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.

Japan

We're doing Japan at the moment. Today the boys made/drew Japanese flags, we read and discussed a couple of library books about Japan, and we folded little origami cats and 'talking' dogs. Then for dinner we had miso soup, and chicken katsu served with rice, cabbage and tonkatsu sauce. The boys had little Japanese chocolate coated biscuit sticks for dessert. And the OH and I have been munching on wasabi peas

 

We've been discussing advertising a lot lately. This morning Shmoo designed his own vacuum brand: 'Zip Zap'. We then discussed logos, symbols and trademarks, and Shmoo designed a symbol for the Zip Zap brand. He loves Dyson vacuums but aspires to one day create the Zip Zap. He hasn't decided yet whether the Zip Zap will be it's own brand or if he'll work for Dyson and design a model called the Zip Zap. Today he also designed a small vacuum cleaner that's only for beds - he said that it vacuums up wee LOL!!

Sunny Daze

A warm, sunny day... a perfect morning for drawing and writing on the concrete outside with chalk, cuddling kitties, making puddy muddles muddy puddles, mud pies topped with grass for the cats' lunch, watching Daddy mow the grass, sword (stick) fighting, nearly dying (or so it sounded like) from a slightly stick-grazed finger, unearthing nature's hidden treasures, and so much more.

 

Some days learning happens like this. Other days Shmoo wants to know how to add 3-digit numbers together, or to count the syllables in words, or he just wants to sit and read one (or a dozen) of the 40-odd library books that we've borrowed for the fortnight. And some days, like today, he just wants to sit at the activity table all afternoon and carefully draw all the vacuums out of a treasured Harvey Norman catalogue that came in the day's newspaper

An Exhausting Day in India

It's been one of those days.


We've been researching India lately... reading books on India from the library, watching travel documentaries, listening to Bollywood music. Today the plan was to have fun dressing up in saris and turbans, find out about Hinduism and have an India themed dinner.


Things didn't quite go to plan. Small but important things got us sidetracked during the day and then Shmoo had a major meltdown in the afternoon. Major meltdown. As in close to 3 hours of shrieking, screaming, crying, hypochondria, slamming doors, threatening his brothers, calling me names (hideous, stupid, idiot etc), and throwing things around. Somehow I managed to stay calm despite having heaps to do, 2 other kids to look after and dinner to make (with the OH in Burnie for the afternoon). Mostly calm anyway. The only time I yelled at him was when Beanie was in immediate danger of being injured.


The OH was home for the last half hour or so of the meltdown. The only way we could get Shmoo to snap out of it was to bribe him with the Dyson vacuum catalogue that the OH had picked up for him at Harvey Norman. Shmoo has a bit of a love/hate relationship with vacuums. He is absolutely terrified of them, panics if the vacuum comes near him at home, screams if we try and walk past a display at the shops. But he is also intensely fascinated with them, I think it's his way of trying to work through his fear of them. He will analyse them in catalogues, compare the different types and their parts, and try and figure out how they work and what each part does. And then he goes through phases of drawing vacuums. He can sit at the table for hours every day, for days at a time, drawing page after page of vacuums in great detail. So the vacuum catalogue was a good distraction for him.


Funnily enough, in the middle of Shmoo's meltdown the phone rang. I nearly laughed when the woman on the other end said that she was from the Tasmanian Autism Spectrum Diagnostic Service. I was trying to focus on what she was saying but it was kinda hard with Shmoo screaming in the next room and the loud thuds as hard objects hit the bedroom wall. Actually I did laugh when she asked if I felt the assessments were urgent. She could hear Shmoo's meltdown. I said "Um, at the moment it feels very urgent."


I don't know what to do with him when he has such intense meltdowns. It goes so far beyond a typical tantrum. I'm much better at putting on an calm outward appearance myself these days but it takes it's toll. I feel so frustrated and so helpless. It's so physically and emotionally exhausting. Why is it so hard to get any kind of help once they're over 6?!

Indulgence

Vanilla cake with lemon cream cheese icing. Extra icing. Gluten, dairy and egg! Mmm. The OH's birthday cake

The OH's taking Shmoo and Loo to a Slipstream Circus show tomorrow. Part of our homeschool group's programme. Poor Shmoo couldn't get to sleep tonight. He called me into his room to tell me he was scared. After chatting to him for a bit I managed to work out what it was about - he was worried that it was going to be like last time, overwhelming, lots of kids, and a class that he would be expected to participate in. I reassured him that it would just be a show, that other people would be performing and all he had to do was watch, like at the Playschool Concert. He must have been reassured as he happily went to sleep. A 2 hour show is a bit beyond the attention span of an 18 month old so Beanie and I are looking forward to some quiet time whilst they're out.

ECIS Update

We had the visit with SJ from the Early Childhood Intervention Service a couple of days ago. It was just the initial contact so she could meet the Bean and discuss where we go from here.


No surprises in the way Beanie reacted to her. He buried his face into my chest and refused to look at her.


SJ is going to talk to the other people she works with and come up with a plan for us.


Funny coincidence: one of the people that SJ works with is F... who organises the homeschool group meets.