One Week Anniversary - Regroup Day

Rowan and new toy
Originally uploaded by Renboo

So, after the mother to end all tantrums yesterday (and after emailing with mom) I decided I had been pushing Ellis too hard and he needed a day off.

Cyp left at 8 am and the day stretched ahead of me.

"So Ellis - what do you want to do - we can go out now to the park or the waterpark (which is close) but we really need to go now as it's going to get super hot"

(I'd read an article on sunscreen yesterday that has made me think I can never go out in the noon day sun again)

"no" said Ellis - "I don't want to go out"

"ok, wanna play lego"

"no"

Ellis wanted to play with Rowan's new toy. Our friends Sue and Bob had once mentioned that we could throw out all the baby toys as Rowan would only ever want to play with Ellis's toys. WRONG. Ellis only wants to play with Rowan's toys. He stacked those stacking cups in every conceivable way possible. Rowan of course wanted his toy back - he started to make do with the box, but then Ellis wanted that too. It showed the different ways to stack the cups.

here is a plug for a toy - the Fisher Price Stack and Roll Cups. $12. Worth every penny. I should have bought two. I know - they are pieces of plastic not unlike a yoghurt container, but somehow they are so much more.

So I spent the day playing moderator and practicing my new skills learned from my book - did I mention that this is the guy we met on the train in Italy. He knew Ellis was spirited - he could tell. Now I know.

At 2 pm I was done "Please can we go to the pool Ellis?"

He said YES!

So we played there for a while - Colleen our landlady dropped by - hooray - adult conversation! She is also an immigrant - originally from South Australia, moved to Singapore for 6 years and is now back. She has a daughter who might want to babysit. hooray again. We talked about shipping containers of stuff - stuff she says, you don't use and then ship back.

We managed to last an hour in the pool. That was good. I came back and started to get dinner but was done that by 5 so needed something to do till Cyp got back at 6. So I convinced Ellis to go to the playground.

We got out the door - were halfway down the street when Ellis started to Balk. "I don't want to go the playground"

"why not?"

"it smells like poo"

"What?"

10 minutes of trying to convince him - I finally got him to try the playground. He slowly got into it. There was another boy there - Alex (4) who was there with his mom Jennifer. They are here for 5 months (ending in December). Her husband is collaborating on a book. She was great - told me she has met people representing 20 different countries in the park outside our building. One woman leaving as I was arriving was from Brazil. Ellis and Alex seemed to get a long - too bad she is going away for 2 weeks starting Saturday.

Cyp found us in the park and then we had to convince Ellis to go home for dinner.

dinner was great (grilled pineapple and barbecue chicken) and now we're done for the day. Oh man - I have to do it again tomorrow.

There is pretty good electrical storm happening right now.