On my day off we hang around the house in our pyjamas playing games until I make up my mind about what it is we will do for the rest of the morning.
Story-time at the Ponsonby library on Tuesday morning was surprisingly fun. I say surprisingly because the last time I took Kien to story-time was at Central library, and the woman who ran it was *so* not engaging and the kids all ran riot. That was also a year ago when Kien was not interested in paying attention. Now he loves being read to.
I must admit I really do need to read more to him. He gets so excited when I tell him to pick a book to read. Usually I forget until it's bedtime, and by then we only have time for a few quick ones before the natural light is gone from his room making it too dark for me to see the words. Then I usually make up stories and he can see the book's silhouette still open. He likes that - he has told me off a few times for not having the book open 
.
My aunt wanted to see him on Tuesday afternoon, so after his daytime sleep we headed out to my dad's.
As an aside I have a love/hate relationship with his daytime nap. On the one hand I am loving that I can have a break for a couple of hours during the day while the high energy boy sleeps. But it is getting increasingly harder for me to make him sleep, and he really needs to, otherwise he is tired and irritable. On the other hand Jef and I are always having to plan our schedule around that daytime sleep - because I am precious and want my son to have a decent sleep (if I can help it). Plus, like I said, it gives us a break, some peace and quiet. I'm pretty sure in the next few months when the daycare transitions him out of the baby room he will drop his daytime sleep altogether. We'll see.
Whenever we go my dad's Kien is always wanting to eat ice. Ice! I wish he would eat food as readily as he eats ice!
My aunt gave him some bubble solution and implements for blowing bubbles. Oh boy, we had bubbles and solution everywhere.
Kien loved it so much. What a treat for him to be able to blow bubbles inside. AND what a treat that his mummy didn't have to clean up!
I only had to give him some time-out once whilst there, and that was because he got so excited while playing with his ông ngoại he hit him on the face. I asked him to say "sorry" - I know it's just a word and two year olds don't fully understand the concept of apologising, but all round it just makes the other person that was hit feel better, and in this instance I really wanted him to say it. But Kien refused and would not budge. I asked him if he wanted some time-out so he could think about it - he didn't say anything so I told him to say "sorry" or I'll take him for time-out. Still he wouldn't say it, so I took him to the storeroom for a bit. I explained that he hurt his granddad and that he should say "sorry" to make him feel better. I asked him if he would say it, he said yes, so we held hands and came back out and he said "sorry, ông ngoại" and gave him a kiss.
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Last night we had our two year interviews for the Growing up in NZ longitudinal study. Lynda, the interviewer, played blocks with Kien by, firstly, asking him to watch as she stacked the blocks...
...then she smashed the tower down and asked him to stack the blocks...
...and he took such great delight in smashing the blocks down.
The interviews took almost 3 hours all up (first with Kien, then with Jef, and lastly with me). There were lots of questions from the interview that has left me pondering...
Jef had to go to work so I had to put Kien to bed whilst undergoing the interview. He was very good though and put himself to sleep relatively quickly - which was a relief.
