skip to main |
skip to sidebar
October was wet. Very wet. Rainfall records were broken and opportunities for fun outside were seriously down on what Eli and I had hoped for (and are used to). Not to be deterred (and because necessity is the mother of invention), we looked for new ways to entertain ourselves.
On one particularly wet and miserable Saturday, we started playing with some of Eli's matchbox cars and a track with a loop that he got last Christmas. Before long we were setting up car jump challenges for Eli's favourite blue car. The first challenge required his car to jump through a red diamond (a flaming ring of fire, whilst tempting, was deemed to contravene the saftey regulations that I've instituted for the living room). Eli was in charge of releasing the car at the top of the track, perched up on our couch and I was the vehicle retrieval crew/cinematographer positioned at the bottom of the jump zone.
Here are some shots of Eli's car mid-flight, with an expectant starter (Eli) perched on the couch watching the action unfold...
Not content with just one diamond, Eli soon pushed the envelope (and my skills as an engineer) as we advanced to even more daring jump challenges. This one pictured below, with a series of diamonds to negotiate, was not quite as easy and certainly more prone to accidents, which occassionally excited, but generally disappointed, Eli (like all 3.5 year olds, he loves to win and doesn't tolerate failures very well).
After some slightly teary disappointments (but spectacular crashes from my angle), Eli much prefered this softer option, whereby the car would fly through the red diamond before landing between the legs of one of his favourite soft toys... 
Armed with some additional building materials, when then constructed a blue structure for the car to jump through (after making it through the red diamond). Eli liked this jump challenge a lot, both because of the colour and the vastly improved success rate (I think he reckons that I might just be cut out to become an engineer).
To finish off the session, we had a lights out spectacular, with the only light being Eli's torch, perched on top of the blue structure we'd made...not great video or photographic viewing (so I'm not posting it here), but it was pretty good fun.After all of these engineering and death-defying stunts, it turned out that we'd spent the whole day inside and didn't go completely bonkers (which was certainly on the cards at the start of the day). I'll have to keep this sort of thing in mind (and swat up on my engineering) just in case this rain keeps falling...
When we got home last night Eli declared that we should make some music. He grabbed his guitar and he told me to play either the harmonica or the keyboard. I chose the keyboard, but not being blessed with any musical talent, I decided to play with some of the features on the keyboard that really don't require any knowledge of music at all. My favourite game is to alter the rythym, bass and chord volumes for the pre-programmed tunes and if you add in some changes in tempo, well it creates the illusion that you are being musically creative (at least Eli and I think so). Anyway, after playing around for a while and noticing that Eli played his guitar and jumped around according to the style and speed of my background music, I filmed a short piece of him strutting his stuff as I upped the tempo - here are the results for your viewing pleasure...
It has been a while between posts of our adventures at Noosa, but now that we're into spring and enjoying some warmer weather (and since I've often been accused of being a fair-weather friend), it's time to get back to the beach. So, that's exactly what we did last weekend. We paid our customary visits to the sandbank in the river and although we had to contend with high tides, Eli managed to entertain himself by climbing over the vegetation covered dunes and running and jumping into the water. Here's some of the dune vegetation, with North Shore in the background.
Eli enjoyed jumping into the water, especially when waves created from the wakes of boats came ashore.
On Sunday we had better weather and it was much warmer. Eli was up for plenty of fun...
...and he'd brought along some toys from some previous sandbank trips...
It was another beautiful day on the river.
The high tide provided Eli with some great opportunities to jump off the dune grasses and into some waist deep puddles. 
This particular puddle is Eli's favourite spot on the sandbank and he thinks that he owns it. In fact, he took great pleasure in telling me that he was going to chase away another group of people that had arrived at the sandbank and were starting to show some interest in this spot. He was delighted when they passed through without stopping on his turf. I'm not sure how, or when, I'll be able to convince Eli that he doesn't own the sandbank, but I'm thankful that he didn't have to deliver on his promise to chase the other people away...Here's a happy Eli after reclaiming his territory!
After some great fun at the sandbank, Eli finished the visit off with some sprints along the freshly dredged beach on the canal.
Eli has recently really taken to drawing. He's always enjoyed it, but has only just recently opted, without prompting from me, to sit and draw at his table quite a lot (and I must say that I've been very thankful for his interest in this partly sedentary activity).Now if I had to characterise Eli's works of art I'd have to say that they are predominantly a) blue, b) scribbly, and c) did I mention that they were blue? Here's a typical masterpiece...
Eli's favourite media are crayons and pencils - in fact I think he'll be a sketch artist and not one that works with paints, because he still claims that "painting is too messy" by virtue of his obsessive compulsive perspective on cleanliness. Having said that, he has just graduated to washable marker pens (which tends to mean that I am met with requests to wash his hands more often) and has recently also expanded on his style, most notably by mimicking an aboriginal dot painting that hangs on one of our walls.
Finally and very significantly in my mind, he's also recently mastered writing his own name. Here's his first legible effort at "Eli", with limited coaching and no physical assistance from me. Pretty impressive for a 3 year old I think - although Christy and I did grant him a short and rather angular name to work with...nevertheless, I think this is a pretty solid effort.
After a bit of a strange winter (weather wise), we have finally been treated to some typical winter-time conditions over the past week or so. To make the most of them, Grandma suggested that we should go for a bike ride down at Sandgate. So, after buying a (blue) helmet for Eli in the morning, we headed down to the bike path. Although Eli rides the bikes (tricycles) at daycare a lot, this is the first time he'd had his own tricycle out and about on sufficiently flat surfaces. He was pretty excited...
Grandma and Grandad had wondered how long this ride would last (Grandad said we'd be lucky to last 5 minutes!), but having seen Eli riding at daycare I knew that it would be a) a fast ride, and b) that Eli would take us a long way. It turned out that I was right. Eli sped off as soon as he hit the bike path and Grandma and Grandad actually had to jog to keep up with him (I think they were particularly concerned about the water's edge being so close - lucky Eli is a competent rider!). It was actually pretty funny watching them trying to keep up with Eli, but I'm sure the run was good for them too.
Eli rode for 1.5 km, from where we parked the car up to the jetty, before we stopped for a while and turned around for the return trip. He was a bit more restrained (ie tired) on the ride back to the car, but a round trip of 3km meant that Grandma and Grandad were tired too (and thankful for his restraint).
It was such a nice day down by the bay and Eli had a great time on his tricycle. We'll have to do it again sometime soon, although I might need to ride my bike too, just to keep pace with him. Come to think of it, I might need to put some training in, because at his pace he'll leave me in his dust by the time he's 7 years old (if not before).
