Dinosaur habitat

My sister Clare is in Cambodia and blogging, my mum is travelling and blogging, my friend Megan is planning the trip of a lifetime and will be blogging, so I thought a post was in order. None of that exotic travel for me at the moment though. My life is all about parenting my kids, gardening and trying to make our house more organised and liveable (hence my Pinterest addiction) and here is a little project we did yesterday afternoon that covers all those bases.

I had a tired grumpy four year old and wanted to look at wardrobe systems in Bunnings, so I bribed the tired kid with the promise that we would buy some little plants and make him a dinosaur garden. We also bought a wide-ish, flat-ish pot, which was unnecessary but I'll use it for bulbs next spring. I was drawing my inspiration from cool terrariums I'd seen on Pinterest and originally planned to use plants I had at home, but I just couldn't resist the mini mondo grass ($1) and a few small-leaved sedums as well as something called 'corsican mint' which is a tiny little thing ground cover thing. I wanted all small-leaved plants because I think the scale looks better (same reason I don't like large leaved bonsai).

I probably took us about 10 minutes to put together, including taking a blade to a disposable water bottle to make the pond and wandering around the garden looking for appropriate rocks.


I wish I had chosen a sealed pot with a base, rather than terracotta, so it was easier to put in the boys room (although that *might* be a recipe for disaster) and I might work on the pond a bit (make it much flatter and fill it with blue glass decorator bead things rather than actual water) but I'm pretty happy with it. More to the point, Kiz loves it, and has given all his dinosaurs drinks, baths, and plants to munch on.

Art Jam Roundup

  Well, as I think you can see by the photos art day was a success! We didn't need the carpet cleaner that Sanjay insisted I find, there isn't paint all over our fence and I think everyone had fun. We don't own kiddie easels (or adult ones for that matter) so we moved all the pot plants into a corner and made our small back courtyard into a little arts and crafts area. We tied large pieces of cardboard to the brush-box fence, one for each child and pegged or clipped pieces of paper for them to paint on. Megan and I made finger-paint and Karen brought palettes; Sanjay made a 'table' from a milk crate (with a bag of potting mix for stability) and a piece of chipboard he found in the garbage room which Audrey seemed to enjoy painting. My wonderful mother brought a roll of paper from Reverse Garbage and each kid did two or three paintings.

Asher had a bit of a go at painting but found the texture of the paint on his hands quite difficult, so when the brushes were a bit painty he had to keep washing his hands. Then he was wandering around with wet hands saying 'wash' with a worried look on his face until I worked out that he actually wanted them dried as well. I'll hook up a towel next to the hand washing tub next time we do it.

Now that we have set it up and know how easy it is I'm going to be painting a bit more at home. I think getting Asher more comfortable with different textures would be really good for him, and I'd love a bit more of his art on our walls. A big shout out to Megan, Karen, Clare and Franni for helping out and making the day so much fun.

New photos

 
It used to be so easy to get photos of Asher, but at the moment he usually wants to play with the camera as soon as he sees it. That's why most photos I take of him at the moment are of him doing something - eating, playing with someone etc. Anyhow, it's not that I don't want to capture his extreme cuteness, just that it's a bit difficult to do it without a tantrum.

Speaking of tantrums, the other thing I do for tantrum avoidance is make sure he spends some time each day running around. I find that with a run around in the morning he sleeps better (we get 1.5 - 3 hours of nap time most days. He usually gets put in his cot awake, but sometimes he'll fall asleep in the buggy or the carseat and I'll transfer him. I'm going to DIE when he gives up his daytime sleep) and he is calmer in the afternoon. Usually we accomplish the run-around at the park, although with all the wet weather we've been having lately it's a bit more difficult. This morning we went up to St Thomas Rest Park playground (our usual hangout) and as Asher was climbing the steps on the play equipment he slipped on the wet metal and hit the ground. I didn't see it happen (embarrasingly I was just telling a friend that it was a bit wet for the park and she shouldn't bother coming along) but I saw him land on his side. It was pretty scary - he's fallen from adult chest or shoulder height - but fortunately he didn't hit anything on the way down and doesn't seem to be hurt at all. I was pretty freaked out, and after that and then having to brush a spider off him (it was in a curled leaf, but I HATE spiders) we left the park for the safety of a cafe and a large cup of coffee for me and a banana milkshake for him.

Oh the cuteness!

This morning, as I was washing up Asher put his 'baby' in the highchair and said "Dinner! Rice!" to it a few times. Then he took the dolly out of the highchair and took it's clothes off and said "Nappy" and proceeded to take it in and put it on his change table (and then he slammed his fingers in the drawer and called out 'STUCK! STUCK!' until I came and saved him - he's not THAT smart!).

Actually, there is so much cute stuff happening at the moment that almost every day I try to remind myself to blog the lovely things that come out of that kids mouth. Unfortunately by the time I get computer time I'm so frazzled by the intensity of the day that I'm not able to string a sentance together. Perhaps I should start blogging in dot points?

No content was harmed in the making of this post.

We've had stomach bugs and several blackouts here over the last few days, so no posting (and even without those things Asher practices his burgeoning tantrum skills if I dare sit at the computer these days) so this is a content-free post. Instead of actually saying anything I'm going to suggest you check out the pics of Asher on Flickr and then head over to the OMSI playground (Oregon Museum of Science and Industry) and make some flubber to play with as a much more tactile way to waste time than reading blogs (This link brought to you by Lifehacker).

Toy Science?

Like most other kids, I guess, Asher is so curious about the world around him. He's fascinated by things that fit in other things (his stacking cups, shape sorter and a shoebox that we have put a bunch of his toys in) and the sounds things make as he whacks two objects together. I love to watch him play, and I love it when he gets engrossed in something enough to play by himself for a bit. Watching him playing and learning brings on pangs of insecurity - am I providing a stimulating enough invironment for my little one?

So when I read the websites and packaging from various toy manufacturers I get the idea that there must be armies of toy scientists employed by these companies. Anything with lights obviously 'stimulate baby’s visual sense' while other objects 'develop finger and hand dexterity'. Cuddly toys with faces apparently 'enhance baby’s sense of security, inviting baby to hug & express friendship'. Which makes me think that the toy researchers, wearing white lab coats and clutching clipboards probably assess the infants and toddlers through one way mirrors, noting down the way that they play with toys and the way they respond to stimuli. I'm sure these scientists and behaviourlists then conduct longitudinal studies that look at how well children do at school based on the toys play with.

But I know that my imaginings bear as much resemblance to reality as the Ponds Institute does to a centre for higher learning. It's not like that at all, and these companies are just trying to play on our insecurities as parents to get us to buy their products, not that all toys are bad, but there isn't that much thought going in to their design by the big toy manufacturers. Even Asher's favourite toys could do with simple improvements. For instance the cube in the shape sorter looks like a cube but isn't and therefore only fits in to the square hole a certain way. I still wish I could find stacking cups like the bakelite ones that were once at my grandparents house. 'Only' two or three colours but as well as all stacking together the ones that were the same colour would stack properly and of course they could be nested or stacked facing 'up' with the smallest down the bottom like other stacking/nesting cups I've seen. If I was designing them now there would be ten cups and each would have perhaps a painted number and raised dots to indicate which in the series it was.

Playgroup punchup

Well, not really, but a kid at playgroup yesterday really pressed my buttons and I didn't handle it at all well. Asher was playing on a gym mat outside with a little tunnel thing for kids to crawl through. There was a little girl of maybe three sitting in the tunnel and when Asher crawled over she pushed his hand away. I don't really know playgroup etiquette for dealing with these situations so I was really friendly, saying something like 'hey, he's just a baby and he doesn't want to come in there with you, so it's not nice to push him' but she reached further out of the tunnel and pushed his face away. He wasn't at all hurt or even made uncomfortable by this but I was starting to get pissed off with this kids so I said, in a more serious, less friendly tone 'hey, if there is a problem talk to me, don't push him' while very gently taking her hand away from my kid. She of course stared at me and pushed Asher again so I very gently took her hand, moved a little closer to her, looked into her eyes and said in a really slow quiet threatening tone 'don't push him' and at that moment her mother appeared and hassled her about playing with the baby toys and took her away. I felt bad about it because I feel like I handled the situation really badly - I (kinda) disciplined another person's kid, I told her 'don't' rather than give her an alternative and the worst part was that I basically got into a power struggle with a toddler, and I know from bitter experience that those power struggles are pretty much unwinnable. I guess I should have just picked Asher up and taken him to play with something else, but I hadn't had my coffee and I got all mother-bear protective of my kid.

Unfortunately (heh, it gets worse) this all happened just minutes after I had been (mentally) criticising another mother for the way she was disciplining her child (who was also pushing Asher - does my kid wear a 'push me!' sign that I can't see?). She had been telling her just barely two year old to 'stop' (not being specific) and vaguely threatening him with going home. We had been half chatting and she had been bitching to me about the fact her son has started pushing other kids (yep, loud enough for him to hear) while I, sitting atop my very high horse, had been thinking of Moxie's advice and that she should try diversion or gently getting between her kid and my kid if she was upset about it rather than vague whiny threats about going home. Everybody has bad days and when they are tired and harrased and the best way of dealing with toddler stroppiness isn't always obvious so I would like to unreservedly retract my judgemental and narky thoughts.

Asher and his noisy toy

Originally uploaded by karmakeda.

This toy is one of those things you have to see in person to understand the magnitude of the bizarreness (shit, that isn't a word!). It seems to be aimed at teaching little ones numbers, colours and styles of music. Yes, that's right, blue is for opera, orange is for rock, yellow is for babershop purple is for jazz and red is for reggae. An english voice says the colour then there is a few bars of someone singing the colour-word in the style of music. Very very weird, with a large dose of annoying-but-hilarious thrown in. The little fellow is still pretty unsure of it at this stage, but you never know, that may change.

Jolly Jumper

I was wondering what I would do this afternoon, I didn't feel like walking after my epic walk/meltdown yesterday and I suddenly remembered that we were given a Jolly Jumper! I set it up on Asher's bedroom doorway and he LOVED it! I didn't leave him in it for long and it was hard to get a decent photo because he was bouncing up and down so much but I can see a future of occasional dinner making while he bounces in the kitchen doorway. He was really hot and sweaty and excited when I got him out. SO cute!

Crickey!

Asher was given (left?) a rather large dark brown teddy by his step great grandmother (my stepmother's mother) when she passed away recently and we put it in the corner of his cot, up near the mobile and his musical inchworm. He wriggles up that end of the cot during the night sometimes and seems to like playing with the few things that we leave there for him. We also pop him under his mobile when we are puttering about, when we don't put him on his playmat on the floor. Anyhow, we left him lying under his mobile as we were getting ready to go out the other day and when Sanjay went in to get him I heard a shocked exclamation and went in to see what was going on. It looked as though Asher was locked in mortal combat with the bear. He was kind of growling and wrestling with this fluffy toy that is almost as big as he is. We seperated them and took Asher to get him ready for our outing and then realised that his hands were covered in bear fur and we found ourselves wondering just how much fur he had ingested before we pulled the assailants apart. We later had to change his cot sheets because of the sheer quantity of bear-fur lying around. The bear has since been moved to the bookshelf.

Asher: 1
Teddy: 0