Nous faisons

I find it hard to let Moses play or paint however he wants when the way he wants to do it makes no sense/ruins a perfectly good Paint With Water page. I’ve mentioned my issues with Duplo before – if I make a house, I don’t want nobody messin’ with my blocks, mmmkay? I don’t care if you want to build a dinosaur, have you even seen the amazing pattern I’m building into the wall?! That kind of thing.

I know I should be the mature one, being, you know, Mo’s mother, so I let him do what he likes even if it means pulling my awesome house apart (okay, occasionally I find him other blocks so the house stays intact, but usually I let him pull my house apart)(Okay, so sometimes I tell him he has to find other blocks if he wants to build his dinosaur because I’m still building my house, but generally if I can’t bear to pull my house apart I find him other blocks and usually I just let him pull my house apart). On the days when it’s very hard, I wait for him to go to sleep and then I do it properly the way I prefer.

His.

Mine.

You’ll notice I did mine one colour at a time, LIKE YOU’RE SUPPOSED TO.

///

In other news, inspired by Todd Sampson, we decided to buy/try a fruit we’d never bought/tried before every day for a week. We ran out after 5 days:

Tamarillo

Coconut

Pomegranate

Blood Orange

Star Fruit

Apparently trying new things encourages creativity (I think that’s what Todd said; I didn’t watch the show) so yay for our brains.

///

Speaking of creativity, we’ve decided to make Sundays taste.com.au days, where we choose a new recipe for dinner from the website in the hope of finding another batch of meals to eat until we get bored of them. Last week was our first: San Choy Bau. It’s totally going on the menu, it was GOOD.

(I figure I’m allowed to post photos of food again, since it’s been over a year since the last time. I hope that’s okay with you.)

 ///

Speaking of Christmas, I have only one present to buy this year – I scored my niece in the Secret Santa draw. I haven’t seen her for 2 years (her family moved to England), so I’m slightly worried that what I choose will be met with disappointment and/or tears. By slightly worried, I mean seriously panicked.

I’ve figured that if I include lots of little bits and pieces then hopefully at least one thing will make her happy and she won’t leave our place feeling like she totally lucked out and wishing she got one of her other aunties in the draw instead. Apparently she likes crafty things, so I spent a substantial amount of time on Etsy and stumbled across these colouring books, which I love. And then I realised the shipping was nearly TWENTY DOLLARS, so I decided just to make my own pages.

I won’t tell you how old she is for fear that you’ll write to say that these are completely inappropriate for a 5-year-old. I want to colour them in, so if she does run out crying, at least I’ll have something to do to console myself.

///

Speaking of crying, Mo’s started asking for a “farm crab story” from both me and Alan at dinner times – that’s two crab stories we have to come up with per night. He started just asking for a crab story, and then at some point he decided the story should be set on a farm, and now he asks specifically for a farm crab story. Our stories started off pretty well; I reckon we had a few good childrens’ book ideas. At first I enjoyed being forced to be creative, and I’d get right into telling mine, animatedly explaining what Curtis the crab was feeling as he scuttled his way around the barn, etc. Now, 3 weeks on, I have no inspiration left, and Alan’s are getting pretty boring too (truth be told).

It occurs to me just now that perhaps Mo’s not expecting a new story each night; we have read other books thousands of times without him growing tired of them, after all… I’m glad we had this talk, thanks.