The KID

This child is no longer a baby, nor a toddler. Today, I reckon, she was officially a kid!

We built a cubby along the side wall, out of flat-pak removal boxes, only the front being open. Alannah dragged one of the mats out to soften the floor, while I fetched a pillow to lean against. We searched through the Osbourne '1001 Things on a Farm' dictionary finding feathers, foxes, moles, and tractors. We listened for 'big, blue, buses' (said rapidly and as all one word!), helicopters, currawongs, and sirens. We built with Duplo, and excelled at finding just the piece we needed. "Alannah do it!'

We played musical chairs, including the closed sand pit, a child's chair, two garden chairs, and a milk crate. Throwing 'Buddy' to each other, even though he should have returned to her bakpak after sleep, a sleep barely 90 minutes in length. We listened to a 'Play School' CD while engrossed in a colouring-in book with STICKERS!!

We dug in the sand, filled up buckets with sand, and did not argue - or pretend cry - when Ma asserted it to be way cold for playing with water. We listened to Robin (from the upstairs flat) from the security of Ma's hip ('Up, Ma. Up!!) as he and Ma discussed how many pots had been knocked over by the wind. We fed the cats, and roused on them when they batted each other in their excitement.

Now Ma needs to find a sheet (or part thereof) of corrugated perspex to race our Matchbox vehicles down.

Talking the talk

I had a wonderful play date today with my 21 month grand-daughter, Alannah. It was a bleak, grey day where the mercury did not break 20C - which is cold for Sydney. We both kept our jackets on all day, but still spent most of the day in the courtyard.

Mummy and Daddy wore flowers in their hair. Mummy also wears a flag. Then you see the apartment and the steps we built.

We had two sessions of 'street watching', two sessions of Lego, read the same book twice ('A Fly went By'), sorted the slide pins into colour tubs and made lots of noise shaking them, then wrote a card which I put in the post immediately after her father arrived to take her home. While we were street-watching today, we watched the post-man cross the road with his heavy back-pack and his fist-ful of letters to deliver. Alannah will find the card in her letter-box tomorrow, which is her home-day with Mummy.

Ma frequently laid down on the job. Whereas, Alannah was 'taken' by her self-named figure, being given a lot of work to do.

When I want to take photographs, I always ask her permission. Often she says ‘NO’ (or today I even heard the variation ‘nope’), but every-so-often I will get a shy grin, a direct look and an ‘Okay’. Recently, on e-Bay I purchased a whole bunch of Duplo figures, because I want the play to revolve around people. I guess we have over 50 now. So we named them – Mummy, Daddy, Alannah, Ma, Grandad, and Pam. And then she spent ages opening the windows, getting the figures out, naming them, and returning them to different windows. She chats continuously, and rarely needs me to interject. Although, I chat about what I am playing, too. She is very good, now, in constructing with Duplo. She cannot build a house or anything like that. That is not what I mean, but she can join blocks together and sort the blocks into same-piles, either by size or by colour.

And our friend just likes to be with us and hear our chatter. When we play Lego he ‘sleeps’ often with one eye open. When we ‘street-watch’, he sits on the brick gate post beside Alannah.