May 2015

Calvin and Hobbes and Luca and Annick.

Things to remember for this month:

- How they love the Octonauts and both of them claim Barnacles as their favourite character (although Annick has a soft spot for Kwaazi and does a great 'Aye aye matey' when required and Luca is fond of caring little Peso) leading to statements in the bath from Annick such as, "No, I'm Barnacles Luca and you can be my buddy."
- Luca: We need a baby!
  Annick: It's OK, I will go to the shop and I will get a baby.
- How we made rockets out of bottles and construction paper and Luca was launching a space mission, "we are going to a planet!"  "What planet Luca?"  "The planet... the planet BOB!  FSSSHHHHHH here we go to the Planet Bob..."
- How Papa reads Tintin to them in the evenings (or during the day) and does all the voices.
- How Luca likes to go 'ARRRRRR' like a pirate, but cannot say his Rs, so sounds more like Elmer Fudd being a pirate. 
- How the 'aquarium' is still up on the walls and even two months later the two of them went on a tour, exclaiming, "look, a shark!" "scuttle scuttle little crab!" "ooh, jellyfish!" "look, I see a turtle!" 
- How Luca has returned to playing the good papa for his toutous and when you go in to check on him at night, he has carefully laid them upon cushions at his feet and they are all sleeping peacefully together. 
- How Annick's ultimate pleasure if a 'cosy and warm' bed.
- How Luca calls DVDs "deeverdees"
- How Annick's most used word is 'sprinkly', meaning either sparkly or covered in dots or water from the shower.
- How we have finally worked out that Annick's song 'Round the coconut' is actually just a mishearing of 'Wind the bobbin up'. 

Public transport is their home.

Buses as well as trams.

80s poster girl.

Luca and Papa blast off!

Apparently this is 'helping'.

Still loves this dress.  Dress now actually fits!

As do polar bears!!

Luca's default crinkly-nosed smile.

Looking after their babies.

Making rockets!

Luca's literacy skills improving every day.

Still building some amazing structures.

Still struggling with the loss of her afternoon nap (her decision, not ours!)

Fashionista.

Le petit lecteur.

Luca avec son avion de Nonno.

When Luca is in time out, Annick takes advantage of the pirate ship access.

Sometimes everyone is sick.

Making stop motion pony movies at the NGV!

Mademoiselle.

Papa follows instructions to draw Elsa and Anna while Annick does more important things.

UN REQUIN.

Ce fromage papa.

Luca - 5 years old

Really really really a boy now, but always, always my baby.

Luca at 5:
- Nicknames: ti-gars, mini-beau, mini-butt, chonchounet, garçonnet, loupion
- Personality: serious but incredibly cheeky, quiet but incredibly noisy, aloof but incredibly cuddly.  A bubbling broth of adorable quirks papered over with a very thin veneer of solemnity.
- Favourite books: TINTIN, Maisy, vehicle books
- Favourite things to watch: Toc toc toc, Play School, Mister Maker, Octonauts, TINTIN, the Curious George movie
- Favourite toys: duplo (still) and Lego, boxes, vehicles, toutous
- Favourite things to do: build things, create little cities, play with Annick, annoy Annick
- Favourite foods: PENNE PESTO, fish and chips, tomatoes, cheese, carrots, chocolate, bagels, bread.

Luca is in his last year of kinder and next year he starts school.  He is a determined, stoic, passionate little man under his understated exterior and in the safety and comfort of home, he is full of energy and ideas and play.  He has his quirks and oddities that both add to his charm and to his challenges, but he is so much loved in this little house.  He is most often found sitting quietly in his room with a book, reading and learning and expanding his growing mind, but equally he can be found making a ruckus with (or without) Annick in some complex and fascinating game of fire engines or space stations or kitchen or hospital or school.

He loves to share his experiences and learning and is often so keen to do so he will be standing there with his trousers around his ankles because he needs to show papa his new pirate map STRAIGHT AWAY, even though he was on the toilet when papa got home.  When asked a question, he will be reluctant to reply unless you then say, well, OK, don't worry about it, then all of a sudden he'll need to tell you everything.  He loves to read with mama and papa and to take ideas from Play School or Mister Maker and then do them at home.

He builds amazing creations with duplo or Lego, soaring towers and complicated machines that defy gravity.  They always have a serious purpose, maybe cleaning or chopping up vegetables or putting things away.  He loves robots and machines and pirates and space and all the good things, and still has great care and affection for his toutous - orange bear, Stephen Harper, Ducky, Carey Ours, hedgehog, Humpty.  They are always tucked up with him in bed each night, comfortable on their cushions and under their blankets.

He is not the most demonstratively affectionate little boy there ever was, but his cuddles and kisses are much valued and appreciated, even though they can be quite squishy and moist.  He always has a cuddle for mama and papa, and we love it, and him, more than you can possibly imagine.

Annick - 3 years old

My little babylady is 3 years old.  How did that happen??

Annick at 3:
- Nicknames: babylady, fillette, minibelle, Adelidelo, minibug, bubba-lah
- Personality: a tiny little bundle of unpredictable energy who might be as joyful as sunshine or as grumpy as a dark cloud, but is mostly a chirpy, giggly, bouncy sweetheart full of kisses and laughs and jokes and cheekiness.
- Favourite books: Turlututu, la fee Fifolette, Inside Outside Upside Down, There Are Too Many Elephants In This House
- Favourite things to watch: Octonauts, Ben & Holly, Peppa Pig, Play School, Toc Toc Toc, Mister Maker
- Favourite toys: dolls, kitchen,
- Favourite things to do: play games with Luca like doggy or hospital or fire station, make meals for people
- Favourite foods: avocado, meat, cheese, tamarillos, alphabet pasta, prawn dumplings

My little Annick is probably not so little - such a big girl, tall and smart and funny and agile and competent and independent and beautiful!  Still in a little denial about toilet training, but otherwise capable of so much.  She is easily frustrated and easily teased, but throws herself into everything with equal enthusiasm and verve - everything gets a full response.  A little clown who loves to joke and laugh and make you laugh, who loves to sing and dance and sing and sing.  Her play and her day are narrated by song, her little toutous and dollies go on amazing adventures with a musical soundtrack.

She is cuddly and full of affection and kisses, she asks caring little questions and marks the end of her queries with an upbeat, "OK?"  She serves you tea and cake on a little plate with great delight.  She loves to offer you a taste of her food or a play of her toy.  She loves to involve you in her games - you are the audience to her show, or another princess in the castle, or a customer in her shop.  She is bafflingly girly with a love for things pink and princess and sparkly.  She twirls and leaps as a ballerina and loves to dress up in spectacular outfits from the dress-up box.

She is a classic introvert, despite her sparky nature amongst the familiar - new people or crowds send her into her shell and she needs her space and quiet.  She gets full drama when she is tired or hungry and spends a lot of time prostrate in despair on the footpath or the shop floor when mama and papa make her do unreasonable things like walk for five minutes.  She pouts and protests when told off and is nothing like the (relatively) obedient little soul that is Luca.  But she is quickly appeased and quickly warmed and it is never too long before everything is sunshine again.

On t'aime ma belle, FORT!

April 2015

Things to remember for this month:
- How Luca has gone unexpectedly full bogan in some of his pronunciation - "worda" instead of water, "ya" for you.
- How both kids have fully embraced the smug taunt of 'nyah nyah nyah nyah nyah!'
- How Luca is all about space and pirates at the moment
- How Annick cuddles her Lapinot at night in bed and Luca always has his Ducky, although Annick also loves her doudou mouton and Jemima, and Luca tends to take Stephen Harper when he's going somewhere.
- How Annick loves to have 'Au Clair de la Lune' sung to her at night, with the key words replaced with 'banane' - "Au clair de la banane, mon ami banane..." - after which, giggling hysterically, she corrects you.
- How Annick was doing pinboard craft in Ah Ma's garden, only to be bothered by a wasp, who she shooed away with a grumpy, "go away from here, you can't do this, YOU DON'T HAVE ANY HANDS."
- How Luca likes to be 'Luca machine' or 'Luca robot' and you can press buttons in his back and he will do stuff for you!  And sometimes he says, "Luca robot is humbry" and when you ask him what sort of fuel he needs, petrol maybe, or rice and duck, he says Luca robot needs rice and duck because it gives him more energy than petrol.
- How Annick was found drawing lines on Lapinot's head with a green marker "because now he is a LION!"

Pasta factory!  Luca is of course making his favourite penne, but Annick is making incredibly delicate little 'tortellinis'.

If everything is quiet and the two of them are in the room together, this is often what they are doing.

We went bowling!  Annick nearly won!

Luca makes pinboard art.  From memory, this was a rainbow and the wind and a storm and the moon.

I can't believe they didn't make more of this opportunity to whack each other.

Doctor Luca checks his patient.

If you insist on sitting next to the window, it often means you end up sitting on your own on the tram.

CHOCOLATE FONDUE!

Making some little nests at Artplay.

This is probably not how normal Canadian kids do it.

Luca is all about the boats!

 Splash splash splash!  I had to tip water out of their boots at the end of this and Luca had to change his trousers and underpants.

RRRRRAAWR!

Annick is all about the hula hoops.

Sometimes Annick just falls asleep.

She paid attention at the space movie at IMAX for about 15 minutes.

Lovely babies.

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.