House of Flying Straw

"OK kids, how about we use these three cows since we don't have three pigs?" I said.

"OK!!"

"And the lion can be the wolf," I added.


Sean started with, "The three little cows were great friends. THIS little cow built his house with straw...", wriggling the white cow finger puppet.

Sarah went, "Yay, house of straw, he can DRINK! Sssssluuuurrrrp!"

Proper English, please.

"Matthew, when you talk to Sarah, speak proper English OK? The way you talk to Mommy and Daddy?"

"OK," he replied.

"And don't talk down to her OK?"

"OK."

Sarah added, "Talk high!"

"New" Home II

The kids rooms were rearranged at the same time that we reorganized our living room. We took the opportunity to replace the broken bureaus in the girls' room. The drawer bottoms had all given way under the weight of their tons of clothes. To make way for the new chests of drawers to be delivered, Sean moved the old bureaus out into the corridor.

As usual the kids were all over the place, and it was hairy work getting the two dressers out while watching that the drawers didn't suddenly tip out and knock over the small ones.

As Sean was straightening up and putting the last drawer back in place where the bureaus finally sat by our neighbour's front door (luckily neighbour is grandma), Sarah, who had been following everything with great interest, suddenly asked, "Daddy, now I have to go outside to get my clothes?"

"New" Home

I love our "new" place!

Funny how it's taken us so long to figure out that TV and sound system don't HAVE TO HAVE TO always be positioned en bloc. Breaking this mindset literally opened up our living room so that we now have full access to our floor-length windows.

The whole place is dramatically brightened, no more TV-in-your-face first impact. What we get here is a light, airy, cosy expanse overlooking the rooftop garden. I really look forward to weekend mornings so I can read my paper on the smooth parquet floor, with my cup of coffee and butter-and-sugar toast.