Monthly Archives: November 2011

Two holes in the wall

On November 10, 2011 - Uncategorized
We are now the proud owners of two holes in the wall. Donné & Grace escaped the house early this morning to avoid the noise and dust, but there was relatively little inside the house (barring the room they were working on at least). Things went smoothly today, so I am hoping that it continues to go well.

Grace has declared that the hole in the old office is "Gracie's hole." She is going to love going out the door to get to her jungle gym.

The end of an era

On November 9, 2011 - Uncategorized

Tomorrow a builder will be coming to knock a hole in the wall of our house, and to knock another one in the wall of the granny flat. It marks the end of an era, the end of my office being inside our house. It is going to be a bit strange to be outside of the living part of our house, to be less aware of the goings on in my home, and one step further away from Grace.

The move feels like it is coming at a "natural" time, a time when we are all feeling like we need a little bit more space – more space to grow. We are putting in a door out into the back from what was the office, as well as a door from the granny flat directly into the back (which will mean a little bit more safety when coming in from working late at night).

The thing with the end of an era is that it marks the beginning of a new one too. A new step in my business, some extra space to play in inside the house, and a new opportunity for growth.

Hop little Gracie

On November 8, 2011 - Uncategorized

After a few days of bouncing and flailing her arms wildly, Grace has discovered her hop. Donné and I are both a bit sad we missed a video of the wild flailing jumping – it became a much more controlled hop overnight.

Chocolate Bears

On November 7, 2011 - Uncategorized

Grace and I melted a bar of 70% Lindt chocolate and made some bears from chocolate moulds. I think the photos below give you an indication of the pure delight of the activity 🙂

After we were finished I told Grace that she needs to go and wash her hands.  Her response "arms." Yes and face and who knows where else. 
  

Choc

"Please mom can I have some more?"

Choc2

How to make a geoboard

On November 6, 2011 - Uncategorized

The geoboard that Annie made for The Cousin Who Shall Not Be Named inspired us to make one for Grace. A geoboard is a board with a bunch of pegs on it and elastic bands are stretched between the pegs. It can be used to learn basic maths skills. It is really easy to make one, and it only took us a couple of hours from start to finish (which included a trip back to the store for more spray paint).

Here is what you need,
  • A piece of pegboad. We used a 600x600mm board
  • Paint
  • 100 5x25mm bolts (the number of nuts & bolts is size dependant)
  • 200 5mm nuts
  • Threadlocker (like Loctite)
  • Two 8mm spanners (or one 8mm spanner and one 8mm socket wrench)
  • A bag of elastics
You should probably check the hole size on the pegboard you buy before buying the nuts & bolts, just to make sure the size is okay. We bought a 1200x600mm piece with 5mm holes, and then cut it in half. Our pegboard was brown to begin with, so we spray painted it red.
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There are a couple of ways to put the nuts & bolts in. The simplest way is to put the bolt in with its head on the bottom side and screw the nut on from the top (the way these people did it). It is really easy to do it that way, but we wanted to have the head at the top to make it a bit easier for Grace to work with, as well as prevent the elastics from coming off.
You need to figure out how many nuts & bolts you are going to use. We placed bolts in every third hole (a spaces in between) which gave us an 8 x 8 grid, i.e. 64 pegs. To get the head of the bolt at the top I used two nuts per bolt and tightened them on opposite sides of the board to hold the bolt upright. First you need to put a nut onto each bolt about halfway down.
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Then push or screw them through the pegboard holes, with both the nut and the bolt head on the top side.
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On the bottom side the bolt needs to stick through far enough for you to screw another nut onto it. Once they are all through put some thread locker on the bolts and attached a second nut to each bolt. The nut should be screwed on just far enough so that the end of the bolt and the nut are flush.
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The nut that is roughly below my palm is in its final position on the bolt.
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Leave the threadlocker to set. I used a high strength never-going-to-come-off threadlocker. Once it is set that nut is locked for good.
Once the nuts are set in place push (or screw) them so that the nut on the bottom side sits flush against the pegboard. Put some threadlocker on the bolt on the top side of the board and screw the nut on the top side down so that the pegboard is sandwiched between the two nuts. Hold the bottom nut with a spanner or socket and tighten the top nut.
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Repeat 63 times….done! Add elastics and set child free on the geoboard.
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Squares, triangles and any shape you can make on a grid, as well as the concept of one unit, two units, etc.
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Also good work for little hand muscles.
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Here is a video about how to build one (slightly differently), and the Filth Wizards blog they got the idea from which also has loads of other cool ideas.
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The naked run

On November 5, 2011 - Uncategorized

We have a little pre-bath tradition. Once Grace's teeth are brushed she takes off her clothes (she just needs help with her top) and I run the bath. Once she is ready and I am still busy getting the water temperature right I tell her, "Grace, its time for your naked run." She then opens the door and runs wildly down the passage, and usually dives onto the couch. It gives me some space to sort out the bath without having to worry about her throwing things in, or trying to put her hands into hot water.

Naked_run

One very tired little girl

On November 4, 2011 - Uncategorized

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This evening was the first time ever that Grace actually indicated that she was ready to go to sleep about 30 minutes earlier than normal bedtime. Obviously a day of baking, walking to the park to set our little tadpoles free, playing with the marble run and just being with friends resulted in a very tired little girl. This is the same little girl who if you ask her if she is tired always and I mean always says no.

The negotiator

On November 3, 2011 - Uncategorized

Grace surprised me today with a little bit of negotiation while eating supper.

Grace: "Chick, chick"
Dad: "Grace, you can have more chicken once you have eaten all your vegetables."

Sometime passes, vegetables are mashed and played with.

Grace: "Chick, chick"
Dad: "Grace, I said you can have more chicken when you are finished your vegetables. It is just four mouthfuls and then you are done."

Some feet shuffling and consideration of the options.

Grace: "Two mouth."
Dad: "Do you mean you will eat two mouthfuls?"
Grace: "Ja"

Dad is a bit surprised that his daughter is negotiating the terms of the deal rather than just flat out refusing.

Dad: "Okay, eat two mouthfuls and then you can have some chicken."

Two mouthfuls are eaten, then some chicken is given to her.

Dad: "Have another mouthful and then you can have some more chicken."
Dad (to mom): "I didn't say that the negotiation was closed…"

I was surprised by the level of her negotiation skills. In retrospect she definitely negotiates quite a bit, but it is mainly of the nature of, "just one more time." Now she is upping the ante and wanting to come to some sort of middle ground. I thought it was quite cute. I am not too sure what I am going to think by the time she is four though.

Checking out the penguins at the aquarium with Mom while I was at a meeting in the city.

Penguins

Pre-swimming

On November 2, 2011 - Uncategorized
Continuing yesterday's thread, our swimming lesson this morning was quite interesting. About a month ago the swimming instructor suggested that we follow a routine of arrive, get dressed, hand Grace over to Charlene, and then I wait outside (where she can see me through the glass) and she has her lesson. We have been following that and it has been going quite well. She has moaned a bit, but engages in all of the swimming exercises.

Today Grace was unhappy about going before we even left. On the way there she kept asking for mommy, and as we got closer the moaning just intensified. As we got ready for the lesson the moaning turned into a bit of a cry, and the cry turned into a sob. Even though my resolve was wavering I stuck to the plan and told her what was going to happen and got on with it. When I handed her to the instructor she was sobbing, but by the time she was in the water everything was fine. She had a good lesson, probably one of the best she has had in the last couple of months. And afterwards she is always calm.

The way I interpret all of this is that she is just trying to get out of something that she does not want to do, and once she is in the water she resigns herself to the activity and actually enjoys it. I think the more we stick to the routine of the swimming lesson, the easier it will get (for all of us).

Float

Donné gave Grace some flour & water to make a mini-pizza. All Grace heard and said was "minnie, minnie, minnie" – as in Minnie Mouse – so we shaped the dough into a Minnie and decorated it with chocolate drops.

Minnie_making

Minnie's eyes, ears, whiskers, and nose.

Minnie

Sore arm

On November 1, 2011 - Uncategorized

A week and a half ago Grace fell quite awkwardly while visiting friends and seemed to hurt her arm quite badly. There was lots of crying but eventually things settled down. We were pretty worried she might have fractured it somehow at the time, but after that she could still do everything that she usually does. The only problem (which is still a problem) is that when she falls in anyway she seems to hurt her arm and starts saying "sore arm."

Grace has since figured out that she might be able to leverage her "sore arm" to get out of doing things she does not want to. Over the last few days she has started saying "sore arm" when asked to do simple tasks like pack her crayons away. Pretty much anything which she is asked to do, which she does not want to do gets the "sore arm" treatment. I guess this is part of being two…although…

We had our monthly speech therapy session today (which went really well) and Sue thinks this is actually quite an advanced level of manipulation for her age – most two year old's just throw a tantrum and kick/scream/etc. Interesting. That might cause some challenges later on.

Speech therapy today was very rewarding. Sue had prepared some exercises to help Grace end off her words, but Grace can already do many of them (to Sue's amazement). Something Sue said stuck out, "If you had brought her to me for the first time now, I would have said there is nothing to worry about."