SNOW!

Apologies for the absence, it's been a busy time.  And for part of it our little family was travelling to NEW ZEALAND!  It was Geekling's first overseas trip, and it was the first time seeing real snow for the entire family.

 Chasing and playing on the frosty lawn

 Geekling at the Snow (Mt Hutt)!

Snowball fights with Aunty N

As well as the snow, we visited the Wildlife park, a number of small towns and hot springs.  What a great contrast to the cold that was!

Overall, I'd say Geekling travelled pretty well.  At 2.5 years old and with a fair few plane trips under his belt, the flights weren't an issue, and he loved car trips around the country with so many sheep and cows to look at.  But he missed his grandparents, our pets and our home in general.  A couple of times he begged to go home, which was so sweet and sad.

Melbourne Zoo

Hubby, Geekling and I took a trip to Melbourne over Christmas - New Years.  We visited lots of family and friends, went to our favourite restaurants and souvlaki place and of course went to a few tourist spots like the Queen Vic Markets, The Museum and the Royal Melbourne Zoo.  I have been dreaming of taking Geekling to the zoo since I was still pregnant!  I love Melbourne Zoo, and have so many memories of visiting with my family as a young girl.

Watching the bear

Geekling loved the animals (the ones he could see easily, nocturnal, distant or otherwise hiding animals were not interesting to him) but was not such a fan of the walking between exhibits.  By the end of the day we were all a bit weary of constantly picking him up, putting him down to walk, putting him in the stroller (which we took knowing how much walking would be involved).

Mummy and baby elephants in the feeding pen

I think it was especially valuable for Geekling to see the giraffes and elephants and get some idea of the scale of these large animals, something that isn't as obvious in books or in film.

Geekling loved the giraffe

Catching the train

Geekling LOVES the train, we catch the train every week day to his day care centre one stop away.  He walks to the station from the car park, likes to choose whether to go up the steps or up the ramp, then he enjoys pressing the buttons to call the lift to take us up to the concourse and another lift down to our platform.

Lately he has taken to sitting on "seats".  Anything that can be sat on is a seat, and he simply must try sitting on whatever he sees other people sitting on, and takes particular delight in sitting on the train seats - it brought a tear to my eye as he looks so big and grown up.

Ditching the stroller

In keeping with our decision to implement the Montessori method, we are making great progress with 'weaning off the stroller'.  To be honest, its more about weaning hubby and I off it than weaning Geekling off it.  Most of the time he would much rather get from A to B under his own steam.  We've been guilty of using it for our own convenience (and in some cases, sanity), particularly in getting him to and from daycare.  But no more.  Now we will only use the stroller if we are planning a big, long day out somewhere (such as a show or festival).  It is an exercise in patience for mummy and daddy many times, walking at a child's pace (even though Geekling seldom walks, but runs as fast as his chubby legs will carry him) and stopping many times as his attention is caught by something other than the path ahead.  It would be so easy to say "don't stop, we must hurry" or to scoop him up and carry him, but we truly want to encourage his interest in the world around him and natural curiosity.

Why does the Montessori method shun the use of prams and strollers?

Aside from the general principle of allowing a child to interact freely with their environment, Montessori methods prefer not to use strollers because a child does not learn skills like walking by being strapped into prams and carriers and high chairs most their day.  They learn by being given the chance to attempt and practice these skills through being allowed to safely move freely.  Yes, Geekling already knows how to walk, and run, but these skills are still stepping stones to further skills that he must be able to practice at every possible opportunity.  Every day he is perfecting his balance, soon he will learn to jump, skip, hop and more.  We do not want to hold him back for the sake of our convenience.

This does make shopping with him more difficult, with the exception of shopping at Bunnings where he can push a baby trolley around the store.  He's getting quite good at steering them!

Toddler activity bags

We're currently enjoying a well-deserved, long-awaited family holiday in tropical Far-North Queensland to attend a friend's wedding. It is only the second family trip away we've taken, and I'm still finding travel with a toddler to be challenging and hard work but absolutely amazing and I am sure we'll forge some wonderful family memories in this trip.

So, in order to entertain a 1.5 year old on a 2.5 hour plane trip (plus the waiting at airports and check in etc), I made up a number of activity bags inspired by this post from Chasing Cheerios, as well as packing a few things that didn't fit in the little zip lock bags:

Top row: Travel size Magna-doodle (almost bought the mini one, but they were the same price and the cheapskate in me could not allow me to buy a smaller product for the same cost), Geekling's Button Snake, a gold tiny gift box with a hole cut in the top and a pack of plastic coin-size counters to slot through it, a blank notepad (thank you Thynne & Macartney) and a couple of bingo markers.

Middle row: Finger puppets (mostly sea animals and some animals that are featured in Dear Zoo, one of Geekling's favourite books which we also packed), Mini pack of plasticine with cutters, 4 stackable storage containers filled with different coloured counters and a silly putty (makes faltulent noises when squashed).

Bottom row: Bob the Builder magnetic background and magnets, Animal funny face re-useable sticker book, magic colouring book and pen, Geekling's matchsticks and toothpick container.

Of course, since we were so prepared, we didn't actually need any of them! Geekling slept the entire flight! One of the families near us had a baby around Geekling's age who wasn't as happy to be flying so I offered them the magic colouring book which entertained him briefly (then his older sister much longer) - I don't think Geekling will mind if it is a little pre-used :)