Back to reality

You would have to be living under a rock to have escaped the recent events in our town. Luckily for us we were nowhere near the action thanks to our move to the bay, however our old area was hit pretty hard with lots of people's houses being seriously damaged. It felt quite strange watching it unfold on TV from the comfort of our loungeroom while the gorgeous sunlight filtered in, while almost all of our friends at least suffered the inconvenience of doing without power for a day or two.

Nick went and put a great effort in helping to clean up in our old area, relishing the combination of two of his great loves (cleaning AND destruction) helping out strangers to gut their flooded houses. There was no such hard labour for me but in tough times I bake so many many muffins and cases of water were dropped off to the volunteers station. It was so nice to see so many people pitching in to do whatever they could to lend a hand.

Here is a pic of Nick's filthy legs after he came home. This is after he had already cleaned up somewhat. I don't even want to imagine what was lurking in the mud he was wading through.

The upside to the awful flood situation is that we got a few extra days spent at home as a family. Nick and I had only been back at work for a day and a half this year before it happened so it was just like an extended holiday in some respects (apologies to all those people for whom it was most definitely NOT a holiday). The timing was quite good in the sense that Pa Chris and Nanna Kaye were in town as well so it gave us some extra time with them.

Ollie just loves having Chris and Kaye around and especially loved them taking him on their early morning walks (complete with a stop at the playground) as well as picking him up from daycare nice and early each day so they could all come back here and have swims. He was quite sad to see them go and keeps talking about them.

Doesn't he just look like butter wouldn't melt in his mouth?

One morning this week I woke just before 5am to a strange noise. I ignored it for about 10 minutes before going into Ollie's room to see him kneeling beside his bed in the relative darkness shining his moo cow torch onto a book he was reading. It would have been a foolproof plan for him if only his torch didn't emit a "mooooo" sound when he turned it on. Very cute but I've since confiscated the torch otherwise I suspect I would soon find him there closer to midnight reading.

Ollie's language skills are pretty impressive at the moment. We have some real conversations now and he can tell us about his day at day care which is a bit lovely (and also useful when he had a scratch on his face which the carers couldn't say how he got, but Ollie could "Eva scratched Ollie" - don't worry, Eva is another toddler not a carer!) I haven't really been paying too much attention to how many words he can string together but the other day I was totally impressed when he turned to me and said "Mummy, leave my ice-cream alone". Perhaps doesn't paint me in the best light but still, good work Ollie.

He has also been telling us that he is a good boy a lot which is nice to hear. He also tells us he is beautiful and sometime both - "I a beautiful good boy". The other day I told him that he was beautiful and he turned to me and said "no, you're beautiful". I don't think he meant it to be a compliment as such but it was very funny and I'll take compliments in whatever form they take.

On Sunday we had a visit from Sam, Alan, baby Henry and Audrey. Ollie and Audrey have quite a special little bond and he had spent the whole day talking about his "friend Gurdrey" who was coming over. We all went down to the water for a play at the beach and park followed by a delicious fish and chip dinner. Ollie and Audrey exhausted themselves tearing around on the sand, in fact the only thing that slowed Ollie down was when Nick buried his little legs in the sand. Peace for about one minute! After a very splashy bath together we farewelled Gurdrey and I imagine the two of them slept very well indeed.