Lego Explosion

Now that's more like it ...

Austin has been busy setting up his "projects." Now, I think he feels more at home in his room.

We have an agreement for him to keep the floor clear.

Cooking Tacos

One of Austin's favourite meals is tacos. He likes to be the cook who seasons the beef. It's neat to watch him at work, testing and tasting, sprinkling in a little more of this and that. He uses garlic, chili powder, paprika, cayenne, oregano, cumin, seasoning salt and pepper. He says that he prefers to use as little water as possible, because he doesn't want to water down the flavour, but Skye explained that the water helps the flavours to blend and be enriched, so I think he's had a change of heart.

Building his loft bed

We've been slowly moving back into the upstairs of our home these past two weeks.

Austin undertook to build his own loft bed. He worked from instructions on the Ikea website, located all the necessary hardware, and assembled the bed primarily on his own. Skye or I had to hold some pieces in place while he screwed in the bolts.

I think he was pleased with the result.

Austin's Learning Plan - September 2011

Austin and I spent a bit of time this afternoon sketching out some ideas for his learning plan to get this "year" started. Click the image to see the full size version.

A1's Learning Plan - Captured using a Bamboo tablet and stylus

One of the big shifts from previous years is that he has a strong interest in pursuing an academic topic. He has decided to "go deep" in learning as much as he can about Chemistry. To support this he is also brushing up on his math skills and our friend Iain MacKenzie who is a research chemist now working at UBC TRIUMF has offered to show him around and provide some mentoring.

Emotions

A2: "I wish anger didn't exist as an emotion."

A1 and I have been arguing quite a lot over the past few days. I guess he's been pushing my buttons and I have been explosively reactive. When I ask him to help with something and he responds with, "I'm not in the mood to be helpful right now," the fireworks fly. And A2 ends up in tears.

A2: "I wish we only had two emotions: sadness and happiness."

A1: "Sadness? Why wouldn't you only want happiness?"

A2: "We need sadness because, if a baby were hungry but happy all the time, they wouldn't be able to tell us they need to eat. So they could starve to death."

A1: "I think anger's important too, because it helps us through our fears. Anger always leads to fear. And anger comes from fear."

A2: "And if we didn't have fear, we might just walk up to a cougar and say, 'Here kitty, kitty ...' and then, Gulp! We'd be eaten by the cougar."

Lifeguard in Training

Yesterday, we spent most of the day at the marina pool. There were three families, totalling 7 kids. Aidan hung out with his friend, Brendan (8), Austin was mostly practicing diving to the bottom of the deep end, and trying to swim underwater for as long as possible, and Aaron was in and out of the pool, playing with balls. As you can imagine, it was a busy pool.

The other children were aged 6 and 2. The 2-year-old boy (Miles) spent most of his time playing at the edge of the pool with a Playmobil boat on a string. He's not keen to swim without his mum for now. He wears water wings to keep him safe, poolside.

Miles doesn't like to wear the water wings all the time, and at some point, he wasn't wearing them anymore.

There were three mothers by the pool, all of them trying to get a better internet connection than we've been able to get with the marina.

None of us saw him go in.

I remember hearing Austin's voice, "Whoa! Miles." I was standing at the shallow end, looked up and saw Miles floating on his back and appearing to be gasping for air. It was an awful sight, but Austin was going to Miles and speaking to him calmly. When I got to the deep end, I couldn't reach Miles (he was about 1.5 meters from the edge), Austin was supporting his head and swimming him to me. I picked Miles up under his arms as I was saying, "What a good boy!" (it was all I could think of at the time) and passed him directly to his mum.

Due to Austin's quick and calm response, there was no panic and I didn't see fear in Miles' eyes.

I think we all learned something from this event.

For me, being the mother of a boy who is only 4 months older than Miles, I was really struck by the seriousness of what happened, and how bad it could have been. I'm even more vigilant about watching Aaron near water, and we keep him in his lifejacket most of the time.

Since Aaron wears his lifejacket so much, I've once seen him boldly follow Austin into the sea from the shore, he was submerged, his blonde hair floated up, then he surfaced, sputtering and crying. Fortunately for us, we all saw what happened and Austin was right there. Aaron is so accustomed to being buoyant in the water, that he is less fearful now, and he's not always aware that he's not in his lifejacket. I think Miles may have thought he still was wearing his water wings when he went into the pool to fetch his boat (he told his mum he was trying to get his boat when he went into the pool).

I noticed that Miles was found floating on his back. All my kids were afraid to swim on their backs when they first learned to swim, and Aaron is still terrified of this position. Miles was practicing leaning back into the water earlier in the day, with his mum. His big sister is a very strong swimmer and he's seen her swim on her back a lot. We don't know how long Miles was in the water, but I think he was better off on his back and able to get some air. I want to start helping Aaron to get more comfortable lying back in the water.

Austin's calm response and the absence of fear and panic in his rescuers has left Miles with a positive memory of the event. He told his mummy that he went "swimming under the water." He doesn't think he had an accident and he isn't more fearful of water. I remember a swimming instructor telling me that it can be difficult for parents to teach their children to swim, because the parents are too nervous about letting their little ones put their heads under water. Sometimes the parents, themselves, are nervous about being submerged. I remember that teacher being able to get Austin, at the age of 1, to hold his breath as she glided him underwater for a couple seconds. The technique was to blow air into his nostrils, then immediately bring his whole body, head first, under water. I have to admit that I was always hesitant to do this move. I'd blow into his nostrils, see the look of bewilderment in his face, then take him underwater too late, or I couldn't bring myself to take his face into the water at all. Anyway, I was reminded how much it helps people to learn to swim with teachers who are confident swimmers.

My final observation is that, when there are several adults supervising together, it's easy for us to have a false sense of security and to let down our guard. After this experience, I hope to be even more careful about keeping our kids safe around water.

First fish

Austin caught his first fish. It was a small (15cm) Horse Eye Jack caught while trolling in True Blue Bay Grenada.

We were shopping in St. Georges Grenada at a marine store earlier in the day and decided to buy some fishing gear for use while sailing. Austin was pretty excited about this. He found a book section that contained a few references to salt water fishing. He picked up one of these, a small 35 pager, and read it through. He then picked out some large flashy lures in the hopes that we'll be able to catch a large-ish fish. He really wanted to go after the big marlins but we just don't have the need or skills or equipment for that kind of fish. We also decided to pick up a small rod, reel and lure kit for the boys to share. It was on this rod that he caught his fish.

When we got home that evening I showed him how to tie a lure onto the line and how to cast. He caught on pretty quickly then also did some jigging. After we had dinner the two of us took the dingy out into the bay and trolled for an hour or so.