Not totally convinced ...

Twice a week, usually, my grand-daughter, Alannah, comes over to Ma's place to play. It is a good arrangement. Ma thoroughly enjoys it, for starters. But Ma has a courtyard attached to her small apartment. The entire place just flows. So, outside we have a sandpit, and steps to sit and play Duplo, together with a gate, past which flows a cornucopia of vehicles and peoples all day long. People with coffee. People with prams. People with dogs. And even some people who pause to chat. Oh, scarey that. So we hang over the side gate. Last week, I was the one suggesting we 'people watch'; yesterday it was Alannah. She gets very loud when she sees something she recognises, like a taxi, or a truck, or a big, blue bus.

Yesterday, I introduced her to painting. Painting at Ma's place. Alannah has painted at her home, and Alannah has painted at Kindy. I need to finesse the routine a bit. She is not in the least a fan of the smock you see in these photos: I suspect it is too big, too heavy, and too hot. I will see if I can find an old shirt for her for Wednesday. A backwards shirt held together with a peg. Hah! Also, need one brush for each paint-pot. I expect there to be a mess, but need to have a method to clean it up. Alannah does not like mucky hands. Hah! Mummy that was another word Alannah learnt yesterday: 'mucky'. Vegemite toast often results in mucky hands.

So, back to the 'people watching' at the gate. I lift her up, she places one foot in this side of the wrough iron, and the other foot in that side of the wrought iron, her little fists wind around the top member of the gate, and she eases her bottom back onto my shoulder. Of course, this makes her much taller than Ma, much to her delight, and mine, as she bends down and nuzzles my head with hers! In case you panic, I do have hold of one leg and my arm around her middle. She is a bundle of energy though. Oh the perturbations: is the van going to go down the hill or UP UP UP! And what is that thing on the roof of that van? Ahha, that is a ladder.

Blank stare.

So, into the shed we go (a laundry in reality) and drag out Ma's ladder. THIS is what some of those vans and little trucks have on their roof, Alannah. This is a ladder. And then 'WHOOSH' ... a flash of grey is past us, and up up up the ladder. It is Sellie, who adores ladders! And, I can hear you thinking ... that little girl will be up that ladder, too. So the images are on the run, from the camera poised on the buffet just inside the door, keeping on eye on the next move from either or both of them.

As the afternoon wore on, and the storm clouds built up in the west, the white cockatoos joined the chorus in the skies, a chorus of helicopters mostly until the weather turned. We packed the painting away into the sunroom. We packed the Duplo and the Matchbox trucks away into the toy box. And we played cooking. With copious bowls of water from the tap, and sand everywhere, and a makeshift cooktop. And Alannah singing (no sotto-voce with this lass)

Pat a cake
Pat a cake
Bakers man
Bake me a cake
As fast as you can
Pat it, and prick it and mark it with B
And put it in the oven for baby and me.

Well, the first line of this favourite at any rate ...

Hello, Daddy. Ma and I have been cooking cakes. I am mucky.