Temper Tantrums and A Gecko Called Fred!

As per usual it's been a weird and wonderful week over here in LaLa the Land of Insanity!

The younger two children have had school swimming for the last two weeks. So every day during that two weeks they go off to school in their swimming gear, and come home in the school clothes. They have to take a towel and their change of clothes, and while it sounds great....it's kind of like homework for little kids. In that it's really more of a pain for the parents than anything. Although I guess it's a necessary evil, over here at least. We live so close to the ocean and every second person has a pool in their backyard, so it's so very very important that they at least know how to swim.

In our case the last two weeks have gone something like this: Miss Emily - "I forgot to put sunscreen on, I got sunburnt, but I got moved up to level 6!" She can swim really well, I think from memory level 6 means they can swim freestyle a minimum of 50 meters. Which is great, but her neck looks like a roasted and peeled lobster, which is not so great. Little Dude: "I left my swimming bag at school." Me: "AGAIN!!!???" He did it at least 4 times over the two week period. Lucky he has more than one pair of board shorts and a couple of rashies! He doesn't swim very well, which is kind of weird given how much exposure to water he's had, but not so weird in other respects. Regardless, he's done really well with the lessons and I'm at least confident that if he fell into water, he could save himself. Which in the end is really all that matters.

It did get me thinking about swimming lessons for Little Miss Penelope though. I think I'll be enrolling her for baby lessons come the start of the new school year in February. Speaking of Miss Penelope.......

She loves her walker! Obviously she doesn't walk in it, and we don't have any stairs in our house so even when she does start to walk, we know she'll be safe in it. But seriously, we put her in this little thing and she gets so excited! Her face gets all serious and excited at the same time, and she has such a look of concentration about her. She has already learned that if she bashes on the coloured buttons they make music happen, and she tries her hardest to grab at the other bits on it. It's really very cute.














We have also discovered that the sweet lovely little girl has a not so sweet and lovely temper about her! It seems she has quite a few traits from her father's side of the family; one Uncle apparently chewed his own tongue which Miss Penelope does very well and with much apparent enjoyment. Another Uncle supposedly slept with his eyes partly open, probably in order to
freak everyone out. Little Miss Penelope does this also! And she also seems to have inherited her fathers' temper. He has been regaling me with stories of his seemingly epic temper tantrums as a child. So far Penelope seems to think it's a competition that she needs to win. She is so smiley and giggly and just oh so sweet and innocent looking....then you put her down in her bed. And then the screaming begins. She screams as if she is in the worst pain you could ever possibly imagine, so naturally we do what any loving parent would do, and pick her up. At which point in time, instantly in fact, she stops crying. Usually she not only stops crying but also smiles at you and gurgles, looking at you as if to say "look at me Mummy and Daddy, I'm so beautiful, everybody says so, so how could you be wanting me to sleep?!" The second you put her back down in her bed she begins anew. Let me tell you, it's getting very very old, very very quickly! Sometimes we don't even need to pick her up; simply peering over the side of the cot is enough to cause gurgles and giggles from the baby who was literally seconds before screaming blue murder!

So she has spent a lot of time in her pram lately, because she absolutely loves it! She goes to sleep quick smart and it saves all our eardrums. She particularly loves it when her one and only big brother pushes the pram. Because he's so short it looks rather comical, but he really is my little sanity saver! Within a couple of minutes of him doing circles around the living room she is out cold! And he absolutely loves it!





Also this week, Little Miss Penelope has discovered her feet and that she can not only grab them, but she can also put her toes in her mouth. She thinks this is the best thing ever! Oh...and she learned to roll over. All the way, front to back, back to front. *sigh* It goes by so very very fast.






Unrelated to Little Miss Penelope, this week also saw Bernard the Elf being very cheeky! We have found him wrapped up in toilet paper, hanging like an acrobat from Miss Penelope's activity arch making flour angles (and a big mess!) on the kitchen table, and getting a bit cosy with the angel on the top of the Christmas tree!! He even got into my inks and made himself a little painting one night! He certainly causes a lot of excitement in the mornings when Little Dude and Miss Emily go searching the house for him.














The Boy thinks that he made a flour angel because he missed the snow from the North Pole. Makes sense to me.



This week also saw a different kind of visitor: The Awesome One found a little gecko while cleaning up some stuff outside. They're pretty common  here, and I love them. So I picked him up so we could have a better look at him, and so the kids could feel his sticky, grippy pads on his toes. Geckos have much rougher skin than the little skinks we also see a lot of here. As I do with all the lizards we find, I named him Fred and told him how awesome he was, and then set him free. I made sure to let him go somewhere the birds wouldn't swoop down straight away and eat him of course!



I know this post has been a long one, but I couldn't finish it without sharing a couple of photos from today as well. 








Please ignore the ginormous bags under my eyes! We were doing the supermarket shopping and I was checking the shopping list; she just wanted to 'read' what I was reading! Look at that intense expression!
Earlier in the day she had been happily chewing on her Daddy's hair. Which is just gross, but she seemed to enjoy it very much! 





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Comments

  1. very cute photo of her reading.. :o) Your Dad always slept with his eyes open when he was younger, same with Dave and I'm pretty sure you've done it a few times when you were young too...! Shame about the temper but it shows personality... ;o)
    Hugs as usual...xxxxx

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