, Why Weepest Thou by Fritz von Uhde

"There is hope for the nation that reveres the memories of its noblest leaders."

--Fanny Coe

Art credit: Washington's Birthday by Charles Baugniet

"I don't like that man. I must get to know him better."

--Abraham Lincoln

Art credit: Portrait by Douglas Volk