What's new?

Well, David & I are back from a quick trip to Melbourne, staying with Nanna. We flew down, mainly to see Paul, who was away on an extended business trip, which followed into his golf trip. We flew down on Wednesday night, I worked Thursday in the Melbourne office, we spent Friday with Paul and the family and we flew home on Saturday afternoon. Paul went to see the Australian Masters on Saturday (including Tiger Woods and Geoff Ogilvie) as motivation for the golf trip. He drove back to Sydney, getting home late on Thursday night.

Since then Cousin Lizzie has had her baby, so there are now four boy cousins (including David). Cousin Jennifer is expecting another baby boy next March, so Nanna is proudly telling everyone that there will be five boys under five years of age.

Nanna is having a few problems with her leg, but hanging in there! David enjoyed his day with Nanna and Auntie Gaye, while I was at work, and catching up with the family. David squashed and cut his finger in one of the sliding wardrobe doors - lots of blood and crying. It was fairly traumatic for mum & Dad, but David was much better after a night's sleep. We bandaged it (better than a bandaid, it protected it from bumps and sand and stayed on) for five days, and then he wanted it off. After a day at the pool on Saturday, it has been remarkably better, and hardly worht talking about now. He did enjoy showing people the bandage.

We will be down in Melbourne again for Christmas, so we are planning to write to Father Christmas. It is important that he knows where to leave David's presents.



After Melbourne and South Australia's heatwave, it has been Sydney's turn. Friday was very hot - over 40C before a thunderstorm. We went out to a playground (of course) and survived. We didn't get to the pool as planned, because of the lightning. Saturday was cooler. We all went to the doctor for injections - David had his four year old shots and we had swine fly shots. We did go to the pool in the afternoon, because I had promised. David loved swimming with his noodle - he seems to be immediately more independent. I hope that I can get him in for swimming lessons early next year, because he suddenly looks really ready for real swimming.



Sunday was dreadfully hot - 42C and still 35C in David's room at 10.00pm before the southerly bluster blew through after midnight.



Despite the heat, and because it wasn't too bad in the morning, we went in to the Museum in the city. There is a special Eygpt exhibition on, complete with mummies and coffins and sarcophagi - Really exciting and greatly enjoyed. This builds on the mummy book that we have, the King Tut documentary that we saw on TV, the DVD from the library on Ancient Egypt and of course mummies in Caspar's Scare School, Night at the Museum and The Mummy.



We also went to the newish Dinosaur exhibition - really good - and the old favourite from last visit, the skeleton room. It was lovely and cool in the Museum and lots of exhibitions that kids can touch. David got a special treat - mummy gloves. Black gloves to fit an adult, which look like they have bones and bandages on them. He loves them.



At daycare they are all getting ready for the end of the year. Lots of pre-schoolers are off to primary school next year. David thinks that he should be going to - he wants to go to the same school as Jesse. I am not sure if he believes me that he will be at pre-school again next year, but I am trying to impress on him that he will be one of the big boys next year. It also means that he will have to be grown up and gentle with the other kids, especially the babies in the nursery. We have been having issues for the second half of the year with the boys in pre-school learing how to play together, but not too roughly. It can all change from happiness and light to crying in the blink of an eye, especially when they are tired, late in the day. David gives a good as he gets - some days he comes home with scratches and bruises, other days he has hitor pushed someone else. In particular he has a love/hate relationship with Jesse. One day he loves Jesse and he is his best friend. Then there may be a week where he hates Jesse. A real roller coaster.

There is also a bit of politics/relationships creeping in - one day they are best friends, the next day (or only an hour later) they are not friends ("Jesse says he is not going to be my friend today". "I told Isabelle that she wasn't my friend, because Rafaela is my friend today."). It can change back again after what seems to me as an adult as a completely arbitrary wait.

This week, after daycare, I was told that "You don't know anything!" I was completely mystified, but not particularly bothered. By the time we went to bed David did admit that I knew something about a few things (including cut fingers). I found out that Marcus had been saying that today - so he was trying it out at home. I suspect that he was trying it out because marcus had got a big reaction from someone (David or others) at Daycare. Last night David announced that he wasn't doing kisses anymore, that he hated kisses. He still wanted a kiss goodnight, though. A couple of months ago it was "You're not my mother anymore!" "You're sacked!" Sometimes it took as long as 15 minutes to be reinstated - "You can be my mother again!" Well, my view is that if we work on it now, hopefully there are techniques that work even at primary and secondary school.

The Daycare concert will be on Friday 19 December this year, and we should actually make it along. I understand that there has been a lot of practising of songs (like "We wish you a merry Christmas). Hopefully it will go well, and we get some good snaps.

Birthday party

We held David's fourth birthday at the Lilyfield Community Centre, near the house. It was on Sunday 11 October 2009, after his birthday and the long weekend. The Centre has a large hall with plished boards, and outside play areas. There is a grassed area under a big gum tree, a small playground with slide & climbing castle and other climbing area (with artificial grass underfoot) and a sand pit (see photo of the popular sandpit). It also has a kitchen, slightly raised stage area and toilets. Included were trestle tables, padded mats and use of the facilities. Tt is fully fenced. We knew it well from Playgroup and using the playground on weekends.

It is much larger than our house and back yard, and the kids were able to run and run and run and run. There was so much noise that no-one really heard any of the music I spent hours assembling. However we have been listening to it in the car, so David is still enjoying it.

It was a Spiderman birthday party. I managed to find Spiderman banners and tableclothes and other paraphenalia, including party bags, rings and hats. We asked the kids to dress up, and most did. David was going to go as Black Spiderman, but on the morning of the party, at the last minute he changed his mind and went as Ben 10.

We invited lots of kids and just about all of them came! I thought that we would have more drop out. I included siblings, and so we had a variety of ages from babies, to crawlers to toddlers and even one older sister (Vienna).

I kept David involved and he was very excited about it all. He told me who to invite, and mostly didn't change his mind. A few days before the party he said that he didn't want any girls at the party. We were in the car coming home from Daycare. I asked him "What about Katie and Rafaela? " He said "Oh, except for Katie and Rafaela." I asked "what about Isabelle? Sara? Celestine (etc....) The result was that except for the twelve girls we invited, there were to be no girls. He actually invited more girls than boys.

We had on the menu: potato chips (plain salted), popcorn, fruit (watermelon and black and white grapes, with bananas on the side), chocolate cupcakes, orange cupcakes, juice packs, soft drink. Hot food for mostly the adults was party pies, sausage rolls, spinach & chees filo triangles, mini quiches.

The birthday cake was a carrot cake, with a superhero decal on the top - I had to search all over to get it but finally got it at Woolies in the city. David and the kids all ate the cake.

Lots of kids, lots of fun. No tantrums. We had egg and spoon races with kinder surprises, so all the kids got a prize. Lots of fun, but no-one did it properly. Gordon won the first race, and held his egg on the spoon. Finn won the second race, and he had the spoon in one hand and the egg in the other. We had a mini parade with all the dressup costumes, which was fun. I never got the time to bring out all the bubble mix and wands, but no-one missed it. It started on time (with one guest early) and pretty much ended on time. We were all packed up, cleaned up and exited the hall by 4.45pm. We then went home and David opened all the presents!!!