How did this happen?!

Sophie turned 2. How did that happen already?
She had a fun day, we had a little party at our house with the family after she scored all things Shrek for presents. A photo here of her in her new Shrek pjs and holding her new Shrek doll. On the cake you might also see a Shrek decoration. She continues to be the most adorable child. Today's cute word addition is 'holiday' which sounds unbelievably cute when a two year old says it!

Tonight's funny

Tonight we were talking about Hannah's day at kindy. For some reason Bethany started asking her about her friend Taylah (did I spell that right?!). 'Does Taylah ever not want to play with you?' (yes, sometimes she says only her and Ella can play). 'Does Taylah ever say mean things to you?' (yes, often). Bethany couldn't really tell me why she started asking these questions though, an interesting line of questioning to come out of nowhere though. Anyway, after answering the questions and thinking for a while, Hannah said 'I need Ryan to come to kindy and make her stop'. So cute to see the big brother as rescuer. When I asked what Ryan might do, she didn't have any ideas, just knew he could make it stop.
I told Ryan about it later and he laughed, pleased. His suggestion was that he would pay Taylah to make her stop. Five cents if she stopped for a year. Not sure if that's a workable plan though.

PS Glad to have mum and dad home!!!!

Farewell Kristine

I was shocked and saddened today to receive an email that my friend Kristine in the US died today. Kristine is one of the mums on my oct98 list that I joined when pregnant with Ryan, so I've 'known' her for 9 years or so. Kris was a loving mum to three great kids, Granger, Kayla (Ryan's age) and Walter (just a day older than Bethany). She was a thoughtful person who always had useful insights and advice whenever someone on 'the list' had a problem or question. She struggled at times to feel comfortable with herself but always her love for her kids shone through. I don't know yet why she died but she had been complaining of chest pains (although she had tests and they'd found nothing).
It seems a bit phony to be crying about someone dying on the other side of the world who I've not met, but I did know her, and I know her children through her emails. I am so sad for them - Granger, the teenager who will now grow up so much quicker than he should, and Kayla and Walter, who will never again get a cuddle from their mummy.
My children got plenty of extra cuddles tonight, that's for sure.

One nice thing is that Kris blogged, so her kids will always have memories of her and how important they were to her through that. Our list, I'm sure, as we did for Adele who also died, will make copies of Kris's relevant emails and make a little memento book for the family. This is difficult to do (re-reading all those emails) and I daresay it's something that they wouldn't be able to read for quite some time, but again it's a nice picture of the sort of person Kris was.

As Beth said when she let us know:
She was a wonderful person, a generous friend, a loving and playful mother. She was
always full of life and ready to help anyone, anywhere.

Goodbye, Kris. I'm so sorry for those left behind.

The Queen of Cute

Oh, man, Sophie is so cute! All my kids are cute, but Sophie is really the Queen of Cute as we call her. Her latest cute thing is to sing 'Happy Birthday' or the Pooh Bear Song. They sound pretty much the same, although she invented the Pooh Bear Song. If you listen carefully you can distinguish them. The Pooh Bear Song goes 'da da da Pooh Bear, da da da Tigger, da da da Piglet' and so on, while Happy Birthday just goes 'da da da, da da da, da da da'. And she does a cute Stevie Wonder thing at the same time where she has her eyes closed and throws her head around.
She is also saying some really cute things at the moment. The latest ones are 'dank-oo mummy' for thankyou, as well as 'sorry mummy/Ryan/Hannah etc' and 'silly mummy', also 'puh-lee' insistently for please when she wants something. She also has this really attitude-filled way of saying yes at the moment. Even if it's to answer a question like 'do you want an apple?' the yes is just delivered 'yeah' with a total of course that's what I want attitude. It's so funny.

But the other kids are so cute too. The big thing here is space and the stars. Our numerous space books that we have accumulated over time are getting well used at the moment. The kids love looking at the stars and planets and have the funniest conversations. The other day they were having a very in depth argument about whether Pluto should still be considered a planet or not. After heatedly discussing all the reasons it got voted out, so to speak, the conversation ended when Hannah vowed she was going to become an astronomer and lobby for it to be re-included as a planet. So funny to hear them discussing such things while they get dressed in the morning.
Hannah told me yesterday that after we're all dead, the sun is going to turn into a red star and the Earth will get sucked into it. This is true of course, but it's something like 5 billion years after we're all dead. Lucky she wasn't too concerned about it.
She can also list off all the planets in order from the sun, and in size order, as well as read their names and identify each of them visually. She can also explain why Uranus (or is it Neptune?) rotates with its pole pointing towards the sun (a giant lump of rock crashed into it and knocked it sideways).
All the kids like spotting constellations in the sky and identifying particular stars. We were very excited to learn that through June you can spot several of the more distant planets. Looking forward to Sophie's birthday when you can see Jupiter!

They also have a planets song, jointly composed by daddy (of course).

Oh Venus, it rhymes with penis
Oh Moon, it doesn't rhyme with penis
Oh, Jupiter, nothing could be stupider
And it doesn't rhyme with penis.
Oh Uranus, I think I see Uranus [said the old-style way where it's much funnier even if the kids don't get it]
Then you finish the song with a big old 'I-oh!!!' for Io, one of Saturn's moons.

Great, huh. At least I've mostly got them out of singing it in public places.

Mum will like Hannah's latest smart-kid moment today, when she decided the puzzles at kindy were too simple and started doing them upside down so she couldn't see the pictures! Without any prompting from me, I swear.

I guess it's winter

It must be winter now. We turned on the heater for the first time tonight! That's a world-record for us. Last year we made it to May, this year it's well and truly June before we turned it on. We didn't even really need it on tonight (Ryan still had on just a t-shirt when he turned it on) but I wanted to check if it worked. Most nights we're too busy running around before dinner to bother with it, and then after dinner and bed I either exercise which warms me up, or I'm cooking, or I sit with a blanket on if I'm on the computer (and the heater doesn't reach there anyway).
The weather's just gotten really cold the last few days, although it's been sunny for a while, and I think that's helped the house retain its heat so well. We've had a bit of rain which is exciting but now I really need to mow my lawn unfortunately!