When Flora told a fig about a ball

On the days I go to work E goes to after school care. The first month was a big success, with her whinging and wailing about having to go home with the grandparents when they arrived at 5pm. 

Then last Wednesday, when D's Dad arrived to collect E, one of the carers said to him "I have to tell you there was a bit of an incident today, E threw a ball rather violently." She didn't give any further detail, like if she threw the ball at another child or at a window, just that she threw a ball. E overheard this and immediately started denying having thrown a ball and rapidly worked herself into hysterics over it and so they left without any resolution. We repeated the same conversation when we arrived home, with a similar result; she was hysterically adamant she had not thrown a ball, nothing had happened with a ball and "Flora is telling figs."  However, she also insisted that we were not to talk to Flora about it (usually a sign she is not being truthful) and that she did not want to back there (because of Flora's "figs"). 

We were somewhat bemused as to what to do - it didn't seem likely that Flora would have completely invented the incident, or that she would have mistaken another child for E as there were only a handful of kids there. D's parents also said that they did not mind if E did not go to after school care on Wednesdays (on Wednesdays they look after C at our house. We initially booked E into after school thinking that they might wish to have C at their house rather than ours, and also that E would enjoy spending more time with kids her own age). We didn't come to any decision but hoped, somewhat optimistically/ridiculously that E might have forgotten about it by the next morning.

No mention was made of it before school and when I arrived to collect E that afternoon I managed to arrive a few minutes early and asked Flora what had happened. She said that E had thrown a bowl. Courtesy of Flora's rather bogan Aussie accent, D's Dad must have misheard her and thought she said ball. Apparently it was a china bowl and E hurled it to the ground, whereupon it shattered. Flora seemed more worried that I would be angry about the safety issues of a child care facility proving china bowls than about E having broken the bowl. I was planning on talking to E about it once we got home but she immediately asked "did you tell after school care I'm not going back" so we had the conversation then. She initially denied anything had happened with a bowl but then burst into tears and said "I didn't know it was china, Mummy." 

More tears, more anxiety about being in trouble if she went back - despite being stubborn and mischievous and challenging at home, E is usually very well behaved at school and has never been seriously told off by anyone outside the family before. She still didn't want to go back. We had a big discussion about how, just because you have one bad day or experience, that doesn't mean you should give something up. I promised to telephone Flora the next day and explain that E didn't know the bowl was china. I also tried to impress upon her that she should have told us that nothing happened with a ball, but there was a problem with a bowl and that we would have helped her resolve it, and paid for the bowl if necessary, and that she should always always tell us her problems. She very reluctantly agreed to try after school care again the next day.

I was so relieved, and somewhat overwhelmed myself. It felt like we had learnt significant lessons about perseverance, and telling the truth. I felt a bit ashamed I had been skeptical of E's claims that nothing happened with a ball (strictly true - although D reckons I am being ridiculous and that she was being evasive to try and avoid getting in trouble for something she knew was wrong). It also feels a bit like the thin edge of the wedge and what people say about "bigger kids, bigger problems." This wasn't such a huge problem in the end, but it makes me worry about the even bigger issues of future years and makes me reallyreallyreally hope that E will tell us about them before they escalate, and that if she didn't believe it before, she now knows we will always support her.

Bunker Bay holiday

In the second week of the July school holidays we spent three nights at Bunker Bay resort, near Dunsborough.

On the way down we stopped at Big Swamp Wildlife Park in Bunbury. It is next door to a huge, fantastic playground and had I not promised E birds and kangaroos I think both girls would have been perfectly happy with just the playground. Some of the birds are in walk-through aviaries and are very enthusiastic about their visitors. This one decided it wanted to take up permanent residence on my head and shoulders and given my nervousness about its rather large beak I had quite a time persuading it to leave. Needless to say my darling family thought this was hilarious!

C was enthusiastic about the kangaroos, which she had not seen before, but they were very slow and disinterested in the bags of feed. At the other extreme was the enormous emu which gave E a good fright and swipe on the head in its attempt to snitch the entire bag of food from her hand.

We stayed at Bunker Bay once before when E was a few months older than C is now. The resort lived up to our fond memories - car free beyond the top carpark, teenage boys in golf buggies to transport bags to the rooms and the villas surrounded by lots of native plants with a central trail leading down to the beach. The rooms are scrupulously clean with comfortable beds, a kitchen equipped with enough to make cooking simple meals easy and a huge bathtub.

The beach really is beautiful and although it was too cold to let the girls in the water we did enjoy the sand and salt and wind.

Despite the weather E was crazy enough to get in the (heated but still chilly) pool each day. Unlike our last stay she is a good enough swimmer to get in our her own so D and I sat on deck chairs wearing jumpers and coats, drinking red wine and gin and tonics ordered from the pool-side telephone and conveyed to us by the restaurant staff!

One morning we drove to Cape Naturaliste and did a 2km walk circling the lighthouse. C obligingly went to sleep in the Ergo on D's front, and bribed with the promise of "something special from Mummy's bag" at the end (lolly snakes) E managed the whole circuit with minimal complaints.

We were sorry to have to leave and E is already asking how many more sleeps until our next holiday (for the record, about 180!)

C turns one

Our littlest darling turned one last week. Hovering on the cusp of babyhood and toddlerdom - one! Or twelve months, or 365 days, or 52 weeks, as we have been discussing with E, who was somewhat perplexed as to why I was still saying C was 11 months old when it was her birthday in a few days.

At one, C, you cannot yet walk, but you can crawl as though turbo-charged, and take steps with the furniture, and reach all sorts of things we would rather you could not. (Want the volume on the stereo cranked to maximum? C will sort it for you). I think the biggest change in the last few months has been in your language - you are never quiet! You can say mum-mum and da-da discriminately, and ca-ca (cat) and occasionally "up" and "more." A week or so ago you started saying "sa? sa?" which  we eventually figured out is "what's that?" You now say "sa? sa?" accompanied by an imperiously pointing finger, all day long. Whoever knew there was such interest to be found in household objects? What's that? The fridge. What's that? A photo of Mummy and Daddy on holidays. What's that? A light switch. All day long you - and we - are talking.

You celebrated your birthday week with a cold and so we have delayed your birthday lunch for the extended family until next weekend. But on your actual birthday Daddy stayed home, and we drove to South Perth, intending to go to the zoo. When we got there the line out the front must have been 100 people long. We had forgotten it was school holidays. So we went down to the river foreshore instead, and you crawled all over the grass, and E played on the playground, and we caught the ferry to the city and back, just for fun. 

We had cupcakes for morning tea and you had great fun pulling one to pieces (eating some) and smearing strawberry icing all over yourself. 

You're wearing tshirts and pants more than onesies these days, and looking a lot like a toddler rather than a baby. But you're still very sweet and cuddly, and still determinedly clinging to three (and sometimes four) milk feeds a day. 

Darling C, we all adore you. We look forward to  so many more birthdays with you.

E and her very Frozen fifth birthday

E turned five with a bang on Good Friday. After counting down for more than 100 sleeps we were finally there. We spent several months negotiating the list of invitees, from a starting point of every child in the class ("absolutely not!"), to all the pre-primary girls (it is a mixed kindy/pre-primary class), to two girls from school plus an assortment of playgroup friends and family friends (a total of nine plus E. Once they each brought one or two parents it was still quite a crowd!)

E is (...still...) Frozen obsessed and, accordingly, wanted the least original party theme around. At least when this is the case you don't have to waste time thinking up any ideas yourself, the internet is full of stuff just begging to be plagiarised. Her party food and activities involved a bit of time and effort on my part but minimal cost. Seeing as I was not keen to spend $500 so a lady dressed up as Elsa would sing Frozen songs in my living room, this suited me fine.

So we played musical statues (to the Frozen soundtrack, of course), hunted for blue and silver chocolate hearts (from the bulk food shop), decorated cardboard crowns, and pinned the nose on Olaf.

For food we handed out sandwiches (because "we finish each other's sandwiches"), carrot sticks ("reindeer food"), "snow cups" (popcorn in blue and white paper cups), "Queen Elsa's magic bread" (fairy bread), "snowballs" (marshmallows) and "melted snowman" (bottles of water with printed labels stolen from the internet). Also , seeing as Granny and Grandma kindly offered to bring them, "Arendelle's finest sausage rolls" and "samosas to warm your frozen heart." 

The cake was also a lesson in the art of negotiation, as I refused to use blue food colouring. I convinced E that snow was suitably themed, made two round butter cakes, sandwiched them together with jam and a thin layer of buttercream, slapped a whole lot more buttercream on top and marshmallows around the base. With some blue and white candles, and some printed characters on toothpicks, she was a happy little Elsa.

For party bags we handed out the ingredients to make your own snowman, plus Frozen sticker sheets courtesy of ebay, plus bead hearts made by E.

It was all pretty manic, but E was very happy and has said several times how much fun she had. Which seems like enough to set against a house that may never be glitter-free again.

In case it is of use to anyone, here are where all the internet-stolen goodies came from:

• Elsa crown templates;
• "Do you want to build a snowman" party bag toppers;
• Water bottle labels and cupcake labels (used to make food tags); and
• Happy birthday banner.

Baby C - 10 months

10 months, baby C, where has that gone? I had been meaning to write you a 9 month post and then I realised that today you are 10 months old.

You can crawl all over the whole house. Nothing is safe from your fat hands or your sweet mouth. You will eat anything - a foam penguin's foot, a dried up leaf, cotton thread. We need to do some serious baby proofing, because you can open drawers and jam your fingers in them, chew on the bin bag, tangle yourself in an iPhone cord, pull up on the tv cabinet. Your big sister is extremely excited that you can stand and desperately wants you to be able to walk - she insists that by hefting you about she is "helping" you to learn faster. Just like your big sister you have discovered that the bath is a great height for pull-up practice and bath times have become even more heart stopping than previously.

Although you're happy to eat whatever you find on the floor you're also doing pretty well with the real food. Yoghurt and avocado are good enough that you're willing to eat them from a spoon, everything else you want to cram in yourself. Homemade hot chips, fruit, cheese on toast, pasta, bits of chicken - you want it all. The four new teeth that have appeared rather suddenly over the past two months have helped - now there's four at the top and two at the bottom. You're still having milk four times a day and we somehow need to get that down to just morning and night over the next few months in time for me to go back to work two days a week at the end of April.

Full time school for E has meant we've forced you onto two sleeps a day. Fortunately going to school each morning is a good distraction for being tired, because you would rather go to sleep at about 8.30 but that is just when we need to arrive at school and so you have to wait until 9.00 when we get home. Exhausted by your admiration of the four and five year olds you've been coming home and doing some great morning sleeps. You're still perfect at night time - either feed to sleep or almost, you're then out for 11-12 hours.

E is also desperate for you to talk. You can babble what sound like real words (da-da-da, mum-mum-mum) but I'm not convinced you know they mean anything. D insists you said "ca-ca-ca" when pointing at the cat the other day but it hasn't been repeated.

I am very conscious of only having two more months of you full-time. You are still a daily delight to us, precious girl.

23 February: proud mama footnote: Daddy wins, the "ca-ca" is now distinct, spontaneous when you see the cat walk by, or upon seeing a picture of a cat in a book, or if we ask "who says meow"? So sweet and smart.

Quokka money

E has several money boxes and at various points (birthdays, Christmas etc) has been given money to put in them. She hasn't yet learnt the names/value of the different coins and notes, doesn't have any understanding of how much different things cost, and to date her only shopping has been with the toy cash register, plastic/paper money and pretend food. However, prior to our recent trip to Rottnest she begged to be allowed to take some the money from her money box "in case I see something I want to buy." I thought "why not" and so we stuck all the coins from her various money boxes (about $13) into a little hand bag and packed it amongst her clothes.

When we got over there she was desperate to spend up! Fortunately the general store had a range of souvenirs, toys and magazines as well as food and groceries. After deliberating at length (and lots of mental arithmetic on my part - "if you want the magazine and the magnet, you can't afford the pencil") she chose a quokka snow dome and a fridge magnet with a quokka on it. Surprisingly, she also elected to keep about $3 to spend another time. She was very pleased with herself and since returning home has insisted that anyone who enters the house admires her purchases, and took them to school for news.

D and I have been wondering for some time when we should start giving E pocket money and when we got home decided to take advantage of her sudden interest. We decided that pocket money is a reward earned in exchange for chores, and that the chores should be things that help the whole family, not just things she needs to do to get through a day such as getting dressed, brushing teeth, putting on shoes. We dithered over how much is an appropriate amount, and settled on $2 (maximum) per week. So we now have a chart on the fridge where we record the following:

• Putting dirty dishes in the sink
• Putting dirty clothes in the laundry basket
• Sweeping under her and C's chairs after meals
• Putting toys away
• Dusting

The first four are worth 5 cents each time, dusting 15 cents (partly because if she dusts the whole house it takes longer, partly because we wanted to make the weekly maximum $2). We're nearing the end of the second week and so far the chart has been an extremely good motivator. In the first week she earned $1.65 and is on track to earn something similar this week. I detest sweeping under the table after meals and am very happy about only having to do that once or twice a day whilst E is at school! We haven't been to a shop since we started the new system, and I am not sure if finding out how much stuff costs will be a motivator or discouraging, seeing as she isn't going to be able to afford much for a while.

As to why it's "quokka money"? We're not sure if E misheard us, or if it's because she spent her money on quokka related items, but we think it's very funny and so haven't corrected her.

Rottnest holiday

We spent five nights on Rottnest Island over the Australia Day long weekend. 

Packing up was a bit of a hassle, and we went from Hillarys rather than Fremantle which I had not done before, but as soon as we handed our bags over at the edge of the carpark it was all easy. There was much excitement about the ferry ride, and once we arrived, much excitement about everything.

Our house was a "premium view" cottage in Bathurst, near the lighthouse. It was far enough outside the main part of town but still close enough to the shops and eateries to be convenient. We walked and/or scooted everywhere, and it was a lovely break from folding the pram, managing seatbelts and listening to complaints.

View from the front gate

The amount of walking we did was really pretty amazing, given E is not yet five. On our second last day she managed the trek from our place all the way to Geordie Bay via the salt lakes, and back via the Basin, with minimal complaining.

In between all the walking was plenty of beach time, playgrounds, ice creams, beers and barbeques. Good thing we were doing all that exercise!

So many beautiful beaches

E's favourite playground, conveniently situated right next to the bakery and coffee shop.
 Fearless, senseless and straight to the top!

The Rottnest version of child supervision: taken from the wall of the Rottnest Hotel.
The water is about 50m away and is knee deep. E is the pink dot on the far left!

Whilst we were there C conquered crawling and began trying to pull herself up on furniture. We returned home to pull out the baby gates!