Magic.
Ty has really been into magic. He wants to be like Oz the Great and Powerful. I am pretty sure if I asked him right now what job he wants to do when he grows up, he would say, “a magician.” As Jay and I were getting ready for work, Ty was busy prepping for his magic show. He laid out 4 blankets on the carpet, perfectly straight. And then he told us to come watch as he performed his amazing magic tricks. “Zimbadabim!!” And he pulled the blanket away and quickly converted it into a cape, revealing a TOY from nothing. I swear there was nothing underneath that blanket. And then just like that…a toy!! Magic!!

There is a magic show every weekend at Sanctuary Cove. We are definitely going to have to check it out. The magician won some sort of Australia’s Got Talent show (or something), so I think it might actually be pretty cool. To be continued…

Shower.
I forgot to mention this on Saturday, but got a good laugh out of remembering the situation so I thought I would share. After swim lessons, Jay lets Ty take a shower in the locker room at the gym. Since Jay was home with Lily this weekend, I took Ty to lessons by myself. He of course wanted to take a shower. He stripped down and turned into a crazy kid. There were a couple other kids in there, none of them were crazy. I won’t go into details to save him some embarrassment in high school, but he would stand there and scream and make faces (and stuff).
I forgot all about it until the car ride home on Monday. I asked Jay if Ty gets crazy every time he takes a shower after swimming. Apparently he does. And Jay said, “it doesn’t get better with age.” So I guess the immature male locker room behavior is a part of their DNA, with signs of what is to come starting at about age 3. Boys…….*sigh*

Hayche.
Generally speaking, I love the Aussie accent. I mean, who doesn’t? But there is one thing that is a pet peeve of mine, kind of like fingernails on a chalkboard. They pronounce the letter “H” as “HAYche”. Say it out loud. Annoying. It is just “ayche”.
Monday afternoon in the drive home from school, Ty was talking about how he is learning letters. This week’s letter is “T”. But, since Ty is a genius of sorts, he has jumped ahead a few weeks to another letter. He was sounding it out. “Huh huh huh huh HAYche!” Oh no. Jay and I looked at each other, thinking the same thing – did he really just say that? And then he repeated it. Yep. It’s official. Ty has an Aussie accent. Just what I always dreamed of…

Stool-scoot.
Monday evening Lily discovered the stool in the kitchen. She realized that she could push it along the floor while in a sort of upright position, which had the benefit of keeping her dress off of the ground. The speed at which she covered ground was improved by at least double.

It didn’t take her long to realize that she could stand up and push it along, as well. She gave it a go, and had some success “walking”. So I gave her car-car and held onto the steering wheel so it wouldn’t roll away from her. She totally walked. Assisted, of course, but she did it. See the videos on Facebook.
Between restrictive dresses and a desire to keep up with her big bro, this chica will be running soon. Life is about to change. Again. To be continued….

Stinking Wicket.
Ty has been running around saying “stinking wicket” a LOT lately. He also likes to tell us when “other kids” at school say “stupid”. I know he just likes to tell us this because he likes to say the word “stupid”, which is toilet talk and prohibited in our house. He thinks he is so smart, but I am on to his tricks. So back to stinking wicket. A wicket is used in the game of cricket, of which I know nothing about, so I am certain he picked this up at school. Question for any Aussie readers out there… Is “stinking wicket” a toilet word that we need to stop him from saying? I have this awful fear that it is similar to calling someone an “f-ing a-hole” and we are oblivious to it…

You’re Beautiful.
Ty has started this thing where he will say, “mom, I have a secret.” He comes over and whispers in my ear, “you’re beautiful.” He knows this results in me giving him a hug and kiss. Lately he has changed his ways slightly and will now, out of the blue, say, “mom, you’re beautiful.” Love that boy. :). He is really going to make some lucky gal happy someday. Like 40 years from now. I don’t think I will be ready to share him for at least that long.

Winter.
For some reason, Ty has been grabbing his cold weather clothes out to wear. It is still 80 degrees here. He wore a hooded sweatshirt on Monday (could not talk him out of this). He has to wear a hat at school because of the super-sun here. I asked him which hat he wanted to take to school, and he put the hood from his sweatshirt on his head. “I don’t need a hat.” I think he saw that sweatshirt and thought “cool – built in hat.”
And then later this week he came downstairs wearing jeans. He went in the shoe closet and found his leather shoe-boots. I let him put them on, and although he looked stinking cute I couldn’t let him wear jeans to school. They run around outside so much, he would have died of heat.
So I wonder if this phase he is going through is because he is bored with the clothes he has (he has heaps) or if he has some sort of crazy Midwest inner-clock that is telling him that it should be winter by now. Where is the snow? Where is the cold? I am sure he is hearing about the upcoming “winter” here and is really confused…

Giant.
There was a grasshopper on our patio last night the size of a small bird. Seriously. Where are we?

100.
I hit a milestone last weekend that was a little surprising. 100 blog posts, in about 6 months time. I hope you all are still enjoying my rambling stories about our crazy normal life down under!