Thursday 27 October 2011

Dipping Our Toes In

Nabeela can sing The Wheels on The Bus now- granted it’s a little disjointed and out of tune, but I love hearing her anyway! She likes to make up different things that people do on the bus, for example ‘Reuben on the bus...jumps around’ or as she randomly uttered today ‘Dani on the bus...makes hot chocolate!’ And we have added in actions too.
She is really involved in her imaginative play now and loves involving us in it too. We can often be found sitting on the floor with her, making pretending porridge or soup or coffees, using the ‘big kitchen’ utensils. Its either that or running around the play park just next to us- zooming down the slide, climbing ladders, but always avoiding the swing for some reason (we haven’t figured out why she is frightened of them yet).
Swimming was on the agenda today and we drove to Aldinga beach for this. Aldinga beach is one of the few in the state that you can drive on, which everyone raves about. I am less impressed with this- it feels like sacrilege to bring such man-made beasts onto something so unspoilt and lovely. Plus I don’t see how parking in a carpark just next to the beach and walking a few metres makes that much of a difference really.
The water was gorgeous though! The sand slopes ever so gently to meet the ocean waves and this seemed to have the effect of warmer water than our previous dip at Christies Beach. Furthermore the water was so clear. I could see to the sandy sea bed and managed to spot a tiny fish dart away, which my gigantic feet had disturbed.
Nabeela was vey excited by our little swim. Her innocent face was wide-eyed and a massive grin spread across it for the entire time. She splashed and dove into the water and didn’t once seem overwhelmed, even when we waded in quite deep. In fact she was asking for ‘more swims’ and that initial wave of shock running down her body from the cool water, then the squeal of delight afterwards was something I will treasure. 
Before our little dip at the beach we picnicked in Willunga. I had bussed it over with Nabeela early in the morning to go to a natural parenting group, only to find out that it wasn’t in Willunga but a town 30 odd kilometres away!
I was having a terrible morning without this added to the list too. On the journey over I’d been sick in the wet bag, for an inexplicable reason. So glad we use cloth nappies or it could have been a messy ordeal- how many people carry around a water-proof bag on the off chance they’ll spew?! After fleeing the bus and still feeling rather grim, I stumbled into the nearest cafe (to empty out the sick!) On leaving Nabeela decide to pee all over the floor. As it was running towards the counter I was silently cursing and feeling the glares of the shop assistant on my back. I had asked Beela if she needed a wee in the toilets- apparently she didn’t, until we left them!
A friendly lady in the vegetarian cafe I stopped in at told me about a library sing and rhyme time session, so I went to this instead. Nabeela enjoyed it and i was slightly perplexed by the number of songs I didn’t know or that had a slightly different tune to what I sang as a child. I loved how they began by singing a song about a koala and kangaroos though! Just in case I’d forgotten I was at the other side of the world!
We also browsed in an organic co-op store, which sold nearly everything I could have wanted for a weekly shop, at reasonable prices. We are thinking about joining it and maybe volunteering, to get an extra discount on our weekly shop. It’s run by volunteers after all and they always need new people to help out. It helped that they were all very smiley and friendly too!

No comments:

Post a Comment