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.

December 2014

Things to remember this month:
- How Luca bit the head off a little man cut out of watermelon and I cried, "oh no, how will the little man see, he has no head??!" to which Luca gave me a baleful look and replied, "il est juste un bonhomme de melon d'eau maman, je peux manger sa tete."
- How Luca and Annick close themselves in the wardrobe, then burst out, exclaiming, "SPECTACLE!!" and sometimes one of them will announce, "bonjour mesdames et messieurs!" and sometimes there is dancing or sometimes there is a clown, but it's usually all done in 30 seconds (but that's OK because there is another show about 30 seconds later).
- How Annick has conjured up a couple of imaginary friends named Lulu and Topsy.
- How Luca finally jumped for the first time (with two feet off the floor at the same time)!  On 17 December, to Mickey by Toni Basil!
- How Annick calls them the "bli-bli-o-thèque" and the "bli-blarie"
- How Luca will be cheeky when leaving the table, and will say "Merci Bob le bricoleur!" instead of thanking whoever has actually provided the meal.  I should point out that Bob le bricoleur NEVER cooks for us.
- How Annick tells her stories 'One time at band camp' style, complete with raised inflection at the end of each phrase - "One time? at ah ma's house? ah ma's car breaked? and a man comed? and he fixed it? and it wasn't brokens anymore?"
- How Annick pronounces 'doing' like 'boing' - "what you doing mama?"
- How Luca has a memory like an elephant and has taken to memorising books and 'reading' them to Annick or himself or mama and papa.  Once Jason was reading Martine a la maison, a book we've only ever read to them a few times, and not for a while.  He came to a sentence where Martine and Jean pick some flowers, and Luca, without prompting, filled in the word 'oeillets' for the flowers - not a flower he knows, not a word we ever use, but clearly one he remembered from previous readings of the book.

At the making faces stage.

Probably not going to be doing this for much longer.

Once Annick decided she needed to borrow a scooter from the toy library, so did Luca.

Annick - slowest eater in the world, always the last one left after breakfast has been cleared away.

Luca and Annick like to help mama fold laundry.  Mama is very pleased about this, but would rather they didn't take already folded clothes out of their drawer to 'fold' again.

A babycino with sprinkles, chocolate and marshmallow?  Yes please!

Annick is less impressed.

Sadly, this is one of their favourite places.

Luca is often found reading somewhere quietly - sometimes he forgets that he has something important to do, like get dressed, before picking up a good book.

Making Christmas teatowels for their carers at creche.  I was hoping they would come out like beautiful kids drawings on fabric, but instead they looked like the cloths they use to clean up the kids when they do painting.  Still, thought that counts and everything.

Christmas shopping centre shenanigans.

Annick and Luca have taken to parenting their dolls and bears in the park.

Notre beau garçon d'amour.

Papa et sa petite fillette.

Uncle cuddles, the best kind.

November 2014

Things to remember:
- How Annick eats things then rubs her belly and tells you "it gone in my tummy tummy"
- How Luca has suddenly switched obsessions from rubbish trucks to construction and astronauts
- How Annick loves to dance
- How Annick makes beautiful plates of food for mama, papa, Luca and her dollies (why yes, I would love a plate of fish and sausage and watermelon and cake)
- How Luca has his little fixations - this month, builder overalls borrowed from the toy library after he spent the Kennett River weekend telling us how Angus surely had a builder outfit and could he have one too (even though Angus had no such builder outfit).  He wanted to sleep in it, wear it to daycare, wear it all the time, and would weep in his bed after lights out, crying, "salopettes!  Salopettes!!"  He insisted Ah Ma bring all his tools from her house so that he could put them in the toolbelt that came with the overalls.
- How Annick is a proper 2 year old:
  Mama: Here are your bunny pyjamas darling
  Annick: NO!  (takes bunny pyjamas, throws them on floor)  I NO WANT BUNNY PYJAMAS!  I CHOOSE!
  Mama: (sighs.  Puts pyjamas back in drawer)  OK then, you choose.
  Annick: (goes to drawer, looks inside, takes out bunny pyjamas)  These ones mama, I want bunny pyjamas.
- How Luca is getting the hang of how ice hockey works and has a startling memory for scores and stats.  "Papa, les Canadiens ont gagnés hier?  4-1?  Contre les Maple Leafs?"
- How Luca loves to do 'show and share' at kinder, and when asked one day how he was going to present that week's item (a truck, natch), he bounced up to his feet, turned to me and beamed, and announced with much verve, "Good morning boys and girls!"

Builder outfit.

More builder outfit.

See what I mean about the builder outfit?

Annick is a good mama for her little babies.

Stir up Sunday!  The one day of the year the kids get to ingest raw egg and brandy in one go.

Also from the toy library - CAPES.

Annick - SUPER FAIRY.

Annick - RIGHT FIELD.

Luca getting the hang of batting pretty quickly.

The day before summer, thanks to a winter episode of Playschool.

October 2014

Things to remember about right now:
- How Luca will rub his little belly after his bath and say, "ça, c'est mon fuselage!"
- How Luca asked what the little rubber dots under his slippers were for, and while I was trying to work out how to explain in French that they were so he did not slip and they stuck to the floor, he asked perkily, "c'est pour la vitesse maman?"  What could I say but, "oui, c'est pour la vitesse ti-gars."
- How Annick had set up a lovely dinner for herself and her doll Sophia, complete with cake and sandwiches and plates and cutlery.  And a sausage in a teacup.  "Pourquoi il y a une saucisse dans la tasse ma belle?"  "Parce que c'est une saucisse-tasse maman."
- How Annick still stands up in her cot waiting to be retrieved after a nap or in the morning and looks so happy to see you, bouncing up and down (except on those days when she is in a MOOD)
- How Luca is building the most incredible structures and vehicles these days out of duplo, but is showing interest in moving into Lego (which sadly does not have the immediate largeness of duplo when built)
- How Annick wanders about looking after her dollies and cooking in her kitchen. Current specialty - pancakes (ingredients - yellow felt)
- How Papa is trying very hard to convert Luca to baseball during this World Series between two favourite teams, but Luca is steadfastly all about the hockey
- How Annick mixes up gruau and yoghourt
- How Annick sings 'Twinkle twinkle lootle star, wonder what you are, diamond in the skyyyyy".
- How Luca's last question and night and first question in the morning is always, "c'est quoi pour le petit dejeuner mama?"

Oven gloves!

Piling on papa at the Fitzroy Gardens.

Approaching the highly dangerous sport of gelato eating well-protected.

Luca has a new bed!  In preparation for Annick moving into the bed below (but still in the cot for now, because you don't give a 2 year old freedom until you absolutely have to).

Luca's amazing construction skills continue to grow.

Wearing training underpants for the first time.  EXTREMELY PROUD.

Still happy in her cot, still just lovely to meet in the morning.

Painting ah kong's wall.  Waited five whole minutes before deciding to find out what it tasted like.

Out in the sun with some bubbles and a remote control car from Uncle Harvey.