On the feast of Stephen...

...we went to Levin.

It was a beautiful day. The children enjoyed adventures in a very cool playground with Grandad R.

Christmas Eve

Christmas meringues.










Christmas mice in green













Christmas mice in (predominantly) blue.

















Christmas shortbread.














More christmas mice.














Christmas bottle cap decorations.















Painted christmas biscuits.




There were also christmas jellies - purple with mini chocolate fish swimming on top, and blue and green with lolly fish swimming in the middle, and lolly frogs perched on top.



A busy day! (Although the painted biscuits were done on the 22nd). The children have just finished their dinner and the older two have changed into their pyjamas, ready for stories.

Happy Christmas to all, and to all, a good night!

Dear Clare

I have lost the envelope with your return address on it so I'm hoping you check in here every now and again.

CONGRATULATIONS! What wonderful news.

Sadly the date is only one week after my due date, so, yeah, a trip to London is probably not happening! But we will look forward to seeing you in February (when I will be as big as a whale). We are at the same address and phone number, listed in the white pages under Brendon's surname (but if you look in the internet directory you can search on my surname too).

xxxxx!

Damn Ewoks!

So who is the evilest of the evil in the Star Wars universe?

The Sith Lords? The gangster hutts? The amoral bounty hunters?

Oh no no no. It's those damn furry little ewoks.

So far they have inspired Aidan to run around pointing sharp sticks at people ("I'm an Ewok! I'm an Ewok!"). In addition, as an Ewok he constructed a fairly impressive bow and arrow out of one of Isabelle's head bands and a piece of plastic from his Buzz Lightwear action figure.

Sigh.

Nice pussy cat

On Thursday I got a telephone call from the vets to tell us we had won the prize pack in their Frontline contest! Yay for Houdini and her fleas! (Not that she has fleas of course - merely preventive).

Anyway, we got a chair, two caps, two drink bottles and two bright blue towels. Houdini politely declined the opportunity to be photographed with them (I managed to capture the escape).

This is the second time Houdini has won us prize - we got an Easter pack about seven years ago with various goodies in it.

Nice pussy cat!

Schema decorations

Today we went to Kirks, saw Father Christmas and bought some christmas decorations.

So we have a new christmas photo on the wall. Isabelle and Aidan smile sweetly. I am there holding Orla, very red faced (as if I have imbibed some christmas cheer!). So I guess technically Floyd the fourth is there too. Orla looks grumpily off to one side, in keeping with our fine tradition of two-year- old christmas photos!

Rotational-schema Isabelle chose a round, golden wreath for the tree.

Trajetory-schema Aidan chose a bronze butterfly, which he whooooooshed through the air and around the room before it alighted on the tree.

On writing

Aidan had a much-anticipated birthday party to attend last week. He wanted to make a birthday card (something we usually do before such events). Aidan's birthday cards are usually fairly free-flow, mainly bold flourishes made by large hand movements, sometimes intense marks in one spot, and usually completed relatively quickly.

But this time was different.

I paused from loading the dishwasher to check on what he was doing. He was writing - Js, and one Ja. I was very impressed. This from a boy who up until this point has only ever written an upper case A for Aidan, and an upper case T for Tom. He was very focused, concentrating intensely. But he was getting frustrated and unhappy.

"They aren't good enough!" he said, exasperated. I disagreed, saying they were easily readable as Js, and he had even got the second letter too. But he got more and more agitated, throwing the pink paper onto the ground and demanding a second piece.

I watched and waited as he carefully wrote on the second piece of paper. His friend's name - k in the wrong place, second k not acceptable to him, trying again further up and still falling short of how he wanted it to look.

He tried to write his own name, but the d somehow went wrong and it was just too much. He cried in my arms as to how he wanted his friend to be proud of him, how it wasn't "perfect" and then "I can't even spell my own name!".

It's a hard thing to want to learn to write perfectly all at once, at 4.45 on a Friday afternoon on a Playcentre day when you haven't had a nap.

It was hard for me to help him too. If he were doing art, then I have some tools to help him along while fostering his creativity, ensuring that he owns the process and the product. There are many ways to draw, so many interpretations, so many "right" ways. But with writing - well, there's only so many ways to write a J in which it is recognisably a J. I tried things like "well, if you can draw a circle, you can write a "c". It's just this half of the circle". I tried describing where his pen should go. But I don't know how to teach children to write - and certainly it was hard when he had a very clear goal that seemed just out of reach. Isabelle came over and wrote some models for him to copy - upper and lower case letters. But it was just too frustrating for him.

Anyway, he soon began again, making some attempts then asking me to write the names instead. I wondered if he would copy directly under the models I had provided, but by then I think he had just had enough.

Our different reactions to his product were interesting. I thought he did amazingly well for what was basically a first writing attempt. He showed great persistence (despite rejecting his earlier attempts) and the drive to write came from within, and from a strong desire to do something for his friend (who is older and so who can write himself). I haven't really been aware of the perfectionist streak either - or maybe it was just because this time, it was so important.

The dishes never got done that day, but I think something more important was going down.

The next day, we stuck attempt two onto attempt three. Aidan seemed satisfied - the drama of the afternoon before perhaps ameliorated by a good night's sleep and the deliciously looming reality of the party to come.

And a few days later, Isabelle and Aidan were playing schools (no prizes for guessing who was the teacher!). Aidan was set a task - a colouring-in template that they had picked up at Brendon's work Christmas party. (I'm not big on colouring-in for the usual reasons, but it's not a banned activity!). The result shows a similar process - persistence, focus and sudden attention to the detail that the colour should not go outside the lines. Aidan's colouring-in is usually far more relaxed about where colour stops and starts! It's as if fine-motor skills have suddenly become highly valued, and to be practiced with dedication to a particular end. Brendon also pointed out that this has coincided with an interest in lego. Aidan has quickly got the hang of building models from instructions, easily creating helicopters, mars landers and storm trooper troop carriers and the like out of the tiny pieces of plastic.

I will watch with interest whether or not this interest in writing waxes, wanes, or morphs into something else entirely.

Christmas party

And another quick update - Brendon's work Christmas party for the children went down very well once again. Aidan helped out the magician and got this lovely motorbike as a prize. The yellow creation beneath is a poodle, one of which was given to each of the children.

While getting dressed, I decided that my tevas were insufficiently glam for the office, so popped on my heels instead. This was fine, until while innocently walking towards the food table I suddenly found myself platform-less! So, I ended up padding barefoot down The Terrace back to the car - even less glam than sandals!

Ah well, at least I got a balloon on a string to take home.

Ballerina girl

Isabelle's ballet show was a great success. It seems so long ago now, but it was only last week!

We were so very proud of her up on the stage (as, no doubt, were all the other parents in the audience!).

Aidan came and watched this year and seemed to enjoy most of it, only fading and falling asleep at the very end.

First Christmas card

There have been a few more hung up now, but I'm a bit behind with my blog posts...

This was back on the 10th.

Chocolate cake

Aidan is a keen cake baker, and is becoming more accomplished at the various baking tasks I set him.

I am becoming more accomplished at being patient while managing multiple bakers, giving clear instructions and enjoying the process!

Here's his latest cake. He did the icing and strawberry decorations himself (to his own design). He was very enthused when I suggested strawberries on top!

I have bought a new book of Christmas recipes to make with children. We are all looking forward to trying some of the simpler ones once the school term has finished.

And the cake was delicious!

Christmastime

Oh yes, it's Christmastime here!

We have:
- christmas cake maturing in the pantry
- christmas cards waiting for Brendon to sign
- christmas tree decorated and up in the corner
- christmas cds being played
- christmas paper towels and of course
- christmas toilet paper.

The christmas shopping is progressing nicely, except for a couple of bags full of gifts that has gone missing somewhere in the house. I'm sure it will come to light shortly.