Helvetica

Anyone else watch the doco on the font Helvetica? I'm watching more and more docos as I get older and so seem to be turning into my parents. I shudder to think what the next step is.

Anyway back on topic. This was very interesting, to think how font choices change our experience of the world. Helvetica is a widely used font, used by both corporations (American Airlines for instance) and government (New York subway one example) and so therefore can paradoxically have either a consumerist or socialist feel to it! The header of my blog is a font that I would call a descendent of Helvetica. Arial is a well known helvetica look alike - I have typed this post in Arial.

It has been enjoying a renaissance lately (it turned 50 last year), but my prediction is it is getting towards the end of this current cycle of coolness and more ornamental fonts will have cache again.

I like it, it is pleasingly balanced and neutral. But a bit too ubiquitous?

Anyone want to admit to fonty nerdiness and tell me their fave font?

Thriftiness in cooking

I'm feeling very 1950s as I write this! Trying to save money at the supermarket has been going well (which is helpful at the moment!).

Here are some more cooking ideas that have been working for me:

1. Reduce the amount of meat meals you have. People often eat a lot more meat than necessary, and it tends to be the most expensive element of a meal. They say (the infamous they...) you don't need meat every meal.

2. Try tofu. No, I'm serious. For those who haven't cooked it, it can be offputting I know, but you need to use the right kind - I find firm tofu (or nigari) is the easiest to cook. It soaks up sauces well, so it's great in stir fries and laksa. It is cheap, and a very good source of protein. Also can be cut into thin strips, fried and then soaked in soy sauce - quite yummy.

3. Try tinned fish. I've been substituting tinned salmon in salmon recipes.

My greatest budget triumph was tonight's meal - last week I found 1kg of carrots on sale for 99c so I bought them on spec. Tonight I cooked 500g of them into soup for 2 of us - just add stock, half an onion (which was hanging round in the crisper about to go off), one garlic clove, bay leaves, parsley and season. We had it with sourdough bread that had been on special. Not entirely sure what that ended up being per serve, but I'm guessing under 1.50 each. The leftover bread is in the freezer to make croutons later this week.

A great chair... for more people than you might think...

We bought Sparky a Junior chair from Ikea about a month or so ago. Previously, we had been using a travel highchair as a booster at the table, and due to having straw seated chairs (very van Gogh like) it didn't sit right and was rather unstable. Our dining table is slightly taller than normal - it is an old work table from one of the islands in the harbour, complete with chisel marks etc. So, he will need boosting at the table for a while. I wanted to share that this new chair from Ikea has been fantastic - he loves sitting on a proper chair, and it is so easy to clean too.

The only worrying thing is that I have found it good to sit on, and have now realised that I really need a booster chair....(see the title of my blog for a hint why).

The complexity of children

One of the engrossing activities we parents like to indulge in is defining and categorising our kids. And yet my experience so far, particularly after no 2, is that while this is an enjoyable and even necessary activity, as it helps us to understand and appreciate them, they do defy our neat descriptions of them. At 19 months and almost 4, my two boys are already individuals of sometimes alarming complexity.

Sparky has recently learnt to read by himself. This kind of feat, typical of him, has confirmed my description of him as very verbal. (and by the way, shows that we have to be careful of applying general statements about gender, such as that boys arent as verbally gifted, to specific children). And yet, I was recently reminded that I can't ignore the other abilities and interests he might have. Sure, he will be probably be a bookish kid. But that doesn't mean I won't have to be dragged along to Saturday morning sport (you can see how excited I am about the prospect of that...). He doesn't seem particularly sporty to me as yet, but even if he has no huge talent in that area, he might still really enjoy it. What reminded me is that he suddenly came out with a mathematical statement he had worked out (5 + 5 = 10, he worked it out from hands and feet he tells me, and wasn't told by anyone). I had been so focussed on his reading I hadn't been talking to him about numbers or really doing anything about his numeracy recently.

Well, on to Scout (hehehe yes, finally owl is renamed, and all your suggestions helped guide my thinking ). Scout is what is often called a typical boy - though I am a little wary of saying this about him, as if his brother isn't therefore as masculine. Anyway, Scout is adventurous and rebellious. A typical stunt of his is when he learnt how to climb on to the dining table and spent the first day doing that continually, looking at me knowing he was about to get in trouble, and clapping himself. He is the kind of kid who does something daring, hurts himself, and just has to try again immediately to see if it will still hurt this time. He loves cars and trains. Yet to just define him that way limits him. He is also far more interested in nurturing play than his brother at the same age. He loves cuddly toys and dolls, and is already pretending they are babies and looking after them. If he sees a baby in the supermarket he spends the rest of the time looking for them.

It is good to recognise their distinct personalities and to therefore being looking to cater to their special interests and needs. But in doing so, I am trying not to at the same time close off doors they might want to explore. God makes them more wonderful than we can imagine or describe

Meme of Randomness

I've been tagged!

rules
1.Link to the person who ‘tagged’ you! Prue
2. Post the rules on your blog!
3. List 6 random facts about yourself!
4. Tag 6 people at the end of your post!
5. Let each person know they have been tagged by commenting on their blog!
6. Let the tagger know the entry is posted on your blog!

BODY I am not sporty at all, but I do get very patriotic and teary about Australia winning.
EYES I do not have binocular vision. I only use the info from one eye at a time. This makes me very spatially challenged.
NOSE I feel like vomiting when I smell jonquils. My father has the same reaction. I do think they are pretty.
MOUTH I have a high soprano voice – I was classically trained in the past (sadly very rusty these days) and could (from memory maybe I am inflating it in hindsight) sing up to the top note required (normally) of soprano operatic soloists.
EARS I find music has very easy access to my emotions. My mood is easily changed by music, and my husband enjoys an instrumental piece of music that I can’t listen to, because it makes me depressed (Gorecki, Sorrowful Songs)
MIND I have a very good memory for words, but only an average one for numbers.

I'm going to break a rule (gasp) and just tag Kaylene.

I think I'll be a cook when I grow up...

This is Sparky's latest ambition (we have had doctor, fireman, artist, super hero, teacher...).

He said this after we cooked dinner together today. We have baked before, and made simple dinners such as pizza and burgers together before, but this was the first time we chose a main meal together and cooked to a recipe. This was prompted by Sparky looking at my latest foodie mag (see above) and finding a Junior Cooks section and a recipe he wanted to try. The recipe, for the record, was a savoury version of a bread and butter pudding, and he ate his portion almost all up! Sorry, no pic, I didn't think of taking one until it was all eaten up.

I hadn't done this before as I thought he was too young, but now I am motivated to include him in cooking a lot more. Why?

1. He enjoyed it

2. What's more, I enjoyed sharing this with him.

3. He was motivated to eat what he made

4. He learnt cooking skills

5. Maybe he will cook for me sooner rather than later

6. Maybe he might cook for his own family when he grows up and my daughter in law will thank me.

7. Enjoyment of cooking is now not just linked to sweet things and treats.

Olympic games revealing

picture by Ricardo Stuckert/PR from http://www.agenciabrasil.gov.br under creative commons licence

I got up early this morning to watch the Opening ceremony replay with Sparky, who is very excited about his first Olympics (last time he was in the womb). I had a wonderful time sharing this with him - I got a bit teary! He and his 18 month old brother watched a lot more than I thought they would - I guess spectacle is a genre that goes across age.

Sparky thought the 2008 drummers were a camera trick and was amazed when I explained in this case it wasn't so.

The ceremony was beautiful, lavish, stylish and dignified. I have to confess I still think Sydney's were better. This is probably because my taste is Australian! I liked the combination of cheekiness and transcendence in Sydney. It is a very Australian mix - we don't take things too seriously - and yet, deep down - at times, we do want to. It seemed to me that in fact Sydney while less dignified reached for the heavens more (the whole Eternity thing for instance). Is this the difference between a country whose government is based on a materialist doctrine and one that while secular still has some more overt Christian influence? The ceremony did however have a great message of care for the environment, as well as the usual messages of peace among the peoples of the earth.

The ceremony also celebrated the major inventions first invented by the Chinese. I knew some of this before, and it doesn't surprise me, as working for a chinese australian church, I am well aware of how smart Chinese people are! - I think the only reason they didn't conquer the world is that at a crucial point they became, politically, internally rather than externally focussed.

Peter and Jane

As promised, a post on this learner reader system.

I learnt to read using Peter and Jane. It is a system of 36 books, 3 per level, which aim to introduce children to the most common words of the English language. Strikingly, 100 words account for 1/2 the words used, and 300 for 3/4. Each level adds new words.

It is a method currently out of favour, as it in the main uses whole word recognition (though a 1/3 of the books use phonics) as opposed to the more fashionable phonics - see here for a discussion of this - though it seems now a combination of phonics and whole language is popular. Whole language seems to be more effective for children from high literacy households or with natural verbal gifting.

Sparky, who has learnt to read almost by himself, seems to favour whole word recognition and get frustrated with phonics, so I decided to use the readers I used, though also doing some phonics. I enjoyed these readers as I liked being able to go up levels, and I thought this would motivate Sparky as well.

The thing is, though, that the readers were written in the 1960s, and although revised in the 70s, still have a very old fashioned air to them. So, for instance, Peter plays ball and Jane stands by and watches. I have found myself having to explain to Sparky that when these books were written people had some funny ideas about what boys and girls could do but now we know differently. I guess he is learning to read critically already!

The picture is of some Peter and Jane illustrations, taken from http://www.theweeweb.co.uk/ a website all about Ladybird books - the publisher of this series.

So, how did you learn to read?