At home with the gudgeons.

There have been some changes in our fish tank. First, I decided that I only wanted native fish, so the swordtail and guppies have been moved on (to our front pond - hopefully they'll keep the mosquito population down!) and we now have tank full of gudgeons.

My favourite (and Eli's too) is the purple spotted gudgeon who has taken residence inside one of the 'rooms' in the ruins in our tank...his colours have really come along now - no doubt courtesy of the frequent and high quality food he gets every day! 

The other gudgeons in the tank are smaller - these are the firetailed gudgeons and I think they're pretty cool and colourful too, but they certainly can't compete with the striking colours of the purple spotted gudgeons.

 




Finally, here is a video of the large male purple spotted gudgeon, emerging from his front door for a spot of scavenging before returning home through the side entrance.

Prep is done, bring on Grade 1!

Eli has finished his first year of school (with flying colours too - just in case you were wondering). His final day was a free dress day which culminated in a lunch-time party.








Before the food and craziness began, Eli and his class sang a few Christmas carols for the parents that came along and then each child presented their parents with a Christmas gift - which included a portfolio of their work from the whole year, a tree ornament and a ceramic photo frame (complete with photo) and a thermometer - not bad huh?

Let the party begin!
I took the opportunity to get some photos of Eli with his friends...

 ...but the sugar soon started to kick in...and with it came funny faces and crazy dancing! There was no music playing mind you, but these lads had a great time performing for the camera...Eli didn't eat too much sugary food, so he finished the day off ok, but I think a few of these kids would have driven their families crazy later in the afternoon.

This is not a punishment!

Eli likes our grass. In fact, he likes it when our grass is neatly trimmed. So much so, that he's recently taken to trimming it himself, with his scissors. I have told him that it isn't necessary and that we do have a mower, but it turns out that he actually enjoys doing this - maybe it is his way of winding down after a big day at school?


As you can see from these photos and the video, he's quite happy snipping away...

...and here he is lounging on the grass after a session of trimming.

I'm not sure where this will lead now - either this behaviour of his will continue and he'll demand that we sell the mower and build a zen garden sometime soon, or he'll lose interest and the mower will get more of a workout through summer again.

Workouts for Grandma Susan

Eli loves it when Grandma Susan comes for a visit. I often (only half-jokingly) suggest that he loves it because when she is here he has an incredibly willing playmate to push around, but I guess the reverse can be true too. By way of an example, I came out of the office the other day only to find Eli lounging on a beanbag and a pillow, with Grandma Susan on her hands and knees pushing him around. As you can see in this video, he's pretty comfortable with this arrangement...as you can see from Grandma Susan's grin, I think she enjoys it too. It is probably fair to say that she is slightly less excited with Eli's current plans to put her through a punishing sprint training program (so they can have running races). The other day he said that she needs to do seven sprints one day, just one on the following day, then seven again on the next day and so on, and that she should continue to do it even when she heads home after her visit is over.

PS. In my defence, I do tell Grandma Susan that she can (and should) say no when Eli comes up with 'clever little plans' like this, but Eli generally has her under his complete control.

Swim carnival

This year has been a big year for Eli, in many ways. He's been working on his swimming since it has warmed up again and for those of you that know how insanely competitive he is, you wouldn't be surprised to learn that he was very keen to translate his new skills into success on his first school swimming carnival.

Just in case there was any doubt, you can clearly see his steely determination in these first two photos, as he prepared himself for the kickboard race across the pool...


He did pretty well (especially considering that some of the kids in his grade are already six years old) and he got to the other end in third place...as you can see from this photo, he was quick to claim the third placed ribbon...even though the teachers weren't actually handing them out to the kids while they were still wet.





Next up Eli was lined up for the 'bouncing hoop relay', where the Prep kids had to bounce their way across the pool whilst holding a diving ring aloft (despite how it sounds, it should definitely be an olympic sport I think). This time the teams were organised on the basis of the three school houses at Eli's school - Gibson, Holland and Toohey. Eli is in Gibson and he was very vocal in his cheering...actually Eli's competitive nature really shone out during the relay, because I didn't see a single other kid cheer, or even express excitement around the races (I know I shouldn't encourage Eli's competitive spirit too much, but the lack of engagement from the other kids did actually have me shaking my head in amazement). Here's Eli bouncing his way across the pool - despite being one of the shorter kids in the grade, he did make his way across the pool quite swiftly.

Eli was thrilled that Gibson won (again he was pretty much alone in even recognising that the race had finished) and he came home that day complete with his third placed ribbon and a big grin on his face. Makes all of those swim classes, both at school and outside of school hours, seem even more worthwhile.

Prep's day on the farm!

One of the highlights of Eli's first year at school was the Prep excursion to a farm. The kids were so excited that they could have gone anywhere (and to just watch the grass grow) and they still would have loved it. I made sure that I arranged my work schedule to enable me to go along too (I would have skipped it if it was just to watch the grass grow). Here are the Preps, all with their characteristic yellow hats, waiting to hear from the farmer about what was in store for them... it turns out that they were in for lots of fun with the farm animals, lots of pats, rides, cuddles and feeding! As you can see from this pic of Eli, he was pretty excited!

First up for Eli's group was a ride on Rusty the horse - here is Eli and a girl from his class. Eli quickly felt quite at home on the farm and he was strutting around like the #1 rooster himself...

Next came the lambs - all very exited and keen for a drink. The way they did this made it very exciting - they got all of the kids to stand around in one very large circle and every 8th child had a bottle of milk at the ready. Then, they released the lambs and they bolted into the middle of the circle in search of the bottles...lots of screams (mostly of excitement). After the lambs came the calves (thankfully these were not released into the middle of the group of Preps!) - I love the look on Eli's face in this photo on the right, he was having so much fun.

All this feeding of animals had given the kids a thirst themselves, and Eli readily volunteered to milk the cow and have a drink of extremely fresh milk. You can just make out the stream of milk being squirted into and past his mouth in this photo. I tried it too, it was pretty nice, but so warm! All of the kids also had a go milking the cow themselves - here's Eli spraying milk everywhere!

Eli and his group then got to hold some young chicks.

Not all of the kids were as excited and as gentle as Eli - he really did a great job holding the chicks...so much so that the farmer whacked a hat on his head and then plonked a chick on top!

Not to be left out, the pig then wanted a drink of milk too...and as you can see, Eli still has that big excited grin!

Eli rounded off his animal experiences with a ride on the back of a bull! Yeehah!

The kids even really enjoyed exploring the variety of animal bones on display too - I'm not sure if the intention was for the kids to 'wear' the bones, but Eli tried all of them on for size...

All in all it was a great day at the farm - all of the kids had a huge amount of fun and they were all really well behaved too. There were some very tired little Preps on the way home though and I think about a half of them used the bus trip home for a nap (not Eli though, he was still having too much fun!). I think he and I both are looking forward to future field trips with his school.

The "tank number two" holiday challenge.

We set ourselves a challenge for the September school holidays - we were finally going to set up our second aquarium with some fish. I'd spent a day earlier on in the break getting the tank ready and then it was time for Eli and I to go fishing. I had considered going far and wide in search of some really good fishing spots, but in the end we figured that we ought to at least try our local creek which is less than 100 m away from our house. So armed with our pink net (and a baited fish trap) off we went in search of whatever we could find. Here are a few photos of Eli getting busy with the net, in search of critters in our creek.


It turned out that our local creek was more exciting and more alive than I'd expected and despite significant catches of non-native fish like guppies (which Eli loves incidentally - it's the colours!), we also managed to catch some native gudgeons (of the purple spotted and empire varieties) a dragonfly nymph and lots of damselfly nymphs and snails. We also collected some aquatic plants for the tank too, so it really is a tank that represents what we find in our local creek.
 




Here's a collection of our collection...including snails, damselflies, a dragonfly and fish.







 
Here's a photo of a rather satisfied Eli next to the new tank - you can see all of the guppies swimming around near the surface.

 



And here is my favourite new addition to our collection of aquatic creatures - we caught this purple spotted gudgeon (which just happens to be my favourite native fish) just 100 m from home. Not a bad job for a school holiday period. Eli has enjoyed the entertainment at breakfast time too - I've moved a little table and chair so he can sit and watch the fish eat their breakfast while he eats his...not sure how long this ritual will last, but it certainly beats watching tv!

Zoomy on foot (his own and Eli's).

I don't know what was going on in Zoomy's head, but on a recent turtle walking adventure he was quite interactive with Eli. I often set Eli the challenge of keeping on eye on the turtles while I'm cleaning the tank, both because we don't want them to disappear and we don't want a kookaburra to fly off with them. 

On this particular occassion Swifty hunkered down at the edge of the grass (as per normal), but Zoomy was really active - every time we put him on the grass he quickly headed in the direction of the nice warm rocks alongside our garden bed.


To control the risk that Zoomy would disappear and/or take a tumble down the steps, Eli decided that he'd sit along the garden edge and play the role of the sentry. It turned out that Zoomy didn't mind at all and he just continued in Eli's direction and would ultimately climb over Eli's foot, leg or hand to get to his desired destination.

I must say that Eli did a great job of staying remarkably still during these interactions, especially since Zoomy's sharp claws do tend to dig in a bit when he's trying to climb over your leg!


 


This video shows Zoomy in action, approaching, assessing and ultimately climbing over Eli's leg. It also features my coaching about staying still (which is certainly not a highlight) and Eli's little yelp towards the end relfects the sharpness of Zoomy's claws...no scratches though, so it was all good. Ultimately Eli had a lot of fun and Zoomy got a great workout.

First year tiger...

Eli has been a real little squirt this winter. That's not a derogatory term, it's just what his age group is referred to at his soccer club, the Tarragindi Tigers. Squirts don't play real games - actually they do play lots of games, it's just that none of them are soccer (and yes, it is ironic). In fact over the course of their one hour session each Friday night they enjoy lots of different activities, all of which are designed to get them moving and using their feet (and heads - including brains). Eli really enjoyed it, but I was frustrated by the lack of actual soccer (and I wasn't the only parent in that boat), but I guess that will come next year and for years and years and years after that, so I shouldn't be too impatient. One of the highlights was the bond that Eli forged with one of his coaches, a 12 year called Ollie - here are a few pics of Eli and his coach on the last session for season 2012. I'm not sure what pose and face Eli is pulling in the second photo, but I thought it was amusing enough to include.



At the end of the season Eli and all of his team-mates received a medal for their efforts across the season. Eli was particularly excited when he was the first person to receive his medal - I think in his mind that meant that he was the best and that he'd managed to win a more signifcant prize than everyone else. For what it is worth, I didn't try too hard to discourage that thought - after all, he was definitely one of the best players!

Here's a photo of his 'team' - otherwise really just a collection of energetic five year olds. Will any of these kids play for the socceroo's in 15 years or so?

Here's a photo of Eli proudly showing off his medal - he was really pretty chuffed with himself.


  
















There is one game that they play in Squirts that resembles soccer. This involves the coaches maintaining possession of the ball amidst the pressure that about 10 5 year old impose on them (not all of it legal under regular soccer rules). Eli tends to put his speed to good use during this 'drill' and he tends to be one of only a handful of kids that can actually win the ball back off the coaches from time to time. Here's a video of Eli and his team-mates in action, chasing after the coaches!

  
 All in all we both enjoyed Eli's first year of soccer and we're both looking forward to some real soccer action in 2013...