Tuesday, January 08, 2013

8th of February


 
This morning James valiantly left for work in the already rising heat, while the three of us slept on, blissfully unaware of his deliciously sweet touches on making sure we were going to stay cool today.  He lowered all the blinds, filled water jugs for the fridge, and closed doors.  
I guess he was so busy seeing to the temperature control that he missed the demise of a member of our family.  When I woke and was getting breakfast foods ready (frozen blueberries really are the food for a heat wave), I noticed the spectre of a fish floating without much direction...close to the surface...belly up.  Oh dear.  Teddy-fish had died overnight.

  

Poor Ted was distraught.  He sobbed and railed against his death, hugging me and yelling "I want to get another fish NOW".  Harriet was completely nonplussed and was not perhaps at her most compassionate (I'm trying to be polite but in reality the girl was blunt - way too blunt for a sensitive, grieving three year old brother).  We took Teddy-fish outside and dug him a little grave just where we had pulled up the zucchinis the day before.  I said a few words, at how much Teddy-fish had loved having his food pushed towards him on the end of a finger (truly!), how he had loved us and how we had loved him.  

Ted started sobbing at this and yelled "Stop talking about him Mama, it makes me too sad!".  So I gently and quietly laid him to rest in his grave.  Harriet came over with a poppy to lie with him.  She then gave one to Ted to place on top of his grave.  And then it was back inside to clean out the tank and make sure Blackie was ok.  Looks like it's another trip to the fish shop.


You may have heard it was a little warm in NSW today.  It was forecast to be 43, and I'm guessing it hit that mark.  We stayed inside and honestly, at about 12pm I was sitting in our lounge room feeling a little cool!  We don't have air-conditioning (seriously all these people praising their air-conditioning, don't you see the irony there?  Or is climate scepticism a prerequisite for purchasing air-con?) but with a little planning and a pedestal fan we managed to stay lovely and cool all day.  In order to keep the children out of the play room though (since it is drenched in sun all day) we decided on a day of movies.  MovieS, yes.  We all watched Stuart Little together, since we hadn't seen it and Ted is quite a sensitive soul.  I did have to fast forward a couple of short sequences which I imagine aren't an issue for most others but Ted was worried about.

And then Ted requested Willy Wonka.  He LOVES to play Willy Wonka since he received the pop up abridged book from Lisa for his birthday.  And since I knew I wasn't needed for fast forwarding, I thought I'd just hover and see if I was requested to sit down on the lounge.  I sat and read my book at the dining table for a while...still no request.  I came in to the lounge room and turned on my computer..still no request.  I opened up some (desperately late) client images to edit...and still no request.  I actually managed to edit around fifteen images!  It was a New Year miracle!

 

Unfortunately there was a discrepancy between what Ted wanted to play after watching the movie (read: elaborate Wonka recreation) and what Harriet wanted to play (read: random ice-cream shop game).  Ice-cream shop won.  Harriet loves to spend ages creating signs, setting up displays and writing menus.  The actual 'shop' component of the play is a mere blink in her eye.  It's all about set-up.  

 

Here she was writing up the menu, which had a delightful array of flavours available for the gingerbread, ice-cream and frozen yoghurt, as well as 'Mocca', chocolatey syrup and 'Baby chino' to drink.  Such a deliberate and considered process.

 

Meanwhile Ted screamed like a banshee, rolled around on the bed, made orders from the shop, paid with my credit card, showed me his half eaten rockmelon and was generally being wild.  Tonight when he was bemoaning just how NOT tired he was, the light turned off, he rolled away from me and was instantly asleep.  Instantly.  Without actually having done any physical activity today they were both exhausted.  Fingers crossed I can work on this client's gallery tomorrow when they find the perfect, inclusive game to play together.  

I can dream.

1 comment:

Jimbo said...

That picture of them on the lounge reminds me of that scene from Austin Powers... you know the one I mean.