Holiday

We've just had a very nice weekend in the blue mountains filled with fun for machine loving boys. We went to Scenic world, which has a skyway, cablecar, and scenic railway (the best part, as it goes down at around 50 degrees), and also visited Aidan on the way up, and Tommy (with guest appearance from Aidan) on the way down.

Callum actually thought the highlight was the boardwalk at the bottom of the scenic railway (unusually for him, not a mechanical item), and Declan liked the HUUGE backyard of our mountain holiday house.

For the parents, the highlight, once again, was the Post Office Restaurant at Leura, which is so child friendly that we had two meals there with both boys sitting quietly for an hour and a half, devouring their meals of fish & chips and ice cream. Rachel the waitress was still there and remembered the boys from January, even asking Callum if he was still obsessed with the Titanic.

Spoke too soon

Bedtime escalated after a while, so it took about half an hour before Declan stopped being disruptive. Only stopped after I carried through with the threat to take him to bed in our room.

And then Jack decided after getting very upset with Declan for making too much noise that he was missing his mum, so had to sit with us for a while before going to sleep.

Still, we had a very civilized evening with all three boys, which they enjoyed immensely.

Visitors

We have Jack visiting for a sleepover tonight, and it has been very civilized. They all three sat at the table and ate dinner together, and took turns telling me about their day. Best of all, the combined effects of peer pressure that all three of them ate all the baby spinach leaves in their dinner, when not one of them had ever done it before.

Reading

Declan has learned how to read a word - "no". So far, it's his only one, but whenever he sees it, he proudly points it out - "N O, no". I think it's because he's learning to read from traffic signs.

He can now also read all the numbers up to 10, and has a reasonable amount of success with those up to 20 (even though he can only count up to 12).

A new obsession?

Callum has become interested in airships the last couple of days. We've now watched the Hindenburg crash a great many times and the whole family now knows a lot of obscure airship facts.

The history of airships does seem to be a series of mishaps, which is leading me to question Callum's obsession with great transport disasters of the 20th Century.

The week

Callum's first school holidays. Monday was a public holiday and Jennifer took Cal and Dec to visit Sam and Rowan, after the obligatory finding Easter egg excitement (I remained sick in bed).

Tuesday and Wednesday saw Callum with Elizabeth the babysitter for the day. On Tuesday he went to the Maratime Museum and came back proudly loaded with things he'd done including making a Viking necklace. On Wednesday he had a similar experience at the Powerhouse Museum. I actually think he got to do more with Elizabeth than he would have done with me, and he certainly seemed to have enjoyed himself.

Thursday we went to Manly and visited grandparents in the morning. We met up with Sue and Jack in the afternoon and the kids had a great time jumping in the sea and then rolling in the sand - talk about caked with sand. In the evening Jean and Don came for dinner and stayed the night.

Friday Jean and Don took Declan to the Maratime Museum for his own Viking necklace. Callum went to a medieval day in Merrylands. He had a good time learning about knights and castles and making his own flag and shield. It's in interesting indication of his literalism - others had flags with something representative on it, Callum just wrote his name on each flag (his shield does, however, feature pink dots and aboriginal flags).

Yesterday we went to Oliver Bachus's third birthday party and then to Martin and Kevin's for lunch. The boys thoroughly trashed the Boys designer flat and had a good time doing it. To finish off the family theme we had a long video call with Uncle Bob from Spain in the evening.

Hiding

Declan has a new obsession - hiding. When out walking, he will run ahead if he spies the least sniff of a hiding place, and cram himself into it, pretending he isn't there, and never has been (sometimes while looking right at you!). And at home, he has been exploring the possibilities of curtains, wardrobes, doonas, and cushions at every opportunity. He's getting better at understanding he needs to hide his whole body, and alternates between staying there for ages, unless you spot him, or jumping out and saying boo! at the first opportunity.

Walking

This afternoon, we walked down to Blues Point, just to get a bit of exercise in the afternoon. Both Callum and Declan decided to run the whole way down there. I realised about half way that it is no longer possible to keep up with Declan just walking. You have to run a bit, too.

I thought we might have a bit of trouble with Declan walking back up the hill, but apart from a small bit of whinging at the beginning of the climb, he was pretty happy going back up.

On looking up the old archives, we discovered that it was at about Declan's current age that Callum first walked down to the ferry and back by himself, so they're pretty even.

Drawing

Lately, Callum and Declan have become addicting to drawing and writing things. I'm not quite sure what brought it on, but we've had a goodly stack of A4 paper sitting on a shelf in the kitchen, and it's mostly been used up.

Callum likes drawing pictures of particular things (often the Titanic, but this mornign it was a castle and moat), whereas Declan does this less often (although this evening he drew a ship on Evan's request - possibly not recognisable to the uninitiated yet). Callum also loves to write words if he can work out how to spell them independently (usually from finding a book that have them) and Declan is just starting to try a few letters independently (usually a D, but the other day he tried an A).

Letter from the teacher

Today's was the last day of Callum's first term at school. His teacher sent home a letter to us:

We've had a exciting term 1 in KT. Callum has been a delight! he is always sharing interesting information with his friends and teachers!

He's made quite a few friends this term and really enjoys playground days!

Have a great holiday break!

Mrs Barnett

After a term, Callum is certainly loving school and thriving there, and we're very glad we decided to send him this year.

Huge day

Yesterday (Sunday) we decided with our usual partners-in-crime Sue and Jack that we would visit the Thai New Year festival at Darling Harbour. When we got there, we discovered that it consisted of a lot of Thai food stalls and boring political speeches. So instead, we had a maritime museum and playground day. Various activities:

- pretending that the pirate ship playground was actually the Titanic and that everyone had to get into the lifeboats
- climbing up to the top of a lighthouse (77 steps, plus a 2 metre ladder)
- dressing up as Vikings in the maritime museum kids section, and creating runes of the boys' names
- visiting an actual working naval patrol boat (with guns!)

Then, to top off the day, when we were on the ferry home we had a call from Angela, Robert and Tommy who were stopping off for a visit, and waiting for us in our playground.

A wonderful day, which makes us appreciate the beautiful Sydney autumn weather even more.

In memorium

Sadly, Declan's fish, Ice-cream-cone Ben, is no more. We don't know what happened, but after a day of swimming in what looked like a very unhealthy way, he was dead one morning last week. Declan seemed completely unfazed, just saying that we would have to go down to the fish shop and buy another one. So unfazed was he, that this morning, when Jane gave him a glove balloon, with a face drawn on it, he said that its name was Ice-cream-cone Ben. Good to see that his memory lives on.

Daylight saving update

I'm afraid daylight saving is still cursing our household. We've resorted to bribery - if they stay in bed until 7, they get an easter egg. There is no danger of that happening. This morning it was 6 before they came into our room, but before 5.45 when we heard them. We'll just have to tough it out.

In the meantime, yesterday, Callum had to have a nap at school because he was so tired at lunchtime from getting up at 5.30 (woken by Declan). That's the first time ever.

Why can't we just keep the clocks forward?

Daylight saving

We have been dreading the end of daylight saving, because the boys will continue to wake up at the same time - it will just be an hour earlier. And sure enough, that's what happened this morning. Declan woke up at 5.30 am this morning. Yesterday, when that was 6.30 am, that seemed civilized. But this morning, far from it (although I can't really complain, because Evan was the one who got up).

Callum, on the other hand, said yesterday morning, "I'm really excited because today we put the clocks back one hour". It's frightening how many different things he picks up from school these days.