If I were a twitterer

8.07 Have no coffee in the house.
9.17 Aidan just broke a glass. Can't find my sunglasses.
9.19 Found sunglasses. They are broken.
10.00 Architect here. Woot!
10.10 Architect is dressed in black, has beard and funky glasses.
10.12 Brendon has bought coffee for morning tea. Woot!
11.03 Dropped Brendon back at work. Off to B's to drop off Orla.
11.15 At B's. Decided to stay for cuppa.
11.43 Still at B's - shopping with Aidan for school clothes shortly.
12.01 Still at B's.
12.07 Aidan does not want to stop playing and start having quality Mama time.
12.22 Ditch quality time and keep playing.
1.03 Aidan is wearing a commando shirt, commando hat and has matching pistols.
2.59 Back home. We seem to have acquired a commando hat.
3.56 K and E here for a visit.
4.00 Mother help is here. Woot!
4.09 Hide commando hat.
4.11 Hide rugby flag (i.e. pointy wavy at face stick thing).
4.22 Aidan escaping up retaining wall.
4.31 Aidan up a tree.
4.45 Child guest pees on floor. Misses the carpet. Woot!
4.58 Wave goodbye to guests. Hope to see them again soon.
5.31 Isabelle's new Darth Maul v. cool.
6.50 Late tea. Too busy to fini
7.23 Ewan in bath. Orla on my lap asleep.
7.56 Brendon to supermarket.
8.48 Whittakers Dark Caramel tres fine.


Such excitement in just one day!

And in other news...

Aidan's first school visit is not far away. Orla had her first official drop off at Playcentre today - apparently it went very well. Ewan has croup, but is improving.

Homeschooling Isabelle

A bit of a cough and a bit of a snotty nose meant a day in the sun at home for Isabelle.

Here's what she got up to (all self-initiated).

First, poetry writing and collage (creative writing, arts):










Painting (arts, science):











Reading aloud to younger siblings (didn't get a photo of the actual reading: literacy):














Oh! Is that your new Bosch dishwasher?
Why yes!
And is that a shiny kitchen bench with no dirty dishes on it?
Yes again! How kind of you to notice!













Ahem...

Creating a fairy's house (our Steiner moment!), during which we discussed natural selection (science, fantasy play).














Chasing younger brother in the battle for possession of the plastic Darth Vader head on his return from Playcentre (physical education, strategic studies):









Teaching younger brother to read using Star Wars reader: ("Who is that? Anakin. So what does that say? Anakin!" - literacy).













Ballet practice (physical education):











Plus some other stuff, including me reading aloud, a picnic in the sun on the deck for lunch, a visit from Grandad and the end of day chill-out viewing Star Wars episode six.

I have thought that Isabelle would be very easy to home school because:
- she does it herself quite happily
- she can already read, write and count, so there's little angst about getting the basics sorted
- she teaches the younger ones useful things (and does helpful things for me!)
- her presence improves the mood and flow of the house.

I miss my big girl when she is at school!

The playdough man

Apparently Aidan had a rare outing to the playdough table earlier this week at Playcentre. He made a playdough man. Anatomically correct.

The reported conversation:

Nearby man: Er...my playdough man has clothes on.
Aidan (matter of factly): Mine doesn't. He has a penis.

Points of grammar

Orla very rarely answers a closed question or a statement with "yes" or "no". It's more:

- Would you like a biscuit? Orla: I would!
- He had a red car. Orla: Did he?

I'm not quite sure where this comes from. The most obvious answer is that I probably do it!

Do I?

Almost...

None of my babies have really been into rolling. They tend to do it once each way, then proceed to crawling. Ewan's not rolling...yet. But he's on his way!

Gender explorations

"Ewie is a boy!"
"Yes. And what are you?"
"I'm a pirate!"

Half birthday

Ewan was exactly six months old today (gestational not corrected). I've started solids at six months with the other three. For Ewan, the medical advice was that I should start at 4-5 months corrected, being led by his cues.

I'm in no particular hurry to get him onto solid food. He doesn't seem ready. His upper digestive tract is maturing (we have the drool!), but he hasn't really got the hand/mouth co-ordination thing going yet.

And yet - he is certainly interested in what we are up to at the table.

Today he was sitting on my knee as I peeled a mandarin for myself. He was really focused on my hands, and got more and more excited as the fruit was revealed. He started drooling and his hands started to pump up and down. I started eating, and he started fretting. I experimentally put a sector into his hand but it was as if he just couldn't get everything co-ordinated. By this point he had worked himself up into such a frenzy of frustration that a breastfeed was required immediately.

The mind seemed willing, but the body was weak. (Or just a bit little!)

A couple of hours later he sat on my knee as I started a golden kiwifruit. He started getting agitated as I spooned into it. And as I started to raise the spoon to my mouth, he leant forward, mouth open, tongue out. I put the spoon to his mouth and his tongue flicked further out. He clearly tasted the fruit - the surprised expression on this face said as much. He sat back, as if to say "Well I never!" and was quite content to watch me eat the remainder.

He watched Daddy eat pizza for tea with much interest.

More literacy notes

Some literacy notes from late June....



Here's some more writing by Aidan (with a bit of help from Daddy!). Sometimes he likes to write out letters then asks me what they say. I think he likes the funny sounds I make as I sound out hiiiotloloii etc! Some of the stuff on the right is copied out of a Star Wars lego catalogue.

Orla did some art and wanted me to name it for her. I wrote her name in the top right hand corner.



She then said "Write it here! And here! And here!", pointing at different places around her work. I obliged to her great satisfaction! As I wrote I said: "O, r, l, a, Orla".







When I had finished, she made four little orange marks of her own, saying "O, r, l, a, Orla".













And to finish off, she did some Os on the bottom, saying "O, O, O" with each circular flourish.