Winter 2017

Luca, discussing how in the Gruffalo, the snake, the owl and the fox all want to eat the mouse, "and that's because a mouse has lots of energy".  Someone's been watching too many wildlife documentaries.

Me: Thank you for being patient today darling.
Annick: Not that patient!

How Luca will play his clapping syllable games as he goes to sleep.

How Annick will end a story to Papa with a cheerful, "et voila!"

Luca: Annick hit me with her guitar!
Annick: It is not a guitar, it is a UKULELE.

How Annick talks about literature, "mama, you know there are two kinds of books, friction and non-friction.  Friction is not real" and how she calls authors "wroters".

Luca, making pretend ice cream in the bath: "the flavour of mine is fruity pineapple flavour!  It's delicious!  It's got lots of gluten free in it!"

How the soundtrack of our life is an unfurling sticky tape dispenser.

Sitting in the warm dusk, eating ice cream by the beach in Hawaii - what is your favourite part of this holiday so far darlings?
Annick: seeing the sea turtles!
Luca: eating this ice cream right now.

Luca 7yo and Annick 5yo

Luca at 7
Nicknames: Ti-gars, Binou, Mini-butt, Mini-bee
Personality: Stoic and literal, with occasional gusts of hyperactive glee.  Doesn't like giving hugs that much but quite keen to receive them.  Focused and curious, cheerful and solid.  Builds, reads, learns, soaks in information like a sponge, but cannot read behaviour.  My lovely little guy, full of quirks and love.
Favourite music: the soundtrack to Ninjago, Mickey by Toni Basil, anything with a thumping beat
Favourite books: "information books" about space, vehicles, engineering, animals, history, anything.  A refound love of 'Stuck' by Oliver Jeffers.  Agent Jean, Tintin.
Favourite shows: Madagascar Penguins, Numbchucks, but still also the old favourites of Ben and Holly, Hey Duggee, Peppa Pig, Octonauts
Favourite things to do: LEGO LEGO LEGO, Hot Wheels, any construction or puzzle games, jigsaw puzzles, reading (lots of reading), drawing ninjas, playing ninjas, dressing up as ninjas.

Annick at 5
Nicknames: Bellette, Bebe, Ladybaby, Minou, Mini-fille
Personality: Emotional and dramatic, funny and kind.  Beautifully affectionate, caring and full of advice, whether you want it or not.  An artist and a performer, unless someone is watching. Chatty and imaginative, an active acrobat.  My sweetest little lady, loved to the stars.
Favourite music: the soundtrack to Moana, the soundtrack to Frozen, a fair whack of girl power music including Beyonce and the Spice Girls
Favourite books: still all the Tralalire and Pomme d'Api stories, Disney princess stories, Agent Jean.
Favourite shows: Go-jetters, Barbie, Numbchucks, Ben and Holly
Favourite things to do: Drawing, play-doh, putting on a show, having a teddy picnic, dressing things up, dressing herself up, dancing dancing dancing, reading, Hot Wheels, blocks

Autumn 2017

Annick: Did you know it is Isaac's Day?
Me: Er, no... you mean it was his birthday?
Annick: All the Isaacs, they died.
Me: ... all... the Isaacs?  I didn't even know you had an Isaac in your class.  Do you mean the darkling beetles?
Annick: So we have to make cookies for them.  There was one, he was called Jack, and all his team mates, they died.  They died on the beach.  They came to the beach on a boat from America!  And there was a donkey who helped them.  All the Isaacs who didn't die, they rested there and they ate cookies to help their friends.

Annick: Luca hissed at me for no reason!
Luca: She was staring at me like an owl!
Annick: I was staring at you like a PRINCESS

How Annick says 'les bigs yeux' or 'les petits eyes'

Annick, rubbing her eyes in the morning: I have crumbs in my eyes!  Why do I have crumbs?
Me: It's because the Night Fairy has picnics in there.
Luca: What?!  I don't want her to!

Annick, randomly at breakfast: We can make America great again!
Me, aghast: Where did you learn that?
Annick: the radio said it!

Annick: Do you know what is world news?  It is so you can find out the news what is happening in the world that is bad.

Luca: Whoever reads the far-est, the goodest and the mostest will be the winner!

Annick: Do you know what churches are for?  They are for marrying and knowing the time.

Luca: If you make the wrong choices in class, your name goes on the board.  If you are still naughty, you have to sit by yourself.  The next one is you have to go to Hao's classroom.  Then if you are still bad, you have to go upstairs.  The next one is you have to go to Latham's office.  The next one is you have to walk with a teacher in the playground at lunchtime.  The next one is you have to take some days away from school to think about what you did.  The next one is you go to jail!  The next one is you die and you are born again as another person.

How Annick calls melaleuca trees 'lalaluca' trees.

Luca: Mama, why can't we have a big house?
Me: Because we can't afford one darling.
Luca: But we live in an apartment that is in a big building.
Me: Yes, we do.
Luca: Mama, did you and papa build the big building?  With the neighbours?  Was it a team effort?
Me: Er... no.  We don't know how to build a building, so we asked people who did know to make it.
Luca: I want to do that!  I want to build things!
Me: What would you build?
Luca: Buildings, planes, boats, rockets, machines...
Me: Well, you probably can't learn how to build ALL of those things, which one would you like most to build?
Luca: Planes, because I know how to build planes.  You put the engine in, then you cover it up with metal!

Luca, playing a clapping syllable game: Lu-ca!  That's two!  Cro-co-dile!  That's three!  Hmm... what is a word that has four? *thinks a while* Oh, I know! Pa-cio-re-tty!

Annick, musing on her perfect imaginary house: It can be made of white bricks and look like a castle, with roses!  And vines.  And there can be a dog!  No, wait, not a dog, a dog would ruin the plants.

Summer 2016/17

- Annick, drawing a book, on being asked what it is about: "They had a baby.  They called it Jack.  The mama wanted to give the baby away because of all the crying.  It cried a lot."
- Luca, after seeing plans for the proposed school improvement in the principal's office: "But the school is not broken, why do they have to fix it?" Well, even if it is not broken, it can be improved, it can be better.  "But how can they make it better?  It is so good already!"
- Annick's adoption of girl power anthems like Wannabe and Single Ladies, both the singing and the dancing.  And the girl power!

Spring 2016

A: Why did the plant not stand on the plant?  Because he didn't have any legs!
L: Why do I not have to press anything (runs into bedroom) and I'm invisible?
L: Why did the elephant walk with no legs, no body, no hands?  Because it pressed and had something in its hand and they're just moving, his hands, why is it doing that?
A: Why did the water move without someone moving it?  Because it was a moving jar!
A: Why did the plant stand on the plant with no wings?  Because he was standing on the ceiling!
L: Why did the aeroplane fly without wings?  And no propellors?  Because it was a little bit silly!
- Annick's performance of Let It Go continues to evolve and improve.  Although it is still a 'kingdom of mice-olation' of which she looks like she 's the queen.
- How neither of them articulate their 'sh', and so still say things like "can we go and see the so?" and "look!  There are lots of seep!"
- How Luca heard the tram announcement on the 11 that we were at 'Stop 15, King William Street' and mused that he didn't know King William Street, he just knew William St number 3.  Upon looking at the tram map, it turns out William Street is indeed number 3, and a stop that he has probably been to about half a dozen times in his entire life, and certainly not recently.  MUST REMEMBER THAT HE NOTICES AND REMEMBERS EVERYTHING.
- How Annick is still welded to the regular verb form, and "I meeted Ah Ma there", "I sitted at the table", "I goed to the market", "I swimmed in the pool".

Winter 2016

- Realising that Annick's song that goes, "It's OK, it's just the sun" is actually the Beatles' Here Comes the Sun
- Having a conversation with Luca about past pets Hamish and Bendy - "Mama, do they exist any more?  Are they dead?  What happened?  Was it VOLCANOES?!"
- Discussing art with Annick:
  M: what do you like to draw Annick?
  A: people and trees and houses
  M: can you draw invisible things?"
  A: No!
  M: What about dragons?
  A: Yes.
  M: But how can you draw dragons, they are not real?
  A: You can just use your 'MAGINATION.
  M: How do you do that?
  A: You close your eyes and then you imagine.
  M: Where is your imagination?
  A: IT IS IN MY BOTTOM.
  M: Oh really?  Is a bottom imagination different from other kinds of imagination?
  A: Yes, it is more about bottoms.
- Waking up on the last day of July to hear the kids up and about and 'making breakfast'.  Annick wandered into the bathroom to inform papa what they were doing and upon his joking question "have you made the coffee yet?" she nodded, disappeared and all you could hear were negotiations to get the step, then the sound of the coffee grinder.  At this point I thought I'd better get up, only to find a loaf of fruit toast, a selection of spreads, a box of cereal and a bottle of milk ready to go on the counter.  And four little pots filled with kefir and maple syrup that Luca had thoughtfully prepared.  Quite a lot of syrup as it turned out in the end, more syrup with kefir than the other way round.  They were quite disappointed to hear that we were actually going out for breakfast.
- Luca's deliciously random non-sequitur ramblings about whatever the heck pops into his head
- Luca, asking what is 'letter' which we worked out was 'leather', because he asked if his shoes were 'letter'.  They have apparently been reading the Shoemaker's Elves at school because this appears to be where he got the concept of leather from.  I explained that my bag was leather and he touched it and asked, "but what is it?"  It's the skin of animals.  "Oh.  What kind of animals?"  Er, cows mostly.  Sheep, goats.  "But how do they peel the skin off?"  What?  They don't peel it off!  When you kill a cow for meat... "When they peel it off, the cow must get really angry!"
- all the (mostly naked) re-enactments of Olympic gymnastic routines in front of the telly coverage
- how Luca says "my tummy is wumbly" when he is hungry, or if he says it too fast, "my tumbly is wumbly."
- but how he is finally getting to grips with his 'Rs' and when I was gently teasing him about the 'Wio Olympics', he calmly corrected my pronunciation - "Not WIO mama, RIO".
- how Annick's conversation is peppered with matter of fact 'actually's.  "Well, I think that's right actually.  This is a cat actually.  I like this spaghetti actually."
- how Annick's strategies to stay up a little longer have gone past the usual needing a wee or a drink of water approaches and now encompass questions like, "don't go yet mama, I need to know something!"  What do you need to know?  "Why does the Earth turn, when it is not turning?"
- Luca, passing a WW2 memorial with some wreaths sitting at the base - "why are there flowers there?"  It's to honour people who died in the war.  "Oh.  Did they fall off the wall?"  No, not wall, war.  "What is war?"  [long pause]  War is when people fight each other.  "So did the war kill the people?"  Er, no, the people killed the people in the war.  "So if this is the war [bunches a fist] and these are the people, [wiggles fingers of other hand] then did the war go GRRRUM [fist grabs fingers] and kill them?"  Maybe we need to have this conversation another time.

Autumn 2016

- Annick, "writing" a mermaid story in a book.

  Mama: what is your story about?

  Annick: It is about a mermaid who doesn't want to be in the water.

  Mama: Oh!  Why not?

  Annick: Because she wants to be in a castle.

  Most concise telling of the Little Mermaid ever.

- Annick: "Luca, you are not biggest, you are medium-sizest."
- How Luca has suddenly started saying, in a tone of great astonishment, "oh my gosh!"
- How one of Luca's favourite games is 'Funnyworld', whereby he makes surrealist art out of Lego, mostly involving torsos and heads in bizarre scenarios.
- How Annick bosses Luca around and tells him "great job" when he's done something right
- How Angus taught Luca 'I'm the king of the castle, and you're a dirty rascal' and so now that's Luca's standard song.  Annick misheard it as 'you're a naughty squirrel'.
- How Luca's most cutting insult when he is mad is that you are "Le plus gros geant... de NASHVILLE!"
- How a new name Luca teases Annick with is "pisketti cat!"
- How Annick told Luca she was making "A inja turtle spaceship!" and Luca thought that was so cool that he would make a inja turtle spaceship too.
- How Luca peppers his play with enthusiastic cries of, "OH YEAHHHHH."
- How Annick is desperate to learn to read and write like Luca, and will do her best to outshine him when he's doing his homework
- On being told that she might have done a poo in her pants because mama could smell a caca, Annick replied indignantly, "that's just my smell!  Some girls have that smell and they keep it!"
- How they are sponges for information - Luca just absorbing and learning, and Annick who likes to pass on what she's learned, however garbled.  How they love documentaries and pop up with unexpected facts at unexpected moments.
- How if I've worked late and not seen the kids, I will go and kiss them goodnight, and Annick's eyes will flick open, and she will smile and bestow me with a kiss and a cuddle and a joyous, "mama!" and then in an instant be asleep again.
- How Annick is sadly learning the correct words for Let It Go, and so now it IS the cold that doesn't bother her anyway.