Celebrate Good Times, C'mon

Apart from Little Wanna's 6th birthday with chocolate cake, marble cake and vanilla cupcakes

We've been busy celebrating...

The centenary of Girl Guides at a campfire at Weston Park, Yarralumla

Grandpa receiving a Medal of the Order of Australia in the Queen's Birthday honours

plus...

Mid-way mark in the junior soccer season - Go United!  Go Griffins!

Good friends with plenty of parties, playdates and sleepovers

Ro-Ro's speaking part as compere for the Year Two assembly

Mid-Winter booking for a snow holiday at Perisher in the Snowy Mountains

Sale time at Nine West and a pair of black leather ballet flats

Six

When I was One,

I had just begun.

When I was Two,

I was nearly new.

When I was Three,

I was hardly Me.

When I was Four,

I was not much more.

When I was Five,

I was just alive.

But now I am Six, I'm as clever as clever.

So I think I'll be six now for ever and ever.

By A. A. Milne

Who's hiding in the barn?

These are our set of well-worn and well-loved books for infants, most of which were purchased a decade ago from The Reject Shop, one of those two dollar emporiums full of junky goods and occasional cheap treasure.  They are pocket-sized editions made of hard cardboard.  Some have lift the flap pages which provided endless hours of entertainment for our littlies.  Great value for money. 

Even though they were either written in the UK or the US and included images of non-indigenous animals, such as hedgehogs, squirrels, pandas, flamingoes and deer, which we were never, ever likely to see, the children happily accepted that these were real things.  Should we have encountered elephants tromping down Commonwealth Avenue or cows or pirates on the way to the supermarket, my toddlers would have known them instantly and thought it perfectly natural.

Part of learning to read involves recognising that the image of the object or animal has a name even though it is unfamilar to us in the real day-to-day world.  That two dimensional representation is all the child has to work with and, amazingly, they can transfer the memory from one picture or illustration to another.  Where would we be without zebras to introduce us to the letter Z? 

I've always thought it odd that so many of our early books were about farm and zoo animals neither of which were part of our suburban life. I've noticed there are more picture books these days about life in cities which feature everyday items, but they are still mostly from overseas and there is the occasional need for a translation eg. from lollipop to iceblock. 

Lovely memories, but what to do with the books now that we have outgrown them?

 Stop being so sentimental for one and look forward to collecting those lovely thick chapter books.  Now that we know our A,B,C.  Sigh...

World Cup

Tim Ayres Poster 01, Girl With Football, 2005, GB © 2005 FIFA

Michael Craig-Martin, Poster 05, Foot-Ball, 2004,

Sarah Morris, Poster 12, Gateway, 2004, USA

  Hisashi Tenmyouya, Football, 2004, Japan

 

Beatriz Milhazes, Maracanã, 2004, Brazil

Tobias Rehberger, 90 Minutes, 2004 Germany

Mirror mirror on the wall

Could you please return our ball

Our football went through your crack

You have two now

Give one back.

Poem by Benjamin Zephaniah
First image by me

Other images from an Edition of Official Art Posters for the 2006 FIFA World Cup in Germany

Flipbooks : Tribute to Lynne, the BBW and No 5

We wanted to post these pictures for our favourite book illustrator, Lynne Chapman - way over there in Sheffield UK - who drew the beautiful pastel pictures in this very book we are holding, The Big Bad Wolf is Good. 

When I took these photos and scrolled through them, they reminded me of flipbooks - the set of still images you flick over to make a continuous moving picture. Before movies were invented there were a number of optical devices that produced animation effects like this. With weird and unpronounceable names such as thaumatrope, phenakistoscope, zoetrope, and praxinoscope, these devices let you view a spinning card with small images on it, each like a single frame in an animated movie. It has always fascinated me, this movie projecting business, and I found these neat facts on The Science Explorer.

If a light is flashing on and off more than thirty times a second, you see it as a steady light--you don't notice the flickering. When you watch a movie, the light from the projector is flickering 72 times a second. Your eye and brain blend the flickering frames of the movie to make a single moving picture.

When you look at a picture, then quickly flip to another picture, your eye and brain remember the first picture for a fraction of a second, and blend it with the second picture. This visual ability, known as persistence of vision, makes the pictures in movies appear to move.

Isn't that amazing trickery?

Now for scene two of our flipbook.  Here we are with Duckling No 5. who always makes us cry!  He's lost his Mummy. Happy faces.  Sad faces!  Lynne kindly posted the original drawing of No 5 on her blog especially for us.  Sniff, sniff!

 

 

 

  

Note: no wolves or ducklings were harmed in the making of this movie.

Furniture: Pre-loved (and still loved)

The Table and the Chair

Said the Table to the Chair,

'You can hardly be aware,

'How I suffer from the heat,

'And from chilblains on my feet!

'If we took a little walk,

'We might have a little talk!

'Pray let us take the air!'

Said the Table to the Chair.

Said the Chair to the table,

'Now you know we are not able!

'How foolishly you talk,

'When you know we cannot walk!'

Said the Table with a sigh,

'It can do no harm to try,

'I've as many legs as you,

'Why can't we walk on two?'

So they both went slowly down,

And walked about the town

With a cheerful bumpy sound,

As they toddled round and round.

And everybody cried,

As they hastened to the side,

'See! the Table and the Chair

'Have come out to take the air!'

But in going down an alley,

To a castle in a valley,

They completely lost their way,

And wandered all the day,

Till, to see them safetly back,

They paid a Ducky-quack,

And a Beetle, and a Mouse,

Who took them to their house.

Then they whispered to each other,

'O delightful little brother!

'What a lovely walk we've taken!

'Let us dine on Beans and Bacon!'

So the Ducky and the leetle

Browny-Mousy and the Beetle

Dined and danced upon their heads

Till they toddled to their beds.

Poem by by Edward Lear

Yesterday I sold our children's play furniture.  It was a solid timber table and chair set with matching stove and cupboard.  I bought it second hand from an advertisement in the paper years ago when Charley was a toddler.  I remember also, around this time, buying a doll's house from a family with two sweet girls who were selling off their outgrown toys and gear with a view to using the money to buy something else for themselves for Christmas.  The parent's left the bartering entirely to the girls.   I thought at the time how sad it was to see these girls grow out of their toys - symbolic of the end of their childhood in a way.   And now it is happening to us!

The furniture has been well-loved and well-used over the preschool years.  But these years, sadly, are behind us and we need bigger chairs and wider tables for homework and board games and card-making and model aeroplane construction.  It's the end of an era and I'm a bit sad.  I recall lugging the furniture home in the back of my trusty Ford Laser hatchback which has also been traded-in and upgraded.  Sigh.  I might need to take a little walk and take a little air.

AB and C

The ABC by Spike Milligan

Twas midnight in the schoolroom

And every desk was shut

When suddenly from the alphabet

Was heard a loud 'Tut-Tut!'

Said A to B, 'I don't like C;

His manners are a lack.

For all I ever see of C

Is a semi-circular back!'

'I disagree,' said D to B,

'I've never found C so.

From where I stand he seems to be

An uncompleted O.'

C was vexed, 'I'm much perplexed,

You criticise my shape.

I'm made like that, to help spell Cat

And Cow and Cool and Cape.'

He's right' said E; said F, 'Whoopee!'

Said G, ''Ip, 'Ip, 'ooray!'

'You're dropping me,' roared H to G.

'Don't do it please I pray.'

'Out of my way,' LL said to K.

'I'll make poor I look ILL.'

To stop this stunt J stood in front,

And presto! ILL was JILL.

'U know,' said V, 'that W

Is twice the age of me.

For as a Roman V is five

I'm half as young as he.'

X and Y yawned sleepily,

'Look at the time!' they said.

'Let's all get off to beddy byes.'

They did, then 'Z-z-z.'

Autumn fires still burning

On the motionless branches of some trees, autumn berries hung like clusters of coral beads, as in those fabled orchards where the fruits were jewels . . .”

                                                                                                      Charles Dickens

It's no longer autumn and the ornamental pear trees in the back garden are still holding onto their brilliant orange leaves, resisting the frost and winds. It's like looking at a wall flames from through the glass bi-fold doors inside.  It gives me a jolt every morning when I look out groggy-eyed from sleep.

There too is the mandatory trampoline with the protective netting, an essential landscaping accessory for every Canberra garden with children.  Shame about the telegraph poles.  Both unfortunate, but necessary, adornments which stand inert and unchanging through the seasons.  

All I want for Christmas is ...

Every body stops

and stares at me

These two teeth are

gone as you can see

I don't know just who

to blame for this catastrophe!

But my one wish on Christmas Eve

is as plain as it can be!

All I want for Christmas

are my two front teeth

my two front teeth,

see my two front teeth!

If I could only

have my two front teeth,

then I could wish you

Merry Christmas

It seems so long since I could say,

'Sister Susie sitting on a thistle'

How happy I'd be,

If I could only whistle

All I want for Christmas

are my two front teeth

my two front teeth,

see my two front teeth.

So I could wish you

Merry Christmas!

How cool is this!  One extremely wobbly front tooth (the second is not far behind) coincides with a scheduled check-up visit to the dentist this afternoon.  So Dr W removes it in one clean and distinguished sweep with a high-tech tissue.  Imagine having the dentist remove your first front tooth!   Even superstars can't time dentist visits so well.  And at no extra charge.  (Surprising!)

 

Dad was threatening to take it out with the pliers.  Mum was rolling out cotton thread and tying it to door handles.  Charley recalled how hers nearly feel down the plughole when she brushed her teeth and accidentally bumped it. 

 

It was bending back at a perilous angle and was a huge distraction.  Now the gap is a bigger distraction and that tongue keeps twirling around in the emply space.  Remember that sensation?

 

Guess who's visiting our house tonight and it's not Santa Claus?

 

Go Ro!

Poem by by Don Gardne