Weekending

Mother's Day

Yesterday was a lovely day. The boy that gave me Mother's Day gifted me these creations.



The card was made at after school care. He told me he made rock heart by rubbing it on concrete to create the shape. So fabulous! I love it.

Play date in the sky

On Saturday afternoon Kien went up to the Skytower will his friend, Arlene, and her parents. How lucky he is to have such a cool play date. Thanks, Manon, a.k.a. waldokiwi, for taking these awesome pics.

Te Arai beach

The previous weekend the weather forecast looked so good, and I really wanted to head north as a result. Jef had a number of things to work on, and Kien needed to get back early Sunday for a long overdue play date with 2 of his best buddies from school. So we took both cars and zoomed up to Mangawhai.

On Saturday afternoon I took Kien to our local beach while Jef worked on the tractor. Initially Kien could not understand why I brought his wetsuit, let alone make him get into it. I told him I know him well and left it at that. We got onto the sand and he played around for a bit.



Then, of course, he just couldn't help himself. It went from testing the water, then jumping waves. He spent ages building a pool and testing whether he could build a barrier so the water couldn't get in - just like we did at Hot Water Beach.



















I regretted not bringing my wetsuit as well!

Making pet rocks

Kien's school had a carnival in the weekend to celebrate the completion of many years of rebuilding work that went on over there. One of the activities they had organised was a pet rock competition. So a couple of his friends were over here last Tuesday to make their creations.







Glue gun, paints and a few other accessories and their pieces came together nicely.

His best friend

These two are BFFs, or declaring they are not best friends anymore if they are unhappy with one another for some reason or another - like when one of them wanted to play cars while the other wanted to play ball it was a case of who was more whiny about what he wanted, and the other boy ran away shouting, "I'm not your best friend!". Two minutes later they were holding hands and skipping around rainbows again.

We had Declan over for another playdate on Sunday. Isn't it funny how new age the term "playdate" sounds, when once upon a time we just had friends over. So anyway, yes, his best friend came over and in between the dry spell and the rain we managed to get outside for a bit of fresh air.



They raced each other up and down the path, deciding beforehand which one of them was going to win.





The main purpose for coming out here was to draw on the ground. They took great delight in emptying out the box and having the chalk roll everywhere.



Then it was a case of, "lets stand them all up".





Because once they've stood all the chalk up on end they'd both run through and kick every one of them over, and then they'd start the game again.



It's only been recently that Kien has asked for friends to come over to see him. It was nice to have a friend over for Kien to play with.

Besties

At three years old Kien already has a best friend by the name of Declan. These two boys were besties since last year, growing and establishing their friendship at daycare. But sadly about the same time as we went on holiday to Vietnam, Declan changed to a different daycare. His mother sent me an e-mail while we were away, and finally in amongst our hectic lives we arranged a play-date for the boys. On Sunday afternoon, after 2 months of not seeing each other, Declan and his mum came around to ours, and the boys slipped right back into being BFFs.

Kien relished in showing Declan all of his toys in his bedroom. Eventually contents of both toy boxes were emptied onto his bed.











Once they were done in the bedroom they came out to the lounge where they (for the most part) took turns with the trike.



High five, Boys! You lads played very nicely together. Long may your friendship continue.

Enjoying time with others

It seems like we have been spending time with lots of different people in varying situations, all of which has been equally fun.

It always takes Kien a little bit of time to get started at being comfortable and "himself" when we go anywhere, but once he has warmed up it is delightful to watch.

I don't know what my aunt and Kien were playing but it does looks like they were having lots of fun.

There are many families living around here with kids around the same age as Kien. Luckily I've bumped in to a couple of them enough either at the park or just being outside playing to feel comfortable in exchanging e-mail addresses and arranging play-dates. So on Tuesday we met up at Victoria Park playground.

It was freezing cold although the sun did show itself from time to time, but that didn't bother the kids as they raced around and did what 19-21 month old children do - which pretty much is running around playing by themselves.

We were invited to come along on Sunday morning to a parent & child baking thing. I'll see how sociable I feel this weekend before accepting.

We left a little later than I normally would for a morning outing and Kien chatted all the way home. He points at objects and calls out the words/nouns i.e. bus, car, truck, tree, leaves, stairs, manhole cover (approximations are good enough as far as I'm concerned). When we got home I put him to bed with all his soft toys, and his toy phone which he insisted on having there too. For half an hour I heard that phone ring, chime and say the strange sentence in Chinglish that sounds something like "all of you"(???), and Kien mimicking it. When all was finally quiet I was able to sneak in to watch my baby sleep for a bit. Watching a sleeping baby is truly beautiful and heart warming.

Favourite sleeping toy this week is Koala.

In the afternoon we went for a walk to Grey Lynn park.

Favourite snacks are now seaweed crackers and dried cranberries (which he calls raisins).

As the sky threatened to provide rain for an unprepared mother, her son decided to get wet regardless.

He discovered that stepping off rocks was a lot of fun, so he did it over, and over, and over. It wasn't exactly a small rock, relatively speaking.

We spent a fair bit of time at the park because I couldn't get Kien to leave. After I finally got him to say good bye to the park we headed back along Richmond Rd.

Cats are such a novelty for Kien to see, and he just gets so excited when he encounters one. He scares them away with his excitement so he doesn't get to pat cats too often.

There is a quaint little park between Brown St and Richard Rd which looks like someone's grandmother's old-school back yard. I like it a lot, and we often stop by just for quick swing.

Kien can get immensely giddy on a swing, and the other day when we were at Coxs Bay playground he actually flipped out of the chain type swings because he kicks his legs and leans backwards and giggles uncontrollably.

I had to push him very gently on this swinging episode, and as you can see he still couldn't contain himself. I had to hold him so he wouldn't slip out.