Days 174-180 of Project 365
174. Spiderman (We were fortunate enough to have a day sightseeing in London following the Britmums conference, and managed a trip on the London Eye for The Boy to locate the places he'd seen with Mr. TBaM the day before. Afterwards we were able to finally visit the Jubilee Gardens at its base, which we'd seen being built last year.)
175. Digging for Treasure (A simple day playing in the house and garden after an exhausting weekend. Nothing is better at the moment than digging for treasure. Especially with Toy Story sunglasses and a genuine pirate hat.)
176. Speedy (An absolutely beautiful evening meant that we were able to nip down to the local nature reserve, feed the swans and practice bike-riding amongst the bullrushes and bamboo.)
177. Playmobil World (More pirates, I know. What can I say? He's loving the hat at the moment. However, I returned home from work today to discover nearly every single piece of Playmobil he owns all spread out in the dining room, and 'pirate caves' created in the Ikea shelving. I love that his imagination is starting to kick in.)
178. Pavement artist (A simple activity which I often forget about; chalk drawing and writing on the patio, focusing on over-writing letters.)
179. On Target (We created a reward chart for The Boy this week, focusing not on behavioural issues, but on time and personal management. Having been for his Reception induction last week I'm very aware that he needs to speed up the rate at which he eats his meals – apart from anything else, the hour is driving us mad – as he won't have time in his lunch break to be chivied along. We've set him the target of eating within thirty minutes, and he's managed it at every mealtime! Other targets are getting dressed by himself – preparing for PE lessons – and tidying up. As a reward he was able to go to soft play with daddy while I was at the Summer Fayre this morning.)
180. Me and My Shadow (After the Summer Fayre, where I painted eleventy billion pink butterflies, we went for a long walk across Cardiff Bay Barrage to the pirate park, and scooted back. The sun was amazing and I love this shadow.)
—
Through The Hole (Flashback)
I love bringing my son up in the town which I grew up in. Every experience he has is imprinted with the memories of my siblings, friends and I doing exactly the same thing, echoing the past, mirroring my actions, with a twenty or thirty year gap.
Our town has many parks, indeed it's known for it, and one of those parks has a plethora of play opportunities. Huge sweeping fir trees with gargantuan hiding spaces close to the tree trunk, woodland dells, Victorian pathways, aviaries with tweeting canaries, and overrun hedges.
In the small playground area, there is a hedge. It's an ancient hedge riddled with pathways which have been explored by children for generations.
And, as these photos of The Boy show from this Spring and the past two, it's a favourite with the next generation as well.
—
Days 69-75 of Project 365
69: Which will win? (We went to Techniquest in Cardiff Bay for Mother's Day and had great fun exploring scientific concepts. Here The Boy is racing the bubbles through the thick gloop)
70: Going up! (When we were at Techniquestwe discovered a lovely little park in Cardiff Bay which seemed to be hardly used. We popped back on Monday to explore all the equipment and I was really impressed to see The Boy climb across a cargo net from one eight foot high tower to the other with minimal interaction. No photos of that because I was too busy watching him!)
71: Bump! (After a foul morning we went down to the local country parks for some outdoor play and to tick a few more things of our 50 Things list. We discovered that The Boy's outdoor play suit makes him zoom down the slide really fast!)
72: Special Delivery Service! (The Jenny Craig boxes are excellent for making cars!)
73: Mountaineer (Another day, another park, what can I say? Last Summer he wouldn't try this climbing wall at all)
74: Doing something funny (All dressed up in odd clothes for nursery, not too odd though or mummy's OCD can't handle it!)
75: What's your name? (We had to go into Cardiff to take my dead Samsung Galaxy S3 into the T-Mobile shop to be sent away for repair. While we were in there we wandered over to the Museum and looked at the sculptures in the nearby gardens.)
—
Flashback Friday
When we visited a local park last week, and I saw my confident young man climbing trees, traversing cargo nets and swinging independently, my mind flashed back to one of the first times I'd taken him to that park.
To me it's such a short period of time, for him the time lapse is monumental!
—
Linking up to Flashback Friday over at Mummy Mishaps and The Real Housewife of Suffolk County.
Country Kids: Park Explorer
We're well into the pattern of getting our minimum of 15 minutes of outdoor play a day now, striding past week two and entering week three. It's been significantly helped by the fact that the past week has been half-term and so I didn't have the stumbling block of my work days getting in the way and effecting our fun and games.
The beach is a top, and easy, venue for us as there aren't enough hours in the day to explore every pebble there, but for a bit of variety we've been going to the parks as well. Turns out my council is a bit unimaginative when it comes to playgrounds in parks and we're bored of them already; there seems to be a set template of poxy climbing frame, baby and junior swing, one slide and a wobbly roundabout. A far cry from the treasures I see other people visiting!
However, we have enjoyed the one decent one in our town which is just around the corner from where I grew up and as such is one I frequented a lot as a child.
I used to climb that tree as a child, so proud of him for learning how to do it too! I'm sure it used to be bigger though?
We've also been to Victoria Park in Cardiff, which is a brilliant park with plenty of money thrown at it; different authorities have different priorities I guess? In the Summer, the paddling/swimming pool is packed with children splashing each other and shrieking with laughter. Winter turns the pool into a curiosity for young children. The Boy managed to find himself a friend in the shape of four year old Phoebe who took his hand and guided him around the playground.
Today we've been down the beach front (again) on The Boy's bike and I have had to tell Mr. TBaM to stop wrapping him up in cotton wool; he's more capable on his bike than his father gave him credit for! If we can just get him to keep his speed up then those stabilisers will be off in no time!
—
Days 41-47 of Project 365
41: 'The Terrific Trio' (We were fortunate enough to be able to visit Mummy Mishaps and her boys today, and true to form we dragged them outside into the fresh air for their minimum of 15 minutes outdoor play a day. Hoods up, wellies on, find an old hoop and some puddles, and what more could you want? Really enjoyed our day, thank you Jenny!)
42: '3D' (Today I took The Boy to the cinema with Nana and his cousins, to see 'Sammy's Great Escape'. It's only the second time he's been to the cinema, the first time to see a 3D film. I'll confess that I wasn't sure how well he'd see it, I wasn't sure on the development of vision in tiddlers. However the moment he put them on, he reached out to touch the fish swimming towards him and he repeated this at least a dozen times throughout the film, before then lowering his glasses to try and understand why it looked like he could touch the images. It was really very magical and endearing.)
43: 'Zoomy paint' (Hugely productive day today: playdough, painting with cars and a themed waterplay – more on that another day, gymnastics, and outdoor play again. The Boy loved exploring the different way of mark-making with the paint.)
44: 'Solitary' (After nursery we went down the beach for a blast of fresh air to the system. 'Blast' and 'fresh' are both understatements here. It was freezing and windy. Oh and raining that irritating fine precipitation that gets everywhere! We managed a scoot to the end of the pier and back before collapsing into the warmth of the car. It is worth noting that we were the only people on the seafront!)
45: 'Shake and fizz' (A little science experiment today with some frozen vinegar blocks and coloured ice cubes, liquid vinegar, salt, bicarbonate of soda and a pinch of inquisitiveness.)
46: 'Morning scoot' (I took him for his eye test only to discover he needs a more complex one involving dilating drops to check for a stigmatism, so we had to rebook. As it was 9.30 and we were dressed and out, we headed to Victoria Park in Cardiff which we last went to when he was too young to appreciate. He befriended a four year old little girl and they spent an hour happily racing around, holding hands, zooming down the zipwire, slipping on the ice, helping each other onto the equipment, and having a marvellous time.)
47: 'Hello up there!' (A bike ride through the foggy parks overlooking the beach and back along the seafront to the car, interspersed with some pebble 'plopping' down on the beach. 15 minutes? CHECK!)
I can't choose a favourite this week because I'm very pleased with all of them; they show a mummy and her son who have had a brilliant half-term together.
—
Days 27-33 of Project 365
27. 'One Giant Leap' (Off to Porthkerry Park on Sunday to play in the sunshine and check out how high the water was in the brooks.)
28. 'Hello, Down There' (a trip to the local Victorian park on the way back from the supermarket. This is part of our bid to spend 15 minutes outside in the fresh air every day, inspired by Jenny from Mummy Mishaps and Cerys from Nature and Play. Some days are really easy, other days – like a work day – are harder. Today was also the day of the epic play-dough making session; three colours and still he wanted more?!)
29. 'Do You Like My New Hat?' (Big activity day today, Tuesdays often are as I try to cram as much quality and quantity time in as possible before having to go back to work the next day. We made a wintery hat which ended up looking more like a space hat, did a science experiment involving moving water, went to gymnastics and also went scooting in the pouring rain in Cardiff Bay. Thanks for that Jenny and Cerys!)
30. 'New Jigsaw' (A work day but when I came home The Boy was able to play with his brand new jigsaw from Orchard Toys. Watch this space for a review!)
31. 'The Gruffalo' (Thanks to a 'heart-pressing' session when The Boy saw one of his friend's wearing a Gruffalo hat, he decided he wanted to dress up in his costume. I got the mirror down so he could see what he looked like. The irony was that five minutes later, the nanosecond I'd finished taking photographs, he insisted the costume came off. I think he scared himself!)
32. 'Slumber' (Absolutely exhausted, I let him have a longer nap today. I certainly paid for it as we had a ridiculous wake-up time of 5.20 this morning. Now where's that Gro-clock I was sent for review?!)
33. 'Rebel!' (We nipped down to Cardiff Bay Barrage for a cycle and a scoot in glorious sunshine, but dear God it was Arctic! The road across the barrage isn't used by vehicles and is a safe route for cyclists of all ages. The Boy has a minimal awareness of the highway code and road signs, clearly!)
My favourite photo of the week is The Gruffalo photo.
—
Country Kids: Country Parks & Outdoor Play
Last Sunday graced us with a beautiful blue sky and, what seemed as first, warming sunlight. It was enough to spur us on to go and feed the ducks and swans down in our local country park. We took our gargantuam bag of bread bits (I'd missed out on a bread and butter pudding by a day) and enjoyed feeding the mass of swans and their young.
The swans are so confident that they would have taken the bread out of our hands if we'd tried. As it was they were perfectly happy to snaffle them from the boardwalk.
The boardwalk meanders around to a lovely wooded area before exploring the other lakes. This was where we managed to explore other wildlife that was busy scavenging for food in the depths of Winter. We'll need to add nuts to the food list next time!
After we'd defrosted in the car, we headed to Parc Play in the centre of Cardiff. It's difficult to explain the place, but it's an all-weather play centre; a warehouse with an fully covered section, a middle part which is open on one side and an out door sand pit. It was absolutely freezing there and I spent most of the time hiding under the heater-light-thingies. The Boy spent most of the hour there on the zipwire.
I'm desperately hoping for snow this weekend so that we can get out and join the rest of the country in failing to make a decent snowman!
—
Monday 3rd December 2012 – 'Flying Boy!' (338/366)
