Three year old fun

One of the roles of the stay at home mother of an only child is playmate. Much as ‘fostering a child’s independence’ makes a marvellous excuse to encourage them to play by themselves, play is how they learn and playing with others is how they learn about cooperation, turn taking , vocabulary and so on.

I’d like to think I’m a fairly fun playmate. I’m no three year old boy, but I try to keep up.
Popular games at the moment include:

CARS: driving around, racing, crashing and talking to each other.
BATHS: I don’t know where this game came from, but it involves building a giant communal bath (a carwash perhaps?) with lego, and then filling it with cars and toy animals. The lego fire truck hose becomes a shower, and there is usually even a separate ‘drying room’.
JUMPS: This involves a lot of jumping and then falling down. I’m not very good at it.
GOAL: Sort of like soccer except the goal keeper helps you get the ball into the goal.

All of these games seem to require a three year old’s outlook on life. The rules and logic are labyrinthine and ever changing. They provide me with fascinating bits of insight into the boy’s personality, his growing awareness of his environment and his interests. They provide me with opportunities for sneaky modelling of desired behaviour. They’re great games. But gosh it’s hard to keep up! And his attention span for them exceeds mine threefold.

I prefer the more structured kids activities like play doh, cooking, painting and craft. They may be messy (oh the mess!) but at least I understand the rules!

Auction house joy

Hopefully my sister will be coming to stay with us for a few weeks next month. Before she comes I have some serious organizing to do with the house, something that is a little bit tricky when we don’t have enough furniture. I just need a few things to make life run more smoothly. Another bookshelf would let me clear out all the books from the spare room wardrobe, towel stands would fix our lack of towel hanging space, and so on.

Yesterday I went to the viewing day at Mitchell Road Auction House. It was full of general and estate stuff that is to be auctioned today. I’ve never been to an auction house before but it was fascinating - old stuff heaven! A lot of it was junk, but a lot of it wasn’t, and some of the items were so beautiful, so worthy of a new lease on life, that I had serious thoughts about joining a furniture restoration class. Even though we have no need or space for the items and I have no aptitude or genuine inclination towards sanding and varnishing.

The auction centre also has a shop above it for 20th Century design pieces. Visiting that was like diving into a box full of primary coloured treasure. I had a lot of fun sifting through the kitch, admiring design, coveting some egg coddlers, and just generally wishing that I’d gone there for decorator items rather than a bookshelf. Which, sadly, seemed to be the one type of furniture that was not available on either floor.

The boy had a wonderful time too. He likes old things and seemed to think that the entire auction house was a playground assembled for his own personal exploration and enjoyment. So it’s good (if potentially expensive) to know that auction house browsing can work as a family friendly way to spend a weekend.

Bookplate Dilemma

I have a large, quirky, eclectic collection of books. Two categories of books come into my life. Some I buy, read and pass on and others - the special ones - become part of my beloved personal library. I will probably keep them forever.

About a week ago I bought a couple of packets of bookplates. I love the historical idea of bookplates – the notion that books were of such value that their ownership was a thing to boldly declare. Bookplates, like the books they adorned, were works of art, frequently created personally for the owner. They marked each item as treasured, and united an assortment of books into a library.

My bookplates aren’t handmade or personalised of course, but they are aesthetic, and the idea of labelling my library appeals to me. I looked forward to finding a quiet moment to put my beautiful bookplates into my treasured books, but now that the moment has come I have found myself hesitating.

They are lovely fresh out of the packet, but once I stick them on will they look like the sort of labels kids put on their schoolbooks? I certainly wouldn’t like that at all. What if, in ten years time, what seems like a harmless indulgence now feels like an affectation, defacing my books? Should I put the first one into one of ‘my’ books, or into something less important so that it doesn’t matter if I don’t like the effect? What would I then do with the book that I had claimed as my own?

I’m sure I’ll sort it out.

I know that life is sweet when I have time to ponder the finer points of bookplating my library!