The Tooth Fairy

The Tooth Fairy has had a remarkable effect on Leo's independent writing! Well, I think his fabulous teacher has something to do with it too. The first of his two front teeth was wiggly for weeks - then for a couple of days I couldn't believe it hadn't fallen out - it got so that he could close his mouth in a ghoulish grin with the loose tooth poking out between his lips. After three days of being 'dangle tooth' Leo became 'gappy' while brushing his teeth. He was very pleased with the development.

I dug out one of my tooth robots (I used this tutorial http://goodygoody.typepad.com/goody_goody/2008/07/tgif-quickie-robot-goodytooth-pillow.html). To stash the precious tooth in wait for the tooth fairy. I have decided to embrace the concept of the friendly tooth fairy who has some mysterious fairy requirement for children's teeth (deliberately not dwelling on this).

Unable to find change (too thorough with the change saving money box) so - after a late night rummage in the present box I found a dinky little crystal growing kit that looks like a little cactus. You pour the crystal solution in and coloured crystal flowers sprout out the top over a couple of hours.
The next morning Leo was very gratifyingly delighted and - too my suprise - got straight to work on a thank you note and picture for the tooth fairy which he left under his pillow that night. I thought the picture was deserving of a thank you note of it's own so TF duly wrote back and tied her letter with a little scrap of silver string and a plastic flower from my old scrap booking stuff. Next morning another spontaneous piece of writing from Leo. At this point I was starting to think this tooth fairy correspondance was going to turn into a drag but then read his note again and realised that this is the biggest leap forward in his writing to date. Go the tooth fairy!

7 year old enthusiasm and my new wallet

Today I have noticed again how different my son Leo is from me. When I was 7 (it was a while ago so memories may not be entirely accurate) I remember being very very eager to please. I would have been horrified at the prospect of being late for school, despite never having been late for school. Leo just calmly points out the evidence. Me "Leo we have to go now! your teacher will be cross!" Leo "Jimmy is always late and the teacher doesn't mind" (I'm thinking to myself well Jimmy does have three siblings under 5 and a single Mum and the teacher almost certainly knows this and recognises the effort involved in getting him to school at any time.... I digress). I noticed it at the gypsy fair this weekend too, as he begged to be allowed to ride the 4 wheel motorbike - my feeble attempts to talk him out of it failed - Raining "go wait in a tent". Oscar and I will get bored "you love looking at crafts!" Oscar will be jealous because he's too little "he could have a pony ride" It costs money! "you have some money". O.k.... As he whizzed around the track, gleeful and fast (the lovely chap looking after the bikes kept pretending to have a heart attack as he went round the corners) I saw several other parents with sons, some younger than Leo, practically forcing them to have a go. "You'll love it!" "Go on!" "That looks like your thing!" apprehensive little faces tight lipped, not making eye contact. I'm fairly sure that at 7 years old I would have done anything to get out of riding a loud, fast, unfamiliar machine - I wouldn't have even spoken to the bearded gentleman running the show! Would I have benefited from being pushed? Perhaps we are lucky that this unfamiliar (to me) enthusiasm for diving into new experiences is not easily squashed by my inability to relate to it, who knows.
Poor chap had a hard lesson at school today - such was his enthusiasm for swimming he ran across the courts instead of walking as per his teachers instructions and consequently spent swimming time in the sick bay having his grazed knee cleaned and dressed :-( Natural justice can be so cruel!

I have been working on a wallet design lately. The first (I'll call it a prototype retrospectively) was a disaster. It looked cute, I loved it, I put in my coins, my one card voucher and finally my cards.... only to discover that once cards were inserted into the carefully measured card slots the snap closure no longer reached it's buddy on the othe side. GRRR
So... Mark 2 I'm happier with - at least I can close it loaded now. Also ironed out a little mix up with the zippered coin pocket which I had managed to sew with wrong side of fabric showing inside the pocket in the prototype. I will probably make a few more of these for my next market whenever that is, in different fabrics. I might have gone overboard with the 'boy' fabrics with this one, but I think they're cute and I do like them to think I'm fabulously cool.

Sackboy and stuff

I realised today that whenever I leave Oscar it's to go to work (teaching technology) or to go for a run. What made me realise this was hearing Oscar announce "Mummmy is a running teacher!" er no, in fact I'm so bad at it I ran into a very solid branch over hanging the track yesterday - I blame my hat. Would have been the funniest thing to see! (thank god no one did!) now have to explain bruises and scratches though.

The latest in non-functional crafting.... Sackboy (who I have been introduced to by my students - he is a character/avatar? on a game called LittleBigPlanet.

Getting new students from Christchurch arriving everyday - it's awesome how well they fit in, getting on with ordinary kid things. Mr L all excited about the new kids in his class too, especiall since one Mum arrived with hot chips for the whole class.