Laura’s Life

Easter may have been a week ago but today we went on another Easter Egg Hunt.  This one was organised by the nursery / playgroup that the boys attend and was held at Kilmory Gardens.  It had been an awfully dreich morning but thankfully the rain clouds parted and the sun emerged for the duration of our time there.  The object was to read the map to navigate our way around the gardens finding pictures of eggs and colouring in a series of twelve eggs accordingly at each location.  It was fun!

Aidan finding and colouring his first egg.

I taught Aidan about dendrochronology so he counted the rings on this tree stump to discover that it was 44 years old.  My wee maths nerd!

Orin helping his Daddy to push Evan in the buggy.

Aidan with his sheet of coloured eggs - just two more to find!

Colouring in the penultimate egg.

Evan acting as navigator, reading the map.

Wherever there are twigs there are swashbuckling opportunities!

And just because I never go for very long without taking a botanical photo, here is a picture of a narcissus.

Now you just know from the subject line that this is not going to be a “bless my children for their wonderful behaviour” post, right?

 Orin is into everything right now.  Already today he has made himself a “special milkshake” with things he could get a hold of in the kitchen and just a short while ago I discovered that he had given Evan a makeover.  He styled his hair.  Using my moisturiser.

Of course, while I was telling Orin off and getting a wet flannel to clean Evan with, I also made sure to grab my camera.

I guess Orin has a future as a beautician and hair stylist!

I have been using a sticker reward chart with Aidan for a couple of years now and, so long as he is not in a red mist rage, the lure of a sticker can often get him to quit unwanted behaviours and it also helps to incentivise good behaviours.  I gave up doing the charts that were linked to specific targets since he was smart enough to ensure that he did those five things each day but then he would misbehave in other respects.  So we evolved the system to just having to collect 30 stickers for a reward, which means I can award a sticker for whatever behaviour I need to promote at any given time.  Works like a charm!  So I am now feeling that Orin, at two and a half, is needing to learn about the consequences, good and bad, of his behaviour.  Anything to combat the terrible twos.  So I decided to make them both new reward charts.  The idea is that each sticker is placed inside the outlined circles and once all the circles are filled a “prize” is due.  Aidan has slightly more circles than Orin because he is capable of earning more by correcting his behaviour and he also has more patience than Orin.  By request, Aidan’s is on a space theme and Orin’s is on a sea creature theme.  I am going to laminate them so that, once filled, the old stickers can be peeled off and the charts used over again.  So fingers crossed the system works as well for Orin as it does for Aidan!

Some video footage (about a minute long) of Aidan and Evan playing with KNex.  Except that they are using the sticks as lightsabers.  Of course.  If you listen closely, you can hear Evan making the swooshing noises for his lightsaber.  Those Jedi start young don’t you know!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=ttn6K0Abhvo

My sisters, Aimee and Leanne, have had these Italian charm bracelets for a while now.  Last time I went to visit, Aimee presented me with my very own bracelet so that I chould be their triplet.  Having filled up all of her charms, she had enough links to make me a bracelet.  It’s the kind of kitsch trinket that I think is cool so I was very chuffed.

As I trawled e-bay looking at the various charms I could add to the bracelet (which are all dirt cheap!), it dawned on me that these charm bracelets are somewhat like tattoos for people like me who are way to lily-livered to get inked.  Whereas people go and get a tattoo that represents their personality or different aspects of their life, it is possible for me to pick out charms that kind of say something about me.

So this is what my Italian charm bracelet looks like so far:

Aimee started me off with three: the snail, the flying pig and the gingerbread.  The snail thing is just something that seems to connect we three sisters.  Leanne had pet giant African snails when we were younger and has always liked them and I guess Aimee and I just find them quite cute.  Conversely, I cannot stand the feeling of real snails at all.  But I like my snail charm.  The only problem with it is the antenna stick out a bit and tend to get snagged on things so I may have to remove him.  I have always been a fan of pigs (isn’t everyone?) and have two terracotta flying pigs on my dining room wall, hence that charm.  The gingerbread one is just gloriously random but Orin loves it best because he adores the Gingerbread Man from the ‘Shrek’ movies.

And then I bought the other four charms and added them to my bracelet this morning.  The paint pallet represents my creative side, the butterfly and dragonfly simply appealed to me for glittery girly reasons and the Spongebob is to represent my boys because they are all fans of Spongebob Squarepants and I thought it would amuse them that I had a bit of Spongebob jewellery.

And now I have my eye on a charm with a camera on it ….

And I wonder if there are any with Miss Piggy?

I feel a new addiction coming on!

Aidan and Orin were both at nursery this morning.  They have been learning about Spring so they were taken on a little stroll to a nearby nature pond.  I asked them all about it on the walk home and this is how the conversation went:

ME: So what kind of things did you see at the pond then, boys?

ORIN: There weren’t any turtles.

ME: OK.  But what did you see?

AIDAN: We saw beetles, snails and tadpoles and …

ORIN: Sharks.  There was sharks in it.

AIDAN:  Don’t worry, Mummy.  He’s lying.

ME: Well phew!  So you saw some tadpoles then?

AIDAN and ORIN: Yes.

ME: So, Orin, what are tadpoles?

AIDAN: They are black and sort of round with a tail.

ME: OK.  I meant what do they turn into?

ORIN: Sharks!

ME: OK.  So what did you learn from your trip to the pond?

AIDAN:  Not to touch broken glass.

ORIN: Or you might get cut.

Evan is really getting the hang of this walking lark and, in addition to cruising the furniture, he now likes to zoom around the living room using his baby zimmer.  Of course, his big brothers think his Formula 1 antics are hilarious so they join in.  Crash, bang, wallop!

And some video footage: one of Evan using the zimmer alone; and one of him using it with his brothers helping!

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=SNU07G0EMcI

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=H-q3i9A0G1E

As part of an Easter parcel, Aidan, Orin and Evan received an Easter book featuring Barney, the celebrity purple dinosaur.  They have never watched an episode of ‘Barney’ on television so - since we were up earlier than usual this morning - I decided to switch some ‘Barney’ on.

It really is ghastly!  So saccharine.  All fluffy happiness.  All hugs and morals.  Bleugh!

I decided to voice a thought.  Barney, to my mind at least, looks to be a carnivore.  With those turkey drumstick thighs and atrophied arms he surely must be.  If not a Tyrannosaurus or Velociraptor then one of their meat-munching cousins.  So, that being the case, why does Barney not - when feeling a tad peckish - snack on his small herbivore chums?

Aidan, being scientifically minded, was quite intrigued by this thought and not at all traumatised.  I rather think we both both like to see the episode where Barney finds the cupboards are bare and tucks into a sandwich comprising his friends and a bit of salad.

 We shall not be viewing ‘Barney’ again.

I was vacuuming the living room while Orin was wandering around eating a bowl of dry muesli.

Yes, I am a pudding brain. 

Why oh why do I bother some days?

And on the subject of creating work for myself, why is it that I abide by the request of my children and make them brightly coloured playdough?  Is it so that I can then spend hours scraping concrete hard vivid blue playdough out of the tufts of a wool carpet with a plastic picnic fork so that it will vaccum up as so much blue dust?  I think I need to convince them to have beige coloured playdough!

And why do I let them help me clean the windows when all that happens is they lean on the window in order to reach the furthest corners of it, thus smearing their grubby wee mitts all over the glass?

I guess if I did the obvious and quit cleaning and tidying while they simultaneously mucky and demolish the place then I would be wading knee-deep in child detritus.

So for now at least I am Sisyphus!

On Good Friday, Aidan, Orin and I made Easter nest cakes.  It was lots of messy fun.  Orin ate as many of the eggs as he put in the nests and both he and Aidan enjoyed cleaning up afterwards - their contribution being to lick the spoons and bowl.

On Saturday, despite a very chill wind, the five of us took a hike up Dunaad Hill.  We had to do something to balance out all the calories consumed in chocolate this weekend!

Chris and Evan (who did not complain even once about the cold):

Orin stirring water with a lightsaber:

Evan:

Aidan - who was running all over the place like a mountain goat and giving me palpatations:

Orin protesting!

Yours truly!

And then we went home, warmed up and decorated some hard boiled eggs:

I organised an egg hunt for the boys.  Aidan reckons he is an “expert” seeker so he rushed around the house finding all the eggs on no time.  Orin managed to find a few before Aidan got to them and Evan found one – though his was the golden egg.   The eggs contained playdough so that was the next activity of the day.

Then it was time to roll the boiled eggs that we had decorated the previous day.  We did not want to go on another hike so we just rolled them down the slides in the back garden, which was successful.  The eggs were smashed to smithereens and inedible in no time!

 And then, as if that was not enough, on Monday we went on the Forestry Commission’s egg hunt at Barnluasgan.  The object was to walk around the loch finding various “animals” and rubber ducks with chocolate egg rewards for completed forms as the incentive.  It was bone-chillingly cold and there was even a flurry of snow at one point.  Nevertheless, the boys had great fun solving the clues, finding the animals and ducks, climbing on every tree stump and fighting with twig swords.  They even found a flattened frog on the roadside.  Fun for all the family!  And they scoffed the chocolate eggs in no time.

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And, to conclude, a photo of Aidan giving me a piggy back ride!

(Don’t fret, silly sausages!  It is not an image of child labour but an optical illusion - I was seated on a wooden perch!)