staycation! Ocean is the playground


Wow. Two week holidays are bliss. I love this. I haven't done the dishes once this year!

Has been great to have a second week hanging out at home, trying to redecorate a bit. Andrew has ridiculous ideas about room usage which I have decided shouldn’t be followed. For instance, he doesn’t want the kid to have his toys in his room; they’re to be kept in the back room, also designated as Andy’s study. Right now, his “study” is a dumping ground of every envelope he doesn’t want to open, every piece of paper he’s avoiding filing and every small bit of clutter he wants to keep, but doesn’t have a space for. It’s sprawled across a desk, filing cabinet and bookshelf and litters the floor as well. He also has an entire wall of builts in to keep all this in! So the kid’s toys are stuffed into a corner of the back room, and he’s forgotten about them.

Am loving the time we are spending together (when I’m not writing, or fobbing him off with Shaun Sheep DVDs or building amazing tower blocks...) The kid is acting more and more like a 2-going-on-3 year old, even though he’s just 2. His language is expanding and today he climbed to the top ledge of our ladder, perched to collect apricots off our tree UNASSISTED. He schemes something, gives me his devil’s look, does it anyway and then gives me a kiss to appease me. He can also operate our DVD player (he’s actually taken less time to master it than we did; we returned our first version because we thought it was “broken”).
Have been looking up cool new playgrounds to visit. Ones that have shade would be a start (imagine boring looking metal playgrounds without shade, and that's what I keep spotting with my parent-eagle eyes...  Pete reminded me that the awesome local kindy playground can still be accessed during holidays (it has a creek bed, tree stump stepping pathway, shadecloth, a deck for performing on, cubbies, many a colourful whirley thing, murals and manages to bring together the vibe of a cool summer cafe with a kids kindergarten, if that is possible). Right now in this heat, we are happy with the great ocean playground.. (no actual waves..)

Comments

Post a Comment

Popular posts from this blog

Anniversary of Grandad

When my youngest was young, eldest thought he was Grandad reincarnated (same day of earth arrival). As it happens, Grandad died on my nephew's birthday, which we celebrate this year at a pub that is okay but nothing special, compared to gaslight , as enthusiastically recommended to Guy.  Nephew agreed people who barrack for the Crows are like flat earthers. I like Melbournite's admiring my Tigers scarf.  SIL came by to pick up youngest who offered to help with chores if I didn't make him leave and told her he'd made himself baked beans and a chip butty, like a before character on a heart attack advertisement.  Meanwhile eldest unhappy ever since he headlined, I feel like a bad parent for sending him to a Car clew camp. Right now, he's chatting on the phone about something being 'bad', his friend is asking 'how bad' he's saying, 'pretty bad', but I can't tell if he's talking about his pash rash or cello practice or a faux pas.  (Up...
Read more

Little gems

This evening, I was reading to the kid. Every book I read at night time (and many books I read in the day) are about going to sleep. The message is getting through. When I read out the catchphrase "Do you need to go to sleep?" he closed his eyes and made pretend snoring sounds. So much fun! He had a busy evening rearranging baking trays and lego displays and trying to build the tallest lego tower that wouldn't fall over and eventually I found art invites and lego in the oven. I also decided to empty my handbag. Open bills. Sort my life out. Try and get back on track. This is all prompted by asking a colleague for something from her handbag (I shudder to think what-hopefully money, hopefully not a tissue) and seeing her sort through clutter that included the voting slip from 2010 Federal Election. Anyway, I found a diary entry, scribbled on paper, which I may have written here in different form: "Different films I've liked that have been 'mood' number...
Read more

Little Women and Family Albums

I was watching Little Women, the Greta Gerwig version with Laura Dern and a cool girl that plays Amy, production captured the organic texture of houses and textured colours. This version is not linear, and I was multi-tasking by taking to family photos with the scissors, not to excise people, but resize photos taken by a rellie pointing camera blindly, collecting from store with high hopes, only to discover they're no Max Dupain. 
Read more