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Sometimes, the kids want to take there own pictures. Piet took this one of his trike, which he calls his tractor because it has the same green and yellow colours as his toy John Deere tractor he got for Christmas 2009. Since a few weeks, Piet is very attached to his squiggly spoon, which he takes everywhere. His swimming teacher was rather surprised to see him taking it into the pool and holding on to it during most of the half-hour lesson. The squiggles refer to the wave-like patterns on the spoon's handle. Emma snuggled up to mum on the bench outside.
Supermarket trip
Normally, mum does the groceries when the kids have been or are being put to bed. But once in a while they get to come along for an outing to the
supermarket. In our neighbourhood, the large chain supermarket carries a modest
Dutch shelf (een Nederlands schap). The kids put the groceries on the
checkout.
Grug in the Arts Centre
On Tuesday, we took the kids into the city by train to see a theater play in the Arts Centre, where opa used to work a long time ago. The play was about Grug, an Australian
children's classic book. We had a look around the
lobby first and then we were
fixated for half an hour on the play, in which the author participated (
holding Grug). A trailer of the play can be seen on the
YouTube. Then we had a bite to eat and had a look at the kids corner in the adjacent National Gallery. The kids skipped the
paintings and went straight for the
drawing counters. Back home, Piet stunned us by asking to go to bed at 7pm and not reappearing before 6am. We did not know what to do with our long evening.
Fame from Eltham
Who is the most famous person from Eltham? This Friday (12th Aug), it must be
Cadel Evans, who attended Eltham High School, bagged the Tour last month and had his victory parade in Melbourne earlier this afternoon. We missed the parade, as Jacinta and Jordan came over to
play in the garden.
Dad is rather fond of a 4km circular walk to Blue Tongue Bend in Warrandyte State Park (see for example July last year). On Saturday morning, we went for this walk with the Dears. The four kids took off from the car parking and started running along the path. We spotted many wombat holes and even more wombat poo and arrived at Blue Tongue Bend within an hour. At the bank of the Yarra, which flowed faster than we had seen before, we had our picnic. The return to the car park was done at a more leisurely pace, with some resting in backpacks or on daddies' neck and even time for inspecting a puddle.
Pony rides
During the week, Emma tried to go without a nappy. She enjoyed sharing a
potty sitting experience with her brother, but she does not 'get it' yet. We'll continue with nappies. Mum's tummy keeps
expanding. On Saturday, mum took the kids with friends to St Andrew's market. The highlight of the trip was a pony ride. Not surprisingly, Emma jumped on the pony the first time it was offered to her and happily let a complete stranger
guide the pony - she is quite fond of the horses in Bendoc too. But at the end of the visit, Piet also wanted to go for a
ride. To his disappointment, he wasn't allowed a second ride as it was time to go home.
Train
The next day, we took the kids to the
Diamond Valley Miniature Railway, which is run by volunteers every Sunday on a 184mm (7 1/4 inch) wide track. We had not been there since
July 2010. We walked down in beautiful weather. As there was a queue for the trains, we hesitated and discovered that there was a pony ride without a queue. Wanting to capitalize on Piet's recent appetite for pony rides, we offered the kids a ride straightaway. Piet got on the pony with his helmet, but unfortunately wanted to get off before it started walking. Emma was keen and completed
her ride. We had lunch and by the time we got back to the station, the queue had grown even longer. The kids did not suffer as much as mum in the queue and by the time we got on the
train, they were enjoying
every second of it.
Lulu
We had more
sandwiches after disembarking the train and returned home via Lulu.
She is an old pony, owned by an even older lady, in a weedy paddock half an hour walk from our house. Lulu is a frequent destination for walks around the neighbourhood. On these walks, we always take the
pram along, but the kids will walk and run a fair bit. Piet sometimes brings his balance bike too. Other destinations are mamma's playground and pappa's playground - after the kids introduced these terms, their parents realised they were typically taking the kids to different local playgrounds;
opa thinks pappa's playground is hilarious as it sounds like a euphemism for brothel. As usual, the kids got Lulu
some grass as a supplement to her normal feed.
During the week, Piet and Emma helped mum wash the windows. They would continue spraying the windows the rest of the week. They had a snack at the cow table and managed to get on their bike together. With the Dears they dug an interesting hole. We saw a steam train on the normal railway track between Eltham and Hurstbridge. And Piet and Emma had their breakfast outside.
Museum
On Monday morning, we went to the science museum. Piet and Emma were quite interested in many exhibits, including one where you could build a roman-style bridge.
Surprisingly, Piet and Emma could walk across it. There was a
dinosaurus exhibition on, but when we went in, the dinos proved too realistic for Piet and we were out within five minutes. However, he did not forget the experience and spoke about it without fear various times in the next few days.
In the evening while playing with a large ball, Piet fell against a door and cut his head. After a bit of crying, we discovered that a band-aid wouldn't do, so dad drove him to the nearest accident and emergency (12km), where Piet waited patiently in a packed waiting room for a hour until a nice nurse glued his wound together. Piet remained very calm and was rightly awarded a Bravery Award and a sticker. He won't mind not getting his hair washed for a week, but he did not understand why he can't go swimming. He is in a passionate "why?" phase and will ask mum ten times a minute:
We could fill a Piet-o-pedia with the answers.
