Thursday 19 July 2007

Building Bridges

So, after all that stress over the Barbie, Littletree played with it for two days and since then its been left forgotten in the car...

Meanwhile I've been watching eBay Barbie lots like a madwoman!

Eventually, Littletree got interested, and we learned together how eBay works, and what all the different things on the site mean. She was very interested in watching auctions with lots of bids, and seeing how the prices go up, guessing who would buy what and for how much. She did pick a lot of about 10 barbies that was going for $10 that we bid on, but when we were outbid, she lost interest, and even when I eagerly showed her a page full of Barbie lots, she wasn't interested in bidding for them ::shrug::

So, I'm letting go of it. Isn't it crazy? I'm starting to realise that all my inner turmoil, and wanting to boycott Barbie was stemming from the fact that I wanted to play with Barbies, but was made to feel guilty about it because of her "negative" body image. Somehow, playing with Barbies isn't cool. So now I find myself with this repressed desire to play with Barbies :D

What's REALLY got Littletree's attention, is Bridges. she's building them everywhere. So I finally made good on my threats to help her build a big bridge that we can walk on. It was pretty simple, I just used some logs that we had collected for firewood and were awaiting being chopped up. We picked a nice spot next to the house, and laid the logs in. I wedged little rocks around them so they would be stable. For the planks, there was some bamboo cut-offs lying around from the old ladder to our bedroom loft, so we cut them to size with the Swiss army knife, and split them with the machete. (yes, I let my 4 year old daughter use a machete).

I tied all the bamboo planks down with string, by that time, Littletree was getting a bit bored, and decided her name is Tainer-Magic, and used a magic rock to turn herself into a mermaid so she could swim under the bridge.

Anyway, I still want to build a hand-rail for it, but here is the finished product and Littletree's inaugural walk...

5 comments:

  1. she is making you do things all the time...then losing interest...

    L

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  2. Yeah, it started with the breastfeeding; she made me do it all the time and now she's losing interest...

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  3. Lucia was inspired by your bridge and wants to build something like it. We saw it right after having built a sort of teepee, so maybe we're embarking on a building phase - or maybe not!
    Continue to enjoy everything!

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  4. Wow, its really exciting to think that we're inspiring other kids!
    When we were in Germnay, Littletree had a stick tipi just like the one you guys built. I think there's probably a photo of it in my photos, most likely under "Germany" in 2005, but I'm too tired now to find it ;)
    Anyway when I saw your pics of the tipi, it so reminded me of the one we made...

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Thanks for your lovely words, witty banter and entertaining discussion :)