"Bored" Should Be Banned

That 'B' word is banned in our house. To me, its a useless word that does more harm than anything else. Even if a child feels like they don't know what to do with themselves, I don't think they should have a convenient word like that to verbalize it. I've banned myself from using the word for years now and I find that when I do feel that way, its uncomfortable, but somehow, choosing not to verbalize it forces me to do something about the situation.

I get particularly irritated when children's storybooks use that word. Thats how Aaron initially learned the word and this morning, I was reading a new book from the library to Adrian and again, I came across the word in the phrase: "cave baby was bored". It was a wonderful book with beautiful pictures and was about a toddler cave baby who liked to paint. I didn't read that word out but I later heard Aaron reading to Adrian and he read it.

Children don't know how to be bored until they are introduced to that word. And also, I think that very often, some of the things we do as parents, lead a child to that feeling of not know what to do next. Here are two situations that I try to avoid because it often leads to Aaron having the word 'bored' flash in his head - he knows not to say it out loud.

1. The biggest thing for us is any sort of screen time. It doesn't matter if its the TV, Wii games or playing with my dad's HP Touchpad. If I let it go on for longer than 30 minutes, Aaron will firstly become a little rude when asked to stop and then after that, he'll just sit around not know what to do next. Nothing is exciting after screen time, not his books, toys, puzzles or even gardening.

2. The next situation is when I start they day by giving Aaron a choice of the things we could have fun doing. For example, "Hey Aaron, what would you like to do? Go to the park, play monopoly, do some drawing?" I've noticed that if I do that, we'll have a great time doing whatever it was, and then he'll come and ask what we're going to do next. If I leave him to start the day with something that he initiates and then come by later with a suggestion, he seems to be able to go back to doing his own things after that.

So, I try my best not to get myself into those situations but as you can see from what they are, its a bit easier said (or typed) than done. There are movies that I've enjoyed as a child that I want to share with Aaron. Wii is also a lot of fun for the whole family. And with the second situation, it happens when I forget the outcome. I'm often excited about spending the day with them, especially during the school holidays.

Anyway, the bottom line is that I believe that the word should not be read, heard, spoken or even thought. It is such a limiting word.

Mothers Miss Out On Music

I constantly feel that becoming a mother has made me slow in getting to know about things, or to even get to know about things at all. Sure, I've been learning about a whole new world of things but that has come at the cost of knowing things from my old world.

The biggest example would be music. I used to know all the latest songs, who sang them and very often, I knew enough of words to sing along. These days, I'm thankful for the school run in the mornings and afternoon because I get to listen to the radio so I get snippets of what the music world sounds like. To demonstrate how ignorant I was, let me tell you that I kept hearing the song 'Somebody like you' and thinking that I liked it a lot but for a long time I didn't know what it was called and I definitely had no idea who Adele was. It must have taken me a couple of months to find out she sang it and then a couple more months to realize how popular she is. *sigh* On the other hand, I know the name 'Justin Bieber' but I don't know a single one of his song....I'm guessing thats a blessing.

Richard must have some secret stash of music time somewhere because he seems to know everything. If something comes on the radio that I like, and he's in the car, I just ask him about it.

I've had quite a bit of time at home this weekend and a lot of it has been spent on YouTube. This weekend reminds me of being a teenager when I would just sit and listen to music. Now, I sit, watch and listen to music and I've been doing it for most of the weekend. I know who sings what and I know what they look like.

My favourite 'discovery' is this song by the Plain White T's. The song that led me to them was 'Hey there Delilah' from 2007. Yes, its taken me FIVE years to find out the band name. Anyway, my 'discovery' is another song of theirs from 2008.



I don't see myself getting any better at song or artist identification and I don't mind. I've just had a good time 'catching' up on something that I haven't had time to do in a long while.

Day 2 of a Long Weekend

Would you believe it if I said I forgot that this would be a four day weekend? Well, I really did. All I had on my mind was that Aaron would be on holidays for two weeks. So, we didn't make any big plans to go away. Instead, we'll be having little mini trips around Brisbane, and a bit further.

This morning, we took a drive to the Gold Coast and spent the morning at the beach. As usual, it was an easy and relaxing time for everyone. I've always been thankful that we live in a place with such beautiful and thoughtful parks. Today, there was a new addition to the park and its something that even the parents can go crazy on.

I Can Do It!

Adrian thinks he's very grown up these days. He likes to get in and out of the car by himself. If he had the strength, he'd put the seatbelt on himself. He also tells me to leave the bathroom when he needs to go. 

Anyway, this was the funny little guy I found in the morning when I went in to get him dressed. He already had his pants off and his diapers on!

The room was in a complete mess because he threw a lot of stuff about the place to get to the diapers but how could I get angry when I was so busy laughing.

Parents Should Watch Their Own Children In Parks

Aaron and Adrian had a wonderful time at the park today. On the other hand, I had one of the worst days in recent history! It was meant to be a playdate between Aaron and one other little boy from school. We had this arranged from a week before the end of term but by the last day of school, everybody else knew about it and since it was at a park, everybody else was invited to come along if they were available. It turns out that not only did most people from Aaron's class come along but there were plenty of representatives from the other two classes as well. It was a fantastic day for the kids.

So what was wrong with my day? Well, another mother, one I barely know, asked if I would keep an eye on her two children because she forgot to pack their swimming things and wanted to go home to get them. The three bits of information she stressed on were 1) she would be 20 minutes, 2) the son sticks around Aaron anyway and 3) the daughter was 'good'. I didn't like the idea but I (wrongly) felt it wouldn't be nice if I said 'no'.  So I said "OK".

And, she left. The son constantly went in different directions from Aaron. The daughter was 'good' but she would not stop walking everywhere around the park. She did not stand still for one minute of the time her mother was away. Thankfully Aaron is the awesome five year old that he is. I eventually got him to continuously follow the other boy and bring him back to wherever I was. Adrian just followed Aaron wherever he went. I was on a constant lookout for a girl that looked like every other little girl there except for black leather shoes. It was STRESSFUL! What if they fell over? What if they got kidnapped? What if they wandered onto the road? OMG! Never again.

The 20 minutes that the lady said she would take turned into 90 minutes! There was no apology or anything for being so late. I think she might have made a detour elsewhere!

No matter how rude it sounds, I'm never going to agree to that again. I don't want to be responsible for somebody else's children. And, I want to enjoy my own. I want to be able to mingle with the other mothers without seeming distracted and constantly looking elsewhere.

These three photos were taken from where I was initially relaxing. It doesn't show up well in the photos but there were a million children running about.

View to my right. Climbing pyramid where I could easily watch Aaron and Adrian was happy to run underneath:

View to my left, its a flying fox:

View in front of me. Doesn't look like much but there is a water play area behind the slight slope you can see in the middle of the photo. 

So, do you get the picture of how big an area this was? Never again......

Aaron Excavated A T-Rex!

Its true!

A good friend of mine is an awesome gift giver and over the years, she has given Aaron and Adrian many interesting presents (as well as nice clothes!). This mini dinosaur excavation kit was a Christmas present that I only passed on to Aaron three weeks ago. It was the perfect present for a dinosaur obsessed little boy.

The above photo was about as far as he got on that first day. The block was quite hard and the activity lasted him a whole three weeks. He had to hammer at it, then brush off the sandy bits, then hammer some more, going through the process many times before a piece of the skeleton would come off.. It made a really big mess so I would only let him do it when I had time to setup, supervise the work and supervise the cleanup. 

I had the intention of taking many more photos towards the end of the process but the mess was uncontrollable by then. That powder was everywhere and Adrian was helping to transfer it all over the house. 

Here is one final photo of the assembled T-Rex skeleton. 

If anybody is interested in this kit and you haven't seen it in the stores, here's what the box looks like. Not that I'm advertising for them or anything, I just thought it was a great activity.

Odds and Ends

Yes, I've taken a few days off from blogging and even today, I don't quite have it all together. All the hustle and bustle of the term must have caught up with me in this last week and I was completely exhausted. And, to end the term, we had to have it extra busy with a few make up swimming classes for Aaron, make up classes for Adrian's Montessori sessions and a birthday party. I don't know about Aaron but I am very ready to have fortnight off from the school routine. The other mothers are all talking about playdates and the such but I just want to take it easy. I have a huge sleep debt to pay off!

March is over and if you remember back to this post at the beginning of March, I said that I would try to learn something new each month. Did I? Sort of. I had chosen to learn chess because I absolutely don't know anything about it. Unfortunately, all I've done is some superficial reading of it and haven't played a single game yet.

This doesn't mean that I didn't have a new experience though. Its something a lot shallower but early in the month, I found A LOT of grey hairs. They were the hidden kind but I was still feeling very bummed that the day is coming whenI'm going to have them visible. Anyway, it triggered a whole new 'looking good' routine. I have never been one to wear make up - not for work and not for going out either. BUT, for many days this month, I went through the whole cleansing, moisturising and a teeny bit of make up routine. I'm not even sure you can call it make up because all I did was put on some BB Cream, maybe eyeliner and lip balm. Anyway, it took away an extra 5 minutes to my already crammed morning schedule. I have also been blow drying my hair properly with both a hair dryer and a hair brush (instead of my hand). This is a big deal for me because I have long, thick hair and this work is very tiring!

So basically, instead of ending the month with a new skill like playing chess, I have instead tried my hand at making myself look a little nicer. I don't think I want to continue doing this though because I am not sure there has been any significant difference.

Aaron tried something new. Its been done before, by others, and he has read about how they failed but he wanted to give it a go anyway.