rachel.blog

Tag: Kids

  • Funny things my kids say and other stuff

    Elizabeth’s kindy put on a fundraising disco last night for charity. It was sponsored by local businesses and there were raffle tickets with prizes. Elizabeth got a raffle ticket and won a prize – a huge bag of products from Chelsea sugar. In other words, she won a bag of sugar. How ironic is that,…

  • Who’s in charge?

    A conversation Ben had with our 7-year-old son, Daniel, today: Daniel: Is mummy older than you? Ben: No, she’s younger. Daniel: Then how come she’s in charge?  

  • Friday funnies

    Someone sent me this yesterday. It’s quite old but I’ve only just seen it and want to share. I can certainly relate to the challenge of getting small children ready and out the door each morning.

  • Bossy three-year-olds

    A three-year-old is an entertaining beast. Our three-year-old always seems to be ordering us about. Here are some of these orders. To Daniel: * Hurry up Daniel or you’ll be late for school! * Don’t run across the road!   To Daddy: * Don’t put the orange skins in the compost because the worms don’t…

  • Questions from my son

    I had a couple of questions from Daniel – who is 6-years-old – yesterday afternoon. One of the questions is quite profound, the other, profane. I’ll let you guess which is which. NB: Freud is our dog. Question 1: What would happen if I put my finger in Freud’s bottom and took it out and…

  • A high-five is worth gold

    There’s a great TED talk from the “That’s absurd!” playlist which is delivered by comedian and creator of Improv Everywhere, Charlie Todd. Improv Everywhere is a New York-based group of individuals who go about creating “scenes of chaos and joy in public places”, one of the most famous being the no-pants subway ride which is…

  • How to use toilet paper

    My 3-year-old showed me a novel way of using toilet paper yesterday. After completing her business, she grabbed the entire roll of toilet paper from the holder, wiped her bum with the entire roll, then returned it to the holder.

  • Goodies vs baddies

    Our six-year-old son has been talking a lot about baddies recently, so Ben decided to probe him on it. Ben: What’s the difference between a baddy and a goody? Daniel: Baddies are always fighting goodies. Ben: But if you see two people fighting, how do you know who is the baddy and who is the…

  • Dolls' house versus aliens

    Daniel and Elizabeth were intently focused on their play this morning. Me: What are you playing? Daniel: Dolls’ house versus aliens. Me: Who are the aliens? Daniel: My cuddly toys. They do mean things to the dolls’ house animals. Me: What sort of mean things do they do? Daniel: They squash them. It is true…

  • Saturday morning at Takapuna

    It has been quite hot here. Not as bad as the heat folks in Australia are enduring, but hotter than we’re used to. So we’ve been swimming in the sea every other day and I’m quite enjoying it. This morning I thought it would be nice to go for an early swim at Takapuna beach…

  • Annoying things and cute things

    1. Tents. They *never* go back in the bag. No matter how much you fold and press and squish them in, they never fit back in the bag they came out of. Our tent now occupies two bags. 2. Paint rollers. They are impossible to clean. When washed under the tap, they produce a never-ending…

  • Daniel's serve and Siri

    I took a lovely photograph of Daniel this week at his tennis lesson. He’s just served the ball: The photo was taken with my new iphone and edited and uploaded using the same device. I’ve just started experimenting with Siri – the voice recognition software – today. It is quite amazing. I can remember testing…

  • I bought Elizabeth some face paints….

  • Fairies and butterflies

    It’s a busy weekend of birthday parties this weekend. The kids were invited to a fairy party yesterday and Elizabeth dressed up as a fairy. Boys were not required to be fairies. We’ve got another party today. There was face-painting too. Daniel understood what this was about but Elizabeth was a little unsure until… …she…

  • Daniel the artist

    Daniel has a tendency to get obsessed with things. His latest obsession is with drawing. He can spend literally hours drawing pictures of all sorts of things. He’s churning through reams of paper too – we have to somehow teach him to be less wasteful. Today I took some photos of his works of art:…

  • Playground-hopping

    We went playground-hopping today and found an absolute treasure of a playground at Hobsonville Point which is on the very western edge of Auckland harbour (Waitemata harbour). It had some very interesting  sculptures for children to climb on and interact with and was a big hit with our kids. We saw two magnificent rainbows while…

  • The dog and the children

    Freud is looking really well again and is pretty much back to his old self of chasing cats and barking at strange men. He’s to have another blood test tomorrow so we’ll have a clearer picture then of how much the bacterial infection was to blame for his renal failure. Meanwhile Daniel has an ear…

  • Sums

    Daniel loves maths. Perhaps he’ll be a mathematician like his Daddy. Last night, we caught him doing sums. He has his own unique notation (although Ben tells me it’s not that unique and looks similar to Reverse Polish Notation), but the calculations are correct. 3+3=6 4+4=8 5+5=10 100+100=200 9+9=18 and 8+8=16 self-portrait

  • A day of doctors

    It has been a day of drama. This morning we took Daniel to Starship Hospital to have his hearing checked which turns out to be absolutely fine. We got a referral for him about a month or so ago and I thought we’d be waiting for ages and ages to get an appointment but someone…

  • Not fat…

    Daniel: You’re fat ElizabethElizabeth: I not fat, I bewtiful!