Learn Nothing Day!

Tombliboo is like a little learning machine…he can’t help it- it’s his age/stage…but the coolest thing ever is that it doesn’t end- he’ll carry on being as vitally interested in his world, just as his siblings have been before him. Curiosity is not only the domain of the toddler.

He pulled me to the freezer to get “I-Keem” after watching people eat ice cream on his Dora movie.

Princess came to tell me (also watching Dora) that “counting” and “helping” rhyme. We talked about that for a while- I wasn’t very convincing with my description of rhymes vs same ending. I told her she’s not meant to be learning anything today, to which she replied giggling, “Oh- you’re so silly Mummy!”

J-Man didn’t wake up until 11am, so I’m not sure if that counts as not learning.

I told him, “Good Morning! It’s Learn Nothing Day.”

“Well, we can’t have it Mum- it won’t work here…we can’t do it- noone can do it…not even a newborn baby can learn nothing all day”.

Later, he exclaimed, “Yeow- I think I burned off some of my tastebuds.”

“What are tastebuds?”, asked Princess. (Here we go again)

“They’re like tiny little bumps on your tongue that help you taste things.”

“Yes”, she replied, “Like pimples!”

“No,” he insisted, “Not at all like pimples”.

“I think I’ve got some under my tongue too- I’m going to go look.”

J-Man realised (I hadn’t) that it was his month day, and he was now 9 ½. We all sang to him, and he talked about the nuisance of having a birthday a month after Christmas when you just got everything you wanted. We talked about the possibility of him getting presents on his birthday from family, but we would give him his presents on his 6 month birthday…but he doesn’t think so :0)

He went through the day learning bucketloads…how to catch the Big Fish in the Club Penguin Fishing game, for one.

I asked Princess if she had been busy learning nothing, and she laughed and said, “Actually, Mummy, I’m learning to read! And, I’ve learned that Tombliboo is a big, big, big, big, big, big, big, big, biiiiiiiiig Mischief-Maker”.

She painted, but had far more fun mixing colours. She was trying to make the perfect brown, and we really weren’t doing it at all well…I suggested we look on the internet.

“You can’t find out how to make brown on the internet?? I didn’t know that!”, she said. I was reluctant to show her anything new, but it was important to her.

And we made “perfect brown”- it was super-easy.

We have been experimenting (twice) with leaving J-Man at home to do quick errands. We left him today to walk to our local shops to return some DVD’s, and pick up a couple of things for lunch. When we got back, I couldn’t find him! I was trying to keep calm- he knew the “rules” about not cooking anything or answering the door…but we hadn’t talked about him leaving the house. I thought maybe he got bored, and decided to come after all.

I started to call him…and he called back. He was in my room folding the washing!

He said he wanted his favourite shirt out of the wash, and decided he may as well get it all in, and start folding it for me. So sweet…and people tell me children need to be made to do these things or “they never will”.

This isn't all the learning that went on- there's too much to record...We are hopeless at learning nothing :0)