This is What Two Looks Like

Ok so we're on a 100% success rate. Two for two. 100% success at having two children out of nappies by the time they're two. Ted has just woken up and is wearing a nappy in this first photo, but to be honest he is mostly waking up with only a small wee in there each morning. I'm a bit nervous to take him out of nappies for the nights as well but I think he'll be there soon. The days are no problem - in fact I really did keep him in nappies for longer than he needed because I was a bit lazy at making sure he was reminded often enough while we were out.

The other 100% success? Facial injury for the second birthday. Last night Ted was insanely tired and fell over one of the limestone rocks we have in the new backyard and seriously grazed the underneath of his chin. You can't see it in the photos (small mercy) but poor little love was howling at the time. You may not have known Harriet when she fell face first off the swing for her second birthday but believe me, the story has entered family folklore around here.

Anyhoo, we went out to The Bower yesterday and bought the little selection of pots and bowls you see there on the mulch. The mulch of OUR NEW SPUNKY BACKYARD. I'll blog about that later because we still have a couple of things to buy (like a shed to house our paint and Flymo and a clothesline to render the clotheshorse finally useless). But today was all about Ted.

Having watermelon for breakfast when it's stinking hot outside? Awesome! In fact it's so awesome you can turn into a freaky-eyed melon monster apparently. Ted is going through a food-as-tactile-experience phase at the moment. Not so much on the food-as-nutrition though. In fact for the past month it's been back to breastmilk basics; it's been a rare moment for me to not have Ted on me in some form (feeding, hanging, playing, crying). You may notice the distinct lack of photos recently too. January was pretty much a write off due to illness (from me) and clingy-ness (from Ted). It's a little tricky to take a photo when there's an extra 12kgs hanging off your front and you have another head directly in your field of vision.

So with that in mind today I made a conscious effort to take out the camera and right the wrongs of our photo free past. It drives James crazy (because I have to give him the camera to hold and the strap is too short and all sorts of other issues such as it's NINETY FREAKING PERCENT HUMIDITY ALL THE FREAKING TIME LATELY....*ahem*) but seeing as it was his birthday, no correspondence would be entered into.

So what do you do when you're Ted and you're two? Well apparently you wake up cranky. And clumsy. This is not a good combination, especially if you prefer being happy over being sad. After a terrible day yesterday with Harriet today she was in fine form. Happy! Helpful! Empathetic! It was as if (gasp shock horror) she actually listened to us yesterday. So Ted chatted to Nana and Grandpa on the webcam and had fun on the swing and watered the garden (and me...and the concrete and the fence) until he finally succumbed to sleep.

A couple of hours later when he woke up it was all systems GO for Ted's birthday! First stop? Train ride! This is him opposite the train station. He was so excited, so stoked, that his face looked like a gasping fish for most of the time we were near the train.

And then when we got *on* the train? Wow. He was just in stunned silence. He does this really cute thing where he bites his bottom lip when he's overwhelmed (in a good way - if he's overwhelmed in a bad way he just cries and runs for me of course). He kept punctuating his stunned silence with the odd phrase, such as "inside train" and "get on train" and the like. Too cute I tells ya.

We went into the city with not much real direction on what we were going to do except the master plan present of going on the monorail. So when we arrived and realised we'd not had any lunch and we walked past a new sushi train that was holding an opening special...well...the day just wrote itself really. Ted loves sushi (is there an Australian toddler who doesn't? It seems to be a staple for nearly every toddler I know). Here he's grappling the avocado sushi with chopsticks with his characteristic style and grace. He stabs the sushi a few times with the chopstick and then grabs it in his hand and sucks the inside out. What a guy.

After consuming half his weight in sushi and tempura (mmm...deep fried vegetables - we should have known Ted would be a fan) Ted was on a mission. A mission to move! He went racing down the corridor, legs and arms akimbo, demonstrating his true inability to run in spectacular, broad-grinned fashion. He found the escalator and enjoyed trips up and down that particular mode of transport until we convinced him to try another one - the monorail! *cue James and Cass singing the monorail song from The Simpsons ad nauseum*


You haven't heard cute until you've heard Ted saying 'monorail'. It's kind of a mishmash between moe and whale and interstellar-travel or something like that anyway. But he could barely say the word when we were at the station because he was so overwhelmed by the presence of the said device itself pulling into the station.

We did a full lap and really at some point I had to pity the older couple plus one who were in our little cab. Harriet proceeded to control the seating arrangement with typical conducter's voice (minus the microphone but somehow still at the same volume) and whenever the doors opened she'd yell out to everyone on the platform about the seating status in our cab. We knew the whole monorail must have been full when passengers actually started moving into our section!

We alighted near the mall in order to fulfill the final point on our Tedtown Birthday Transportation Extravaganza. James looked it up on his phone (thank you mobile communications in the 21st century) and we made a beeline for the Max Brenner shop in the city. Mmmmm...an experience the whole family could enjoy (and did!). Ted saw the shop and starting yelling "Chocket! Ted Chocket!" It was tiny but we managed to score a corner bench seat, woot. Ted had his own little tub of 'chocket' and strawberries and it's safe to say that a.) he couldn't finish it b.) about a quarter of it went into his belly and c.) about a quarter of it was on his face. He was, yet again, rendered silent by his complete awe of the magic experience he was happening. We were all rendered silent by the over-rich chocket experience ourselves.

As an added bonus we found in the mall:

1.) a balloon bending clown who Ted was terrified of but who made him a funky flower which he loves

2.) a little digger behind some mesh which Ted was able to get up pretty close to investigate

3.) some double dutch skipping maniacs from Japan who had the children absolutely and completely enthralled. I took some video which I'll upload to Youtube when we're not having our internet shaped.

The train ride home - awesome. Ted got off the train, saw one on the opposite platform, pointed excitedly and said "Go dere! Go on train NOW!". I think he thought it was going to be a full 24hrs of train madness and to be fair I think it would have been a totally tops way to celebrate his birthday. but instead we went home and enjoyed our new backyard. Oh yeah. It was SWEET! Pumpkin risotto was his dinner of choice and we all ate with half gusto (the chocket still a recent memory) and then it was Ted, the bed and lights out.

Happy birthday Ted. You are my sunshine.


Photo credits in this post to James for Ted at the sushi train and Harriet looking coquettish on the monorail.

Also: for those who don't remember, here is the post about Teddy's birth from all that time ago: http://spytheharriet.blogspot.com/2009/02/hi-teddy.html