Saturday, January 11, 2014

January 11th

 

So our surprise had to be postponed due to, of all things, banking.  Ugh.  How tedious.  But the demands of life press on and so it was that we ended up waiting in a bank this morning.  Waiting is not something that Ted does spectacularly well it must be said, so there was a modicum of wrangling involved.

 

Once the details had been (not) sorted, we realised we were in a large shopping centre a couple of weeks out from the start of school.  Given our intense dislike of such spaces we decided to make shoes while the centre annoyed and buy Ted some black school shoes.

We walked in.  Ted chose a pair from the display on the wall.  The man (who spoke disarmingly as if he should be carrying a surfboard at all times and used the word 'youse' as if it was a real word) was lovely and measured Ted's foot, brought out two pairs of shoes, decided that the 1.5 was the better size, and that was it.  Done.  Purchased.  Woot!  Ted was so enamoured with his shoes that he wore them out of the shop.  I always remember that scene in Tales of a Fourth Grade Nothing where Peter isn't allowed to wear his new shoes out of the shoe store.  Why wouldn't you want them to?  I must have missed that parenting lecture.

 

 One of the more adorable aspects of the shoe buying experience was just how excited Harriet was.  Well, Ted was excited too, but you kind of expect that.  And hey, I can't remember the last time I spent over $100 on a pair of shoes for myself so I'd be full of emotion too if it was me.  But Harriet was smothering him with kisses and pronouncing him "adorable" and hugging him non-stop.  







Luckily he was endearing himself to someone in the family.  By the end of our trip I think James and I were rather interested in any long-term child care options the centre may have provided (they offer those, don't they?).  You can see here the shoes in action.  They have shoelaces.  I see many long mornings of double bows ahead of us.

 

Being in the eastern suburbs area of Sydney, we did as we always do.  Sadly we are all too predictable - when east, we visit Out of the Blue in Clovelly.  Their tofu burgers really are just out of this world.  Since we couldn't get through on the phone to place our order, we walked across the road after placing the order in person and sat down to order a coffee (the adults), a sparkling 'juice' (Ted) and a freshly squeezed juice of orange, carrot and lemon that sounded fantastic (Harriet).


I appreciate the whole 're-use' aesthetic of the hipster but really, there are glasses already in use that one could still use without having to constantly drink from a jar.  Hilariously (sadly) I saw Mason jars with handles without lids in Peters of Kensington before Christmas.  Errr...doesn't buying those things new defeat the initial rationale behind the drinking-out-of-jars thing?  Not that I really understand it anyway. 

Once we had our food in hand it was down to the beach.  Then it was into the ocean.  The water was disconcertingly warm; I felt as though some bubble bath and a loofah were required.  I didn't take my camera down to the beach for obvious reasons, but we stayed there swimming for a few hours.  On our way back to the car Ted was enthralled by the presence of some people setting up a volleyball net.  He insisted we stay to watch and given the level of recalcitrance we'd had during the day we decided to just ride this one out.  We sat there and watched as he slowly made himself ballboy in their game.  He literally dived across the ball as it landed near him and would throw with all of his might back into the area of play.

As difficult as it may be sometimes, it's not so bad when we follow the obscure lead of Master Ted. 

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