Day 3 - Listening

Sienna had a bit of a melt-downish afternoon today, and I realised that the bigger she is getting, the more difficult it is to move her when she is fighting! We managed to get home from the meeting without her actually jumping out of the car, despite her best efforts, and then she and I had a chat when everyone else had gone in the house. Mostly about how she was apparently going to get on a train and live in a tent in Melbourne, and what she should pack. 


While she started off heading inside and collecting clothes for her intended relocation, I bustled her along with me back into the car a short while later, as I wanted to pick up a few paints at a shop in Belgrave (not far away). She came with me happily enough, chatting all the while about how she would pick up a television from hard rubbish for her 'tent', and come home to 'work' for money. A few home truths came up about powered and unpowered camping sites, which sent her mind spinning.

But then we were there, we wandered around the book / art supply shop for awhile. I spotted 'The Red Tree' by Shaun Tan, one of my favourite books which is actually a really artistic children's book, and read it aloud to her sitting on the floor. She didn't understand that some of the expressions were metaphors, as opposed to literal, but she did recognise that she felt the same way as the girl in the book. I love that the book ends with a beautiful image of hope, a gloriously glowing red tree that just grew at the end of the day.




Then I took Sienna next door to the Reel Cafe for a couple of tapas-style snacks and a strawberry milkshake. She talked and talked and talked. Random randomness, and about how much she wants to go to Disneyland. But it has to be the Paris Disneyland, not any other one, it has to be the same one! She loves the photo of herself with Mickey Mouse at 18 months old. Damn she was an adorable toddler. Anyhow. Chat, chat, chat. We dipped in and out of meaningful subjects, but mostly she was just so happy to sit there and talk her head off and see me listening to her.


I was grateful for a chance to be there listening to her. Funny little girly.


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