Siblings bath time 16-Oct-11

For a little while, Sam cried every time he went into a bath. I suspected he had a little nappy rash that stung once and that put him off bath for qutie some time. Now he really enjoys having a bath with Lara and Lara loves bathing with Sam. They still fight and sometimes the bath ended in both crying but generally they play well together.

Turf

We finally made up our minds to get the back garden turfed by professionals. The date was set to be the Saturday of the October long weekend. We spent the previous weeks obtaining qutoes (4 quotes, 3 quotes were very similar and one was strangly cheap, we chose the most expensive one), deciding on grass variety (Sapphire Buffalo) and preparing the ground (killing weeds). The skip bin arrived the day before, but turf was delivered on the day (because it was quite wet the week leading to the Saturday so turf farmers couldn't cut any ealier).

Because of some mix-up, the turf cutter didn't arrive until nearly 8am, even though the grass was delivered and guys were waiting to start the work. But once work was started, the guys kept going and going. At one stage, it looked like work would not be finished on the day, but somehow everything got done before it got dark.

The garden went from this:


to this in under 10 hours. Amazing!


Now 10 cubic meters of "Forest Blend" mulch is sitting on the driveway waiting to be moved to their rigthful place in the back garden!

Gruffalo

We watched "The Gruffalo" in the Opera House last Wednesday. I originally planned for Lara to go with her grandparents as Sam's specialist appointment fell on the same day. Then I managed to reschedule the appointment after Granddad offered to mind Sam so I could watch it too. Daycare introduced the book earlier this year and Lara absolutely loved it (I've noticed Lara likes stories that rhyme). Lara knew the words of the book very well, she even read the book to kids in dayare! The hardest part of the day was probably the train journey. Sam would not sit on the train so I was tired from having to watch him and 'intervene' constantly. Also we had to change trains and went up and down the platforms, not so easy with baby, pram, and the school holiday crowd.

I told Lara about Opera House beforehand, but when she saw it she couldn't believe how big it is, "I thought it was just a house" she said. Lara coloured a paper Gruffalo on a stick before the show (pictured above).

The show was 50-minute long - any longer the kids would lose their concentration. It was packed with songs and jokes for the young and the old. The playhouse is not huge and we had great seats (I booked 3 months ago!) so we could see everything well. Sam stayed outside with Granddad and had a short sleep in the pram. Several kids cried when the Graffalo growled, but it seemed everyone enjoyed it. It was a cloudy day and it started to rain after the show so we didn't stay around for long. I'm keeping my eyes open for more 'Kids at the House' shows next year.



ps All the photos came out foggy (I thought because it was foggy day) then I noticed it was only foggy on one side of the photos. The 'fog' disappeared after I cleaned the camera lense (Lara was playing with my camera the day before).

Nurtured by love & violin lesson

Another interesting book I read recently is called "Nurtured by love" by Shinichi Suzuki (translated by his wife). Suzuki's father owned the largest violin factory in Japan in the early 1900s in Japan. Suzuki started learning violin when he was 17. After 8 years of music stuides in Berlin, he returned to Japan (with his German wife) and started teaching kids violin and later started the "Talent Education" school. There are no chapters in this book and the events are not in sequence. There are snippets of information, thoughts plus stories under many headings so the book is hard to read at times. I also jumped from story to story and didn't read the book in sequence.

Suzuki believed talent is not inherited and it can be developed through education. He taught young kids to play violin through what he called the 'mother tongue' method - repetition and listening. He believes 'character first, ability second' and learnings should be made fun. There are many touching and inspiring stories in the book including how Suzuki taught a blind boy and a girl with epilepsy to play violin. I like the story of 'two girls raised by wolves' (I later googled and found scholars debated the trueness of this story). I also like the story of Suzuki's encounters with Einstein. Einstein was my childhood hero and when I learned that he played violin since six and said 'I know that the most joy in my life has come to me from my violin', I wanted to learn too. And when Lara showed an interest in violin, I jumped at the opportunity.

I did some research, talked to a few violin teachers in the area and took Lara and Sam to an early childhood music class. One of the violin teachers I talked to invited us to observe a lesson. Lara held the cupboard violin and pretended she was playing it while the lesson took place. I was surprised she sat through the 30 minute lesson. She showed great excitement watching kids playing the same music on youtube later that night.

I got the violin book/CD and lined up the first lesson. Lara will start with 20-minute lessons, and see how she goes. Next step is to hire the violin!