Waikato's World

I guess you're wondering what "Waikato's World" might be... well, it's the slightly cheesy name that has been given to Hamilton's show (their version of Brisbane's Ekka). But, of course, with Hamilton being one tenth the size of Brisbane, "Waikato's World" isn't anywhere near as big. We were given free tickets to get in (courtesy of Karen from work - thanks Karen!) so we went and had a look last weekend - it's only on for 3 days.
There was all the usual sort of show stuff that we saw at the Ekka back in Brisbane (horses, some rides, farm animals etc), just on a smaller scale. One of the good things about it was that all the rides for the kids were free. Ben was really excited about going for a drive in the cars, so I stood in the queue with him for about half an hour to get to ride in one - he was a pretty good driver, except he wasn't tall enough to reach the pedals properly, so I had to push it with my hand! We also got to see:

• Bob the Builder, up on stage.
• Wood-chopping contest
• Some John Deere products
• Sheep-dog competition
• A monster truck

And all this for, well, free. For us, anyway. It was nice enough to go, but it's taken us a week to get around to blogging about it. Maybe that tells you how exciting it was!

By popular demand...

I am proud to present 'Joanna Toddling'!

Credits
Photos: Peter
Lead Actor: Joanna
Supporting role: Mel
Production: Mel
Wardrobe: Ben

New shoes...

Joanna is no longer shoe-less. Farmers (the closest you get to Myer in Hamilton) had a one day sale on yesterday with 20% of shoes, so I got Peter to buy a new pair for Joanna when he popped across to the shops after he kids were in bed. She looks all grown up now, toddling around in her new shoes (still soft sole pre-walkers).

Playgroup...

Now that I have been going for a couple of weeks and paid the fees yesterday for the term, I thought I'd let you all know about the playgroup we have joined. It is run by Chapel Hill Community Church (one of the churches we visited, but have decided not to attend), and they have 3 groups (Monday, Tuesday and Wednesday mornings). We go on Tuesday mornings from 9/9.30am - 11.30/12pm. The first half of the morning is free play time (with a variety of toys to choose from, both inside and outside), then there is a 'mat time' which is just announcements and singing a few songs, then morning tea, then creative time (playdough, craft, painting, sandpit etc. - see the photos).
Ben and Joanna have started to settle in well and are both happy to go off and play without me being right next to them (I really noticed this today, as I managed to have 2 cups of tea - it was our 3rd week). The mums are friendly and not all go to church or that particular church. I'm enjoying being able to talk to other mums and starting to build new friendships. There is one particular mum who I have talked to each week (my 1st week there was her 2nd week) and I've organised to meet up with her in the coming week so our kids can play together (Ben has been asking about making friends in NZ). Hopefully Ben will start to make some friends over the coming weeks, at the moment he is too interested in what he is playing with (as everything is new and exciting) to think about talking to other kids.
Playgroups are actually quite rare in NZ these days for 2 reasons. Firstly about a year ago the government brought in funding for 20hrs free early childhood education for 3-4year olds, so more parents are sending their kids to Kindy, so there isn't such a demand for playgroups (kids can actually go to Kindy from the age of 2 - if there are places available). The second reason is that in NZ there are places called 'Playcentres' (these have been around for a while) these are formally run, parent-led early childhood education centres. Parents can attend with their children from birth up to school age and they do the same sorts of activities that kindy/playgroups do.

Toddling...

Since the weekend Joanna has started toddling. I'm not going to say she has started walking yet as it only lasts for about 4 steps before she plops onto her bottom. But she is starting try walking between places before plopping on her bottom and crawling the rest of the way. Sometimes after she has plopped down after the 3-4 steps, she will stand herself back up again and take another few steps. She behaves very proud when she does this. This means I now have a dilemma with her footwear...the pair of pre-walkers we bought soon after we arrived in NZ have been totally worn through at the front (ie. the sole and upper are totally seperate and there is a big gaping hole that you can see all her toes through!). But now that she looks like she is very close to walking I feel it would be a waste to buy another pair of pre-walkers as it wouldn't be long and she will be needing proper walking shoes (not to metion the change in season from closed shoes to sandles). So at the moment she is in limbo with no shoes to wear when we go out.
She has also started to stand up more and dance when music is playing on the stereo or we've got a DVD on. It is quite a cute style of moshing with her bobbing up and down, nodding her head and clapping or flapping her arms.

Appreciation by tackling

Each morning when I leave for work, I try to give a hug for each of the kids and Mel.  Ben, being a 3 year-old, doesn't always want a hug - he sometimes runs away saying "no, don't want a hug from Dad".  So, I have to try something different to make sure he knows he's loved and appreciated.  So I offer to tackle him instead of giving him a hug.  He's happy with that - this morning he didn't want to give Dad a hug, but he was certainly happy to tackle Dad good-bye!

Toilet training scrapped...

As of lunchtime today I have decided to scrap trying to toilet train Ben. After that 1st day which seemed to go as expected for a 1st day, things have not progressed at all. All that has happened is Ben training me to put him on the potty at the time intervals that will mean his wee will end up in the potty and not in his pants. No amount of reminding or rewarding has resulted in him working out for himself when he needs to go and he is totally unconcerned about having wet pants (or poo pants, as was the case once today). So it's back to the world of nappies.

Mmm... goodness.

Here's a record of the produce we bought last weekend in Hawke's Bay... we finally got around to taking a picture of it all. Needless to say, the cheese and apples will soon be consumed and all those bottles had better last us quite a while longer!

Testing, testing, 1...2...3...

Ben is, well, being a little testing at the moment. Probably just because he's being a typical 3-year-old. He's generally pretty happy, but as soon as he has to do something that he doesn't particularly want to do (e.g. tidying up toys), he just says, matter-of-factly "I don't want to". And we usually have a tantrum in the process of getting him to do whatever it was. Toilet training isn't helping - Mel did up a chart for him, and got some stickers which he gets each time he does a wee or poo in the potty. Trouble is, he now just doesn't care whether he gets a sticker or not. We're really struggling to find anything to motivate him - whatever we try doesn't seem to work for more than about, oh, 2 minutes.
I guess that's a 3 year-old.

Toilet Training update...

After what I thought was a pretty good first day, we haven't progressed much. Ben is quite capable of doing his wee on the potty if he is sitting there, but still lacks any skill recognising when he needs to go sit himself on the potty. It doesn't matter how much questioning/reminding that we do (ie. sometimes he wets his pants after only being asked 30sec before if he needs to do a wee!). I know it is early days yet, so we will keep persevering I guess.