Surprise visit

Jen returned unexpectedly on a flying visit from California on their way through to Australia and then to NZ where they will settle. Tilly and the other kids from Thursday playgroup (who could make it at such short notice) had enormous fun playing with Hunter. Helena (little monkey on the right) has grown so much and is speaking so much more. It's not often you get to say hello again to someone you thought you had said your goodbyes to!

Art

Butterfly or dragonfly, she couldn't decide. Either way I'm mightly impressed. Of significance to Tilly was the spot she drew so it could 'wee wee out'. Haha.

For those who pray....

I have a prayer request. Little one seems to like snookling up under my ribs, bum down low. I've been told the likelyhood of the baby moving into the right position might be low as there isn't a great deal of amniotic fluid. I don't know. Who knows what that means??? I know the baby has been in this position for quite some time now, and seems pretty happy with it! Ha. I've also been told I can give birth bum first, as long as the feet stay up above the bum like they are now and the baby is no bigger than Tilly was at birth. Not feeling great about that prognosis! Just need the baby to turn, then all will be well. I wrote a big long story about it here last night after returning from the clinic and decided to delete it this morning and just come straight to the point. So, turn baby turn....

Belly update

Was getting ready for church this morning, Steve had the camera and was snapping. I'm into my 32nd week. Bit over it if I might say so.

Coz I'm brown...

Sitting here in the air conditioning right now. Tills has just finished watching Playschool on which there was the classic song, 1 grey elephant. (1 grey elephant balancing, step by step on a piece of string, he thought it was such a wonderful stunt, that he called for another.... elephant) She's got the pipe of the vacuum cleaner on my bed and balancing while I am being instructed to sing the song. Then she suddenly says to me, "I'm a brown elephant mama." Then she rubbed her arm with her hand and said, "coz I'm brown mama and elephants are grey, not brown." Yesterday I told her she had lovely brown skin (as opposed to her pink freckly mama) and she said back in Chinese, "I'm black like baba." In Chinese there isn't really a phrase for dark skin or whatever. It's just a direct use of "black". And I don't really like it much. I don't like the crazy obsessions of the women here to be as "white" as possible either. People tell her in Chinese fairly often that she's black. I respond that black is good and would you rather have my skin? Crazy ideas, but anyway. It's summer and she's got a tan!

Home among the gum trees

Tilly and I made a gum tree today for her kookaburra. I put on her Australian Songbook CD today and it got her all fired up for all things Australian. It's great to listen to. Especially "Kookaburra sits in the old gum tree.... " I was sitting with her and she was trying to put Kookaburra on 'trees' but none of the so called trees would hold him up. So I asked did she want me to make her one. As you can see, I'm NOT crafty. This is our gum tree, it's one of those ones that has the really long green leaves, like in the back of Poppy's yard. What's that called? A Wallangarra White Gum? Probably not, but anyway... There is water below for crocodile (yes, eventually all the Aussie toys came out to play), and Koala sits precariously at the bottom of the trunk right by the croc. Rainbow lorikeet is in the tree too. She loves the gum tree. If you look closely she's made a bridge over the water and Bilby is trying to cross it, without getting bitten by crocodile. It's the end of the day and the gum tree is still standing. But the animals have since fallen out, perhaps eaten by croc. She did hold crocodile up to show him her caterpillar painting that is hanging on the wall behind the tree. "Can you see my caterpillar crocodile? You see him? Mmmm, that's my caterpillar."

Some motherly advice

While baking yesterday I thought I'd impart some great motherly advice to Tilly about how to run your kitchen. My kitchen is great; bright, airy, and by local standards biggish... by Western standards it's small I guess. Me: Ok Tills. When you cook, you need to be organised. Once you've finished with something, wash it up and get rid of it. That way you can keep the kitchen clean and organised and it's easier to get stuff done. Tills: Wow mum, that's a good story!!! Me: It's not a story love it's a fact....... Tills: Hahahahahahaha, mummy.....

Scrub a dub dub

Tilly engaging in a spot of washing. A bag of socks she no longer fits into, two small tubs of water and some pegs.

Can you see the pool in the background? Not ours - but we are constantly reminded of its presence by the shouts of joy coming from the kids inside. No, we have to go much further to get to our pool. But anyway, this pool isn't designed for little kids who can't swim yet!

I was trying to do some cooking in the kitchen. As soon as she heard the beaters whir, she was inside asking could she 'help'. Which means can she lick the beaters and the bowl?

And here is GuGu who turned up to see us. She's rubbing Tilly's back. Tills loves a good back rub. I promised Tilly's cousin, English name Melody, that I'd bake her some things to take on her school trip down to Hua Lian. I indulged and made melting moments and peanut butter and white chocolate blondies. The blondies (as opposed to 'brownies') were excellent, but didn't turn out as photo friendly as the gorgeous little melting moments below. Or I think I just couldn't be bothered taking the shot maybe. I love cooking for them, as they drool over everything and eat it all as soon as it gets home. Steve doesn't love eating this sort of food, so I would never make it for us. Plus, all that butter!

A Masterpiece emerges...

The focus is the yellow blob starting to emerge. The easel was a gift from Nan and Pop for her 3rd b'day.

She called me over and proudly showed me her 'caterpillar'. I think it's so great. She pointed out it's purple eyes, dark brown mouth, light brown hair and yellow and red body. So damn proud of my little girl.

Goop

More balcony fun. Goop is a favourite of Tilly's and something we haven't done since Australia. A bag of cornflour, a drop of food colouring, some water and the possibilities are endless. It's a solid and a liquid and lots of fun. You can squeeze it and it goes dry in your hand and when you open your hand up it runs like water.

She got it everywhere. A quick washdown with the hose and you'd never know it had happened at all. The paint brush is a winner. She painted everything in sight with a much more watered down version of the goop.

Water play

So city living has it's limits, like no front or back yard. And in this painful heat, water play is your best bet. Twice a week I take Tilly to the pool to swim. It's the only thing I can think of that I won't get heat stroke doing. All our old haunts are out of the question, too hot! Anyway, today I took Tilly shopping for some colouring books and then in the process picked up some groceries (the big super mall where they sell everything) and nearly wiped myself out in the process. So the afternoon was spent indoors and with me sitting down. My friend Jen left us with some pretty cool beach tools and toys before they left the island for good. I've put them on the front balcony and Tilly spent nearly two hours there this afternoon, with me sitting by the door watching and talking with her and reading my cooking magazines and listening to Radio National. Bliss......

She spent the whole time transferring water from one pot to the next and into the watering can and tipping it out and starting again. There is a tap on the balcony and every now and then she'd get a refill.

Tipping and pouring was a lot of fun. Can you see the exercise machine to the right? She ended up with a paint brush and was 'painting' everything in sight, in particular the step machine (that I don't use!!) She thought it was funny how when she put all her weight on one side the other side would pop up. That got us to talking about weight and balance. She had fun trying to make it 'equal' by standing with each leg on either side. That led me to making this......

.... which is a bit of a joke, haha! But she loved it and it soon lost it's purpose of being a set of scales to becoming an aeroplane for her small teddies. We had a lovely afternoon together just the two of us.

(Additional Note: Daddy came home and saw the blog and said, 'I hope you were with her the whole time she was on the balcony???' YES, there was constant supervision while Tills was on the balcony, yikes! He could have just said, Wow, looks like so much fun and just trusted that I was there the whole time!! He'd had two VERY long days at work)

Friends who visit

Paula has the patience to teach three year olds UNO. I do not, so I lounged on the sofa. Sarah is quite the professional at it and between the two of them they patiently showed Tilly how to play. Sarah is extending her hand here to Tilly and telling her that she just won, even though Tills hadn't really caught on, at that stage..... ... and here is she in full realisation that she's just won a game. Sarah's a good sport and delighted in Tilly's win and gave her a hug and a kiss. And here is a shot of pregnant mama not coping with the heat or the heavy load. Tilly eventually got bored beside me and fell asleep too.