Super Luc

Luc hosted his 4th birthday party at Jump Ahead Academy yesterday afternoon. This was a great success. The children arrived at 3pm - had an hours worth of jumping, rolling, hanging, leaping, climbing, falling and bouncing on all the gymnastic equipment, then retired to a party room for cake and pizza! 

This was definitely the easiest and least stressful birthday party ever! We ordered a massive cake (in requisite chocolate - filled with strawberries) from our favourite local bakery, the Austrian Bakery, and some really wonderful pizzas from Marcellos on North Ave. We provided fruit and fruit juice as a healthy contrast (!). 

All the children were so well behaved and all had a great time messing about. The adults enjoyed the fact that the children could not escape and couldn’t break anything. Luc was a charming host and really enjoyed this role. 

Our only regret is that poor old Nicolas was not able to make it along. Nic had a raging fever the day before and threw up the morning of the party. We were hoping he might recover enough to make it along for cake at the end of the party - but alas, not enough. Wonderful Ashley came to our rescue to babysit at short notice. Thank you Ashley. Thank you Eme and Megan (from Jump Ahead) for making the party so successful (and doing all the cleaning up!). Thank you to Anahera, Max, James, William, Callan, Finn, Emily, Rachel, Hannah, Joshua, Joseph, David and all the mums and dads for making Luc’s day so wonderful. 

Photo: Luc only had eyes for his friend Anahera - serious crush going on here a number concluded! 

Bad guy

As a typical young boy, attending preschool, and with a young brother, Luc is displaying far more aggression and interest in explosions and weapons than I ever thought would be possible or indeed, acceptable. Apparently this is inherent in boys.  As I grew up a girl, I was never aware of the primal need to want to destroy things, have an identifiable ‘bad guy’ nor see the humour in wrestling others to the ground using brute force. 

I think I may have goofed the other day when Luc asked me the question “Is there a bad guy on Earth?” I responded “Yes.” Luc asked “What is his name?” “George Bush” I replied without giving it any great thought. I didn’t think too much more of this until Luc was playing a game and was about to ‘blow up George Bush’. I saw the potential problems associated with this, in this day and age of extreme paranoia and told him he shouldn’t do that, but instead should give him a good ‘talking to’ and demand that George ‘Look after Planet Earth’.  

I am not too sure how successful this was as a couple of days later, Luc was flying spaceships around, hot in pursuit of George Bush. To allay the want to blow up Bush, I pushed the ‘softer’ environmental angle. A couple of days on, and Luc asked me out of the blue “Why does George Bush waste so much water so there is none left for the fish?” Obviously, this is the worst environmental catastrophe that a bad guy could perpetrate. I am thinking that we will have to find another ‘bad guy’ pretty soon! 

Happy Birthday Luc

It was Luc’s birthday today. He turned a grand 4 years old. Wow, has time flown! 

Paul, Nic and I attended a small ceremony the school does for birthday children. This involved a candle (signifying the sun) with the months of the year circling it. Standing on their birth month, the birthday child holds a globe of earth and orbits the sun whilst the other children sing “… and then he turns one”. The child stops on the birth month and then subsequent rounds are sung until the child reaches their current age. Once finished, Luc was to blow out the candle. He had a bit of trouble doing this – and one child yelled out helpfully “Spit on it to make it go out”.

All willing children were then asked if they wanted to give Luc a birthday wish, which they did in turn, whispering in Luc’s ear. This was such a nice way to signify a birthday. The ceremony was followed by a quick game and then some free play time in the ‘motor room’ (basically running around like mad things - for the boys and some quite drawing for the girls).  

We stayed for lunch, witnessing the ‘mess hall’ environment that constitutes a preschoolers lunch.  After lunch, Luc and I handed out cupcakes to all the children and teachers. A lovely cake shop, Molly’s Cupcakes has opened around the corner from our home. They make a very good ‘mini-cupcake’ (carrot, chocolate, vanilla, red velvet… all covered with a cream cheese frosting), just the right size for eating after lunch and not too large to make kids too hyper. 

Luc wanted us to stay at school. He has been desperate for us to visit him. We left a couple of ‘Australian’ books (by favourite authors Alison Lester and Mem Fox), as Luc’s birthday present to the school. We had a quick look at the hermit crabs Luc had wanted to show us and then had to depart before the kids took their naps / quiet time. 

Luc was able to choose his birthday dinner, and chose chicken nuggets and pizza. Paul found some great nuggets at Wholefoods that contained spinach and other vegetables – we all win! 

Photo: Luc at the breakfast table with his birthday spoils.  

Booming New Year!

Welcome to the world Verona Hana Hilzinger! After much anticipation, Lari (Paul’s sister) and Allan became parents to a lovely little girl today. Well done! Mum and bub (and excited dad) are all doing very well. That is a count of two nieces for us and an extra two cousins for the boys - and it is only February! The international expansion of our families is continuing with Blanche born in France and Verona, born in Japan.... 

Photo: A brand new Verona Hana Hilzinger