March 2015

Still all about the penne pesto. 

Things to remember for this month:

- The Franglais!  Luca: "Mama, qu'est ce que tu veut reacher?"  Annick: "Papa, what are you cherching?"
- How Annick will gladly eat a bowl of lentils "because lentils make you farty!  HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA!" and then she will try to show you how it has had an immediate effect.
- How Luca is all about pirates and pirate ships and searching for treasure and rescuing other pirates at the moment.  ARRRRR.
- How Luca's concept of time is still wobbly - anything that happened in the past is "yesterday", but having to wait five minutes before he can have something he wants right now is "years and years and years!"
- How Annick has sadly dropped her daytime nap, at pretty much exactly the same age Luca did
- How Annick says, "put on your running feet mama!" before doing her funny little running dance
- How Annick had a nightmare and called for papa because "there is a fox chasing me!"
- How both kids are innocent and generous enough that when two marshmallows come with their babycino, and mama says, "wow, one for you and one for me!" then they pass over the second one happily.
- How Annick reacted to her first nightmare and her new bed with a week's worth of traumatic go-to-bed battles with mama and papa that involved a fair amount of screaming and complaining and complete toddler illogic.  We're currently in a 'leave the door open a little bit and I will go to sleep quietly' phase.
- How Luca still loves to give and receive "un gros calin... et un petit calin!  Un gros bisou... et un petit bisou!" from mama
- How Luca cannot get dressed without stopping multiple times for periods of up to 15 minutes to read a book in his underpants.
- How Luca has brought home from kinder a lot of talk about 'guns' and 'shooters' and 'baddies' and 'light sabres' and 'petrol' that mama and papa are not all that sure about.
- How Annick loves to have 'Au clair de la lune' sung to her at night, particularly with key words replaced with 'banane'

In a "little house"

Little teeth!

Luca's favourite outdoor activity at the moment is to build houses out of sticks.

At Moomba.  Annick asked all morning to go on the carousel, but spent the entire ride stony-faced.  She did claim to have enjoyed it once she got off.

Luca, meanwhile, only wanted to go on "PIRATE'S WEVENGE PAPA!" and so he did.

We went rowing on the river at Studley Park, but this little photo is much cuter than the ones of us not going very far in the boat - although we worked out the best way to move was to let Luca row, and let Ah Kong 'adjust'.

We went to the museum where Annick proved that her alleged insect phobia is mostly overdramatising.

And Luca enjoyed the mirrors!

This is still funny.

Dinner art.

Poor papa is being used as a fairground ride a fair amount these days.

Sharing a joke with papa at a hipster cafe.

Looking tousled over the duplo.

Two little bookworms by the looks of things, although we'll see whether that changes once they can actually read.

GORGEOUS BOY.

At Albert Park beach, enjoying ourselves.

She did go in eventually.

Their favourite bit - buried in the sand, supplied with decoration shells.

Also favourite, running back and forth.

Astonishingly, her dress was still white at the end of it.

February 2015

Things to remember for this month:

- How Annick says 'chocolatay'
- How Luca says 'hotel' like some grass-chewing hillbilly - 'ho-tay-ew'
- How we went to the aquarium and their favourite thing of all, even more than the shark tank or the giant croc, was the touching pool full of interesting things.  And when we came home we made an aquarium at home by sticking pictures of things up on the walls - one wall was the starfish tank and one wall was the shark tank and one wall was the "ray and penguin tank".  And made a touching pool with interesting items from around the house to substitute for sea things - funnels for shark eggs, scourers for sea sponges, cups for shells to hear the ocean in.
- How Luca today put the crocodile in the ray and penguin tank and when mama asked, but won't the crocodile eat the penguin? (not accounting already for it being in the same tank as a ray), Luca sighed and said, "it is not a REAL crocodile mama".
- How Annick throws her head right back and laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs and laughs when something is funny, in particular if she has just let out a particularly noisy fart.
- How when it comes time to sing 'Fait dodo Colas mon petit frere' or 'Au clair de la lune' before going to sleep, both kids join in with boisterously raucous renditions that mostly just wake you up, although they seem to go to sleep pretty well after (possibly worn out from the effort)
- How Luca has a cheesecake shot of some young male pop star on his wall because basically that was the piece of paper he used to make an 'arrow' for telling you to 'stop'.
- How Papa always has to ask "j'ai combien de mains?" when being inundated with demands from two small children, who will always then count his hands, but sometimes Annick will reply "six!"

Exploring at the aquarium!

"Can I hear the sea mama?"  During one of the endless sessions at the aquarium touching pool.

We go to Adelaide!  Here we are enjoying ourselves in the delightfully shabby arts precinct.

A Hello Kitty Cafe!

We go to the zoo - first things first, the GIRAFFES.

The open lemur enclosure made for some awkward encounters.

My little meerkats meet some meerkats.

Annick waits for someone to come out of the lift so she can press the button for the door to open and then run away when they thank her.

Penne and sauce, the only thing better is penne and pesto.

Still in the carosse, but probably reaching the weight limit by now.  I figure I will just stop feeding them in an effort to stop them growing until next year when Luca starts school.

Chinese New Year means yee sang!  Luca is ready!

 Jess che che shows Annick her circus tricks.

January 2015

Annick and Luca love their Ah Koo.

A new year, new things to remember:
- How Annick sings all the time, just as a commentary to whatever she's doing, or as a way to pass the time: "My name is Anniiiiick, I liiiive in a houuuuse, I liiiike my house, my name is Annick!" or "I like making a sun like this, I like making a sun like this, I like making a sun like this!"
- How Luca has rules.  We read The Finger Circus and draw faces on our fingers to make finger worms, and when we are finished, we start reading Le Chandail de Hockey, only to have Luca stop after a page and say, "wait, I have to wash off my finger because this is not a finger worm book."
- How Annick, unlike Luca, loves to tell you things, and hauls herself up to the bench to watch mama make an omelet, saying, "you know chickens?  Eggs comes from chickens.  Then when there is eggs, there is little birds!"
- How Annick says "I luff (insert item she luffs here)!"
- How the sun comes directly in the apartment on summer mornings making Annick complain, "mama, the sun is making sprinkles at me!  It's BOTHERING ME."
- How both kids love to 'read' books - Luca's method is to memorise stories and do his best to recreate them (he is very good - current favourite is 'Papa please get the moon for me' by Eric Carle, with the VERY long ladder), while Annick's method is just to make things up, which means she can 'read' from blank notebooks if necessary.  "Once upon a time there was a girl called Lulu.  Then a dragon comed!  And the dragon goes 'ROAR!'  And Lulu run and run and run and run and she was scared." 
- How Luca could not keep a secret if you paid him.  "Mama, later I have a surprise for you!"  Oh, that's very exciting, a surprise!  "It's CHOCOLATE." *leans in conspiratorially* "Shhh, it's a SECRET."  Or alternatively, "Papa, I hid something in my room for you - see if you can find it!  It is under the bed!"
- How Annick has absolutely no sentimentality about eating animals - the adorable prawns bringing their letters to Santa in one of her Christmas stories get 'eaten' with relish off the page.  The whole steamed barramundi plonked in front her her at a Chinese restaurant is greeted with the question, "can I have the eye?"  So I plucked the eyeball out for her and set it on her plate.  She looked at it briefly then popped it in her mouth, rolled it about and had an experimental chew, then spat it out and waited expectantly.  "Would you like the cheek instead?" I asked.  "Yes please!"  Ate one cheek, asked if she could please have another one. 
- How Luca's most cutting and potent weapon in argument is "I won't be your friend ANY MORE." 

Balancing in the sun with Ah Kong.

Melbourne's fountains don't quite match Montreal's, but yay!

Helping mama make bread.  Maybe mama made some play doh about five minutes later so she could get on with doing the bread without endless kneading.

Annick is not impressed to be sitting in a gold carousel in the foyer of the national gallery.

Luca and papa check out what it's like to be food under digestion!  Or they check out a cool art installation at the NGV.

Annick's art.  All her people are terrifying, hollow-eyed monsters.  Once she drew mama as a dark-eyed alien skull, then when mama asked her where was the mouth, scrawled a Heath Ledger-esque slash across it and said cheerfully, "you have a grumpy mouth mama!"

Papa's favourite blue onesie, not much longer for this little lady.

Looking grumpy despite having a grand time at Paper Planet.

Annick, overestimating her abilities since 2012.

It's a BUTTERFLY PRINCESS CAKE MAMA!

Luca is still a duplo man.

Babywearing runs in the family.

At the Lego exhibition - this guy's self-designed construction site was a magnet for small children.

Luca's pretty awesome model of a tugboat, rendered in play-doh and block.

Getting into the Lego!

6AM, Dora the Explorer - damn you Ah Koo!

Classy lady at Grossi Cellar Bar.

Messing about with papa!

Luca adjusts Clara and a borrowed bear, dressed by stylists Annick and Luca, for their red carpet appearance.