Nicasso's latest masterpiece!

Collecting The Captain on wednesday from pre-school he gleefully waves his latest painting at me. "Oh it's lovely darling," I dutifully say. "Yes Mummy," he says to me in his loud clear voice, "it is of you and Daddy drinking wine." All the other mothers nearby smother giggles and the teacher is practically in hysterics. "Don't worry" one Mum says kindly to me, "Alexander's first word was 'wine!'"

Note, the wine glasses in our hands (not bad for a 4 year old!) I can't believe that this is what he chose to paint us doing though! The little monkey! :

The Captain's Clash with a Filing Cabinet

This is what happens when you combine a kamikaze daredevil with an antique oak filing cabinet. Three stitches and a wound so deep that you could see bone. Every person in emergency gasped in horror when the triage nurse peeled the temporary bandage off his head on our arrival. Only the day before I had been admiring his smooth forehead and thinking how handsome he was...

This is what it looks like now that the stitches have been removed. Apologies for the clothes peg hair clip. In this male dominated family we naturally, have a hair clip shortage and my bobby pins were not up to the rigours of a 4 year old boy. Thus, I had to improvise with the clothes peg! Don't worry Captain, that scar will make you look more authentic when you play pirates now!

Baby Pirate has a new identity... Cranky Cowboy!

My favourite sulky cowboy!

Baby Pirate is growing up so quickly I can hardly absorb the changes. He swims in the pool now unassisted. Well, with the bubble on but he does NOT like anyone to hold him or indeed hover around him. He adores playing with his big brother's Thomas trains and the vintage Little People toys. He is obsessed with his beloveds, "Witchard" (a lion soft toy) and "Beee-arrr" (a winnie the pooh bear). He is the polar opposite of N, who did not form an attachment to any soft toys or blankies, whereas H almost always has one of his beloveds in his arms 0r is dragging his blanket (a muslin wrap) around the house/garden/neighborhood with him. I am trying to confine the comfort items to the house, hence the sulky face in the above photos! He is eating us out of house and home and has a worrying sweet tooth! He loves going for walks around the neighborhood in the pram or sitting on the back of my bike in the toddler seat as we ride around the nearby lagoon/lake and wetlands. Every morning without fail he asks to go to the beach and looks so crestfallen if I say no. He has the most divine smile and has a full compliment of teeth,yes even the 2 year old molars! (Don't you know you are six months early stupid teeth?). He is already kicking a soccer ball around quite proficiently and is currently eyeing off the Captain's old balance bike. It won't be long before R starts grooming him to win the Tour de France.

Baby Pirate's Digs

Now for the little one's room, this is still a work in progress so please excuse the cowboy/nautical theme clash and the lack of toy storage. Not sure if I want to go down the expedit path again (see the Captain's room), but I am not a huge fan of toy boxes either. Off to google toy storage ideas now!

The Captain's Bedroom

After seeing The House that A-M Built's (I don't know how to post a link otherwise I would!) beautiful boys bedroom and playroom, I decided to take some pictures of the Captain's room. I am now a bit sad that I never thought to take photos of his room at Clovelly or Seaforth. Tomorrow I will take some of Baby Pirate's room, although his room has more of a baby Cowboy theme. If I could get The Captain to part with the cowboy night light I would put that in The Baby's room but N adores it. I totally understand his reluctance to part with it though, it is one of my favorite things in our house!

Pirates who would be Kings (of the wild things anyway).

When we went to pick up the trampoline that we, I mean Santa, gave the boys for Christmas they were handing out crowns as part of a Where the Wild Things Are promotion. There is endless scope for imaginary play with a crown and the boys have been having a wonderful time with them. Instead of seeing little Max's running about they remind me of Christopher Robin though. Totally adorable!

The Baby is saying so many words now, even some litte sentences. His first proper word (other than mumma/dadda) was "yucky" which came out of the cheeky monkey's mouth for the first time while we were on holiday in Palm Cove last year and has now been added to with "no no no no" and "mine mine mine" (that one is to be screeched), "Iwandis" and "Iwandat" (I would like this/that please dearest sweet Mummy), "cwacka (cracker), sausiges (his favorite), fishie (his second favorite), bisky (biscuit) and too many other words and little sentences to mention. Sadly, we are still waiting for please, thank you, I love you mummy etc. The Captains' first word was boat and was quickly followed with peese (please) and sankkuu (thank you) however this early promise has failed to produce a refined boy with lovely manners. I still have to remind him several hundred times a day to say please and thank you.

Farewell Pup and Dink... (Imaginary Friends...)

Well, I assume that is how you spell their names anyway. They are, maybe were, the Captain's imaginary friends. They appeared in our lives just before Nicholas turned two. Actually for a long time it was only Pup and then I think Dink joined the family around the time the baby was born (Nicholas was two and nine months at the time). Pup clearly had no intention of being ousted by the arrival of a new sibling and thus needed to produce one of his own. Although, I don't think that they were actually brothers. Once as we were in the middle of crossing a busy road the Captain announced to me that Pup was from Southall in England and that Dink was also from Southall, but that they were born in different houses. Where Nicholas could have got the name Southall from is completely beyond me. Apart from this rather cryptic comment about their origins I really know very little about them. The only thing that Nicholas consistently said about Pup and Dink is that they were older than he was.

Their presence in our lives will not really be missed. I got very sick of buckling Pup into the middle of the backseat of the car (in between Captain and Baby's car seats) and laying a place at the table for him. Interestingly, Nic never complained that I didn't actually put food on the plate for him. Most embarassing (but equally as amusing) were outings to the playground. Nicholas would insist that he and Pup go on the swings together, so I would buckle Nicholas into his swing and then he would demand that I also buckle Pup into the swing next to his (yes, we had to wait for 2 swings to be empty next to each other). I would then have to stand and push both swings until invariably a child would appear wanting to use the apparently empty swing. I would then have to inform the imaginary Pup that it was time to stop swinging as someone else wanted a turn. All of this bizarre ritual carefully observed by Nicholas's beady little watchful eyes and the bemused eyes of other parents at the park.

Dink played a minor role and only appeared when necessary, if the game required extra particpants or if Nicholas needed to get rid of Pup temporarily. Particularly if Nicholas was confronted with the inevitable "why can't I see him?" he would conveniently send Pup off somewhere with Dink or else say that he had gone on holidays.



Pup really was a very good friend to Nicholas. He would generously take responsibility for any injuries suffered by the little one (if I knew how to insert a rolling eyes gif there would be one here!) He was a willing participant in all sorts of games devised by Nicholas and his parents let him do whatever he liked. Nicholas did try the old "but Pup is allowed to" and then when that failed to work upgraded to just doing whatever it was he wanted to. He then would whine as he was being dragged to yet another time out that Pup's mummy had said it was fine to colour in H's face with permanent marker, paint the (neighbours) dogs tail etc, etc. It was around the start of this behaviour that we stopped humouring Nicholas so much and started ignoring Pup and Dink and now it seems that they have moved on. I just asked the now 4 year old Nicholas where Pup and Dink are and he stopped eating lunch to thoughtfully tell me that they were imaginary people, but then quickly added, they are on holidays at Manly Beach (that was with a cheeky grin the little monkey!)