protectors of... plants and caterpillars!

While hanging out the washing the other day we became distracted by the amazing amount of weeds that had invaded my garden.  So the three of us (Miss M 3.5yrs, Miss F 18months and myself) took it upon ourselves to attack the weeds.  This led to conversations about which plants were weeds, which were plants, what was the difference and why we had to remove the ones called weeds.  After explaining that the weeds were unwanted plants in our garden and would eventually kill the plants we had planted, Miss M took on the "hero" position and went out to save all the plants.  "PROTECT THE PLANTS!!" was yelled over and over.  Miss F wasn't sure what to do, but helped by removing random leaves.... most were weeds.  

While gardening we found a few bugs, and watched then crawl away.  Miss M became upset that, in protecting our plants, we had destroyed the bug's homes.  So she 'built' bug homes in the piles of weeds now on the path beside us.  Such a beautiful soul.  

We also found a caterpillar in the strawberries in the fridge (Yay right!), so he is now living in a glass jar with random bits of food.  The jar regularly gets shaken up when either Miss M can't find him, or Miss F climbs up and reaches the jar.  Otherwise he seems quite happy! 

Being 18 months old Miss F thinks everything is her's and she a right to grab and play with everything.  This is quite concerning for Miss M, as a concept. She is very worried about Miss F taking everything and making everyone in the world very unhappy.  We have had lots of conversations this week around this topic.  While driving - "what if (Miss F) thinks that house is hers?".  And "Mummy you would be very sad if (Miss F) thought your stitching(knitting) was hers, because then you would have none!".  What if she thinks all the flowers are hers? All the puppy dogs? All the TVs? I feel this issue has more to come.  

We watched a documentary about the Great Barrier Reef this week.  It was amazing.  We watched a mummy turtle crawl along the beach and lay her eggs, and then crawl back to the water (if she could).  Miss M was very concerned that the mummy turtles 'just left' the babies in the eggs there alone.  So we talked about different animals and the different needs of their babies.  

The documentary also showed robots that dived down into the depths of the ocean.  That sparked a conversation about how robots work - waaaaay out of my depth here!! I didn't even get a chance to google as she moved onto another topic about sharks.  

Dinner time is always a challenge in our house.  Miss F will eat almost anything (unless she's pushing out teeth), but Miss M is another story.  If it's something that has the ingredients all mixed together (spag bol, shepherds pie, etc) she won't touch it.  So this week I had a stroke of genius and used ice cube trays for a dinner plate (we have a lovely expensive, bought sectioned plate - she doesn't like it).  

The ice cube trays were a hit! Miss M ate almost everything in her ice cube tray plate! Miss F ate the corn (blaming the new eye teeth here!). And then discovered it was fun to throw her food on the floor for the lizard to eat (yes we have a free ranging lizard, or two!).  

Bedtimes are also a bit of a struggle.  Miss F is going through a clingy, cuddly stage.  Miss M just takes ages to wind down and stop her crazy brain.  The other night, after a busy social day, there was a huge list of things on her little brain.  It started with "mummy, what's in snot?" (we currently have a cold making it's way through the house), that one took a while to explain (little germs, and fluid to help push the germs out??).  Then it got harder.  "what's in guts?", "what's in horses?", "what's in people?".  After talking about food, digestive juices, organs and bones, she moved onto things.  "What's in houses?", "What's in pillows?", "what's in curtains?".  This started after saying curtains were in houses, and then led to "what's in material?", "what's in fibres?", "where do fibres come from".  Ummmm, sheep, cotton plants, plastic?? Thankfully she finally fell asleep thinking about curtains.  

😀