time for the number 4 tram

catching the tram is that much more interesting when you are ankle deep in fresh snow!

normally, amelia keeps our fellow passengers waiting at the tram stop well amused by shouting out the phrase 'number 4 tram' . . . but this time, the snow took precedence.

p.s. she is not as wide or short as the video suggests - andrew's camera phone managed to slightly distort angles and proportions. she looks kinda midgety huh?

its enough to make me want to deck the halls!

she has lucked out with weather this time around - from extreme indian summer when we first arrived, to unseasonal heavy snow (usually no snow in ghent until january) - she is a very happy camper, spending much time gazing out our windows at people biking and walking in the snow.

snow falling, dadda, and a promise of ice-cream at the underground shopping centre!

andrew bought amelia a bennetton hat from milan, with little fur flaps - it won't see much action in brisbane (hahahahaha), but it sure was useful in sub-zero temperatures in ghent. poor kid has proper snow pants on, and a million layers underneath. for a kid who emulates her uncle alex and drops her gear as often as possible, winter living is not always fun. once she is outside she is fine, but she gets so dismayed when we show her how much she needs to wear.

first footsteps in snow . . . EVER! or as she calls it - frozen stuff!!!!

fellow swashbucklers ahoy!

amelia instructs bas in the finer art of viking weaponry

the challenge!

a little private practice of her two-handed cutlery management . . .

elephant-hat-thingy bliss . . .

last sunday we went to the house of one of andrew's colleagues, who has three boys - otto 9, max 7, and bas 3 - which boys happened to own SWORDS, AND LIGHT SABRES AND VIKING AXES (all plastic - phew!) . . . and a weird elephant hat/sun visor thing. amelia was in 7th heaven, and launched herself constantly into the midst of the older boys' light sabre/baseball bat fight (sounds a lot worse than it really was), wielding the viking axe (which had a small button that when pressed set off satisfyingly loud and clashy metallic noises), which had max defending himself vigorously while she giggled maniacally- feminine as a feminine thing, that's our girl!

monkey business

the last word

the mole situation (see earlier post) has become dire. amelia now regularly attempts to either pull or pick the darned things off, and is HELLISHLY persistent.

i tried to stop her from ripping away at one the other night, and she kept putting her hand back.
i started by saying firmly: 'stop it please, you are HURTING mummy' . . .

she kept on trying, so i repeated myself, adding, 'they are mummy's not yours, so you need to leave them alone please' . . .


her response? (in a voice that suggested i was an idiot not to realise this already)

'but I'm a DOCTOR!!!'

sometimes parenting involves just too much effort

a few years back, andrew had an accident in which bones in the outsides of both of his hands were broken. as a result, ordinary tasks involving certain hand movements can cause him a lot of pain.

in a related story, amelia has recently embarked on a passionate love affair with walnuts, which she refers to as WARM-NUTS and wants them opened day and night(as you can imagine, andrew goes to great lengths to get her to ask for these, small minds and easy amusement etc etc). because we have marble floors and no nutcrackers, my way of opening the things is to toss them violently on the floor where they shatter to the great satisfaction of amelia who exclaims 'oh MUMMY' as she dashes off to gather the edible bits.

andrew has a slightly different method - bashing them against the tiles on the kitchen walls. as i discovered a few days back when trying this for my self, his method comes with its very own sound accompaniment.

as i whacked the tough (grown on a bio-farm, seriously hard skinned) old things against the wall, amelia started up a strange chant of (edited for the eyes of the more tender reader) 'f . . . it, f . . . it, f . . . it'. apparently, on just one occasion, andrew hurt his hand rather badly when cracking some warm-nuts , and responded verbally without remembering what was standing right next to him soaking it all up, the result being that she now uses that phrase every time a warm-nut is whammed into wall or floor.

oooops.

the day the red trousers lost favour

andrew is in bologna for a few days, wining and pasta-ing his socks off, in between buying us guilt-induced presents, so amelia and me are having a four-day sleepover, which involves lots of singing, reading books, playing until we are both laughing hysterically, and her sleeping in our bed, with a solemn 'how many sleeps til daddy comes home' countdown every night. as mentioned previously, stuff from his little bedside cabinet is hauled out for regular checkups every night, and tonight i lay very still 'sleeping', feeling a wild wriggling going on next to me, and hearing the puffing and blowing of great exertions, with the odd kick in the back thrown in (she hasn't yet realised that her cloven hooves can cause great hurt when she flings them about and connects with a soft fleshed parent . . .) until i couldn't stop myself from 'waking up' and i peeked . . . . if you look carefully you can see the discarded 'red trousers' lying nex to her - they just don't stand a chance against the glamour of dad's turquoise paisley fitted briefs!