Big Tum: Hot. Damn hot.

The last cupla weeks have been a whirlwind of holidays, hotty days and home-with-dad and nana days.

And permutations and combinations thereof.

Firstly there was the trip to Sandy Point (yes, yet again) for the Orstraya Day Weegend.
(To pronounce it any other way is, well, un-Orstrayan.)

There was beach sessions and sand castles and finding shells and chasing the other littlies around, but the clear highlights were (in no particular order):
a) Kara Kara Kara. A friend of a friend who very quickly became Master M's bff after she laughed and waved and encouraged the lad with great big smiles and cheers every time he said her name.

It was love at first night.

To see him running down the stairs on the last day saying Kara Kara Kara, only to find she'd had to leave to catch a plane, was like something out of Gone with the Wind. Only soppier.

b) Kayaking (see pic); sitting ontop of C&M's brand spanker new Anaconda special gripping a tow rope, with mum paddling sedately out and into the shipping channel of the Sandy Point inlet. With approved and suitably strapped-on life jacket of course.

Life was clearly far less exciting when dad took the helm; he fell asleep.

c) Mozzies. Yes, just like the Cape Conran trip pre-xmas, the mozzies decided this toddler bloke was fair game, and hence when the lad was put to bed for a relaxing snooze they descended upon the poor tike en masse through an open window in the kitchen, and chewed his bloody arms orf.

Or at least left one side of his face looking like such a pin cushion that fully a week later, after he was dropped off at daycare, dad received a phone call from a carer pooping herself that the lad had chicken pox.
"No, they're just mozzie bites mam...."
"Oh. Dear. {pause} Can you pick him up anyway?"
Tru dinks.

Secondly there was the not-so-pleasant passing of his grandfather, and hence his mum's unexpected bolt to Sydney for a week, the only upside being she missed the joy that was Melbourne's second hottest day (45.1°C; thats 113.2 in the old scale) since records began in 1855.

For the lad though it meant being cooped up in his bedroom during the day with stay-at-home dad, playing in the direct wooshing line of the pathetically inadequate portable evaporative cooler while dad attempted a few work emails on the laptop in between cheering on a Melbourne record via his very own temperature worm.

"Go you good thing!!! Geez mate, its bloody hot..."

Though again on the upside, with the house reaching 35°C inside (there had been 2 preceding days of over 43°C; again an all time Melbourne record), there was no patience for the heat of cooking and hence dad bought him {gulp/dont tell the council nurse} take away on two nights.

Including {double gulp} his first ever Hungry Jacks junior meal ("Well i did get him the juice instead of coke...")

Which they ate together on a picnic rug in the backyard cos the "cool" change came through and dropped the temperature to an almost chilly-by-comparison 34°C (93.2F) outdoors.

Sunday night it was fish and chips on the sand at Ricketts Point, watching the guys out windsurfing (and hence making dad eat his liver that he wasn't out there) and feeding the seagulls.

This proved to be a classic in itself, as the boy a) insisted on feeding them without dads help, but b) can only throw about 1 foot in front of himself.

Hence each time he chucked a chip he was descended upon in a scene straight out of Hitchcock's "Birds" fillum.
Dad was just relieved to see him emerge relatively unpecked.

We only hope he didn't develop a life-long avian phobia.

The beach picnic ended with a romantic dusk stroll along the sand, which suddenly, with no prompting or the like and after 30 secs of meditative silence, saw the boy turn to dad, look him in the eye, and say:

"Mummy Gone."

It woulda broken your heart.

Then he said it again.
"No mate- shes coming back soon. Just a few more sleeps. Mummys not gone."

And he didn't mentioned it again.

In its own funny way, it was the most incredible communication of his life.

Not just for its sweetness, but because it showed clearly that his brain no longer just thinks of the bird, the chip, the milk, the keys, the shower or the car that he can see or hear or get hunger pains for.

He can think.

Therefore;
He is.

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This post is dedicated to David Hope, 1921-2009.
Artist, poet and devotee of this blog.