Expressing the inner person

Alannah, the daughter of my daughter, is now 2 years and 9 months old. I am her carer on Fridays, and for half of Tuesdays, as her grandfather takes her to the park for the other part of Tuesday. She goes to Kindy on Monday and Thursday, and spends Wednesday with her mother. For mine, this is an ideal child-care structure.

We now live in the same house, my daughter, her husband, my grand-daughter and I. Last year, I was living in a court-yard apartment in the inner-city suburb of Paddington. A similar child-care arrangement was in place. However, I found that I was structuring the day, as I used to when I ran my own Kindy. Inside play. Outside play. Water play. Sand play. Reading time. Colouring time. Painting time. Plasticine time. Sleep time. Video time. That is not the case any more.

Alannah is older. We are both at home. A structure does not enfold our day. Except for the structure her Mumma sets: leave the house at 7:30am, and return home about 6:30pm. Have lunch about 12:45, read for a while, and then sleep about 1:30 'til 3pm. And the day zooms past. And she grows. And learns. Acquires skills. And expresses herself. We have done a lot of craft, with cutting and pasting. She has quite good scissor skills. However, this week she clambered back into artistic mode.

Her mother took the easel out onto the front lawn last Sunday, and I followed suit on Friday. In between I had stocked up the ToyBox with lots of paints and brushes and paraphernalia. She is more than happy to explain what she is painting as she progresses: usually spiders, or crabs, or octopus, or sharks, or snakes. But it is the brush strokes that fascinate me. They have more purpose to them: some short, some long; some dabbed, some swirled; some curved, some straight. There are some colours she can do without, but not green, or blue, or purple, or white, or black. She is into black in a big way, and not just with paints. Her mother no longer has a decent black texta anywhere in her home-office. But look at the attempt at writing words. Wonderful delicacy, and purpose.

Throwing her voice ...

Put your index finger on the top of your head. Why, Ma? I am going to show you how to throw your voice. {Finally, shocked silence.]

Now, throw your voice from your throat, all the way up to your finger. Like this, Ma? Yes. Yes. Yes.

Now put your hand on your chest. And growl like a bear. Ahh that tickles, Ma. Now, throw your voice down to your chest. AArrggghhh ... !

Oozing her lineage

"Don't put your finger there ... BECAUSE ... this will HURT you." "It will STING!" But then ... Buddy will kiss it better. He is in there ... on your BED."

Alannah comes from a long line of shop-keepers - starting from her 4 times great grandfather, John Dunstan Tonkin, who was an iron-monger in suburban Melbourne from the Victorian gold rush until the boom of the 1890s. Then there was her two times great grandmother, Sylvia Irene Veronica Cole, who kept shops in Crows Nest, Gosford, and Hornsby for the entirety of the first half of the twentieth century. So it comes as little surprise when we slaved during our record breaking hot day of 45.9C to create a cup-cake shop. All baked on the premises, regardless of the temperatures beyond the shuttered windows, and closed doors.

Spontaneous combustion ...

Pot plant, pot plant Sitting on a wall One goes away And it must fall. I think, perhaps, she made this up herself. It certainly appeared that way. We often put the pots along the ledge. But we have never had a musical accompaniment before. Each cycle involved seven pot plants. And there were at least four cycles. That is a long process for a two-year-old. The flowers I bought from the Hot Dollar shop in the BJ Mall, and cut them from the spray into individual flowers. The pots are small yoghurt containers from Thomas Dux. The chalk is that really large variety that we bought from the driveway sale in Lane Cove back in about May.

Pretend, right ... ?

She has no sooner trotted in the gate, than I hear 'Play 'Guess Who', Ma?' This has been twice a week, every week since I dragged it out from the drawer labelled '1984' in the middle of September. And at two and a half, she is a smidge young for the real rules, so it has been 'make-it-up-on-the-run' ever since. All variation upon a theme. Actually, I find it remarkable what a fine introduction GW is to set theory. No joke - find me all the people who have hats; find me all the people who have glasses; who is in both groups? This week the GW-mob, and the Playschool-dominoes, and the Duplo-mob, and 'the three robbers + 1' all became the audience for our concert. I went first, came out from behind the curtain, and sang 'Hey Diddle Diddle' to the enthralled throng. Alannah then chose to sing (with actions from Buddy) 'Baa Baa' and 'Humpy'. She really got into the swing of it when I showered her with applause AND wild cheering on behalf of our assembled friends. Pretending is heavily encouraged in this relationship; modelling and setting an example.

Huh? yes ... of course ...

We were playing aeroplanes today. In the living room, with a small plastic chair set on each corner of the oblong mat, representing London, Paris, New York, and Sydney. Once the passenger was aboard, two planes would take off one behind the other, to the refrain of "I can fly' from Peter Pan, out the living room door, into the kitchen, through the dining room, the sun-room and land under the whatever city chair back in the living room. Our passengers were Playschool dominoes which Alannah received as a 'secret santa' yesterday. Double Humpty. Double Big Ted. Double Little Ted. Double Jemima. The microphone called Double Jemima to load her plane and click her seat-belt on. Our conversation went thus: I don't have a Double Jemima. Why? She ran away. Did she join the circus? No, she went to get watermelons. As one does ...

Colouring her world

First she drew a circle, anti-clockwise. Then, she said she was adding an eye, and then another eye. I asked if she thought she might add a mouth. A smile twitched at the corners of her own mouth, and her little index finger came up toward me. I asked if her person had any hair, and she chanted 'zig-zag, zig-zag' as the tresses of golden hair fell around the face. I knew I would have to be quick-pronto with the camera, as very soon lines were all over and through it.