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Emma's birthday
On Wednesday morning, Emma got to
unwrap her presents. She received books, a wooden horse, a
game with beads, which had to be played straight away, and some
clothes.
Emma seems to understand the concept of presents and of birthdays in general: she can now indicate her new age with two index fingers while pronouncing 't'. After the presents, the kids went to nursery.
The party
Emma's party was on Saturday. Mum had baked a cake in the image of her favourite DVD:
Shaun the Sheep. Without rain, the kids could play outside, racing down our driveway - just the upper part - on their scooters, bikes and ride-on toys, or digging up the
garden beds. Inside, parents could have a chat until we all sang
happy birthday to Emma in English and Dutch and blew out the
candles. There were so many presents that we had to unwrap some the
next morning.
Talking about language| sh | for | shoes |
| tjsu | for | choose (I want to choose myself) |
| wee-a | for | weetiebix (her favourite breakfast) |
| mee-a | for | milk (in the same context) |
| èh | for | egg |
| bih | for | big (I want a big water) |
| haa | for | haar (hair) |
| nah | for | nat (wet) |
| rea | for | read (read this book to me) |
Most of this is only intelligible to her parents. In addition to these sounds, she has been able to say mamma, pappa, Peeee (for Piet), me, cocco (for kookaburra) and opa for a while.
Piet can now more easily express himself in English. His Dutch has even developped some Anglicisms, like dat eentje and dit eentje for that one and this one. His English, on the other hand, has picked up a real ocker accent, pronouncing each "i" sound as "oi":
We assume he has picked it up in day care, as we certainly do not speak loik that.
Melbourne zoo
Grannybunts, mum and the kids made a trip to the zoo. They spent the whole day watching
gorillas,
giraffes and other animals and even had time for playing with an
elephant and a
frog. Previously, the kids would only cope with half a day at the zoo.
Recently, Emma has been very interested in lining up cars. She will put them in a row side by side, generally all facing the same way, put them all back into the box - making sure not to mix cars and trains - and bring them all out again. When Piet was half a year younger, he had a similar obsession. For his swimming lessons, Piet got some goggles. His teacher told us to try them on at home in the bath, but Piet was keen to wear them everywhere.
Camping at Cape Patterson
The third weekend in May, we went camping with friends at
Cape Patterson.
The weather was fairly warm - 19 degrees celcius during the day - so it was excellent for
digging on the beach or
playing on the rocks. Mum thought the water was icy cold, but Piet checked and
there weren't any ice cubes! The majority, however, choose to
stay on the beach. While discussing the differences between our kids, mum noted that:
to which Emma enthusiastically replied:
In the confined space of our camper trailer, we could observe how the kids actually sleep. In the middle of the night, Emma would stir and shout 'kooka'. After being handed her kookaburra, she would return to a quiet sleep. The second night, Piet woke for an hour and a half, during which dad tried to keep him entertained. The following morning, though, he slept till a record breaking quarter past nine. He typically wakes around seven, with occasional days at six or eight o'clock.
