Daycare Update

After a rocky start Ethan loves his daycare now! He still gets a bit teary when we drop him off in the mornings, but his carers tell me he is easily distracted by balls, music and trucks!

A week or so ago we had a daycare parents meeting where we were able to see our children's portfolios. I took a few photos of Ethan's portfolio on my phone (so sorry about the lack of quality in these pictures).

The carers document the activities at daycare so that us parents get to see what our children are up to! I am really appreciative of this as it means we are still connected. They outline the key aspects of  learning and also note any areas of extension!

Here Ethan is doing some painting and adding glitter to the paint! Check out the concentration! If you click on the pictures you will be able to see them bigger and read what the carers say about each activity.

 This page in Ethan's portfolio talks about Ethan learning to use a money box and how proud he was of himself for working it out!

 Ethan's portfolio of work had some of his paintings in it!

 

As well as the portfolio of work, each day the carers compiles an A3 sheet of the daily activities. This is not as detailed as the portfolios. Its more of a snapshot of the day! Sorry for the quality of these photos but here are two recent shots of Ethan! 

 

I really  appreciate being able to see this information and it makes going to work that little bit easier!

A winter's weekend in Perth

The weekend just been was a perfect example of why we like to live in Perth. The winter weather is totally bearable (the last fortnight has been sunny with temperatures ranging from 16 - 24 degrees) and it is a great place to have a young family (albeit far to far away from extended family at times!).

Saturday was all about getting a few jobs done round the house. This also involved a quick trip to IKEA for some supplies (another good reason to live in Perth). On the way home from IKEA we stopped at one of the many local parks for Ethan to have a good play and get rid of some of his never ending supply of energy!

Sunday started with a running race for me (yip, I am back doing running races - I'm not fit or fast but a weekly running race sure is helping).

Then after Ethan's morning sleep a quick walk to our closest neighborhood playground (we have around 5 in easy walking distance). He loves the playground! He can climb to his hearts content!

 

 After lunch we headed off to the river so Jason could do some canoe polo practice. Ethan and I dug in the sand, stalked sea gulls, watched Jason practice, talked to a friendly dog called Dice and generally had a fun time!

 Jason showing Ethan the kayaking ropes! Got to get them started early!

Even though it was cooler than the week before, Perth still put on a lovely winter's day for Jason's canoe polo training!

I love being able to spend as much time outdoors as we did this weekend just been! Here's to more winter weekends like this one!

Who is he like?

Whenever we see people that I am closer to they always say "Ethan is SOOOOO much like you" and likewise for Jason! I can see bits of each of us in him! So I thought it would be interesting to delve into this a little more.

Ethan is around 13 months old now and we are starting to see personality, behavioral and physical traits that we can attribute to either me or Jason (and some that we have no idea where they come from).

I have tried to get some baby comparison pictures, I have no idea how old Jason and I are in the pictures here:

And here are some recent photos of all three of us. I'll leave it to you to decide who he looks like more!

Here are a few things about our little guy and my opinion as to who Ethan takes after.

• Tall (neither)
• Long arms and big hands (Jason)
• Curly hair on the sides (Jason) and straight/fine on top (me)
• Brown eyes (me)
• Looks quite serious when not smiling (me) - see below 

•  Stubborn (me)
• Knows what he wants and makes sure he gets it (me)
• Cheeky (??)
• Fearless (Jason)
• Nimble/great climber (Jason)
• Likes broccoli and cheese (definitely me)
• Not fussed on meat (neither)
• Good at kicking (while swimming) (both)
• Doesn't like to eat in the mornings (Jason)
• Night owl (Jason)
• Prefers to sleep a little later in the mornings (Jason)
• Gets grumpy when tired or hungry (me)
• LOVES cars, and especially notices any car with a V8 (definitely Jason)
• Likes helicopter and planes (?)
• Like motorbikes (Jason)
• Likes to make a mess (me - haha)
• Likes to put the washing on (neither - haha)
• Loves to explore (both)
• Gets bored easily (Jason)
• Loves tools (Jason)
• LOVES to dance (definitely neither, although we enjoy it a whole lot more these days as it makes our dear wee boy happy)
• Likes computers (especially keyboards and mouses) (Jason)
• Good farter - haha (Jason)

So there's a lighthearted look at Ethan's current traits. No doubt you will have all noticed other things!

Apologies blog readers!

Firstly, sorry about the lack of posts lately but I truly have not had time! We are so busy with both of us working full time I just haven't had enough hours in the day to do everything I need (and want) to do! At the moment the things that are really suffering are exercise and catching up with friends for both of us and project 52 and blogging for me!

So to help this we have made a few changes round here. The first change is doing our grocery shopping online. For $10 someone else browses the shopping aisles picking our groceries, packs them up, drives them to our house and puts them on our kitchen bench! Well worth the $10 I say! That has saved around 2 hours a week and it means that instead of rushing round on a Saturday we can play and have fun with Ethan!

We are also being really strict around our get up times during the week. Every time we snooze the alarm we put more and more pressure on ourselves for the coming day!

I work from home on Thursday and I have not yet got a great routine going... I need to probably get up a little earlier those days and get a good couple of hours work in before Ethan wakes up. Otherwise I just don't get enough work done around Ethan's sleep times!

Ethan has struggled with his molars so we have been having a lot of interrupted overnight sleeps. Lately he has been waking every 2 hours from around 11pm. Not great for work the next day (or even trying to get up and exercise!). I can't even exercise at work as I need to use my lunch break to express Ethan's milk for the following day!

We have a plan in place to get Ethan's sleeping back on track and I hope to wean Ethan from his day time breast feeds so that I can stop expressing at work (I think keeping up with it for 3 months has been a  great achievement). Once these two things happen I should be able to (time wise and energy wise) exercise a little more. Most of you should know that I am like a bear with a sore head when I can't/don't exercise (poor Jason and Ethan!).

Finally, I have left project 52 slip. So I am not going to try to catch up... but I am also not going to give up. I am going to start from this week's theme. So Project 52 will end up being project 40-something at the end of the year! Again, I am proud to have been able to do what I have but just need to give myself a break and not stress that I couldn't quite keep up through the transition from stay at home mum to working mum!

So once again, sorry for the lack of blog posts, I hope that over the coming weeks and months I will be a bit better with this!

Working from home

 So one day a week I work from home. Ethan is also home those days as we can't get him into our daycare on a Thursday.

The first week was pretty tough actually as all Ethan wanted to do was sit on my knee and play with the computer. So we got Ethan the table and chairs so when I am working he has his own "work space".

As Ethan gets older it will be used more and more. At this stage it tends to be more of a climbing frame for Ethan than a desk, but we are getting there!

Park time

Now that Ethan is a bit older we are starting to be able to have more fun at the multitude of parks around Perth. We have 4 parks within a very easy walking distance of our home and Ethan has so much fun! He can climb slides (big and small) but generally only goes down them backwards on his own (which suits me as it means he is still just a little cautious!

Here is Jason and Ethan on a spiral slide at Lake Monger... 

Email notifications can see the video here.

 Ethan wasn't quite so sure about the see saw on his own though! He was hanging on quite tightly!

 Ethan loves birds so we were regularly feeding the ducks at the local lake until we saw the signs prohibiting this!

After a big day at the park, where better to sit than on daddy's shoulders!!

Project 52: Week 22

Hi all,

 Sorry for the delay in posting these, life just got away on me over the past few weeks with work, daycare, illness, teething etc etc!

Anyway, I hope you enjoy!

book noun

• a written or printed work of fiction or nonfiction, usually on sheets of paper fastened or bound together within covers.
• a number of sheets of blank or ruled paper bound together for writing, recording business transactions, etc.
• a division of a literary work, especially one of the larger divisions.

 Books are something that I don't have as much time for these days, unless they contain one word sentences like "ball", "dog", "cat" etc. I am trying to devote a little more time to reading (a very relaxing pastime for me) as Ethan gets older.

In third place is "modern book"- my iPad... I read far more now that I have this! Plus books (at around $10 from iTunes are much cheaper than buying in the shops!

 Here is second place...

 

And first for this week!

 Look out for the next blog (as I catch up), the theme is smiles!

Ethan helps with the washing

Sorry for the video post spamming today but these videos of Ethan were all too good not to share them!! Plus I figure it gives you an opportunity to see how grown up our little man is getting and gives a different perspective that just photos. Its hard to believe that he is just 1 year old!

Here is Ethan helping with the "washing". For those that get my blog posts by email you can see the video here.



A few days later I did a load of washing for real and unfortunately a can of coke was still in the washing machine! Luckily for us the can didn't explode or do any damage! Note to self, I must check the washing machine more closely these days!

Is it Ethan or is it Gandalf?

Ethan's walking has really taken off over the last few weeks. Walking is now his first choice for movement and crawling is now just the backup! The other night while watching TV Ethan picked up our monopod and he just started using it like a walking stick (check out the video below)! It amazes me what babies can do sometimes, I have no idea how he knew to use it as a walking stick!

For those of you that get the blog by email, you can see it  here.

 

Mountain man!

Our little Ethan is a mountain man! He has no fear and has already conquered many a Perth playground slide!! He can climb a slide in seconds (what better way to tire him out before his morning sleep I say haha). Check out the video from this morning (excuse his non-matching outfit but we needed to extra jersey over his pjs as it was a chilly Perth morning - 15 degrees). For those of you that get my blog emailed to you, the link to the video is here.