Trooping the boards

Dolly, Sheep-sheep, and Punchinello were unwitting participants in this tableau. I always ask if I can bring my camera out and take photographs. She is okay with it perhaps 50% of the time. Alannah is just becoming comfortable with singing songs. It takes a lot of effort to develop a 'singing voice'. But then, she also has to remember the aounds to make, more than the words to sing. She does enjoy it.


I sing songs at the drop of a hat. When the local bus comes around the corner, I burst into song with its call sign and its destination and whether it is going up the hill or down the hill. I can never remember the latest 'tune' I used, but the musical phrases are all found in English folk songs of the 19th century. Often handed down to us as nursery rhymes.


This little song and dance was to 'Baa Baa Black Sheep', which I have now found as a video ... a dreaded video. Why they insist on having adverts in a nursery rhyme, confounds me. So just ignore, or remove the advert near the beginning. Instead of one of the bags being for the little boy down the lane, I always allocate it to 'Alannah Jane' who lives down the lane.


There are so many maturing signs going on at the moment, not just evidenced in the singing. We are also getting a more regular timetable. The mornings are a bit cold (and often wet) to be in the courtyard, so the day kicks off with sorting and colouring-in at the dining room table. We have morning tea about 10am which is followed by a 30 minute reading session. then we are outside until lunch just before midday, with a sleep starting about 12:30pm. I have a firm pattern with getting her to sleep which involves singing about 15 nursery rhymes. I am trying to find time to put these into a book for her upcoming 2nd birthday. Can you believe that Alannah will be 2 years old in under a month!


There is another reading session during the afternoon period, and I ensure there is a madcap chase-each-other session with dress-ups and singing (again!). This week just gone, street-watching came back into vogue, with Alannah even waving to people when prompted. It is astounding how many people wave and smile at her - young people as well as old. We are often out there now with a cat plonked on each of the gate posts, so I guess it is a cute sight.

Who doesn't like NOISY!

Being overhung with deciduous trees, and three story terraces, the courtyard is a challenge in winter, especially if the wind is whipping the leaves around our ankles. But, being troopers (read pig-headed and determined), we carry on regardless. Once we have surmounted the contretemps of the necessity for jackets and beanies. One out of two aint bad ...

We cycle through games and activities. Today's 'must-do' is tomorrow's 'meh'! And 'street-watching' is (temporarily, I'm sure) shelved for the mentally challenging game of 'Noisy'. Remember those little book-shop stuffers (like jelly beans in the check-out at Woolies), the Mister Men books, and their female counterpart. One of them is a 'noisy'. But they aint seen nutin' till they experience my Little Miss Noisy.

She did not need much, indeed any, encouragement to embrace this game whole-heartedly, and to recognise its potential in a myriad of situations. Take a plastic container (like an ex-yoghurt tub) and partly fill it with metal bells, like Morris Dancers have on their socks. Ensure the lid is held on tightly, then shake for all your worth, at the same time yelling at the top of your voice NOISY. Hunch your shoulders, put your finger to your lips, keep your hand still and whisper 'quiet'. Then seamlessly hit the noisy option again. Presto! A game is born.

Of course, there is nothing like a pesky adult to reverse the labels for the action, and, initially cause confusion, then the peak of hilarity. Ah, yes ... the Noisy/Quiet game is a wonder of the modern universe.

At Ma's Place

Frequently, the weather dictates what we do when Alannah comes over to Ma's place to play. My courtyard is wonderful in summer, but quite chilly in winter, requiring a jacket and hat most of the day. If Ma does not wear her jacket and hat, very quickly Alannah dispenses with her's, too. Lucky that Ma is a skinny little runt!

We have moved out of the 'street watching' phase. We used to do two sessions of at least 30 minutes each, but some days now we don' clamber onto the courtyard gate at all. This week it was replaced by cooking.

Fraught times for Ma! Don't fall off the bench. Don't burn yourself. Where did I leave the veggie knife. Ah, no! That isn't cooked yet. And yet internalising it, and presenting an air of equinimity to the outside world. Cooking involved gnocchi with mince, garlic, asparagus, broccolini, a tomato and basil prepared sauce, and fresh chives. Not forgetting the pinch of salt. Just like piggy requests from the picnicking otters in Helen Oxenbury's 'It's My Birthday'.

As Alannah's fine motor skills develop, we are doing more colouring, cutting'n'pasting, sorting and 'writing'. I collect as many little plastic containers as possible and she sorts by shape and colour, endlessly. Tip up. Then 'Abracadabra. Kazoo. Kazaam. Mix me up as much as you can.' You might know it as shuffling.

The toy box (what a grand investment that was!) contains an array of writing implements. One such, is a bag of very small crayons that are generally too small for her wee hands, but good for sorting into colours. And, Alannah discovered this week, for rolling under the coffee table to Sellie, who proceeded to tap it this way'n'that with with her pink-tipped paws, rolling upside down, and suddenly dashing off out of the room to reenter by another door. All to squeals of delight from Alannah.

And then our big 'advance' of the week. I have often sat Alannah at my computer desk, and written words on scrap pieces of paper for her to 'write' as well. She took to this with avengeance this week. Including a one hour session which she allowed me to photograph. No writing from me. And very little colour. She insisted she was not 'colour in' but writing. And that obviously was only done with a black felt pen. You will see a wide variety of pencil grips still employed. I am trying to show her the classic grip and she often gets it. But the dagger grip is a starting point. She can now do vertical and horizontal lines. Exaggerated arcs. And wee pinched little lines. This is the writing. And she knows what she wants to write. Telling me Mummy, Daddy, book, car, cat dog, circle, oval, star. Each time she does an up-then-down mark she says 'Ma' and it is easy to see why. Check out the angle of the head, and the tongue. There was a lot of effort devoted to this session this week. I think she might be ready for her own packet of textas. Only for use up here on my computer table. And, yes, I do have to take to my tabletop with jiffy and a scrubber to remove the over enthusiatic lines!