Book Week - the result

Since I wrote about the fun I had with making Juniordwarf's Book Week costume, I thought I should post a picture of the result.

So here it is.

Hat by Spotlight. Makeup by Slabs. Cat-like outfit by me.

Unfortunately the photos don't show the tail. The skill, imagination and improvisation used to create the final part of the costume should put me fairly and squarely in the running for Crafty Mama of the Year.

(im)perfection

This week is Book Week. Juniordwarf’s school is having a Book Week Parade and the kids are all encouraged to dress up as a character from their favourite book.
 

Two years ago he wanted to be The Very Hungry Caterpillar, and I did this.

Last year he was a pirate, which was easy because he already had a pirate costume.

This year he said he wanted to be The Cat In The Hat. 

I figured this wouldn’t be too hard, and set about planning how I was going to do this

I always thought one of he fun things about primary school-age kids would be doing stuff like making costumes. You know, in all that spare time I have. Yeah.

I can remember my mother making me a Wild Thing costume in primary school for something our class was doing around the book Where The Wild Things Are.

(It looked like this:)

I assume I could actually breathe in this outfit

I figured if my mother could create such a thing out of an old blanket, I could come up with a cat costume pretty easily. Black pants, a black and white top, a tail and OH MY GOODNESS HOW THE HELL DO YOU MAKE HATS?

(Luckily a nearby craft supply store just happened to stock red and white striped hats exactly like the one the Cat in the Hat wears, which I discovered when I went in to get my supplies for this crafty endeavour. Enormous relief.)

I got out the sewing machine. Yes the very same sewing machine I got for Xmas two years ago and had not actually used. The same sewing machine listed at Number 24 on my 100 things to do in 2013 list (24. Sew something. Anything. Just use the damn sewing machine!).

Once I worked out how to thread it (which could be a whole post in itself – my mother’s old basic Bernina it is not), it was time for action.

The black pants were going to be easy. I based them on the same pattern I used for the caterpillar costume. 

OK, not quite so easy. Fluffy polar fleece isn’t quite as easy to sew as I thought it would be. I mean, it moves when you sew it. What kind of sorcery is this?

Anyway, I got there eventually. The pants were done. I’m totally rocking this crafty mama thing.

I didn’t have any sweatshirt patterns. No drama. How hard can it be? It’s just four pieces right? A front, a back and two sleeves. So I can just trace one of his sweatshirts and copy that.

Seam allowance? Pfft, who needs that? It’s a cat outfit. It’s meant to be tight.

 

See, it fits him.

Oh, you know what? You should have sewed the sleeves into the shoulders before you sewed up the side seams.

Well I’ll just trace the top of the sleeve using the arm hole as a guide, extend it to the length of his arm, and narrow it in at the bottom. Then I can just sew the sleeve in to the arm hole. No worries.

NO WORRIES? WHAT, ARE YOU KIDDING? HAVE A LOOK AT THIS! THE SLEEVES AREN’T WIDE ENOUGH! WHATEVER HAPPENED TO “MEASURE TWICE, CUT ONCE?”

True. In most garments the sleeves actually join up under the arm. 

Bugger.

By this time I was getting somewhat frustrated at this whole exercise. Who said the crafty mama thing was fun? I actually wanted to do this? What was I thinking?

Juniordwarf was watching me. “So I don’t think this is going to be a very good costume,” I said to him.

He looked at me.

Then said, “I don’t mind. It doesn’t have to be perfect. In fact, I don’t want it to be perfect.”

I thought back to where I’d heard this before. It had come from Juniordwarf’s teacher. His class is doing Art this term, and the teacher has been stressing the point very strongly that their art doesn’t have to be perfect and it doesn’t matter if it doesn’t look exactly like what they’re drawing and painting or if it doesn’t look the same as anyone else’s work. The idea is to capture what they see and reproduce it the way they see it themselves – so how one child sees something and draws it will be different to how any other child sees it.

The displays around the classroom are testament to this, and it’s fascinating to see each child’s style in their work.

While I was thinking about this, Juniordwarf then proceeded to quote what I’ve often said to him, right back at me. “It doesn’t matter if you make a mistake. We all make mistakes. Mistakes are how we learn.”

 

And you know what struck me most? That while I’m encouraging him not to be hard on himself and not set himself impossible standards, I continue to expect myself to be perfect and to never make a mistake.

It’s not going to be enough for him to hear these messages is it? I can’t really tell him not to seek perfection if I continue to expect it of myself. He’ll catch on to that one day, and how am I going to explain that? 

“Well . . . it’s OK for you not to do things perfectly, but I’m different. I have to.” 

Not really convincing is it? I’m not different. 

So for him to truly embrace these messages, he has to see them in action. That means he has to see me make mistakes and see how I learn from them. He has to see me accept less than perfect. He has to know that I believe what I’m saying. And therefore, I have to believe it.

Maybe I should go back to Grade 1. 

(P.S. Costume is not quite finished . . . but it will fit him and I expect it will hold together for a day. So all is well.)

picnics

Yesterday was the last of my school holiday days at home with Juniordwarf. It seems like these holidays have flown by. While they are a week shorter than we’re used to, due to Tasmania’s move to a four-term year, the holiday period has gone by in a flash. Next Tuesday Juniordwarf will be back at school.

He’s had a fairly full-on month, with his grandmother lining up a vast array of activities for him on the days he was with her, including the circus, horse riding and activities on the beach. He’s done guest appearances on Slabs’ Monday afternoon radio shows and had a playdate with a school friend.

So this week we took things easy. 

Yesterday, after our trip to the Child and Family Centre, we had a picnic in a nearby park. We were accompanied by some of Juniordwarf’s teddies. I thought he might take one or two when he said that some teddies would come with us, but he said no, he’d be taking 16 of them. 

If you ever wanted to know how many teddies you can fit in two of the thinner green bags, the answer is 16.

Fortunately they brought their own food and I didn’t have to cater for 16 teddies.

Yesterday, I vaguely thought it might be fun to go to the beach. (Thinking of something to do and then actually getting out of the house and doing it on the same day is a rare combination for me.) Let’s just forget about the weather forecast for rain. We are going to have fun.

Juniordwarf has been getting into a Hi 5 DVD that he borrowed from the library, where the presenters create their own imaginary place out of all the places they’d like to be. 

Snowy mountains on a beach on a tropical island? Yep, Hi 5 can make it happen. It’s called Beach Island (or something like that). In his version, the chooks are seagulls, and he makes snowballs by stripping plants of their leaves.

Following this, he hides “jellyfish treasure” in the garden and we go and look for it.

So, I wondered, would he like to go to the beach and look for treasure? After a bit of consideration he decided that yes, he would.

We packed up another picnic and he put his treasure that he was going to hide for us into the basket he uses to collect the eggs, collected Zoe from her shop, and off we went.

We went to Cornelian Bay, which is not the beachiest of beaches, so our beach treasure hunt was more of a woodland treasure hunt. What this meant was that I had to look away while Juniordwarf hid the treasure he’d brought with him. This consisted of some plastic toast, a plastic mug, a spatula and the basket, which we then had to search for. He was delighted when we found something.

 After finding all the treasure, we went for a short walk along the Boat Shed track. 

Juniordwarf picked up a few more treasures along the way – a huge oyster shell, a stripy stone and some pretty feathers – and then it was time to head back for our picnic.

By this stage the promised rain was starting to get a bit heavier, so we sought out the tree with the thickest cover to set up the picnic under. We were immediately discovered by seagulls, which distressed Juniordwarf at first. But even thought they looked menacing, they didn’t come too close and he eventually relaxed.

Most of them left eventually, leaving just one, who I presume was the scout that would signal the others if there was any sign we were going to send any food its way. 

Once we started packing up it too left, disappointed.

I was glad that something so simple kept Juniordwarf happy. It was one of my favourite days of the holidays.

I was also glad that nothing happened to Zoe.

ptunarra

 Way back in November 2011 I posted about our visit to the site of future Derwent Valley Child and Family Centre.

It’s a project that I have a soft spot for because I (and Juniordwarf too I guess, because he attended the meetings with me) used to be a community member of the Local Enabling Group established to oversee the development of the Centre.

The Child and Family Centre initiative is a State Government funded project to “improve the health and well-being, education and care of Tasmania’s very young children by supporting parents and enhancing accessibility of services in the local community”.  Several centres are being built, or are already operating, across the state.

We were only involved in the early stages, in 2010, when the group was making decisions about the site the centre would be built on, and working on the philosophies, visions and objectives for the centre to ensure that it provided services that best met the needs of our community.

The vision that the group came up with for the centre was:

Healthy, happy children thriving in our community

Nurturing and supporting families

As a government employee, who has been involved in several exercises in consultation with stakeholders, I found it fascinating to be involved in a project as a community member rather than as "the Government".  I think that the consultation and level of engagement with the community in this project is something that the Department of Education can be very proud of.

Fast forward to three years later, and the centre is built. It will be open for business next week.

Juniordwarf and I went for a little stickybeak yesterday morning. I was surprised at how emotional I felt standing in the place that had been the goal of so many committed people over the last three years.

While I was taking everything in, I thought back to almost exactly three years ago when I was asked by Katrina, the now Community Inclusion Worker at the centre, if I was interested in being involved with the project. I felt overwhelmed that from the very first meeting in 2010, which at least 40 enthusiastic community members attended, the vision had become reality and I was standing in it.

I wondered if the centre we‘d imagined back then would be anything like the centre we see today. I don’t think the end result is anything like I imagined it would – or could – be. But I love it, and it’s a credit to everyone involved, especially Katrina and Suzanne, the Centre Leader, and all the members past and present of the Local Enabling Group. I feel really proud of what they have achieved and am glad that I was a part of it all, even if it was for just a short time.

I want to wish everyone at Ptunarra* Child and Family Centre all the very best. I’m so excited for you all and look forward to keeping in touch.

 

The building is very impressive. The play spine that runs through the centre of the building is really cool, and Juniordwarf loved it. I didn’t take many photos, but there are some more here to show you what the centre looks like. 

Juniordwarf checking out the upper level of the play spine

Out the front of the centre

The centre's vision on display

* The name Ptunarra and the butterfly logo was chosen in recognition of the Ptunarra Brown which is a vulnerable Tasmanian butterfly.

“The process of change and growth from caterpillar to butterfly is symbolic of the changes that we must embrace as our children grow and learn and develop. Without change there would be no butterflies.”

wordless wednesday

a tale of two chocolates

Juniordwarf has a lot of teddies. (The teddies are his vast collection of soft toys, ranging from my old panda through many different species including tigers, a frog and several actual teddies. This is as opposed to the animals, which are all his plastic animals.)

Different ones have been his favourites at different times, and their names have changed over the years as well.

He has a teddy called Chocolate-the-Girl and a teddy called Chocolate-the-Boy. I don’t know where these names came from, or why he thought Chocolate was a unisex name – or even a name at all – but those names have stuck.

Chocolate-the-Boy came from one of those grabby prize machines that they have in pubs. Juniordwarf somehow managed to win it when he and Slabs went to the pub for a meal one night when I was away. Slabs says he didn’t even see Juniordwarf do it (but he’s since repeated the performance in another machine and we still have no idea how he managed it other than pure fluke).

Chocolate-the-Girl’s origin is a mystery. We think one of Slabs’ cousins gave her to us for Juniordwarf when he was a baby. She is actually Zoe from Sesame Street http://www.sesamestreet.org/muppets/zoe , but Juniordwarf hasn’t watched much Sesame Street and doesn’t know the characters. When he found out she was Zoe, he said that must be her nickname.

I think he is particularly fond of Chocolate-the-Girl because she has long hair that he can twist around and put up (just like he tries to do with mine). Ever since he’s been very young he’s been completely hung up on particular women we know, and obsessed about whether their hair is up or down. The most important thing he reports back on each day at school is what his teacher was wearing in her hair that day.

I’m just glad he doesn’t know about those old Barbie hairstyling sets that were popular when I was younger.

Earlier in the year, when lots of his classmates were taking their teddies to school, Chocolate-the-Girl was the one Juniordwarf took to school every day. A couple of months ago he told me that Chocolate-the-Girl would be staying home with me on my work from home day. So I got into the spirit of this, and took some photos of her to show him what she did during the day. He thought it was great.

 A couple of days later, Juniordwarf wanted me to take Chocolate-the-Boy to work, so I did the same thing for him.

 After that, Chocolate-the-Girl became a regular visitor to my workplace, and Chocolate-the-Boy started to accompany Slabs.

Yesterday Chocolate-the-Boy was supposed to go to work with Slabs. Slabs told Juniordwarf to leave him on his bag. He didn’t, and Chocolate-the-Boy got left at home.

When Slabs picked Juniordwarf up, he’d been trying to think of a story to explain why Chocolate-the-Boy wasn’t with him. Last week, my reason for Chocolate-the-Girl having been left at home already being at home when we got there was that she’d got a headache at my work and had to come home early, on the bus. He was fine with that.

Juniordwarf saved Slabs the trouble of coming up with an equally plausible explanation. He said that Chocolate-the-Boy had gone to the moon and he wouldn’t be back until Monday. Problem solved.

Today Chocolate-the-Girl was meant to come to work with me. I decided to put her in the drink holder of my bag so she could see where we were going while I was walking to work.

This was all very well until I was almost at work and discovered her missing.

The absolute gut-wrenching horror that fell upon me at that moment is indescribable.

My reaction was sheer and utter panic.

All I could think about was how devastated my little boy was going to be when I told him Chocolate-the-Girl had gone and really wasn’t coming back, and how betrayed he’d feel that he’d entrusted me with his teddy and I’d lost her.

I was almost in tears as I started retracing my steps. I was hoping that she hadn’t fallen out on the road and been run over, or that someone hadn’t found her and decided to keep her for their kids.

It was an unbearable walk. I was getting more and more frantic as I scanned the street and the road for any sign on Chocolate-the-Girl. It brought to mind this blog post I read recently about a small girl who had lost her beloved toy dog, http://www.handsfreemama.com/2011/10/18/a-well-loved-child/ and the impact that had on her mother, as she realised that a day would come that her daughter wouldn’t need her teddy any more, wouldn’t want to hold her hand any more . . .

But I digress.

I was imagining what I was going to say to Juniordwarf, where I was going to go for coffee to calm myself down before I went into work, whether I’d even be able to handle going to work knowing I’d made this terrible mistake, and indeed, even trying to explain why I was so upset about losing a teddy bear, and why on earth I was bringing my child’s teddy to work in the first place, I mean who does that? Really?

I was on the last leg of the return trip when I saw a flash of orange. It was Chocolate-the-Girl. She was sitting on the ground propped up against a fence, so someone had obviously found her, seen (by the fact that Juniordwarf’s name was written on her tag) that she did belong to someone, realised that the owner would probably be back as soon as they realised she was gone, and moved her out of the way so she didn’t get wrecked.

 I was totally relieved. Beyond relieved. There must be a word to describe the relief. It was the exact opposite feeling I’d had when I discovered her missing.

I picked her up and gave her a hug.

Yes, I actually hugged a small soft toy.

I was so grateful to whoever found her and left her there for me to find. I thanked them on Twitter and I thank them again here. They will most likely never read this, but I’m sending them positive thoughts, thanks and well wishes for their honesty. It made my day.

The only other good thing to come out of this is that I covered so much ground, my day’s walking was done before I even got to work.

I didn’t let Chocolate-the-Girl out of my sight for the rest of the day. This included her sitting in on our staff meeting and coming shopping with me at lunchtime, much to the amusement of my colleagues.

When Juniordwarf asked what Chocolate-the-Girl had done today I decided not to mention her escapade. He was just happy knowing she’d been with me.

another end - and a new beginning

Today was Juniordwarf’s last day of daycare.

He’s been very excited about it, and had counting down the days to his last day since before school finished last year.

On the other hand, I’m feeling a little bit sad and nostalgic about it all. I shed a few tears when we dropped him off this morning – and a few more on the way home after we picked him up. I think his educators at the child care centre were also a little sad that Juniordwarf – and some of the other older children too – would be leaving this week. Apparently one of his friends was in tears last Monday because she thought that was going to be his last day and she wouldn’t see him any more. I think she was pretty upset today too.

Juniordwarf has been going to daycare ever since he was about nine months old. When he was a baby, I stayed at home with him full time for six months, and Slabs was a stay at home dad for the next six months. After Juniordwarf turned one, we both started working part time, three days a week, so we needed to put him into daycare for one day a week.

In preparation for Slabs going back to work, we started taking him in to daycare for an hour at a time, to get him used to being there and not being with one of us. Over the next three months, we gradually built up the time he was there until he was happy to spend a full day there. When Slabs changed his hours, Juniordwarf started doing two days a week in daycare, and last year, once he started 3 day kinder, he dropped back to one day. 

I say happy because, despite the fact that for at least the first two years he used to cry almost every single time we dropped him off, he has seemed to enjoy himself there, he’s done some things he never would have got the chance to do at home and has made some friends. His educators have all been fantastic with him, and he’s been attached to all of them, especially the people who have been his main carers during the time he’s been in their particular rooms.

Now Juniordwarf is ready to start full-time school, and his time at daycare has come to an end. He agreed to give one of his favourite toys to the little kids’ room as a farewell gift – he’s finally outgrown it and it’s time to pass it on to some kids who we hope will get as much enjoyment out of it as he has.

Daycare has been such a big part of his life for the past four and half years, it’s strange to think of him not going there any more. He’s leaving part of his childhood behind and moving on to the next stage of his life as a fully fledged schoolboy.

So while this time last year I was feeling sad that he was taking his first steps into formal education, and into the bigger ‘system’ that is our lives, there was still a lot of his life as a little kid in our lives – daycare, my Tuesdays off as a tryhard mum-at-home, kids under 5 get in free to most places, participating in the various preschool kids activities around the place and that sort of thing.

In just over a week that will all be over and he will be a full-time school kid. Kinder is over and real school begins. It’s an exciting time for Juniordwarf. I know he’s looking forward to it. I asked if he was feeling sad because he wouldn’t have his Tuesdays at home with me any more, and he said, ‘No.’ I asked him why, and he said, ‘because I like school.’ I’m hoping that attitude will stick around for as long as possible!

Several parents have told me it’s a big jump from Kinder to Prep, because of both the increase in the time he’ll spend at school and the more formal atmosphere of the prep classroom compared to the kinder one. It will be interesting to see how he copes.

And it will be interesting to see how I cope too, because with the end of Juniordwarf’s ‘little kid’ days, I feel like part of my identity – that of mum-at-home, which has been part of my make-up since 2006 – will go with it. So in a way I am losing two things at once. It is an emotional time for me, and I want to acknowledge this as a significant milestone in my life. Not as significant as the transformation to ‘mum-at-home’ in the first place (and wasn’t that a shock to the system!), but still an event to be marked and reflected on.

I feel OK about being sad about it, and recognising it as an end, because too often I don’t take the time to properly process things and to recognise and acknowledge my feelings. The result is that those things have a habit of coming back and upsetting me all over again. And again. And, um, again.

Writing it down is part of acknowledging how I feel and celebrating the fact that I’ve had five years as a full time and part time mum-at-home. And it’s been the hardest role I’ve ever had to fulfil. Over the years it’s been challenging, frustrating, difficult, stressful, irritating, boring, aggravating. It’s made me cry, question myself, doubt myself, dislike myself and want to run away and never come back.

It’s also been fun, relaxing (occasionally), and enjoyable, has made me smile and laugh, and has given me the most wonderful moments I never want to forget.

Of course, I know all of this will continue as I continue my journey as Juniordwarf’s mum – and I would have had all of those feelings no matter what type of motherhood role I’d played up until now. It’s all part of being a mum – well a parent really I guess.

But despite it feeling like a loss now, saying goodbye to mum-at-home is not so much a loss as it is another change in my role as Mum.  That role has already changed and evolved many times as Juniordwarf has grown and changed, and it will continue to do so as he continues to grow, reach milestones and face the many challenges that are before him. But perhaps this feels different to the more subtle changes that have already happened, because, unlike the gradual changes, it will be a sudden stopping – much like the end of breastfeeding was for us. I guess it’s like the feeling that some mothers have when their children start high school. It must be a similar sudden and clear-cut change.

I really don’t know, but I’m glad I had the opportunity to spend as much time at home with Juniordwarf as I have over the past five and a half years. Despite how hard it’s been juggling work and home, I don’t think I would have done things differently. It worked for us. Mostly. So as well as farewell to mum-at-home, this is a time to celebrate everything she has done over the past five and a half years.

________________________________________

Juniordwarf’s educator very kindly took some photos for us today of his last day at daycare. Thank you K. They are great, and are a wonderful memory of his last day.

Thank you to all of the wonderful people who have worked with Juniordwarf both at the centre and through Family Day Care. We will miss you.

Walking out the gate for the last time.

the farmer and the musician

I wasn’t going to write a post today.

The 365 Project is over and I can relax and skip a few days, posting only when something that interests me happens, or when I want to talk about something.

But today had its moments so I wanted to share them.

Firstly, we have a huge yellow plum tree in our back yard, which has been sadly neglected and which we forget to prune every year, without fail.

It grows yellow plums – obviously – and Slabs turns them into plum jam and plum sauce. A few weeks ago they started dropping off the tree, and Junoirdwarf went around the yard picking them up and putting them in the back of his Tonka truck.

This was because, he said, he is now a farmer.

So this morning we found him standing on a chair picking the unripe plums from the tree and putting them into an empty pot.

All part of being a farmer.

Fast forward to this afternoon, when Juniordwarf and I had a little disagreement and he went outside. A bit later I went to look for him and found him in the vege garden pushing all the plums he’d picked this morning into the polystyrene box that his carrots are growing in.

He said he was planting the plums so they’d grow.

I really hope they don’t . . .

As well as being a farmer, Juniordwarf is also a musician. We make a lot of mix tapes (or whatever the CD equivalent is), and Slabs has made several for Junordwarf of his favourite songs of the moment.

The other day he announced that he would be making his own CD, with 16 songs on it, because that’s a good number. Not only does he name all the songs, but now he sets himself up a venue to perform, complete with drum and pedals, and sings the whole CD.

Here are some photos of today’s performance, in which the Tarja (former singer from Nightwish) song “Anteroom of Death” was followed by two of his own compositions: “Doodlebum” and “Race Your Feet so You’re the Bum”.

If you’re wondering about the outfit, so are we. 

Late this morning, Juniordwarf got changed. He said he wanted to dress up in green. Presumably no further explanation is necessary.

P365 - Day 361 - the pirate caterpillar (and year in review 8/12)

Juniordwarf helped me in the garden.

What I mean is, he played in his sandpit while I spent hours clearing out vegetation from various parts of our yard. Then he wanted me to fill his little clam shell pool up.

I didn’t want to say no, because I’d already told him we weren’t going to the pool today and I didn’t want to disappoint him again. But the clam shell pool is located off to the side of the house, under shadecloth, in the fenced off area where the dog can’t go, and I was working in the main yard.

He’s not at the age where he can be left unsupervised in water, so I had a problem.

Luckily there was a shady area just near where I was working, and the beauty of the clam shell pool is that it can be detached from the sand pit part and moved. So that's what I did, and Juniordwarf played happily in his pool while I continued the clearing out process.

Win-win.

After he got out and had dried off, I told him he could put his same clothes back on. He didn’t want to, and insisted wearing an ensemble that included the green stripy pants that I’d made for his Very Hungry Caterpillar costume for Book Week. 

Ok, well they weren’t intended for general wear, but he didn’t seem to care. He put on his antenna headband and his pirate eye patch and announced that he was ‘the Pirate Caterpillar’.

I’m just glad that something I made has actually been worn more than once. 

And . . . now that I have my very own sewing machine (courtesy of Lil Sis, Mr Tall and my mother), I’ll be able to get out the pants pattern I used for the costume and make some more pants for Juniordwarf that fit around the waist and in the legs – something that has proven to be more and more of a challenge when shopping for clothes.

Year in Review (8/12)

Since my Project 365 is rapidly coming to an end, I’m going post a link to my favourite post from each month this year over the last 12 days of the year.

August: Giving the inner critic the boot

A post, and a day, I am really proud of. Somewhere between the miserable post from July that I posted yesterday and this one, I started to feel like I could make some of the changes in my life that I think I need to make. This is an example. 

P365 - Day 358 - getting ready for Santa (and year in review 5/12)

I know I’m a bit ‘bah humbug’ about Christmas, and this year it feels like it’s snuck up on me faster than usual and I’ve been so busy that I haven’t got organised and just haven’t felt very festive at all.

But this hasn’t stopped Juniordwarf, and his excitement has slowly but surely rubbed off on me.

He is so excited and it’s so much fun to see. He’s been talking about it non-stop and he has his heart set on getting a Harry Potter book from Santa.

(We’ve had several chats with him explaining that Santa can’t bring kids everything they want, and suggesting that he not get his hopes up for everything on his list so that he’s not disappointed if everything doesn’t turn up. We’re hoping that the “scary teeth” he wanted, and his big surprise present will make up for the disappointment.)

I even elicited his cooperation to tidy his room (a bit) before he went to bed in case Santa couldn’t get in there to leave his presents. (Yes, I did stoop to that. And I know I’m not the only one who did . . . now it’s just a matter of how to get him to do it on the other 364 days of the year.)

Tonight we hung up his Santa sack (or “Zak” as he calls it, getting confused with the dog that he never knew) for Santa to put his presents in. I asked him if he wanted to put a snack out for Santa, so he left out a couple of biscuits and a cup of water (well, we don’t want Santa to be drink-driving, do we?)

He was just thrilled to be doing all this, and we loved watching him. It’s the first time he’s really gotten into the whole Santa thing, and it really is good fun!

I can’t wait to see his face tomorrow morning.

Year in Review (5/12)

Since my Project 365 is rapidly coming to an end, I’m going post a link to my favourite post from each month this year over the last 12 days of the year.

May: I love Mum

My first hand made gifts from Juniordwarf. I was really touched. It still has pride of place on the fridge.

P365 - Day 350 - report day

Juniordwarf got his end of year report today. 

It spoke of his enthusiasm, his willingness to do what is asked of him and his curiosity. Of all the ‘core markers’ for Kinder students, there was only one that he didn’t meet, so he has made a lot of progress since the middle of the year. That’s been really obvious to us, especially over the last couple of months.

Slabs and I are both so pleased at the progress he’s made this year.

His teacher mentioned this morning how much Junoirdwarf's drawing had improved.

From this at the start of the year:

A face

To this in June:

Juniordwarf

And, just this week, to this:

Juniordwarf's Teacher

It’s exciting to watch him grow and change – sometimes it seems to happen overnight.

I love the way he is now. He has his moments where I would gladly ship him off to his Grandmother’s for a day (or a week, or . . . no, not really), but I’m sure all parents feel like that sometimes. I’m learning that feeling like that doesn’t mean I love him any less, that it’s OK to feel like that every now and then, and that it doesn’t mean I’m a bad parent.

He’s so curious about why things are the way they are, and what would happen if  . . ., and what is this for. And how do you spell that, and what does this word say.

I’m trying to encourage him to figure stuff out for himself and to instill in him the confidence that he can do it, but also to make sure he knows if he needs help his Dad and I will be there.

Despite the difficulties I’m having, this is a wonderful time in his life – one we won’t get to experience again – and I can’t wait to see what he does next.

P365 - Day 345 - Kangaroo Cook (11/12/2011)

A while ago Juniordwarf started talking about a character called Kangaroo Cook. I assumed that it was a character from a book he’d read at school or a DVD he’d seen somewhere.

I searched on the library catalogue and I googled, but to no avail, I couldn’t find anything that remotely resembled Kangaroo Cook. All I got was websites on how to cook kangaroos.

If anyone is any the wiser about this please let me know; I’d love to find out if it’s an actual character, or something he made up himself.

Anyway, he’s started telling stories about Kangaroo Cook. Fairly basic stories, but he talks about several events that follow a logical sequence, which is a fairly recent development for him. The stories seem to be based on what Juniordwarf has done.

All the while, I assumed Kangaroo Cook was a kangaroo with human characteristics, like Spot the dog.

Not so.

We recently found out that Kangaroo Cook is not a kangaroo, but a little boy. He's five years old and he lives in Glenorchy (or sometimes North Hobart), and his best friend is Kangaroo Burn.

It’s great to hear him tell the stories. He usually says the title of the story and then ‘by Juniordwarf’.  Yesterday while he was in the little wading pool at our friends’ place he told the story ‘Kangaroo Cook Goes Swimming. By Lynley Dodd.’

I thought I’d film him and then transcribe the story so he could make his own picture book. I missed a bit yesterday while he was telling the story in the pool, so this morning I sat him down on the couch and got him to tell the story again.

It was very entertaining.

Once we’ve written the book we’ll work out a way to publish it on the blog. 

This might take a while . . .

P365 - Day 333 - boats!

A while ago Juniordwarf made some boats out of milk cartons at daycare and Slabs helped him put sails on them and let him sail them in the bath.

Well at least one of the boats is still lying around (without the sails), and today Juniordwarf decided that he was going to sail it in the bath again.

(This might stem from the fact that he seems to have taken up having baths again, having refused for months and months, ever since the water ran dirty one day after some work had been done on the pipes and made him terrified of baths. The other day he had a bath with Slabs, loved it and is all keen to get back in – and practise his swimming at the same time.)

Next thing I knew he’d cut up some paper for sails and was in the cupboards looking for skewers to use as masts and blue tack to stick them in.

Once the boat was completed, I had to run some water in the bath tub for him so he could sail his boat, as well as the toy Spirit of Tasmania he picked up on one of our trips.

At least that kept him busy for a few minutes.

I never did get my puppet show, or my beans, though.

P365 - Day 332 - beans!

When I got home from work this afternoon, the first thing Juniordwarf wanted to show me was some beans that he and his friends had grown at their daycare centre. He was so excited about it, I just had to smile.

Slabs said that they were the first thing Juniordwarf showed him when he went to pick him up from daycare, and that he was really excited then too.

Juniordwarf said that he and I would share them tomorrow. Somehow they are going to be present at a puppet show that Juniordwarf will be doing tomorrow. He's doing this to make up for missing out on the puppet show at the Child and Family Centre site celebration on Saturday that was cancelled due to the rain. I'm not sure that he actually even has any puppets, so this might be interesting.

I love five year old logic.

I'm still not too sure what the connection between the beans and the puppet show is. I'm sure I'll find out though.

A good thing about all this was that he was so proud of his beans that he let me take a photo of him holding them. He does that now: stuff he's proud of can be photographed (sometimes), but he has to completely over-pose for it. Once I've taken the photo, he says: "that was a good one".

I'm just happy he lets me take a photo, because he's become very resistant to photos lately.

Now I just wish the stuff in our vege garden would grow so he can get excited about that too.