Friday I'm In Love with Rainbows

Sunrise by Glueckskaefer

It's been really rainy and damp around here lately. It's the kind of rainy that doesn't come with many bouts of sun. The kind that makes you sort of glum. It's the kind of weather that keeps you from playing in the rain because there's nothing more miserable than a wet, cold kid being pelted with icy rain - or the sniffles that are bound to come after. It's the kind of weather where it's hard to find the silver lining, impossible to find the rainbows.

Capturing a rainbow on a road-trip

The kids and I are rainbow hunters. Every chance we get after a rain we look to see if we can find one. This year was a good year for rainbows, we found quite a few, even a double rainbow one day on a long drive through Ontario.

Rainbows are great. They have led to many fun and insightful conversations with the kids. In the early days a rainbow sighting was a chance to learn our colours and their order on the colour spectrum. As the kids have gotten older our conversations have turned more to how they are made by light refraction, about how the colours blend, if all the colours are present in the rainbow we see (not always!) and my favorite rainbow conversation of all time - where do they begin and where do they end. Kids have such wonderful imaginations and hearing them build stories around these places is always such a joy.

But it's not rainbow weather now and we don't know when or where we will see a 'real' one again. So rather than wait at the window looking we have brought our beloved rainbow inside.

The shop carries Glueckskaefer Sunrises and we have one at home. Made in Germany from sustainably sourced woods and non-toxic stains, this beautiful rainbow fills our den with colour and inspires our imagination. Sanded smooth and splinter free, this natural wood rainbow is beautiful enough to display and full of endless cheery fun. Both my 5 year old and my 8 year old enjoy the creative challenge it offers and it's limitless possibilities. Me, the ever geeky mom, loves watching them learn about balance as they try to build beautiful precarious structures challenging each other and themselves. Like the inuckshucks we see at our nearby beach, along the highway and annually at the Ex, the beauty of the build is found in the balance, the patience and the peace one needs needed to make it.

And it isn't just fun for kids, adults like me and their dad also love to see what we can build and if it will fall.

A challenge at all levels

So as we hunker down for the on-coming winter it's nice to know all the pleasures of our beloved rainbows are not lost in the cold dark damp of the oncoming winter but alive and well in our hearts and our home as we play together.

A silver lining found in a simple toy, there's nothing I love more.

Thanks for stopping by.
I wish you a happy day full of rainbows and love,
Barb