15th of January

 

When we parked for our swimming lesson there was a baby pigeon hanging around our car.  Harriet started fretting over it, since it was very trusting and let me pick it up and move it off our car (don't worry, I washed my hands very very thoroughly!  Eww!).  It really did seem a little at a loose end though and there weren't that many places for it to fly to.  Here Harriet is telling me just how the bird is certain to die a horrible death if we weren't to rescue it and place it in a forest full of crystal pools and fairy meadows (neglecting of course the adult pigeons she sees pecking in rubbish bins and lying as roadkill everywhere).  

Huzzah for the new swimming lessons for Ted though.  After discussing the night before how it was not seeing me that made him worried and not the class itself, he understood that quite easily and sprinted out of the pool to get to his lesson.  However when we got there his teacher wasn't in the pool yet (she was in the larger pool teaching older children I had noticed earlier) and he started getting worried that we weren't at the right place or that she wasn't coming.  Oh dear, things weren't looking good for Day II of swimming lessons.

But then hey, lookie at this, there was a new girl who was in another class who didn't want to be in it since the other two children were boys (quelle horreur!) and even had a male teacher (!shock!).  So I agreed to swap classes and Ted went to the new class.  And thank goodness he did.  Johnno, his new teacher, is totally awesome.  He managed to bring Ted from a crying little mess in my arms to a full class in the pool, diving under water and having a laugh and loads of fun.  I'm taking on board his little introduction question ("What did you have for breakfast?  No, no, let me guess. Pizza?  Spaghetti?"  etc.) since it even got Ted laughing and onside.  Perfect for starting shoots with nervous toddlers!

So Harriet and I sat right on the edge of the pool so he could see us, and waved to him and watched as he even made the teachers laugh a couple of times with his chat.  That's our Ted!

 

Swimming is hungry work, so afterwards we made a beeline for Iku.  The children were SO excited about going there, it's a real treat for them.  Every now and then we'll stop off on the way home from school, I'll do a run-out and buy them a rice ball or similar each as an after school snack.  To actually go inside and eat in the courtyard is  absolute luxury.  A luxury where on this particular day, we had just finished eating when we were ushered upstairs by the plumbers who were eager to...err...unblock something.  So we were in turn eager to leave.

 

Ted's leaving was tempered by his need to read (out loud and to himself) the little book of photos from his version of Charlie and the Chocolate Factory.  I'm sure most of you noticed (and were surprised) by the fact he has the Tim Burton re-release movie edition of the book.  That just happened to be the one I found at an op shop years ago when Harriet showed an interest in Roald Dahl (Ted pronounces it "Roald Dial" - so sweet).  If I had known it would become a firm favourite I would have insisted on a more traditional version. Although despite the little lift out of colour photos that Ted has made into his own little book, and the cover, everything inside is still exactly the same.

We then went into the shopping centre to find Ted some new goggles (he had been using Harriet's old baby goggles and they were so small for him they were pulling his eyes across into barely perceptible slits) and Harriet needed a new pair of swimming bottoms. She decided she wanted boardshorts, so off we went to investigate her options.  

We found Ted some almost purple goggles which fit across his eyes almost straight away, so that was a bonus.  But after almost an hour of scouring the department stores in the shopping centre (and this is on top of the weeks of looking in op shops I've done), we couldn't find anything that wasn't a.) ugly or b.) butt high.  Harriet wanted something colourful and at least halfway down to her knee.  Not much to ask, surely?  By the end of it I felt like I was crawling the walls to get out of that place. 

How people can find shopping relaxing is beyond me.  I was about to transform into some sort of were-creature after that much exposure to fluroescent lights.  How they burn!

 

Home time nowadays basically means Wonka time.  In today's incarnation, Ted (as Wonka) implored me to walk inside our bath because it was the chocolate river made solid through his magic.  We could (and I quote) "actually walk on the chocolate - it feels magnificent.  Go on Charlie Bucket, you won't go up the pipe like Augustus".  I gave it a go.  I'm like that, a total thrillseeker.

We had an agent come to give us a quote on our home about six months ago (no don't get excited - as much as we need to move it is still the stuff of financial  daydream). When she gave it the lookover she pronounced our bathroom "the smallest one she has ever seen in the inner west".  Well I was a little surprised but not completely - for example to fit myself and Ted and Harriet in the bathroom, one of us at least *has* to be standing in the bath (which, luckily, I was).





The reason for this visit was Harriet's potion shop.  She was now producing a mobile version (notice the Open/Closed sign around her neck?  I love those little touches).  So she poured me a glass of 'Yum Chum' (rosemary and poppy petals from the garden in water) and 'Poppies Galore!'.  These refreshments tided me over while we made dinner.

 

At this stage in our shopping cycle (ie: a few days out from our fruit and veg box), I usually scrounge around for whatever we have, throw it in a pot and serve it with rice.  Today was no different, however the resulting dish (loosely inspired by Jude Blereau's Calabacitas) with its tomatoes, corn kernels straight off the cobs, zucchini and cannellini beans, was a huge hit. In fact Ted ate so much he even had a second bowl of it, which is highly unusual given his general lack of interest in sitting down for dinner, let alone actually eating it.

 

 Ted has a very beautiful and simple belief in the power of flight.  He believes that if he just has the right spell at the right level of passion with the right conditions, he will fly (so he tells me).  Here he has told Harriet that apparently the broom needs two people.  I was so touched by just how much he wanted to fly and how deeply he believed in the ability for it to happen, that I picked him up on the broom, held him out at arms length and swung him around the backyard, over and over again.

Then I collapsed on the grass in a dead faint from physical exhaustion.

And just let it be known that I am desperate to cut Ted's hair.  He is absolutely insistent that he wants hair 'like a girl' so that he can 'be Annie'.  Me?  I want to cut it to about halfway down his ears.  It keeps getting in the way and driving *me* crazy.  I offered him the option of a hair scarf when he complained about the hair getting in his eyes whilst broom flying, which he accepted and once he was wearing it, well blow me down if he doesn't completely rock every piece of obscure clothing he pops on.  The child is a true fashion zeitgeist.