The Unscary Scarecrow

My school have a fabulous display of scarecrows displayed at the moment and today we finally succumbed to the requests (demands) to make one of our own. This was partly due to the somewhat alarming collection of perfectly wearable clothing piling up in the 'Clothes For Scarecrow to Wear' pile outside, most of which had been pilfered from wardrobes other than Sophie's own!

It was a bit harder than I had initially imagined to make. We ended up using a pair of straw-stuffed holey tights as arms and running a stake through them for stability. A rubbish bag of straw served as the body, and a plastic supermarket bag the head. Sophie thoughtfully illustrated the scarecrow's frock with pictures of lambs, hay sheds, butterflies and stars and gave it smiling face. Of course all art work must be named. This rule applies to scarecrow faces too.



Caleb is a bit nervy of scarecrows, due to a story we once read about one with a grumpy face. He seems a little unsure of this one, but was happy to attack it with a drill and hammer, so it can't be too frightening!



Oh, and just to make you die laughing (as my dear husband did while taking the photo) this is evidently how I look swinging a hammer. There is a good reason I am usually given the measuring tape!

Owls

Sophie has been begging me to do some paper craft with her lately, and after a friend's baby shower where we made owl bunting, I was inspired to do some owl stuff. Despite Soph's vehement distaste of the birds already hanging above her window, she also quite liked the idea.

We used templates to cut scrapbooking paper of varying prints into the correct shapes, then simply glued them on canvas. Some vintage buttons added to the appeal, and sparked lots of lovely discussion about how to make something look in different directions and how our eyes work together as a team. Caleb had a fabulous time playing in the buttons and trying (mostly unsuccessfully) to find matching pairs - it reminded me of the many hours I spent as a preschooler delightedly playing in Mum's button tin full of treasures. What a fabulous and underrated learning tool they are - sorting, describing, matching etc - all really valuable pre-maths skills.







I can't decide which I like best. Possibly the top one, despite its wonky beak, glue marks and uneven tree branch. Kinda adds to the appeal.

Fire

A month or so back, I posted this picture, of my parents' 150 year old homestead in the freak snowstorm we had:




The other night, we saw it like this:



We are devastated. My family have lived in that home for 100 years, and it contained countless Irreplaceable family heirlooms, as well as all of the simple, essential things needed to run a large sheep farm - vehicle keys, gumboots. lambing records. My sisters lost their clothes, shoes, laptops, university notes. I live over the road, so it wasn't really my everyday *stuff* that was lost. But little things like special childhood toys, books, Christmas decorations - all of those things that create and cement memories are gone. I was at a baby shower today, and teared up when I realised we've lost our baby record books. You never miss them, until they're gone.

The house was beautiful. She'd been a bit rough when Mum and Dad first moved in 11 years ago, but they had almost finished the renovation, with just 2 bedrooms, the laundry and the exterior painting left to finish. On a house of that magnitude, an incredible amount of work had been completed, mostly by Dad and relatives. This wasn't a renovation done on a shoestring, either, unlike the one Steve and I completed on our old house. We'd done a good job (if I do say so myself ;-) ) but for us, money was a big constraining factor, and to begin with, our house (though a similar age) didn't have the... grandeur, I guess, that Bankhead did. In it's day, it was a show home, and it was very close to being that again.

But through it all, the wonder of humankind comes through. Wonderful, wonderful folk who gave meals, baking, time out of their own busy lives to sit and cry with us, look after our children or sift through ashes to try and find our treasures.

Thank you.

Spring!

While I'm at home (not quite as wretchedly ill as I have been over the past four days) and childless, thanks to the wonder of preschool, I thought I'd update some of our happenings lately.

I alternate between thinking that 4 year old girls are the devil incarnate and the most fabulous creatures around. I don't tend to hover in between these extremes. Currently my feelings are on the favorable end of the scale. Sophie is learning huge amounts every day - not necessarily the schooly-type stuff, but the really important, 'this is how the world works' kind of stuff.

The other day, whilst I was busy being wretchedly ill and Steve was on solo Dad duty, Sophie decided she'd like to make a kite. She tied a piece of string to a picture she'd created a few days earlier and took it outside. Of course it failed and she stomped inside in a fit a fury. At this point, an interesting situation developed involving the differences between the female and male mind. Or maybe jut the mind of a teacher and the mind of fixer.

Steve (who admittedly at this point had already suffered several days of essentially parenting two busy preschoolers alone and was somewhat frazzled) said "Of course it won't work. I'll make you a kite later. But not now." Male mind: Solve problem.

Enter ill and woebegone mother / teacher / embracer of learning experiences at the expense of sanity...
"Why didn't it work, Sophie?"
Sophie: "It was all floppy"
"How could we fix that?"
And here was her solution - straws and a tail.



And you can guess what happened. It still didn't work and we had a repeat of the earlier drama. Poor Steve was getting a tad frustrated at the excessive emotion, as afterall, he had offered to fix the problem. What were we messing around with?

Sophie and I had a discussion about what else we could change that would make it work. Her eyes lit up and and she said "THE SHAPE! It has to be a diamond shape!" We were on the way, and through the process of trial and error, she'd come to some important conclusions about the laws of physics and the limits of craft supplies.

At this point, Steve intervened. As a fixer and a perfectionist, he simply couldn't suffer through the process any more, and sat down with the kids and researched some kite making. They ended up sacrificing an old cot sheet, a bamboo stake and a string line and it worked! Unfortunately, we have no pictures of The Great Kite Flying, but apparently it was so impressive that cars slowed on the highway to watch two little poppets flying their piece of homemade wonder, picking dandelions as they went!

The tail, incidentally was made with fan-folded origami paper. It seems by teaching Sophie this trick, I may have sparked a new obsession. Heaven help us all.

Here are some pictures of the process and the finished product, yet to be painted.





All in all, it was a fascinating probe into not only physics, but the differences in thinking between two people essentially working to meet the same goal. One that seeks solely to create a product that works with the minimum of fuss, and one that seeks to learn along the way and maybe not actually end up with anything but a heap of failed experiments and a list of things that didn't work. And a fair guess at why that may have been. Neither is wrong, but spot which one is the teacher ;-)


Another thing we've been doing is planting the seeds for this year's summer vegetables. As an experiment, we did the old 'bean in a jar with paper towels' trick. Though we used loo paper, as we had no paper towels. I intended to take a pic every day, but failed miserably! In any case, the seed germinated OVERNIGHT! I can definitely recommend a heavily used coffee machine as a good spot for speedy seed growing. Gotta be some bonus benefits to our excessive caffeine consumption!

It has been a fascinating thing to watch. Great for explaining the role of roots, stems and leaves, which mean nothing to your average preschooler. Also great for them to be able to see what is going on under the soil in the pots sitting on our windowsill. So far, it has helped repel nosey fingers from investigating... mostly **twitches a little**

Day One:


Day Four:


Day six:

Parking rage

This post is dedicated to the thoughtful souls who filled every single 'Parent Park' at Rangiora New World this morning with their child-less vehicles. That long walk across the carpark in the sleet was just what my 2 preschoolers and I felt like, and we all particularly enjoyed Caleb's half-way face-plant into the gutter, while about 100m from the front doors. Cheers for that. Hope you got a flat tyre on the way home ;-)


After 4 days cooped up in the snow, the driveway was finally clear enough to drive our car through, so I thought I'd pop into Rangiora to get some milk and fruit. Didn't really **need** to, but we were all getting just a little bit over these 4 walls and our white landscape (though now it's kinda brown and grey) so an outing seemed like a welcome distraction. And actually **popping** anywhere in Rangiora is a bit of a joke in these post-quake days anyway, now that a good percentage of ChCh has joined us in our conclusion that it's a pretty decent spot to live. Basically, I should have stayed at home, which is the moral of this post.

There are certain signs that give away a vehicle's child-status, and any half-witted parent can spot them a mile away. Obviously car seats and those tacky yellow 'Baby on Board' signs are a dead giveaway, but there are other, more subtle ways that a small person marks their territory. Things like food wrappers. Manky apple cores. Seventeen sweatshirts and odd socks, flung about the back and trampled upon until they might as well be a part of the upholstery. Books. Drink bottles. Basically if a vehicle contains none of these things, it is fair to assume that the owners do not have small children. Or that the vehicle belongs to my husband.

So it was with a sneer and a narrow-eyed glare that my children and I entered the supermarket this morning, after our harrowing journey across sodden asphalt and sudden splashing from vehicles unseen behind our chilly, hooded selves. Now if any of the assorted cars parked in the parent parks contained evidence of small children, or a disabled sticker (though they have parks of their own, I'm happy to share ;-)) I wouldn't have minded. In fact, with a nearly 3 year old and a 4 year old, I usually don't bother with Parent Parks. And even in my more stressed days as a new mother, I really only used them if I had both children with me. Today, I would have been happy to walk if I knew that those cars contained frazzled mothers and children who were spared the inconvenience of the ghastly weather. But they didn't.

One contained a tartan rug. Children? I think not!

One contained a washing basket with a spray bottle of some kind of chemical cleaner in it. Children? I think not!

One had a dog in it. A dog. One of those small, yappy, fluffy white things, wearing a tartan coat. A dog is not a child. Go to the back of the line, Lady. And what is it about tartan?

I spent the supermarket visit alternately snapping at my children and mentally penning my e-mail rant to the local newspaper. Was actually looking forward to seeing my venom in print, like A. Clarkson from Woodend, who has a very regular whinge. They should actually give him a column, he has so much to say. Possibly a retired school teacher who misses the union meetings...

Anyway, I was almost eager to bump into one of the park bandits as we left, but to no avail. So we jittered our way across the carpark in our wobble-wheeled trolley instead, saving our glares for the trolley boy. Poor soul.

Next time I suggest going out, just shoot me. Or at least give me a 'get-the-heck-over-it' pill.

General madness

Life is back to its busy term-time normality now. Week Two of Term Three is just finished and I'm suspicious that the last holidays were nothing but a figment of my imagination. We are all tired, ratty and frazzled... actually, maybe that's just me.

This term at school, we have our biennial musical. The less said about this stress inducing madness the better, but it is a major contributor to my foul mood and snippitiness.

At home, I have a four year old that is revealing a passion for art, craft and writing. She is at her happiest when she has a pencil in hand and a ream of paper to scrawl on. And if Mummy continues her current run of photocopying fails, then there will be no shortage of drawing paper anytime soon! She would actually thrive in school right now, but she is still 9 months away from turning 5 **looks to find a brick wall still standing after a year of earthquakes to beat head against**

Our lovely 2 year old is also a whirlwind of activity. He is revealing a great sense of humour, and a fondness for wearing Princess-themed dress-up frocks. I'm thinking the two traits are linked, especially when he minces past in heels and squeaks in a shrill voice that his name is now 'Ginger'. He is equally at home swinging a hammer or disassembling his train table with Daddy's missing flat head screwdriver. He is begging for real tools for his birthday, but my furniture couldn't stand it.

I often get asked if the stories I post about my children both here and on FaceBook are really true - I mean come on, could a pair of children really be that crazy? I filmed them in action whizzing down our orchard paddock the other day as proof of their day to day antics. Judge their madness for yourself...

DISCLAIMER: Many parents watching will be horrified at the speeds at which my children are hurtling down the hill without a helmet. They will probably also be concerned that they are wearing insufficient clothing for a Canterbury winter's afternoon. I firmly believe that children tend to bounce. Or at least mine do. Ignoring last year's brush with State Highway 72 our children have grown up surrounded by hazards and are constantly being taught to respect them. Mother Nature and the Laws of Gravity are great teachers! **braces self for calls from CYFS**

Anyway here they are in all of their glory...



Some interesting features you may not have picked up during the onslaught of raw Kiwi accent and poor camera handling / editing:

* Yes, those are chooks running about my lawn. And yes, they are meant to be contained in their lovely little chicken house on legs with fancy easy access laying boxes. And yes, Kevin the rooster continues to crow continuously at ungodly hours and incite similar behaviour among the other cockerels (**snigger**) within a 2 km radius. I am unimpressed. Their day of reckoning is coming. Probably in a fertiliser sack and a long one way trip to a picnic spot a long way away...

* Sophie does claim to have nearly "done wees" in her knickers due to the sheer thrill of downhill racing. And then proceeds to remind me of Caleb's penchant for peeing on trees. And then (this bit is muffled, but it's worth watching again just to hear it) she declares that she'd like to give it another go herself. Peeing on trees that is... and yes, she has tried and failed at this before. She's sometimes not a fast learner.

* I cut out most of the roaring that Sophie does to Caleb to get him to move from the bit of fence she wanted to crash into at the end of her run. It took 4 minutes before she was persuaded to actually stop yelling and get biking. I left the snippet in that you see, purely to share her wonderful line "GO. OR I'LL BUMP INTO YOU AND CHOP YOUR SKIN OFF!" She has a way with words, that child.

So that's us. It's meant to snow again this weekend, so more craziness is bound to be on the cards.

Snow days

It snowed this week! We don't get a lot of snow here - maybe one big dump every few years if we're lucky.

Lots of tom-foolery and hijinks were had. Am a tad worried that Steve's 'Adrenaline Junkie' gene is obviously dominant over my 'Will Just Sit Quietly and Have a Cup of Tea' gene, though. As long as they also have his ability to fall sensibly, then I shouldn't stress too much. They do tend to bounce, afterall.

Having had to pour two uncooperative and impatient preschoolers into miserable little shrunken excuses for gloves, I swear I could now successfully insert an octopus into a string bag. Who makes these things? They should come with a warning: "May lead to foul language and aggressive teeth-gritting, which in turn may frighten small children". Next time it snows, they are wearing socks on their hands. Or staying inside!

Here are some pics...




"I'm coming down!"


Mum and Dad's place across the road:


And... what snowy, wintery day wold be complete without mulled wine? I didn't really know what I was doing, but made this with a cheap and nasty bottle of merlot, orange rind, the juice of an orange, 2 cinnamon sticks and a few cloves. Oh, and a bay leaf and some brown sugar. And a slosh of brandy. Very scientific. Another batch was made the next night, using a nice bottle of Pinot Noir. Twas not as lovely, and the smell still permeates the house. Anyway, the first batch was truly lovely and I apologise for desecrating a nice drop on my second attempt.