Tuesday, May 30, 2006

Oh, The Difference A Generation Makes

I think I can count on one or two fingers the amount of times my Dad has let me drive his boat. To be fair, he has had a fair few phonecalls from me, apres accident, about his car(s)...so I completely understand.

I once drove Coto-Pack-Sea some of the way to Rose (there are photos to prove it) but I have never had the pleasure of captaining Easy Rider.

Not so my 3-and-three-quarter year old daughter. One trip home from Rose, Maia expressed a desire to sit at the back with Papi. Then, she asked to sit on his lap. Then she wanted to steer the boat...

Then she wanted to do it on her own. So Papi sat her down, eased the throttle back to a slow crawl, and let her have the wheel.

Working out the Stick That Made The Boat Go needed to be forward to get The Fast, Maia punched the throttle forward, grabbed the wheel, and we were flying. On her own! Dad was, of course, within easy reach of everything. The payoff - the look on Maia's face - was wondrous.

Although, this was the same day I found out that Noona had fed Maia some chocolate as a treat after breakfast!

It got me thinking, anyway.... I used to be fed wheatgerm for breakfast. Kids were firmly banished to the front of the boat to take on ropes and fender duty.

And while I wouldn't change my parents for all the T in Tiffany, there is something about being a grandparent that certainly agrees with them both.

Thursday, May 25, 2006

Snapshots

Here is a link to Kris's photo album. Some great shots - see if you can spot the ones Maia took...

Link to Kris's photo website

Wednesday, May 17, 2006

Singing In The Rain

While we were in Nassau, Dad took a day off to take us to Rose Island on the boat. The weather, however, had other ideas. It was bucketing it down. Proper deluge. So, instead, we decided to go down town and have a wander about the straw market, grab some lunch and generally mooch about.

The straw market was depressing, being completely devoid of anyone actually making anything. I remember it always had a high proportion of tat, but you used to be able to get handmade straw bags, and watch the ladies weaving bright straw threads into tropical flower and palm tree patterns. Very shabby chic. Anyway, it seemed all of the stallholders now spend their time flogging identical nasty Gucci and Fendi knock-offs.

We powered through the strawmarket pretty swiftly and ducked into Athena (a greek restaurant) for lunch. After a brief, unsuccessful go at sitting on the balcony (bit wet) we went inside. The waitress serving us had extraordinarily long hair, and Maia was convinced she was a princess. A lovely lunch later, we ventured out again.

We kept on getting rained on, and after a while, decided it was pointless trying to stay dry by ducking under canopies and archways. We decided to just wander about, getting soaked. Maia was fine with this until she got a great big splash of water on her new flip flops, and she started wailing.

Papi spun around and started singing "You Are My Sunshine" in his impressive baritone. So, we had a rousing chorus of that, followed by a round of Zippedy-Doo-Dah. Soaked, we got back to the car and made our damp way home across the raging floodwaters of Bay Street. So, no boat trip, but plenty of water.

A Trailer Park Princess Day

In my defense, it was hot. Properly, scorchingly hot. And humid too, don't forget humid.

Well, that is why Maia was naked. And it was a Sunday, a treat day, so that would explain the cherry icepop, clutched in her very red, sticky paws.

As for sitting on the kitchen floor, next to the cat food, red-pawed and bare-bottomed like a little monkey, well...

OK, no excuse. But she did look a picture... one of those 1930's Time Magazine Dustbowl ones, maybe...

After she had finished the cherry icepop I decided she needed a wash. But not just any wash - a cooler bath! We positioned the cooler outside in the shade and filled it with hose water and she hopped in. We splashed and sploshed and made a racket - then hopped out and spent a while running through the hose, making rainbows and pretending it was raining.

The boys were up on the roof, painting it white (natural air con!), drinking beer, talking about man things. After careful consultation between us, Maia, Sarah and I decided that what we really needed was milk, cookies and cartoons, so we toweled off and retreated to the A/C chilled bedroom, and Maia spent a noisy hour in surreal sensory overload.

American Mother's Day - what better way to spend it than playing Trailer Park Princess?

Monday, May 08, 2006

Long Pees

We have been trying to encourage Miss MMJ to develop an adventurous palate. We ask her to try things, and if she doesn't like them, she doesn't have to eat any more of it after the initial test mouthful. Any advances in sophistication are somewhat compromised by the fact that we have to bribe her with pudding, usually chocolate, to try stuff, but long journeys and small steps etc etc...

One lunchtime, we were having asparagus. We asked Maia to have a taste of these "long peas". She was reluctant. Then we told her that this particular type of long pea (there are a few) makes your wee smell funny.

She duly tried a bit and we forgot all about it.

Later that afternoon, Isabel came round to play.

"I have been to Disney" she announced, "and I had dinner with a Princess"

The two of them dashed upstairs after leaving strict instructions that, if we needed them, we were to come upstairs. Did we think we would be alright? Paula and I did.

After a bit, we heard stomping about in the loo. Now, the last time Maia and Isabel got into the loo together, unsupervised, there was a baby powder EXPLOSION. So, I went to investigate. I found the two of them bent over the loo, sniffing Maia's recently desposited wee.

"Mummy!" Maia said, full of wonder "it does make your wee smell funny!"

"Can Isabel have some?"