Weekends

We've been making an effort to do more family things on the weekend but I believe this Saturday was pretty much perfect. After a sleep in this morning we took the CityCat into Southbank to go meet up with a whole bunch of other families and play in the new children's water park. The meet up was not spectacular from my point of view - small children around water makes small talk difficult and by the time I got there (apparently late) most seemed to be over the "getting to know you" phase. No skin off my nose but it was nice to put faces to names. After some fish and chips (or as the Elfling insisted on calling it "chips and fish") and an icecream I took the girls to the new fountains and splashed around.

It was dead scary how unafraid the Elfling was jumping in and out of the water and disappearing amongst the crowds of people in contrast to the Monkey who for the first half an hour wouldn't let go of my pasty coconut scented legs. When she did finally loosen up (thanks to some spurting fountains) she became almost as fearless as the Elfling until she slipped in deeper water and couldn't get up. Although she was under the water for maybe 2 seconds, it freaked her out and she wouldn't leave the shallows again for the rest of the afternoon. Apparently splashing Mum though is the most hilarious game ever invented.

After packing up we jumped back on the ferry and headed home looking disheveled and tired but very happy, the Elfling falling asleep and the Monkey hyper on tiredness bouncing all over the shop. Eventually after a Wiggles DVD however she finally fell asleep and we had a quiet late afternoon flaked out after our time in the sun. This had been a clever plan of mine, as we had received notice of our neighbourhood park screening a children's movie with free entertainment and food tonight so to manage it we needed the girls to have a big sleep which they obligingly had.

We packed up our gear and arrived at the park to see a jumping castle, fairy floss machines and a face painter already entertaining the families that had arrived. Leaving the affable husband to set up our spot in front of the big screen I took the girls to bounce on the castle, meet the friendly *cough* sponsor *cough* dragon , grab sticks of inexpert fairy floss and bags of popcorn. The Monkey held her fairyfloss in her hand with a very firm grip but seemed to have little idea what to do with it. She was chuffed to have this odd fluff on a stick, but was more puzzled than delighted. Until some of it brushed her lip and she tasted the sweetness. Her whole face lit up as she realised her treat was edible and began to tear off large swathes of sugar wadding and poking her sticky fingers in my face to "TASTE Mummy".

The Elfling patiently stood in line for the face painting not even protesting when an AWFUL woman came and stood in front of her and then motioned for the SIX children she had with her to stand in front of the Elfling. I bit my tongue only because I was proud of the Elfling not making a fuss (she's more mature than me), and she was delighted when she was painted with a posy of flowers on her cheek. Curling up into our chairs and rueing the fact that I'd neglected to bring more blankets (it had been a hot day and I didn't think it would be *that* cold) we tucked into sausages from the local Scouts fundraiser and settled in for the movie.

The Elfling was superlatively good and the Monkey better than expected for the Pixar film that we all enjoyed. It was lovely to be sitting out with the stars twinkling overhead, the smell of sausages and onions cooking, the low hum of families chattering, the bats across the sky and sitting cuddled into my babies as we watched the movie. It reminded me of being little and going to the drive-in in our pyjamas, the speaker hooked over Dad's window as we watched on the big screen. The whole evening cost us about $15 (sausages, softdrink et al from the Scout fundraiser) and it was just so lovely. It's now 9pm and I'm exhausted, but it was a lovely lovely day.