Collector-gatherer-miller?

Eli is always busy. For those of you that have spent time with him recently, you'd know that one of the ways he occupies his time is by adding to his 'collection' (see The Bone post too). His 'collection' largely consists of sticks, bark, leaves, berries and nuts and when he's done his collecting locally, his collection usually resides in his wheelbarrow out near the back door.

Eli used to just load up the wheelbarrow with whatever he'd found, but recently, and with no prompting at all from me, he has started to 'process' some of the berries before adding them to his barrow of loot. He's taken to smashing off the outer husk of his nuts and berries (using a stone from the garden) which means that he's got a nice little collection of nuts and the area where he has set up his mill now has a lot of accumulated organic debris (spread far and wide mind you, not piled up neatly like his collection pieces).

Here are a few photos and a video from a recent collector-gatherer-miller session...note his bone and the post-processed berries to the front right of the photos.

The bone.

Eli wants to be a palaeontologist. I know this because he frequently tells me (and yes, I am impressed that he can say palaeontologist!). He lives up to this claim quite well too, because he's often busying himself out in the back garden looking for bones. What's even more remarkable is that he was busy digging a few weeks back and he actually did find a bone. It's obviously one that a dog had buried (we don't have a dog, but the neighbours do) and it looks like it has been in the ground for a while now.

Regardless of its origin, Eli was thrilled to have dug up a bone in our backyard! He was carrying it around like a trophy and he proudly brought it inside with him. Of course I told him that he couldn't bring it inside, but he was so excited by his find that he would occasionally forget that rule. In the end he declared that the bone was going to be part of his collection, so I agreed that he could keep it so long as it didn't come into the house. The compromise we struck was that he could keep it in the garage...near where my own collection of bones is (so I only have myself to blame).

Here are some photos of Eli sporting his trophy bone, near where he unearthed it.

At work with Daddy on Straddie!

We've just come back from a big 'work' adventure. I'm currently helping the International Water Centre coordinate a visit to Queensland for 19 Indonesian water managers (via an AusAid-funded program) and part of the scheduling included a visit to North Stradbroke Island (Straddie). The trip included some time to have a look around, but there was a strong focus on a couple of sessions about conceptual diagrams and their use in science communication and reporting (more on this later).

Since Eli has never been to Straddie before, I thought I'd try and bring him along. I was a bit anxious about it, given that I had to work and make sure he was happy and staying out of trouble at the same time, but I had some great reinforcements on hand, with Cameron and Emily willing and able to play with Eli when I couldn't be with him. It turns out that I needn't have worried at all, because Eli got along with everyone really well. In fact, he was a real hit with the visitors and even before we boarded the ferry to head over to Straddie he was already being cheeky - tickling people and running around like a lunatic!

Once we arrived at the Moreton Bay Research Station we went straight into a Conceptual Diagrams session - as you can see from the photo of Eli, he was still pretty hyped up and happy being the centre of attention, so after a while Cameron took him for a walk down at the beach (so he was no longer a distraction to all of us!). He also spent a lot of time scavenging in the garden around the Research Station for Banksia cones and he was very, very excited when he found a coconut (which we then had to lug back to the house that we were staying in!).



It was a big first day and Eli didn't get to bed until 9pm and he was totally knackered. I think he was asleep within a couple of minutes of me reading him a story (which is very unusual), but that was a good thing, because the next day was going to be even bigger.

After the theory of the preceeding day, Thursday was all about getting out and about, with a big sand modelling session on the beach in the morning. Here, the group worked in four teams to model their catchments and water issues, essentially converting their drawings into 3D models.





Eli got into the spirit of things too, by building his own sand model down near the water. His model featured a dam, with frequent water releases causing downstream flooding...he was also looking into the effect of dredging...



After completing the models, we had a bit of a break before each group spoke about the issues confronting their catchments and some possible solutions to the problems...



After each presentation Eli was invited (and actively encouraged) to destroy each groups model - as you might imagine, he took just a few seconds to demolish models that had taken an hour or so to build...thankfully everyone enjoyed it!



After a busy morning of building (and for Eli, destroying) sand models, it was off to Point Lookout, for lunch and a bit of free time to have a look around. It was a beautiful spring day and Eli and I made the most of our time (with a drink and a gelati) while the group went for a walk around part of the Gorge.



After our stop at Point Lookout, we all piled back onto the bus and headed for Brown Lake. With a captive audience, I took the opportunity to speak about the groundwater extraction and sand mining issues on Straddie, but by the time we were approaching Brown Lake Eli noticed that many of the group were asleep. I asked Eli if it was my talking that had put them to sleep...and of course he said 'Yes, you were boring'.

Once we arrived at Brown Lake, Eli took great joy in using the microphone on the bus to wake everyone up again. I then spoke a bit about the formation and ecology of perched dune lakes and the issues with visitor impacts and powerboating on Brown Lake. Eli was one of the few to wade into the lake and he even caught a firetailed gudgeon - it was already dead actually - here he is standing in the tannin-stained waters, holding his catch aloft!



I'm not sure if Eli was inspired by my performance (or just bored by it), but after I'd finished speaking he then gave the visitors a lecture too...



The following day, on the way back to the ferry, Eli took a photo of everyone in the bus (after he'd told them 'Don't fall asleep!')...and then Eli kept some of 'the boys' awake on the ferry ride home...



It was a massive (and successful) trip and fittingly, a very tired Eli fell asleep in the car on the way home...tempted as I was to tell him to wake up (to give him a taste of his own medicene), I was happy for him to get some well earned rest.

The sleepover.

Tiger (yellow) and Sue (blue), the budgies from Tallowwood (Eli's daycare centre), stayed over at our place last weekend.



After learning that families could look after them on weekends, Eli has wanted to take them home for a while now and as you can see from the photos, he was very happy to have them stay with us...



He also tried to make them at home by talking to them (in budgie language!) - I was a little bit worried that he was going to pester them too much, but then I remembered that they probably like it loud given that they see heaps of kids running around past their cage every day of the week. They were pretty chatty actually and no trouble at all...and Eli has already said that they can stay with us again next weekend...

Even bright pink jumping castles are fun!

It was our friend Edie's 3rd birthday last week and to celebrate, her parents hosted a great birthday party. Having good inside information is always good when Eli is concerned, so I'd sold the party to him on the basis of the promise of a jumping castle (I think Eli would like to live in a big jumping castle and bounce around all day every day!).

True to form and after just a little bit of pre-empted shyness on his part (he told me in the car that he was going to be shy), Eli quickly gravitated to the jumping castle. He was a little bit put off by the colour, but thankfully he doesn't need everything to be blue these days (and at least he was wearing blue!).



Eli spent most of his first session on the jumping castle crashing into the walls (and, on occassion, the other kids), so after a while I got him to focus on seeing how high he could jump...He was content with that challenge for a little while, but then he set himself to trying to jump out the front of the castle completely...Needless to say, I spent most of the time at the party watching the jumping castle closely, especially when Eli and a few other boys decided that it would be fun to begin wrestling...



Mercifully there were no (major) injuries and Eli and Edie (and all of the other kids) had great fun jumping!

Collage crazy!

Eli absolutely loves collage. He's always talking about what he's done in collage at daycare, and at home he frequently occupies his time with cutting and pasting. At times like those I feel very grateful that he's a meticulous kid (no fingers lost to date!) that doesn't like being dirty - otherwise we would have a few run ins around his creative flair.

To further encourage his creativity, coupled with the fact that he is always asking me 'What can we make now?', we recently made a trip to the local art and craft shop for supplies and inspiration. What followed next was highly predictable. We got home and Eli opened all of the new collage materials and set about 'being creative'. Together we made a few caterpillars, a bug for grandad (for Father's Day), a robot, a hedgehog, some monsters and...



...a very big mess.



Whilst Eli doesn't like being dirty himself, he's more than happy to make our living room look like a bomb has gone off (perhaps this is just more creativity on his part?) and it took us ages to clean up the off-cuts...of course, it was still thoroughly worth it and thankfully, we still have a few bits and pieces that Eli didn't use in this one mega-collage session.

The visitor.

On the way home from the shops yesterday, Eli and I saw a white kookaburra. It had swooped down for a swim in the creek and was shaking itself on the railing near the bridge. It is pretty strange seeing a white kookaburra - from what I understand they are uncommon but not unheard of - so Eli and I did a u-turn and went back and watched him some more. We're pretty sure that he's part of the very big kookaburra family that routinely wakes me up at sunrise each morning...

Later that day, when Eli was playing out in our front yard, we had a visit from the white kookaburra. It perched in our Poinsiana tree, and watched Eli intently (in the hope that he'd disturb some tasty grubs with his digging and garden rumaging).



It was a pretty windy afternoon, so the white kookaburra's feathers were being blown around a bit and Eli and I thought that he looked similar to how Grandad looks when Eli messes his hair up (which happens almost everytime we get together!).



After Eli had finished playing in the front yard, the white kookaburra disappeared, but I have a funny feeling that we'll be seeing him around...

3 @ 2!

Eli's three boy cousins turned 2 this week! We headed over to their place to help celebrate their birthdays and here they are, Charlie, Harrison and Oliver, captured on one of those rare occassions where they are all still and facing more or less in the same direction (courtesy of the high chair restraints!).



Eli always enjoys a visit to his cousin's house as he and Alora get along really well. Some might say a bit too well, because they always seem to be running off and 'getting married' when they're together...and when pressed about what they've been up to, Eli is always very shy and quiet (not like him at all!).

Eli has always been pretty good with the boys too, but now that they're all up and about, he's really starting to enjoy their company. It has been pretty interesting watching how the boys have grown up and just how different they all are and how Eli interacts with each of them accordingly. Oliver is a speedy and rough and tumble sort of boy (just like Eli), and the two of them enjoy rolling around on the ground together - a bit like the photo below. I suspect they'll be wrestling in no time.



Harrison is a little more sensitive, but is always up for a fun game and I have noticed that Eli is a little more reserved around him (which is just as well, because Harrison tends to cry if things don't go his way). Charlie might just be the smartest of them all, because he is a very finely tuned 'Grandma spotter' and he'll immediately seek out refuge from the chaos, with either of his grandmum's, as soon as one of them comes into his line of sight. Eli is generally pretty gentle with Charlie too.

After playing for a while, Charlie, Oliver and Harrison were all happy to get into the swing of opening their birthday presents. Like most two year olds they were just as happy playing with the wrapping paper as they were with their gifts...



Eli had a great time celebrating with his cousins and I can see how he's really going to love playing with the boys as they get bigger and more mobile. I really love this very cheeky looking photo of Eli, captured when he was looking at me but incredibly mindful of the 'ticklemonster' to his right that was creeping up to get him!



And finally, here's the best I could do in trying to capture the boys with Grandma and Grandad and then with their sister and Mum and Dad.