La la la!

Elf to Michael "OK, now let's put on your singlet" Michael to Elf "La la la!"

He is also reaching up to plonk some notes on the piano then announcing "A song!".

Marcus has been playing beautiful slow and thoughtful piano pieces in the last couple of days. REALLY beautiful not just I'm-his-dad-and-I'm-so-proud beautiful.

I dropped off Marcus at school this morning with some trepidation - he has made a major scene the last 2 times Elf has dropped him off. Somehow it didnt happen this morning, he happily went over to look at seashells. This made us very happy. We know Marcus has been worried about one particular boy who has pushed him a few times. We've been saying all the right things, like he just hasn't learned not to push people yet, and the carers will look after it. Marcus floored us by saying "Its because his brain isn't working properly". Ahhhh. Apparently that was the carer's explanation - and I don't think I could do better in their position really.

Going to Mount Wellington's house for dinner

I just remembered this story. We paid Manuel and Rhonda a visit on Saturday evening, and had a fabulous and extensive dinner. We took the boys along. Marcus had a few goes at saying "Manuel" on the way. As we walked up the street from the car he said "Is this Mount Wellington's house?" (Mount Wellington is the small mountain that dominates Hobart).

Michael's vocab is growing exponentially. He seems to just love saying words and finding new words. He answers questions now with a clearly enunciated, no-nonsense "Yes."

Top sneezes, bottom sneezes

Marcus sneezes a lot. He sneezes in the sun like Elf does. He sneezed in the car this morning and after I cleaned it up, he said "my sneezes are great!" Lukewarm agreement from Mum and Dad. "My sneezes are really, really, really (etc) great!" Mumbled assent from Mum and Dad. "My top sneezes and my bottom sneezes are great!" Er - what? "Top sneezes come out of THIS nostril and bottom sneezes come out of THIS nostril."

We saw the model airplanes at Richmond yesterday. Marcus is at the age now where he is very interested. Michael just loves having a big green paddock to run around in, and of course always runs towards the little gate where he's not allowed to go. Around 12ish someone yelled from the hut that lunch was ready. The last plane came in to land and the remote control aviators (all blokes) shuffled off towards the hut. We drove off to feed the ducks. Marcus said "I think the planes will have sky and grass for lunch".

At the Richmond bakery they have many blue, red and green ribbons from baking competitions, at the Royal Hobart Show I guess. I noticed in 2003 they came 3rd in the 7 inch unfilled sponge. I like the idea of each year, really FOCUSSING and giving your all to carry off the blue ribbon in the 7 inch unfilled sponge - its the sprint of sponges.

Black playdough

The red playdough and the green playdough have met and mingled. Now we have.. black playdough. Great for making witches, ravens, deep sea fish, 8-balls, er...

MJR vocab at not quite 18 months

When Michael thinks he's had enough of something he says "Finished!" If you say "Finished?" He says "OK!" with a tone of agreement that says he's pretending "finished" was your idea in the first place.

He started saying 'thank you" quite early - we loved that. Now its "thanks" as he takes the toast or bottle or whatever. No fuss, just 'thanks" and on his way.

When he see the ABC logo on a book or video now he says "SHOP!" because he pointed to it downtown the other day and Elf said "That's the ABC Shop".

Also - when Marcus bellows something to us from the other end of the house, Michael knows the correct form for the occasion. "OK... COM-ing".

Frozen Rat

"There's a mouse in the loungeroom" said Marcus. No, actually a headless rat. Elf put it in a bag and put it in the freezer.

We have had a lot of rat action, probably something to do with the chooks and their chook pellets freely available a couple of doors up. Our loquat tree might have attracted them once but it hasnt fruited lately. Hobart City Council sent a small officious man to inspect. The rat nests are over our back fence on council property so we can't do anything ourselves. Will the council help us? No - they are "native rats" and protected. Elf has inquired and the two species of native rat are the water rat and the swamp rat - neither of whom would be likely to live burrowed in a hill methinks.

So - the rat is frozen and Elf is going to drop it into the boys down at forensic (or something) who will do all that CSI stuff, recreate the scene of its murder and hopefully tell us that is a plain old rattus rattus. Then we'll see if the council can do something useful.

[The small officious man is the same one who visited our Amnesty stall at Salamanca and said we had to stop selling Graham's marmalade until we have it labelled with full nutritional information].