A Little Bit of Chocolate
Good evening loved ones (: It is nearing the year anniversary of our arrival here in Australia and I can say I feel adjusted to the seasons. As you come into fall, (I’ve heard it’s starting out pretty chilly already) I feel wistful and nostalgic of my love for its smells and meaning in the Midwest. Strangely, I am not sad. I feel ready for spring planting, longer days, short sleeves, sunhats, open windows at night and playing at the beach. Jess and I did finally make it to the beach this week, just for a quick play in the rock pools and a picnic before choir. Although I’m getting heavier and less agile with this baby in my belly as it heats up, I feel energetic. Perhaps it’s also due to longer nights of sleep or maybe the fact that our bedrooms to be are about to be roofed! Another excitement in our lives is the last few days of toilet success. I shan’t jinx it, but we’ve had two full days without diapers! I’ll just give thanks for these two days (:
It was also a good “friend” week. First off, we finished two huge projects for friends and family in the States and joyfully shipped them (in spite of the cost of shipping) off to be enjoyed. Just a tip, if you know two to three months ahead what you want to send, you can save 1/3 of the cost. But I’ll say, it takes patience that I don’t possess to wait 3 months when you’re excited to send something. Secondly, I had a new friend come to knitting and bring her tow children, including one little girl Jacinta’s age. My friend is learning how to spin wool and it is so interesting. I’ve told myself “no!” on trying to do it with her because I already have too many time consuming interests. She also has an amazing garden, much to share, and a husband who knits and grinds his own grain to bake! They live out near a town that has nothing but “The Pub With No Beer,” and are over twenty minutes from any shops. Jess and I went for a visit on Wednesday and had a lovely time. She’s so unlike me in her humility and quietude,
it has taken months to realize how much we have in common. Needless to say, I’m pretty happy to have playgroup to meet people like her! Michelle and Rory came out a few days to work on the house and in the garden and play. We always have a good time. Lately, Michelle helps with the heavy work on the house while I do other things with the kids or with food. We have to eat sometime! I have to laugh at times that I am inside cooking or hanging laundry while my friend is outside building my house. I truly give thanks that she is there and that she enjoys lending a helping hand while I am pregnant and busy. While gardening, she totes all the heavy dirt down the hill while I level the ground and spread newspaper. I just can’t believe how lucky I am to have met her.
On house progress, it is moving along faster than I can believe. Matt worked three days at the bank this week, two days at Macnuts, and it rained all last weekend. In spite of all that outside work, we now have stained rafters over the bedrooms and ceiling sheets being painted on the ground, ready to be installed tomorrow. In all likelihood, we’ll have a roof over it all in no time. Jess and Rory love watching it all happen, but find other forms of entertainment no doubt. We set up tents on the floor of the kitchen to be to play underneath. Their newest task is watercolor on the easel, or as Jacinta calls it, “the weasel.” She loves painting, recently inspired by Keith’s painting animals in a book for a friend. Using our paints she was always working under supervision, but now she is free with her own set of watercolors. Her most common theme is worms, “big worms.”
In the garden we see lots of worms so they must be on her mind. Heavy rain last weekend empowered my chamomile transplants. My tomato and basil seeds are surfacing. Our potatoes are growing faster than we can mulch, the beets are big enough to pick, as are some of the carrots. The peas are coming to an end, but the spinach is powering on. There is still some broccoli but nothing overwhelming now. Michelle, Rory and I created a few more beds in the terrace garden and cleared space for spring planting. Jess and I planted corn, cucumbers, eggplant, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, cantaloupe, watermelon, and beans today. Matt even got stuck planting a few seeds when he came down to say hello, but got to experience “planting” with Jacinta which he enjoyed. Usually within twenty minutes of entering the teepee garden, she is skipping around like a fairy, soaked with water, covered in dirt, smiling from ear to ear and has lost most of her clothes.
Even though all subjects lead to Jacinta, I still must write a “Jacinta” paragraph, too much has happened this week. Not only has she gotten over her fear and shame of pooping, she has also given in to wearing hair clips and pony tail holders. Her bangs are terribly long but I want to keep her hair all the same length, so she needs to tie them back. It has been difficult but she’ll now wear them from morning until night. “I call them hair things,” she says as I try to correct her and call them clips or hair bands. It is unfortunate when children stick to the bad English you unconsciously teach them. On the other hand, I’ve loved listening to Jess learning from songs this week. As we’re lying down going to sleep she’ll ask, ever so sweetly, “Mommy, sing me a song.” Rarely I dare ask which one, but this week I did ask once and she requested, “Bonne nuit?” which means “Good night” in French and is a lullaby I often sing. Another song she hears, this one not so quiet and sung by Taj Mahal on a CD is called, “Don’t you push me down!” When being hurried on a slide she clearly said the phrase for the first time, “Don’t push me down!” When I retold the story at dinner, laughing all the while, she stood up on her chair and loudly repeated the phrase. “Don’t push me down!” she declared, and giggled, over and over. Of course we asked her to sit down, eat her dinner and speak softly. This she did, at great pains, but continued softly every other minute to repeat the order, “Don’t push me down.”
Jacinta has started to play with some of the older children at playgroup, so perhaps she saw the need to learn this phrase. Amongst most of our older neighbors, there is one house a few houses down the hill with a sweet young five year old girl. She has taken to Jacinta, probably more as a caretaker, and Jacinta quite enjoys the attention. They play together in the sand pit and push around dollies in strollers at playgroup, but haven’t played much here at home. The one time Josephine came for a visit, we toured the gardens and Jess’s funniest attempt at conversation was, “Do you like garlic?” Josephine doesn’t like fruit or many vegetables, but the girls get along. She drew Jess a picture and put it in the mailbox so Jess got mail! It was a good mail week for Jess, she also received a little dolly from a friend in America. Instantly Jess needed to draw Josephine a picture, so she and Matt painted her a picture.
Matt had a few funny Jess stories to tell this week. It has been ongoing, the creativity of which kinds of tea Jess makes in the bath these days, but the brews are especially strange with Matt. When she comes out of a Daddy bath, she tells of strawberry and cookies tea, salami and mulch tea, something and grass tea. Sounds delicious aye? Tonight they went to the supermarket together and Jess had a strange burst of energy. As Matt looked for a certain item in an aisle, Jess would do a lap of say, one lane of freezers and upon return say, “I meet you there!” So when she came back for a late dinner, she was full of energy. She was so excited that she was a bit over zealous in spooning the herbs into my teapot, shaking them all off of the spoon before tipping them in. I asked her, “Jess, why are you so excited? You didn’t have any sugar today…are you just happy?” Lo and behold, she replied, “I had a little bit of chocolate.” Oh? “Daddy gave me a little bit of chocolate.” When Matt heard he had been exposed, he joked the rest of the evening that she had promised not to tell mommy. It feels good to know she still can’t hide things from me, the day will come soon enough. She also knows that chocolate has sugar in it, or that it might make her behave differently. That shocked me. Although I can’t control her every bite, I guess she’s still doing pretty good. The whole family tries really hard to support me in my food endeavors with Jacinta.
So again, in too many words, there’s life for the Henry’s this week. Our little baby on the way seems to be fine and is already loved by many and kissed often by its older sister. A friend from choir just gave me a beautiful sweater knitted for our new little being. I know my family is well in the US even though I can’t see them, and hear from good friends from time to time. We have “No worries,” as Jacinta has learned to say. Hope you’re all feeling warm and knitted tight into a loving circle, be they close or far away.
It was also a good “friend” week. First off, we finished two huge projects for friends and family in the States and joyfully shipped them (in spite of the cost of shipping) off to be enjoyed. Just a tip, if you know two to three months ahead what you want to send, you can save 1/3 of the cost. But I’ll say, it takes patience that I don’t possess to wait 3 months when you’re excited to send something. Secondly, I had a new friend come to knitting and bring her tow children, including one little girl Jacinta’s age. My friend is learning how to spin wool and it is so interesting. I’ve told myself “no!” on trying to do it with her because I already have too many time consuming interests. She also has an amazing garden, much to share, and a husband who knits and grinds his own grain to bake! They live out near a town that has nothing but “The Pub With No Beer,” and are over twenty minutes from any shops. Jess and I went for a visit on Wednesday and had a lovely time. She’s so unlike me in her humility and quietude,
it has taken months to realize how much we have in common. Needless to say, I’m pretty happy to have playgroup to meet people like her! Michelle and Rory came out a few days to work on the house and in the garden and play. We always have a good time. Lately, Michelle helps with the heavy work on the house while I do other things with the kids or with food. We have to eat sometime! I have to laugh at times that I am inside cooking or hanging laundry while my friend is outside building my house. I truly give thanks that she is there and that she enjoys lending a helping hand while I am pregnant and busy. While gardening, she totes all the heavy dirt down the hill while I level the ground and spread newspaper. I just can’t believe how lucky I am to have met her.
On house progress, it is moving along faster than I can believe. Matt worked three days at the bank this week, two days at Macnuts, and it rained all last weekend. In spite of all that outside work, we now have stained rafters over the bedrooms and ceiling sheets being painted on the ground, ready to be installed tomorrow. In all likelihood, we’ll have a roof over it all in no time. Jess and Rory love watching it all happen, but find other forms of entertainment no doubt. We set up tents on the floor of the kitchen to be to play underneath. Their newest task is watercolor on the easel, or as Jacinta calls it, “the weasel.” She loves painting, recently inspired by Keith’s painting animals in a book for a friend. Using our paints she was always working under supervision, but now she is free with her own set of watercolors. Her most common theme is worms, “big worms.”
In the garden we see lots of worms so they must be on her mind. Heavy rain last weekend empowered my chamomile transplants. My tomato and basil seeds are surfacing. Our potatoes are growing faster than we can mulch, the beets are big enough to pick, as are some of the carrots. The peas are coming to an end, but the spinach is powering on. There is still some broccoli but nothing overwhelming now. Michelle, Rory and I created a few more beds in the terrace garden and cleared space for spring planting. Jess and I planted corn, cucumbers, eggplant, lettuce, spinach, Swiss chard, cantaloupe, watermelon, and beans today. Matt even got stuck planting a few seeds when he came down to say hello, but got to experience “planting” with Jacinta which he enjoyed. Usually within twenty minutes of entering the teepee garden, she is skipping around like a fairy, soaked with water, covered in dirt, smiling from ear to ear and has lost most of her clothes.
Even though all subjects lead to Jacinta, I still must write a “Jacinta” paragraph, too much has happened this week. Not only has she gotten over her fear and shame of pooping, she has also given in to wearing hair clips and pony tail holders. Her bangs are terribly long but I want to keep her hair all the same length, so she needs to tie them back. It has been difficult but she’ll now wear them from morning until night. “I call them hair things,” she says as I try to correct her and call them clips or hair bands. It is unfortunate when children stick to the bad English you unconsciously teach them. On the other hand, I’ve loved listening to Jess learning from songs this week. As we’re lying down going to sleep she’ll ask, ever so sweetly, “Mommy, sing me a song.” Rarely I dare ask which one, but this week I did ask once and she requested, “Bonne nuit?” which means “Good night” in French and is a lullaby I often sing. Another song she hears, this one not so quiet and sung by Taj Mahal on a CD is called, “Don’t you push me down!” When being hurried on a slide she clearly said the phrase for the first time, “Don’t push me down!” When I retold the story at dinner, laughing all the while, she stood up on her chair and loudly repeated the phrase. “Don’t push me down!” she declared, and giggled, over and over. Of course we asked her to sit down, eat her dinner and speak softly. This she did, at great pains, but continued softly every other minute to repeat the order, “Don’t push me down.”
Jacinta has started to play with some of the older children at playgroup, so perhaps she saw the need to learn this phrase. Amongst most of our older neighbors, there is one house a few houses down the hill with a sweet young five year old girl. She has taken to Jacinta, probably more as a caretaker, and Jacinta quite enjoys the attention. They play together in the sand pit and push around dollies in strollers at playgroup, but haven’t played much here at home. The one time Josephine came for a visit, we toured the gardens and Jess’s funniest attempt at conversation was, “Do you like garlic?” Josephine doesn’t like fruit or many vegetables, but the girls get along. She drew Jess a picture and put it in the mailbox so Jess got mail! It was a good mail week for Jess, she also received a little dolly from a friend in America. Instantly Jess needed to draw Josephine a picture, so she and Matt painted her a picture.
Matt had a few funny Jess stories to tell this week. It has been ongoing, the creativity of which kinds of tea Jess makes in the bath these days, but the brews are especially strange with Matt. When she comes out of a Daddy bath, she tells of strawberry and cookies tea, salami and mulch tea, something and grass tea. Sounds delicious aye? Tonight they went to the supermarket together and Jess had a strange burst of energy. As Matt looked for a certain item in an aisle, Jess would do a lap of say, one lane of freezers and upon return say, “I meet you there!” So when she came back for a late dinner, she was full of energy. She was so excited that she was a bit over zealous in spooning the herbs into my teapot, shaking them all off of the spoon before tipping them in. I asked her, “Jess, why are you so excited? You didn’t have any sugar today…are you just happy?” Lo and behold, she replied, “I had a little bit of chocolate.” Oh? “Daddy gave me a little bit of chocolate.” When Matt heard he had been exposed, he joked the rest of the evening that she had promised not to tell mommy. It feels good to know she still can’t hide things from me, the day will come soon enough. She also knows that chocolate has sugar in it, or that it might make her behave differently. That shocked me. Although I can’t control her every bite, I guess she’s still doing pretty good. The whole family tries really hard to support me in my food endeavors with Jacinta.
So again, in too many words, there’s life for the Henry’s this week. Our little baby on the way seems to be fine and is already loved by many and kissed often by its older sister. A friend from choir just gave me a beautiful sweater knitted for our new little being. I know my family is well in the US even though I can’t see them, and hear from good friends from time to time. We have “No worries,” as Jacinta has learned to say. Hope you’re all feeling warm and knitted tight into a loving circle, be they close or far away.
posted by Matt & Shana & Jacinta & Genevieve Henry at
9:51 AM
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