Nobody said it was easy/ No one ever said it would be this hard

So, having covered history with Cherub, we now turn to science with Bundle.

Two quick facts:

1. It is very hot on the sun. But you won't burn your feet so long as you wear shoes.

2. Rocks don't burn, unless they are in a volcano. That only happens when the volcano is interrupting.

But they don't believe me when I tell them we didn't have a computer

Cherub has, for no reason I can fathom, recently become obsessed with what used to happen in "the olden days". Some three year olds might ask an older person. Cherub has the much better plan of just informing us, from memory.

Here's a few of the interesting facts I have learned so far:

1. They used to fill up their houses with milk

2. Cherub was turned into a mouse called Jerry. So was everyone else. The only way to work out who was who was to look at which house a person was living in. Then Cherub moved houses and it got confusing

3. They didn't eat lamb

4. They used to have carrot races. The carrots were big enough to sit in and had wheels. They went very fast, particularly if they had rocket boosters.

5. I wasn't born yet. Neither was Bundle. Only Cherub was, that's why he knows all this stuff.

6. Sometimes the food that a person was eating would turn into a sword and they would go "ouch ouch ouch".

There will be more. I'm just going to add them as I learn them.

I have carefully advised Bundle, who starts school in a few weeks, that a teacher may at some stage ask the class if anyone knows about the olden days. If this happens, his answer should really really not be based on anything he has learned from his brother.

Mon chérubin hilarant

My boys are going through a phase. For about the last 6 months. Every night when they hear me coming through the front door they abandon their dinner and hide under the kitchen table.

They know that I know where they are.

They jump out and say "boo" anyway, and laugh when I pretend to freak out.


Last night, we had a variation on this when young Cherub decided to stay under the table for as long as possible.

It went like this:


INC: Where's Cherub gone?

Cherub (from under the table): You have to guess where I am.

INC: Okay. Are you in Japan?

Cherub (from under the table): No

INC: Are you in America?

Cherub (from under the table): No

INC: Are you under the table and you need to come up and eat your dinner right now?

Cherub (from under the table): No

INC: I think you are.

Cherub (from under the table): You have to ask if I'm in France.

INC: Okay [small sigh] Are you in France?

Cherub (from under the table): NO!

It's just another Saturday, in a not particularly tired or old street

A few highlights from today.

We started with Bundle and Cherub making puppets out of cardboard, paddle pop sticks and pipe cleaners and putting on the worst puppet show since Rory Gilmore discovered socks. I loved every single second of it. Five stars.

We went to the park to fly the styrofoam planes that we bought at Australian Geographic during last week's train trip to Melbourne Central. Inevitably, at some point in this exercise, Bundle's plane got stuck in a tree. The plane was out of reach and there was no hope of climbing the tree, since even the lowest branches were unreachable too.

I decided to get the plane down by throwing the only item I could find, which was my muesli bar. Incredibly, this almost worked. I hit the plane on my third throw and knocked to a lower, if still unreachable, branch.

Sadly, two throws later, the muesli bar got stuck too.

Bundle had stayed pretty calm up to this point, but when he realised we had nothing else to throw, he started to get seriously worried. Fortunately, I found a tennis ball in the boot, and ten or so throws later the plane was low enough to be poked with a stick, and, shortly after that, back on the ground.

Bundle was pretty excited, but still possessed of a sense of perspective, as demonstrated by:

Bundle: MY PLANE! YAY!!

INC: Is your daddy awesome?

Bundle: YES! Well, except for the muesli bar.

The park was followed by a trip to Bunnings to buy, as it turned out, hardly any mulch, and then home for lunch. After lunch , we played many more ridiculous games on the trampoline, we played with my sister's dog who is visiting for a few weeks, and then, for reasons that may one day be clear, Cherub decided that the next game we played would involve throwing a basketball "at your butt".

Cherub took an early lead by announcing this game while I was retrieving Bundle's football from under the trampoline, meaning his task was not that difficult.

After I levelled the scores a couple of minutes later, Bundle and Cherub teamed up and chased me around the yard for a minute or two, leading to this:

Bundle: Stand still, daddy, stand still. You have to stand still!

INC: I'm not going to stand still. That would make it too simple. I'm going to run around

Bundle: No daddy! We're on the 'easy' level.

For the record, the next level was 'medium', and I was allowed to move so long as it was at a walk and backwards.



Dull moments are something that happens to other people.

I don't know what to say to that (uh-hum)

INC: So, what would you like for lunch today?

Cherub: Nothing

INC: Oh, okay. Here you go.

*Passes a handful of nothing to Cherub*

Cherub (angrily): Pfft. I didn't mean a real nothing.

Law & Order: WDTAOK Pt II

I tell you, you let a boy go to just one "Emergency Services" day at Kinder and this is what happens....


The scene is our kitchen. Bundle's police car has just caught up with Cherub's speeding hot rod and the dialogue goes a little something like this:

Officer Bundle: You were speeding again. I'm taking you to jail

Speeding Cherub: But, but, I'm a mummy

Officer Bundle: Well, they'll just have to miss you for a few days. Come on.

Speeding Cherub: But, I was only speeding to catch up with my darlings...

Officer Bundle: YOU DON'T HAVE ANY DARLINGS. You've told me that before. I'm locking you up.

[Escorts speeding Cherub to jail]

....


It's quite surprising that certain politic parties who like to run on a 'law and order' type platform have not lobbied to lower the voting age to four. That rumbling that you hear off in the distance is the start of the biggest landslide ever.

Cheer up with Cherub

I don't think I've ever seen a three year old comfort an older sibling before. It wasn't just a first, it was also incredibly sweet....



Bundle had been experimenting with stretching the arms of a small rubber frog (one of those incredibly cheap ones that you get in party bags) and sadly one of the legs had come right off.

It was Bundle's favourite blue frog and he was, for quite some time, absolutely inconsolable.

All my best efforts had failed, so Cherub decided to have a go at it. After not having much success initially, he decided to call in the big guns, so he went and found his favourite soft toy, just to see if Puppy could do it.

And it went a little something like this.



Cherub's puppy: Don't be sad Bundle, it's okay...

Bundle: *sniff* but my froggy lost a *sob* arrrrmmm...

Cherub's puppy: Well, you know, when I was a little boy, I had a toy like that too....

Bundle: You can't have been a little boy *sniff* You're just a cuddly, and cuddlies don't grow up...

[short pause]

Cherub's puppy: We-e-e-ell. When I was real.....


I'm not sure if it was because Bundle was so busy trying to figure out whether that made sense that he forgot to be sad, or because Cherub told him he had something on the back of his neck and then proceeded to poke him until he started giggling, but we had a happy Bundle again in no time at all.

And, once again, an awestruck and very proud daddy.