Bus, Blue, Bus, Ball.

When does a child playing with a camera and getting accidental pictures become photography? Does it have to be a deliberate act of looking, composing and taking or does a random pressing of buttons count? If the first then I suspect a lot of my best shots don't count!

Anyway he's Isaac's bus.

We've moved onto blue in the Young At Art method. I don't think we did very much with red but as Isaac is recognising red very well I don't think there's any harm to moving on. I'll revisit monochrome in the future anyway as I think it's fun but for now we'll progress through the colours fairly quickly. 

Isaac's really enjoying his wheeled vehicles of different shapes and sizes and spend ages pushing this bus around. It's hard to know how much is nature and how much nurture in the preference of boys for certain toys and girls for others. It's impossible to tell as we reinforce things without realising. I'm happy for him to like wheels and building and things like that as he's also happy to play with his doll and his baby and shows a caring nature. I think it's about balance ultimately.

This isn't a great shot except for Finn's look! 

The classic toddler pose. It's been a long time since I could fold myself in half!

Isaac's very interested in balls, partly because Finn loves playing with balls and anything Finn does Isaac wants to do too. He spent a long time this afternoon playing bally on the stairs (sitting at the top of the stairs and throwing the ball down, the idea being that the bear will retrieve it - him being a retriever and all -  but as this dog will only work for food and not for the simple pleasure of the game it was Isaac who did the retrieving as well as the throwing. He had fun though. And then went and played football in the hall. 

Bear likes to lie in the sun.

I'm so glad we spent lots of money redoing the garden... the dog thinks it's all for him. 

Isaac's had another book day and spent quite a long time this afternoon 'reading'.

Disaster in the Park

But first some coin posting. I keep meaning to get a money box but a breadsticks tube with a hole cut in the lid works just as well. He did all the coins 5 times before he started to get bored and shove them around the carpet.  

I finally had my camera with me in the park. The blossom is going on the trees but there's still a gorgeous group of them on the path. 

The ground looks like there's been a wedding... 

And then we went to the swings and... disaster!

It wasn't a total shock as the park had been closed at the weekend whilst they felled a tree but there was a sign on the gates saying it'll be closed all week while they do more work on the trees. 

The boy wasn't impressed.

So we came home and popped bubble wrap instead... 

Shoooos

Isaac's boots are great but a bit hot for the lovely weather we've been having so he's got his first pair of Doodles, complete with szark and iish. 

He's been demanding to wear his hat - well unless I actually want him to wear it and then he runs off... 

His favourite game with the sand is to fling it everywhere - isn't it always the way. I've been finding sand in all sorts of odd places :~O

He's been really enjoying his latches board at the moment and can do all of them except the second one unaided (the second one is very stiff). 

Watering the garden and some baggy trousers.

Give a boy a hose and he's in heaven! 

And amazingly he stayed dry too.

I then spent a couple of hours making a pair of baggy trousers for him. It took so long because he was helping and because it took all my mental powers to work out how to do the seams with a lined pair. They're a bit big but then that was the idea and I need some better elastic than the thin stuff I had in my sewing box but I'm really quite pleased with them. 

I definitely need a proper pair of scissors though the ones I have came free with the sewing machine and struggle to cut two layers of fabric. 

Bling, Bike and Bricks

Isaac got called a hippy by the librarian the other day - okay so I took him there in a sling and he was wearing his amber beads but still... 

He's had this quike (well it's got 4 wheels so it's not a bike or a trike!) for ages but he's loving it at the moment and spends a lot of time mooching round on it. It's also a handy thing for wheeling over to the counter so he can reach things that are too high for him.

He's had some stickle bricks since the NCT sale but I got some more second hand and he's been having great fun with them.

Photographs in the mind.

Matthew's been away for a week and so I've been out with the dog every day with Isaac on my back. I have enough to carry and so haven't been taking my camera but there are some images that are marked in my mind as vividly as if there were photographs.

A silver tabby cat sitting inside a Victorian bay window with the deep frame covering its nose so that all you can see are the eyes and ears with a front garden of stones and a gorgeous creamy white magnolia tree in full flower. 

Another cat glimpsed through a window lying full length along the back of a sofa in bright sunshine.

The view of the blue sky through the thick may blossom. 

The dog running full speed up the hill bringing the ball back with ears flapping. 

And the sounds of the last few days have mostly consisted of shouts of BALL or BUSSS very loud in my ear and echoing off the houses around us. 

Invisible Paint.

The weather's been lovely again for the last couple of days so we've been doing lots of hanging around in the garden.

And some painting with water that then dried in about 10 minutes.

Any time I lie down on the floor (hey a girl's gotta take her rest when she can get it!) Isaac clambers onto me and starts bouncing up and down. It's not pleasant when I've just eaten ;~)

And finally a self-portrait, Isaac aged 20 months. 

Salt dough paint

This is a paint recipe from First Art although I spotted it first on Slugs on the Refrigerator (and actually I think I first came across the book through Kat's blog anyway). 

I'm not sure if we got the consistency right and I think if I do it again I'll put less water in and use the liquid paint as the main part of the fluid (I used ELC's ready mixed paint) and as we're still doing the Susan Striker method of introducing colour we just used red but I gave him both black ad white card. 

It started really well.

But then he just squeezed it out into a big blob - fun in its own way though.

He got his fingers into it but didn't do a full on squidge with his hands.

But he did get hold of me!

The paint is very wet and as it was a big blob it took a very long time to dry. You definitely need a good heavy paper or card to survive this. 

The paint dries with sparkly bits in it because of the salt but like the salt dough beads it's also a chalky colour when it dries. 

We'll definitely do this again and I'll work on the consistency. 

We got our sauce bottles from the local kitchen shop as I couldn't find them anywhere else but it's probably cheaper to buy sauce from the supermarket and then reuse the bottle.

Sometimes I Just Sit...

Zebras, Boots and Dough sticks

Doesn't everyone's farm have a zebra on it? 

Although the realism of a car and an old bus in the barn is good ;~)

Isaac can now say 'boots' and wants to try them all - ride em cowboy!

Although being on the right feet might be an improvement.

We went to Kangaroo Playgroup today and one of the mums had made dough sticks which were yummy so we had to come home and do the same. 

Most of the work was done by the bread maker but we had to get hands on to shape them.

Which of course led to the need to clean up.

The finished article. 

I used Matthew's Cotswold Eight Grain Flour from our local farm shop with a good pinch of a lovely dried herb mix from Norfolk that has rosemary, thyme and sage in it (although rosemary on its own would be just as good). If I was making them just for grown ups I'd sprinkle them with sea salt too but Isaac already gets plenty of salt so I don't want to increase his consumption.