You have just completed the first week of your visit with us and now you, your mum and dad are now off to the airport to fly to Queensland for your uncle Nick’s 40th birthday at the watersides.
I’ll miss your beautiful brown eyes and your happy little face looking up to me. I know you’ll be back five days for another week stay but after that it’s back to Western Australia and another long absence.
When you first arrived a week ago, it was like the last visit. You clung to your mum and had no cuddles for either Nana Di or Grandpa Tim. But later in the evening, your uncle Simon came round and as he was leaving, you ran over and gave him a big goodbye cuddle. After he had left, you happily transferred into Nana Di’s arms and after that it was cuddles all round.
Before you arrived, your dad had been telling us about some of your more unruly behaviours: throwing things out windows, sweeping the contents of shelves onto the floor etc. So when I got my first cuddle, we went around the house and I explained to you the little things that you were not going to be doing: throwing things out windows, sweeping the contents of shelves etc. It’s worked pretty well so far except I omitted “locking dad out of the house” which you managed yesterday.
You have a real fascination with locks and catches. You’ve worked out how to open our front gate and, obviously, how to lock the sliding fly wire at the back door. Last night, I watched you working on the key of the sliding glass door which has a deadlock. you had to stand on tiptoes to reach the key but you persevered. You experimented on the number of techniques but eventually you worked out how to get the lock to work. Remarkable for a little boy who is not not two yet.
One of our first expeditions was Laikon Deli where you had your first Richmond baby chino on your last visit. You have become somewhat more discriminating since then.
Certainly, the friand was given a fairly thorough appraisal and ultimately got the thumbs down.
Monday was Winton’s babysitting day so we had both of you together and that was quite an experience. By nature you are a quiet and well-behaved little boy, your cousin however has a level of demonic energy that you do not normally display.
That is, until you are in his company. Usually, when you put two little boys together you expect them to be about twice as much work as either one of them on their own. You two are quite different. The combination is not additive, not multiplicative, it appears to be exponential. It was like having a couple small tornadoes in the house. Winton went up a couple of notches at the excitement of having you around and you joined the party.
Nana Di likes to play a game with Winton that involves a couple of large balloons which can be thrown, kicked and jumped on with hilarious effect. Having the three of you play this game was like having a small riot in the hallway. The balloons are approximately one third the size of a small child but can be easily carried. The effect is to turn the small child into pinball as they ricochet off the walls and into each other. It was a riot in pretty much every sense of the word. Great fun, but 12 hours of fun that that level of intensity was absolutely exhausting.
We took you both to the park which was a great success. You both love open spaces. You are fascinated by dogs teamed up with the first you met.
Later you found a small poodle and a tennis ball. The dog was not too keen on you while you insisted on throwing the ball at it but once you got the idea of throwing the ball away so that it could chase it, the little poodle became a firm friend.
You and your mum had great fun on the swings just like you always seem to do.
You and Winton are fast becoming great friends. One of the things that was interesting about your last visit was that the two of you did a lot of things together: follow each other around the house, sitting in a corner together.
When Winton came round this morning, he ran down the hallway calling out your name. It’s difficult to explain to a little boy that someone has gone away but I think he understood that you will be coming back next week. I’m sure there will be more adventures and expeditions, certainly if Winton has anything to do with it.
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