Nanu nanu

In an attempt to install manners in our boy we have introduced Thank you as well as please. Bax says it "Nanu". The lovely thing about Thank you is that he uses it when he really is thank full rather than just when he really wants something. You see "Please" is really just a big exclamation mark on a demand, like Can i have a chocolate? "PLEASE!!!" As if to say You have to give me what i want because I said Please!

Nanu on the other hand is said when he already has the thing he wanted so there is no added incentive - he just says it because it's nice to say.

Two examples from this past Waitangi Weekend. On saturday Nana Pat and i took the kids to Matakana for the day. Across the road from the truley awful Farmers Market was a very cool second hand market and Bax fell in love with an icing tool - you know the type with all the nozzles - like a big hyperdermic needle. This one is a german one in its original 1950s box and with all its bits - very much like the one I had as a kid. For $8 a real bargain so we bought it. The next day while he was asleep I made some very simple sugar biscuits and some pink icing and he spent a long time icing them (with some help). We put them all carefully under the fly umbrella while they cooled. When the icing had set he carefully gave one to Daddy and one tbubba and took one for each hand for himself. There was a long silence as he munched his biscuits and looked admiringly at his icing piper. When he said "Mummy" I turned around and he had a big pink sugary grin on his face "Nanu Mummy" he said. My heart melted.

Then yesterday before he had his nap i said that we would go for a picnic in the park for dinner. As the kids slept G and i completed a three day marathon of laying pavers on our 4mx4m patio outside, I hit my thumb with the mallet, G was achy and tired and cross, and by the time Bax woke up neither of us felt like going to the park, bu the first thing Bax said to me when he woke up was "Picnic now?" How could we not?

An exhausted G opted out and stayed at home, but I summoned the last of my strength, packed as many bits into our picnic bag as I could fit, and took the kids and the dog to the park. We loaded up the buggy with hamper, juice, two kids, blanket and ball and walked the dog through the bush and back around in a loop to the picnic area. Then we sat in a little circle and ate our food. IT WAS BRILLANT. The three of us (and the dog) had a wonderful time eating cold sausage and grapes and cheese and crackers and chips and juice. Bax was in heaven and Izzie too loved helping herself to all the bits and not having to be strapped into the high chair. On the way homw Bax let out a big sigh and said "Nanu Holidays!"

In Izzie news: Ms Izz has nearly four teeth (one at the top just pushing its way through now) and is nearly standing up un aided.