There Really are More Hours in a Day if you Don't Commute

Our playdate cancelled today due to sickness and unfortunately, I had nothing else planned. The person that was coming to inspect our rental also cancelled - darn! All the tidying and cleaning for nothing.

I should have known what our day would be like as Ellis picked his Spawn of Evil shirt today (thanks Nicole). I'm trying to have a sunnier outlook though and not automatically say "No!" to everything Ellis says.

So we went to the pool without our playdate - we were done by 10 am. We had early lunch. Rowan napped, I read a few stories. It's really hard to fill up the hours without TV or the computer. Around 1pm we decided to go to the park - we lasted about 30 minutes - too hot! Ellis has figured out how to climb the ladder there though. I guess that did kill an hour and we got some outside time so I felt justified letting Ellis play kidpix on the computer when we got back. I read my book :) I've been reading all these books by Aussie authors. It seems they have Aussie content laws here as every book I pick off the shelf (and I usually just grab and run as one kid is complaining) is written by an Australian.

I read a Household Guide to Dying and Dirt Music - can't remember the name of the current one.

Ellis found the word reader and proceeded to spell his name (he learned that on Monday during his gmail chat with G. Anita). He had great fun having the computer saying "Ellis Ellis Ellis" over and over. The he did a couple of short movies in photobooth. Soon he got bored so of course we ended up arguing until Cyp got home (could it have been the sesame snaps for the snack?) I didn't even really have to make dinner today as I'd made turkey congee yesterday - it did not feel quite right eating turkey congee on a tropical summer's eve, but I managed to use up every bit of turkey!

Cyp suggested a walk after dinner and I usually roll my eyes but I was in yes mode today (plus feeling guilty for doing absolutely nothing) so off we went. Ellis decided our route

"Turn here"

"now this way"

"ok - let's go over the bridge"

Ellis has had a fascination with the bridge by our house since we got here. Every night he watches the people doing the bridge walk and says "I want to go up there." and every night I tell him:

"Ellis - you are too little - you have to be twelve to do the bridge walk."

So tonight he got to walk over the bridge. He really did lead us right to it. I think he got the idea last Friday when a couple asked me for directions to the bridge on our walk home from playgroup.

He was very excited on the walk..."look how high we are... look - there's our park.... is that a big pile of bird poo? let's walk right to the other side.... this is our bridge right?"

We didn't walk to the other side (the fumes were killing us - we saw tons of runners, I don't understand it), when we got to the middle, Cyp lifted Ellis so he could see the other side - that made him a tad nervous. It is a pretty high bridge. We then made the slow journey home.

"I'm out of energy" said Ellis as soon as we started heading back. Of course.