A new space

While chatting with a new friend one morning last week as we volunteered together in our sons' classroom, we discovered a mutual interest in thrift store shopping. She picked me up on Friday morning and took me out to introduce me to a couple of new ones I hadn't yet discovered. I spotted an old child sized desk for $10 but resisted. For the rest of the day I couldn't stop thinking about how perfect it would be for Brendan. So the next morning I went back to find that all furniture was on sale and got the desk for 5 bucks. Our plan is to sand it down and paint it in the spring but for now it's sitting in the back hallway, under a window that lets in the afternoon sun, perfect for after school quiet time.

One recent story snippet complete with patriotic, war based illustration... "In (the) past two of my brothers died in a war. Now we built a secret weapon that can destroy the bad government. It is called the 'super star destroyer'."

Learning to write

Every day brings something new. I can't believe how fast this can happen! I'm reminded of how I was a tad worried that he wasn't learning quick enough back in the spring. We visited our friends (Tippers) whose wee girl is about 8 months older than Brendan and I was blown away by how good her writing was. But here we are now, and it's happened virtually overnight.
Above are a couple of examples from a story writing book he was given by Nana and Papa on Tadhg's birthday. At school last week Brendan made a book by himself (a story with drawings about a gingerbread man) and when reading it to his kindergarten class wasn't "enough" for him, the Principal took him upstairs to a grade 6 and a grade 4 class where he stood up on a chair and read his story to the bigger kids. I got this news third hand and am not sure if she meant not challenging enough, not satisfying enough, not exciting enough, a bit of each? He was quite proud as he told us how they applauded and he "took questions" afterwards. Hopefully we'll get the book home this week so we can see it.

I'll write more about their school and its "alternative" philosophy sometime soon.

Fairies

Posts discussing topics such as this are a little harder to write these days, given that we sometimes read through them together with the boys and thus have to be mindful of their feelings. But what imaginations these boys have! I love it.
With little encouragement from us, Brendan has developed a fascination with the tooth fairy. I'm thankful for his determination to draw me out on it because I was really being a bit boring and uninterested. Through his curious questioning we have together worked out quite a detailed idea of this fairy and her business. I don't know why she's a girl, but Brendan has run with it and actually left her a lego man under his pillow so that she'd "have a man to dance with because he is about the right size". Apparently he'll come to life when he meets her because she is magical.

When the tooth fairy came she left a note and signed her name "Stella" and generously left a $5 bill. I suppose she had absolutely no loonies or toonies (1 or 2 dollar coins for you non-Canadians) that night.

Here is his letter in reply...

DeAr, StellA,

My {drawing of a tooth} is rely, rely 

specal, aND The, DollaRs 

That, you, giv, to

, me, R, great,

for, me, Becos,

I, cAN, sAvev, it,

for, loTs, of,

iNTeResTing!!

fings,!!

{drawing of a flower}

Here's the only picture of the tooth gap so far. There is a better one on my phone but I don't know how to get photos off the phone yet. It's on the to do list.

grenouilles et crapauds

Brendan and Siobhan joined a frog and toad protection team! Here's Brendan standing beside the sign just outside our house as we headed out on an amphibian rescue mission.


Each year in the spring, frogs and toads travel down off the hill at the end of our street, across a busy road, through gardens, across a farm road and finally reach a little pond in the woods where they spawn before heading back up the hill. Ordinarily many of them are killed on the road, so a team of volunteers, lead by a lovely lady called Katia who works for the local council, walks up and down the road for a couple of hours after sunset to help them across safely.

We were asked to come along by our local friends who have done this a few years running. We had to wear a safety vest and bring a torch and a bucket. As we walked along we could hear movement in the bushes but, given Brendan's inability to stay quiet for more than about 2 seconds, they were a bit hard to find at the beginning. Once we had a few gathered, Katia showed us where to go to realease them.

Between the four of us, two kids and two parents, we found 12 and then another two on the way home which we just helped across the road. Katia was counting and the total for the evening was over 80 individuals and 20 pairs, mostly toads and some frogs. That's 120 frogs and toads helped across the road in under two hours.

Those already paired up were all toads- each a large female, fat with eggs, with a much smaller male clinging onto her back. We were told to try and keep them together. She showed us how the male will kick out and shout at you if you touch him, thinking that your hand is a rival.

Here's Brendan releasing some on the far side of the farm road, leaving them to cover the last 30 yards or so on their own again. This was a lovely moment, but all in all it was an experience with mixed emotions, for me at least. We talked a bit about how humans disturb natural migrations like this but we mostly focussed on the good- how cool it is to save a frog from being squashed!
 

We can't go tomorrow because we have friends coming over in the evening but we may go on Sunday night. Katia said she'll bring some info leaflets- about the migration and how to tell the frogs from the toads and the females from the males. And apparently if it rains during the day the numbers should be bigger. So we're hoping for some rain on Sunday, but not too much!

drama

While Tadhg and I were in the bath, baking cakes and cookies with imaginary ingredients and kitchen equipment, Brendan concentrated hard on building the Tintin ship the "Unicorn" out of lego. They have seen the movie (whether or not that was wise is a topic for another day) and Brendan had decided he wanted to act it out.

He asked Tadhg and I to do a show with him. "Actually, mum, it's really a play but I'm going to call it a show."

We spent a good few minutes trying to convince Tadhg to defer to Brendan in the role of director, this being very hard for Tadhg to do as he has a pretty strong idea of how things should be done.

B pleaded, "Can you be the artist and paint a picture of me, I mean tintin, I mean me, I'll sit here, please Tadhg, please..."

Once T understood, he said "oh, ok" and 'painted' a picture of Tintin in about 2 seconds flat. Brendan and I had just about given up when Tadhg seemed to 'get it' and embraced the part. I then sat in another corner of the room and watched the two of them perform the painting scene, Tadhg totally milking it and managing to stretch the scene out to about 4 minutes long. He improvised some small talk and Brendan played along. It was so awesome to watch. Hopefully I'll get a bit on video tomorrow.

arty pants

 

This is just a  fraction of the art produced by Brendan in the last 6 weeks or so. 

If you take a walk around our house you'll see a few more piles here and there and bits of paper stuck to walls and doors and fridges. We're running out of wall space :) 

Some highlights and favourite subjects have included...

• his "play" of Chitty Chitty Bang Bang which consists of about 8 "scenes" elaborately drawn by him with words dictated to mummy. The whole process took a couple of days and hours of movie watching!
• a shield made completely alone with cardboard, a drinking straw and copious amounts of cellotape.
• Stories in his story book, with pictures and usually involving a rescue of some sort.
• the sketch drawn "in the field" of the vehicles working on our road.
• pirate island maps, each one becoming more detailed
• ocean and the octonauts, diggers and aircraft, rainbows and butterflies, people with fingers and toes

 

writing whenever the mood strikes

Making the most of an afternoon without Tadhg to get out all the paints.

cities and rescue centres created with lego

lego vehicles

drawing out and about

taking drawing stuff out with us

Imagination... climbing the giant's mountain.

There is so much more he manages to do that I haven't shown here. 

I do worry about not giving him enough time to just do this stuff, at his own pace and when he feels like it. It sometimes breaks my heart when I take him away from some project or other to go somewhere or do something. But when I see it all together like this I think it's ok to stop worrying. He's managing to fit all this creativity into his days and I think he's doing just fine. 

I've just registered him for his first organised activity. Next week is the Carnaval week off school and Brendan will be doing an art camp- 3 hours a day for 5 days. I'm not sure exactly what they will be doing (all the info was in french) but it said maximum 6 in the class and they have to bring painting clothes including old shoes that can get messy. Lots of big painting I think. 

Fingers crossed he likes it.

New bike, new skill!

Brendan's new bike that we found at the giant brocante (car boot or yard sale) in our village. He loves that it is his favourite colour and he couldn't wait to try it. After me holding on for about two or three minutes, probably less, he was off and pedaling by himself. I guess it's because he's had a balance bike but I really wasn't expecting it to be so easy! I was so proud I actually cried :) Very soft, I know. I think it may be because riding my bike around the street near our first house in Saudi is one of my earliest memories, probably helped by the fact that it was one of the first things my dad recorded on his brand new 1981 video camera. That thing was a HUGE black machine, each of it's three parts was about the size of a microwave. Well, almost.

So we went out on the bike to practice every day this week. One day we went to Steve's work and they rode around on a bit of old taxiway. He still needed a bit of help getting started here.

Check out his face- he loves it!