Lots of questions

"Mummy, where was I when you and daddy got married?"

"Mummy, why can't Evie talk?"

"Mummy, why is the sky blue?"

"Mummy, why is Evie called Evie?"

"Mummy, why is the moon following us?"

"Mummy, why are fish fish?"

These are the kind of questions that Ollie is spouting practically constantly throughout the day now.  Some are easy to answer.  Some are a little more challenging.  Some, well I find myself absolutely stumped with them.  And then, just when you think you've come up with a great answer that will surely satisfy his thirst for knowledge he just comes out with the same question again.  Not phrased differently.  THE EXACT SAME QUESTION!!!!

Now don't get me wrong.  I love feeding his desire to learn.  But this is pretty much constant and it is a real brain drain sometimes.  This kid just doesn't stop talking (I can't possibly imagine where that came from!).  Sometimes I even have to hide in the pantry just to have two minutes peace and quiet (I may even scoff a bit of chocolate here or there to help drown out the noise of Ol!).

But this week I had a real penny dropping moment about his questions.  It occurred to me that if I wasn't at home with him answering all these questions, would he still be asking them?  And if he was asking them would they be answered?  And what would the quality of those answers be?  Seems fairly simple I know but I see his knowledge forming from the answers we are giving him already.  

I know I want to be at home with these little people more than anything but that kind of realisation makes me really appreciate why we are making the sacrifices we have to make to keep me at home. 

What else has been going on?  We went to the 'Out of the Box' festival at South Bank last week with some playgroup friends.  My paranoia as a parent was displayed when they saw that I had written my phone number on Ollie's hand in case he got lost.  Thankfully they all thought it made perfect sense and quickly borrowed our marker to do the same.  A good thing too.  Not that we had any lost kiddos but I did pick up a spare boy who was younger than Ollie and wandering around looking for his mum just near the road.  It is amazing how many people simply look on when they see this happening.  Thankfully the little boy was reunited with his mum (who didn't look that concerned).

Ol had a great time at the festival.  The best bit was probably the booty shaking they got to in the story tent while waiting for Saxon Rice to come and read a story (snooze).  He also got to go up on stage with a few other kids to do tongue twisters.  Although he didn't actually participate, he did look pretty darn cute standing up there.

The pic of him above is in a sticky maze made entirely of sticky tape and pieces of newspaper that you take in and stick on.  It was pretty cool, especially for Ol who just loves doing mazes on paper.

 Evie B continues to make her evolutionary leap from baby to little girl.  Her ability to get herself up to sitting from her tummy was transferred to the cot this week with this view greeting me when I walked in the other day.  She looks pretty happy with herself doesn't she?  Although she didn't look so happy another day when she tried to pull herself up on the rails and found herself stuck halfway and terrified of going back down.

But she is now trying to pull herself up on all kinds of things.  I remember this not being a particularly fun time thanks to the bumps and bruises that inevitably take place while learning to stand.  Yesterday she knocked the side of her face but thankfully she was okay.

She is more than okay in this cute little outfit I picked up for her on an afternoon touring around the local op shops on the weekend.  I went down to look for some fabric for sewing but instead found these cute little knitted goodies.  She doesn't look too sure about the outfit though.

But she managed to bust the cardy out on Sunday when we headed down to the markets.  In fact she looks pretty cruisey kicking back on Nick's skateboard.  They were sitting there waiting for Ollie and I to come back from the slide where we had a little drama.  The inflatable slide this week was much bigger than the usual one but O felt confident that he could go down in.  Turns out he was wrong.  He didn't come down when he should of.  Then whispers filtered down from other kids that there was a kid up there who didn't want to go down.  So the attendant (all of 13 himself) went up and brought our Ol back down the stairs.

I felt pretty bad for him so he wrangled with the guy to let me go down with him so he could conquer it.  I have to concede that I had underestimated just how high this slide was and about three quarters of the way up the steep stairs I began to have second thoughts.  I then had third, fourth and fifth thoughts once we got to the top and I realised just how steep the slide was.  You couldn't even see the bottom, it just dropped away!!  But I had to suck it up and a terrified Ollie and I found ourselves whooshing down way too quickly.  I genuinely didn't think we were going to stop in time but of course we did.

Ol loved the ride so much that he immediately declared he wanted to go straight back on it.  I thought it was pretty fun too so we lined up again with all the little kids (should have got a photo!) and before you knew it we were hurtling down again.  I'm so glad Ol recognised that it was scary and dangerous and didn't want to have a go.  But I'm equally glad that he trusted me and gave it a shot.  It was terrifying but in a really fun kind of way.  And I'm pretty sure I would have gone back for a third slide if I didn't think I looked like a total goose lining up next to a bunch of toddlers!!

In housey news, our house is getting painted at the moment.  It is pretty exciting, especially for Ol.  On Friday when they put up the scaffolding he had a great time sitting at the windows watching it all go up.  Now that the painters are actually on site it is a bit more tricky.  First up Monday was pretty awful as they pressure cleaned the house.  You would presume that would make a fair bit of noise on a metal roof but I could have sworn they were landing a chopper up there!  It has made nap times a bit tricky, especially for Evie.  And their games of '20 questions' are wearing a bit thin (with each other that is - seriously, they play it to keep themselves occupied!).  As is their singing.  But it is kind of funny.  And TOTALLY worth it.  Already the house is starting to look amazing!!