Party Prep

First off, this is the crystal tree after three days.  It is looking great!  Levi checks it every morning first thing.  The Dolomite/Vinegar experiment is a complete failure and the rock looks exactly the same.  I think it is supposed to grow crystals on it from the vinegar but, so not happening at the moment.  At least the crystal tree is working and that keeps him going at the moment.

Tonight was soccer night and it was cold and raining on and off but it doesn't stop the kids happily running around for two hours.  After the practice, the coach came back shaking his head and laughing.  He said that last week, they were all so tired, he had to keep waking them up and doing very active things so they stayed on task.  Tonight he was checking for a full moon!!  The kids were all scatty and if there had been walls to bounce off out there, they would have been bouncing repeatedly!

 sThen we got home and Jo had finished the party bags!  Because it is a caveman theme, we wanted to have bags to take home that reflected that.  Jo volunteered to make the bags out of 'tiger skin'.  The tiger skin was a velour rug that I had bought from Kmart for $20.  Jo cut it into big pieces and folded them in half and sewed the edges.  Levi has been bugging me since the weekend to fill the bags even though they hadn't even been made yet.  Tonight I could finally let him at it.  The tiles on the floor were perfect for making little piles for each bag.  Levi had a blast sorting out all the contents and then he put it all into bags.  We put the bags into a laundry basket to wait, but I have to add a few chocolates first before we tie up the top with string (Assuming string was made in caveman times).  Given that I have morphed dinosaurs in there as well, I guess there is a large number of epochs represented in this party, all named 'caveman'! 

Tonight Levi was a bit tired but I guess he had enough of an excuse with two hours of soccer!

Normal Day

My back is starting to feel better.  I am hoping that it will be completely better by the weekend.  There is hope at least now.  I wasn't so sure yesterday even though I kept telling myself that it was getting better.  Levi is starting to lose that sing song tone that all beginning readers seem to have to travel through.  He read with inflection tonight and it was almost as fast as I would have read it allowed. 

He is sleeping better at the moment, I think more a function of exhaustion than that his excitement has began to wane.  I think you can only maintain that level for so long before you finally have to give up and start to sleep better again.  I am starting to count the days to the vacation.  Actually I am simultaneously counting the days and blindly trying to ignore what I have to do to get there.  I can't wait until we are on the plane and I have nothing to do but relax and go with the flow.  Levi is such a pleasure to have beside you on a plane.  I don't want to jinx it but he just slips into 'travel mode' and chills out.  With the shows on the box in front of him and the DVD player as well, plus someone coming to give him food and attention at random intervals it is kid heaven.  The plane is a closed environment, so he is able to get up and walk around and go to the bathroom by himself, which also makes it kid heaven. 

I am sitting here on the computer when I should be doing more birthday things but I am tired but not yet tired enough to sleep.  Ah I better get going but this sofa is comfortable!

Making a Cave

Today was an interesting one!  It started, well, poorly is am understatement.  Pretty much, my back decided that I wasn't looking after it and decided to spasm right up, starting at about 4am.  So the first night in forever that Levi slept in and I was up at 4am.  One of these days the sleeping patterns in this house will sync and that will be a miracle!  I know that pretty much, the best option for back pain like mine today is just to take pain relievers and try to do normal things. I had so much planned for the day there wasn't a big chance to sit around and sitting was pretty painful anyway! By tonight I am feeling much better and am not counting the minutes to the next pain reliever! I think that I will be much better tomorrow and maybe fixed entirely.  I figure that if I believe it strongly (?blindly) enough, it will come true! 

So after the standard Sunday morning homework session, we made crystals.  There were a bunch of experiments that came in an over sized test tube from Scholastic at school.  One of them involved making up a paper Christmas tree and putting it in water with dissolved crystals in it.  The water is pulled up and then the crystals form on the branches.  It starts off as white paper but Levi decided to put food coloring into the water, which is an even better effect because the tree goes blue but the crystals stay white over the top!

Then Levi went to Ty's and I worked on his party again.  This time I worked on the cave.  We are doing cave paintings.  So I put up newspaper in the crawl space wall and then spray painted it brown and red brown.  On the day of the party I will hang something on the air conditioner to hide it and then it will completely be a 'cave'.  I have painted three canvas' and will put them over the spray painted wall for the kids to do their paintings!

Levi is having fun with writing now, after all that time of me worrying about if it would ever happen!  He wrote this sign for the outside of our door.  I am loving that he is getting better at spelling faster than even I could have hoped for.  I am loving that but at the same time I am going to be a little sad when he starts to give me notes that are correct in every way.  I am going to miss 'parswerd' instead of 'password'.  True to form the password was 'explode'.  It really makes you think about how exactly that you say things, because the spelling of everything around here is very phonetic and very sound based.  I better be careful!

Saturday Fire Day

Today was about getting ready for next weekend. First off we had soccer as our standard Saturday morning event. Levi sored two goals and their team won which was great. They played a team that was fairly evenly matched and so the score was pretty equal. I love watching these games because the kids have to try really hard and they appreciate the other team, celebrating their goals as well. I have fun on the sideline because all the parents know each other and are good friends now and we chat as much (probably more) than we watch the kids! Jo and Jane come and watch fairly consistently as well now so they are getting to know the kids and their parents as well!

Levi's birthday party is next weekend.  OK to be more honest, the first of his birthday parties is next weekend.  I can't believe how quickly this has all happened even though the wait has seemed interminable.  Now I am thinking it will be hard to get everything done that I am wanting done before we leave.  The party is just the start!  Today was about cleaning up the backyard and sifting sand.  I had to sift the sand because it doesn't have a cover and I am going to have the kids search for dinosaurs in the sand next weekend.  Let me tell you my shoulders and back are sore!  After sifting wet sand for hours today, I think I will need to have a quieter one tomorrow!  Luckily tomorrow is about buying supplies and getting them organized rather than heavy manual labor.

By this afternoon, other people were coming over, so we planned to take them down to the creek and do farm things.  It was a beautiful day with bright sunshine but there was anedge to it.  There was a bite to the wind and in the shade it was coolish.  None of that stopped the kids from wading in the creek though.  At least with the fire we could warm them up afterwards.  The kids were city kids and not used to fires or creeks so they had a complete blast and Levi loves showing off his 'countryness'.  I bought a bag of marshmallows and the kids stuffed themselves.  Oh they will be impossible tonight for their respective parents but that would be their problem and not mine!

The other thing that Levi has to always demonstrate is that he is allowed to be in the car on the property without his seat belt.  In fact, he loves to stand on the front seat with his head out the sunroof with the wind on his face as I drive from the creek up to the house.  It isn't far and I go fairly slowly but he loves that he is stretching the rules somewhat, and more so that he can show that off when ever any new people come to the house! 

It has been hard to get anything done with the computer today as the internet has been really dodgy.  Luckily I have been so busy there is always something else to do!

Under 8's Day

Today was Under 8 day at school again.  In fact it is Levi's last  Under 8's Day because Grade 3s are not invited even though Levi correctly informs me that he will in fact still be under 8 years of age next year.  He is generally very cranky that he is still six while everyone in the class is seven.  He doesn't like being the youngest in the class but on days like this, he is happy to be young.  It might mean that he gets it again next year.  He won't.  Under 8s day is really fun for all involved and looks like organized chaos, or fairly disorganized organized chaos!  They made masks and bags.  They played on the playground and played with glue and string.  They painted and got painted on.  It is so much fun to watch all the kids having a blast.  They love it! 

The most fun was watching the kids at the Goop table.  Really there are different types of kids, or more correctly different sensory systems.  You can see just in Levi's group the different kinds.  Two of the kids (Levi was one of these) looked at the Goop and dipped their fingers in it, before shaking it off and quickly washing their hands!  Then there was one boy who looked at the Goop and physically backed away from it with his hands behind his back.  Then there was Jim.  He was up to his armpits in the stuff.  He played in it until we dragged him away and then begged to go back.  In fact the playground pictures of Levi are when we were waiting for him to finish the third time we went to Goop for Jim.  Yes it was really fun to watch these kids and be involved!

The day ends early and you can take the kids home afterwards.  I took Levi and Ty home because Ty would have had to wait until the normal time.  First we had lunch and movie time.  Then they went out in the rain to jump on the trampoline.  I think he will have the strongest calf muscles in the world because he and Ty jumped on that trampoline for nigh on two hours.  They jumped and I got to chat on the computer with a friend.  It was lovely.  Pam brought over her 3 month old as well.  I got to have baby time (which I love) but Jordy was pretty cranky (not loving that as much).  Still holding a baby is always a very calming thing for me, even when they aren't as calm.  Actually she didn't cry at all but it was a bit of effort to keep her that way.  At least Pam got to go for a run! 

Levi was very sweet at one point.  He was climbing on the play structure and then seemed to freeze in between climbing.  I was watching and took a photo and then I went over and asked him what was up.  He said;

"I just stopped to have a think"

An interesting position but still I thought that it was an interesting take on the 'Thinker' position. 

Tonight we had Fish and Chips for dinner and then Levi asked to go to bed.  He is just exhausted, but hopefully it means that he will wake late.

Student of the Week

It continues to be frenetically busy around here.  This is not helped by the fact that Levi is now so excited about going to USA he is waking early (this morning 4.45am).  Tonight he had no trouble at all going to sleep.  After waking early and two hours of soccer training tonight, Levi was tired and trashed this evening.  I took another tick off his head under his hair again tonight, I think.  It was quite a big lump by now and I was pretty blinded by his hair.  I asked Levi if he had anymore that he thought were in his hair, but he thinks I have them all now.  The lumps left over are pretty big and itchy so I hope he is better than his Mum at keeping his hands off them. 

This week at assembly, Levi got Student of the Week for his school.  They have about twenty kids a week chosen from the whole school and he was very proud!  It says; 'For consistently being a respectful class member who has many fascinating ideas to share'.  I am sure he is exactly that!  I can only hope that he will be tomorrow after a very tiring day today!

Ticked Off

Today was another busy one.  I had to go to the Gold Coast for work and then drive to Strathpine to complete the day.  It is a lot of driving but it is worth it.  I am having more and more fun being the mentor and I am gaining a lot from it as well.  I am busy mostly because it is only three weeks until I go to USA for holidays and there seems to be more and more to do rather than appearing that things are getting done.  I just hope that I get at least a chunk of it done before leaving.  The days are getting shorter and shorter and I can't wait until I fly to long days again.  Today I picked Levi up from After School Care right on sunset.  Tomorrow it will be much the same.  I wish that there were other options for me.  Even as I despair that I won't get everything done at work, I am lamenting that I am not spending time with Levi like a 'real' Mum.  I still remember that time when he asked me why I didn't pick him up from school like all the 'real' Mums.  Ah, they know how to push your buttons and twist the knife. 

When I looked at Levi after his shower, there was a red spot on his neck and a pretty hard knot under it.  On closer inspection I discovered it was a tick.  On closer still inspection I discovered it was a paralysis tick.  They are pretty safe for humans, even little ones like Levi.  I killed it and pulled it off.  Levi of course needed a photo of his neck with the tick in place.  The quality is poor for multiple reasons but primarily because the subject was so excited about the tick he couldn't keep still!!  Then when I was snuggling with him before sleep, I stroked his hair and he said;

"Oh, I have a lump on my head as well"

Yep, sure enough, there was another one just under the hairline.  He was even happier about that.  I decided that you must have a warped idea about excitement if poisonous ticks excite you but I also thought that I would keep that to myself!