Married life

This morning Ladybird and Little Bear got married. It was a grand affair: all the Sylvanians came and Ladybird and Little Bear wore clothes specially made for the occaision.

Tonight I helped them undress and put them to bed. Ladybird with K and Little Bear with H.

They honeymoon period wasn't very long. Perhaps they'll get conjugal visits.

In character

M - Weary and long suffering Mum.
C - Sensitive and slightly melodramatic young Child.

1:30am a couple of nights ago.

Noises off - creak of door, pad of small feet belonging to Child.

C: Mu-um
M: Hngft
C: I can't sleep.
M: Do you need to go to the toilet?
C: Mmm.
M: Come on then.

C and M exit.

A long time passes.

Voices heard from outside door:

M: Time to go back to your bed.
C: I want to be in your bed.
M: I know, but you need to go back to your bed.
C: I won't be able to sleep in my bed.
M: Why won't you be able to sleep in your bed?
C: Sister is crying.
M: Why is she crying?
C: She says her ear hurts.

M's footsteps rushing upstairs to her other daughter who despite being stoic is whimpering pathetically in pain.

Special theory of evolution

A small figure in a nightie just appeared at the living room door and said pathetically:

"H doesn't believe that a long time ago people looked like gorillas and lived in cages."

Capitalism at play

H waiting for her first visit from the tooth fairy:


Yesterday she lost her second baby tooth. I'm pleased to report this time she just left a flower for the tooth fairy.

Winter whining

Where have I been? What have I been doing? Well mostly I haven't been posting because D has commandeered my lovely little laptop and turned it into a thing that is plugged into a huge screen I can't sit far enough away from which makes a horrible high pitched whining noise. And we all had awful 'flu. And I have new lenses in my glasses and I think they are not quite right.

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As we drove back from the library today H listed all the things she thought of in order from most to least liked:

1. Mummy [:-)]
   
2. lego
3. Pony [Kay's new toy]
   
4. star [??]
   
5. doing sudoku with Daddy
6. Big Pig
   
7. Fimble [her buddy]
   
8. pink
9. chocolate [to eat]
   
10. yellow
11. purple
12. indigo
13. orange
14. blue
15. black
16. grey
17. brown
18. clear
19. ice cream
20. bananas
21. mosquitoes
22. planes
23. sun [because it makes her too hot]

Expecting someone taller

H & K don't like to compete with each other. They like to be first equal. If we offer a reward they like to receive it simultaneously even if one of them earned it first. This is particularly true of K who likes everything to be fair so long as she's first. I think that I needed a caesarian because K was so upset that H was being born first, if they could have come out simultaneously, or K first, they both would have been fine.

We don't have a height chart, marks on a doorway or whatever. Largely this is because I was too caught up in the present for the first year or more to look to the future and partly it is because having not started one it never seemed like the right time to start. Now I realise that for our family, for H & K, it is the right thing to do. Currently, despite information to the contrary K believes she is taller than H and H believes that she is the same height as K and everyone is happy. Who needs objectivity?

The read red red dog

H wrote a book today. It says:

H___.
The reb reD dog.

WAz A phtim Tem was A dog iT WoT And WoT one dAY The dog goT BLid iT one dAY goT reD.
ZBLZZ
Went THe dog evre BDee LAft And LAft The dog waz ree zAd BcZ TAy Woz LAFT.

And again with a translation

H___.
H___.

The reb reD dog.
The red, red dog.


WAz A phtim Tem Te was A dog
Once upon a time there was a dog.

iT WoT And WoT
It walked and walked.

one dAY The dog goT BLid
One day the dog got blind.

iT one dAY goT reD.
It, one day, got red.

ZBLZZ
SPLOSH

Went THe dog
went the dog.

evre BDee LAft And LAft
Everybody laughed and laughed.

The dog waz ree zAd BcZ TAy Woz LAFT.
The dog was very sad because they [were] laughing.

My budding Beverley Randell.

Deux billets doux

K talked me into buying her a fairy stationery set. The first thing she did with it was write a letter to the boy who lives three doors up the road. It said: "R__ I love you K__". She also enclosed a picture she drew and many of her most special stickers. I aided and abetted her posting it.

D was worried R's older siblings would give him grief about receiving a love letter. Actually someone, I think his sister and mother, helped him write a lovely reply.

When they were at crèche together R was the person H & K complained about most often. Now they are in school they don't hang out or play together, in fact they seem to have very little in common. It isn't a one off thing though, K wrote a letter a week or two ago which said "I love [cousin] xoxoxoxox I love [another cousin] xoxoxoxox I love mum xoxoxoxox I love dad xoxoxoxox I love R__ xoxoxoxox".

Key performance indicators

On Thursday we went to H & K's first parent-teacher interview and got their first school reports. They are doing so well at school. I am so proud. The report grades them A: almost always, S: sometimes or N: not yet, for a variety of things. For example for Reading they are graded on "Enjoys books", "Shows an understanding of the story" and "Interested in reading activities". They both got As for everything!

At the interview their teacher said she'd asked a few of the children in the class who they like to play with and many had included H and K in their answers. I am very pleased that not only are my children doing very well academically but they are also socially successful. The first is something I found easy and the second is not.

I feel this reflects what entirely splendid people I have the privilege of nurturing and how well we have muddled through.

Some mothers do 'ave 'em

The other day I offered H & K grated chocolate on their cereal if they got dressed efficiently (for some very responsible parental reason I'm sure). K asked for not just grated chocolate but also two lumps. I said I'd give her some grated and two lumps but it would still be the same total amount of chocolate as H so it would be fair. At which point H piped up "I don't mind if K has more chocolate than me."

How can someone five be so mature?

So I gave K a tiny bit more chocolate than H including two wee lumps and wondered off. Next thing I hear is H very politely thanking K who has spontaneously given her one of the lumps.

Repeat after me: Awwwww.

Aren't they amazing?

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While I'm blogged about them I'll also fill you in on the rest of the answers H & K gave to the question "What do you want to learn at school this year?"

H: How to do all kinds of flips.
K: How to swim.

Then prompted for social responses:

H: How to make games that everybody agrees with.
K: How to make friends that will be kind.

Then prompted for academic responses:

H: How to read books.

Holy Monday

On Monday I got a call from school - H had banged her head and could I come up and see her. I arrived to find a rather reduced H in the sick room with a bloody hat. It is always impressive how much head wounds bleed. She spent the rest of the school day colouring at D's work so as not to interfere with my busy schedule as an at-home mum.

H says she banged her head falling off a ladder in the play area. K says H fell of a handrail onto a concrete path (outside the play area). I'm slightly worried that the discrepancy might be caused by H blacking out but I think it much more likely that she was on the handrail and she knows that that is slightly naughty. My children tend to be over cautious so I try not to make a big fuss when they are brave enough to have accidents.

K was upset when I took H home. Being at school alone is hard when you're a twin. Then to further unsettle her her first baby tooth came out. It is a sign of maternal insanity that I am proud that my children are dentally precocious. First baby teeth at 5 months, first adult teeth at 5 years. D and I tooth fairied together.

How do their brains work?

I asked K what she wanted to learn at school this year and she said "How to die." Leaving me groping forlornly for a response. Then she continued blithely "I mean how to swim."

Fairy wishes

K no longer thinks she is a fairy. She does very much want to be a fairy. When she makes a wish it is to turn into a fairy. Today she got her first wiggly tooth, sadly it will be me that this turns into a tooth fairy.

P.S. School is great.

School is ruthless

H & K start school on Thursday. The last couple of days we've been practising getting up and walking to school on time. I am looking forward to them starting school but also apprehensive. I remember the social battlefield of the playground all to vividly. School taught me that I was uncool, unpopular and too smart. These are not the lessons I want my children to learn.

I do want them to learn the joy of academic success, make friends, develop independence and participate in our culture. Here's hoping.

The midget's right hand

Impact of time out:

"This is my gun," said H. "If I shoot you with it you have to stop and think about what you did."

Worldview

Some photos taken by H & K on my phone, captions in quotation marks are what they said at the time they took the photos:

"mummy's back"

"purple flowers"

"pretty flower"

"beautiful picture"

"my pushchair"

"Shirley"

"Andy, smile!"

under the painting easel

"washing"

cow teapot

H

Independence begins at home

Yesterday I filled in the forms for H & K to go to school next year. There were enrolment forms, contact forms, dental clinic forms, public health forms, new entrant forms and even ICT user agreements for them to sign themselves. Today my babies are so grown up they went to the postbox without me.

Cultural contamination and begging

H & K love Halloween so for the last few years I have been perfecting the art of attracting trick or treaters to our house. This year we got about 70 which is astounding in a country that doesn't go in for it much. It helps we have easy access and live in a street with lots of families. My technique is:

1. Decorate so people can tell you know it is Halloween. We stuck pictures of ghosts and jack o'lanterns which H & K coloured in in the front windows and tied some balloons outside.
2. Be generous so kids will tell each other it is worth visiting. Three wrapped lollies each is considered generous around here.
   
3. Look harmless. Two pre-schoolers jumping up and down on the garage roof in their pyjamas does the trick.
   

Wednesday evening from 6 'til 7:30 H & K alternated between jumping up and down on the garage roof in their pyjamas and woolly hats, and rushing downstairs to answer the door.

Angst in her pants

H is very good at putting two and two together. Sometimes she goes a little to far though and makes five. Our student nanny is from Melbourne, yesterday, when I went to Kelburn with H, I realised she had renamed Kelburn to Melbourne in her mind. This kind of thing generates wonderful malapropisms. She had a conversation with Damon about the "Terrible Arks" it took him a while to figure out she meant the "Wearable Arts".

One day I was on my own putting H & K to bed. They had just got settled and were sweetly snuggled down in their beds and I was just about to give them each a kiss, close the door and give a sigh of relief, when H leapt up and started wildly scratching her bottom. My heart sank. I thought I'd finished my motherly duties for the day and now there was a problem. I even knew the cause of the problem - overenthusiastic wiping. And as I pulled myself back into mummy mode I said:

"Do you have bottom angst?" I thought it was a rhetorical question. I thought it was a way to take it lightly, remind myself that some problems are unsolvable and lighten my mood.

"Yes." H replied with absolute conviction. "I have bottom ants."

Artistic license

K has been drawing a lot of fairies recently. She also draws people she knows: H, K, our nanny, me. These people are often depicted with wings.

A week or two ago D overheard H lecturing K: "Remember if you're drawing Daddy don't give him any hair."

Then on Father's Day K bounced up to D with a picture and said "Here you go Daddy, here's a picture of you, but I can't draw boys so I drew you wearing a dress."

At which H piped up "I like drawing fairies."

I think D is beginning to develop a complex.