25th and 26th of January

 25th of January



 Yesterday I got the chance to it down and talk.  All day.  It was awesome!  Amelia and I embraced the outdoor setting with glee, set our butts down and barely moved from there for hours and hours.  Eventually we did succumb to moving inside - the pouring rain outside and the constant demands for more and more food made it feasible to move inside for supervisory purposes, but that was about all we did.

Amelia and I have freakily similar lives.  It kind of creeps me out if I think about it too much, so luckily there's no time to reflect as we zip through conversation topics at breakneck speed in order to complete a sentence before my next round of "Mama! Mama!"s starts.  The older girls spent their time engaged in very serious fairy work, which Wolfie and Ted tried to muscle in on (unsuccessfully).  So Ted turned his focus to making sure I watched every little move he made, every little moment of acrobatic prowess he displayed and replied to every single Mama he uttered.  Oh yeah, he's one of mine.

The pouring rain timed perfectly with Amelia et. al's walk outside to catch the bus - it poured and poured and POURED.  I then had to go out and drive in it to pick up our organic fruit and vegetable box and the traffic was beyond hideous.  I do believe every learner driver in the inner west was out on the road too.

But when I got back the light of Ted's life had popped in for a visit.  Lisa!  Ted had been looking forward to her visit all day - prompted as it was by his insistence that I text her in the morning to see if she was coming over any time soon.

Twas a late night in to bed for these little ones.  And even later for Jimbo and I as we watched (on recommendation from Alina) the BBC show Sherlock.  It was awesome!  I didn't know it was written by the superstar Steven Moffat.  I have a little crush on Moffat, he's totally fantastic and I had no idea that Sherlock was written by him (and I also enjoy Mark Gatiss who is co-creator, and it's hard not to look at him in this and remember his characters from League of Gentlemen).  It's like Dr Who for grown-ups. 


26th of January
 
Happy Day Off to you and yours!  I started the day with Ted crawling over me in a sodden nappy to grab the recently acquired Hairy Maclary omnibus.  I should always remember that the omnibus is a trap for young players and refuse to buy them.  There's no turning back from that first page - you are suddenly indebted to reading all the books and stories within.  Beware!

So I resolved to wake up and wash the bedclothes, however I was distracted by the water play that suddenly happened in the playroom.  I can't even remember quite what it was - it was before 9am on a public holiday, and we'd been up until 1am the night before, so the concept of memory was laughable anyway.  Next thing I know there's a cupcake stall being held outside (if you click on the photo you'll see James tasting the wares in one hand and clutching his coffee for dear life in the other), I've made a smoothie and Ted is naked.  This photo really does typify our days; Ted naked, Harriet in inappropriately over-warm pyjamas, James drinking a coffee and me taking a photo.


Honestly I have no idea how I got suckered into it, but Ted was drinking the strawberry smoothie he requested mere minutes after I had protested that I wasn't awake enough to operate heavy machinery (or dairy products).

There is just so much that is Ted about this photo.  Just the way he half leans over to perform little acts like this, the way he's pursing his lips to take a sip, just something.  Definitely a photo for the parental unit and for everyone else to just shake their heads at.



Over breakfast James suggested we drive out to a dam.  Sure, why the hell not?  So off we trotted to Warragamba Dam.  It has a very spunky Visitors Centre and, most importantly, big valves.  Big green valves.  Big green valves you can climb in












The dam itself was impressive.  It was hard to gain a sense of perspective on size because there just wasn't anything familiar to line it up against.  It's difficult to explain but although I intellectually know it was big, I still didn't feel that it was as big as I know it must have been.  Err...I sound like I stayed asleep for most of the day, huh?


We browsed around inside the little museum they have there about the construction of the dam, lake dynamics (did you know the study of lakes is called limnology?  You do now!), treatment of the water, and it even had a huge rock sample they had removed in the 1940s at the start of construction.  I didn't take any photos in there because they had a very polite little sign at the entrance requesting me to not do so.  So I didn't.  I'm not too sure what government water secrets they're trying to keep quiet and limnology enthusiasts they're trying to draw there, but I get quite a kick out of little museums, they tickle my fancy.  This was new, having been constructed in 2009, well written and pretty. 

Even the children's section was cute - there were a few different jigsaws around the place and activities laid out on some tables for the children to engage with.  There was even a little reading corner filled with books about water.  I read Ted a most gorgeous book about the different forms water takes and now have no idea on what the book was called.  Argh!  I might have to call them, he loved that book.

Harriet filled out the little sheet that says "My Favourite Thing at Warragamba Dam" with no illustration but a sentence "waas lorning haw the dam was made".  In return for handing it in at the desk she received some postcards which were very well received - she looked through those four images time and time again.


 Ted was in a crazy mood and kept running around like a loon.  Here he's checking out the information board about the valve.  Important stuff.







We stopped in at a friend's get together on the way home, but our two were so hungry they just hovered near the food table like self conscious teenagers at a party, so we bundled them home for food.

I recommend the dam, it was really cute, felt totally random and on the way home I bought two litres of fresh goats milk for $10.  Got to love the small scale farmer.