Off to the photographers

Dear faithful readers (all 5 of you),

Finally, I find a spare 10 minutes to do some blogging. Small daughter crashed at 6.30pm in my arms being breastfed on the couch while I actually watched the wonderful British archaeology programme "Time Team". It makes we Brisbane heritage people weep as they are so spoilt with heritage over there. I also love getting my fix of English countryside. Every little path seems to be so picturesque. Even the weeds are beautiful! Anyway...one of the benefits of giving up the daytime sleep is a very very tired toddler by 6pm. She would not normally fall asleep in the lounge room while her mother watched TV. If only the 6 year old would go to sleep at a reasonable hour, life would be so much easier. When Scott came home from work tonight to find only one child awake, I said "Is this what it is like in normal households where people are stricter and children go to bed at a proper time?".

Anyway..on to the planned topic for this post. How easy it is to ramble when blogging. The above photos were taken on Saturday as we left the house for a proper photo to be taken for "Grandma's " birthday. Needless to say, this required wearing proper dresses and having hair very tidy. It also involved bribing the youngest girl into wearing a proper dress by promising a "frocky frog". My sister was meeting us with the other three grandchildren at "Brookie", the shopping centre of our childhood, at the fairly revolting photographic studio which gives you a $21 sitting and a free photo while doing their best to talk you into spending hundreds of dollars. This took weeks to arrange as my sister and I both work and my children have been infectious with various disgusting ailments for a few weeks. Finally we get there to be greeted by my sister who says "H looks really sick. He can't come. We have to cancel". C'est la vie. But my big girl, who didn't want her photo taken an hour earlier, now dissolves into tears at the thought of the cancelled photo shoot. So we have a photo shoot with just my two girls. It's not too painful and I see a sneak preview on the computer screen. The photos are taken with a plain white background which I thought would make the girls look washed out in their pastel flowery dresses but the photos look fantastic. So fresh and modern - not like the usual dreadful portraits. I can see I won't be able to resist buying several.

So for now, here are the shots we took before we headed out the gate, which of course, had to include Kipper the dog. As you can see, the small girl has entered that phase which seems to last forever of smiling purposefully for every photo and ruining the "naturalness" of the photo. Never mind.

On a completely different topic....I was so proud of my big girl today. She has a little boy in her grade 1 class who is a real sweetie. He has a vision problem so wears very strong glasses and has had a couple of years of special education before joining the mainstream schooling last year. He was bullied in prep by the kids for being "different" and had a miserable time. He is now in E's class and just loves our big girl, who has taken him under her wing a bit. His mum approached me at his request to ask if he could come over for a play. "Of course" we said so phone numbers were exchanged and today he came home with us after school. He is such a wise, funny little guy. When my two ran to the car along the footpath he said " No running on the cement. You'll get skinned knees!". After we had afternoon tea, he brought his cup and plate to me in the kitchen and put them in the sink. I love kids who did that. The kids had a lovely time playing and I was amazed at E enjoying the whole experience so much as she is such a grown up girly girl and not really into boys at all. The little guy's mum told me that E is a credit to us so tonight I am a proud Mum. It's so easy for me to concentrate on her and my failings and good to remember that she is turning out ok.