World Explorer Page 60

I have a VERY cool book which I need to spend more time with. It's called How To Be An Explorer Of The World and it's by Keri Smith. I thought every so often I might blog some stuff that I have done in relation to the book.

Yesterday I answered Keri's five short survey questions:

My favourite book: The Mysteries of Harris Burdick
Someone I'd like to have dinner with. Alone with my Dad.
My chosen super hero power: 'Healthening'- the power to heal peoples mind, body and/or spirit with my touch.
Food I could eat everyday: Bagels: In various variaions but most especially Toasted with cream cheese and smoked salmon.
Favourite Smell: Fresias and apples.

Feeding the chickens

 

♥

Just wanted to be mindful of this....

"And yet there is such a thing as happiness. There is such a place of bliss. When you drop your expectations, lose your selfishness, forget your grievances, give up your worries, abandon the plan, stop your striving, let it out, let it go, let things pass, take a breath, take a break, quiet down, be still, empty your mind, open your heart, and come alive, what else is there to be but happy?"

Karen Maezen Miller in Momma Zen

♥

For Grandad

Dear Grandad,

This is our worm farm at Kindy.

 

 Love Will.

Right Now

right now I am:

~looking through photos of the big kids as babies and small people.
~loving the prospect of some days of uninterrupted scrapping.
~thankful the weather held off for the hedge trimming escapades.

~inspired a plethora of Easter projects all over the web.
~savouring  fruit juice not something I often drink but trying to add more vitamin C to aid iron absorption.
~reading Momma Zen By Karen Maezen Miller and REALLY getting a lot from it.
~swooning at the Easter banner I made a year or so ago (if I could find it) and also swooning over Leonardo Dicaprio AND Claire Danes in Lhurmans Romeo and Juliet.
~enjoying Master chef on Saturday Mornings about 4 hours of it... it feels like a bad habit- so good!
~feeling large and often breathless, a little impatient.
~counting down the weeks till this baby is due and the weeks we may have to wait if it's over due.
~tasting left over Wednesday's dinner- beef stroganoff because I didn't want hotdogs like the kids and rugby goers. 
~ever grateful for Les
~in awe of a past friend who noted on facebook that she is halfway to her weightloss goal which is incredible and makes me so happy for her.
~wishing you an amazing Easter weekend.

Metamorphosis

Today Will and Les are doing the hedges- a good old productive long weekend.

Recently we have had a late flush of Monarch Caterpillars many of which have set up house for metamorphosis around the backyard including on the house, sandpit, sandpit toys, the rocking horse, an old oven rack and the ladder.

Because the ladder was lying on its side the resident Chrysalis needed re-homing  for the hedge trimming event. Les took on this task this morning. With super glue in hand.

Or should that be on hand? Apparently this is a task that is not without difficulty.

Just as an FYI this is my suggested alternative. Cause you could be standing around a while waiting for that Butterfly to hatch.

♥

Super City Residents have you seen....

Apologies to my non Auckland based readers but for those in Auckland, have you been to the library lately?

Heck you don't even really need to go all that much. We have spent a lot of time lately on the catalogue ordering books into our local library from Orewa to Waiheke and down to Pukekohe- it's awesome the borrowing capabilities that are out there!

The speed of the service is tremendous as well- one book I ordered put me at 57 out of 57 people who reserved the book and it's taken less than 10 weeks for me to get the email saying my book is ready for me to pick up.

The other thing we've been enjoying each fortnight is the library bus... ours stops right outside of Kindy about 10 minutes after Will starts- he has his lunch and then we go score some books and then he goes back to Kindy and I head home to read! :-)

The library just plain rocks- the supercity library boulders!

♥

Hot Wheels!

I've been thinking a bit about toys lately and am intending on writing a decent blog post on them some time soon. But in the meantime: Hot Wheels. I highly recommend having two sets of Hot Wheels and a dozen or so cars to go with them.

It's good to have just a basic set that requires no batteries and can be set up relatively fast. And then one of the slightly flasher sets with an electric car.

The trick is to pack them away when you are finished. Pack them up completely (make sure you have all the bits and cars) and put them out of sight. You may have a run of using them everyday for a couple of weeks and then not pull them out again for a few months or more.

And when you do it's like Christmas all over again.Kieran and Merenia still get into it when they come out and enjoy conducting trials and races to see how they can get the most successful jumps and loops and such.

Don't get over enthusiastic though and buy lots of sets or additions because you don't need them. They are a pain to set up. And it takes too long for the members of the 'instant gratification set'. It doesn't add any additional buzz- if anything it divides their previously focused attention. And you have to have somewhere to stash it.

Little is lots in the case of Hot Wheels- and the bonus is that they are well made so with adult supervision on the deconstruction they last forever!

 

 And apparently it's multi purpose for the amateur musicians in the house hold.

♥

40 Months

 

It's been a while since I rounded-up on Will:

Today he is 3 and a third.

We don't really notice it because we hang with him every day  but the kindy teachers comments were that he is a little person with the vocabulary of a six year old. Sometimes for me it's not what he can say though but what he does say and how...

In reference to the lady who took his newspaper at Starbucks (he likes to 'read' it while waiting for his drink).
"That's pretty cheeky isn't it mum?"

In reference to the sunflowers we passed everyday on the way to drop Kieran to school for the first few weeks:
"That's a ginormous one isn't it mum. It's Huge!"

Generally in conversation with Merenia:
M: "Hey!"

W: "Hey Yourself!"

M: "Hey YOURSELF!"

W: "Hay is what horses eat."

Said often and with varying degrees of anger and frustration in reference to the fact TVNZ cut their kids programming from 12 hours from 6am to 6pm  to 2 hours 6am to 8pm:
"Kidzone is Ruined!"

During a conversation with me where apparently misheard him the first time: 
"That's what I bloody said!"

Recentlyto me with an air of mysteriousness as he whispered the last word.
"I'm using my imagination."

Said with some disdain to Les after Les asked how he knew a particular thing:
"Well I DO go to Kindy to LEARN you know."

And last week after we got home with a mothertrucker load of groceries and some issue of the (stupid) neighbours meant waht I refered to as a "bloody great truck" was  parked on our side of the driveway rather inconveniently since I had to take the groceries in. The truck driver happened to appear on our side of  the truck just as I was unlocking the front door and Will said:

"That's a bloody great truck."

He has started to use personal pronouns correctly which is kind of cool. Instead of "Will is this or that he often now says "I feel..."

He can make his own breakfast: toast or cereal (I supervise milk and sugar) from start to finish including getting everything out. He won't spread vegemite though: "Because that's pretty tricky, eh Mum?"

He loves Tuesdays because they are St Johns days and easy dinners so he gets time to fly the flight sim and has eggs for dinner. He has a limited attention span for aircraft though and likes to change what he's flying frequently, some daddys find this quite frustrating.

He misses the kids when they go off to friends places funnily enough he doesn't mind most days when they go to school. Although when he does it's kind of cute. "Oh Mum! But I don't want Kieran to go, he's my best brother".

His favourite place to be is outside. Any time always as much as possible. I was worried last week when he got stung by a bee that it might have taken the shine off of it. Even more so when Merenia was teasing him in the weekend by saying there was a bee near him but he doesn't seem phased at all.

He is a Starbucks regular and we really enjoy scoring the comfy seats by the window and observing and discussing the world go past. As well of course as reading the paper as mentioned before. We were there on Friday morning stealing some time together before school holidays set in. Will was checking out the Movie section and I was telling him I saw the short for the movie Hop and that the Easter bunny did chocolate egg poohs. "That's really really crazy! Mum"

He orders his own fluffy, he like 'Camamel' with marshmallows. He gets a stirring stick and a serviette and sometimes a hot cup sleeve. And then also deals with his own rubbish after.

He's very passionate about Kindy and identify's himself proudly as an "afternoon Kindy boy". After the holidays he will also do 2 mornings a week to give his heavily pregnant mum a break. I am going to really really miss him on those days. Last week he had two days off one due to a water cut and one due to snot and we had a really lovely time together- it's not quite the same in the holidays as the big kids are around and their brand of fun involves screaming and chasing and violence and then abrupt endings directed by the kids resulting in tears and frustration.

He is totally ready to go to kindy by 8:30 which can sometimes be a pain because he doesn't start till 11:30- but it's ok he doesn't mind kicking round with an egg carton for 3 hours??!

He is super keen on musical instruments and that is the section of the toyshop he always heads to first. He has a drum, ukulele, xylophone, maracas, harmonica and rhythm sticks at home and regularly plays with them.

As always he is magnetically attracted to water and will have gone through a change of clothes practically every time I pick him up from Kindy- Kieran always brought home half a sand pit, Merenia was sand and paint, with Will it's wet, wet, wet, water, paint dye and goodness knows what else. The clothes the older kids had 'reserved' as kindy clothes were still perfectly fine and wearable for Will but I can't see that they will be able to be passed on for the baby's turn at kindy once Will's done with them.

Technically Will doesn't have an afternoon sleep anymore. That doesn't mean that he doesn't need one.

Will feels like constant motion. He is truly exhausting most of the time and also exasperating a lot of the time as well. He is constantly exploring and learning and shows a genuine joy and pleasure in everything. A particular fascination with the coming of daylight saving as been the stars- always a fan of the moon but generally in bed before the stars so lately there have been whoops of pure delight when a quick check is made of the sky before bedtime. He  also enjoyed watching and checking the sky after each story one night last week to see how the dark was progressing, never has sunset been quite so fascinating. But he does also have a quieter cosy cuddly side as well. Which is a relief. Generally this side is shown in his love for reading and being read to. He has started to point to and ask what the words are- Kieran was an early reader but seemed to pick up reading by osmosis. I think Will will as well but in his own way.

He would describe his best friend as Emily (seen in the background below). We provide after kindy/school care to Emily and her sister Teagan. Em is 4 and not really as enamoured with Will as he with her. In fact sometimes she can be downright grumpy as a well meaning and affectionate arm around the shoulder, pat on the head or offer of help. I've found it's best to just leave them alone and keep one eye and ear on the action from the distance. Because if I am right there she simply won't talk to him.

As always he's still the 'tool guy' and if we had a bit more cash (and space) I think this is the area where I'd like to expand our resources at home. I dream of a little tool table and some real kid sized tools as opposed to the plastic not so fantastic he has now. Luckily there is always kindy on a fine day to indulge in this passion.

He is looking forward to the 'tiny baby' coming lately and asks lots of questions, as well as making positive observations about sharing toys, and the new sleeping arrangements. I think he will be quite a wonderful if somewhat over zealous big brother. I do wish people would stop telling him how he can help with the new baby because the reality is that while he can assist the peripherals he can't really help as such and it's building him up for a fall.

He has unfortunately picked up a whiny non talking way of communicating which he has picked up from Emily he uses it when he is feeling grumpy or wants something he can't have and we are finding in quite frustrating having to go back to saying "use your words" again.

On the upside though his "Wowsers" (learned from Kieran) and "Woo Hoo, yipeeee, yehaaa" are all very adorable and when he is feeling happy and enthusiastic about something his joy and pleasure are obvious. I'm looking forward to seeing his face light up when we go to see the Wiggles in concert on Easter Sunday.

I am sure there is so much more to tell I was saying to someone the other day how he has added a whole new dimension to our family and our lives... makes me wonder where the next part of our journey with the new small person will take us... it's crazy how differently amazing and amazingly different all of our children are.

♥