Arborist

Today the boys learnt what an arborist is (if arboretum means 'tree park' then an arborist must be someone who is a tree specialist!).

We have a huge 30+ year old tree that is approaching the end of it's lifespan. Considering we live in a strong wind area and the tree is right next to (and leaning towards) our power line and house, it was time to get it cut down before it fell down. We also have some trees along our front fenceline that are above the powerlines and need trimming too. They got started on it this morning and the boys were absolutely fascinated (as were the OH and I!) and eagerly watched from the safety of Shmoo & Loo's bedroom window. Shmoo and Loo watched intently for a couple of hours and Beanie watched for about an hour (I'm impressed by anything that will hold a 20 month old's attention for that long!). Shmoo had fun working out how the cherry picker worked and why the man was wearing ear muffs and had a harness strapped around him.

They'll be back to finish off the job tomorrow, bringing spikes to get to the high branches that the cherry picker couldn't reach.

Can't wait to select a few stumpy pieces to make seats in the boys' play area outside and maybe a nice longer piece to make a swing (our neighbours will take the rest for their wood heater).

 

Sunday

Shmoo practising using the hand drill.

Shmoo Bear and...

Loo Bear attaching the door knob fittings. 

Our back door has been slowly disintegrating and in the past week or so things really fell apart (literally). The OH bought a secondhand door and he and the big boys painted it. Today they finally got to put it up.

We've also been investigating 'perspective', inspired by Shmoo's drawing of the Eiffel Tower.

And we had a lovely evening - Sunday night is our 'family night'. The big boys stay up late and we play a game. Tonight it was a game of Snakes and Ladders while we snacked on rice crackers and big bowls of fruit salad.

Wet Day at the Library

We had our regular library playdate today with the lovely Allana and her daughter. A perfect place to spend a cold, rainy morning. When we got there we noticed that the kids' play area had been rearranged. A little later we realised why - a rather large corner of the library was flooded, absolutely waterlogged, and the furniture had been rearranged to block off access to the wet area. It turns out that a pipe in one of the pillars had rusted through and had flooded sections on 2 floors of the library. 

So, we had to make do without any books from the junior nonfiction section. As the kids ran around playing and browsing through the books, I selected some books for the boys to read over the next couple of weeks. As anyone with a toddler knows, you can't turn your back on them for a second. I heard one of the library workers telling a child to come out of the wet area as their socks were getting wet. I knew it would be the Bean LOL. I looked up and there was Beanie, having a ball racing the toy stroller along the puddly carpet, cold water soaking his tights and up to the  knees of his pants. He was very unimpressed that I had to take him away from his water play! Luckily he was wearing a few layers so I was able to take off his wet things and leave him in his BabyLegs.

As we were getting ready to leave the carpet cleaners turned up so we decided to stay a little longer to watch. Vacuum obsessed Shmoo was, of course, fascinated. He was a bit cautious to start with and stood a safe distance away but curiosity quickly got the better of him and he soon sat down with the other kids to get a closer look. He didn't even startle at the noise!

   

The kids had a great time watching the water get sucked up; seeing the hose move as the water went through; and looking through the clear dome as the dirty water gushed out of the pipe and into the tank. It seemed to fill up very quickly. By the time we left, they'd only been sucking up the water for about 15-20 minutes with quite a bit more to do, and they'd already emptied the tank 4 times.

Just before we left Shmoo worked up the courage and asked the man how much water could fit into the machine. The answer: about 30L. 4 lots of 30 = 120L... that's a lot of water!

EI Group

Yep, Shmoo has his fingers in his ears - they turned the siren on 

While The OH took Shmoo and Loo to a homeschool group police station visit, Beanie and I went to our first early intervention group session this morning.

Bean did much better than I expected. He was very clingy, refused to look at most of the staff and cried a little but he warmed up fairly quickly. Sitting in my lap he could be persuaded to cautiously touch a few toys, look at some books, and play with playdough. Then he was introduced to the big tray filled with multicoloured grains of rice with toy cars and trucks. After a few minutes he was happy to play at the tray with T (I think each of the staff have a one-on-one thing with each child), while I sat about a metre away. Bean was a bit freaked out by the other little ones there, only another 4 or so I think but they were loud, one cried a lot, and others pushed in a lot and snatched toys away from him.

One thing that really bothered me though was that nearly all of the comments directed at Beanie were along the lines of 'good/clever boy!', said in a really saccharine sweet voice. Not just on the odd occasion but after every single thing that he did. I really don't like constant, automatic praising of kids. It's so patronising. It's not something you notice until it's pointed out but so many people do it. Over the last few years I've made a concerted effort to cut way back on saying 'good boy' or 'good job'. Instead, I try to focus on being encouraging by asking questions about what they've done, how they feel about it etc. The occasional 'good boy' does slip through but I'm aware of it. The OH struggles with it as it is such an automatic response. Now my automatic response to 'good boy' is 'woof!'. It acts as a bit of a reminder that they don't need to receive all that empty, fake-sounding praise - they're not dogs.

Ohhh and another thing that annoyed me... what the heck is the deal with saying 'Ta for X' when you want a child to give you something?!? Poor Bean had no idea what she was on about and then saw she was holding out her hand and made the connection that she wanted him to hand the toy/car etc to her. What's wrong with saying 'may I have that please?'. I'm not really a fan of 'Ta' for thank you either but accept that some other people think it's easier for little kids to say. We've never taught any of our boys 'Ta', it's always been 'thank you' which they learned to say fine (Bean's been saying it for ages now) and before they could say it they would just use the Auslan sign for thank you. No big deal really I guess, it's just one of those little things that I find mildly annoying LOL.