For My Daughter (on the occasion of her turning 13 and a half )

In a discussion yesterday about the sudden lack of certainty about parenting brought about by having a newishly-minted teenager in the house, I was introduced, by a friend experienced in these things, to a poem by Alan Paton. It has been churning around deep inside me since:

I Hold the Bandages and Ointments Ready

Alan Paton

(from "Knocking at the Door" - 1975)

I see my son wearing long trousers; I tremble at this.  
I see he goes forward confidently, he does not know so fully his own gentleness.  

Go forward, eager and reverent child.  
See here, I begin to take my hands away from you.  
I shall see you walk carelessly on the edge of the precipice, but if you wish, you shall hear no word come out of me. 
 My whole soul will be sick with apprehension, but I shall not disobey you.

 Life sees you coming, she sees you come with assurance toward her.  
She lies in wait for you.  
She cannot but hurt you.  
Yet go forward.  Go forward.  I hold the bandages and ointments ready.  

And if you would go elsewhere and lie alone with your wounds, I shall not intrude upon you.  
If you would seek the help of some other person, I will not come forcing myself upon you.  
If you should fall into sin, innocent one, that is the way of this pilgrimage.
Struggle against it, not for one fraction of a moment concede its dominion.  
It will occasion you grief and sorrow, it will torment you. 

But hate not God, nor turn from Him in shame or self-reproach. 
 He has seen many such, and His compassion is as great as His creation. 
 Be tempted and fall and return.
  Return and be tempted and fall, a thousand times a thousand, even to a thousand thousand.

For out of this tribulation there comes a peace, deep in the soul and surer than any dream...

I, of course, must needs exchange "daughter" for "son", "she/her" for "he/his" and "high heels" for "long trousers".

The message, however, remains the same. 

Love in this season is expressed less by the tight embraces of her childhood and more by my willingness to expose myself to the terror and inevitable pain of letting her go

 - by holding on to my love, but not my child.

A Month In The Life Of A Wooden Man

[What DOES one do when one neglects one's blog for more a year and wishes to (possibly) start blogging again? Give up and start a new one?

There are many things I find amusing about cats. (Stay with me - I'm going somewhere with this. Plot not lost). In particular I love the nonchalant bottom licking that happens immediately after a failed landing.
I think I shall approach my neglect of this blog in the same manner: by pretending it never happened.

What are YOU looking at?

Groom...groom...groom...]

My Grandfather was an artist. I remember sitting, as a little girl, in the shed in the garden that he used as his studio, perched on a stool watching him paint. It was a magical place. The smell of linseed oil always takes me right back there.

One of the objects he had in his studio was a jointed artists' mannequin which I now have. It (he?) stands on a cabinet tucked away in the back of our living room next to the piano, together with some lovely old tins also inherited from Grandpa.

I, being one of those people who have an inability to see an object that has not moved for any period of time, don't usually pay him much attention.
Until recently.

Recently I realised he was actually catching my eye from time to time. It dawned on me that this was because he was quietly, but regularly (every few days or so), changing position.
And so I decided to keep a surreptitious photo log of his "movements" over a month or so.
Here it is.

1. Man carries his own stick and stand.

2. Man reclines as if sunbathing on conveniently placed black box.

3. Man doesn't want to look at whatever that is he's pointing at over there.

4. Man is distraught when he notices degree of hair loss in the mirror. (At least that is my interpretation of what's happening here).

5. Man has an emergency of the bathroom variety.

6. (Here I'm really not sure) Man is halfway through a pike dive? Man tries Parkour?

I knew immediately who the "artist" was - exactly because I did discover the artwork myself.
Unlike his mother and sisters (but not unlike his father), SirBiggs creates entirely for the pleasure of creating. He appears to have little need for his work to be acknowledged. He shows me some things, but mostly because I've asked what he's doing, or because he thinks I'll find what he's done amusing. It seems he lacks the need (a need I, and I'm sure most of us, have) for approval.

It makes discovering what he's learning (skills and knowledge) tricky. I have to stumble across things he's left lying around, or wait until a sibling shows me something. Sometimes he'll pipe up with a thought on a car drive which reveals a huge body of underlying knowledge he's absorbed and somehow processed. 

If I ever have to quantify what he knows I am positive I will underestimate.

These little clues do, though, reassure me that learning is happening, and happening well, albeit in a way that seems strange and dangerously haphazard to a very structured, systematic learner like me.

His private nature can have lovely outworkings. Sometimes he will deliberately embark on a little secret project just to surprise me. I woke up a few days ago to find this little note quietly tucked in next to a drawing I'd left on the kitchen table:

"Mom I think your pictures are brillient and < I don't know how to spell it>  butiful and perfect". [With a drawing of a hand in thumbs-up position and a stop sign saying "Don't STOP drawing"]

So now I know he knows he doesn't know how to spell "beautiful".
Yet.

The Mysterious Exploding Floor

On Saturday night ZooDaddy and I were disturbed by some mysterious creaking noises in the other end of the house. These then developed into louder more crunchy sounds and so ZooDaddy got up to investigate. When he reached the end of the passage there was an almighty crash (I initially thought he had knocked our huge display mirror off the wall). I waited for a bit, not quite what to do, but he soon called me to come and look.
Essentially what I saw was our kitchen floor exploding in front of us. It really was the most bizarre thing! We couldn't work out what was causing it. Obviously we were scared of subsidence or shifting of the house, but there was absolutely no sign anywhere else of movement - cracks or displacement.
We took some photos and, not knowing what else to do, went back to bed.
On Sunday all seemed stable. MrTepps was initially very distressed: "Look what happened to the floor! What a mess! It's broken, the floor!" For a while he presented us with broken tiles, saying sadly, "Fix it". Thankfully, however, it didn't take him too long to get over it.
After a quiet morning (including hosting the church meeting) it all started happening again. This time ZooDaddy was ready with his phone and managed to capture it on video. Here it is.

Learning on the Hoof

The more I speak to people about education, the more I realise how deeply engrained the learning=education=schooling paradigm is. People will acknowledge that learning can (and does) happen anywhere, anytime, but two sentences after that acknowledgement they are again referring to curricula, classrooms, exams and textbooks.
Our experience, of course, is of learning that happens outside of those parameters.
We recently visited ZooDaddy's cousin and family on their farm in the Eastern Cape. It was (as it always is) end-to-end fun - they are the most wonderful people, and the kids get dragged all over the place to do all sorts of things.

While I was looking through the photos of the trip, I was struck by how much they learnt while having all that fun. What follows are my favorite photos from our visit. Where relevant,  in the captions, I will discuss just a few of the conversations sparked/learning opportunity presented. It's amazing how much education takes place when one is not really paying attention to it.
Day 1:

A mid-afternoon arrival is followed by a drive in the bakkie (pick-up truck) when ZooDaddy mentions he'd like to photograph some of the wild-flowers we saw while driving along the roads to the house. MissyGeorge dons an appropriate outfit

Some goofing around with my camera (these shadows belong to LadyLolo and I)  leads to a discussion around shadow length related to time of day and the angle of the sun. 

We stop to look at a particularly rich wild-flower area. LadyLolo tries various different approaches to photographing the view but is unhappy with the "boring" results". I point out that none of her photos have contrast in them and one's eye doesn't have anywhere to start when looking at the picture, or any particular way to travel through. The brain battles to pay attention properly. I suggest looking for something of interest to place in the foreground. When she looks skeptical, I take this photo using a road sign and grass in the foreground.  She immediately sees the difference. The foreground initially draws the eye to the front, and once there, the eye is drawn in to follow the zigzag of the valley through the rest of the photo.

Being essentially a plant hunting expedition, the focus is essentially on the wildflowers. This area is rich with a great diversity of beautiful, and locally specialised flowers. ZooDaddy's cousins know their land so well, and the species that grow there. Their obvious passion for the flora on this farm shines through, They know the species names, when they flower, where they are localised. What a perfect example of interest-driven learning. Neither have ever studied botany, but they take often specialists around this farm and teach them. I love it!

A chance meeting with the neighbour who actually owns this patch of veld we were looking in gives the kids a glimpse of some of the complexities involved in making decisions regarding conservation. Despite the floral richness of this area, the reality is that this is also really good grazing land. A civil debate ensues (these are good friends) about the value of conserving an area such as this when weighed against the economic advantage of moving a fence to allow cattle into the area to graze. Not all decisions are simple.

The discovery of a "centipede" by MrTepps leads to a flurry of discussion when ZooDaddy and I point out that it is, in fact, a millipede. This leads to a question by MrBiggs as to what "milli" and "centi" mean, the wonderful dawning of realisation that this applies to measurements too (millimeters and centimeters) and the introduction of other numerical prefixes such as nano and kilo. I do so love etymology.

Day 2:

The "new" house (after fixing it up ZooDaddy's cousin's family have finally moved into the "actual" farmhouse) has an old neglected orchard. The kids are roped into collecting apples and figs. By the end of the visit they can recognise several different types of fruit trees, know about the difficulties of keeping birds and insects away from fruit, and have heard a lot about the importance of pruning the trees in order to "rejuvenate" them. In addition LadyLolo spends some time in the farm kitchen leaning how to make apple chutney and to preserve figs. There are many ways to use the fruit that is left after all that can has been eaten.

The highlight of the visit for MrTepps is unquestionably rides on the back of the bakkie. His enthusiatic "All aboard the bakkie" calls forms a recurrent part of the soundtrack of our stay.

Every time we visit ZooDaddy relishes the opportunity to get his hands dirty with some hands-on veterinary work and husbandry. Here he photographs a cow that had been attacked by screw worm, prior to her receiving treatment. (He has a whole collection of gory and disgusting photos. He'd call them "interesting".)

Flower discovery expeditions are frequent. After seeing to the ill and injured cows we go looking for Candelabra  Flowers (Brunsvigia grandiflora in this particular instance)

Day 3:

Throughout the trip the kids have pretty much free reign with my camera. MrBiggs discovers that if  he takes a series of photos of one of his sisters in motion in quick succession, then scrolls through them rapidly in viewing mode (oh, the JOY of digital!), it looks as if they were moving on the camera. What an irresistible introduction to all the knowledge and information surrounding the art of animation. We talk about how the brain sees, early animations (including the phenakistoscope which we have met before), the difference between those kinds of animation and the animation we see today.

(Aside: All the pictures taken actually led to some later research and experimentation at home using Windows Movie Maker to make stop motion video)

ZooDaddy does a bit more veterinary work on the farm - vasectomising 4 rams, thereby creating so-called "teaser rams".  One aspect of their education that I suspect many kids of vets, farmers and, to some extent, doctors get an early start on is reproductive biology. It's difficult to make it a taboo subject when they are surrounded by mating, birth and discussions about sexual biology. While ZooDad operates he (and ZooMomma) answer all sorts of questions regarding male reproductive physiology. All sorts.

And there it is. Life=Learning.

Milestones, Schmilestones, Smilestones

In my earlier Momming days I'd often get sucked into those conversations where everyone takes great delight in bragging about how early their precious little geniuses have reached various developmental milestones. It's understandable. Watching your little people grow and develop is almost miraculous, and to see them start to turn into little people who can get places, interact and communicate is one of the most wonderful things about parenting. With my first three it was fun (and yes, I was absolutely convinced they outclassed all the other Mommies' babies and had guaranteed futures as world-changing geniuses of some sort or the other).
And then we had MrTepps. And those conversations became increasingly torturous. Everyone else's little ones were cuddling, yabbering away, smiling, responding, saying "Mama" and "Dada" and we were more and more obviously being left behind. The painful dawning realisation that he wasn't the same as all these other babies was what eventually led us to an OT, then a neurologist and his autism-spectrum diagnosis.
I really struggled for a short while after he was diagnosed. But then ZooDaddy in his great wisdom said something very simple to me which to a great extent ended the struggle. He said, "He is who he is, and we love him." It really was simple. Nothing had changed. My mind made the shift back from viewing him as MrTepps-in-comparison-with-the-average, to MrTepps-in-comparison-with-MrTepps.
When you love an atypical child the usual developmental milestones become somewhat absurd. Milestones mark points along a road to a specific place. The majority of children are heading in roughly the same direction. My boy just ain't going that way. He is nonetheless on a journey. Compared to the journeys we made his seems a little odd. He takes detours, he heads off in odd directions, visits places in unusual orders and sometimes takes his time getting from place to place. But he is travelling, and it's also a beautiful road. And we his family have the unique privilege of being taken along with him.
My cousin's son is also on the spectrum, and despite a 5-year age gap, our two fellows have connected in a big way. I caught ZooGranny watching the two of them at play the other day, mesmerised. They just get each other. They hardly say a word, but there's this almost magical communication that goes on between them that is wondrous to behold. And they have such fun! Their shared journeying makes as much sense to them as ours does to us. It's the shared journeys that make the communication possible. It occurs to me that by focusing on getting MrTepps to reach our milestones I am missing a huge opportunity to discover another world by following his road from time to time. And by expecting him to to always find my road I am losing out on the opportunities of connection that I'd find if I made the effort to understand his.
I'm not naïve. I know that MrTepps is going to have to exist and function in a world that runs by its own rules, not his, and that will put him at a disadvantage. This means that every milestone he reaches that is in common with the majority will make his functioning that much easier. But increasingly I realise how much of an indictment that is on the narrow-mindedness of society - that narrow-mindedness which is robbing us of some wonderful people because of the "othering" that the mentality produces. The shared milestones will give him an advantage, but I wonder what we are missing out on by expecting this of him. What would the world look like if he was "typical" and we were the ones on less well-traveled roads? What would it look like if we just expanded the world to include the full range? My feeling is that it would be unimaginably richer.
This being said, MrTepps has recently had the grace to build some bridges from his road towards ours.
His language has made a leap. We now have names, and he takes great delight in using them. (His first "Daddy, LOOK", had both of us very emotional). He still borrows a lot of language and intonation from films, TV and  computer games, but he has really started to play with his borrowed words. AND he uses them to express his great sense of humour. A friend of MrBiggs who wears glasses popped his head into the car the other day only to have MrTepps greet him with an enthusiastic "Hello, Harry Potter" and a peal of laughter. A small part of me wondered if he actually knew he was being funny, but I was reassured this week when the same friend was leaving after a visit. Someone told MrTepps to "say bye to Harry Potter" and was responded to with a know-it-all "s'NOT Harry Potter, s'Matthew!"
Potty training has at last happened, and as is usual with this boy, once he had made the decision that this was where he wanted to go, was pretty much instantaneous. I look back in regret now on a weekend where we first tried to keep the nappies off, and where both he and I cried (he in rage and me in despair) for two solid days before us giving up on the attempt. Friends tried to be consoling at that time with reassurances that "He won't be in nappies when he's 18", without understanding that they were in fact not helping. There are no guarantees with children like MrTepps that their journey will actually take them past every milestone that we reached. I am glad, for his sake, that he decided he wanted to call past this particular one. It will make his life in the unaccommodating world a little easier.
Most recently our boy has discovered his inner artist. This has been something of an adventure due to his choice of media. He seems to have a real preference for indelible markers (dark ones) - on walls. At the same time it has been a gift to his Momma. He has chosen to explore circles, mostly, but  significant to me is that some of his circles have been faces - happy ones. When I studied child development we were told that children tend to draw things that are significant to them. To have my  boy choose faces to draw seems to me to be a reaching out to us - an acknowledgment that he sees us, and our faces, as important, even though he sometimes may find it hard to let us see him looking at them.
It will be grand, though, when he decides he prefers to draw on paper.
(Or, in the light of the above,should I be expanding my world to include murals? Hmmm....)

Christmas in a Hot Climate

I grew up with hot Christmases and as a result that was my "normal". I never thought twice about the irony of the snowflakes and snowmen decorating the windows, or a seriously overdressed (and obviously sweltering) Father Christmas.
8 years in the UK, however, gave me a whole new perspective. There, although we never managed a white one, Christmas was at least cold enough that snow was a feasible possibility. In addition, due to short days, lights were actually visible for long enough to make putting them up worth the effort. Santa actually needed his beard, fuzzy hat, boots and fur. Evergreen trees were necessary because they were the only ones with leaves. In fact, real holly was readily available - no need for plastic imitations. Last, but not least,  we actually had a fireplace with a chimney over which to hang the stockings. (We actually have one in our new house too, but it's not generally in action at this time of year).
On our return to South Africa I found myself feeling somewhat rebellious when it came to Christmas. I wanted our celebrations to reflect our context, rather than meaningless (to us) traditions and so began the evolution of alternative practices.

Our 6th New-South-African Christmas looked like this:
Prequel
26 November: A trip was made to the nursery to buy an indigenous Christmas tree. (We buy a tree that we can plant out into the garden after Christmas). This year's was a Kiggelaria africana (Wild Peach). We had one at the old house, and the kids were annually fascinated by the swarms of caterpillars, resulting butterflies and birds that it attracted. I decided we needed one here, too!
Instead of using traditional Christmas decorations, this year we decided to try a Jesse tree instead. The kids took turns to design and make each day's ornaments. By day 7 it looked like this:

The Tree (temporarily out in the courtyard for a bit of sun)

On the 28th the Christmas factory opened and the Tordiffe elves got to work making Christmas cards for our far-away friends.  Factory labour continued right through until Christmas day.

The finished cards

We tend to try and hand-make gifts as much as possible (a bit of the old "reduce, re-use, recycle" theme, with some frugality to counteract the extreme consumerism prevalent everywhere else). It always serves as a lovely excuse for getting creative.

Wire baskets filled with chocolates, candles and bath goodies for the sisters- and Mom-in-law.  Tins of lebkuchen, tomato chutney, brandy truffles and oat-and-herb biscuits for the blokes

Scrapped photos of the ZooBabies for the Grandparents. This is  SirBiggs's  under construction...

...and MrTepps's. I neglected to take pictures of the finished products (and those of the girls) but will exchange these for some as soon as I can get into ZooGranny's house to take them. ZooDaddy built bee-yoo-tiful frames for them!

My gift to ZooDaddy: His favorite poem merged with  one of my photo and 2 of his and then printed onto  canvases 45 X 90 cm (1.5 x 3'). This is panel 1...

Panel 2...

...and Panel 3

1 December is always the official "decorate the house" day. The kids got busy putting up their advent calendars, the wreath for the front door and various ornaments. They also insisted on putting up the artificial fir with all the snowman-snowflake-reindeer ornaments (which I insisted be tucked away largely out of sight in the Notschool room).

The Big Day
Finally Christmas day dawned as the only sunny day in a very rainy patch (I think SirBiggs's fervent prayers must have been heard). Christmas stockings (filled overnight) were examined and then it was time to leave home. ZooDaddy was on zoo-duty, and I was doing the music for the Christmas service, so the kids got to decide where to go - LadyLol came with me, the rest went to the zoo.
We reconvened at home and began preparations for Christmas lunch and visitors. This year we were to be joined by ZooGranny and ZooGrandpa, the Pretoria Cousins and a friend from church.
The plan was for a braai on the patio next to the pool, with all contributing various dishes. While some of us got salads ready in the kitchen, others got busy laying tables and starting the fire. The kids had the job of moving the tree and presents out onto the patio, as well as setting out the picnic blanket on the lawn. This was interspersed with much cavorting in the pool.

Table laid, picnic blanket (and kids and dog) on lawn...

Gifts and tree in the ideal position for attack

Lunch was a marvelous affair, as usual, but interrupted by frequent queries as to how long the "grown-ups" were going to take.

The fare

The feast

The fun

The reason for this was that gift-opening was to take place between main course and dessert. This activity did occur in due course, much to the delight of the kids, naturally.

ZooMomma was elected by the kids as official gift distributor.  Official uniform was "the hat"

The rest of the afternoon was spent languishing in or near the pool, lingering over coffee and dessert (yum), playing with new gifts and watching an absolutely gorgeous film that the grandparents had brought along.
All in all there was complete consesus that it had been a wonderful day.

A Week in the Life of SirBiggs's Bed

After tearing my hair out for a long period at the state of confusion in which I found SirBiggs's bed on a daily basis (despite his insistence that he had made it) I was pulled aside by LadyLol for an explanation. It turns out that SirBiggs makes his bed every day according to a "theme". If only I'd known!
To celebrate my new-found knowledge I determine to keep a photographic record of just one week in the life of his bed. Here are the results:
Day 1: 29 October 2011
Theme: The Band

Gorilla (vocals), Lion (drums), Ted (guitar) and Rabbit (guitar) are the members of the band

The Audience are arranged on MrTepps's bed

The big picture

Day 2: 30 October 2011
Theme: Dog-piling Big-Big. Explanation: Big-Big is the large Panda; Dog-piling is when everyone dives onto some poor victim and lies on them.

Big-Big at the bottom of the pile

Day 3: 31 October 2011
Theme: The (orange) Black-hole

The photo does not show clearly how Blue-Teddy had already had his head sucked into the evil vortex. The rest spiral round as the gravity begins to take effect.

Day 4: 1 November 2011

Theme: The Big Fight

Everyone is fighting someone else

Day 5: 2 November 2011
Theme: Big-Big attempts to be Invisible

No-one is taking the slightest bit of notice of Big-Big. Is it because they can't see him or because they just don't care?

Big-Big's invisibility cloak slips

 
Day 6: 3 November 2011
Theme: The Diamond Hunt

Everyone fights over the diamond that Ted has (unbeknownst to them) already walked away with

Day 7: 4 November 2011
Theme: The Big Wave

The wave retreats leaving destruction in its wake

Seal lies recovering on the beach. Fortunately all survived.

Unofficial Sabbaths

A while back in our family's developmental history we went through a period where we were pretty religious about "Sabbathing" on Sundays. Not that we performed all the traditional Sabbath rituals, but we set the day aside for rest, family-only time, space for reflection and enjoyment. The kids were still at school and so we were not getting much quality time with them in the week, and ZooDaddy and I were feeling pretty burnt out. Those Sundays were literally life-saving.

As the family has evolved, though, the focus has shifted. The kids have grown up and their social needs are increasing. Most Sundays they go off with friends after church, or we gain extra kids. ZooDaddy and I have become less strict about catching up on work on Sundays because we're learning to live restfully during the week, and so feel less burnt out.

This Sunday, however, for some reason none of the kids visited or invited friends. ZooDaddy and I were feeling lazy, and no deadlines were looming, and so, spontaneously, this Sunday turned into one of those traditional Sabbath-Sundays. We cooked and ate together. We played in the pool together. ZooDaddy got a bit silly (which is unusual and VERY loved by the kids). It was a perfect day.

It's not something I feel we need to impose religiously again, but it was a reminder of how much fun we can still have when it's just us. LadyLol declared it to be her "The Best Sunday Ever". I'm sure there's a degree of hyperbole there, but it's good to know that as she and the others grow and explore their own separateness from the family, that they still appreciate the moments when we're "just us".  

School Hours

If there's one thing that I am learning , the more we travel down this educational path we are on, it is that learning can, and does happen at any time. As the chief educational facilitator in this family, I am learning that I need to be on call, and be prepared to be of assistance, at any time (as a rule, ironically, not  during usual school hours). A few examples follow to illustrate my point:

On Friday, 20:30, LadyLolo finds a Braille note from a friend in my room and decided that this is the moment at which she wishes to learn Braille. (I have some lovely twitter-pals, two of whom sent me packages that arrived from the US on the same day, full of treats. This however was about 3 weeks ago!)

All my goodies: Braille T-shirt and twitter-bird charm, Braille Starbucks gift-card, Coffe-beans, American coins for the kids to look at, and the note

She heads off to the bookshelf and pulls out "The Story of Inventions" because she has remembered that it had a section on Louis Braille and the Braille alphabet.

LadyLolo discovers her own resources.

I am called in to assist, because there are some characters in the note that don't appear in her book. I give LadyLolo a quick overview of important Braille punctuation, as well as an explanation of Grade 2 Braille. (At the same time, I myself get a bit of a refresher course!)

Saturday afternoon, around 16:40, SirBiggs is sitting playing a farming game (from Y8) on the laptop  at the kitchen counter. I am pottering about in the kitchen, tidying up, when he asks: "Mom, what do you add to 3830 to get 4150? And so an impromptu maths lesson follows, in which (in the space of 20 minutes) SirBiggs learns about using simple numbers in order to work out the type of operation needed, and how to do "long subtraction" with "borrowing". Incidentally, while we were still schedule- and curriculum-bound, the same concept took LadyLolo and I three weeks of torment (for me) and tears (for her) until it was properly grasped. This, I think illustrates the power of motivation in learning. When I asked SirBiggs what had prompted the question he explained that he had added a plant to his farm and his profit had gone from 3830 to 4150, and so he wanted to figure out how much value a plant adds in that game. The learning is easy because it's relevant, sensible and necessary in the context. Schools attempt to mimic this kind of "real life" scenario by using word problems, which leads me to share a tweet that appeared in my timeline earlier today courtesy of @kamz26. She writes: "Mathematics is the only place where someone could buy 60 watermelons and no one wonders why...". I HAD to smile!

Yesterday evening MissyGeorge and MrTepps were running around like this:

Who says socks, underpants and pyjama shorts can only be worn one way?

I am reminded again of the incredible creativity of thought that comes so easily to children, that adults appear to struggle to regain, and that is becoming ever-more crucial in our rapidly-changing world. I hope our children manage to hang on to their ingenuity and originality.