Scene stealer

We are waiting, albeit impatiently, for baby sister to be born, with Alannah convinced that SHE is the one who will do the 'catching'. It is dawning upon her, that BS will not be able to go on the slide, or write, or play tea-parties immediately. We are doing a lot of watching of videos as Alannah went through her own 'blob' stage.

On straightjackets

People are not condemned to replicate their upbringing, to follow slavishly in the footsteps of their immediate ancestors. Behaviour wise, at any rate. There is also the option of the intelligent application of freewill. To rise above learned behaviours requires a modicum of introspection. And intelligence. And empathy. And selfless love.

The value of picket fences

They don't have to be white, these picket fences. Hell, they don't even have to be literal. Upon reflection, they are a state of mind, and considering the connotation is way more powerful than the denotation these days, they are better as a figment.

I remember my lone trip to Tasmania between Christmas and New Year's 2004, and trying to fathom what threw me about Launceston, until it dawned on me that it was the picket-fence-figment. Here I was from Waterloo in Sydney, walking the WASP streets of northern Tasmania, with nary a turned-over-garbage, a needle-filled-gutter, a turban, or an attitude, a hijab or a foreign language spoken at ten-to-the-dozen. My new abode is a bit like this. I say a bit, because a decade has passed, and old barriers constantly tumble.

In comparison with Paddington, I feel that we are living on acreage. Yesterday, Alannah and I visited Hamish's yard. We have an open invitation, you see. We held hands, chanted the cross-the-road-mantra, and pushed open his side gate, collecting Floyd the grey kitten as we entered. We watched the guinea pigs first, but they were too pre-occupied with Floyd. So we continued on, past the hoarded statuary, past the up-turned tinnie, until confronted by the padlocked chicken-coop, or hen-house, or chook-pen. Once solved, we squeezed in, leaving Floyd on the outer, whist encouraging an errant Silkie bantam back into the coop with us. And the chooks didn't panic. They clucked and scuttled, but nothing approaching panic as though a fox had just flashed. Indeed, it took me a while to hunt here and there, to discover the two new-laid eggs, which I convinced Alannah to allow me to carry! That was how I discovered the possum, trying to hide in the cardboard box atop the laying-house. Petrified it was, and with good reason, I suppose. Had he come in to recover, or to die, I wondered. His back was covered with mange, his jumping abilities a shadow of their former self. He tried though, and we watched as he swung up and out onto the guttering of Hamish's house, and away. With two warm eggs in my jacket pockets, we sung 'Off to see the wizard', as we recrossed the roadway ...

And a little while later, having cut some left-over meat into small chunks, she and I perched our cheeks onto a rickety milk-crate eating one of Mumma's tea-cakes, as we watched our trio of Butcher Birds swoop in, gobble up some in their beak, then fly off to the safety of a nearby tree, before repeating the process. Ad nauseum. All a bit like a blast-from-the-past really. The 1950s revisited. Figments of picket fences are all the go, up here in Ironbark.

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.

Soundtrack of her day

Enduring months of being under ther pervidious influence of the lingo of real-estate agents, over the weekend I reorganised my sunroom and carved out a painting nook! It is enclosed on three sides, with equipment arrayed within easy reach. The floor is easiy wiped tiles. There was one thing I did not realise, however.

It is within easy earshot of the CD within my computer. So yesterday, Alannah wanted to paint, and she wanted to do it to a soundtrack. I have copies here of some of the CDs her mother has at home, and the CD of choice yesterday was the 'Disney Classic Collection'. As she painted, she danced and sang, to the music. Here she is dancing and singing to 'The Cat Song' from 'Lady and the Tramp' - 'We are Siam-ese if you plea-ese ... ".

On the move again

It was about this time last year that my daughter put to me the proposition that we share a house, a three generation house. It could be a win/win for us all, she persuaded. It takes a while to come to a full appreciation of the magnitude of such a decision. It had been an 'annus horibilis' for each of us, but moreso for her. Much moreso for her. I am fixated on being 'useful' and not a typical 'mother-in-law'. I also did not want to take more than I gave. So within that range, we jockeyed for a while and reached general consensus about Christmas 2011. And we started scouring the real-estate sites nearly immediately.

By the end of January, we knew we were not going to find what we were looking for on the southside of the harbour. We looked: both virtually, and in reality. But the bang for yer buck was not there. By then, you see, we had established our criteria: A downstairs wing for Ma - sitting room, bathroom, and bedroom, outside access An upstairs for the family with at least 3 bedrooms and a bathroom A large grassed, relatively flat garden No pool Space for two cars Cul-de-sac 250 or less to public transport an area with 'buzz' which was defined as cosmopolitan close to bush-walks And then Darren accepted a new job in Lane Cove, which obviously focussed our attention on that municipality. As we tossed the possibilities back and forth, our tastes and requirements modified, and also became more obvious to each other. Since the beginning of August, I have Ma-sat on Saturdays, whilst Kirsten and Darren went on their shopping-list rounds.

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Then at the end of October, Kirsten found something she really liked. Darren and I had poo-pooed it from the listing. Too fussy. Twee. However, she persevered and put it on her list. It took one viewing, and they both said they liked it. IN FRONT OF THE AGENT! Three days later, Kirsten's father and I saw it. We both liked it. There were two interested bidders. The public auction was cancelled, and replaced by a blind auction. How nerve wracking. Once chance. You nominate what you are prepared to offer. Neither side knew the details of the other. Kirsten was prepared to release 5% of the deposity immediately, plus offer a 90 day settlement. Within 30 minutes of the close of bids, it was hers - by $4,000. And it is not in Lane Cove municipality at all but in Willoughby Municipality in the small suburb of Castlecrag, which is on one of the spurs into Middle Harbour. It is 5km to Darren's work, and 9km to work for Kirsten in the CBD. It is 100m from an express bus route to the city for me, or a slower 15 minute journey to the Chatswood shops. But you know that is not my sort of thing. It is a cul-de-sac, and a walking track - behind the rear fence - follows Sugarloaf Creek down to the harbour. The back yard is tiered to make it flat but has two good playing surfaces. There are 3 large deciduous trees, so I shall need a good compost. Kirsten has said that I can have a vegie patch in the front yard, but I suspect that may be retracted when I submit my concept plan! I am downstairs on the left with the front-porch. The main entry is from the side near the car port. The garage is actually a men's shed. The only room that I have included is the upstairs family room. It is massive. The front faces north. Settlement date is 29th January.

Terrible Twos

The 'terrible twos' is a label, and like all labels, is probably as much wrong as it is right. However, being no expert, doesn't stop me from having a firmly held view. As a child progresses from two to three, they start to understand how the world works. And, they start to understand that they can shape some of that world: with actions, and with words. Alannah has quite firm opinions. She knows what she likes to wear, and what she will not wear. Yesterday, she got the sleeves of her trakkie-top wet when playing with water (because I forgot to suggest she roll them up). Nothing I offered her in exchange was acceptable: there was a nice long-sleeved skivvy, but she would not part with the pink t-shirt; there was a nice thin, red cardigan, but she was adamant. She wanted the trakkie-top again. So, I rolled the sleeves up a bit. She is starting to try on some negative behaviours; I think mainly to see what my reaction will be. Not me, because it is me. But me, as the supervising adult. She was relieved when I asked her if she would like to go to the 'thinking place', which is a time-out, circuit-breaker concept that Kirsten has explained to me. I have an idea of how to ameliorate some of this: if it works! I am going to introduce a new activity each session, and make sure that the activity is a challenge for her. She has adored the 'Guess Who' game since I brought it out, and has played with it incessantly. She knows many of the cards off by heart: the names of the people, I mean. But this will have run its course come next week. So today, in preparation, I reorganised my courtyard, a change being as good as a holiday. I like to operate in 'rooms' - I garden like that, too. Change activity by moving to another physical area. I am devising an activity circuit: drop balls into tube; throw small bean bags through hoop; hop into a square and pick up stone; go through tunnel; and, limbo under a rod. I will also get a version of the game 'Twister', as she is a very physical girl. This week, being nice and warm both days, we were solidly back into having water in our sand-pit. Hence, the top images. On Wednesday, she spends the morning with me, and after her sleep Grandad picks her up and takes her to the park to play, if the weather is good. Hence, the bottom images.

'Guess Who' has gone anime

On Monday gone, I introduced Alannah to the board game, 'Guess Who', using the very same copy that I played with my children 25 years ago. The box is stamped 1980. There is only one of the flip-characters broken, all the cards are present, and each of the little yellow scorer pegs is even still present. However, of the 24 characters, only 5 are women, and the deck is not very multicultural. Suffice to say, I suspect it reflects 1950s England, perhaps.

However, when I went into Dymocks in George Street (knowing they have two walls of board-games), I was immensely disappointed. The version on the shelf was called 'Guess Who Extra' and was electronic. Not what I am after for a 2 year old ... nor probably an any-year-old. At the age of two, I modify the rules to suit her evolving ability. We do not play the 'identify by elimination' aspect of the game ... as yet. I will say to her 'Knock over anyone who has glasses'. Which she does with gusto. However, she is not ready for the converse of that 'Knock over anyone who does not have glasses'. The other thing about the electronic version is that the price tag said $65. A misprint, surely.

I did find and (*she blushes*) buy a Travel-sized version put out by a competitor called 'Who's Who'. However, everything is way too small, and the little 'lids' get stuck. Nowhere near as much fun as the larger version. So I came back here and googled, which, yes yes, I should have done to begin with. There is a non-electronic version available, and it has been updated. I include a view of it here. Look at those characters! How 'Astro Boy' are they? Yuck yuck yuck. And their essential identifying characteristics are less obvious. I reckon they are, anyway. However, they are equally divided re gender representation nowadays: 12/12 a piece. However, they also have additional sheets that are able to be downloaded and printed off at home to freshen-up the characters. Some simply do not appeal, but that is probably old sick-in-the-mud me. Characters like: Dinosaurs, Creepy Creatures, Easter, and others. The differences are not defined enough. However, I did not mind the Sports sheet, and will get a bit of higher GSM board to print them out for next week.