Minkey!

We've been thinking lately that Ella is nearly old enough to do some organised sport, without any firm thoughts on what it should be. I have been pushing for soccer, Nat has been prevaricating, but Ella has it in her head that hockey is the game for her. However, she has never seen it played, so today we went for a little trial of minkey at ANU. At first we were told it was called off because of the rain, and Ella nearly cried, but some other hardy souls turned out and it was all back on.

It was all thoroughly amusing -- she had to borrow her "bat", which was purple, and had a few good air swings before she got her eye in. But she picked up the concept of hitting the ball pretty quickly. They played a little game at the end, which she enjoyed, but was easily distracted (her and another girl kept goal together for a while, and were having such a good chat that they didn't notice a boy come up and roll the ball past them). In any case, she loved it and I think we have to go and buy her a "bat" of her own one day soon. I guess this is just the beginning of ferrying kids around between Saturday morning sporting fixtures.

April 2012

Apologies for the slideshow disappearing off the side. I can't manage to get it back there!!

Singing in the rain ...

Catching the bus to daycare is a great daddy-daughter bonding exercise, and something we like to do every week or two. But the catch is that the walk across campus is about 15 mins for a grown adult, and double that for an easily distracted toddler.

For this reason we often try to intersect with a cross-campus bus which we stay on for just 3 stops. But roadworks on the corner of ANU blocked our normal route last week, so today we decided to walk from town. An interesting trip. The bus was choccas, it was pouring rain, and it turns out that umbrellas aren't so waterproof when you're not strong enough to hold them up properly. Toddlers also walk slower when they're carrying an umbrella. Nonetheless, they both plugged on and we reached daycare sodden but happy, and only half an hour later than normal...

Katy Takes to the Bike

Andy returned from his trip to the UK late on Thursday night (just over a week ago) and on Friday morning I was off to the annual 3 day ultrasound conference. Unfortunately I didn't actually get to go anywhere exciting as the conference was in Canberra. Also due to my own doing I didn't see any of the conference as I had volunteered myself to organise the 4 workshop rooms which involved sourcing 50 patients and 13 students as well as keeping the presenters happy. Anyhow this meant that I was absent from home for the whole weekend and Andy was able to have some much needed catch up playtime with the girls.

With all weekend to kill, Andy decided to walk the dog to the shops with the girls riding their bikes. Katy hasn't spent much time on her balance bike so her riding technique is yet to be mastered. At first Katy was walking her bike along with legs astride. This progressed to occasionally sitting down on the seat and rolling a wee bit. The round trip to the shops took just 2hours which is about 30mins per 400m!!

With this new found enthusiasm for riding I encouraged Katy to ride her bike to pick up Ella from preschool. We left with 50mins spare and the pram (in case of a meltdown) with Ella's bike strapped in. I was worried when it took us 10mins to go about 200m however soon after that, Katy managed to get the feel of alternate leg pushing/rolling and we sped up before stopping this time to look at flowers or leaves or cars or.....

Preschool is 1.4km from our house with a large hill in between. Katy ended up walking up the hill while I carried her bike and once over the traffic lights she increased her pace and we arrived at preschool just on time. Ella was excited that we'd brought her bike and was happy to ride off in front and return back to us every so often. Katy with Ella's encouragement had begun to roll for longer periods with both feet up. This was short lived though - her tiredness set in on the way home, so she decided she'd had enough riding for one day and happily climbed into the pram for the trip home via the shops. So the normal 20mins round trip took us also just over 2 hours!

Happy 3rd Birthday Katy

Katy is now a big girl having turned 3 yesterday. Although it wasn't the best weather for a party (grey, rainy and cold), there were lots of family and friends to help Katy celebrate. She was spoilt with many lovely presents.

Katy spent the evening dancing at Susie's 40th birthday party which was a 70's theme. Unfortunately it all ended in tears and meltdown at 9.15pm.