Staying sane in the rain

We are working on not losing our marbles over here at Betsy's. In fact they are part of our new sneaky parenting strategy. The gift that keeps on giving is a fish obsession that we plan to milk for all it's worth. Roboboy LOVES his new tropical fish but there is plenty of room in that tank for more fish and aquarium accessories. And that means we have some high quality leverage.
So every time we catch him being kind to his sister, spontaneously helping with chores, perhaps eating the least favoured parts of his dinner, he gets a marble. Those marbles have an exchange rate too,  5 marbles equals one actual dollar to spend at the Aquarium shop.

In the last week he has set the table numerous times, emptied the dishwasher every day, played nicely with his sister and accumulated $4.60. He is also practicing his maths every time he counts his stash and converts to fish dollars. We use other strategies for dealing with poor behaviour, there are no threats to take marbles away. We also don't given marbles for routine chores he is expected to help with, but he has  now started asking for extra jobs. We are pleased with how well this is working and look forward to seeing what he purchases with his fish dollars.

We ignored the weather on the weekend and set off on an adventure to Ipswich. It was the final day of a fantastic lego exhibition at the Ipswich Art Gallery and we did not want to miss out.

There was an unlimited selection of wheels, plates and axles to create a vehicular masterpiece. Liongirl and I finished our prototype first. Time to test it out on a stunt ramp.

This one had flashing countdown lights triggered by the red button and a starting block that you could lower when all vehicles were in position.

But this one was very steep and had a cutaway section for stunt driving and essential jumps.

Unfortunately, the girls prototype vehicle whipped up by me in about 5 minutes, was no match for the Legoman 2 wheel masterpiece.  I did feel better when I noted than none of the other kids or dads could beat it either (he is not called Legoman for nothing).

We did manage to drag ourselves away from this awesome place to check out the other exhibition but were struggling to keep our hands to ourselves in this room of painstakingly created vehicles.

On the way home we stopped at a gorgeous little native animal zoo in Queens Park. For a gold coin donation you can travel around a boardwalk while spotting wombats, quolls, wallabies, emus, bilbies, dingos and native birds.

The Queens Park playground is pretty spectacular as well. All in all a great way to spend a dreary day. Back soon with some wonderful pyrex finds and a little makeover project.