Some days I really do wonder if I do anything at all. I have big worries....I always worry. We started the day out with Dave reading the news paper. I'm not sure if our daughter was listening to him or if it is that Christchurch just seems to be in the news a lot that she's interested
She drew this green triangle like thing with the blue patch above and told me that the green was Christchurch and the blue was the sky. I asked her if she wanted to label it (and old wash over from the drafting days of landscape design for me).
Yup... so I called out the letters for her as she wrote them down.
We talked about how people were fund raising to rebuild Chch after the earthquake and I described how a bolder rolled down a hill and right through a persons house. We talked about money and I wrote down on a scape bit of paper a little diagram of a bolder rolling down the hill...smashing the house...I drew a rough outline of NZ and talked about the distance from our town to Wellington...then catching the boat over the straight then from there down to Chch...how many days it would take and how cold it was there compared to our house.
I wrote down how much some one had donated $50,000 I talked about how Chch was often called the 'garden city'.....and then felt that maybe as my daughter looked away I had gone a little too far.
She asked me to leave her alone.
She called me back to show me she had added to her picture some trees and shrubs....wow cool. I love the trees.
We spent some time hunting in the garden. Both children picked their own apples and started munching on them. Both are very aware of each other and try to do everything the same...but both seem to help each other in getting what ever they deem as equal too.
My daughter loves to play 'House' or 'care for babies' she has a lot of soft toys. She is not very interested in much else in the area of play at the moment and has never really played alone till her brother started to play alone.
My daughter has often helped me with the washing and will fold nappies with me. Today she was using a rag to fold into a nappy for her teddy...she had done it previously with a different rag and it worked fine...she as really confused at why it was not working with this one.
"Mum why when I fold this it does not work out into a triangle?"
I unthinking looked over from my own pile of folding and said "cause that is a rectangle not a square". I could see the change in her face as she moved the corners back and forward a few more times before discarding that cloth and getting a square one.
I don't remember hearing her working on the black board but all of a sudden there was a square which she very proudly told Dave all about once he finished work.
At the moment there is a lot of chicken care with our daughters new "babies". My father dropped off a 'heat lamp' the other day and our daughter was so keen to use it but most of the day it was so warm they didn't need it. We talked about why they need heat but it kind of does not seem to go in and she wants to take them outside to play in the courtyard...sigh.
I have over the last few months been very aware of rushing or being too tense and have made a great effort to keep calm...it works some times.
My Mother was helping my daughter collect some dry grass for the chickens the other day and my daughter was recounting at how she was told to take bigger lots and to hurry along.
As I helped her today I was aware that I kept saying 'Oh just watch out for my fingers' but tried to keep the rush out of my voice...I wonder what she'll recount to Dave when he helps her.
In the last part of the day my daughter decided she was going to work in her office (aka her bedroom). I played along with her as I cleaned up handing her 'memos' aka books/papers/art works etc. She worked hard for about half an hour writing out her full name on tickets and writing out letters which were posted into the laundry basket which she later collected then filed.
She did a bit more writing then came out and showed me her last bit of work for the day.
Wow.
Up until today we have only had letters which she has been working on trying to sort them into words. But today after showing her on my little bit of scrap paper this morning a dollar sign - for the first time - which she at the time to me did not seem at all interested in wrote out $34 dollars. I don't know where the 3 and 4 came from as we've never wrote them before or even worked with them except when talking about what is 3+3+3+3 and on and on.
My son not to be outdone went to his office - the post office??? He was working hard with my Nana. He had a cellphone in his pocket (nappy) and was on his bike saying all sorts of wonderful things.
Dave and I talked tonight about how our children at about 2yrs are "Me do" our daughter and "Self" our son. Our son really wants to be the same as his big sister and do everything. He climbs up onto the kitchen bench and starts helping. Today he was mixing he bread dough....think calm and let him do it. This evening both children wanted to help so I got them buttering the pop-a-dom which he just loved.
So there was a heap more in there...but really its time for bed.
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