Mayana is Five

My beautiful girl.

I can’t believe that you have been in our lives for five whole years. I somehow feel like I have always known you, but also that these last five years have gone by in the blink of an eye. How can it be that my wrinkly little 5lb 2oz baby is all of a sudden this great big girl, so clever and confident and beautiful, about to start school!

I’m so proud of you my girl. There are so many times each day that I look at you and my heart feels like it literally is swelling in my chest with how much I love you. You are seriously gorgeous, with your long blonde hair and your sparkling blue eyes. You have the most delightful smile, and your giggle never fails to bring a smile to my lips.

You are so kind, and you care so deeply for people. You are really invested into your relationships with friends and family, and people mean everything to you. You love to think of ways to include other people in the things that we do.

I love the kind of sister that you are. Sometimes your brother is awfully annoying, I know. He can be so rough with you, and he LOVES to touch your things, especially when you don’t want him to. Most of the time you are so patient with him, and you try to include him when you can. Just today, he was playing with your brand new stroller that Grandma Suki bought for your twins. You must have told him 200 times these last few days that you don’t really want him playing with it. Today, instead of yelling at him to put them back, you decided to involve him in your fabulous imagination instead, and invited him to babysit your girls while you were getting ready for the day, which he did ever so beautifully for you! You love to hold hands with him across the back seat when we are driving somewhere, and if he won’t give you a kiss and a cuddle when he first sees you in the morning, your heart is almost broken. You truly do adore him, and I hope and pray that you two will always love each other and be close. I can’t wait to see how this new more grown up version of yourself will be with your newborn baby brother when he arrives in a few more weeks!

I think one of the things that you are most known for Mayana, is your incredible imagination. I love how creative you are and how absorbed you can become in make-believe. Sometimes it frustrates you that other kids aren’t able to keep up with what’s going on in your games. You can’t fathom how they can possible not see the pretend baby you are asking them to hold, or why they are not passing you the lettuce so you can finish making your burger!! I love listening to you play with your toys, when you give everyone different voices and have them involved in complicated situations and conversations.

Your other big love is learning. You are genuinely very clever (and I’m not just saying that because I’m a proud Mama). You love to ask questions and figure out not only how things work but why. You like to know things from every angle, and you retain everything you’re told or hear. Sometimes I’m surprised at the things that you know! You particularly love letters, and the thing that you are most excited about with starting Prep this year, is learning to read. I think you’re under the impression that you’ll be an expert by the end of day one. You already can name all of the letters, and tell what sound they make, and have started to figure out how that relates to reading. I catch you sounding out words, or using the first few letters on a sign or book to figure out what the word says. You can write the names of everyone in our family, and you constantly ask me how to spell certain words so you can write stories  underneath the amazing pictures that you draw.

You are still a little girl in so many ways, thank goodness! You love fairies and princesses, and Peppa Pig, and Bananas in Pajamas and Playschool (actually pretty much any show on ABC4Kids is okay with you!). You still love being creative and doing any kind of artsy-crafty activity… especially painting. I don’t think a day goes by where you don’t at least have your drawing book and textas out – and your pictures are delightful! You love all the colours, but still have a soft spot for pink, and you like anything that’s girly – especially if it has a bit of bling or sparkle!

You also love Jesus, and have an unquestioning faith that is both humbling and inspiring. Your immediate response upon hearing that someone is sick or hurting or sad is to pray for them. When I told you on that morning last October that Oma had passed away during the night, you asked me why I was crying when I knew I would see her again in Heaven. There was no doubt in your mind of the fact, and I know that the way you comforted many of our grieving family members (including myself) with such compassion during the days around Oma’s funeral, was extremely touching and special to them. My sweet, kind girl.

Oh Mayana, I am going to MISS YOU when you start school next week. Next week! This has just arrived far too quickly, and I’m afraid I get a huge lump in my throat and tears in my eyes that spill over more often than not when I think about it too much! We have been the best of buddies for the past two years, and done so many things together and learned so much together. I still wish we could have done more! I know I’m going to be the kind of mum who relishes school holidays for the time I’ll get to spend with you, precious one.

I love you, my beautiful daughter. I’m so proud of you and the way you are growing up. I have loved getting to know you and watch you become your own person over the last five years, and I can’t wait to see what God has in store for you! As you say to me, “I love you around the whole planets and back a hundred times”. I really do.

Love Mama.

You can view Mayana’s 5th Birthday Interview HERE:

Her 3rd birthday video is here. Prepare to melt from all the cuteness!!

Changes

{image credit}

Over the past few weeks I have had four dreams where I have discovered strange rooms in our house. Like, rooms I didn’t know anything about, and suddenly there was this whole new section to our home that I’d never seen before. The first one was just weird, and I put it down to pregnancy, but when it started to reoccur I grew curious. So I turned to Google (what would we do without it?), and amongst a whole lot of borderline creepy new age-y stuff, and the above picture, I found that the thought is that these kind of dreams happen when your subconscious is getting you ready for surprises in your life - new interests, goals, potential ventures, and/or unexpected possibilities, and whole unexplored parts of yourself that you never knew existed.

Weird. But then I thought about it more and began to realise how much our life is about to change.

The obvious one is a new baby. Having three children is definitely going to be a big change in our life. I remember reading an article once by this mother who was totally overwhelmed by the idea of having more kids than hands, and I can tell you now that I completely relate. I feel somehow like this jump between two to three is going to take a bigger stride than the one between one and two. It’s going to mean changes in our home too; we’ll have to shuffle bedrooms and the ‘Making Room’ so that we can all fit. Lots of change, in lots of ways.

Reuben is finally having his endoscopy procedure next week. We will hopefully have his diagnosis confirmed, and, God willing, can hopefully get the answers we need to start to close the door on that yucky chapter of his life. This will definitely be a good change.

We are also entering a new phase in our life that is going to last for many years. School. We will for the first time be ruled by a strict routine. Little Tadpole is going to have to fit naps wherever they fit, because there will be a school run to consider! It’s going to mean earlier nights and earlier mornings, lunchboxes, homework, uniforms, commitments.

And then there’s Mayana. My beautiful girl who is, as I write this, at her very last day of Kindergarten. Who in about 52 days begins her schooling journey. I’ve written before about how confronting I’m finding this season. It’s one of those things that has always been looming.. you know it’s coming and you try to prepare yourself for it, but all of a sudden, it’s here! Those seemingly endless days of full-time Mayana, where I’m her number one and we get to play and learn and do everything together, they’re almost over. I know some of those things will stay the same but I also know it will be different. Almost like I’m handing over the reins to another person to help bring her up. Mayana is so excited, and I know that she will thrive at school. She cannot wait to learn how to read (I think she believes it will magically occur after her first day), and told me last night that she plans to read to our whole family every single night. She is going to make lots of friends and learn so many new things and love every minute of it, I have no doubt about that. But I am going to miss her.

I keep thinking about the year that I worked, and Pete was at home with her. I remember on my first day, it was so overwhelming… meeting all these new people, learning about my new responsibilities and systems and how things work, and all the time with this huge dull ache in my chest, thinking to myself what am I doing! I should be with my baby! My baby is not my baby anymore. She’s a confident and self-assured, outgoing and bubbly, beautiful, kind and friendly nearly-five-year-old. How on Earth did that even happen! I could never keep her from this just because I don’t feel ready, and the thought hasn’t even cross my mind. But I am finding it a lot to process. I’m an over-thinker, I always have been. My brain literally never stops. Ever.

We took her to her Prep orientation the other week and she was so excited to meet her teacher, whom she greeted like royalty, and happy to recognise some familiar faces of kids who will be in her class. She spotted dress-ups and was adorned in a flowing princess gown before we knew it. She coloured in and played with playdough, did a painting, decorated a biscuit, and played with her Papa in the playground. She looked right at home. We bought her school uniforms, which will probably not need replacing until about grade three by the looks of how big they are, and she just about was bursting out of her skin! She’s so ready for this. And I am nearly ready to let her fly. I love watching her grow, I always have. She’s a seriously cool chick, and I’m so genuinely proud to be her Mama. Of course, I’m going to be pretty much eight months pregnant and surging with hormones on her first day of school and can pretty much guarantee that there will be tears.. but also that they will not be from her.

So maybe my weird room-dreams do make sense. I think I have a lot to learn about me, in this new stage of parenting – the one with three kids and the one with a school-aged-kid. Hopefully those new parts of me will be as cool as the random rooms I discovered in my dream house.

Wonderful Weekends {Part One}

Here in our little corner of Queensland, we have been having a lovely winter. It has been incredibly mild, and I’ve had friends tell me about how confused their gardens are, with flowers and strawberries already producing, thinking that we’ve gone straight into spring!

The past two weekends in particular have been just glorious. We’ve been having super blue-sky days of about 25 degrees, which is the perfect temperature for spending time in the great outdoors.

I ran out of time this week to post about last weekend, so excuse my two-weekend posts this weekend!!

Last weekend we woke up early to a perfect sunshiny day and decided it was too good to waste on housework! We packed up the kids, and headed out for a family breakfast date, then trekked off half an hour away to our nearby beach town, Hervey Bay.

Mayana asked if she could sit up at the breakfast bar looking out into the street, and felt very grown up sitting there by herself, enjoying her raisin toast and “cup-of-chino”.

We found that there was a lovely little markets happening, so we strolled through them before heading out onto the famous, almost one kilometre long, Urangan Pier. The sky was cloudless and brilliant blue, and the ocean looked like it had been sprinkled with glitter. It was glorious. We meandered along, looking into the water for fish and soldier crabs, and enjoyed peeking into the buckets of the fishermen set up for the day at the end of the pier. We felt like we were on holidays.

As we walked back, we had a message from friends who were keen for a spontaneous meet-up, so we spent the next hour or so playing on the beach with them and their kids, chasing soldier crabs, examining sand worms, and jumping in the puddles formed by the ‘potholes’ left behind by the stingrays when the tide is in.

I was amazed by Reuben’s lack of intimidation when playing with the crabs. He had absolutely no hesitation in picking up the soldier crabs and letting them crawl over his hands. Our friend’s six year old son was not so keen on them, and Reuben found it highly entertaining to chase him around holding crab in his outstretched hand. Actually, we all found that pretty entertaining.

It was nice to just step back, and let the kids explore and have fun. My kids don’t often have the chance to get wet and dirty, and they both enjoyed it so much… but especially Reuben. I think just having this huge space that he was free to run in and enjoy was pretty close to one of the best experience he’s ever had, and you couldn’t wipe the grin off his face.

He liked to squat nice and close to the puddles and peer in very intently. Occasionally his face would accidentally dip into the water and he would quickly stand up, blinking up at us with a face that asked, “what just happened?!!”

We wrapped up our fun afternoon with fish and chips (because it’s like a rule that you have to have fish and chips when you go to the beach – especially in Mayana’s mind!!), and then tripped back home for a much needed afternoon rest. It was such a lovely day, and made me want to make a bigger effort to get out there and have fun with the family in our beautiful area more often!

The Ballet {a mama-daughter date}

As you may know, I might be struggling a little with the fact that my little 5lbs2oz bundle of joy is suddenly big enough to be off to ‘big school’ next year…. Blows my mind every time I think about it.

But anyway. I think about this a lot. And think about how short the time of having the opportunity for my kids to be at home with me really is. I am making a much more deliberate effort to enjoy my time with them; making a point of having quality time, playing, laughing, singing, taking them places. Especially my Maysi, because this season is escaping from us so quickly, and I intend to invest a lot of time and loving into her over the next 8 months.

Last night we had our very first Mama-daughter date night. Peter had found out that QPAC (the Qld Performing Arts Centre) had partnered up with a number of regional councils (including ours) for initiative where they live-simulcast certain events to the public for FREE! This year’s even was to be the Bolshoi Ballet and I jumped at the opportunity to take Mayana to something so wonderful.

So after our zumba classes yesterday evening, Mayana and I shoveled down some dinner, dressed ourselves in some warm clothes and gathered an armful of blankets and a chair, and headed off to our simulcast location.

Generally these are held in theatres, but our local theatre had a sold-out concert on last night, so they had to choose a different space, and it ended up being held outdoors, on a large oval by the sea. It was wonderful.

We snuggled into our blankets and kept each other warm, and thoroughly enjoyed the  music and the dancing and the whole experience. Mayana was enthralled, and kept asking me questions about the storyline. Thankfully they had given us a program on arrival and I was able to describe in detail what was going on. She would whisper to me, “Mama! Look how fast they are spinning!” or “look how the can jump and spin at the same time…. do you think I could do that? Can I try real quick?”

We didn’t quite make it to the end of the show… it goes for over 3 hours, and I had to pull the pin on the fun at about 9.45pm… I didn’t know how I would go on the 30minute drive home if we stayed right until the 11pm ending!

On the way home I told her the end of the story and we talked about how these ballerinas were full time dancers, and how they probably started dancing when they were little kids and danced and practiced every single day! Mayana concluded that she only would like to dance for fun, and not be a proper ballerina, but that she sure loved watching them!

I felt like this was such a great initiative, and a fabulous opportunity to give my girl a bit of culture that was light on the hip-pocket, and not something that she can often be exposed to in our little regional town. I will definitely be keeping an eye out for the next event like this.. and one day, hopefully, I will be able to take her to the real theatre and we’ll see it all in real life!

My Clever Kid

Mayana loves to learn. She has loved books basically since she’s been alive. She will ask me at least twenty times each day to read her something. She can count to 20 and knows her abc’s almost it seems by osmosis.

Her most recent request has been to learn some Dutch words, and after acquiring a fabulous app she hasn’t looked back. She now will only use the words ‘banan’ for banana, ‘drie’ for three, ‘vier’ for four. She will sit for an hour at a time going through the app, and copying words back to it in Dutch, running to me occasionally to tell me, “Mama! Did you know that blauw is blue?”

Mayana starts prep next year (*insert heart palpitations here*) and I am working hard to find the balance between encouraging her love of and absolute desire to learn, and not letting her go far enough that she will be bored next year. I have no doubt that if she and I worked together she would be reading quite fluently by the time she hits school. As a student who was an early reader and placed in the ‘gifted and talented’ basket early in my school career, I have vivid memories of being bored out of my brains for half of my primary school life. I had a handful of teachers who were able to stretch and challenge me, but many others I’m not sure quite knew what to do with me, and mostly set me a whole lot of ‘busy work’. As a teacher I realise that my teachers had 25-30 other kids, many of whom were struggling, to focus on, and it’s easy to pay less attention to the ones that ‘get it’. As a teacher I’m sooo mindful of those kids in my class, but not all teachers are. I don’t want Mayana bored. By the same token, I don’t want to hold her back, either. And I DO want her to keep loving learning.

I have had many conversations this year with other mothers of children who will be heading to school next year, about what they do or don’t do at home, and even what they’ll be expecting their child to do next year. As  someone who has written and administered an entire Prep distance education curriculum, I have a pretty good idea of what to expect, and I know that some of these parents are going to be shocked. I personally believe that while play most certainly has its place in early-years learning, many people grossly underestimate exactly what our young people are capable of when we heighten our expectations of them. It is so exciting to me to see children soaking up learning like sponges, and I truly believe that it is imperative to hook them… engage them in learning now while they’re ready and interested and in Mayana’s case, asking for it.

So this year, at home, we’re easing into things. We’re dabbling in early reading skills, and boy does she blow me away with how quickly she can pick things up. One of the things we do each week is work on our Alphabet Book. We are loosely following the Letterland program, and we’re up to the letter ‘N’. Mayana somehow has picked up most of her letters already though. I did a test that I used on my beginning Year One students last year with her last week, and she was able to not only tell me the names of all 26 letters, but also the sounds that all but 4 make. I was actually quite shocked! If I give her a word, she can easily tell me what letter it begins with, and then will give you a list of other words that start with that letter too. She is becoming proficient in forming most of the letters, and one of her favourite things to do is writing, where she asks me to spell out long words and writes down the letters as I give them.

Here is an example of what we do in our ‘learning time’:

Last week we learned the letter M. Of course, being the beginning of her name this is Mayana’s favourite letter and she already knew quite a lot about it. I allocate four pages for each letter. On the first page I write the upper and lower case forms of the letters in bubble writing. She writes inside of it, and then has a go at forming the letter independently on the page around it. Sometimes (but less often lately) she asks me to ‘do the dots’ for her to trace. We have a memory verse for each letter which we stick on this page. I found them at this website, and I have been so impressed at how well she is able to remember scripture! Next, we brainstorm a bunch of words that start with our letter. When we first started doing this we would look through catalogues or magazines and cut out pictures which started with the letter, but lately Mayana has been more interested in writing the words she thinks of by herself. You can see on this one that I wrote a few of the words for her, but she is getting so good at forming her letters! I try to do little illustrations next to each word to help her remember what they say when she shows her book to her Papa later. Next, I do a ‘find the letter’ activity. I usually have 10 letters of the week for her to find (5 uppercase and 5 lowercase) all mixed in with every letter of the alphabet. I’m going to have to find something more challenging to replace this soon, because she does this activity in about a minute flat. Lastly we do some kind of art activity. I look for inspiration on Pinterest (I compile my ideas on this board) and in teaching resource books that I have. This week she has been bugging me to draw patterns and shapes for her to practice cutting out, so I figured I’d incorporate that interest into this week’s activity, and had her cut out the very tricky and angular M. The Letterland character for M is Munching Mike, a monster, so she turned her M into a monster of course! Once we have done this we use the Australian app ‘Eggy Letters’ on the iPad for some more practice. She selects the letter of the week and completes all of the activities which accompany it. Most of them are to do with forming the letter, and then there are two activities where you have to indicate whether a given word starts with the letter. She loves doing Eggy Letters, and it’s a nice way to finish off our little learning time.

I often will do a numbers activity through the week with Mayana too. She is a good counter, and can count through to 21 with one-to-one correspondence. I think that she could probably go further, but lately that’s as far as she’ll go as my sister just turned 21. We have a few little pre-school math books with simple addition and subtraction, and lots of practice forming numerals. Any kind of learning that’s made available to her, she’ll take it!

Given that I have written Prep curriculum, I’ve had lots of people asking me (and assuming) lately whether I will home school Mayana using the program I wrote. I asked her what she thought of the idea and she looked at me ever so patiently and said, “Mum. I have to go to school.” When I asked her why, she replied, “Because I need to learn to read!” I told her that I could teach her to read and she jumped off the bed and ran out of the room. I asked her what she was doing and she called back, “I’m grabbing some books so you can teach me right now!” The answer for us is no though. As much as it freaks me the heck out that I am sending my baby off to school next year, I know that it will be the right fit for her. She is so incredibly excited about it, and I couldn’t hold that back from her.

So for now, we’ll do our little bits of learning at home, I’ll encourage her in her interests, and challenge and teach her the best I know how. And pray that next year she gets a teacher who will continue to do the same. And that my beautiful and ever-so-clever girl always has the love for learning that she does at four years old.

Do you believe in doing any kind of formal learning at home, or are you happy to leave that for school? Does it make you want to cry when you think about your baby going to school or is that just me!?

A Mermaid Party

Mayana’s fourth birthday party was over a week ago now… with all the floods and everything that has happened since then it feels like a month ago! I’ve finally gotten time to write a post about her party… better late than never. Enjoy!

Pretty much since her third birthday Pancake Party, Mayana has been asking for her fourth birthday to be a Mermaid Party.

And so, after much pinterest research (what would we do without that wonderful website?) and creative thinking, we managed to do just that… we pulled off a Mermaid Party for Mayana’s fourth birthday.

I designed the invitations, asking people to dress up either as a mermaid or their favourite sea creature. Mayana was quite insistent that her friend Max had to be Prince Eric, but other than that people could be whatever they wanted to be.

I found an awesome tutorial for making a mermaid tail online, and Mayana chose a deep turquoise velvet, so that she could look like Ariel. I drew the line at colouring her hair though! (just a note if you’re looking at the tutorial – I used velvet instead of the stretchy sequinned fabric, and tulle – soooo cheap, and much easier to work with, no fraying!- instead of the organza)

My sister and I spent half an hour plaiting Mayana’s hair in tiny sections so that she would have super-wavy mermaid hair for the party instead.

We originally intended for the party to be outside, turning the trampoline into a giant sea anemone and setting up ball games and other things to keep sugar-hyped kids entertained. Unfortunately the great rains started on Friday, so we had to change tactics. We cleared the furniture in our dining/family room area and set up the party there… food at one end and a mat at the other for sitting on to eat, play games and open presents. I had made a huge… I don’t know what you would call it.. banner maybe? decoration out of tulle and ribbon, and bought three paper lanterns to hang above the table.

The morning of the party we were very busy, finishing off the decorating, the food and dressing up our beautiful mermaid… Before we knew it Mayana’s friends were arriving!

I had planned a game of pass the parcel, and other than that the games turned out to happen organically – a round of musical statues, and then an impromptu dance party. Mayana has a thing for dance parties at the moment, and most of her friends were keen enough to join in eventually!

The cake was a Lady Flo butter cake, with buttercream icing and white chocolate decorations, topped with a mermaid Lala-Loopsy. I couldn’t quite get my head around a mermaid cake, and thought this was a pretty good alternative.

I had gone all out with the food… while there was nothing especially fancy, we had gotten very imaginative with the names, and everything had an under-the-sea theme, complete with a little mermaid label describing what it was.

We had chocolate fish, and the tiny coloured biscuits I’d made along with some multi-coloured jube lollies became ‘mermaid treasures’. Drumstick biscuits were ‘shark bait’ and carrot sticks in tatziki dip became ‘crablegs with seaweed dip’ (these were a huge hit actually, the kids and adults both loved them… I liked the idea of individual serves, because kids are notorious for double dipping!)

Triangles of cheese were ‘shark teeth’ and a bowl of potato chips were ‘sand dollars’. I’d made colourful rainbow fruit kebabs and named them ‘fruits of the sea’.

I think for novelty value, the ‘octopus in a blanket’ were probably the biggest hit. They were a cheerio/small frankfurt sausage cut into 8 legs, with the head wrapped in puff pastry then baked. As they cooked the legs separated and splayed out, turning them into octopuses! More simple were the ‘fish egg’ jelly beans.

I usually over cater and have heaps of food left over, but someone this time I did well. At most there were only a few things left.. everyone was satisfied and we weren’t eating sea-food for the rest of the weekend!

For drinks, I poured a bottle of lemonade into my funky new punch bowl, and added a few drops of blue food colouring. I had been making up the ‘goldfish’ all week, by freezing orange juice onto a fish mould I had bought from Ikea for 99c. It looked very effective, and the kids loved drinking it out of the cute little milk bottles (purchased from The Big Little Company for last year’s party) with the paper straws that I picked up from Typo!

All of the kids and some of the adults dressed up. We had a handful of  mermaids, some sharks, a crocodile.. a Poseidon (Greek God of the Sea) and a Neptune.. it was lovely and Mayana appreciated it so much!

Mermaid Mayana and her Prince Eric!

Peter and I loved putting on this party for our girl, it was so worth it to see her big smile and watching her have fun with all her favourite people.

Happy {fourth} birthday!

Last Friday, my baby girl.. that tiny little 5lbs 2oz baby… turned four years old!

I’ve said before that I’ve never really felt sad as Mayana has grown up; I’ve enjoyed every age, and loved watching her grow bigger and learn new things. While that is still true, this year I am feeling a little more nostalgic. I don’t know if it’s just the knowing that this is her last year at home.. her last year she’s *my* little one before she goes off to school and starts a different facet of life without me. I’ve never seriously considered home schooling before, but I’m beginning to understand its allure! (not that I’m seriously considering it now I don’t think… Mayana would be devastated, she is SO excited about starting school).

I have and do love watching Mayana grow up. I was looking at some of her baby photos today, and am struggling to reconcile that wrinkly teeny tiny baby girl with my big four year old, full of laughter and chatter, with a wicked sense of humour, wild imagination and infectious giggle. With her lanky long arms and legs, hair closer to her bottom than her shoulders, and just so many brains. Four is just so BIG!

I really do feel blessed to be that girl’s Mama. She is so sweet and funny, and has so much love. She challenges me… she is so clever and understands so much and I just so want to make sure that that part of her stretched and given a chance to develop. I just know she is capable of so many amazing things, and I can’t wait to see how it all unfolds for her.

Mayana’s fourth birthday was a lovely day. Peter was given the day off work, and Mayana was so excited to have her Papa home all day. With so much anticipation and counting down in the weeks leading up to the big day, we had expected to be woken at the crack of dawn, and were surprised when the clock rolled over past 7am, with still no sign of the birthday girl! In the end we had to wake HER up, with protests of, “I just need a little bit more sleep!” Have you ever heard of such a thing?

Kami and Opa FaceTimed with us, and watched Mayana open her bazillion birthday presents in our bed, which included lots of jewellery, some nailpolish, a few books, a home-made dress and a puzzle. After presents, we went out to the dining room where Mayana was very excited to see the way I had decorated it for her…

and even more excited when she walked around the corner and discovered just one more present…. a big girl BIKE!

We had plans to meet friends at the pool at 8am, so we decided to postpone breakfast (though we fed Reuben of course) and get ready for our swim. Mayana wasn’t hungry yet, and the thought of going for a swim before breakfast was very appealing to her! We had a lovely morning at the pool with our friends, and when we came home Papa made pancakes for breakfast, as per the Birthday Girl’s request. We offered ice-cream to put on the top, but she refused, preferring butter and ‘make-up syrup’. Funny chook.

Next on the agenda was morning tea out at a cafe with another friend. Mayana was wearing a ‘birthday girl’ badge, and when her morning tea came out, her babycino was pink, and her cupcake had a birthday candle in it!

She thought that was very special. She also of course enjoyed having some time with her friend Hannah.

When we got home we had to pack our bags because we had a big weekend ahead of us! We left for Noosa in the afternoon, where we had a special birthday dinner planned. Mayana had requested spaghetti, and Alexie had gone all out, making three kinds of pasta (bolognaise, carbonara and pesto), followed by a chocolate cake with vanilla icing (as requested by the birthday girl). Yum!

On Saturday the birthday celebrations continued. We had to make a trip to Brisbane, as the son of Mayana’s godparents was being baptised on Sunday. We decided to make a weekend of it, and hit Ikea (we needed a few things and it made sense to go when we already were headed that way), and then Southbank. We took Mayana on the Brisbane Wheel, to the Southbank Beach and to Max Brenner as part of her birthday fun.

We had a lovely family day together, and it was topped off with dinner and a sleepover at her Godparent’s house.

Next Saturday our celebrations will round off with a special celebration…. Mayana’s birthday party! She has asked to have a Mermaid party, and I have made an awesome costume for her (even if I do say so myself) and she’s hoping that all of her friends will dress up as either mermaids or sea creatures. I have been working hard on decorations and the sea-inspired menu… I’m really looking forward to it and hoping it doesn’t rain!!

In the meantime, I’m enjoying Birthday Week with my beautiful big four year old. The house is still decorated, and we’re trying to do something memorable every day.

I love you my Mayana Berry. I love you more every day and week and month and year. I love the little girl that you are and the person that you are becoming. You are my sweetest, funniest, loveliest girl, and I’m so thankful every day that I am blessed to be your Mama.

Love you!!

Chores + Pocket Money {+ a free printable!}

Mayana is four in twelve days *sob*. She is getting to be such a big girl, and very capable. She’s a great helper, and makes my life easier in many ways. She is learning to help around the house, and is especially helpful in entertaining her baby brother when I need him distracted for a few minutes!

I really want to encourage Mayana in her attitude of helpfulness (she generally LOVES to help), and Peter and I have decided that we would like to reward her with some pocket money for the help she gives us.

The three of us had a chat about some jobs that she was already doing, and some jobs that she could learn to do, and decided on eight things that she can do daily to help out around the house. We talked to her about how it was important that everyone in our house has responsibilities to help make our lives run smoothly. Mayana know that if she helps me out with my chores in the mornings (ie washing up, sweeping the floor etc) then I have more time to play with her. She also knows that I shouldn’t have to be picking up her dirty underwear from the bathroom floor every night!

I’ve made a chart for Mayana, and each time she does one of her special jobs, she gets a stamp or a sticker. I actually plan on laminating this and sticking it on the fridge so that I don’t have to print one every week. Mayana has eight jobs she can do every day, plus I’ve given her an extra space for ‘Being an Awesome Helper’… so that I can reward her extra for things like looking after her brother, helping with grocery shopping… and okay… maybe I’ll be able to use it for a little bit of a bribe when necessary.

The rest of the jobs are mostly things that she was doing already, and a few things that she just needs a bit of encouragement to remember. She doesn’t do all of these jobs independently – for example she’s only really in charge of unpacking the silverware from the dishwasher… not the whole thing. She hangs the nappy liners on the clothes airer while I do the rest of the laundry (about 6 pegs per liner, if you don’t mind) and at this point she’s only really clearing her own dinner dishes from the table.

At the end of the week, Mayana will get 10 cents for every job that she has done. I’m under no illusion that her chart will be full of stars every week, but if she ever manages that, she has the potential to earn up to $6.30 in a week. We’ve talked to her about tithing and giving to God, and she’s excited to think that she will have money each week to put in the offering bucket as it goes past at church. We’ve also discussed saving money, and she’s already eyeing off a few Lala-Loopsy things that she’s quite like to save up for!

I’m excited to see how she goes with this. It’s been motivating so far in her keeping a much better attitude when I ask her to do a job. She loves going to get a stamp when she’s done something, and is offering to do things before I’ve even asked her. I’m hoping that it will help to ingrain some of these things as habit. As she gets older, she will get chores that are more age-appropriate, and these simple things will become more of an expectation – the things that she knows her her responsibility for helping our house to run smoothly. I also like the idea that she can learn about the fact that we don’t just always get things because we like or ask for them, and that sometimes we need to work hard and save to buy things that we want and sometimes even need. There are lots of learning opportunities involved in this too… learning about money is so confusing, and exposing her to different units of our currency is going to be good. She was so disappointed today that her fifty cent coin was only half of one dollar, and that she had to give both of her ‘dollars’ to the lady when she bought her cookie cutter!

Anyway… I thought that someone else might find it useful to use a sticker chart like this. So you can download it for free as a PDF printable if you click HERE!

I have only changed one thing from the original one above… I know not everyone has chickens so I’ve changed that to ‘feed the pets’.

If you use the sticker chart, I’d love to hear how it worked for your little ones!

questions of schooling

I just want to preface this post by saying I have absolutely no judgement on where or how people choose to educate their children. This is all my own experience and opinions and thought process in making the decision for my child’s education.

 

Mayana has one year left before she goes off to big school. It makes me feel quite ill to think about it. And with waiting lists for schools around here filling quickly, it seems that it is time to be thinking about where we’re going to send her in 2014.

The obvious choice of course is sending her to my school, but I don’t want to make the choice only because it is the obvious one. My school is a Christian school, and is quickly growing, with a good reputation. The Prep classes seem to fill up quite quickly, and I know and like all of the teachers in Prep and the rest of the junior school.

There are also two schools with good reputations within walking distance of where we live now. One is a Catholic school and one is a State school. The Catholic school has a really cool art department, and from what I understand teaches allied arts (visual arts, drama, dance and music) as specific subjects for all ages. That really appeals to me. People I’ve spoken to who send their children there seem happy with it. I like the idea of having a Christian curriculum, and I find that Catholic curriculum is quite well rounded (I did a prac in a Catholic school and had many opportunities to explore and engage in the ‘theology’ curriculum). My school doesn’t have a specific Christian curriculum, though teachers are encouraged to embed the teaching of Christian principles and ‘theology’ (only for want of a better word) within their programs. It’s a little ambiguous though, and with not a lot of accountability. I know it is my responsibility as a Christian parent to teach my child about the ways of God, and help them to understand why I believe what I believe and hope and pray that they make the right choices. I’m not trying to palm it off to someone else, but I like the idea of have our way of life backed-up in school, instead of being challenged or questioned.

The State school I have also heard good things about, from both parents of kids who go there, and friends who have done supply work there.

It’s made me really think about what is important to me in a school for my child. I myself went to a Christian school from the beginning of my schooling till the end of year four, a state school for the remainder of my primary years, and completed high school at a Christian school which I hope one day, when we move back to the Coast, I will be able to send my children to.

I liked going to a Christian school, I liked being able to talk and learn about God and things that were important to me. I grew so much in my faith at school. I like that there are stricter boundaries, greater accountability, and often higher expectations (for behaviour and academia) in private schools. I know that is a huge generalisation but I am speaking from my own experiences, both as a student and a teacher. I’m not completely naive, and I know that crap happens at Christian schools too. But my experiences in teaching on pracs at state schools where soooo different to my experience in Christian schools.

I’ve seen things happen in state schools that made my heart hurt. Eleven and twelve year old kids talking about their sexual experiences, eight and nine year olds engaged in cutting and other self-mutilation, bullying that made me sick to my stomach, language that made my ears burn, six year olds throwing furniture and other objects at their teachers, kids so full of self-entitlement that the whole rest of the class suffers and loses the opportunity to learn. I know this stuff isn’t exclusive to state schools but in my experience it is definitely more rife, and in too many cases is accepted as normal, and shrugged off because people just don’t know what to do about it. Of course as a mother I want to shield my beautiful little girl from experiences like this, and put her into an environment where she can maintain her innocence for as long as possible. But I know that not all State schools are like this, and I don’t want to write off a whole sector of education based on these negative experience, when I now that there are some really fabulous government schools out there with dedicated and incredible teachers.

Then there is the money situation. From what I understand that Catholic system is slightly cheaper than your average independent school, and of course State schooling is supposedly ‘free’ – though I’m reading more and more reports from disgruntled parents sick of paying huge levies and other fees. We don’t exactly have heaps of spare money at this time, but if I believe that sending Mayana to a private school is going to be the best decision for her, then we will make it work – to me it is an investment in my child’s future, and well worth it. But it is definitely a consideration that needs to be made.

I guess I need to go to these schools and have them tell me why I should send my child there… what makes them the best choice… I need to see for myself.

It feels like such a big decision to me, and I’m not taking it lightly. I keep going over pros and cons in my head, and I’ve been praying about it a lot. Hopefully, Peter and I will be able to make a decision, and the right decision, and soon enough that we don’t miss out on the school that we choose!

I just can’t believe that we’re at this phase of our parenting already!!

us right now

I’ve been somewhat of a slack blogger lately, and I thought I’d just pop in a quick update of us, right now.

{Peter}

Peter has been working in Early Childhood almost all year now. He moved over to a new centre not long after Reuben was born, and love love LOVES it. He is the kindergarten teacher, and is thoroughly enjoying almost everything about his work (EC teachers have a LOT of paperwork – he’s not so in love with that!) and adores working with the age group. It makes me so happy to watch him going off to work each morning excited about his days.

He has introduced a lot of great stuff with his kids, including a literacy program – and is so proud that he will be sending almost all of his kids off to Prep next year with the ability to recognise all of their letters, tell you the sounds they make and recognise and write their own names!

Pete came home very excited last week because a brand new mobile interactive whiteboard had been delivered to his room. He mind instantly was full of exciting and engaging learning he could do with his kids using this great tool. Then on Monday this week, he was delivered four iPads and a new laptop also for use in his room! Add this to the mini computer-lab with three PC’s and his kindergarten classroom is more technologically advanced than most primary school classrooms I know of!!

His biggest time consumer at the moment is writing Transition Statements, which are basically like report cards that tell you where your kids are at in regards to the Kindergarten Curriculum before they start school. He has set himself such a high standard with these, and each one takes him hours. It’s paid off though, because he has gotten some really great feedback from his regional director, and been told that his are the best quality of any of the other centres in her care! I believe they’ve even been used as an example to some other teachers who are struggling with what to include.

I’m so proud of him, and all he has achieved and accomplished this year. I love how much he loves his students, and how hard he works to make sure that they are learning and playing and having FUN!

{Me}

As you know, I’m loving life as a stay at home mum. My days are filled with playgroups and playing with my kids, baking for my family and keeping house. I don’t know how I could possibly do everything that I’m doing AND work!

I am eligible to have (unpaid) maternity leave until term 2 in 2014, which is the year that Mayana starts school. Next year is her last at home, and I really don’t want to miss out on this special time with her. I have decided that I won’t be returning to work in 2013, at least on a full time basis. I’m considering putting in for relief work at some local schools, but only being available 1-2 days a week. I’m still undecided as to what I will end up doing in 2014… who knows, maybe by then we’ll be ready for a Baby Three!

I’ve also started doing Mary Kay. This is mainly because myself and my mum and sisters have fallen in love with the product, but it’s also turned out to be a great way to meet people and get out of the house and talk to adults (you know what I mean Mums, right?) and make a bit of pocket money. It’s just something a bit fun on the side.

Now that we’re mostly settled in our new home, I have a hankering to get back into my sewing and maybe see what I can do in reviving my little online business. We’ll see. I don’t want to get too deep into anything other than being a Mama for my two kids. They are definitely my number one priority.

{Mayana}

Mayana is growing up at an unbelievable rate. My heart hurts a little when I think about her turning four in a few short months. She’s definitely not my baby anymore.

She’s a genuinely delightful little girl, and I love spending time with her. She’s a real girl, and loves princesses and mermaids and fairies and all things pink. This year she has done a dance class on Tuesday afternoons, and her year’s work culminated in a concert last Sunday. I don’t think I’m being biased, but I’m pretty sure she was the cutest little dancer in her class. While not the youngest in her group, she is certainly the smallest, and just looks so darn cute in a little fluffy tutu, even if she is half a step behind everyone all the time!

Mayana still loves to learn, and is enthralled by letters. She is always saying things like, “dog…. d-dog starts with d. Dippy Duck (a letterland character for the letter d). What else starts with Dippy Duck? d-dump truck, d-dimple……” and so on. She’s so clever, I just want to do everything I can to stretch and challenge her and  make sure she doesn’t lose her love for learning.

Mayana still is at kindy two days a week. She really enjoys playing, and is benefiting from the social aspect of dealing with kids her own age. Next year she will advance to the Kindergarten room, and I’m looking forward to seeing how she enjoys that new level of learning. She’s already excited about going to Prep when she ‘gets five’, even though it makes me a bit teary thinking about it – yep, I think I’m going to be one of those parents!

For now though, I’m enjoying this all-to-short period of Mayana, my little girl, who still calls me mummy and loves nothing more than climbing into my lap with a book or six.

{Reuben}

This boy is also growing at a rate of knots. He’ll be seven months next week, and I’ll do a big post all about him then. He’s just delightful, and developing a very spunky personality. He’s baby-hood is whizzing by and I’m afraid that if I blink I’m going to miss it!! Like I said, lots more about our ReubsCubes and how he’s going next week!

So there you go, you’re all caught up!!

What have you been up to?