Growing up...

"Princesses don't wear pants". This is what I was told on a daily basis by Miss Ruth when she was younger. 

The struggle I would endure to get her into pants was so frustrating. I am sure all you mums of girls know exactly what I am talking about here. We had stockpiles of leggings and stockings because come winter, that summer dress was what she wanted to wear, and some battles are just not worth fighting.

Yes, that is trackpants underneath a dress... 

I remember the tears that fell over the fact that the school uniform was not pink, and that she would actually have to wear shorts on some days as that was the sports uniform. She was also completely devastated that I refused to purchase the hideously expensive Winter dress and she had to wear trackpants all Winter to school.

Somewhere though a transition happened... she started to complain less and when it was practical she started to wear shorts or pants out.

Now she chooses to wear jeans and a hoodie most of the time. She has to be begged to wear dresses and skirts. And yesterday morning she groaned at me when I told her she had to wear her school dress. 

And don't even talk to me about the fact that she asked not to be called a princess anymore. I think this little miss is growing up. I am not sure I am ready, but I guess I will just have to run with it. Then call her princess anyway, because I am her mum, and well, its my job to annoy her right??

Is your daughter a princesses don't wear pants kinda kid?

Are your kids growing up too fast?

Are you not ready either?

Children and housework

I have a confession to make. I am a mean "mean mother", and I make my children help with the housework. 

It is my belief that, as a parent, it is my job to teach my children everything that they need to know to become fully functional members of society. One of these lessons is that, unfortunately, housework is not optional!

I should mention, my kids are not mopping floors, or scrubbing walls; although when Ruth was younger she wanted to play Cinderella, and asked to scrub the grout, I didn't say no... I choose jobs that my kids are capable of, and let them know that this is their responsibility.

I thought that today I would share some ideas about getting your children to help you out with the housework.

1. Your kids want to do what you are doing...

I was told when Ruth was very little, by my health nurse, that your kids just want to do what you are doing. So from a very young age, both of my children have helped with things like dishes, folding washing, cooking and dusting. 

2. Make cleaning fun...

My kids love helping me clean because I turn on music and I blast it through the house. If I send them off to their rooms to tidy up, music blaring is the most important part of it. If cleaning is fun it feels like less of a chore for everyone, including you!

3. Be realistic...

You need to be realistic about what you want your kids to do. I make my kids clean their own rooms, help stack the dishwasher, and put away their own washing. Ruth has recently started folding her own. They will also clean the bathroom with supervision, but I generally do most of it. Ruth often asks to do the vacuuming too.

4. Be patient...

Your kids are not going to be awesome, professional level cleaners. Oliver's idea of folding socks is shoving one inside the other and folding them in half (always funny when you pull them out of the drawer). You really need to pick your battles with kids and cleaning. Think about it, is it really SO important that the shirts get hung all the same way and in rainbow colour order?? The idea is that you get them started, that you get them motivated, and eventually they will need less supervision, and be able to do things on their own.

That's it!! There is the motivator of pocket money, if you are so inclined and we often will sweeten the deal for the kids cleaning up something in particular by paying them.


Do you make your kids help with you with the housework?
What kind of tips do you have for getting children motivated to help around the house?

what to do on Tuesday...

More specifically, what do do with an almost 5 year old who is constantly wanting to learn more and more and is exhausting your stores of interesting knowledge, or more importantly, exhausting you?!?!

On Tuesday mornings we have been heading down to our local library for story time. Our main local library has activities for pre-schoolers every morning at 10.30am. This is PERFECT for little boys who just desperately want to be learning and playing and just being out of the house in general. We have made lots of cool things, and over the holidays we even made space dioramas! Really engaging and really fun!

When our local library does story time, the stories are generally revolved around a theme. This morning was a farmyard theme and at the end, the activity was to colour in a pig picture. 

As soon as I saw the picture, I said to Oliver, "Let's make a mask out of that!" He agreed that my idea was wonderful. So he coloured in his pig mask with all of the rainbow colours that took his fancy.

And then we cut it out. Once we got home, I found some elastic amongst my sewing things and stapled it to the outsides and... TADA...

Super Piggy!!

Oliver is so excited about his mask that he actually hasn't taken it off. In fact, every activity that we go to down at the library, he ends up super excited about whatever he has made and never wants it to leave his side.

Does your local library hold sessions for children? Why not have a look?

head down...

 
...bum up. That is what I am at the moment. Working hard on uni work whilst trying to entertain 2 kids on holidays.

Don't get me wrong. I have loved the holidays, but I am ready for the routine to return. I am also ready for my few short hours a week that I get to myself when Ruth is at school and Oliver at kindergarten.

We have had a marvelous time relaxing, watching movies, playing superheros and many other activities. I guess this is what holidays are for - so you realise how wonderful normal life is. It is not very easy studying full time and looking after two children that is for sure!! For now, I am content sitting in my bed with the kids beside me, whilst I study away and get some work done.

Have you had a wonderful school holidays?
Are you as ready for Monday morning as I am?

school holidays

We are loving the school holidays here.

We can sleep in, watch television, play video games, knit, read, go to the library and just basically do whatever we feel like. It is wonderful.

Although I am going vaguely mad from the amount of Nickelodeon I have been exposed to over the last 2 days it is a nice change from Dora.

Oliver comes home today from his adventure holiday at Granny's farm, I have loved my time alone with Ruth, we have relaxed and really just had quality time. But it will be lovely to have both of my kiddies at home. I have missed Oliver so much!!

In the mean time, Ruth has calisthenics this morning so I am lucky enough to get to stick my head into a book without interruptions for an hour or so before having to pick up my little man.

I hope he remembers me!!


P.S. I am working on a recipe to share tomorrow :) Watch this space!!

they're here!

The school holidays that is! We are super excited about being on school holidays after an 11 week term at school. Oliver was so excited about school holidays that he did a little dance. The first thing that we generally do for school holidays is sleep in. But today we had to head out to the airport bright and early so that Ruth could head off on a plane to visit her dad. What an adventure!

Oliver was less than enthused about losing his play mate for the week; but we made promises of playing games together, going to the library lots and having plenty of cuddles. Plus, the planes started taking off which was very exciting.

You'll have to excuse the photo quality - I only had my phone with me and he was wriggling like a maniac. We did have fun taking photos and pulling funny faces while we were waiting though.

Gosh I love this kid - well both of my kids - they are so beautiful, funny and cuddly. Now, we have some serious fun to be having so until tomorrow....

new arrivals

I have been very busy the last few days, there are the assignments that are all due next week, on the same day, at the same time. But I have also been spending my spare time knitting up a little scarf for Oliver as I said the other day.

I finished it off last night, and someone was so excited this morning when they found out that it has not left his neck since. Even though it is not really very cold today here in Melbourne. I will have to take some better photos and post them at a later date.

I also mentioned the other day that I am keen to learn how to knit in the round and make some things that are not scarves this winter and that I had ordered a few bits and pieces to get me started. 

Well - when the postie arrived today he brought me a few little gifts which someone was super excited to open.

Some pretty coloured balls of wool from Bendigo Wool Mills and a set of circular knitting needles. Now when I purchased the needles, I grabbed the 40cm ones; I then realised that they come in different lengths as well as gauges so I am hoping that they are just the right size for everything I could hope to make. I know I am dreaming, but I hope they will be fine for the things I am thinking of making in the near future.

I also borrowed this book the other day...

It's called Circular Knitting Workshop by Margaret Radcliffe. I stumbled upon it at the library when I was doing some research for my assignments and I thought I would check it out and have a bit of a read. Its got some very good tips on how to cast on for different projects and knit various things. So I am looking forward to reading it a bit more closely once I have finished all of my looming assessments. I am also hitting up YouTube big time on how to knit in the round and earmarking some easy projects to start me off.

What is your favourite easy knitting pattern?

not going to be little for long

Something that is really important to me is making time for my kids. I study full time, which is a huge job with a house and a family to look after, but taking time with each of my kids individually is a big deal to me. They won't be little for long (if you ask them, they already aren't little anymore) and I want to cherish the time that we have together before I am too uncool to hang out with.

My little man Oliver is getting so big so fast. He is so excited about starting school next year and it is still six months away! He loves to count and do sums. He is also learning to read on reading eggs now which he thinks is just ace. I think it is exciting that he is filling his mind with understandings about the way the world works. He thinks so too. 

Thursday is our day. Usually, Oliver and I head out to do the grocery shopping, but today we opted for a pyjama day, cleaning the house, changing the beds and walking to get Ruth from school in the afternoon. 

To Oliver, walking to the school is a grand adventure. He makes up stories that we are walking through the jungle and where the path has cracked and there is a deep hole to jump over or else we will fall in. The roads can be raging rivers that we have to pretend to swim over. Everything is full of monsters and danger and adventure. I love it.

We will take time to sit on the benches along the path because we need to re-charge our compasses (the strings on the beanie that point the way). And when it's time to go again there is a spring in our step and a smile on our face.

We do our exercises on the equipment that is set up along the path. Usually this is because we have been challenged by a evil king and we need to do the exercises or they will keep our princess captive.

Best of all, we hold hands most of the way and that reminds me that one day I will be too uncool to hold hands with. For now I am cool enough though, and it makes me feel so proud to have such a gorgeous, caring, intelligent boy holding my hand as we go on our adventures. This just makes my day.

a little knitting

I am not the world's worst knitter. I am, however, also not the world's best knitter either. I am really good at making things like scarves and blankets that don't require anything other than stitching row after row of normal knit stitches.

 

Every winter though, I get a knitting bug. All I want to do is knit, and so I look online at all the wonderful things that other people have made, then I look at some patterns and get really excited by all of the things that you can make with wool. I usually will start a really cool project as well.

Then time over runs me, I get overwhelmed by the terminology in a pattern or in any case end up looking like this...

Anyway, so now that winter is here again, I have forgotten about all the knitting failures of the past and decided to use some of that wool I have laying around to make Oliver a scarf. Oliver is so skinny, a real grown up sized scarf would just look so silly, so I thought it wouldn't take me long to knit him up a little one.

So I cast on a few stitches and off I went. Oliver is very impatient and ever since I cast onto the needles he has been asking when it will be done.

I'm thinking it won't be long before it is!

So I was so excited about my ability to knit scarves that I have joined Ravelry. I also dog eared some patterns, and have purchased some circular knitting needles and beautiful wool from Bendigo. 

There is just something about creating that just gives me a buzz that I haven't had in a long time.I have found sitting and knitting while we watch television, or I watch Oliver play in the morning has been really relaxing so I want to keep it up. 

My Goal:  

To knit 2 items that aren't scarves or blankets.

Watch this space - I am determined to be a good knitter.

time

If there is one thing that I have always struggled with it has been time management. I often will have a huge deadline coming up and just ignore it until the last minute and end up stressed out and exhausted ensuring that I get everything finished on time. Yes - I always do get things completed, even when I manage my time poorly but this is not the point.

One big thing that I learned when I was off on my teaching rounds it was time management. This is something that I have vowed to continue to do and am doing very well at thus far. I am currently overloading at uni. This means that rather than completing the normal prescribed study load, I am doing an extra subject so that I can complete my degree earlier than I would have otherwise. I am able to do this because I don't work, I have very self-sufficient children one of which is at school full time and the other goes to kindergarten. I also set myself goals that MUST be completed. I keep a big cork board with my study planner and time table on it - I also keep a diary...

 

This is a fresh one for the new financial year.

I am finding that managing my time means that I am much less stressed at the end of the day, because I know exactly where I stand with each upcoming deadline and I know that I have used the time that I have had to work on each thing to my best ability. You can't do much more than that! Achieving my daily study / housework / sewing / fitness / kid oriented goals really puts a smile on my face.

Here are some photos of what I have gotten up to today in my well managed time.

Oliver and I made apple leather using Kate's instructions. He thinks he is a master chef and he loves to spend time helping out in the kitchen. I love to cook, so his desire to help me makes morning activity time quite easy to organise.

I worked on calisthenics head gear for the little miss. I have actually almost finished all of her costumes for this year. Hooray!!

And good old lesson plans for assignments. I actually love the kinds of assignments that I have to plan lessons for rather than just write an essay - they seem so much more relevant.

Anyway - back to it!

What are your tips for managing your time?

planning for maths

I swear this is uni work...

I'm planning for a maths education assignment this morning preparing lesson plans and trying out ideas for studying pyramids and prisms. Most importantly I am looking for FUN activities that will help these children learn the properties of pyramids beyond "it is a pyramid because it looks like a pyramid".

I found it really difficult to find a good, easy to understand set of instructions on how to make an origami pyramid for a warm up activity. One for us beginners who are more adept at folding fabric and making it hang correctly than using paper to make... well... anything.

Thankfully I found a great video over on Storm the Castle.

Looking forward to using these little pyramids to engage my learners.

how are you starting?

I am starting this month playing along with #reverb12 over on I Saw You Dancing. Kat sent me a message here on Sunday last week asking if I would like to play along and I really think it might get me out of a non-blogging rut that I have been in the last month or so.

So today's prompt is "how are you starting this month?"

The first thing that I did this morning, to start this month, was send my gorgeous sister Carmel a birthday message. It's her birthday today and we wont be around to help her celebrate as she lives in Brisbane and we live in Melbourne. But we are excited to give her real hugs at Christmas time when we will see her.

I am starting this month busy. December is always a busy month here at our place with Christmas just around the corner and all of the organising that goes along with it I am looking forward to Christmas day to actually just sit down and relax.

I am starting this month in a festive mood. I've set up the Christmas tree, the kids have decorated it, and it is beautiful! I love when my kids decorate the tree, and this year the decorations are much more spread out than last year when they just put the decorations right in front of their faces and we had very well decorated sections of the tree.

 

How are you starting December?

Have you set up your Christmas tree yet?

whoops!

I've let the last 12 days go past without any posting which I am kicking myself about. I have been very busy finalising the end of this semester at uni and ensuring I put in as much effort as I could to get the marks that I really want. I like to work hard as I think it pays off later in that I have learned as much as I can and do not need to really re-learn, just refresh.

A few things I have been up to...

 Sewing.

Celebrating another successful year for Miss-R at Calisthenics. Also celebrating the fact that we don't have to go to calisthenics practice for a couple of months.

Giving magical mummy cuddles.

Taking far too many "selfies".

I've also been doing lots of yummy clean-eating cooking, attempting to sell my car (without much luck so far), going to watch the MR play inline hockey, writing assignments, getting marks back for assignments, procrastinating, and working. I love my life, so busy and so many things that I get to do every week.

What kind of busy person tasks have you been up to or are you enjoying a more relaxed lifestyle?

Blogtober 16th: on working with children.

Finally, a wrap up of the items I completed in the KCWC.

I wanted to get some great modeled shots of the kids' new clothes, but working with children... yeah well we all know how that saying goes...

Mr-O tells me this is the best way to look at his new pants. By looking at the cool green fabric through the light of the window.

I was able to get him away from the window for a second before he went back...

Miss-R LOVES her new skirt, and as soon as she put it on, she ran out to the back garden to complete a very important test...

The twirl test... and it passed with flying colours.

Maybe one day soon I can get some great modeled shots for this blog, but for now, we can just see the clothes being enjoyed. That's all I wanted.

Are your kids unwilling models too?

Do your daughter's insist on checking the twirl factor on every skirt or dress?

Are you keeping up with Blogtoberfest?