Oma is for grandma

Michael and I have just finished listening to “The Secret Garden”. We absolutely loved it. The story was so enchanting, it made me laugh out loud as well as cry. And the reading was extremely well done.

Actually I can only encourage you to go to Librivox and download the book for free (and totally legally). The lady who read the book, Kara Shallenberg, did such a good job that I even felt inspired possibly to start a weekly podcast, where I read a book … I’m reading a book for Librivox at the moment and I’m really enjoying reading out loud as well as the technical fiddling afterwards. What do you think?

Well anyway, I’m going off topic. We then wanted to watch the movie just to finish the whole thing off nicely and were really looking forward to it, since we’ve enjoyed the book so much. But we should have known better not to trust Hollywood to do justice to a book. I have to admit that it’d be a pretty tough task to condense a whole book into 102min and maybe they’ve done as well as is to be expected, but I was extremely disappointed. The film is missing the suspense of the book. Honestly, at its best it’s a poor summary of the book with even important bits changed and (I should have known it) a love story added into it. That was probably most off-putting. Why turn an innocent children’s book into some romance?

So any of you who don’t know the book yet: go read it. It is absolutely beautiful BUT do not watch the movie, it is a let-down.

One thing that I used to always enjoy during the weeks of Advent was my Advent calendar (or count-down calender as some people call it). I can remember, as a child excitedly rushing into the kitchen first thing in the morning to open the next door on my calendar and see what was behind (and we only ever had pictures, no chocolate, and still it was such an exciting thing that made Advent very special to me).

I still like the idea of an Advent calendar. It helps to look forward to Christmas and gives all of December a festive and special atmosphere.

This week I went to the post office to pick up a huge parcel and found the most amazing Advent calendar ever inside (thank you Amelie and Christian*). Now we’re having fun trying to fill it with little things like baking ingredients (ginger for our gingerbread nativity), concert tickets, dried fruit, a bit of chocolate, little craft things etc. We’re having fun and M is circling the thing dying to be able to open the first door.

*der Richtigkeit halber soll natürlich Herr und Frau Treyde an dieser Stelle besonders gedankt sein!! Vielen Dank an sie für ihre Großzügikeit.

Living in Australia has many advantages as I’ve come to realise and the Australians are all very proud of their nice long warm summers. Yet, the once thing that summer in Australia brings with it are bushfires. Many of them aren’t deliberately lit but start because of extremely dry conditions, great heat, strong winds and are often caused by lightning or broken glass lying in the bush.

I find this aspect of living in Australia incredibly scary and traumatising. I remember my very first summer in Australia, when we had only just moved into our house in the Blue Mountains and within a week or two huge bushfires started. The fire brigade came around and knocked on everybody’s door to tell us, that in case of a change in wind direction the fire would be here within two hours. We should get ready to evacuate or make a plan of how we were to protect our house should we decide to stay (and let the fire wall pass above us … shiver!) So Michael spent is Christmas Holidays raking up dry leaves and sticks from around the house. We filled all large available containers with water. Packed all our valuable belongings into the car and listened without interruption to the fire updates broadcast on the radio. I was in a trance and totally depressed.

This time we aren’t immediately affected as the fire is on the other side of the ridge, but nonetheless it’s only about 10km away from us and the fire brigade has advised all residents in our area to prepare their properties. So again we’ve got a big 200L drum full of water sitting in the garage all garden hoses are inside the house or garage (so they won’t melt in the fire but be available to rescue the house once the big fire wall has passed), we keep hearing water bombing helicopters continuously flying over the house and again I’m checking the fire updates a few times a day.

But I do have to say I’m coping a lot better this time. I think I’ve come to the realisation that all my earthly treasures aren’t worth worrying over so much. We’ve done what we can and we’re insured and the only thing I’d probably really fret over is our little “library” … hahahaha!

What does a two-year-old do in the kitchen with a raincoat on, on top of a chair in front of the sink?

Easy … her daily Maths lesson!!

While I do the dishes M occupies the sink next to me (and there I was wondering what huge double sinks were good for) and pours water from one cup into the next into the jug into a pot back into the jug and counts how many of what fit into what. She and the floor, and I too sometimes, get thoroughly wet but she’s having fun and is learning too.

I remember reading in one of my baby/toddler books that it’s imortant for a child’s early mathematical thinking to be doing this sort of thing (pouring that is … but flooding the kitchen is probably part of the deal) and I can see why that is true. While it might just look like she’s playing, having fun and making a huge mess, she’s learning about size, volume, qualities of liquids and probably a lot more and I get my dishes done. How easy is that!

As you might have noticed I changed the image of my previous post.

I really liked the picture that was there before, cause it was a perfect example of some clothing I found absolutely inappropriate for a toddler. However, my dear husband has alerted me to the fact that I was breaching copyright by using their image and than bagging out their clothes.

So here’s a new image of an absolute adorable little pair of overalls that I bought myself a sewing pattern for. This is what I call “toddler-clothing” … the little girl actually looks like a child and not a miniature teenager including attitude and all.