The Gruffalo

This morning I took the pirates to see the stage production of The Gruffalo.  The Captain, who can almost recite The Gruffalo in it's entirety, just loved it and the baby watched wide eyed and adored roaring when the "mouse" requested that the children in the audience roar!  To anyone who is unfamiliar with the books and has young children, I highly recommend all of Julia Donaldson's books but in particular The Gruffalo and The Gruffalo's Child.  Written in rhyme, the story will appeal to most children and is so clever that I actually don't mind reading it over and over again!

Pirate Party - the Invitations

So this is what I have spent my morning doing!  I copied a treasure map image I found through google images, faded it to make a background and then typed the invitation wording across the top. The font is blackadder.  Once printed, I cut out the invitation and dunked it in a baking tray of very strong tea.  Singed the edges with a lighter and lastly, tied with twine!

I think I will have to hand deliver them!

The Captain and his imagination.

The Captain has always had an extraordinary imagination.  Mostly we have encouraged it.  (We did get a bit fed up with Pup and Dink though!)  I was doing the shopping a couple of days ago. Kids in the trolley. The Captain was in the main basket sitting facing the front and pretending to drive the trolley. He was steering an imaginary wheel, braking and grinding through the gears to his hearts content. I pulled up at the Bakery to pick up some bread and a little boy appproached about the same age as the Captain.  With a withering glance, he scathingly said: "you're not driving."  The Captain's little shoulders slumped and he turned to look at me, confusion and hurt in his eyes.   I just felt and saw his spirit crushed.  The lioness protecting her cub roared!  Loudly I announced to the Captain to take no notice, an imagination is a wonderful thing, drive on.  He didn't do it again though. 


I have thought about this incident a lot over the past few days, then we visited a playground on the other side of town.  The Captain  befriended  a little boy that was a carbon copy of himself. Wavy dark hair and eyes. Both in green t-shirts and board shorts. Is that why they started playing? I don't know, but it didn't take long for them to start playing fire engines, explorers, dinosaur hunters... they had a fantastic time together! When it was time for Tom to leave his mum approached and commented that Tom struggled to find playmates as they often don't seem to understand imaginary play.   We swapped numbers and despite the hour long drive between our homes have organised to play again.  I guess when you find like minded people you snatch the moment. 

Is the lack of imaginary play amongst kids now the result of watching too much television or spending hours in front of computer games?   Love to hear what others think!

The new suit (well, new to the Captain).

The Captain found this suit at an op shop nearby yesterday.  He insisted on wearing it all day, despite the heat (about 25 degrees). Indeed, he is so enamoured with his new dress up outfit that he sat in the laundry in front of the washing machine this morning watching it get washed!   $2.50 well spent! 

This photo is the only time he was still enough whilst wearing it for me to take a photograph!  He alternated between being a mechanic, a pilot and as his dad and I pointed out to him... he really looked like he was all ready to set off down into the mines!  Whilst the new "suit" was in the machine he took a brief moment to come and ask me if I could "go online and find a matching one" for his brother to wear.  I didn't know whether to laugh or be alarmed that online is in his vocabulary!   

Pirates, and a pool update.

I have always been fascinated by pirates, ever since I can remember. As a kid we used to go camping on remote islands off the coast of Malaysia and I can still remember my parents and the friends we often travelled with discussing what to do if we were attacked by pirates. We would travel out to the islands on rickety old wooden fishing boats and all the kids would be crowded around the bow, scouring the horizon, desperately hoping to spot an approaching pirate ship. We really had no idea of the the true dangers associated with a pirate attack! Now as an adult and the mother of two pirate obsessed boys I wonder who the pirates employed to do their PR and marketing? What is it about plunder, pillage and rape that is so glamourous? Is it simply the idea of the individual living outside of society's constraints? Seeking their fortune and sailing the seven seas? Hmmm, it does sound glamourous when you omit the villainous aspects!

Number 1 pirate attended a pirate party on the weekend and also celebrated International Talk Like a Pirate Day (Sept 19th if you fancy celebrating next year) at pre-school. He LOVED it! His birthday is approaching and he has asked to have a pirate party, of course!





Meanwhile, the swimming pool renovation continued. As the Captain was off at pre-school, the little one sat by the pool mesmerised:



Or if the tile cutting machine got too noisy, he relocated to the chatterbean:

The coping is now finished:

Tiling has begun:

Hopefully photos of us swimming in it to follow soon!

Warning: those squeamish about earthworms look away now!

This morning we made a worm farm....

There has recently been some unhelpful digging in the garden. We have read the brilliant Roald Dahl's James and the Giant Peach several times now and I have some suspicions that the Captain might be planning to try and catch some seagulls. So in order to prevent any further garden destruction,unnecessary worm slaughter and to put a quick end to any harebrained schemes, I have purchased a worm farm for him to observe a handful of worms under supervised conditions.

Simply sifting the dirt to remove large lumps kept him occupied for ages. Thank you worm farm! (note to self: must go back and purchase ant farm):


Layering the dirt and sand levels:

His favourite bit:

If you look closely you will see a worm tunneling to safety on the left. Smart worm! You will thank me in the long run worm, for many worm lives have been saved!

Conversations with the Captain...

This child, amuses and exasperates me simultaneously!!!

Driving home after dropping his Father at work:

Captain: Can I have car lessons?

Me: What do you mean? (Distracted and concentrating on annoying Sydney peak hour traffic)

Captain: You know, to drive the car.

Me: Driving lessons? What! No, certainly not! Not until you are 16 and 9 months.

Captain: Why?

Me: Because the people that make the decisions about who drives cars and when have decided that that is the safest time to learn how to drive.

Captain: How many years until I am 16 and 9 months?

Me: Umm, a lot of them.

Captain: Can I have two birthdays this year?

Me: What? No!

Captain: But then I can go in the Tour de France sooner and learn to drive cars!

Lamingtons and the Garbage Truck

This morning we made Lamingtons. It was a first for all of us. I have a very clear memory of watching a lamington drive as a little girl. I watched mesmerised as a group of familiar mums worked at unfamiliar speed in a factory line baking what seemed to be enough lamingtons to feed the population of a country town or in this case a school fete.


There is a reason why people do it in drives... it is quite a messy and fiddly exercise. However, for two tactile little boys... they loved it.

CWA standard they definitely were not! Nevertheless, we had fun and I even had 5 minutes peace and quiet to enjoy mine with a coffee whilst they were busy eating theirs!

Sadly said peace and quiet was suprisingly short lived. Today is garbage day and, as is a long standing tradition, the boys kept an ear out for the noise of the truck winding it's way up our street. As soon as they can hear it they both race out of the house, screeching like banshees "garbage truck, garbage truck" and then stand at the top of our driveway in relatively quiet anticipation. Normally, the driver waves at them and he and I exchange a "boys will be boys with their obsessions with large machines" glance and then he continues on his way around the neighbourhood. Today was different though... maybe he smelt the lamingtons baking? He stopped and asked if the boys wanted to have a sit in the cab?

They loved it... he let them press the buttons, move the seats up and down, and the highlight of the experience was a demonstration of the bin collecting arm grabbing our recycling bin off the nature strip and "emptying" it several times!

That driver made their day with this small act of kindness!

Nicasso and the Avant-Garde art movement

Captain Nicasso has entered his Cubism phase, aged 4 years! He has spent roughly a week creating this and is so proud of it that he took it to pre-school with him this morning for show and tell. R and I are very pleased that the realism phase seems to be over and can only hope that there is no further disgracing of the family at Pre-School.

The school holidays so far...

We have had a fairly quiet holiday. R (husband/dad) has started up his own business so we don't anticipate travelling anywhere anytime soon. Instead we have had lots of play dates and pottered about at home.

The pond yachts in these photos are family heirlooms! We were in London in the early 1980s on a family holiday and my father bought them for me and my brother at the most extraordinary and amazing toy shop...Hamleys! It was basically a toy department store, I think there were 7 different floors of toys. I can't remember what else we bought but these little pond yachts have lasted well and are now close to 30 years old! The boys have been playing with them in our almost empty pool (it is about to be resurfaced) every day.

The Captain is growing up so quickly. We have completed his school enrolment for next year. It hardly seems to be possible that he could be heading off to big school in six months time! We have chosen a very small (120 students in K - 6), slightly alternative private school that I am confident is perfect for him. They teach meditation (perfect for his somewhat volatile temper!) and provide a hot lunch (hooray no school lunches to pack and ideal for his endless appetite!) and teach classical languages and literature! The whole school even performs in an annual Shakespeare festival, including the lower first , as they call kinder! So looking forward to that!

To assist with entertaining the boys these holidays, R built the boys a fabulous sand pit. In the centre of which is a lovely old wooden row boat that was destined for the tip. It now has a new life as a pirate ship, police boat, naval aircraft carrier, submarine and even occasionally fills in for the Manly ferry! We have all sorts of sand pit toys and endless trucks but the Captain's favourite sand pit toy? Some old wood off cuts that we made into a wooden version of the northern beaches!

Ah yes, Manly Hospital... been there a few times with my rascally boys!

A colourful winter...

In Sydney we don't really get to enjoy the change of the seasons, it is something that I really miss about living in Canberra and the UK. However, we do have a lovely mild winter and are able to enjoy the garden all year round!



Sidewalk chalk can be used all year round:






Summer flowers...still popping up:

Even the Begonias!

Rainbow Lorikeets, little bursts of summer colour, come and visit every day :

Summer in Sydney is truly lovely, but winter is spectacular!

Vintage Fisher Price Little People

When I was about the same age as the Captain, my family lived in Indonesia, where my father was working in the Embassy. While we were living there, my parents picked up, (from an American family returning home), a whole bunch of Fisher Price Little People toys. I have the fondest memories of playing with these toys, I especially adored the campervan and was fascinated by the tiny toilet, the beds above the cab and even the little boat. The toys came back to Australia with us and then travelled on to India where we had our next posting. They are still there now presumably. My parents gave them to the children of our servants, I often imagine that their children are playing with them now!



As you can see I have endeavoured to recreate my own childhood for the boys! I have collected, over the last few years, various different vintage play sets. Finding them in all sorts of places, op shops, Church fetes, garage sales and of course, Ebay.


The details in the toys are fantastic. No batteries, yet with handles and levers you can move the baggage carousel or turn the helicopter's propellers.


A fireman going on a camping trip with some mates (and other children of the 1970s... do you remember Lucky the dog? There he is peering out the back of the campervan.)

The baby is filling up the plane with some avgas!

It is extraordinary how many people have catastrophic accidents and serious illnesses in Little People world. Luckily, there is an ambulance, an operating theatre, an X-Ray machine and a lift to move the invalids upstairs to recovery whilst strapped securely in a stretcher.

The baby operating the off shore cargo base.

Hours of play!