My gorgeous little grandson is four years old tomorrow.
He is captivated by dinosaurs and engages all members of the family in playing dinosaur games.
To celebrate his birthday this week, I decided to make this little book about a dinosaur game with his family members (little sister Anna, parents, an aunt and uncle, and two sets of grandparents).
I hope you enjoy it too!
There are 2 choices of format: read it by yourself or read-along with me.
Read it by yourself:
You have three choice of arrows to use to page through the book : on the book itself, below the book, or on your keyboard.
Click on the below the image to view in full screen.
Okay. Maybe “never” is an exaggeration, but our relationship has been quite frosty for most of my adult life with only occasional attempts at reigniting the friendship.
As a child I played on the beach, swam in the sea, climbed the cliffs and played in the bush near where I lived.
As a teenager I played tennis in a school team and for fun with family and friends in outside of school hours.
At college I played on a basketball team and went out dancing at least once, and sometimes up to three times, a week.
But always my preferred activity was to be lying on my bed engrossed in a good read or scribbling ideas in a notebook.
Then came adulthood, work and parenthood; a life brimming with activity but no scheduled “exercise”.
All too soon middle age, with its stealthy creep, could hide no longer; and my youthful fitness, feeling the dejection of being taken for granted, promptly left.
I know. I know. Exercise is important; not only for body but also for mind.
I always made sure that my own children and the children I was teaching got plenty of opportunities for exercise. But my own body, that’s a different story.
There were already too many other things I wanted to do. How could I possibly fit in something that I didn’t want to do?
With apologies to Dr Seuss’s “Green Eggs and Ham”, I offer the following:
Ode to exercise
Exercise. Exercise.
I do not like that exercise.
I do not like the time it takes.
I do not like the effort it makes.
I do not like being sweaty and hot.
I just don’t like it. I do not.
I do not like it with a trainer.
I do not like the circuit strainer.
I do not like it in the gym,
I do not like a vigorous swim.
I do not like the heating sun.
I do not like an outdoor run.
I do not like it on a bike.
There’s very little I would like.
Would you like it on TV?
Would you, could you with a Wii?
Okay. I’ll try it on TV.
Okay. I’ll try it with a Wii.
Oh I love it. Yes I do.
This exercise is good for you!
I could do it every day.
I would do it, step this way.
I would do it on the floor.
I would do it right indoor.
Exercising with the Wii,
I have found the one for Mii!
Computer and video games had been a source of much fun for me since the days of Atari and others in the 80s. When the Wii Fit came out, I thought that if anything could get me to exercise, this would be it.
Although I still don’t manage to incorporate it into my routine every day, I am doing a lot more than I would without it.
These are the top 10 reasons I love my Wii Fit:
10. I can do it in the privacy of my own home.
9. I can spend the amount of time doing it that I choose.
8. I am sheltered from the outdoor weather – it’s always a beautiful day on the island.
7. It gives me positive feedback and tells me that I am years younger than I really am! (Who can argue with that?)
6. If I get lost (which has happened) I don’t have to find my way back; I can just stop and I’m home.
5. It notices if we haven’t seen each other for a few days and tells me I’ve been missed.
4. I can choose from a wide variety of activities including juggling, tightrope walking and flying as well as step, jogging and cycling.
3. I see and have the support of family and friends who “accompany” me through their Mii characters.
2. I can listen to audiobooks or Ted talks while I am jogging or cycling — good for my mind as well as my body. The especially great thing about listening to Ted talks, is that most of them are of about 15 minutes’ duration: just how long it takes me to jog or cycle around the island; and because I am listening and learning
1. I don’t even notice that I’m exercising.
If this sounds like a sales pitch for Will, it probably is, because I am sold on it.
If you are one of those lucky people who enjoy exercise, then good on you, I say. So many times I have been told, “You’ll feel better after you do it” – something to do with endorphins, I believe.
I wish. I’m yet to experience that exercise glow. It would make it all so much easier.
A little while ago Talli Roland wrote a post for Women Writers about “how to avoid writer’s arse”. I think I’ll have to become even better friends with my Wii Fit in the future to stop this becoming a big problem for me, now that I am spending a lot more time sitting on my posterior, writing for posterity.
Just in case you are wondering what other “exercise” I dabble in from time to time:
On work days I include a 10 – 15 minute walk from car to office and back again
In summer I do a very gentle swim-ercise in my very private backyard pool
I take frequent walks from my desk to the kitchen and back again throughout the writing day
I participate in active play with grandchildren (but only when a book won’t do!)
What about you? Are you one of the lucky ones to whom exercise is a pleasure?
Or, like me, do you always find there are 1001 other things you would rather be doing, and struggle to find the time and energy?
I wrote the poem this week after encountering an 8-legged friend in my shower.
As the poem reveals, I am quite happy to share my world with spiders. However I am rather reluctant to share my shower with them – they just might jump on me! Arggh!
I don’t really know why I crushed the spider with the broom after it had so willingly vacated the shower. I suffer deep pangs of remorse at having done so; but I did keep a very watchful eye on it while I was in the shower – just to make sure it wasn’t going to come back and jump on me. And all the while, it didn’t move. It stayed very still.
Later, out of the shower and fully dressed, I spotted a spider of similar size on the ceiling. Two spiders in one morning, I thought: must be an infestation! I checked out the spider on the floor, and found it wasn’t there. It was the spider on the ceiling – resurrected! Now that there was no possibility of it interrupting my shower, I was greatly relieved to see that I hadn’t killed it after all.
While I did write this poem as a bit of fun, it does raise a philosophical dilemma.
Do we have the right to kill other creatures? And if so: Which ones? When? Why?
These questions lead far deeper too, into many other issues about which we must make ethical decisions. However, at the moment I am just considering our right to kill these tiny creepy crawlies that invade our homes and personal spaces. It is okay, isn’t it? What value a bug’s life anyway?
Various readings have contributed to how I think about this. A few in particular spring to mind un-beckoned when confronted with tiny creatures in my home. For example if a cockroach should dare to make an appearance in my kitchen, invariably I grab the closest killing implement (e.g. shoe) and put the tiny creature out of its misery – or mine.
But I always apologise to the cockroach for having robbed it of its life, so that makes it alright. Right?
But is it really alright if I persist in repeating that very same action every time I find another cockroach in my kitchen? Is it real remorse? Do I really have the right to do this to one of the most resilient and perennial creatures on Earth?
Many years ago when reading Chesapeake by James A. Michener (Random House, 1978) I was challenged by the description of an attitude held by the colonialists towards various groups of people who were considered to be non-human animals. I thought that if it was so easy to disregard the humanity of so many groups of people, are we underestimating the worth of animals.
The tenet of Buddhist philosophy, ‘do no harm’ is also challenging, and niggles away with thoughts that pop-up to tease and taunt me whenever the issue of life or death presents itself.
And of course, the unmerciful slaughter of Roald Dahl’s hero, Lexington, in the short story Pig (Collected Short Stories, Penguin Books, 1992) makes me cringe with abhorrence. Why not then for the pigs?
So many thoughts. So many issues. So many ethical decisions.
Please feel free to comment on any related issue that may be of importance to you.
I’m going to take it just one step further to another analogy, that of education.
When we try to mould a child to fit a certain expectation at a particular age, when we impose a set curriculum that provides no opportunity for negotiation, when we leave no room for self-directed investigation, when creativity and curiosity are lightly valued, are we not quashing the essence of what makes that child unique? Of what potential is the world being robbed? Are not the free thinkers, the innovators, the ones who see outside the square, the ones who challenge what is for what might be, are they not the ones who change the world?
Sometimes it seems that the uniqueness of child can be as carelessly squashed as a spider in a shower.
“Some men see things as they are and say why? I dream things that never were and say why not?” George Bernard Shaw (Back to Methuselah, 1921)
below the image to view in full screen.
Norah Colvin 