Observe this

I was listening to an interview with Neil deGrasse Tyson (Director of the Hayden Planetarium, it was a SETI podcast) on the way home from work. In it he describes kids as little scientists constantly doing experiments. An example he gives is seeing his daughter pour some milk onto the table, watching it intently as it pools and moves off the table and onto the floor. He let her go as she seemed genuinely interested in what she was observing. He then had to clean up before his wife could see. Pretty cool, if you ask me.

I'd like to think I'm a little like that, although I honestly don't think I'd go with the milk thing, at least not inside. There is something great about watching them in R&D mode, be it pure ("what does this thing do?") or applied ("If I can open this door, I'm pretty sure there's food to be had"). As long as there are no limbs in immediate danger of being detached, or imminent irreparable damage to property, it makes sense to let 'em go. A little. Sometimes. Hypocrisy much?

Actually, Isaac was having fun experimenting with the shower hose attachment in the bath tonight. He'd have great fun waving it around, but then drop it in his lap, with the water jet coming upwards. The water pressure wasn't particularly high, so it didn't reach his face until he pulled it out of the water straight up for another play. He'd then drop it while he blinked and shook his head to recover. I think this exact situation is what the phrase "rinse, repeat" was invented for. He did this half a dozen times before deciding that just waving it around the bath walls was a much better idea after all. He could've gone either way on the cry/laugh choice a couple of times, I think, but something kept him going back for more. Maybe it was the fact that it was self inflicted, or just the potential for discovery.

I just realised this was almost my first post without an image. This is mostly because I've been slack about posting stuff and am doing some fixing retrospectively. While on this topic, I'm currently posting some drafts and editing a few things, so anything between the August 18th and this post may well change, or new posts may appear without warning) Rather than leave it image-free, I decided I'd find an older, or at least pre-blog image. Here's one of my favourite pictures of Isaac. It's from about 9 months ago, when he was not almost 6 months old.



For those of you still reading, Neil De Grass Tyson is a great speaker. This podcast wasn't a great example though. The SETI podcast is interesting, but the advertisements really get up my nose. They're just interstitials, but there seems to be too many of them by far, or maybe it's just the American accents. Anyway, this interview on the Point Of Inquiry podcast is much better. The POI podcast is also one of my favourites.

1000 kg of sumfin'

This picture was taken earlier in the week. I believe the girls preparing some cakes/muffins for playgroup the next day.

I'd like to think that Elissa really enjoys cooking, but her repetition of "Can I lick the spoon yet?" every 45 seconds or so makes me think that her heart really wasn't in the mixing.

Anyway, this weekend we successfully took the kids to the playground we'd previously failed to deliver on due to poor planning. (see here) What is it with bad spelling in advertising. Is "tunzofun" really that much more appealing than "TonsOfFun"? It actually made it harder to find their website, in my humble (but correct) opinion. Yes, I called and made sure they were open before this trip.

Elissa really loves it there, and Isaac had a great time too. The padded shapes and floor allow him to walk and fall with no real risk of injury.

The whole walking think is still novel enough to Isaac that walking in between us, a couple of metres apart, is great fun. His favourite, I believe, were the window shutters on the plastic cubby house. Below is a short clip of him opening them, with a cameo from Elissa at the end. (Click on the play icon in the centre of the picture to play)

"Did someone get the licence plate of that passing juggler?"

Elissa enjoyed playing hide and seek, as well as riding on the two-seater-rocking-horse-or-giant-chicken-see-saw-whatsit, pictured below.

"Higher please!"

When we weren't around to rock her, she was happy to recruit other kids she'd never met before. There is also a jumping castle, which is a little beyond Isaac just yet. Elissa likes the jumping castle, but wanted it to herself today and kept telling me that "the other children aren't sharing!".

There are a few more pictures in the set (flickr account required), but we didn't really take a huge number of photo's, as we were pretty busy just playing with the kids. I'm pretty sure that this is the right way to prioritise, and there's certainly no imminent danger of a lack of pictures of the kids.

"You start the engine, I'll just check the tires."

Play time

Another case of writing this a few days after the fact. Details may be sketchy, as my memory isn't what it used to be. I don't think it used to be that great either, but my memory of that may also be failing.

We caught up with some friends for yum cha on Sunday, over at Rhodes. The kids were all well behaved, and managed to consume a reasonable amount of food, not that this was their first attempt at yum cha by a long shot. Elissa told us she was going to have a custard tart before we got there, although now that I think about it, I don't think she actually did. Apparently it's the same chain of restaurants as the one we have near us at Castle Hill. Cathy and Craig have two kids, Ella and Jack, who are of very similar ages to Elissa and Isaac. The boys are too young to interact very much, but the girls get a long very well.

Just for the hell of it, here's a video of Elissa and Ella from June 2006. I've uploaded this one to YouTube, all the ones I've done previously have been hosted on Google Video. I haven't been particularly impressed with the quality of Google Video, so this is a bit of an experiment. I think YouTube is doing a better job of the rendering. With Google now owning YouTube, you'd think they'd consolidate the engines. Anyway....


(Click on the triangle in the centre to play the video)

After lunch, went downstairs to a playground inside the shopping centre. Craig and I hung about with the kids while Susanne and Cathy went in to Ikea. Actually, Isaac was asleep in the pram with Susanne, but you get the idea. The play area was quite small, and rather crowded, but the girls had a pretty good time anyway. For the photos (taken on my phone, so the quality is sub par) Ella was quite co-operative. It's getting harder and harder however, to get photos of Elissa with anything other than the silly grimace shown at the top of the post.

After that, we went to Katrina and Doug's for a couple of hours. Elissa got to see Bob (pictured) but wanted to check that he was friendly first. She's careful to determine whether animals fall into the friendly/naughty category before contact these days, after a minor run in with Possum, my parents' somewhat cantankerous feline, a little while back. Bob soaks up the abuse/attention quite amicably though, and just wanders off when he's had enough.

Later that afternoon it was off to Susanne's parents' place for dinner. With all the attention they'd received in a day, it's no wonder the kids think they can get away with anything. Unfortunately, for the most part they can. I suppose that's just part of the aunties / uncles / grandparents package deal. At least Elissa is aware of it. She actually says "I'm spoilt from Nan and Nanny and Santa and the Easter bunny, aren't I!" Well, at least two out of four will continue the tradition for the foreseeable future.

Access all areas

Isaac is all but walking now. He's quite fond of walking forward and backward between objects (or parents) multiple times. He can still only manage half a dozen continuous steps before overbalancing or sitting down, but he can and still indefinitely and change direction deliberately now. He's made a few voluntary forays into open space, so far with no serious consequences, but considering that his enthusiasm seems to exceed his ability, tears and bruises are inevitable.

We're almost certainly going to have to "Child proof" the place more seriously in the not too distant future. Elissa was always curious about her environment, but either learnt to respond to "no" more quickly, or simply preferred her toys. Isaac responds to "no" also, but generally by looking at you, smiling, and then doing exactly what he intended anyway. I regularly follow him as he traverses the entire kitchen, pulling on every door and drawer handle along the way. I wasn't here at the time, but I believe he's already sent one bowl to the great kiln in the sky.

It's not as though he doesn't understand "no" either. I've seen him crawl towards Elissa while she's playing with something that she feels isn't appropriate for sharing, only to have her put up a palm and say "no" in a stern voice when he's still half way across the room. He'll stop crawling, sit up and complain/cry as if he's been physically restrained. I don't know where she learnt that, although it's not entirely unlike the command(s) she gives to Lisa's dog(s), so maybe it's a derivative of that. It's not a 100% effective tactic however, as I've seen her hold a toy above her head, out of Isaac's reach, only to have him happily stand and attempt climb over her to get it. That's when Elissa becomes the source of the complaints.

All that aside, they quite often to play together quite well. This picture shows Elissa offering Isaac one of the fridge magnet shaped cookies she "baked" in the bar fridge.

Frogs and Bears

Elissa's first "tattoo". Yes that is Freddo Frog. No, this blog isn't sponsored by Cadbury, but if the money is right, my journalistic integrity is, shall we say, negotiable.


I was listening to a podcast (Jumping Monkeys , episode 8) today in which Leo Laporte described his 15 year old daughter giving him a power point presentation on why she should be allowed to get a nose piercing. Fortunately, this still is a long way away, but I can imagine this situation without too much difficulty.

While I'm on a slightly animal theme (Frog's and monkey's have both got a mention so far), I might as well go for the hat trick and try explain "The Bear Game". Actually, it's recently split, there are now two variants of the bear game, one upstairs and one downstairs.

The upstairs version involves a cave, which consists of the space between the spare bed and the wall, improved with a couple of flat mattresses. Essentially, someone has to be the bear (usually me, at least first go) and wait in the cave, generally asleep. The person then comes around and wakes the bear up, asking whether or not the bear is a "friendly one". If not, and I'm usually instructed to not be friendly, but rather "hungry" then growling and chasing are usually all that's required. Occasionally the bear is allowed to be friendly, which generally requires allowing Elissa to crawl over the top of me to get into the cave after which I'm allowed to turn around, so that the two of us are facing each other in the cave, with my legs hanging out the entrance. At this point various fictional people/animals/toys come past and ask if they too, can enter the cave. I've no idea what the criteria is for entry, but very few are allowed in.

The downstairs version is completely different. Elissa makes a house by lining up a row of toys in a line across one end of the "toy room" downstairs, with Isaac's door toy as the means of entry. Other toys and furniture are dragged in to make the rest of the wall, quite effectively dividing the room into two parts. We both have to get into the house by Isaac's door. Once inside Elissa says that there are three (or four or five, or ten, depending on what she thinks she can get away with) bears asleep in the house, and that we have to get them out. I then have to come up with "tricks" to get them out, one at a time. This is usually things like leaving a trail of honey going through the door, pretending to be the bears parents and calling on the phone to ask the bear to come to dinner, or hiding and making dinosaur noises to scare the bears away. The usual stuff.