Wednesday, January 08, 2014

January 7th

 
Anne came over again, bringing with her bags upon bags of food for lunch.  She has obviously been observing the intake of my children closely.  As it was I think it took me about an hour before I even got around to opening the bags and looking at the contents, since the children took up their high level skill of talking constantly, at a high speed, simultaneously and without regard for an audience.  Although of course if there is even a slight perception that an audience isn't able to exist at the very moment of dramatic turn in their announcement then there may very well be hell to pay.  I think Ted may have been outlining these conditions in the above photo.




While I made some food Ted decided to show off his bowling skills.  He does have that whole body turn thing going on.  If he ever made it on to the Australian cricket side I'm sure he'd be advocating for rainbow uniforms.

 

Meanwhile on this day it was Harriet's turn to have the itchy feet.  She was seeking adventure and risk within the confines of our rather unadventurous and risk-free backyard.  And so it was that, armed with a ball of string (for reasons unknown), the four of us ventured down to the river for an adventure.

 

Ted, meanwhile, placed a basket on his head.




On our side of the river there is a parkland, with a carpark next to it.  On the other side of the carpark there is a hill with houses at the top.  The embankment between the carpark and the houses is steep and dotted with large sharp rocks and a deep pine needle litter.  I encouraged Harriet to move away from the parkland and, instead, to explore the wilder areas beneath the houses.  It was great - she had to really work at finding an area safe enough to climb up, and then went exploring out of sight to find the set of stairs that led back down to where Anne and I were watching.
 

As always it was not Harriet's calm headed  approach to seeking out risk that concerned me, but Ted's insistence on exploring new methods of admission to the local ER.  He has even said as much to me "Mama I want to go back there and have an apple juice again.  How about I jump off this rock pile?".  No, I am not kidding. 

Then the evening was spent listening to the noises emanating from the children's bedroom where James was putting Ted to sleep.  By the end he may have been meaning it in the veterinary sense.  But then we watched Primer, and all was good with the world.  I thoroughly enjoyed it, although a second viewing wouldn't go astray. 

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