Archive for January, 2011

The kids really really need a……


27 Jan

…sandpit.

Pity we don’t have the space in our backyard, because the garden is suffering at the hands of two small boys. Eh, who am I kidding. Even if we had a sandpit, the garden and dirt relocation would still be an attraction for the kids. At least the relocated dirt in the shell can be easily transferred back to the garden. And if we did have a sandpit, it probably wouldn’t have any sand in it because it would have been moved to the garden. still, I can dream.

Slide Boy


26 Jan

Andrew had some fun on the computer last night….after Toby had fun at the park a few days ago. He happily climbed up the stairs and went down the slide all by himself. He had been doing it for at least half an hour before a lady saw him at the top of the slide and sucked in her breath in fright. She obviously thought he was too young to be up there alone.

Back on the bike


25 Jan

Andrew and I recently had our poor, neglected (12 months or more living on a balcony and unsheltered from the weather) bicycles serviced, and we got 3 new helmets on the weekend. Today I took Toby on his first bike ride and Nathan rode his bike. We didn’t go very far, just to a couple of local parks. I think we all had fun though.

Slime


23 Jan

Slime

I have the book ‘Toddler Tactics’ by Pinky McKay. In it she gives some ideas of activities for toddlers and preschool children, and ages ago I was inspired by the idea of making slime. To make it I needed Lux Flakes, and it took me ages to find any since none of the supermarkets I frequented at the time seemed to stock it. We are probably almost a year on now and I finally got around to trying it out.

The recipe for slime is 1 cup of Lux Flakes and 3 cups of warm water. I didn’t put any coloring into it. I used hot water from the kettle and stirred the soap until it seemed to be dissolved (in the book it says to stir vigorously) and then leave overnight to set. This morning there was a soft but solid white substance at the bottom of the bucket I made it in.

The book states that the slime is a soothing treat best enjoyed outdoors. It also says: a wonderful gooey, tactile experience, forgo artistic aspirations and plonked the slime into the baby bath, add funnels and cups, and let your toddler pour, squeeze and squelch the ooze. What she neglected to instruct was how to clean up what is basically thick liquid soap that is as slimy as anything you could possibly imagine. I didn’t really want to add so much soap to the grass in the back yard by hosing it off the child and out of the shell we put it in, but it was difficult to find another solution. I ended up mixing it with water and bucketing it down the drain. Toby also missed out because he was asleep, but Nathan had a ball in the slimy ooze, painting it all over himself, sliding around the shell and alternating between the shell half with the slime and the other half into which I put some water.

Slime 2

Slime 3

13 months old


23 Jan

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Toby is now 13 months old, and somehow that fact hadn’t registered with me until today. I am going to try to keep his monthly updates going during his second year. Unfortunately I didn’t manage to keep to his updates going regularly towards the end of his first year. That was partly due to lack of time while moving interstate, and partly because I rarely spend time on a normal computer these days, and the WordPress app for the iPad was regularly broken towards the end of last year and also the start of this year.

Anyway, on to Toby. He has become a really confident walker in the last month. He is quite speedy as well, though obviously not yet able to keep up with Nathan, which is what he really wants to do. We do laugh at how he turns around, though…he pivots on one foot. Toby is a real little climber too, though he is still unable to get up onto a bed or couch without a step or a heave from behind by Nathan.

Toby is really helpful around the house now. He is more than happy to help unload the dishwasher and put things away, put things in the rubbish bin, take things to Daddy or Nathan, and do other miscellaneous things that we ask of him. He also loves doing things we tell him not to, like not moving dirt out of the garden, not picking things out of the garden, etc.

Toby also now has a real sense of wanting what Nathan has (Nathan got some sultanas to eat, where are mine?) and although he doesn’t have many words yet, he is still very adept at letting us know what he wants.

We have packed up the baby hammock and have made a bed for Toby on the floor of our bedroom out of our cot mattress, blankets and pillows. He just wasn’t happy in the hammock any more.

Things Toby loves doing are: eating chalk and crayons, drawing, playing with kitchen utensils, climbing, jumping practice, running after Nathan, cuddling and kissing and climbing all over Nathan, watching ants and spiders, playing with animal figurines, relocating things, putting things in boxes and pulling things out of boxes, eating fruit but in particular watermelon and cantaloupe and blue berries, playing in dirt, and just generally being involved in what everyone else is doing.

Free ride


22 Jan

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This isn’t a common scene any more now that Toby is a confident walker. Nathan used to carry Toby to where Nathan wanted him, or away from where he didn’t want Toby. No more free rides for Toby, he is just too independent now.

Weather Station


21 Jan

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We recently set up a little weather station, with the data being uploaded in real time to a website (Andrew set it all up). I think we currently have the data being collected every minute, and we can get nice little graphs of the data. The most recent measurements are shown in the sidebar of my blog. We are measuring inside and outside temperatures, humidity, barometric pressure, wind speed, wind direction, wind gusts, and rainfall. It also calculates a wind chill factor when the temperature is less than 10 degrees. It’s great…though we have learned to position the Netbook it is attached to so that it doesnt blow hot air on the inside temperature sensor!

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Rain gauge

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Wind speed and direction

Fresh Pasta


20 Jan

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We have made fresh pasta twice lately, and Nathan loves making and eating it. We get the bread maker to do the mixing and kneeding, and then we roll it and cut it. Jamie Oliver (in one of his cook books) makes it sound easy to make without any automated equipment, but I’m happy for the bread maker to do the hard work for us.

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Campsite


02 Jan

Just three photos from our campsite in the mountains.


500 km from home, the bush to explore, and the boys play with the cooking implements,
just like at home


This duck had 12 ducklings. Usually the ducks come around at about the same time every day, but the following day Andrew saw what looked like a very distressed duck looking around all the tents. We never saw the ducklings again.


Keeping warm in the tent on a cold and wet day.

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