Wren Himself

Wren is now six and a quarter.  He is tall and skinny, about average height for his age but only 30th percentile for weight.  He has lanky blonde hair and protects his fringe (bangs) when I plan a haircut because he needs his "look" for a bad guy.  I once cut his fringe short and he cried inconsolably because I had taken his pirate look.

Wren has a few interests:
1) Screentime (minecraft or iPad)
2) Drawing or coloring with fine tipped pens
3) Playing his imaginary fighting games unseen in the bedroom or on the basketball court
4) Board games.

He cannot stop talking.  He talks ALL the time, to the point that Frost and I are exhausted and don't listen to him.  If you do listen and try and say something, he talks over you.  He is rather rude and imperious.  He wants his own way or he gets MAD and FIERCE.  We are working on this.  We do "redos" when he does the same thing again, more thoughtfully.  That is quite successful.

We have learned that Wren is very reflective.  Whatever tone you speak to him in, is echoed back and amplified.  If you hurry him to leave the house, he shrieks and panics, running around throwing shoes, telling you "THIS IS THE WORST THING IN THE WORLD. I HATE GOING OUT".

One must go out and get him ready by stealth or be ready for a great confrontation.

However, Wren loves to play with this friends and others who are willing to play his games and share his interests.  Today, we did painting and drawing and he very much enjoyed trying something new, being encouraged to avoid his own self-critic "this is a useless drawing.  I am going to throw it away!" had to be turned around into a 'draw on the other side' moment.

The game he enjoyed today is called King of Tokyo.  Its a great game, not too long or complicated but with plenty of drama and challenge.

Tomorrow Wren goes back to school after midwinter break.  He is still coughing at night but seems to be recovering.  I am STILL Wheezing after our awful flu-cough thing three weeks ago (Wren got sick on the 31st January and I was stricken on the 1st Feb).

It is still cold and dark but at least there is some light in the sky when we rise at 6.30am on a school morning and today we saw the sun as we walked around Greenlake with Beezle (tongue lolling).

I am looking forward to cycling to school again in better weather and generally being less of a hibernating family.  Frost suggested "we should go for a short hike on the weekend, for Beezle" and we agreed.

The boys invented a new way to each a stack of small pancakes.
You layer nutella between them, coat the entire exterior of the stack
with cream and decorate with strawberries.
I think Wren managed to fit syrup on somewhere.

Wren thought he was too scared to ride the carousel because
"The horses go up and down" but he rode on the chariot behind one.
With me.

The boys ride the carousel at the zoo, "gundam style"

Wren with the tree shrine at Greenlake.
People lay flowers to honor a tree that was cut down.

Obsession with Sourdough

Both the boys are obsessed with sourdough bread at the moment.  After his third slice of toast after school yesterday, Frost said "Mum, if you keep buying this bread I am going to gain 3 pounds!"  He pinched his thigh.

They love to toast it until its golden and slather it with peanut butter.  Wren likes peanut butter and golden syrup.  Frost loves vegemite and butter.

I ate a slice from the bag for breakfast yesterday.

It really is delicious.  Anyway, this is just a small glimpse of life.  Celebrate the sourdough!

Wren's 6th Birthday

 This month Wren turned 6.  On his actual birthday he had a special birthday circle at school and walked around the months of the year set up on a low circular table.  He also had a special candle ceremony with the lights off.

Wren "Grows up" as he circles the sun once for each year
of his life

Wren as Birthday Boy in the morning circle.

That evening he was allowed to choose his own birthday dinner.  He chose hot dogs with relish and root beer.  He didn't even finish his hot dog because he was too busy building the Lego urukai-army Granny gave him.  Afterwards, we sang and ate his "bouche de noel" cake with meringue mushrooms.

Yesterday we celebrated Wren's 6th birthday with a party.  Ever since our visit to Australia in August we have been reading Tolkien.  First we read The Hobbit and now we are almost finished with book two of The Lord of the Rings.  Lego has recently released sets along the Lord of the ring so we decided to have a birthday part on the Tolkien theme.  The main activity for the party was a Quest to Destry the ring, along the lines of a treasure hunt.  We started with a clue to find an Elf to receive an elf pouch.  Frost was the elf.

The clue was to go and seek the Elf where the Reindeer gazes.  Apparently the word "gazes" was too complicated (perhaps they thought it was grazes?) and they spent a long time milling around on the lawn before spotting Frost in the tree.

At last!  The Elf is found and gives out Elven pouches.

The Elf instructed them to head to the soapy lake and fish for
The One Ring (only there were 8, one per child).
The bamboo has a magnet on.  The rings were key-rings.

Later, they had to defeat The Dragon.  A pinata of a golden
dragon I made from a discarded box.  It was rather
strong and needed Alex to give it a good Bash and defeat it.

jafkdsl;jk;j

Near the end they had to use a golden coin to get near the volcano
which was our version of Mount Doom.  Frost jumped up and made a big
EXPLOSION noise when each child dropped their ring in the abyss.  They took it seriously.
Later, when they found an extra ring, they rushed down to throw it in
Mount Doom as well.

Donovan throws in his ring while Frost (hand) waits to
ERUPT!

Afterwards, we had cake and lunch at the table in the living room.  I took inspiration from another parent's LOTR cake and painted an Eye of Sauron on royal icing on the top.

The lettering on the front is an (incomplete) copy of
the inscription on the One Ring.  The letters on the
front of the cake spell WREN in Dwarven Runes.
This was Frost's idea!

Wren had a lovely day and was quite happy to run around with his friends after cake.  This was a relaxing party after the organizing of the quest.  Josh was a great DM of the quest so I didn't have to rush around with them.  Frost and Alex were also a great help.

Here is a short movie of Wren's birthday celebrations at school and home.  Its not polished because my laptop has barely enough memory to create a movie and, due to lack of skill, editing is very time consuming.

The smallest particle

Over the weekend Wren asked me some questions about the make-up of the universe.

Wren: Mum, how big are orcs?

Me: I don't know.  I would guess they are about 8 feet tall.  They are a fantasy creature so its hard to know.

Wren: No Mum.  Not ORCS, ORCS! They are not a fantasy creature.  They are the smallest thing in the universe.

Me:  No, orcs are a fantasy creature.

Wren:  No AWKS!  What is smaller than an atom?

Me:  An atom is made of a proton and an neutron.

Wren:  But what is smaller?

Me:  Electrons?

Wren:  But what is SMALLER!

Me:  OH!  You mean quarks?

Wren:  orcs

Me:  QUARKS!

Wren:  quorcs, orcs, quarks....  ask Dad.  Dad told me orcs are the smallest thing in the universe.

Mystery Name

Does this say DEDAN?  Dugan (aka Doogan)?  DEGAN?

Wren Wonders how Black People Were Made

The babysitter had a word with me last night.  She was concerned that she had one of the Big Conversations with Wren at bedtime and she wanted to fill me in.  Apparently Wren had asked how Black People were made.

Sasha explained that she had to be careful to ask a few questions to understand what he was asking.  It seems, Wren is under the impression that all people are innately pale and that in some cases special techniques, magic, luck, chance etc occurs to make a person turn black.

"How do people turn their skin black?" he wondered at bedtime.

She explained that people were just born black, or yellow or pale or tan and came out of their mother's tummy that way.

"How does the mother's tummy DO THAT?" asked Wren, now altering his world view to allow that babies gestate in a kind of dye-bath environment which stains them a particular color.

Sasha tried to explain that the color of the baby was from the parents.  That parents before that baby had a different color skin.

For Wren that only pushed the issue BACK a generation.
"But how did that MOTHER get dark skin?"

Apparently, Wren has a notion of an incredibly pale progenitor.  I shall have to explain at some point that it was just as likely the other way around and that his paleness is the question.

Christmas Camels

We were reading the newspaper at breakfast yesterday and Wren asked about the article showing camels.  They were walking down 51st St in NYC where they are for some Christmas theatre.

"Why are camels in a show about Christmas?" one of them asked.

"Why do you think?" I asked.. with a DUH tone of voice.

"Because camels are COOL!" said Wren.

"Because they were on Noah's ark?" pondered Frost.

"No, really." I said.   "You don't know?"

Frost left the room abruptly and I ordered him NOT to Google it.

"Okay, because they are in the nativity scene?" ventured Frost.

Sensing we had missed a good story I explained about the star and the wise men and the gifts and the star stopping above the stable and that the wise men were riding camels.

"Oh, yeah" said Frost

Wren had never heard this before.  When I complained to Josh that we had left out some fundamentals of Judeo-Christian mythology he got all defensive and asked whether the kids knew the great stories of Islam or Hinduism.  I said they knew quite a few Hindu stories and many Buddhist ones but surely he owned that Christian narratives are closer to our culture than the others.

He refused to admit this.

Regardless of their Hindu-buddhist-greco-roman mythological framework, the boys are keen on Christmas.  Today they gave me Christmas lists.

Frost would like things relating to video games (t-shirts, equipment) and Wren wrote his own list. Sadly, I cannot read many of the items on his list.  I attach it below.

I think it says:

1. Hang Man 1
2. Brick Arms
3. 20 Dollar Bill
4. Lychee army?
5. Core mech?
6. Chocolate peppermint bark
7. bunny painter
8. Flowers

We will see what we can do about the lychee army.

Wren the Contortionist

Wren told me to post this on the blog.  He said "look what I can do!"  He is very flexible.  He can drape himself in a backbend over the couch.  Almost do the splits, first thing in the morning, cold, in his pjs and has double jointed fingers.  He loves to show how he can pop his thumb joint out like I can (but Frost and Josh cannot).  He is working hard to make a crook in the tip of his index finger (as I can!) and likes to bend his tongue in funny shapes.

Anyway, here is Wren's performance of Bendy Wren.  He would still be performing if I hadn't tired.

See, I think I am doing it.  Am I doing it?

I was trying to simulate a yoga posture but Wren did
not consider it bendy enough

He can get quite a bit further in the splits when he
works at it.  This is just sliding his feet apart.

The photo session started when I noticed Wren was just
lying like this over the chair while we had a conversation!

Twisty legs "peace"

Can you do this Mum?  Like I do this?  YES!  The only
one I can do!

Is this good?  I am looking UP

I can do both thumbs.  Frost can only do one.

Wren talks about old people

After a few visits to a retirement center where they read books with 'Seniors', Wren shared his anxiety about old people.

Wren:  "Mum, I don't want to be rude but the Seniors are a bit scary."

Me:  "What's scary about them?"

Wren:   "Its mainly their faces.  They have strange things on their faces.  Why do Seniors lick their lips like this?" [Wren sticks his tongue out a bit and retracts it.  Sticks it out a bit.  Retracts it]

Me:  Well, perhaps they have dry lips or dentures - like false teeth - or something.

Wren:  And one man has like, eyes that look different directions.  Do you spawn like that or is that something you get?

Me:  No, people spawn like that.

Wren:  What's weird is that its like there are two people.  Like one person is looking one way and he has someone else's EYE in his head looking the other way.

[thinking]

Wren:  And Seniors have weird things on their faces and scary hands.

Me:  That's probably just how your skin gets when you are really old.  Lets look at some seniors pictures and you will see they are just normal for old people.

[I google search "Very old people" and we look at a screen of image results.]

Wren:  They look like the seniors.

Me:  See, they are just normal for old people.

Wren:  Those hands look like Tara's hands.  [my friend Tara is barely 50 and these hands look like something from a man frozen in the ice since paleolithic periods]

Me:  I don't think so.

Wren:  Maybe a bit.

Me:  [later]  Well, when I am old like the seniors, you will still have to kiss me.

Wren:  MOM, when you are that old I will be LIKE 8 YEARS OLD so I won't have to kiss you.

Me:  EIGHT!  You won't KISS ME!

Wren:  Okay, maybe if I will be 20 years old.

Halloween Sewer from Hell

We woke in darkness to Frost shouting "Mom, Mom, get up get up.  GET UP NOW"   I thought I might have overslept but it was barely 6.30am.

"Why?" 

"The basement is FULL OF WATER!!!"

We staggered around a bit but eventually discovered that heavy rain overnight had backed up the sewer into the shower drain in Frost's bathroom and there was sewer water - no sewerage we could SEE though - was spread from Frost's bathroom, through the downstairs living room to the game room, halfway through the laundry and deeply in the furnace room. 

We mopped and drained what we could and arranged a sewer specialist to come and clear the line.  The first one who came to the house was one who had done refused to do it, saying he was worried that the blade of his rooter would become stuck.  Finally, a Ukrainian "expert" came from another rooter company and proceeded to wrestle his snake into the sewer through the toilet drain in the basement.

In the interim, Josh had ripped out the sodden wood floor of the bathroom and found that the sub-floor was rotten.  He ripped that out and I mopped the rotten wood sludge into a contractors industrial strength waste bag.

The "guest" bathroom now has a cement slab with the remnants of past linoleum clinging to it.  The toilet it outside.  The basement carpet is rolled up and we have a heater.

We need to borrow a dehumidifier.

I shall post tomorrow about Halloween.

Pictures from easier days:

Beautiful amanitas I spotted on a ride home from dropping
Wren at school.  A few of these were ones I had drawn.

Wren so enjoyed shellfish at Google for lunch that I bought him a
number of mussels and prawns and sauteed them for his dinner.
He ate almost all of them, including big fat jiggly ones that needed two mouthfuls.

Wren was insulted and angered by this street sign. He said
"It is rude and it is NOT LEGAL to change a sign
so that is says only buddhas can cross here!  What
about people who are not buddhas!  They feel bad."