Music in the air

This morning Babess was ready to go a little earlier than I was, so I sent her out to get her scooter ready to go to school.
After a short time she came running back in, breathless with excitement.
“Mum! Guess what’s outside?!”
“Um, I saw the neighbours are taking down their old fence,” I said, “I think they’re going to put up a new one.”
“Well, but there’s Something Else!”

I am continually amazed at her ability to enunciate capital letters. It’s a great skill to have. “Goodness me, whatever could it be?” I played along.
“On the driveway, there’s a… Harmonica. Wing!”

I blinked. A what?

“I’m sorry, I don’t understand. What did you say, sweetie?”
“A harmonica wing!”
“A… harmonica?… wing?”
“Yes, a harmonica wing. Like, harmonica butterfly?” C’mon, Mum, stop being dense!

“Oh! A monarch butterfly wing?”
“YES! Come see!”

And so I did. (It was a Red Admiral wing, actually).

© UpsideBackwards 2014.

God’s Garden

Fainjin and Babess often have very interesting conversations with each other, apparently completely forgetting I am there (or, more likely, dismissing my presence as irrelevant).

Today Babess was talking about plants.  She was in a silly mood at the end of a long day, and said something exuberant about “plants in heaven!”

Fainjin quickly nixed her idea.  “There are no plants in heaven.”

I was intrigued as to how he’d arrived at this idea, but I’ve learned to just keep listening.

“There are no plants in heaven at all.  Except for bean stalks.  Bean stalks grow all the way up, and like, God… or Jesus… has just baby ones growing out of their ground.”

Babess looked at him.  “Baby ones in heaven?”

“Noooo, ‘cos they grow big, up from the ground to the clouds, where heaven is, and just little bits stick up in heaven to be plants in heaven.”

Babess nodded.  This made perfect sense to her.

Now, what to say next time they baulk at eating their vegetables?

© UpsideBackwards 2014.

Letter to Santa

Babess has very good handwriting and quite astonishing spelling for a child with only two terms’ schooling.  The other day she sat down and wrote a long letter to Santa, on the back of a piece of Christmas wrapping paper.

Ples Santa…

Here is the whole text, with her spelling:

Ples Santa ples can you get me lego frens boot with the dolfens and gerls mery chemes Santa your my best frend your not the werst I love you I now you hav been to my house come agen these ine day you like if you can’t come that’s orit if you can’t come I’ev got a bloun of you come and see it if you can my tree has ____ you can what Fainjin wants lego set that has Jaba the hat in the colled sopa markit What Pearl wad like a mgp skoter. Dad wod like kofy maker. Mum wod like                                   Pearl is going to werr rodof theress no time to mes it we will gev you a picha of Pearl wering rodof in her herr.

Some notes:

“ine” = any, “orit” = alright, “bloun” =balloon, “rodof” = Rudolph

I’m not sure what the Jabba the Hutt Lego set is about, some kind of market?  I wasn’t home for Babess to ask what I would like, so she left a blank space to be filled in later.  Pearl’s “reindeer” hairdo is a clearly much-anticipated Christmas tradition. Perhaps by next year Babess’ hair will be long enough to put up too!

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

Her brain is too full

I was doing Babess’ hair for her dance recital this morning, and she was amusing herself with some sums.  “Five and five is ten, that’s easy.  Two and four is… six!  Ten take away four is six… Eight take away seven is, um, four?”

She was flicking her fingers up and down for each number and sum.  Once we sorted out the “eight take away seven” conundrum satisfactorily, she did a couple more then I said, “Can you do them without your fingers?”

“Ummmm. Can I hide my fingers under the table?”

That wasn’t going to work while I tugged her baby-fine hair into tight french braids, so I suggested she imagine her fingers instead. “Make pictures of them inside your head.”

“I can’t,” she said, all sad and serious, “because the only things inside my head are nightmares.”

For the next five minutes she told me a very detailed story about witches who eat children and one came to their school and turned all the little children into FROGS! And all the big kids into… horses.  And all the teachers, she turned them into glasses.

Glasses?

“They were humungous glasses.”  And there was another witch and she turned the first witch into a fairy, then the fairy turned the other witch into a fairy as well but they were bad fairies…

There was more detail than I can coherently retell, all given in a very matter-of-fact delivery.  By the time she had finished telling me, I had done her hair and was assembling lunchboxes.

“That is a real nightmare, isn’t it Mum?”

I had to agree.

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

What if…

Babess is very fond of “what if” questions.  So is Fainjin, for that matter.  They keep me on my toes with wildly imaginative scenarios and suggestions.  But I was caught short (or half-asleep) this morning when I handed Babess her breakfast.

“Mum!” she started, eyes wide with speculation.  “What if this croissant was magic?”

I really couldn’t answer.  What sort of magic powers might accrue to a croissant?  I need to give her The Magic Pudding to read, perhaps.

I just looked at her helplessly.  “I don’t know.  What if it were magic?”  Perhaps she had some idea of what to expect.

She raised her eyebrows dramatically, then took a large bite.  Nothing unusual happened.  She shrugged, and gave her verdict: “Not magic.”

Whew.  A mundane breakfast is more predictable and restful, anyway.  Much more suitable for a Sunday morning.

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

Getting in early

This afternoon we spent nearly an hour in a large toy-and-book shop, just looking.  There was a big sale on, lots of interesting displays, and the children could hardly contain their delight.

They like to pore over toy catalogues when they arrive with junk mail, and divide the contents among their imaginary hoards.  “I’m having that, you can have that one…” – all completely fictional, but most enjoyable nonetheless.

So walking around a shop where you could touch most of the merchandise, or even just see it life-sized, was a heavenly experience for them.

Babess particularly liked a certain set of toys.  “Mum, for my birthday, can you get me this one?  And this one over here?  And I really like this one…” she gushed, to the amusement of a nearby stranger.

“Your birthday is in June… I’ll try to remember which ones you pointed to,” I smiled.  The stranger met my eyes and laughed.  Babess was supremely content.

When we got home, she wrote her birthday list.  The word “birthday” was spelt correctly… but “prppl pone” is still understandable.  (purple pony, in case you’re not used to reading 5yr-old).

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

Rejoicing in good luck

Fainjin and I were walking along the street when I spotted some money on the ground.

“Quick, Fainjin, pick it up!” I urged.  “You can keep that.”

He regarded “his” find with awe.  “Wow! Twenty dollars!”

“Um,” I grinned as he held up the little silver coin, “no, twenty cents.”

“Cents! Cool!  That’s my first cents, eh Mum?”

He was just so happy to have a little extra money for his piggy bank.  He held it safe and warm in his hand for the rest of the afternoon until we got home.

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

Weddings – doing it right

Yesterday afternoon we went to my cousin’s wedding.  It was a truly lovely occasion, made only more amusing by Babess.

When we took our pew in the church, Babess was thrilled to find books on the shelf in front of her.  Scorning the children’s bible stories, she picked up the Bible and the hymn book, both weighty tomes, and alternated between them.  She would run her finger along the dense lines of text, “reading” them and telling me what they “said”.  This kept her nicely occupied while we waited for the bride to arrive.

“This book says everything you have to have for a wedding,” she informed me.  “It says… you have to have blue seats.”

I looked at the pew cushions.  Blue.  “Good, I think we’re set, then.”  She nodded sagely and turned back to the book.

“It says you have to have a window with baby Jesus on it,” she whispered.  I looked, and sure enough there was.  Whew.

“It says, you have to have blue walls high up, and a white roof.”  Funny how her book was describing the church so exactly.  She took up the hymn book, and leafed through it.  She knows what written music looks like.  “It says we have to sing all this music.”

“Aaaaah, I don’t think we’re going to sing any songs, actually Babess.”  She gave me a disapproving stare.  “No, it says we have to have All. This.  Music.”

There was soft music being played in the background.  “They’ve chosen their own music, and it’s coming through the speakers, see?”

“Ah!” all was right with the world again.  “And that music is all this music [in the book].  That’s a better idea.”  I just agreed that the modern-ish love songs were exactly the Gregorian chants she was looking at.  I didn’t want to risk her wrath at this stage.

The groom – my cousin – said a few words before the ceremony.  In case I had forgotten who he was, Babess whispered in my ear, “That’s J.” I nodded.  “Because the girl is M,” she added.

I’m so glad she was there to help me through it all.

© UpsideBackwards 2013.

When I grow up

As they came home in the car tonight, Babess was telling The Dad about her future life.  She wants to be a Mum when she grows up, and she will live in a house in Melbourne.  “A empty house,” she hastened to add, lest we think she’s going to move in on startled random residents already in place.

“How many children will you have, Babess?”

“Five boys, and four girls.  And there will be a grandma.”

I hope there’d be a Dad, too, but with nine kids I’m sure a grandma would be a good person to have on hand.   She’d certainly have plenty to do.  But hang on a minute… “Who will be the grandma?”

“Auntie B!”

Whew.

© UpsideBackwards 2012.

Some shoes have tongues, but ears?

Amongst the mad rush to get ready and out the door this morning (it was just like every other morning), The Dad noticed Babess sitting in the hallway, struggling with the buckles on her shoes.

“Would you like some help with those?” he asked her.

“Yes, please,” she frowned.  “I’m trying to put them on by myself, but they’re not listening!”

© UpsideBackwards 2012.