Time flies

It's the last weekend of the summer holidays for our two ruffians. Work and school will recommence in earnest this week, giving all of us a much-needed break from the relentless routine (beach, lunch, play, sleep) and endless, task-oriented time management ("what are we going to do now?", "are we nearly there yet?", etc) – it'll be great to get back to the 9 to 3 for five days of the week. They've had a spectacularly good holiday, the evidence of which shines out of them both. Amazing how much they've changed in such a short time.

New things during January:

Elly now tells the time (just about), reads really fluently, rides a bike without stabilisers (again, just about), constructs and delivers an a priori argument from a distinctly Kantian perspective, still has a near-pathological inclination to spill any drink within arm's reach and hence learned to shower herself clean of Ribena. Repeats everything Oscar says.

Oscar can really "talk" now, having discovered sentences if not quite up to speed with punctuation, has accidentally learned forward rolls while practicing his handstands, can draw proper faces, complete with eyes, nose and mouth, and has generally become a fully-fledged Little Boy, right in front of our eyes: he's even out of nappies. Repeats everything Elly says.

They both love to watch movies. Lots of movies. Current faves are High School Musical 2, Toy Story, Mary Poppins and Bee Movie. We just got back from seeing Bolt at the cinema. Brilliantly done but a bit disappointing, I thought, it was Oscar's first ever big-screen experience, unfortunately coinciding with his afternoon nap time so he was unconcho for the second half of it. This love of movies was the only reason we even dared think of taking a vocally exuberant two-year-old to the flicks, and he did us proud right up to the point where he realised Elly had eaten all the popcorn.

Elly's unspoken excuse was that she was completely absorbed from start to finish. It's a lovely thing, despite the odd Hollywood-inspired side-effects: Elly (and therefore Oscar) is prone to saying "Awww, meaaaann!" at the drop of a hat and Oscar likes to insult people by calling them "hockey puck", after Mr Potato Head in Toy Story. He also likes to wear his underpants on his head, though I'm not quite sure which movie that's from...

I'm sure I'll find the time to post some more pics up this week. This one of Oscar sofa diving kind of sums up the mood of the holls, they've had such good fun, at times you're not sure if they're jumping for joy or levitating with excitement. Roll on the next ones.