Anatomical difference

"Ouch! That hit me where my testicles are supposed to be."

- Thumper, whilst rough-housing with BallFiend.

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Ouch, that smarts!

"Dad! If you don't let me have a chocolate, I'm going to punch you in the testicles!"
-- Thumper

Channelling Dame Slap

Coversation over breakfast this morning...

BallFiend: "Thumper, if I have ten bananas and I take two bananas in my lunchbox to school how many bananas have I eaten?"

Thumper looks puzzled, as do I.

BallFiend: "...so I take two bananas to school every day for five days. So how many bananas do I have?"

Thumper: "ummm...."

Me: "Ten?"

BallFiend: "Yes."

Me: "what inspired you to ask Thumper that question?"

BallFiend: "I'm helping Thumper get ready for starting prep."

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Harmonic dissonance

"Thumper, could you please sing something else!" pleaded BallFiend as Thumper began yet another medly of Frozen songs.

"Alright" Thumper responded, "like Party Rock Anthem?"

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Kinder than you

We were in the kitchen, baking her birthday cake to take to Kindergarten tomorrow (I even let her lick the bowl) when Thumper came out with this...

"Mum when I'm a grown-up and I have my own child, I'm going to be kinder." said Thumper.

I was a bit confused. "Do you mean you're going to be kind to your child?"

"No! I'm going to be kinder."

"Kinder than what?" I asked, still puzzled.

"Kinder than you are to me."

Ouch.

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Food handling

Thumper came in our bedroom at some horribly early hour this morning: "Can I have some Nutrigrain? I've had my breakfast."

We have a rule that the kids have to eat a 'proper' breakfast, like weetbix or porridge, before they can have junk like Nutrigrain.

Me (sleepily): Yes.

Thumper: Can I use my hands? I haven't picked my nose.

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Postscript: About an hour later Thumper called out, "I'm going to have breakfast now". Cheeky child hadn't actually had her weetbix first.

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Measuring space-time

BallFiend: Mum, are light years measures of time or length?

That's my boy.
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BallFiend's art folio, terms 1 & 2

This semester, BallFiend's artwork is heavily influenced by all the Captain Underpants books he has been reading, as well as all the Angry Birds games he's been playing plus a dash of the Trash Packs...

Front cover of the sketch book

Foot creature, with TNT

Imaginary landscape

A missile being shot into a worm hole.
"I haven't finished writing 'missile' on the missile yet" says BallFiend. 

The crown jewels (inspired by the Tower of London book he got whilst in London earlier this year).

Back cover of the sketch book.

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Thumper's star-drawing technique

Thumper: Mum. how do you draw a star again?
Me: Well one way is to do two triangles, one over the top of the other...
Thumper: No. I'm going to do a hexagon...
She draws a five-sided hexagon (otherwise known as a pentagon).
Thumper: Then you do this...
She adds a small triangle to each side of the pentagon and voilà - a star!

I can't help but think that's a little bit clever.
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Ready Mr Music

DeepSpice, inspired during our last visit to home of FunkyOrganMan, has rigged up our house with Apple airport express devices so he can pipe music from his computer at one end of the house through the various stereos in other rooms. 

Usually this system works perfectly. But on this particular afternoon, the music suddenly stopped. Moments later we heard Thumper's voice calling out "Daddy! I've worked out how to turn off the computer!"

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Thumper's artwork archive - Mother's Day 2014

Thumper made me a beautiful picture as a Mother's day gift. The artwork is from 2014, but we didn't get around to photographing it until February 2016 (oops!):  

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Mother's Day 2014

This is the mother's day gift that Thumper made for me at kinder (2014).
(Photo not taken till Feb, 2016.)



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Cigars of the Pharaohs

BallFiend is completely into reading Tintin at the moment. Most recently he read "Cigars of the Pharaohs". When I asked him, "What is 'Cigars of the Pharaohs' about?" he corrected me and said, "NO! It's called..."and restated the title, but pronouncing it as sigh-gars of the para-doff.

He refused to allow DeepSpice or me to correct his pronounciation. Which is fine with me... I reckon BallFiend's way makes it sound like the title of  a Doctor Who episode and I like Doctor Who better than Tintin anyway.

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Party invitation

Today, Thumper's toy rabbit (or rather toy hare) and I received an invitation from Thumper:  

 

Thumper read it to me:

Dear Mum and Rabbit,

Please come to my birthday party. It will be on at 1 o'clock. There's lots of birthday cake and balloons and lollies. Please do come! You'll have lots of fun. 

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Wondering what mothers day breakfast will bring...

Thumper woke up this morning and decided to make herself breakfast (without waking up DeepSpice or me for help). So far so good.

She decided to have weetbix. No problems.

She decided to have warm weetbix. OK.

She put the bowl containing weetbix and just a splash of milk into the microwave.

A few minutes later we were woken by Thumper yelling "Mum, Dad! There's smoke coming out of the microwave!". DeepSpice stumbled out of bed, following the smell of smoke to the kitchen, where sure enough smoke was pouring out of the microwave.

"I only pressed the button two times". Yep, that'd be the auto-start-and-run-for-one-minute button.

I hear DeepSpice saying "Two minutes is a long time for weetbix Thumper, it only needs 30 seconds."

"Oh, but I don't know how to do 30 seconds" replied Thumper.

Once DeepSpice had carried the smoking microwave outside and we had run around opening all the doors and windows (and moved the couches outside to air too!), Thumper asked if she could please have her warm weetbix now?

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Thumper's latest foray into interpretive portraiture

It appears that our children are blessed with natural artistic talent.

Reminiscent of one of BallFiend's early works "Portrait of a scary-looking grandmother" -- which explores gender and the female archetype in modern Australian family life, juxtaposing warmth of the loving grandmother with that of the boogey-man, a one-eyed, saw-toothed Mr Man-like creature -- today Thumper unveiled her lastest work, inspired by the cover of the Australian Breastfeeding Association's funfilled activity book.

Ladies and gentlemen, may I present...

"Woman" by Thumper. Biro on upcycled, recycled paper, A4 80gsm.

In order to contextualise the exceptional talent of this gifted young artist, for reference, this is the cover of the "funfilled activity book" which provided the inspiration for "Woman":

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Watch out or you're dog meat

"Dogs! You're made of meat and a meat-eating dinosaur is coming! You'll have to run into the cave where the friendly monsters live who only eat meat-eating dinosaurs." 

- Thumper, whilst playing with her toy dog

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Excuse #23 for getting up after lights-out

I can't get to sleep because the eyelashes in this eye are knotted together.

- BallFiend, at about 8.45 pm

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