You need to get out more kid.
Trip Start
Sep 16, 2011
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236
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Trip End
Nov 20, 2011
Southport, Queensland, Australia
Monday, June 4, 2012
I head out to watch Woody swimming and hope this goes some way to lifting the cloud over my head. (It does.) Noah also buys me a superb coffee, and this helps quite a bit too. Woody is excellent at swimming. He tries very hard and in between his turns he is hilarious. He is throwing himself about in the water and his smile is contagious. Excellent. It is a gorgeous day and my mood lightens. Awesome.
Back at home we eat, we have tea, we chat and Elwood returns to his preferred Inuit boy outfit, watches a little TV and then just starts acting out scenes from Brother Bear. Noah and I try and chat but Elwood is very distracting.
We get some jobs done; wrap some parcels, write some cards out, and make some appointments. Woody is keen to have a new Brother Bear themed reward chart, so the fellas work on that. Woody takes to the role of Art Director very well and gives Noah lots of detail on what this chart needs. Woody has to move the bears along the bear footprints to where the light touches the earth (where there also happens to be lots of spirits floating about!). When he gets to the top he gets a totem. He has five totems to collect and then we buy him a still-to-be-defined reward. Woody is extremely over the moon about this and cannot wait to start collecting his totems. He has to do things like eat his meals nicely etc to move the bears along the tracks. I just cannot do justice to how exciting Woody finds this.
Woody has some lunch and then we head out to a playgroup. We listen to 101 Dalmations en route and Woody loves it. Woody is in terrific form today and cannot wait to get into the group. The theme for today's session is maths. And there are lots of little activities with simple tips for parents about how to incorporate very basic maths into everyday play. Woody enjoys it and I actually learn a lot. Woody spots a stack of wild animals in sand trays and heads straight for it. I struggle to entice him away from it to try the other activities, but I manage to on the promise we keep going back to play with the wild animals. So we also do a little drawing, some building, and some puzzles. Elwood helps pack up the wild animals and is just super lovely and charming.
We have snacks and the children chat, with a little bit of arguing about how old they actually are vs. how old they say they are.
We say our goodbyes and head back to Southport and end up heading down to the shops. We go to the post office and wait for ages to send a parcel and then we go Medicare office to get a print out of Woody’s immunisation records and we, again, have to wait a very long time. Woody entertains himself by standing in the window and waving to people walking past. When he tires of this, he decides he is going to greet people personally coming into the office and introduce himself and give high fives. He takes people by surprise but is just charming. Finally, we get a seat and he chats enthusiastically to the elderly lady next to us about totems. She looks a mixture of delighted and baffled.
After a long time of me trying to invent games in Medicare we get called to a counter. Turns out Woody has been having quite a lovely time and says, 'I wish we could live here’. I ask him why and he replies, ‘so we could come here every day’. Thankfully under her breath, the Medicare lady says ‘Get a life kid’. I crack up laughing. Woody is so happy and the lady is so not happy. She continues, 'If you love it here I don’t think your Mum takes you anywhere good’. It is so funny!
That done, we head home. Woody and I play computer games and then I cook a superb Monday night dinner of sausages, beans, scrambled eggs and toast. Woody has a gingerbread man and then we pull out his Home Reading Books from his little literacy class. Noah starts reading one to Woody and Woody gets a little impatient, he moves Noah’s hands out of the way, starts pointing to the words himself and starts ‘reading’. The books he ‘reads’ one Noah and I have never read to him and he only got it last week. Now he has almost certainly read this book in his class last week, so he is reciting the book. But he recites the book almost word perfectly, running his finger along the right words at the right time. Noah and I are gobsmacked. We have never seen Woody do this before. It is impressive and it has just made my day. Woody just seems to be thriving at the moment and, as a parent, it is the most rewarding thing in the whole world.
We run a bath for Woody and there is just enough time for a quick ‘totem ceremony’ and then Woody has a bath, we read Brother Bear (AGAIN!) and then Woody mucks about for a little and then he is asleep.
He has truly been a delight today, and it sounds ridiculous to say, but I already can’t wait to hang out with him tomorrow.
I blog, Noah works and eats cupcakes, and I was contemplating an early night but now I remember I have an article to write.
Good night lovely people. x
