Deep Impact

Christmas must have left a really deep impact on Ned... he talks about it a lot... and he even built his very own Christmas tree the other day

hmmmm.... :o))) Night, night

And another one

Mum: "Ned, what did you do at kindy today???"
Ned: "Walk this way (pointing left) and that way (pointing right)"

Ned: "Daddy, eat ploperly!!!" (properly)

Cedric just bit Ned really hard and and I tried to find the bite mark.
Mum: "Ned, I can't see it"
Ned: "It's gone.. it's bitten off"
(I did find the mark a bit late, and Cedric drew blood)

Or how about this one:

Aunty Jill is coming down from Perth for a visit.
Mum: "Aunty Jill will sleep in the red spare room"
Ned: "Onkel Dani's room??" (My brother stayed in this room when he was here for visit)
Mum: "No, Onkel Dani isn't here, Aunty Jill is sleeping there now."
Ned: "Aunty Jill sleeping with Onkel Dani????"

I guess I better shouldn't tell you about that incident when Ned lifted the back of his potential future pre-primary teacher's shirt and inquired what her bra was.... it was SLIGHTLY embarrassing even though he asked in all innocence and we all cracked laughing, inclusive her.

This and That

I bet everyone who has children gets confronted with incredibly funny things your kids say. We are no exception!! And unfortunately it is SO easy to forget the punchlines offspring comes up with. So I thought I'
d share a couple with you.

Dad: "Ned!! Be quiet!!!"
Ned: "But I'm talking!"

Cedric eats his afternoon snack. Ned comes up to him: "Cedric, you need to share" and little fellow even does it (bless him)

Mum: "Ned, how was kindy?? What did you do??"
Ned: "uhm... played.... slept... Mister Russell said I'm naughty"
Mum: "Uhm... MISSES Russell"
Ned: "Mister Russell"
Mum: "MISSES Russell"
Ned: "Mister Russell"
(Mum gives up in frustration)

Mum: " Who are your kindy teachers??"
Ned: "Mister Russell and Misses MarLICK"
(It is still MISSES Russell and Mrs. Marvick)

"I forgot I had to go to the toilet very quick" (luckily he made it just in time)

And while we're talkin' about talkin'.... FINALLY Cedric also decided to use some words: It's MAMA (which mean anything from me to food to whatever)  and BYEBYE (which he LOVES saying... unless I try to video it, then -of course- he doesn't)

I guess boys are boys and just don't have to say as much as girls, and rather do.. you know.... boyish things....

It looks like he's straight of a catwalk in Milan or Paris... maybe he should be the new "face" for HUGGIES????

That wasn't typical boyish I suppose... but dumping all of mum's cushions and pillow on the floor and jumping into the pile most certainly qualifies as "boyish" (even though girls like doing that just as much.... I have certain recollections of my own innocent past)








(I hope you don't mind naked boys in their undies/nappies)

Ou yeah.. and I had my birthday just lately.... I started my eighth year of being 25 and I had a really wonderful day... the day was warm and sunny (definitely not what I'd usually have for my birthday) and in the afternoon I had a bunch of friends and their offspring over (and the offspring behaved marvellous... I was amazed).
In the evening Ben took me to the movies as a surprise. We watched "This means war"... and I cried of laughter... almost wetting my pants.

Kindy

Ned truly loves kindergarten.

Yesterday I had a chance to see what kindy was like.The teachers encourage the parents to sign up as parental help once or twice each term. So yesterday was my first time in an Australian kindergarten (and it is quite different form my own kindergarten experience 25 years ago). I took my camera along of course, which was fun... some of the kids really wanted me to take a photo of them but some of the parents don't want photos of their kids on the web (understandable) so I only use photos of Ned and of his friend C. whose mum is my friend and okay with it :o)

That's Ned's friend.

You might notice that she isn't wearing uniform: It was RED day at kindy.

Everything was kind of red-related: the cloth, the stories, the crafts, even the food

Even the playdough was red... no idea why it was on his nose though.

They experienced what happens to red if you mix it with a different colour



I really enjoyed experiencing what they actually do at kindy... I even had to help with crafts, which is a little nightmare  of mine... to do crafts with kids that is, because I'm slightly pedantic when it comes to gluey fingers and children covered in paint,  but I think I survived that part just fine.

Although red is Ned's favourite colour I'm looking forward to "yellow" day at kindy. We struggle with the colour yellow.
If you ask: "What colour is  the lemon?" more likely than not the answer is "blue" with a minor percentage of "green" but as good as never "yellow"

sigh

BUT

He slowly recognizes letters which is REALLY exciting!!! Every time he sees a "N" or "e" or "d" he gets totally excited.

Look, what's growing in my garden

Isn't it a beauty?????

And another one

And that's the boys eating one...

....not the one from the garden though... it'll still take ages for them to be ripe.... sigh :o)))

And that's another thing growing in our garden:



(It's an eggplant if you can't recognize it) and eggplant plants have really pretty blossoms... I never knew.



Talking about blossoms.... our fruit trees are weird fruit trees. That or they think they are European. It is late summer here, almost autumn , BUT my former stick-lookalikes decided to blossom.



And can you find the capsicums???? Well, they rather accidentally decided to grow next to our compost bin... but who am I to complain, if you're not a weed and you wanna grow in our garden you're most welcome.



And that's a couple of our millions of cherry tomatoes. The bushes start to look a bit dead, but they still produce tomatoes... a lot of tomatoes.



And we're also flooded with cucumbers. Unfortunately Ben doesn't like cucumbers.... uhm, next year I need to think a bit better before I plant something.



And these little beauties... back in October I blogged how much I was excited of finding an elder tree in blossom so I was able to make elderflower syrup which is just soooo yummmm (in my opinion). Well, I also planted two tiny little mini elder bushes in our garden when we first moved in. They've grown like mad and whereas in Germany they blossom for only maybe a month here they blossom already for the last three months and I made tons of my magic potion.



And what should I do with these hot beauties???? I don't really cook with chillies!

One of those days

Do you have some of those days as well???

Last night just at bed time, Ced poured out his water bottle all over his bed, so mum had to change the entire bed. This morning  Ned pours out his water bottle all over his bed, so mum has to change another entire bed. Ned hits Ced, Ced bites Ned, Ned grabs Ced's papers, Ned snatches Ced's toy, Ced snatches Ned's toy, Ced screams because Ned hit him, Ned screams because Ced banged him with a (plastic) shovel, mum gets very cross with both of them at various times during the day and mum gets cross with husband who is on crutches and not so very useful at present in some aspects (don't get me wrong, he is still very useful and I won't get rid of him, but running after two whirlwinds on crutches is a bit of a challenge). The day ended in blood, as Ced slipped on the wet bathroom floor (none of Ned's doing this time... okay he wasn't suppose to splash the bath water all over the bathroom floor, but Ced helped him in peeing on it). So, at the end of the day, mum's kind of VERY relieved to finally stick offspring into their designated beds and to get out of their room as quickly as possible.
But well, we have this bedtime routine. I cuddle with Ned in his bed (and if you cuddle with a little boy most of your crossness starts melting away already... nothing as good as a good cuddle) and we sing songs together... more often than not it is him requesting and me singing, but hey, lets just call it "singing together". His favourite is still the "Bagger"-song, which is about an excavator and nothing offensive whatsoever, but there are many other songs like "elephants have wrinkles" or "Galump went the little green frog" besides many German kids songs, and of course his all time favourite "plinkle, plinkle  little star" (also known as "twinkle, twinkle little star"). But today he wanted to sing "Jesus loves me" and it wasn't only me singing but he joined in and actually knew most of the lyrics. Definitely a tear up moment and reality check.
For Jesus does love me... and him... no matter how often he hits his baby brother or pulls his leg or snatches toys away, Jesus continues to love him, to love us.... as well as our neighbours who are having a loud party with lots of boom boom music... sigh.

Precious

I won't say it too loud but I think we've finally outgrown "real" tantrums... and with "real" I mean, you know, those 2 hours of screaming... there is the occasional screaming fit (okay at least once a day) but hey, what's 5min between friends???
Today was a looooong day though. First full day at kindy. Ned was SO excited to go and eat his lunch there, although when I dropped him off he was a bit reluctant letting me go. After kindy he was picked up by grammy (that's grandma for normal people) to spend the rest of the day at grammy and grandbags (that's grandad for normal people).
I was outside watering the garden when he was returned just before bedtime. I heard him before I saw him, a high pitched squeal. He calmed down quickly though, just to totally freak out again when he had to change into his PJs . He was most upset that we didn't give him fresh socks to wear in bed, in fact he wasn't even allowed to wear the old, dirty socks to bed. It was so illogical and unreasonable, but logic and reason isn't the best sides of three-year-olds in general and Ned in particular. He was most displeased and didn't shy away to let us know!!!
I just wrapped my arms around him (and legs that is) and forced-cuddled with him in bed, him screaming, me singing .Luckily I didn't have a stressful day with lots of tantrums, so I was very relaxed and happy to have my  little boy back, just feeling sorry for my little guy who wasn't able to tell me in any other way, that it might have been a bit much for him today.
So he screamed and I sang. And while we lay there like that I was reminded how God loves us, and continues to love us even though we scream at him because of something as ridiculous as not being allowed wearing socks in bed in a warm summer night.
Finally I sang "Twinkle twinkle little star" (which is a number one favourite around here, sigh) and all of a sudden he calmed down and we sang it a couple hundred more times and changed from force-cuddling to real, genuine wrap-his-little-arms-around-me-kind-of-cuddles.
Sometimes in the midst of the chaos two little boys can bring, I loose sight of how truly precious those little rascals are. God has entrusted them into our care and I am eternally grateful. Ned might throw a tantrum here or there and Cedric might bite his way through all his friends like a great white shark (his count is 4 out of 5 friends visiting us being bitten by him) but nonetheless they are precious in His sight and they are precious to me.