This weekend, Noah and I have had some lovely special moments 'playing planes'. We set up the tent (as a plane) and tunnel (as an airbridge), and Noah and I had great fun 'taking off' which involves Mummy pretending to put a seatbelt round Noah, then we simulate leaning back and whoosh! up into the air. Once we're up in the air, we have been going to sleep (Noah lies down with a blanket over him with eyes closed), then waking up for breakfast, and looking out the window of the plane to see what we can see down below on the ground - which was other planes, cows, tractors, trains, trees etc (his words!). What a great imagination our wee boy has got. I am definitely no expert in child development, but even just as a parent learning through all these new experiences we're having, I have been surprised at how early Noah is doing things like counting, knowing his colours, and engaging in imaginative role play. I certainly didn't expect to be 'playing' planes with him just yet, it seems far too grown up!
I am sure that his experiences at daycare do play a part in this early learning though, especially with the role playing. When I arrived at daycare one night this week, he and several other children were being shown by the teacher how to be various creatures at the beach (whilst I was watching I saw the children become crabs, seahorses, rocks, anemones etc - very cute). Noah has developed a couple of lovely friendships with Beck (little boy) and Maya (little girl), both of whom are a little older than him (closer to 3 than 2), and when I go to pick Noah up they are always within coo-ee of each other! Yesterday morning when driving home from the supermarket in the car, Noah voluntarily said without any prompting 'Beck's nice mummy' which I thought was just lovely.
We had yet another awful southerly storm overnight on Friday, with a large number of slips in and around Aro Valley - driving down Raroa Road yesterday morning I counted about 10 slips of various severity in less than 2 kilometres. The ground is so sodden at the moment, and in the week http://www.stuff.co.nz/ reported that Wellington had 1.5 times the average rainfall this winter. I for one certainly can't remember another winter where the ground has been so unstable.
We had a lovely coffee catch up at home with Mark's boss Andrew, his wife Nichola and the gorgeous Maddison who is now 13 months old. Noah had a massive sleep (2.5 hours is pretty much unheard of for him even on a good day), and then we did a spot of outlet shopping at Dressmart (with a new pair of trainers for me....I really won't have any excuse not to get back into the running as soon as the exam's over now!)
Poor Markie has been laying low all weekend with a really bad tooth/swollen jaw (which flared up a couple of months back and has reared its ugly head again). He ended up at the emergency doctor to get some antibiotics on Saturday and has been surviving on a cocktail of Voltaren, panadeine and antibiotics, with as little talking as could be managed over the weekend. He was perked up somewhat this morning by a little boy running into the bedroom saying, 'Happy Daddy Day' (aka Fathers Day) with a card and Scorched Almonds in hand (not that Mark could eat any today, poor thing). He will be camping out at the dentist tomorrow morning to try and get it sorted I think.
My first week flying solo at work went OK, I think it will take some time bedding down how the corporate face of M-co will look going forward under the new structure, and thankfully everyone seems to understand this. Just focusing on achieving things one day at a time seems to be the best policy for now.
Today, we had a lovely family trip to the ducks, park and cable car museum, making the most of the fine day, and this afternoon we had a brief outing to change my trainers (as my memory of what my shoe size was wasn't quite as spot on as I had thought!), and then to visit our dear friends Becky and Jonny and new baby Brooke briefly.
When we got home, Noah and I had made a game of taking all the clothes off the clothes horse and had a clothes fight, then I buried him under the clothes, and made a clothes tower which he promptly jumped on. It was a great way of making a boring job fun!
Another cute moment this weekend was when after Fluffy No. 1 with a little chocolate sprinkle on top had been downed at lightning speed, a very polite request was made for 'more chocolate please!'. How can one resist such lovely manners!
The weekend was topped off by a lovely webcam with Grandma, Grandad and Baba this morning, the first in a long while. Noah was a real little show pony showing off to the camera, all singing and all dancing with excitement at seeing them all. It was lovely to see Grandma back home again, and to see her looking so well.. keep up the good work!
We were commenting that on this very week last year Noah started walking and we suffered the heartache of Noah's previous daycare suddenly closing. What a difference a year makes to us all...! Noah is so happy at Early Years and even though there were some very worrying moments at the time trying to decide what the right choice was for alternative daycare, we are so thankful that God was leading and guiding us through those uncertain weeks to make the decisions that have turned out for the best. As always, we can always feel His loving hand on us.
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