Simple pleasures – garden play

The weather’s turned a lot warmer recently, and apart from a bit of rain, it’s generally been dry enough to get out for some garden play and a mooch around.

N loves being outside, and at his day nursery earlier in the week, he’s been happily making the most of freeflow and spending all his time outside, only coming in for food!  Good job I’ve ordered some more of his Green People sun lotion so I can take some in for him in readiness for the sun shining through the smogginess we’ve got at the moment

He had a great time the other day, hiding under the trampoline.   It really shows how much he’s grown since the Summer as back then, he didn’t have to bend his legs to stand up at all.

He was hoping for a bounce, but our uprights seem a bit bent and I can’t work out how to check or put them back in place, so we’ll have to wait for his dad to sort that out.  Hopefully it’ll be sooner rather than later.

Then the dog arrived to see what the excitement was, so N decided to run off.  Well, if you have a Labrador, you probably know that running along, calling to a 3 year old dog  encourages said dog to go loopy.  Firstly Fern followed N a bit, then decided to turn and do her mad ‘greyhound’ running round the houses.  Usually she does it when the other dogs are around, but a 3 year old child sent her off the same way.

N thought that was highly amusing, so cue much laughter before he decided to run off into the garden to check out his toys.

The balance bike got brought out, and we’ve also been exploring moving to a proper pedal bike.   It feels a bit early, but he’s a total whizz on the balance bike, and rides a trike and his pedal tractor like a demon, so I was debating getting a bike for him in the Easter sales in readiness for the summer.

Instead, his dad turns up having found one of the nephew’s first bikes in a shed on the farm.  Bit of a jetwash, put the saddle down to the lowest level, and then check to see if it was the right size for N.

He wasn’t entirely sure, and it was a little high for him at the moment, but he seems really keen to be trying it out.  The pedals were ok for him to reach, and we pushed him round for a bit while he pedalled.  He did struggle with the strength needed to actually pedal hard enough to move the bike himself which I’m not surprised with as he was the same with his trike and ride on tractor.  The pedals are obviously straight underneath him rather than slightly in front as well, so it will be a bit of a learning curve.

Once he’s grown a bit more and can touch the ground while sitting on it, I think I’ll have to take him to the park so he can ride on some concrete rather than the grass.  Grass is softer for falling on, but it’s also much harder to pedal on.  But it’s back to the balance bike for the moment.

I popped inside, and next thing turned round to see him up on the wall walking along it, humming to himself.  He seemed pretty surprised to reach the end, but it’s definitely his new thing…he always asks to walk on any walls especially if he’s seen other children doing it.

It’s been lovely to get back in the garden again, and I’m just hoping that we’ll have some good weather in May so N’s ‘non-birthday’ party postponed from January, will be able to be outside.

Have you managed to get out in the garden yet?  What are your children’s favourite things to do in it.