Row, row, row your boat…

… Gently down the stream
Merrily, merrily, merrily, merrily
Life is but a dream.

Row, row, row your boat
Gently down the stream
If you see a crocodile
Don’t forget to ice-cream

~Nicolas, 2 1/2 yrs.

Multi-tasking men

It sounds like the the stuff that legends are made of, like the Loch Ness monster or the Yeti, yet I have seen one.

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This particular specimen was remarkable in the fact that he was 1) carrying his youngest in the marsupial fashion, 2) skilfully herding his eldest along, all this while 3) using a tool to spy on his chosen female who was demonstrating that indeed man evolved from monkey.

 

 

 

 

Nico just loved the place - a lot of space to run around, Yee who taught him (or should I say, reinforce what Oma taught him) to say ‘Oh Sh!t’, pine cones to pick up with Ken, and of course being swung around by Byron the organic play gym. I’m surprised that he didn’t insist on jumping on the swings. Maybe something about them being 10m off the ground had something to do with it.

Eloïse was relatively well-behaved. As long as she was in Daddy’s arms. If she wasn’t, we’d hear her all the way across the whole forest.

At 2.5 years, Nicolas is having a break-through in toilet training. He’s collected 8 stickers today, all badges for having peed in the toilet. I suspect it has to do with a CD by Linda Adamson I had borrowed from the library. One of the songs goes like this:

Jellybeans, jellybeans, many colours bright
Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum!
Jellybeans, jellybeans, are my hearts delight
Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum!
I like a green jellybean and an orange jellybean
A purple, blue, red and a yellow jellybean
Jellybeans, jellybeans, many colours bright
Yum, yum, yum, yum, yum!

We happened to have a bag of jellybeans at home. After a taste, they quickly made their way up the top of the three most desirable toilet reward items, over stickers (#3) and M&Ms (#2). Before jellybeans, the daily average number of stickers would be 2.

Eloïse is 3 months and almost 1 week. She’s still not turning over and hates tummy time, but will quite happily lay on her back and read a book - today is ‘J’apprends les couleurs’.

At story time today at the library, while Loryn was gesturing along to the words of Tena Koe, we noticed that she was intently watching Loryn’s fingers and following them with her eyes. She’s been a real angel at story time and Mainly Music, either falling asleep or being quite alert and quietly checking out her surroundings. Here’s to hoping that she’ll be less clingy than Nico.

The brother-sister relationship is still going fine so far. Nico didn’t want to kiss Eloïse this morning which was fair enough. But he quickly rushed in, lips at the ready, and even head butted me a couple of times if I looked like I was going to kiss her. Eloïse enjoys watching Nico play with his marble run, and I’ve caught her smiling at him a couple of times.

Papa is away overseas again. Nico will be happy to see him back, the first thing he asked when I picked him up from his cot on Wednesday morning (after informing me that what he was holding in his hand was a book on cats) was ‘Papa đâu?’

Now to work on getting Eloïse to be less of a pain at bath time. 3 months on, and she still doesn’t like it, which is proving a bit distressing for Papa. She didn’t mind being in the big bath tub with Nico and I, however what started as a pleasant and relaxing bubble bath ended up with me quickly rushing out of it after Nico decided that he couldn’t be bothered going to the toilet to pee. Papa didn’t think it was that a big deal. Lucky for him I can’t bring myself to exact revenge when we’ll next have a bubble bath together.

Oma has been away in Europe - he’s been enquiring about her as well. No doubt he’ll very much enjoy seeing her on her return.

We’ve been seeing a bit more of Ba Ngoai and Ong Ngoai on Skype lately, which is great. Nico rushes out to greet them, sometimes butt-naked as they call at around the time he’s having a bath. They’ve been able to see their grand-daughter, who might peer at them from behind sleepy eyes and has been widely smiling at the funny noises they make.