A very, very, busy day

Today was one of those wonderful, spontaneous days that come along every so often. After a disastrous start we decided that the only way we were to survive was to abandon all plans and go on an adventure. A really big adventure. It needed to involve a train ride (which was almost aborted due to track work), the art gallery and some Christmas cheer.

But first, let me backtrack a little. For the Rooster's second birthday he was given a beautiful book called "What colour is that". This book has entranced our little fella for the past year taking him on a journey through the art gallery and some of it's paintings. We have talked about one day going to the art gallery and seeing some of the pictures in real life. With his little book tucked under his arm, today we hit the gallery. It seemed that so did the rest of Sydney. We were hoping to pop into the Monet exhibition (it was not ALL about the boy) but with the queue about 100 metres long, it made sense to try for another day.

The Rooster loved the gallery. He spotted some of his favourites from his book and stood in front of each painting with his book open looking down and then up. He was hooked. It was one of those moments that your heart swells for your kid. Missy did well too. She squawked away like the cockatoo she dreams of becoming and kicked wildly in her pouch. Her time will come, although I have the sneaking suspicion that when she is let loose we will be chasing her down yelling "Don't touch that! Nooooo....!"

Every year when I was little (and most years as an adult!) we would go into town to see the Christmas windows. I can remember those days quite vividly and hope that my children will fall in love with the magic that is Christmas. The rooster is charmed already. He cannot wait until our tree goes up and is patiently counting down the days on his calendar. The windows had him mesmerised but what really made his day was this really big tree in Hyde Park.

He also thought that the fountains and paths were pretty good too. He took one look at the shiny smooth track and thought that his red car was just what he needed to make the most of our pit stop for lunch.

It's very quiet here tonight. The children were calm after their big day in the city and went to bed without fuss. The Rooster's last words as he lay in his bed were, "Mummy, we had a very very busy day!"