Knock-knock

Hiya,

We may as well be in the UK with the way the weather is! That’s been Dad’s refrain for the entire week. Mommy sent him back to work because she was so tired of hearing it. It’s been quite challenging for me to stay indoors for such long periods of time, but Mommy and Daddy have come up with some ingenious ways of getting me to do things. Needless to say, no orthotics this week, but boots and wellingtons have been the order of the day. According to Robin, who lives down the road and measures the rain for our area daily, we had 135mm of rain this past week, with 100mm of that falling on Wednesday. Robin records show that in 2000 we last had just over 100mm, so it been a very wet week.

Mommy is still trying to shop for Christmas so we headed off to Cresta Shopping Centre where we found an indoor play area, which was wonderful; Mom scooted around the shops while Dad and I played. It will take days to get the sand out my hair. Later, while Mommy was at the dentist, Daddy took me to the HaaHoo Park (Delta). I found the only puddle in the place and I was a very different colour by the time I got home. Daddy apologised to Mommy and asked if the slacks I was wearing would ever be the same again. Mommy responded that it really didn’t matter as long as I had fun. Growing up is so much fun. I noticed early this week that Mommy has definitely made peace with the fact that I am an unconventional learner. Now she just asks me to count, and counts backwards with me. Well about time I would say. We also have a new game of rollover, counting back from 9 of course.

The rain got progressively worse on Tuesday and Mommy and I stayed in all day, doing the Christmas tree and puzzles and other indoor activities. We did go outside for a short while for a jump on the trampoline and a swing in the swing, but I fell asleep very quickly. I really enjoyed unpacking all the Christmas decorations and helping to hang them up. My attention however is very much towards a little German wooden tree that has little wooden decorations on it. It also happens to be a music box. This is my second favourite. My most favourite is the signing Christmas Tree which has a button and a vibey little Christmas song. As the song nears the end I raise my voice and shriek more than sing along. My old folk think this is hilarious, and shriek along with me, ok, well Mommy can kinda sing, but Dad is definitely shrieking. The day came to a cold conclusion and I insisted on sleeping with my singing tree throughout the night. My parents were delighted NOT as every time I rolled over the tree was triggered and started up singing and flashing again.

A first for me was listening to the Christmas Carols and Peter and the Wolf by Sergey Prokofiev. It was an interesting portrayal Mommy said. It is narrated by Dame Edna Everage, an excellent, naughty comedian Mommy says. It was a good day.

Wednesday morning was slightly disastrous; before 10 am I had showered, drenched the entire bathroom floor, proceeded to try escape, slipped, bumped my head, had some rescue remedy and threw up due to volume not the actual content, recovered and then dispensed the fire blanket in the kitchen, fell as a result and bumped my head. Mom wants you all to know that the fire blanket incident was not because of her cooking at the time. That’s reserved for other times she says.

Following the chaos, we had an appointment with Gavin for my orthotics but it was cancelled so Granny, Tammy (now known as Ammy), Mom and I headed off to Yeesh. It was great fun as Tammy took me all over the jungle gyms while Mommy and Granny caught up by chatting and drinking tea. Very soon Granny couldn’t help herself and was helping me build and crash over towers with Tammy. After about an hour I was exhausted and asked for a snooze. Soon Daddy arrived home from work and after he dropped off some clothes for charity and the two of us snoozed. Late afternoon we departed to Craighall Park to get a Christmas Tree for Tammy and the rest of Aunty Kim’s family. Unfortunately I fell sleep before we arrived, so I didn’t get to see the tree, I will have to wait till Christmas to see it at their place.

Friday was a sunny day. Daddy was too excited to wait to get his Christmas present and negotiated with Mommy that he go fetch it himself. He got Whooosh for Christmas so has been Whooshing around the internet (Whooooosh being the fastest broadband available at the moment). We had a playdate planned with Matthew and his Mommy Michelle. We played at Yeesh and after a snooze, I was so exciting to see the sun and we celebrated by going to the HaaHoo park in the afternoon. Dad couldn’t make it as he was at a mini-Tweetup with his Twitter buddies, celebrating their success at being voted in the January 2010 Cosmopolitan Magazine as ‘twitter crushes’! I climbed the big slide from the bottom to the top and encountered lots of kids on the way up. I said hello to everyone and played shops with a little girl, and obviously did the obligatory swinging. Mom and I went to get baking supplies at the Pick ‘n Pay and as I obeyed all the rules and didn’t run away from Mom once during the exercise and followed instructions really well, I got an ice cream for my trouble.

Aunty Birgitt and Uncle Wayne came to visit on Saturday as Daddy had to take them to airport. They were here to do some talks but weren’t able to come see us before because of their schedule. While Daddy was on the airport trip, I found a live Christmas beetle and took it to show Mommy. Fortunately she isn’t squeamish about beetles so it ended with us letting the beetle go outside on a leaf. We also had to do a little relocating of a mouse which came in to visit Shatzi. Mommy expertly manoeuvred the mouse into my Bob-The-Builder hardhat and then brought it to show me. I was told I wasn’t allowed to touch him, and we would have to let him go as well. I begged Mom to let me give it a hug, but I had to settle for blowing it a kiss. I then insisted on phoning Granny to tell her about the show I was watching on CBeeBies.

I explored the garden for much of Sunday and Granny arrived for a sleep over so I helped make the spare bed for her. I made her look at every single one of my toys, then insisted on my afternoon sleep in her bed. Mommy sees light at the end of the tunnel for my sleep and separation issues.

Out of interest, Time’s Person of the Year was announced this week; no-one was surprised that it was Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg.

My new talents of the week are story telling, to anyone who will listen, and mostly about Brum, and I’ve also learned to play knock-knock, along the following lines: Me: ‘Knock-knock’, anyone else: ‘Who’s there?’ Me: ‘Nunu!’, anyone else, ‘Nunu who?’ Me: ‘Nunu frog’, or sometimes ‘Nunu duck’. Sometimes I even do the hand movements with the ‘knock-knock’.

My big news is that I’m 2 ½ years old today! Hip-hip-hooray! I’m so thrilled.

The week ahead is going to be extremely exciting; not only is it Christmas Eve and Christmas, but we have a professional outdoor photo shoot planned at the National Botanical Gardens on Wednesday. Unfortunately my face has been ravaged by mosquitos, so we may need to postpone, but I’m really keeping my fingers crossed that it can still happen this week.

So happy Christmas!

Until next week, lots of love, hugs and kisses,

Jay-Bee

 

Video 1: Jarrod dancing to the musical Christmas Tree (click here)

Video 2: Jarrod playing knock-knock (click here)

Photo 1 Puddle Time at the Haahoo Park

Photo 2 Climbing the big tube slide

Photo 3 What goes up must come down

Photo 4 Being brave – climbing the big-boy’s slide

Photo 5 Tree-hugging

Photo 6 Creating a snow village

Photo 7 Helping to set-up the Christmas Tree

Photo 8 Showing Dad how my muscial wind-up tree plays

Photo 9 Decorating the tree

Photo 10 Super excited for Christmas

Photo 11 Sliding with Tammy

Photo 12 With all the rain Mom and Dad built an indoor play area for me

Photo 13 Complete with a tent

Photo 14 Helping Mom blow dry her hair

Photo 15 Look what I found!

Photo 16 Gardening

Photo 17 Sonic inspects my handiwork

Photo 18 And Shatzi is not far away

Photo 19 Just Jay-Bee

Photo 20 Comforting Roxy during a thunderstorm

Photo 21 Chalk time

Our 2010 Studio Pics