Mum gave the girls some fairy costumes - there are two fooffy tulle skirts and two singlets with tulle wings on the back.
If the girls' bedroom door is shut, Hazel hammers on it and howls SKIRTS SKIRTS WINGS SKIRTS! She likes to wear one on her head and one like a skirt, plus a set of wings. This makes her look like Cyndi Lauper. Yesterday Hazel wore her wings to the library.
Ivy is not so keen on the skirt, but she likes the wings.
At the moment we are having a Sleep Issue. They've had colds for a couple of weeks, and it's hard to go to sleep when you are all snotty and stuffed up. Now that they are mostly better, Hazel is holding on to her new habit of howling at bedtime. She neeeeeds a mummy to hold her hand while she drops off. Last night I decided that she is well enough now for me to play hard-ball again. Nasty Mummy rides back into town.
So tonight there will be no hand-holding. There will be brief visits to tell her that it's all OK and it's sleep-time. There will be no talking and no patting. The poor little girl will re-learn how to drop off to sleep on her own, and I hope Ivy will sleep through the whole debacle.
Thursday, June 24, 2010
Tuesday, June 15, 2010
Little pitchers have big ears
In the car on the way home from the zoo, Trudi mentioned that we'd better work out how to use the child lock on the car doors. One day one of the girls would have a go at opening a door. I agreed, and theorised that there might be a latch thingy on each door that disabled the inside door handle. Must work that out one day.
A few streets away from home, Hazel opened her door.
Trudi stopped the car, I ran round and closed the door, and we got home with no more door-based experiments. Once the girls were napping, I read the car manual and went outside to initiate Child Lock.
A few streets away from home, Hazel opened her door.
Trudi stopped the car, I ran round and closed the door, and we got home with no more door-based experiments. Once the girls were napping, I read the car manual and went outside to initiate Child Lock.
Hippopotamus
Hippopotamus
Rhinoceros
Elephant
Emerald
Amethyst
These are words that Hazel says (Ivy too, if she can be bothered). I think they are great. What ace little kids they are.
Yesterday we went to the Werribee zoo again. We got there early (it opens at 9), and when we arrived at the hippo pool, there was no-one about. Well it looked like that last time too, until someone surfaced to breathe - we saw NOSTRILS! So we hung about waiting for nostrils. Then a gate clanged open and a hippo peered out of its enclosure - they were being let out of their night-time quarters, back into their pools. We had a marvellous show of hippos lurching over dry land into their pools, and surfacing a long way away.
The male was in the furthest pool so we didn't see much of him. He bellowed GOOD MORNING in hippopotamus-ish to the ladies. Then there was a female on her own in the middle pool. Not sure why she was on her own. Then in the closest pool were two adult females and a baby. They nosed the lone female through the fence to say GOOD MORNING (in hippopotamus-ish). Then they all leapt and frolicked in the water. When they walk they look damaged and in pain, but in the water a hippo is a graceful beast.
The cheetahs are not on display - their exhibit is being renovated. Sad.
The zebras are neat and clean. Their stripes are clearly delineated, and they stand very still to give us a good view of stripy precision. We ate mandarins while we appreciated them.
The 40-minute safari bus ride was not a huge success. The girls were not that keen on seeing animals from a bus. Ivy has been sad and clingy for a couple of weeks, and chose a moment just before the bus ride to recover. Someone pulled the cord in the middle of her back, and she became a jiggling, laughing, giggling, manic wiggler. She was happy enough to look at the giraffes, bison, antelope etc for a few seconds each, but then she went back to bouncing, jouncing, squeaking, gasping, and generally carrying on like an elated pork chop. It's nice to have Happy Ivy back.
Rhinoceros
Elephant
Emerald
Amethyst
These are words that Hazel says (Ivy too, if she can be bothered). I think they are great. What ace little kids they are.
Yesterday we went to the Werribee zoo again. We got there early (it opens at 9), and when we arrived at the hippo pool, there was no-one about. Well it looked like that last time too, until someone surfaced to breathe - we saw NOSTRILS! So we hung about waiting for nostrils. Then a gate clanged open and a hippo peered out of its enclosure - they were being let out of their night-time quarters, back into their pools. We had a marvellous show of hippos lurching over dry land into their pools, and surfacing a long way away.
The male was in the furthest pool so we didn't see much of him. He bellowed GOOD MORNING in hippopotamus-ish to the ladies. Then there was a female on her own in the middle pool. Not sure why she was on her own. Then in the closest pool were two adult females and a baby. They nosed the lone female through the fence to say GOOD MORNING (in hippopotamus-ish). Then they all leapt and frolicked in the water. When they walk they look damaged and in pain, but in the water a hippo is a graceful beast.
The cheetahs are not on display - their exhibit is being renovated. Sad.
The zebras are neat and clean. Their stripes are clearly delineated, and they stand very still to give us a good view of stripy precision. We ate mandarins while we appreciated them.
The 40-minute safari bus ride was not a huge success. The girls were not that keen on seeing animals from a bus. Ivy has been sad and clingy for a couple of weeks, and chose a moment just before the bus ride to recover. Someone pulled the cord in the middle of her back, and she became a jiggling, laughing, giggling, manic wiggler. She was happy enough to look at the giraffes, bison, antelope etc for a few seconds each, but then she went back to bouncing, jouncing, squeaking, gasping, and generally carrying on like an elated pork chop. It's nice to have Happy Ivy back.
Sunday, June 13, 2010
Bus car, bus chair, bus hat
Hazel has a joke! She made it up herself.
It started when she turned round in her high-chair and pointed to the little red chair. "Bus chair!" she said ten times until I got it. Laughed. Then she pointed to her plate, "Bus plate!" And it goes on. Bus mummy, bus Ivy, bus cat, bus train. Bus pool, bus ball, bus balloon.
It started when she turned round in her high-chair and pointed to the little red chair. "Bus chair!" she said ten times until I got it. Laughed. Then she pointed to her plate, "Bus plate!" And it goes on. Bus mummy, bus Ivy, bus cat, bus train. Bus pool, bus ball, bus balloon.
Tuesday, June 8, 2010
Mummy Meanie
It occurred to us the other day that the girls probably don't know our names. So we introduced ourselves.
They pronounce our names with their own cute little accent. Trudi is "Turdy" and I am "Meanie". Great.
They pronounce our names with their own cute little accent. Trudi is "Turdy" and I am "Meanie". Great.
Hanging bears
Ivy loves those bats.
After our visit to Yarra Bend, where the bats sleep, the girls talked about bats a lot. Their conversations are limited, so a narration of our visit goes like this:
Bats.
Bats.
Sleeping.
Bats.
Trees
Bats.
Bats!!
Weeks after our visit, Ivy started a new game, called Hanging Bears. She gets her bed-bear (a little light-green bead-filled bear with no name as yet) and takes him into the kitchen, where she drapes him over the handle of a drawer. She then stands back and says "Hanging! Hanging!". Then she does the same with Hazel's bed-bear (who is the same as Ivy's but dark green). Then she takes them down and re-hangs them on another drawer handle.
It took me a week of watching this game to realise that it was about the bats, who hang upside down to sleep. Now I've started hanging Ivy upside down so she can be a bat, which she likes.
We might need to go back to Yarra Bend soon.
This morning when I was putting on her shoes, Ivy said "Bye bye toes!" to the foot which was being shod. Then she said it again to the other foot.
After our visit to Yarra Bend, where the bats sleep, the girls talked about bats a lot. Their conversations are limited, so a narration of our visit goes like this:
Bats.
Bats.
Sleeping.
Bats.
Trees
Bats.
Bats!!
Weeks after our visit, Ivy started a new game, called Hanging Bears. She gets her bed-bear (a little light-green bead-filled bear with no name as yet) and takes him into the kitchen, where she drapes him over the handle of a drawer. She then stands back and says "Hanging! Hanging!". Then she does the same with Hazel's bed-bear (who is the same as Ivy's but dark green). Then she takes them down and re-hangs them on another drawer handle.
It took me a week of watching this game to realise that it was about the bats, who hang upside down to sleep. Now I've started hanging Ivy upside down so she can be a bat, which she likes.
We might need to go back to Yarra Bend soon.
This morning when I was putting on her shoes, Ivy said "Bye bye toes!" to the foot which was being shod. Then she said it again to the other foot.
Thursday, June 3, 2010
Child lock
Today Hazel climbed onto the teetery hall table, and it leapt out from under her and they both fell in a tangle. She now has a nasty bruise across her cheek. Hours later, when Trudi came home, Hazel reported to her, "Table fell over. Cheek."
In other news, a month ago, I would have told you that our dishwasher did not have a child lock. Now, I know that it does. What happened in the interim? Hazel.
Hazel has been keen on the dishwasher for ages. When she was first learning to stand, she would haul herself upright so that she could press the beeping Pause button again and again. More recently, she's learned to press the On/Off button too, and it was clearly only going to get worse. So I got the manual out and tried to initiate Child Lock. I followed the instructions with no success. Then I googled the situation, and found lots of people who have our (cheapy) dishwasher complaining about how the child lock won't kick in. So I gave up.
Then a month ago, I found that I could not make the dishwasher go. The little display said CL! All I had to do was hold down the Program button for ten seconds and it all worked again. This means that someone (probably Hazel) has fiddled with the dishwasher to the extent that Child Lock was initiated.
Since then, Child Lock has worked like a dream. Hazel can still Pause the damn thing, but she can't make it start up without my help.
If I was the kind of person who saw portents in their kids' every action, I would suggest that Hazel will be a technical genius of some sort. But I'm not so I won't. Instead I think that our dishwasher sucks. When it dies we will get a Miele if we have a spare $2000.
In other news, a month ago, I would have told you that our dishwasher did not have a child lock. Now, I know that it does. What happened in the interim? Hazel.
Hazel has been keen on the dishwasher for ages. When she was first learning to stand, she would haul herself upright so that she could press the beeping Pause button again and again. More recently, she's learned to press the On/Off button too, and it was clearly only going to get worse. So I got the manual out and tried to initiate Child Lock. I followed the instructions with no success. Then I googled the situation, and found lots of people who have our (cheapy) dishwasher complaining about how the child lock won't kick in. So I gave up.
Then a month ago, I found that I could not make the dishwasher go. The little display said CL! All I had to do was hold down the Program button for ten seconds and it all worked again. This means that someone (probably Hazel) has fiddled with the dishwasher to the extent that Child Lock was initiated.
Since then, Child Lock has worked like a dream. Hazel can still Pause the damn thing, but she can't make it start up without my help.
If I was the kind of person who saw portents in their kids' every action, I would suggest that Hazel will be a technical genius of some sort. But I'm not so I won't. Instead I think that our dishwasher sucks. When it dies we will get a Miele if we have a spare $2000.
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