Our Sundial

Yesterday A. was keen to explore his fascination with measuring time when I suggested that maybe we could make our own sundial. Thankfully the weather was on our side and we got all day sun, which is just more evidence of the fact that we are enjoying an early spring.

A.:  "We actually made a thing that goes around and around - a sundial.

We saw what the time was and we left a heater there so we could draw around the shadow with chalk.

We put the number of the hour with I and X so you could see what the time was. Next day I stood in the circle and I could see what time it was from where my shadow was.

Right now I can't seem to find my shadow so I can't do it."

It's really cool that he gets the ability to explore the features and limitations of his experiments. He knows that the clock on the computer works with electricity. We have little discussions about this and he knows that there is a battery inside the computer so that the computer can remember what date and time it is. One of our friends has a computer with a flat battery so the computer can't remember what date or time it is.

M. was keen to be hanging out with her family. She liked the idea of playing with chalk and also likes standing up next to the heater that we were using as a gnomon.

I like being in a community where our play can spill out onto the curb and it is refreshing to not need to gate my children in, though the property manager did suggest I bring it up with the landlord. I have worked with the boys since they were smaller than their sister so that they know to look out for cars, and not cross driveways where cars might be pulling out. In some ways it's easier to "baby proof" the babies than to try and make their play environment safe. It just means that you have to be present, and include them in the decision making process, make them aware of possible consequences,  rather than making unilateral decisions about their safety. They don't have full planning skills from a young age and have very little understanding of consequences, but the more they are involved in their own planning the better they get over time. The last thing I want is 9 year olds who can't cross the street unless I am there to hold their hands.

There are lots of things that go straight over A.'s head, but I see no reason to not mention them. We used Roman numerals for our sundial and he had not encountered them before. He may not know how it all works but it will look familiar to him next time he sees them on a fancy watch or clock, or in an Asterix comic or something. I can never plan for where he is going to encounter these things, but the more he gets shown the more chance he has of seeing connections between things, and I learnt when he was very small, that if things are familiar then they are "cool".

Settling in a new town

Community BBQ and decorating discussion :)

Networking with others and being part of family and the wider community has always been something that is important to me. Before I had children I was living in a flat in the same neighbourhood as where I grew up. I like to know who I am living near, so it was really nice when we moved into our new flat in Palmerston North and found an information pack for new residents including the names of neighbourhood community organisers and a how-to on building compost heaps. The boys and I took great joy in constructing our own compost bin soon after, helping to count, match and hand-tighten nuts and bolts, hiding inside the empty bin, and foraging for dry leaves and sticks to form a base for our compost pile.

We had been here a couple of days when the next door neighbour came over to introduce herself. I'd have ventured out earlier but my husband had come down with hand, foot and mouth and we weren't sure of the status of the children. Starting to go out and meet up with people has been put on the back burner since we got here for fear that we might transmit the dreaded lurgy.

The weekend after we arrived we were invited down to the corner for a BBQ and kōrero about a seat that has been built on the outside of the fence down the end of the street. We were invited to contribute ideas about how we should decorate it. The boys had fun climbing on the newly built seat, and A. discussed his ideas for the colour-scheme with neighbours from up the street. S. wanted to have ago at painting, and started to decorate the picnic table before anyone noticed. The paint was cleaned off before it had a chance to dry, and the neighbours were very understanding and saw the funny side of it.

The boys clearly loved being involved. They have often commented that they would like to go to another BBQ and mentioned how much they enjoyed our neighbour's banana loaf. Clearly the quickest way to a child's affections is through the stomach.

We are really looking forward to getting to meet and spend time with more people. Today I had the second request for us to go out and see someone, and now we are past the contagion we can start inviting visitors over. Our first (non-family) visitor is expected tomorrow afternoon!

Chasing Bubbles

 S. comes up with all the best ideas. Today he was in the laundry with me and saw our bubble wands and asked, "Can we have bubbles?!" I have been very busy lately, packing for our move out of town, and the kids have been a little stressed as a result. Not only do they have so many changes at the moment but they also have a mother who is trying to split her attention a few too many ways, so it really helps when I take their lead and just go with it.

Bubbles are cool for so many reasons.
For starters.. "Wheee!!! Bubbles!!"
And, well, they are like tiny glass rainbows!...
and they make wind visible!...
and they are interactive!...
Just as importantly though, bubbles are a chance for my kids to have my attention. I am outside with them facilitating and can't be lured into folding laundry, or fixing a snack, or checking my email in the middle of what we are doing. Apart from that, they give kids a chance to chase and catch which is something that is innately human. They are like cat toys like that (in fact A.'s cat Felix started chasing the bubbles while the boys were doing the same). They are an activity that I can do while I am carrying the baby on my back, and yet I don't have to run around myself. If we have been inside and doing sitting down things for too long, running around chasing bubbles is a great invigorator. I also find that my children's enthusiasm tends to peter out just as the liquid starts to, but that may just be my luck.

Thank goodness bubbles are generally pretty cheap. Buying a bottle of liquid might set you back $7 at a toy store (in New Zealand at least) but making your own is normally pretty easy and inexpensive. If you are making your own you can always let the kids do the mixing too. It never hurts to think of the process rather than the product, though. Everything involving making and mixing processes is an adventure for us. We discuss a lot about guessing the results, and experimenting to find out which things work, and which don't. I find that it helps to warn my oldest child that things might not work well before we try something new, otherwise he can get very disappointed and grief-stricken.

 I seem to have one son who is a concrete thinker and one who is a lot more creative and abstract.

A: "I know ALL about bubbles. They're made with air and they pop when they touch a hand or the ground."

S: "I think they might fly up to SPACE!!"

Learning the Ropes

Last Monday the weather was not so great. I was anticipating yet another stuffy day inside trying to find something to stop the boys from scrapping with each other. A. was already whining that he wanted to use the computer or watch something. This is his go-to habit when he is at a loose end. Thankfully his little brother is more likely to look around for something to do, so when he said "Mummy! I want to tie this rope to the tree!" I was thrilled to say "Good idea!" and open the front door so he could run out to play. It's no surprise that his big brother didn't want to be left out so he followed to see what was happening.

It often starts out with quiet thought with S. and then his brother comes along and tries to steal the thing he's working on. He just feels lonely or bored and hasn't got the most elegant of social skills yet. The more the boys play together the more sophisticated social tools that A. uses. I still have to remind them all the time that if it's not working it's best to explain what you are trying to do. A. seems to learn best by explaining.

The other day at Playcentre there was a visit from someone from one of the local swim schools, explaining about how to be safe in and near water. A. latched on to the concepts that she was explaining to them which related to a picture book she shared with them. A. stopped her all the time and explained what was happening in the story, including what would happen if the picture was different "That's safe at the pool, because they have their Dad with them, but if he wasn't there? That's NOT SAFE!". (I couldn't help but notice the embarrassed smiles of the other parents... his incessant interruptions would have been considered "disruptive" in a class of 20 or more children, but were within range of normal for a preschool group - I began to understand the frustrations expressed by my teachers from school... ok let's face it, I still hadn't grown out of that habit even by university!).

S. sems to learn a lot through doing. "I do it my-SELF!" has been his focus for about a year now. He is only just learning how to tie knots and it is amusing how much each of the boys learns from each other. S. is often the inspiration behind the play, and A. is great at developing the ideas. If it sounds like fun S. will often let A. be the leader, even to the point of pushing him arounds, but S. will remove himself from the situation after a while and just go and do something quietly by himself. 

After tying rope between trees, "We made a tripping thing to trap people!" and then keeping people safer, tying ropes around trees, and then tying ropes around each other, the exhausting game of tug-o-war caused more stress than it was worth, so they boys decided it was time to do something else. The cats had come out to be around people and were playing a mad chasing game up and down the trees, and S. decided he wanted to climb the tree too. He's quite a good climber. Once he finally decided he was too cold and he asked me to help him down. I asked him if he felt safe and he said he didn't. "Okay, I'll help you... you can put your foot there... now lower yourself down... now your feet are almost there, you can let go! You did it! See I said I'd help you!"

Both boys are pretty good at knowing what they can and can't do. S. is quite confident. A. tends to overthink things and make himself nervous. Sometimes I wonder if he cultivates a sense of himself as a victim so that he can abdicate responsibility and feel better when he's rescued... or feel the phantom strength of indignation when he is left to languish on his own. Maybe I too am overthinking things, but it feel like if I can just find the source of the problem, root up the need, then I will be able to address it and find him a way of looking at things that will leave him feeling like he can be in charge, and pro-active, rather than letting his life happen to him.

Moving House

I recently found out that my husband was being offered a job in a different city. This will be the 4th move for us since moving from Christchurch in January 2011 when we left our home at the foot of the hills to stay on a lifestyle block in the Manawatu so as to escape the aftershocks of the September 2010 earthquake. Soon after we left there was another major earthquake that destroyed more than the previous quake had and we were very lucky to be out of harm's way. My parents' house has since been fixed and in parts rebuilt around them.

We only stayed in the Manawatu for 9 months before needing to relocate to find work. The flat that we first moved into was damp and poky and I spent some dreadful and heavily pregnant and nauseated months there fearing that I would never be able to cope as the parent of three children. Thankfully everything worked a lot better for us when we moved to a new place that had sunlight and topsoil, so I could have a garden again.

However when we moved to the new flat my older son (then 4) asked me "when are we going to move to our new house?". It seems that people can adjust to any number of circumstances but it's probably not ideal for my sons to be moving from place to place. We have the security of having family with us but it does them (and me) no good to be uprooting and moving around. I fear that my elder boy will be much like me and have his roots fairly deep once he settles some place, and he does not like transitions much... but he seems to handle them a lot better than I did at his age. This is possibly because for all the moving that we have done he has always had the closeness and support of his family as the most important parts of his world. We are his home.

The place we will be moving into.

We may like having a home base, but it doesn't stop us from going on road-trips. Last Thursday we had to drive 140km to a different town to go and look at flats, and once we had found one we then had to drive back again. I may have to do the trip again on Wednesday to sign the tenancy agreement (but I'm hoping a fax will do the job). The Christmas before last we drove 250km to Waipukurau for a family lunch, and then came home via Granny's place (a round trip of 550km). I hope that we can eventually settle some place where we don't have to make ridiculous commutes, but for now thankfully my children are very forgiving, and at least they have each other for company and entertainment.

Exploring Google Earth - A. finds a picture of a humpback whale.
He's also been obsessively clock watching.

I have been showing A. some of the places we have visited on Google Earth. The thing he likes most is Street View, and how it wooshes around like you are flying. I would like to get a globe so that they have something concrete to manipulate when they find places. Recently, one of our best friends went to Sweden and we were fascinated to woosh around the Google Earth from New Zealand to Sweden to see how far it was. We aren't moving that far.

Thankfully we are moving back to a place where we know people. We will be back in the Manawatu, and surrounded by others who are also home-educating. The boys will be able to see other children of similar ages and catch up with old friends they may barely remember. It is also a larger house than the one we are currently in which will mean more room for making things and doing big...stuff! It's all a big adventure!

I have made up a calendar with pictures on it so that the boys can follow our progress and see how long we have to go and when things are happening. It is a continuation of the calendar I made for them when we went on holiday to see their grandparents in Christchurch in summer time. Through using the calendar, my older son recognises numbers, weekends, regularly scheduled events like his swimming lessons, and even my 3 year old can see pictures that remind him of past events like birthday parties and Christmas, and future events like trips, dentist appointments and... moving day.

Cross Post - a note from 2 years ago

I just now stumbled upon an old blog post from another blog I used to write. I wondered if I should copy and share it here and curiously checked the post date, and found today's date. "It HAS to be!" I thought. So a note from the past, posted 2 years ago (to within 15 minutes) 

Stop Picking on my Baby

"Ewww! You smell gross! Stop doing such yucky, stinky poos!!"

Today I asked someone to stop picking on my child. "How would you feel if you were sneered at and hassled because you had done a poo in your clothes, and you couldn't help it?"

Somewhere along the way people seem to have forgotten that when they are talking to a pre-verbal child, they are talking to a person. My 16-month-old child is not oblivious to derision. He understands when someone wrinkles up their nose in sneers of disgust, and he is powerless to do anything about it. But I'm not.

If there's one thing that has influenced my choice of preferred authors on parenting, it's my preconception that babies are people too. Authors such as Barbara Coloroso, Louise Porter, Alfie Kohn, Thomas Gordon... they are all quick to point out that relationships we form with our children are the real persuasive power that we have in their lives. They want to do as those around them do, and the only way they are going to learn how to treat others is by our example.

I once heard, anecdotally, that Japanese parents treat their baby as though they are a guest. Whether this is true or not is neither here nor there, but I liked the idea. A guest is assumed to be ignorant of local custom, is provided for, and is gently instructed how best to get on with others. They are treated with respect. Somewhere along the way someone forgot to pass this memo on to parents who talk over their children's heads, or say mean things to their little ones assuming that the child doesn't know what it means. Just because your baby can't speak doesn't mean they can't comprehend what you are saying, or what your body language is conveying.

Okay, so nobody is going to say it's bad parenting to pick up a child and say "you smell bad, darling... time for a change"... then again, if they are anti-nappies/diapers they might, but I digress... my point is that some parents and family members are not sharing a joke with their kids, they are making a joke at the child's expense. They seem to have forgotten one of the cardinal rules of play;

"It's not a good game unless everyone is enjoying it."

We teach this to 4-year-olds but somewhere along the way some people fail to engage empathy when dealing with kids. They lie to children to play tricks on them, they mock them in front of others, they laugh at them for not knowing or not being able to do things that they have no experience at. In schools this is called bullying, but it's the normal way to parent in many families.

A boy I once knew, aged about 7, was brought by his father to meet up with some people. They were all going to have PIZZA! He was overjoyed at being invited along to such a special dinner, and with his father's friends too! He walked in the door and was told "Sorry. You have to go home. You are too late. We already had the pizza without you." I remember the look of shock, disappointment, confusion and hurt in a child's face when others said "no no no....". He was feeling completely lost in an adult social situation with grown ups laughing at him ("you should have seen his face!! *haw haw haw*).

I have been criticised for being thin skinned. I don't like to use sarcasm or mean humour because I find it distasteful. I know that some parents jibe their children because they see it as important life learning. They think it is important for children to learn that this sort of thing is inconsequential. Learn to get over yourself. Man up. I'm okay with parents making decisions like this consciously, but in my perfect world, carers for our next generation ought to be reflective and thoughtful about the decisions they make, and too many people bully their kids not because they are making a mindful choice, but because they can, and it makes them feel powerful.

For now, the goal that I have decided on is that I will be truthful with my children. I will be kind and empathic with my children. I will be reliable and I will be fair and I will not beat them down with words. I will not always succeed in this. Everyone gets tired, or angry, or exasperated at times, but our aspirations are what keeps us improving, and in those quiet moments? My children are not "icky"... they just need my care.

Local History

Today we went for a visit to Te Papa Museum. We were going as a Playcentre excursion to hear stories for celebrating Matariki, but once we were done that, we decided to hang around and check out some more things. There are loads of things to do and see. There is even a space where kids can just sit and read books and do puzzles which is a great place for me to sit and feed the baby while the boys keep themselves busy where they won't be tempted to wander off.

Today A. wanted to have a look at the Earthquake House. It was a blast from the past for me, as it was a house that was kitted out with a TV and radio that were the sort of things common in houses when I was growing up. It was a little odd to see something from my childhood in a museum, which are supposed to be places where old things are, right? I suppose it's all relative. The other thing that was a little odd was that I have now been in an earthquake more vigorous than the one simulated in this display, and the earthquakes in my hometown were the reason we moved away from Christchurch.

S. took great delight in pressing the buttons that play recordings of children describing native birds. He liked some of them so much that he would listen to them over and over again, especially the ones with children laughing.

After we had explored Te Papa a bit the boys told me they didn't want to go home. I asked them where they wanted to go and, because we had nobody to visit, I decided to take them to see the Massey Memorial. We took a scenic drive around the Wellington harbour and a short bush walk up to the memorial. On our walk we saw some signs and discussed poisoning possums and rats, and how to keep ourselves safe from poisons. We also saw some poisonous fungi. The boys loved running around the giant marble edifice. They asked me to help them climb up on things, something I wouldn't normally help with. I generally don't help my boys climb up things because I want them to be certain that they are judging the risk of being up that high, and so that they know if they can climb up by themselves it's not impossible to climb down. This keeps them from climbing in places that they are too little to handle... but in this case it meant that S. couldn't see the fantastic view of the harbour, so I set aside my rule of thumb.

I explained to A. how I used to visit this place to play games with some of my friends. I don't know if he realised that I was an adult when I used to do this, but he was interested to hear all the same. I said we played a game where this was a huge castle and the walkway was a long corridor, and on the walls hung beautiful tapestries and hanging on the marble pillars were the great banners of the noble houses... and the ceiling was at some times a huge painting and other times was a mass of brilliant glowing stars... "you were pretending?" he asked, and I told him, yes.

We went for a bush walk further up the hill and it took quite some convincing to get S. to turn back rather than going through the gate that had an expansive warning about how this land was for Ministry of Defense persons only and if we were caught we could be locked up and searched. A. found a different path and S. was very enthused to be able to climb up and down the hills, looking at the sea and the plants. He has been very interested in cute little things lately, and today (after stuffing my bag pocket full of little rocks), he took a few minutes to investigate bright yellow broom flowers (which he called buttercups). He wanted to walk right to the end of the track but his older brother was keen to get home for lunch so we compromised and S. got to sit for a few minutes in the shade of a mahoe tree, before we turned back for home. A. is getting quite good at spotting tui in the trees.

Something that I have been thinking a lot on since I was reminded of it in a book the other night, is preserving passion in our kids. I am a pretty passionate person and I can easily squash my children's explorations by just taking too much interest myself. There is modelling fascination and methods for working with things, and then there's being more interested in it than they are, to the point where they give up and leave you to it. The way I see it, kids never get to feel like they are discovering the secrets of the universe if every time they share their discoveries with you, you say "oooh! yep that's right... and not just that... but this, this and this!!!!". They never get to feel like the expert, if there is someone with more experience ready to take that title from them. Now I have to walk the narrow path of being interested, but not stepping ahead - taking their hands, but letting them be the guide. Now all I have to do is give them these experiences and find out what makes their heads turn.