My First Bike...L-kun Finds His Cycle Legs

L-kun recently got his first bike as a present from his Aussie Grandparents... with a little help from Mum and Dad. A 40cm bike from Cyclops (a local brand of bikes). Hopefully the name, Fracture is good luck rather than bad.

L-kun has been quite excited about getting a bike, and T-chan took him out for his first bike ride the other day (with our handy little Lumix FS7 cam).

He seemed to get the hang of it fairly quickly though. The good thing about these bikes is that he's still got a fair bit of adjustment for anticipated size increase... but scarily, it wasn't too big at all.

And it wouldn't be called learning how to ride a bike if there wasn't just a little falling off the bike as well. I'm not sure why the cheeky smile however... maybe to reinforce the idea that he meant to fall off, rather than it being by accident. I'm sure it won't be the last stack... not by a long way.

Still, no damage done... and smiles lasted all day long (and indeed he went out for a second ride later in the day). I wonder how long the training wheels will stay on... that will be a fun experience teaching him to ride without trainers.

Thanks for the birthday present Grandpa and Grandma!

Train Sets... Not Just For Kids...

Now... this isn't quite my normal post with lots of gratuitous photos of L-kun... oh no. This one is for the big boys. Actually,  I have to admit that one of L-kun's toys that I spend the most time on is actually our train set.

We bought this (Imaginarium Mountain Pass Train Set) for Christmas over a year ago, and it gets a good working out. And with around 100 pieces, there's plenty of variety - and to be honest we haven't had the track set up "properly" since about Boxing Day. It may surprise you, but we tend not to get branded toys for L-kun... so no Thomas the Tank Engine toys here. 

The down side of that is that the trains lack a little pizazz - but the upside is that we get to avoid the evil commercial excesses of the children's toy industrial complex. That and L-kun learns (hopefully) that you can have just as much fun without the hoopla that goes with our overly peer moderated world. That... and these are considerably cheaper (at about 75AUD on sale at Toys R .... well, you know where...). Well - that was the plan at least. The reality is that we're just as taken in by the branding as every other parent.

Actually, we have a bit of an association with trains in our family... but the interest never really stuck with me. Until now that is. Not that I love trains per se....

...But rather, I just enjoy coming up with new track designs that are the most complicated I can make with the track parts that I (I mean L-kun of course)  have. It's like solving a new puzzle each time. This track setup took me a long time to get it just right. I hadn't made a new track layout for a few months (with L-kun in Japan) so I was quite rusty. Frustruated I worked on the design for what seemed like a couple of hours (I sure hope it wasn't). L-kun may not have been that impressed in the morning, but I was pumping the air constantly after the last piece fell into place. T-chan must wonder what sort of boy-man she married.

Sometimes I even let L-kun play with the trains as well... sometimes. Toot toot, everyone!

First Day at Kindy... A Big Day

Well - no sooner did L-kun get back to Adelaide, have his 4th birthday, and then have another birthday (he insisted on having a second the following day) - then he was ready for the next big adventure. Kindergarten! Actually, he's only on pre-entry now, which equates to 1x2 hour session per week, but for us it's a big transition. You see, T-chan's been looking after L-kun pretty well everyday for the last four years - and been doing a good job (under sometimes difficult circumstances, as I'm sure every stay-at-home mum knows all to well)... so this is just a big a day for her as it is for L-kun.

Actually, even I think when I see some of these photos how he looks older than just 4 years old... and it makes me realise just how quickly he'll go from small child to big child to young man in the blink of an eye.

And of course, he's sporting some international fashion... his backpack comes from Skip Hop, a US-based company. Even though these were bought in Japan, you can also now purchase them locally in Australia (David Jones department store stocks them). The dog one was a favourite of L-kun. Actually, we're starting to worry about the things that he wears and brings with him - something we didn't need to before. The important thing is food-wise: only water, no processed foods, and no nuts. Thankfully at least, we know that L-kun doesn't have a nut allergy... something that is a real concern these days (but I'm sure was more or less unheard of in my parents day).

We didn't take any photo's at the Kindy (nowadays parents get a little worried about that sort of thing), but when T-chan met L-kun at the end he was all smiles and the first thing he said was "tanoshikatta", I had fun. In fact he was bubbling with excitement all day, and was telling Daddy about the songs they sang and the dance they did.

Apparently he was very chatty - though we don't know if he was speaking much Japanese or not. His Japanese was fantastic coming back from Japan, but his English had definitely degraded noticeably...however in the last week it's picked up again quickly. Children are definitely like sponges at that age... but that also means that now is the time we'll start to see his behaviour dictated more and more by his peers, and less and less by us.

Our little man is growing up.