Ted, Ted, Ted, Books, Ted and then some Outdoor Play Stuff

Last weekend I trimmed all the wispy, flyaway bits to Ted's angelic locks.  And dammit if he now doesn't look even MORE cherubic!  How can that be?  His hair sits like a little halo of ringlets around his ears.  Mind you, it's cherubic...until he starts yelling, running and drumming - simultaneously and VERY loudly. 

He has started at preschool and has been there for a total of three days.  The experience has been a bit up and down really - he seems to enjoy it but he does cry for me. 

This morning, in response to Harriet's very vocal response to school (which was to adamantly NOT go - I think she may have used the words "cut the school up"), Ted went in to the preschool room and started crying that it was 'boring' (from Harriet) and that he didn't want to go (from Harriet again).  Previously he's only told me that he wants me to stay, nothing explicitly bad about the preschool, which seems a rather significant difference.  Hmmm..thanks for that extra hurdle, Harriet!

 Last Friday he had his first violin lesson with his teacher, Tori. Luckily she lives very close and we've scored a time slot just before we have to pick up Harriet from school on a Friday, so that's really helpful.

We have to make a 'box violin' where we cover a small box, add a ruler and cover it in paint or paper of preference.  He then uses that to learn how to hold the violin and bow - you can be sure to see photos of that cuteness when we finish covering the box.

This weekend saw us ploughing headfirst into Operation Book Clear Out.  As you'll know if you've ever visited our house, the bookshelves are a joke.  We had to downsize from three tall, overladen bookshelves to two when we moved the house around a couple of years ago.  Then, with the ongoing problem I have with purchasing children's books, we've found the book issues aligned with that of the Enterprise crew and Tribbles.  Hence - Clear Out!

In fact the real cathartic point for this enterprise (oh yes, I do love the chance to double up on a reference) was James and his love of the e-reader.  He chose a Kobo and has been in love since it finally arrived in January.  He'd keep throwing books down and exclaiming "I can find this online!" with a triumphant ka-pow as those last-century's technology bricks went thumping to the ground with a satisfying thud.  We haven't even approached the non-fiction shelves in the front room, this is just from the lounge room shelves and doesn't include the three or so shelves of books we decided to keep.

I spent the time re-arranging the children's books (since it is a problem of my own creation this seemed an entirely reasonable delegation of affairs).  Also with Harriet's increasing interest in non-fiction, I thought it reasonable to create a non-fiction section, divided into topics of course.  Ted loved the unearthing of old favourites and it turns out the footstool I covered last week works perfectly as a reading step when you're three.



I took the above photo with a much calmer state of mind than when I took this one!  Taken when we were out seeing a friend's band last week, Ted managed to find the only screen in the whole place and seat himself in front of it.  *sigh*  Luckily he was enraptured by the music and spent most of his time in front of the stage.  I'm thinking of investing in some of those children's noise control headphones if we attend many more gigs with the children - Harriet can't stand the volume and Ted will, no doubt, have a fairly high level of exposure to high volumes in his lifetime.  A small gesture of prevention at this age may be wise.


The other weekend Harriet and I went out in the morning by ourselves to what was supposed to be a brief trip to Officeworks for some project books.  It turned into a salvage operation to acquire this cable roll and wood off-cuts from a church carpark, a pop-up tunnel from a garage sale (where they were moving to Japan and Harriet had a conversation with the man in Japanese - so cool to hear), and even a run in to an op-shop.  Turns out Ted loves to 'build' with the offcuts so I'm going to keep an eagle eye out for further pieces of wood and be prepared to pull over sharply when any appear on the side of the road.

You'll notice there are no photos of Harriet in this post.  I'd like to point out that Harriet does not like her photo being taken at the moment and let's leave it at that.  Rest assured, she is doing as well as someone on about two thirds of their required sleep can do (that is - functional, and no more).