Lolly is loving the artwork at the moment, she loves to draw and paint, and do collage, and stick all manner of things on to all manner of other things.
DinnerDad was particularly proud of this drawing of Snail's new wheelchair Lolly did while we were at the hospital for a Snail appointment last month. It has perspective!
Snail's wheelchair (with dinosaurs)
I was even motivated to take her to art class at Gymboree! She LOVED it.
Lolly is just growing up by leaps and bounds at the moment, she is chock-full of adorable, smarts, and adventure. Here are some things she is loving.
Aunty J's guitar, now living at our house.
She is enjoying dance and music, and I've been scouting around for some lessons for her. I'd love to build on the natural interest she is showing, and don't play anything other than piano! Both girls are loving having the piano and guitar and drums out in the lounge as a music space for the family.
YouTubery.
Lolly is in love with some YouTube favourites, like The Duck Song, anything by Eric Herman, the Butterfly Ball, and the clip to Alanis Morissette's 'You Learn' - which she calls "the one where the woman goes out and has adventures." She recently leaned how to use a mouse (she mostly uses the iPad/iPhone so hadn't needed to) and can use the touchpad reliably now, too.
DinnerDad also introduced her to the retro joys of Hong Kong Phooey.
Lolly lurvs her older brother, Smash, and loves doing stunts with him. Here she is about 3 feet off the ground on a ledge after we'd been out to a restaurant. Sometimes mothers have to look away!
Stunts!
She is mad keen on drawing lately, after quite a hiatus, and is doing complex drawings of people and animals, with stories attached.
Lolly is in love with her friends, and wants to visit friends or have friends over to play all. the. time. She has entered a very social period, and when we have company will disappear for hours at a time, often feeling confused when she sees me (she can yell at me to "go away"), which I'm guessing is conflict over loving her separation from me, but still loving me, too. I try to be supportive, but confess it can be hurtful and I do get grumpy with it. I do think that support shouldn't look like letting your kid be mean to you, though!
The love she has of play with her friends is so beautiful to watch. She loves pretend games, making up games is a new thing, too, as well as favourites like jumping on the jumpoline, swimming, sand pit play, and doing "crashes" on the walking machine (which resulted in quite the foot scrape a couple of weeks ago!).
She is just developing a favourite toy, a dog we bought at Ikea recently, which has to come with us places and come to bed every night. She has three favourites, and a carry case for them, too. She is still enjoying containers, and I find collections ("lections") in odd containers all over the house. Some become important to her, others never get revisited. It's a skilled mother who can tell the difference and knows which ones NOT to clean up at the end of a long day!
Lolly is MAD KEEN on pretend play (still), and her favourite is to be a puppy (mostly called "Greeny" as that's her favourite colour. She loves you to feed her, pat her, and wear a pretend collar and leash. It's about as adorable as you might imagine.
Oh, and she's still wearing her blue band on her leg, after months!! It's her "thing."
So, there's a picture of Lolly at three years and eight months! I love you Lol, you're the wild and crazy-wonderful ride of my life!
Lolly loves to paint, and we recently moved the easel back to just outside our front door. She's using it again and loving it.
Her very first canvas, in watercolours. I asked her to tell me the story of the painting, and she said it was "a girl with a beautiful rainbow!" Love it. She loved painting on the canvas, too, and has instructed me to "buy some more at the shop tomorrow and I will paint them?" Indeed we will.
We fixed the spa, and now, we swim, rain, hail or shine. It's a cold snap here in our down-under Spring (by "cold snap" I mean slightly cool, you might need a cardi weather, not icy freezing-ness, it is Brisbane after all). This does not stop the girl. And her swimming ring of power. Oh, the cute.
Lolly dropped her day sleep nearly a year ago, but when life is busy or she is fighting off a bug, she picks up a nap. This is never usually a good thing, it pretty much ensures she is awake til a million o'clock, all the while exercising her right to be emotionally creative.
In which I talk about why Lolly isn't going to school yet.
You might remember such posts as: Lolly starting school. Well, reports of her school-going were, apparently, greatly exaggerated.
After some ill-health interruptions to starting Cycle 1, we decided to put off her starting full-time until the final term of the year. Then, after some long hard thought, I decided she (and I) weren't ready, so we're not starting until next year. As a family, we also have a lot on our plates at the moment, with Snail's seizures, DinnerDad's crazy work... She was getting some separation anxiety because of all this. And, in term 1 next year, Lolly will turn 4, and I think 4 is a different ball game to 3. Lolly loved her visits to the school, and loves the materials and environment. I've been so impressed with the school and how they've been flexible with us, too.
School stuff!
Turns out this wasn't the first day of school after all!
Honestly, one of the main reasons is that Lolly is my only child, and I'm not ready. I wanted 6 more months with just her and me. Hanging out, playgroup, going to museums and galleries, the library, out for lunch, to the shops and the park with friends. This is the last time I'll have off work, and where she is not at school, well...ever, during her childhood. I wasn't ready to say goodbye to that. I think that despite some arguments to the contrary from the Montessori philosophy, neither was she.
So it's not all sunrise/sunset yet round here. Give it another 6 months....
On Friday Lolly and I caught up with some friends at Queens Park, which has a fantabulous play ground [which would be made even more awesome by a fence, the eternal lament of the parent]. It was a cracker day, beautifully sunny.
Lolly priming the pump for our friend, S.
It was the first time Lolly made a friend at the playground, and ran around with her, playing imaginative games. It was lovely! Naw, growing up...
Random friend!
Working hard to get water out of the pump.
And I can't resist, her latest insistence is an extra pair of shoes for her hands, all the better to be a puppy. Here she is about to head off to the park.
Here are our shelves for Lolly (three and a quarter) and Snail. I recently went through them and got rid of a lot of stuff as they were collecting crap [by crap I mean awesome toys] and here's what we have out now, post purge. These are Lolly's:
Top shelf: Lauri tall stacker blocks, number activities, her tool box, chockers with plastic and wooden tool sets (the white basket underneath has more). Bottom shelf: stacker boxes and colouring in books, her marble run, and the rest of her tools.
Lauri tall stacker blocks, not a lot of use of these to build upwards as yet, but lots of wand and stick building, leading to dog thumping.
Lolly is crazy about numbers at the moment, so I've got a collection of number activities, a foam puzzle, number cards, and a set of wooden numbers.
Here are Snail's shelves:
Spinning top, switch adapted bubble machine, drums and bells, her musical whacking toy (lol), her collection of toys that make a sound when you squish 'em, and her cars. I'd say her squishing toys and her whacking toy is popular here (when she is interactive).
We also scored this great road table from a friend (it doesn't fit in her house), so we're using it as a loaner. Lolly is loving this for garage play and train building!
I used dog food today to purchase a free half hour. Not on purpose, I fed the dog, then it [by it, I mean my awesome three year old] went quiet... Too quiet. I spied some suspicious doings out the bedroom window, and had the following mental dialogue with myself:
"Aw shit, I didn't realise that she could get the lid off that. Doesn't look too bad so far, I guess I'll go out and clean it up.... Hang on, it's grotty already, and the dog will eventually eat all this food bonanza, or the birds will. It looks like there's some food left in there, maybe I should just slink quietly past into the lounge and sit down, I still have half a cup of coffee left, I reckon she'll be another 15 minutes...cool!"
Here is what it looked like when she finally came in and asked me to come look at her creations...
Embiggen to fully appreciate the amount of dog food on the ground.
The dog's bucket for water...
Oh yes, she's eating some, though she does prefer cat food.
"and then I put that in there, to make some doggy soup!" So proud of her accomplishments!
It was worth it.
[Oh and in case overseas readers are pitying our dog not having a stylish water bowl, round these parts, a bucket is the easiest way to ensure cane toads don't sit in the dog water and poison it. Cane toads can't hop high enough to get over the sides of a bucket. Nice, hey! Gosh we have some great wildlife here in Oz!]
She is just developing a favourite toy, a dog we bought at Ikea recently, which has to come with us places and come to bed every night. She has three favourites, and a carry case for them, too. She is still enjoying containers, and I find collections ("lections") in odd containers all over the house. Some become important to her, others never get revisited. It's a skilled mother who can tell the difference and knows which ones NOT to clean up at the end of a long day!
