Well Buzz, you’ve not only broken the trend by not being earlier than all my previous babies, but you’ve actually hung in longer than ANY of them.

You’re now at 38 weeks 4 days, well past even Linus’s 38 weeks 1 day, and there are no signs that you’re on your way. A growth scan yesterday reassured us that you active and healthy and being well-served by your placenta, and are only tracking ever-so-slightly smaller than expected for gestation.

I spent the two week April holiday laying low and being hyper-sensitive to any “signs” of imminent labour, constantly expecting you to arrive in the following few days.

Now that you’ve established that you’re going to defy any expectations, I’m surprisingly at peace with the idea that you’ll come when you come. Life in the new term is ticking along, and at some point in the next three weeks we’ll finally get to meet you, name you, cuddle you, introduce you to your big brother and sisters, and get into the swing of being a family of six. YAY!

(But please, NOT on my birthday.)

You took a couple of weeks to settle back in at Playcentre this term after the big summer break, but once you did you were completely happy and at home again.

Favourite Activities

• Painting animals: I don’t mean depicting them on paper, but putting paint on toy animals. This was your idea on the first day of term that ended up a recurring activity for you (and Zoe) over the whole term.
• Cat-play: Almost every day at Playcentre you turn into some type of cat. You sometimes use dress-ups, sometimes face-paint, and sometimes just your body and voice.
• IG and NG: Tuesdays this term found you spending a lot of time with IG (4yo) and NG (IG’s dad), often involving paint, face-paint, or clay.

My Goals

This term I hoped you’d get the opportunity to expand on your love of storytelling (“Do you know what?…”) and challenging yourself physically.

You have had a couple of activities this term that have involved storytelling:

• Telling others about your art (e.g. playdough, drawings);
• Dramatic play with other children your age;
• Combining music and storytelling with JD and OM.

Your gym class (bars, beam, floor) and around home (doorframe-climbing, trampoline) have been the main places where you have extended yourself physically this term, but Playcentre has also added in:

• Riding tricycles;
• Monkey bars (old and new);
• Careful climbing, balancing and sliding play with smaller children.
• Face-paint: This terms that has been a good seed for dramatic play with other children, particularly the girls your age.
• Playdough: This has had a resurgence this term at Playcentre, partially thanks to Jess, and you’ve enjoyed working with it in various ways.
• Group baking and cooking: You enjoy getting involved in these activities and stay focussed on them well, usually for the whole task.
• Lots of happy solo, self-initiated play AND lots of joining in well with a variety of other children and adults at Playcentre.

Other Activities

• Face-paint: This terms that has been a good seed for dramatic play with other children, particularly the girls your age.
• Playdough: This has had a resurgence this term at Playcentre, partially thanks to Jess, and you’ve enjoyed working with it in various ways.
• Group baking and cooking: You enjoy getting involved in these activities and stay focussed on them well, usually for the whole task.
• Lots of happy solo, self-initiated play AND lots of joining in well with a variety of other children and adults at Playcentre.

This term Zoe has shown increased levels of concentration and belonging at Playcentre.

Types of Play

Her activities have included many old favourites:

• Face-painting: it’s quite hard to find a photo of Zoe at Playcentre without her face painted! She’s even relenting and putting on barrier cream first… sometimes.
• Toy animals: imaginary play (often with Ada), grouping them into families, lining them up.
• Being animals: often with Ada, and often involving the face-paint and dress-ups.

Good going, Buzz!

This term for Linus at Playcentre can be easily and comprehensively summarised in two words: light sabres!

He’s very into playing Lego Star Wars on the Playstation 2 and has watched the original three movies, and this obsession has been his focus this term. One of the Playcentre supervisors RW worked with Linus to make a light sabre out of rolled-up newsprint, and somehow these light sabres have bred – most of the boys at Playcentre have constructed (or requested) one, and there is a huge stash of spare ones building up in the collage area.

This single interest has led to or supported lots of different activities and learning for Linus.

Arts and Craft Projects

Until now, Linus has never shown much interest in arts and crafts. However now he has something he loves to apply it to, he’s starting to get the idea of putting effort into producing output in the collage area. Thanks to a book from Aunty Andi and a morning without sisters, he made a robot costume at home with Nana. He followed this up by asking to make a knight costume, so we took the book to Playcentre and – in a team effort involving him, me and two other adults – produced this snazzy outfit (not to mention the fantastic face!):

Playfighting

Linus and Ada have enjoyed playfighting for a very long time, but now Linus is getting lots of experience having “battles” with other children. Our Playcentre has lots of boys who are around 3 at the moment (CV, DV, OG, HW, OM), and many of them are giving Linus the opportunity to hone his playfighting skills: establishing ground-rules, making sure everyone is on board with what’s happening, knowing how far to push things, paying attention to other’s reactions, etc.

New Relationships with Adults

Linus is by far the oldest child at Playcentre – the next oldest boy who goes on his days is 3 1/2! So while playfighting with children gives him some satisfaction, he has really enjoyed engaging in battles with willing adults this term, in particular with SK and CT.

SK enjoyed extending Linus by introducing ideas like “duelling” and “honour” to their battling. However Linus wasn’t too impressed when she suggested that they were fighting over SK’s daughter’s hand in marriage… I think 6 years of age may be when the ability to feel embarrassment really kicks in!

Other Developments

Less pronounced changes and interests this term have included:

• Friendships with other children, especially 4-year-old boy HB (sadly now gone to kindy) and 3-year-old boy HW;
• Offering to read stories to other children (he’s been doing this at home too over the past few weeks, especially with Zoe – so sweet!);
• Interest in documenting his own learning – this was only a one-off, but I got Linus to sit and narrate captions for a series of photos of things he was doing. He sat with me at Playcentre and captioned an impressive 8 or 9 photos before he got tired of it, so I must continue to give him these opportunities!
• Increased ability to focus on a task, e.g. 1 1/2 hours spent at the carpentry table a couple of weeks ago.