Rice

For some reason I'd been keeping some of this coloured rice in the cupboard (I admit I just love the stuff) But it was really meant for B and Little Miss so I arranged it in a plastic storage container and they played with it for hours one afternoon.

The look of the coloured rice like this was just so enthralling for all of us. I'm not sure if it's the colours or the arrangement but it seemed magical and we knew it wasn't going to last long.

Little fingers just had to poke.

Then the temptation to mix to all up was overwhelming. And so much fun.

B wanted to play with an old set of scales and the rice, which was great for measuring weight.

Little Miss was happy to stir and feel. The sensation of hundreds of grains of rice running over your skin was delicious.

They played with the rice on trays, filling, pouring,



















raining the rice down,

blowing,

and shaking the rice.
















Then B wanted to add water, straining the rice.




















He made what he called "Polluted water" and seemed somehow proud. And when they had exhausted all the rice play options they could think of I offered them one more. Rice clean up.

Which was pretty easy since we were on the balcony. The rice was just swept into the gaps to fall out of our sight into the garden below.
I cant wait to get the rice out again.

Unwanted neighbours

Theres nothing quite so depressing as discovering something really dodgy about your new home. It's a big investment yes?

Unfortunately with the onset of some pretty serious rain we have discovered some unwanted neighbours. These guys don't consider themselves as just neighbours who might drop in, raise a local concern and then go about their business next door. Oh no. These guys come in uninvited, the smallest gap in a door or window will suffice as an invitation, and lets be clear, when I say guys, I do mean literally thousands of the buggers. Once inside, they are not polite guests, these guys like to really investigate every crevasse of your home. They think it's ok to climb up your bedroom wall, camp on the soft edges around your carpet, take a nap in your kitchen drawers and even wash with you, hiding in the folds of your shower curtain.

These new guests have even got the children worried, it's their sheer numbers, their midnight explorations  and lack of social graces. Since their arrival the children have required co-sleeping arrangements and therapy due to witnessing their mother flush black loads of the visitors down the toilet. This morning Little Miss stated, "I be brave with the millipedes Mummy."

Here's a great outdoor trap to get back at these invaders.

Walk around

A really nice thing about moving house is exploring your new area. And I think there is no better way to really see the details than to walk around.

We live on the side of a hill. Down the bottom of the hill is a creek in a conservation park.
We walk through the gum studded bush. B is always running up far ahead.

We pass a cool lush green area.


and then through a pine tree grove, it smells like Christmas,

and find rocky escarpments, unfortunately graffitied.

Little Miss says she is getting tired legs, so we find a spot to cross over the creek and head home via a different route.

It's a really steep climb up the other side of the creek. B is proud to have made it, but Little Miss now wants to be carried. We find a road to take us home.

On the way there are people camping in tents and Koalas in trees.

We find a big old oak tree. The first autumn leaves are falling already.

A bounty of acorns delights us, collected by a stranger.

Tired legs are forgotten when a wide expanse of green grass calls you to run as fast as you can.

But then it's time to face that hill which we live on. It's a steep leg aching climb.
B exclaims, "Can't one of you go and get the car and pick me up."

Visit childhood 101 for more ways to wear out your kids

Food Face #9

We were joined for dinner by this serious man. He seemed worried and the children were highly amused by his nose. B asked me, "How can rice do that?"
"It's all part of the kitchen's trickery" I said.

I love it when....

There is silence in the car.

It's that kind of strange occurrence where quiet seems loud as it breaks the normal din of two rowdy children in a confined space. The quiet gets my full attention.

I wonder...
Did I leave the kids behind in the car park, abandoned with the supermarket trolley?

Have they both fallen asleep in record time, at last catching up on all those wakeful baby nights?

Have they managed to gag each other by putting fists or feet into each others mouths in some remarkable  backseat yoga position?

I glance in the rear view mirror then turn around to check what I see...

They are perfectly ok both looking out the window completely contented and consumed by the passing world.

It's a special day when it happens because silence in the car is so rare,  and it is really something to appreciate.

Jump for joy

Jumping on a trampoline is pure joy.

If you add some water it becomes slippery wet fun, not to mention hair raising for mothers standing by.

Add your bigger brother so jumping gets really interesting.

When B and Little Miss jump like this all I can hear is laughter, oh and my voice telling them to play safely over and over again.

Find out what other Mums are playing at?

Chalk Sihouettes

Caught for a moment in the afternoon light.






































Quick, she doesn't stay still for long.






































She will dance for you if you are lucky.

And boy am I lucky.

Stamp, stampier, stampiest

Stamping turned out to be more interesting and creative than I had originally envisioned.

Dip and press can offer only so much fun though. As a stamp is a stamp is a stamp. The image is set, static and predetermined. B and Little Miss worked this out pretty quickly and found it more interesting to make their own marks with the stamps.

And I was really impressed.

The stamp paint pad offered another sensory option.

And with this, fingers danced.

Get many more ideas for playing here

Another neighbour

This neighbour welcomes me home.

He has a good laugh at us all, a laugh that grows into hysterics.

Then he leaves us, just as we are all smiling.

(Unlike this neighbour)

I love it when...

Children try their very hardest.

At lasts years sports day B tried so hard to win the race.

Not drop the egg, in the egg and spoon race.

Pull with all his might, in the tug of war.

And he also encouraged his other team mates to success.

It didn't matter who won.

At the end of the day I was so proud of how hard he tried,

and so was he.

Learning words

B is so brave. He has started going to a new school close to our new house. B has been amazingly adaptable. He says "My new school has transportables and it has stairs and I like it. The whole class is my friend."

B's enthusiasm to learn is remarkable, but his new school thinks his literacy skills are not up to (their) speed.  (They conducted several tests with him to gauge where he is at.) So to help his literacy development I have been doing some word activities with him at home. I am just trying to make words fun and interesting to him.

To learn some words groups we adapted an activity from here. With letters written on cut down post it notes and a word ending like 'ake' written at the top of the page. I asked B to make as many real words as he could by trying out the post it notes in front of the word ending. So B was able to make the words, brake, cake, make, rake, shake etc.

I was surprised by how much he enjoyed this game. His delight at discovering a real word when he sounded out the letter and ending together was priceless, he almost would jump with excitement.

To combine his love of learning with his love of eating I used a compete set of sight words or Dolch words from here and asked him to read each word for a piece of Nutrigrain cereal. He loved this and it wasn't difficult for him at all.

So to up the ante I then got him making sentences with a select group of words. At first he really enjoyed making nonsense sentences that didn't make any sense, he would crack up laughing as he read them out. 

But I persisted and eventually got him to make a sentence that worked...


But that just wasn't as much fun.

To have his new school tell me that B is behind in his literary development was a bit of a shock. I was extremely happy with B's reading progress and his previous teacher at the old school. The testing concerned me greatly as it felt like it was going to pigeon hole B. To me testing holds the underlying assumption that everyone develops at the same rate. Which any mother knows is not true. Children grow and develop differently. However I can hardly get upset about B now getting extra classroom help with reading and writing, we live in a competitive world after all.

But something I doubt B's test looked into was thinking.

My son has amazing thinking. B's attitude rocks. He is so creative and thoughtful, not just about his school work, but also about life, like thinking through consequences, developing theories on how things work, or coming up with inventions. Just this morning B told me he was going to invent a car that didn't need any fluids or even solar power. He said, "I'm going to invent a car that works on power like Daddy's watch."

Daddy's watch works with kinetic power.
Now that's a really clever thought....

Tea or coffee anyone?

There is nothing quite like a cuppa at a cafe. I believe that a cup of tea or coffee always tastes better if it's made by someone else. It might only cost you $3.20 and it is an opportunity to stop, take a small break and recharge your batteries.



















B loves a chocolate milkshake or will that be an apple juice?
Little Miss orders a baby chino and hopes it will come with a pink marshmallow.
I order a skinny latte to get a caffeine energy hit and justify the sugar I put in it with the skinny title.


There are plenty of cafes to go to, but our absolute favourite is The Green Room at 2 High Street in Willunga (reviewed here).



The Green Room has got 'kid friendly' nailed. For starters they have a fully fenced outdoor area. That's great in itself, but they also have a huge shady sand pit.

But that's not all, there are bikes to ride around, a veggie garden to explore and stepping stones to play with. But I also need to mention the inside, here you will find a special kids area with drawing easel plus table and chairs and very well stocked toy basket and board games to play.
















Visiting a cafe that considers the needs of the younger cafe set is so much more pleasurable for us parents. We get to enjoy our caffeine hit without worrying about our kids disturbing other customers. And it also means we will come back again and again. If you happen to be reading this and you work in a cafe, I implore you to consider the needs of your small customers.

NOTE: The Green Room has not sponsored or endorsed this content in any way, though that would be nice.

Seven

When you turn seven aparently you need to have a spaceship birthday cake. It needs to be the Liberator from Blakes 7 (for obvious reasons if you know us and the 1970s BBC Sci Fi series) and it needs to be 3D chocolate. Of course.

We pulled off something resembling all of that to the best of our ability, because we are amazing parents, but unfortunately I cant show you a photo.... so here is a picture of the real Liberator.

Impressive machine yes? Now just imagine that as a cake and you get the idea.

I cant show you a photo because B didn't have a birthday party. He had the family around to eat the Liberator cake, but that was not a party. There were no party games, no party decorations or party loot bags - so it wasn't a party. He didn't have a party because his behaviour over a number of weeks (school holidays) wasn't appropriate. It seems when you are nearly seven you might think it is okay to lie about lots of things, hit and spit on your sister and do lots of talk back showing little if no respect to the parents who bought you into this world.

But he did get presents, we are not that cruel. And when you are seven your favourite birthday presents are Lego (no changes there) electronic devices and things you can fiddle with, like a model making kit, pin art, moneybox maze, solar powered car, and plaster block with buried treasure inside to discover. All of these great toys appeal to a seven year old's need to understand how things work and how stuff is put together and whats inside.

Unfortunately when you turn seven your behaviour is much the same as when you were nearly seven, but now Mum and Dad haven't got a birthday party to try and bribe you with, not that that even worked...I am trying to remember that my lovely first born baby boy is inside this seven year old B. A baby that needed his mother so much, but it appears as if there isn't much inside B at all, as he is often announcing,
"I am hungry."
To which I reply, "I am Mummy."

Despite the lack of a birthday party B has been really looking forward to turning seven. I asked him what he liked about being seven and he said,

"It's nice to be seven because you are tall."

Pants

Little Miss took the feminist movement back 100 years when she screamed cried and shouted,

"But girls only wear skirts and dresses, my friends wont like these jeans"

"But you liked them when you put them on, and its raining outside. Jeans are great for rain" Was my feeble attempt to combat her 3 year old peer group pressure. My mind was aghast I didnt expect this. I couldn't believe my little girl was so upset and worried about what her friends would think of what she was wearing. The jeans were covered in sequins for goodness sake.

Her crying continued, she wouldnt stop. I took a breathe. I saw two paths to go down;

 1) Say no to her and make her wear the jeans. The consequences I envsioned- Little Miss crying all the way to kindy in the car, her friends might say something cruel to her, or be really mean and not play with her. Little Miss might even go so far as wet herself to have a change of clothes. She might be in for a really tough day and only really learn that people are cruel, even your Mum.

Or

2) Say yes and let her change her outfit to a skirt. This way the crying would stop and Little Miss would be happy but then she learns that Mum gives into crying, but does listen and care about me.  Little Miss would conform to her peer group feeling acceptance and belonging. But Little Miss might learn its okay to be preoccupied about what other people think of what you look like.

What to do? Neither option was very appealing and time was ticking on. B was going to be late for school if I didnt get them in the car ASAP...

So what did I do?

I took her into her bedroom and chose a skirt for her to put on. The crying stopped. Little Miss was happy. But she received a lecture in the car about how she should NOT dress to please other people- only herself. Girls are lucky they can choose to wear all kinds of clothes. Boys in Australia only have pants and shorts. Boys in Fiji can wear sulus and in Scotland wear kilts. And everybody can wear whatever colours they like. Daddy has a pink and a purple shirt remember. But most important of all wear clothes that you like and dont worry about what other people think. Feel good about your own choices.

And it wasnt even 8.45am yet....

I Love...

Being Valentine's day, today we reflected on what we love in life...

Little Miss thought of her Daddy

And B thought of everyone

We made heart shaped "l love..." books and I tried to encourage writing practice.

Little Miss named all her friends, faries, rainbows because they are fun to draw, her brother and she also loves ballet dancing, and drawing.
B loves his family, having friends come over to play, drawing, playing at the beach, making stuff and surprises.

I can only hope their love remains so pure for the rest their lives.