Run, run!

Babess likes to walk most places now, especially between the car-park and daycare.  It’s perhaps a hundred metres, not far for a grown-up but a long way on tiny little legs like hers.  She loves to be lifted up to push the buttons at the traffic lights, and we walk past a couple of fountains which must be closely inspected as well.

Once those highlights are past, it’s a flat straight walk to daycare, and usually we’re a fair way behind Daddy and Fainjin at this point.  So Babess will decide to “wun! wun!”

She walks along with exactly the same gait and at the same speed, but moves her arms faster.  It’s gorgeous.

Clean, and almost tidy

I washed all Fainjin’s and Babess’ toys today.  My goodness, there are a lot of them.  Far, far too many, in fact.  They need a weed-out.  Some are too young for them now – baby rattles and the like.  Others are simply surplus to requirements.  Those will be harder to weed out, there are some difficult decisions to make.

I started to make some of those decisions today, but I was thwarted.  You see, it was a glorious day, and I had spread all the toys out on picnic blankets in the sun to dry after I washed them.  I went out with the toyboxes (also washed) to start sorting them out, and I also took a large plastic bag for toys we wouldn’t keep.

But by the time I had washed everything and waited for them to dry, Babess had had her nap and was up again, and was toddling along behind me determined to help.  I put a few of the obvious candidates into the “not keeping” bag, then started sorting out some “definite keepers” into the toyboxes.  I could hear Babess playing behind me, chattering away to herself, and I thought she was enjoying playing outside with all her toys in the sunshine.  Which she was.  But she was also “helping”, and putting everything she could reach into the “not keeping” bag.  If only she had realised what she was doing!  It was tempting to let her do the choosing, but some treasures had found their way in, so I emptied the bag out.

I’ll try again when there are no kids around.  She might give all her toys away unwittingly, but the other two would conspire to neeeeed every single one.  Best they disappear quietly, and are never missed.

Shoes

Babess has been reluctant to wear her cute pink shoes recently.  It could be because the weather has been warm and it’s too hot to wear those shoes, or it could be that they’re getting a bit small.  I noticed she was also growing out of her sandals, so today we took her to buy new shoes.

She just loved it.  She sat on the stool in the shop and we brought her pairs of shoes, which she waved around, saying “Shoes!  Shoes!”  We tried on two or three different sorts, and she expressed firm opinions on each.  There was even one pair that we really liked but she clearly didn’t, screwing up her face and trying to pull her foot away as we attempted to try them for size.  So we left those ones behind.

We came away with one pair of silver sandals and two pairs of sneakers – all labelled “pre-walker”.  The soles on the sandals are fine, but I expect the soft sneakers will not last very long.  They’re probably intended for babies aged about 6 months – the shoes for “walkers” are all far too big for our dainty little lass.

Back to Nana and Poppa’s for lunch, and she had to show off her new shoes.  Then she had to wear them – no problem at all, she ran around in the sneakers all day.

The trouble started at bath time.  She happily undressed… all the way to the shoes and socks.  She was appalled that I expected her to have naked feet for her bath!  How could I deprive her of her new pretty shoes?  What a cruel and heartless mother she has been saddled with!  She roared and wriggled and had a very brief bath, just long enough to get clean and begging for “Shoes!” the whole time.  She was even more disappointed when I didn’t let her put her shoes on with her pyjamas to go to bed.

I can see trouble ahead in the fashion-obsessed teenage years…

Honesty and immediacy

I had a rehearsal this afternoon, and Fainjin and Babess stayed at home with their Dad enjoying the sunny Saturday afternoon.  (Pearl is with Nana and Poppa again.)

When I was finished, the three of them came to get me and we went for a short drive.  The Dad said, “Fainjin!  Tell Mummy what you’ve been doing!”, intending that I should hear about all the puzzles they had done while I was out.

Fainjin said slowly, “I have been…”.  He paused, his hand near his face, and finished, “… picking my nose.”

More jokes

Pearl proudly showed me her “About Me” poster at school this afternoon.  She has listed her favourite things (horses and animals), her family,  favourite books, and so on.  There were “complete this sentence” sections, and I was particularly impressed with “The best thing in the whole world is: The Earth”.   Well, of course, what else?

At the bottom is a section for a favourite joke.  Some kids had just put “Knock knock” – with no answer.  Others didn’t make much sense to me, just a couple of words here and there in 7-year-olds’ handwriting.  I didn’t get to read many, so perhaps there were some classics I didn’t see.  Pearl had written: “What do you get when you cross a horse with a sheep?  A horsey jersey!  Hahahaha!”

Canned laughter can be so handy.

Jacket. On!

It is the middle of summer.  It hasn’t been the warmest or sunniest summer, but at the moment we have some settled weather.  Certainly too hot be wearing polarfleece in the middle of the day, for example.

Babess loves her jacket, though.  It is too big for her (like so many things), and her fingers barely peep through the rolled-up sleeves.  Whenever she sees it – as we pass it on its hook in the hallway, or in her cubby at daycare, or piled in the back of the car in case we stay out later than expected – she wants to put it on.

If she can, she will grab it and bring it to us.  Otherwise she comes empty-handed, but with the same look of deadly-serious intent in her eyes.  “Jacket,” she says.  “Babess, no, it’s too hot!” I reply.  But, “On!” she says firmly.

“You will get too hot,” I tell her.  “On!” she insists.

“It’s sunny, look, and everyone else is just in a t-shirt.”

“On!“  She can be quite intimidating, you know, even if she is barely knee-high.  She has perfected a Look.

So, unless we’re about to get in the car or in some other situation where removing the jacket would be awkward, I usually help her to put it on.  Then in about 5 minutes or so I suggest that she might like to take it off and be nice and cool again.  She usually frowns at me (rather fiercely), but reluctantly agrees.

I think some things you need to learn for yourself, and in her case, “wearing a fleece jacket on a warm day is uncomfortable” might be one of them.  Rather like her brother has to learn “wearing sandals on a cold rainy day means you will end up with cold wet feet” for himself.

Life would be so much easier if they would just believe what we say!

Too much information? Or big news?

Huge celebration in our house today.  Fainjin used the toilet for the first time!

Maybe he will be out of nappies before his little sister, after all.  There is light at the end of the tunnel…

In other news, Pearl had a good first day back at school.  Two close friends are in the classroom next door (they are in a different year), and she knows several children in her class from the year-before-last.  As usual, she was too busy to eat much of her lunch.  She came home with homework for her parents: “In a million words or less, describe your child”.  I itch to cross out “less” and replace it with “fewer”.  Hmm, how many words have I written about Pearl on this blog?

Reading, Art, and a guilty conscience

Fainjin’s favourite book recently is Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, by Bill Martin Jr and John Archambault, and illustrated by Lois Ehlert.  It’s about letters of the alphabet climbing up a coconut tree, then they all fall out in a heap.  It’s got great rhythm and rhyme (except that “z” rhymes with “v” instead of “said”, and “aunts” rhymes with “pants”, because it’s an American book, but we work around it), and he really enjoys it.

Our kitchen calendar this year has illustrations from the Metropolitan Museum of Modern Art, and of course we just flipped over to February.  This month’s picture is Love, by Robert Indiana (click here to see an image of it).  Suddenly in the middle of breakfast, Fainjin pointed to the calendar and shouted “Look, Mama!  It’s like Chicka Chicka Boom Boom!” – which I thought was very perceptive of him!

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Today as we left daycare and headed for the car, we heard a siren somewhere in the city.  Near us, but we couldn’t see it.  “Uh oh!  A police car!” Fainjin said happily.  “Already?”

Adoration

Fainjin was back at daycare today (hooray!!!), so we had a girls’ day at home.  In the afternoon we went to the library and the supermarket.  Babess was in the push-chair, and Pearl was skipping ahead and running back to us, hiding behind lampposts and generally having fun.

Babess was also having a ball.  Every time Pearl was out of sight she would lean forward and call “Pearl…”.   When she reappeared Babess would laugh and laugh and exclaim “Pearl!”  They would wave at each other and giggle and Pearl would run off again.

Happy laughing girls.  Happy Mum.

Prince Charming

It was a bit of a rough night.  The neighbours had a party, not too terrible, but we were aware of it until quite late.  Then a weather change hit, with rapid cooling and strong winds buffeting the house.   Someone’s recycling bin blew down their driveway, rattling and bumping, then apparently walked back up to the top so it could have another go.  And another.  In the early hours of the morning, Fainjin had a bad dream and came running to our room.  He climbed into my side of the bed and went to sleep on my arm, which also went to sleep.  About 5am I decided he could go back to his room.  “No, not my bed!  Mummy’s bed!” he said as I covered him with his quilt.  I held my breath, lest he wake Babess, but he was already asleep.

I didn’t think I would get back to sleep.  At 6 I turned on my light and picked up my book.  But somehow, I drifted off.  It was about 7:30 before the children woke up and came looking for us.  Their Dad – bless him! – got up and got breakfast for them all, leaving me to sleep.  I think I was more unconscious than asleep.  I vaguely remember him chuckling as he removed a small pile of “gifts” that Babess had lovingly put on my chest while I lay oblivious.

Slowly, as I came to, I became aware of the sounds of children playing.  I’m pretty sure they had been coming in to talk to me while I was asleep, completely unfazed by receiving only a grunt or nothing at all in reply.  There was also a cup of tea steaming on my bed-side table.  By now, Pearl was directing, assigning roles and laying out a plot.  Fainjin came in to tell me about it.  “Mummy!  Fainjin is a prince!”

So is your Dad, sweetheart.