Water Play = Fun

A warm day a busy boy, and the garden hose all adds up to a fun afternoon!

The aftermath of the fun.

The trick is not getting caught.

The boy & I were getting out of the car today, and as I turned around to let him out of his seat and to tell him what he was responsible to carry into the house, I noticed he was putting the tag from his backpack in his mouth. I told him he wasn't to put it in his mouth, and then asked him why he had done it. The answer? "Well I thought you weren't looking at me Mummy." 

This doesn't bode well for me during his teen years.

I picked you some flowers

After playing outside today the boy appeared with a handful of flowers, thrust them at me and said "I picked these for you Mummy so that you will feel better and be happy."

I'm just thankful that I haven't been able to get out into the garden to see the damage....

Chunky Monkey Cookies

'Skinny' cookies that are home made with no sugar, simple ingredients, and the recipe is easy enough that the boy can help me with? I'm in!

I was browsing Pinterest the other night, (aka wasting time when I should have been in bed & asleep) and I came across the recipe for Skinny Chunky Monkey Cookies from the Six Sisters Stuff blog. They needed ripe bananas, and it just so happened I had a few that I was getting ready to throw in the freezer for smoothies, so I figured I had nothing to lose.

The recipe is simple, (and relatively healthy for a cookie) some bananas, oats, cocoa, peanut butter, apple sauce, and vanilla. I handed over my masher and let the boy go to town on the bananas, and it was perfect. He felt like he was really contributing and it kept him busy while I got together the rest of the ingredients. 

The cookies came out pretty well, the boy had fun making them, and now we have treats for the week. All in all a successful afternoon. Now to decide between finding other cool stuff on Pinterest for the boy & I to do, or going to bed. Tough call. at least I can eat a cookie while I think about it.

Empathy

There are days when I wonder what is going through the boy's head. Like when he yells at me, or hits out at things, and then claims he doesn't know why I'm upset. It's nothing unusual, really just the behaviour of a 3 (almost 4) year old stubborn, independent wilful little boy. But this past week he completely surprised me.

I threw my back out on the weekend, and the boy has been nothing short of lovely. He's 'helped' me walk, he's volunteered to do chores for me, he's used his doctors kit to find out what was wrong, and he's been willing to mostly play in one spot so that I can move slowly to keep an eye on him. All of this was made easier by having his Nana (my fantastic MIL) come over and help out for a few days. This meant he still had someone to pay loads of attention to him during the day. He has been mostly on his best behaviour and it's amazing.

The best example of his caring though came last night. Hubby had put the boy to bed, and the boy had asked me to come in for one last kiss. I managed that, but then he wanted me to stay for a cuddle in his bed. Normally I would say yes, but I had to explain to the boy that there was no way I could manage it right now. He got very quiet and very still. I asked him if hew was o.k., and he replied in a sad little voice, "I'm o.k. Mummy, I'm just sad that your back hurts and I want you to feel better. I don't like it when you're sick."

The empathy and the sweetness were overwhelming. If only I could bottle that up for our not so good days.