The Gallery: Happiness
This week, we've been ordered to be happy! Tara says:
Let's shine a bright light.
This week's Gallery theme is: A Happy Memory
I could be predictable and show you a photo of The Boy when he was first born, or playing on the beach, or even when my 12 weeks scan, but I've decided to rewind further than that.
I'm going back to 1980.
Get your knitted cardigans and flared jeans out now.
I was only three years old and the youngest of four children; two boys and two girls in that order. My eldest brother (incidentally the only one of the three who knows the name of this blog and therefore might read this) is twelve years older than me, and was great fun to play with. He's good with littlies.
The four of us used to play for hours and hours in the garden, it was a real treasure trove of imaginative lands. Obviously with such a big range in ages between us, there was only a small window of time when this play existed. A year earlier and I was still a toddler, two years later and my eldest sibling had discovered the pub! However, during those few golden years we would race around in go-carts, splash in our paddling pool, chase each other with the hose-pipe, build tunnels in the snowdrifts, get tied to the cherry tree by our plaits (although that might just have been me) and make marvellous mud pies.
Here, I'm making my eledest brother better with some special medicine, otherwise known as a leaf.
They really were the golden years of childhood, I hope that The Boy enjoys his as much as I did mine.
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Pop over and check out the other entries in The Gallery using this widget below.
First House
A few months ago I discovered the wonders of RedTedArt and The Imagination Tree. Both are blogs that I admire hugely because they promote the marvels and benefits of Learning Through Play and the importance of Art in a child's life.
Before I was a primary school teacher, I trained as a Nursery Nurse and was intent upon becoming a Nursery teacher. And then I had a teaching practise in Year Five and I've never looked back, turning away from the littlies proclaiming them "too small and easy to accidentally step on!" in a jovial and, quite possibly, dismissive manner. However since having The Boy, I've rediscovered the joy of craft and role-playing with the 'littlies'. To the point where I asked my boss (in my annual review) if I could work with them again. She almost fell off her chair in shock, but at that time was unable to grant my wish.
So I channel my ideas at the moment into the most important 'littlie' of them all, The Boy. Last week, we took delivery of a Little Tikes house to review as a part of the Toyologist programme. The box was massive (well it had to hold a house!):
What do you do with a box that big?
Turn it into a play-house for The Boy to decorate!
The box was huge, big enough for daddy, The Boy and Me (see what I did there?) to get in easily. I cut a door on one side and windows with shutters on the other side, and he absolutely adored it. Daddy? Not so much, it kept getting in the way of the recycling which he needed to empty, or the toilet, or anything really. Admittedly for a time, The Boy was the only one who could get through to the utility room (through the open end and out of his door) so once or twice I had to send him on a little job!
The Boy has had great fun this week; painting, decorating, hiding and playing house in his, um, house. Which is great because it's rained a fair amount so he hasn't managed to get out to the main toy; the Little Tikes house. He's played in it with his friends and cousins, and I have discovered that there is nothing more likely to make children giggle than crawling through a cardboard box.
Well I managed to hold onto it for a week, but it's cardboard recycling on Friday and I've got a toddler group coffee session tomorrow, so we've had to move the house. I'm hoping that The Boy doesn't ask where it is in the morning!
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Click this widget to see the marvellous Imagination Tree
And this one will take you to the fabulous RedTedArt
