I think Finlay looks a lot like me in this picture, or at least, like my baby photos. I'm sure Mum has some photos of me that look a lot like this face!

He'll be 10 months next week.

We had some exciting news on the weekend, that my last sister is engaged - hurrah! We can't wait for J to be a certified uncle for Alex and Finlay, although he has been doing a great job as an honorary one.

Alex got on the phone to Aunty B with instructions to say congratulations:

Alex (whispering): What do I say again, Mum?
Me: Say congratulations Aunty B
Alex: Gratuwations Aunty B!
B: Thanks Alex!
Me: Do you know who Aunty B is marrying, Alex?
Alex (thinks):...Uncle Kew? (this is the husband of a different married sister!)

When I reminded him of B and J's relationship, he said, 'oh yes, he played with me in the swimming pool at Grandma's'. So I think J has the seal of approval.

I just heard this quote on an interview with Paul Jennings:

"We read to know we're not alone."

I believe it's attributed to C.S. Lewis, used in Shadowlands, but probably not actually said by him, not that it matters - I love it!

Alex had a fantastic milestone a couple of months ago - he participated in his first 'community service' helping to prepare goods for a donation bound for Zambia.

He and the other little girl on staff his age were asked by one of our processing staff to come down and help to pack red socks into boxes that would be included in a shipment. If you ask Alex about it, he will tell you that he helped to 'put socks in a box to go in a big container, on a truck then it goes on a ship and goes to Africa to give to people who don't have any socks'.

He is starting to grapple with the big issues of poverty and inequality, but of course it is only in the simplest terms at this stage.

Here are some photos, though they aren't the best quality:

This has been one of my favourite books in an anthology of picture books that Alex got with his homeschooling package last year. We have read it many times, and I think I like it more than he does.

George dreams one night that he has become small, and when he wakes up, he finds that the dream came true. The story follows his morning, as he tries to do all his normal household chores as a tiny person. How do you feed the goldfish when you're 10cm tall? You put the glass from a lightbulb on your head for a diving mask, and swim down to feed them by hand! How do you take out the rubbish? You ride your crawling baby brother like an elephant, and tether him to a wagon carrying the rubbish bag!

George encounters a few dangers along the way, but makes it back to his bed and grows large again, just in time for his parents to come home and find all the chores done.

Apparently it is a common childhood fantasy to imagine yourself tiny, like in Gulliver's Travels, or to imagine walking through your house upside down, or as a flat person a la Flat Stanley. We have fun talking about what we would do in our house if we shrank like George. Alex will often mention it through the day as well, such as showing me the skinny tube from a balloon stick and saying, 'if I was tiny, I could run through this tube!'

It's lots of fun, and great for the imagination!

Last night we had another meeting of our book club, which was great, and a very interesting discussion. Alex loves having people over these days, and will play the little host, offering people a chip taken out of the bowl one by one in turn. Since he has been learning how to use Matt's turntables, he is now also able to entertain the crowd with music. As time goes on, there is less mixing of records and possibly more placing of plastic figurines on the records to watch them spin round and round. But he is very accomplished for a 3 year old, has a great sense of beat, and the assembled crowd gave him the new DJ name of 'DJ Dinky Decks'.

All good things must come to an end, however, and for 3 year olds that end is much too early unfortunately. At 8pm I took Alex to bed, while the book club discussion continued. He protested:

Alex: But I don't want to be all by myself in here.

Me: You won't be by yourself, look you have Woody here, I'll tuck him in with you.

Alex (wailing): But I need a real person to stay with me!

Little Finlay has been cruising the furniture for a while - he so much prefers standing up to sitting down. No sign of crawling at all, so I am trying to encourage that a bit more. He seems to be afraid of falling on his face when he goes to crawl.

Alex: Mum, can you give me some space?

Me: Pardon??

Alex (insistent): Mum, I just need some space!

Me: What do you mean, space?

Alex: Some space on the couch, it's got washing clothes on it.

Me: Ohhhhhhh. I thought you were turning into a moody teenager.

Alex: What?

Me: I thought you were....never mind.

Our precious little boy is 9 months old. He is cheerful and easygoing, just like his big brother was as a baby (and still is, on the whole), and has already brought so much joy to the world.

Finlay loves bouncing, and will bounce his legs at any opportunity, whether in the jolly jumper or not. He loves to play peekaboo, stack blocks and clap his hands. He loves music and likes to groove to a good tune. He adores his big brother, and will start pumping his legs and getting excited as soon as he hears three-year-old footsteps running down the hallway towards the bedroom.

His favourite time of day is rolling around on the master bed after a bath where he can practise his latest pre-crawling moves on a soft surface. He has a lot of soft, light brown hair, a bit darker than Alex's, and he is slightly leaner than his brother. He is beloved by everyone who meets him, especially the older kids on staff here, who fight over who gets to hold him next.

We are loving watching this little guy grow and develop! He is very special.

As soon as I read Chicka Chicka Boom Boom, we all loved it. Apparently it's well known amongst American children, but I had never heard of it before. There is a sort of loose story, but it relies more heavily on word play and rhythm, so it is absolutely fantastic fun to read out loud. Within the first lines, you are already tapping your toes. There's something in singing about a coconut tree that makes everything feel more groovy:

A told B and B told C,
"I'll meet you at the top of the coconut tree."
"Whee!" said D to EFG,
"I'll beat you to the top of the coconut tree!"

The story involves anthropomorphised letters running around and climbing the coconut tree, falling down, and climbing up again. It's a little abstract in concept, but it's perfect for children who are in the throes of discovering and exploring letters and the alphabet.

For starters, the whole alphabet is spoken out twice, reinforcing the order of letters, but also the forms of the letters themselves are played with. When the letters tumble out of the tree and hurt themselves, the upper case letters (mamas, papas and aunts) hug the lower case letters (their little dears) and their injuries are whimsically related to their shape and form, so we have 'black-eyed p' and ' 'e' has stubbed his 'toe', the little bit that hangs on the bottom.

One thing I did, which I slightly regret, was to watch an animation of the book on YouTube. The story is sung, and the person scans the words a bit differently to the way I originally read it, so now I can only hear it in my head the way it's done on the animation.

Still, we have been enjoying this book and often sing bits of it throughout the day. Finlay likes hearing it too.

You can see the animation here:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6KpW5oWxRto

I took these a while ago but never uploaded them.

The alleys of Hong Kong, overflowing with fresh fruit, plants, fish and seafood, tofu, and depending on how 'local' they are, more squeamish things like congealed duck's blood, live frogs and innards of various sources.

We don't shop at these markets. We are wussbags who use a supermarket and pay higher prices for inferior, less fresh produce. But we like to wander through them now and then.

These are not too busy, as it's Sunday. Many of the stalls would be closed.

I really should buy more of our fruit and veg from the markets.

Argh! A giant baby! Run, run for your lives.

I read this book to Alex last night. It is such a delight to be able to read him longer narratives now, rather than picture books that rely on the sound of the words, and the complexity of the pictures to be entertaining (though we still love those too).

He can follow a story now, and shows that he is actually listening instead of daydreaming, as might appear, by asking questions as the book goes on. For example, in this story the first page introduces a king who looks down from his balcony to see a 'mighty view' starting with the noblemen's palaces, down to the townsfolks' houses, and then to the farm huts beyond - a view that makes him feel 'mighty important'. Little Bartholomew sees the same view of the mighty kingdom from his farm hut all the way up to the palace, but 'he sees it backwards'.

Alex jumped on that, and asked, 'why does he see it backwards'?? I could see his mind was leaping to dangerous places involving superheroes and their super powers (everything involves superheroes and their super powers at the moment), the power to see things backwards. So I set him straight and that was an interesting discussion about perspectives.

The gist of the story is that when the king rides through town, everyone is obliged to remove their hat, out of deference. When Bartholomew goes to do so, another hat mysteriously appears on his head, and when that one is removed, another appears, enfuriating the king. We had further interesting discussions about why a king might want people to take off their hat when he passes. A complex question really, and not easy to explain without all the historical context we take for granted.

This is a great story though, and very nicely told. There are many fun opportunities for counting, both for small kids, and then for big kids who might like to follow the sums recorded by the court scribe (87 hats plus the 43 left in the street, plus the 5 on the stairs, etc etc), and scope for imagination, as little minds think through how more and more hats could be appearing on Bartholomew's head.

I remember as a child thinking that the easiest way to get rid of the hats would be to dangle Bartholomew by his ankles over the parapet, so the hats streamed from his head, until they stopped at 500. But that would have made for a much shorter and less interesting story. I could even imagine the sound as they came flowing off. Something like a pack of cards being shuffled.

I just put some new photos in the photos section, entitled June photos or something to that effect.

A couple of favourites:

Breakfast time

Making apple muffins, and very pleased to be using a knife.

After a recent trip to NYC, Matt brought Alex back an 'adventurous boys kit' which included this magnifying glass and a tin to collect your interesting specimens.

I found these foam stickers at a stationery shop for about AUD$1. They have been a lot of fun, and Alex does love his letters. You can see some of his writing attempts on the second line above.

He was already too big for this thing when I found it, really. But I used it for a couple of weeks before reluctantly putting it away for someone else's baby. I found it in a store room holding electrical cords! It's a bucket-shaped baby bath.

Monday mornings may have different connotations to our family than to most. Instead of being the beginning of the working week, it's the second day of our weekend, since our staff here works Tuesday-Saturdays. This allows us to welcome community volunteers on Saturday instead of being closed, giving them a chance to use their weekend off day working with us.

So Monday morning these days means Matt getting up early to go skateboarding with some of the young kids of other staff members. They knock on our door at the arranged time (usually 8am) with skateboards or roller blades in hand, waiting for their chaperone/mentor/buddy to take them to the skate park a short bus ride away.

While Matt is out, the other two boys and I have a quiet start to the day and sometimes invite people over for morning tea, as we did today. Alex enjoys entertaining company, especially if he can sit up at the table and drink a beverage and have a piece of cake with the ladies.

There was a time when he would just scream at people if they came to the door. Now, if I say, 'there are some people coming over today', he says, 'oh good, I like people!'. Actually today, when I said Kate was coming, he said, 'you mean Kate with the cool hair.' I asked him what was especially cool about her hair, and he said, 'it's just lovely'. So he's already learning not just to entertain company but to compliment guests! Behind their backs at least..

We went to dim sum with friends on Sunday afternoon. It was a long and weary ordeal getting into the place, and it turned out to be one of those aircraft hangar sized Chinese restaurants that keep going and going till you find your friends waiting at the very last table in the far, far corner of the room.

But it was great food and great company. Here is a picture of Finlay at his first yum cha (at least, since he could eat proper food), waving a piece of choi sum around and sitting with one of our most special friends Sammy:

Thanks to Helen and Tung for the photo. I love it!!

Schools, kindergartens, playgroups, etc in HK have all been closed for 2 weeks due to swine flu! Argh!