My Girly Girl

I knew my Jemima would be a different kettle of fish to her big brother Max, but it's amazing to see the differences between the 2 sexes at the same age. When Max was the age Jemima is now, 16months, he was already obsessed with cars. He would point at them in the shops, drive them along the floor and say 'broooom'. The obsession hasn't ended, he just has a bigger collection.

A couple of weeks ago, the kids went to a birthday party and came home with a bag each absolutely filled to the brim with treasures and treats. Max had monster finger puppets, a spiderman figure, a toy car, a rubber ball, lollies, a punching balloon, a rubber snake, honestly it was more stuff than I have ever seen in a 'lolly bag'.

Jemima had a bag filled with just as much stuff, but Girly stuff. Plastic bangles, little pony figures, rings, lollies, glitter glue, bubble mix and a string of beads. Pink plastic beads. Now I don't wear jewellery apart from my watch, a bangle and my rings, I'm just not a bling person. I don't even change my ear-rings. Jemima on the other hand, has shown already that she is a Girly Girl and she loves bling. When we got home, the first thing Jemima pulled out was the string of beads and she put it straight over head and around her neck. Next, she put the bangles on her wrist and she spent the next half hour or so prancing around the house with her wrist held up so her bangles wouldn't fall off. It's so funny to watch her. The string of beads has become a favourite and 'Missy' puts them on every morning and she wears them all day.

For Christmas, Steph and Keely gave Jemima a gorgeous little back pack with Play School's 'Fairy Jemima' on it. For the last few days, Jemima has wanted to wear it. She puts things inside and then hands it to me so I can put it on for her. It's very cute. Today she had a spoon, 2 Peekablocks and a hairclip inside and she had a ball taking them out and putting them back in her bag.

Tonight after her bath, Mima came out of her room in her pyjamas with her favourite pink beads around her neck. She found her backpack and wanted it on and she then spent the rest of her evening wandering around the house with her beads, her bag and a fairy wand. I think she's going to be a Girly Girl

What a shame...

I just came home from grocery shopping and bought another tub of ice cream. Unfortunately I didn't have room for the new tub in the freezer so somebody had to finish the old tub to make room. Jemima is fast asleep so sadly, Andrew and Max had to be the ones to suffer through eating the rest of the ice cream all by themselves. Poor boys. Max wanted to make sure poor Daddy didn't have to suffer too much, so he bravely ate as much as he could. The things we have to do....

Going...

Going...

Gone!

Happy Birthday Grandad!

It was Dad's 75th birthday yesterday. Max was very excited about Grandad having a birthday and he was adamant that Dad should have a cake. A birthday cake with Smarties and sprinkles and candles. So bright and early yesterday morning before swimming, we made a cake and when it had cooled, Max decorated it. Jemima helped by picking up Smarties off the floor and eating them.

After swimming, we popped into see Mum and Dad but being the social butterflies that they are, they weren't home. Max waited all afternoon for Grandad and Grandma to call us and say they were home so that he could go and sing Happy Birthday to Grandad...and have cake. Finally, we were able to go over after dinner and help Dad celebrate what was left of his birthday.

Happy Birthday Dad

A Rarity

A photo of me with Max and Jemima!

Steph took this one of us at the Playschool concert today

I think we all hate photos of ourselves, well I do anyway. The sad part is that I avoid it so much that I have hundreds and hundreds of photographs of the children and of them with other members of our family such as Daddy, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles etc... and I have literally a handful of photos that include me. Part of that is because I'm usually the one taking the photo but part of it is I hate having my picture taken. It's sad really. If anything were to happen to me (heaven forbid and touch a lot of wood) there would be very little photographic evidence of me for the children to look at in the future. I have worked hard on their scrapbook albums to preserve some memories of their childhood but I've neglected to include me in it. I really need to rectify that and try and include more family photos and more photos with me. *shudder*

Open Wide, Come Inside....It's Playschool!

I took Max and Jemima to the Playschool Concert today with our friends Steph and Keely. Keely is Max's bestest friend and Steph is Jemima's Godmother. To fit around all our other commitments during the week, we booked tickets for the Frankston show at 12.00 today. A bit of a drive from here, but that's part of the adventure. So with 3 carseats loaded in the Discovery, we headed off for the day. The kids had a ball. Jemima was very excited and only wanted to run and run and run when we got there. She was like the proverbial 'sack of weasels' until the show started and then she was mesmerised. So much so that she fell asleep on my lap during Twinkle Twinkle Little Star. Max and Keely each chose a little toy to take home. Keely chose a little 'Jemima' doll and Max chose 'Humpty Dumpty'. Jemima got a gorgeous book about Jemima the doll dressing up. It's handy having a daughter with the same name as a character, she gets personalised books! I don't think Max sat down for any of the show, he stood and watched intently, joining in with the songs when he knew them and calling out at appropriate moments. It was gorgeous.

After lunch we took the kids for a picnic lunch at a fabulous park on the foreshore where we tried to fend off over-zealous and hungry seagulls. The kids had a play on the equipment and soon it was time to head home. It was funny to turn around when we pulled in the driveway to see 3 sleeping children in the backseat. If my camera hadn't run out of batteries I would have taken a photo.

Max at 3 year old Kinder

I had Kinder duty at Coonara yesterday. It was really weird being on the other side of the fence as a parent rather than a teacher. It was nice though, I got to have a chat with his teachers, see who the other kids were in his group and generally watch what goes on. I checked out all the lunchboxes to see who had what and how much the other Mums packed in their child's lunch.

Max was excited that I was staying for the whole time, but then he didn't really mind whether I played with him or not. No surprises...Max went straight for the cars on the mat. It got a bit hairy for a while, with about 6 boys ALL wanting the same ones. So we played a game. We had to line all the cars up and see who could find particular ones. We made a long line that reached all the way to where Lisa was sitting and then we measured how many children were as long as the line of cars. It made me miss teaching.

Outside time was fun.

It's such a lovely playground with lots of little nooks and crannies but you can still see what's going on.

Max likes the guinea pigs but he can't tell me what their names are and I forgot to ask.

They had a sand tray with dinosaurs that was very popular, although the dinosaurs spent more time in the bushes than in the tray.

But like all Mums.....no kinder day could be considered complete without....A Painting! I won't hold my breath for the next one.

Cheeky Monkeys

We had a fabulous weekend up in Charlton for Marj's 70th birthday. It was lovely to spend some time with the family and for the cousins to have a ball together. I'll come back and add some more later, but I just wanted to put this one up. Jan took some fabulous photos with her camera, they're much much much better than mine.