Last week I talked about JJ going on and on about his kindy teacher. He continues to do it and it’s gone to the stage where he calls me her name. We have similar names that both start with a J and we’ll be walking down the street after kindy and he’ll say her name when trying to get my attention.

I ignore him until he realises that he’s called me something else and then says mummy instead.

It’s like if I had a boyfriend who has another woman and confuses our names. And this other woman is an invisible presence in our midst until a little while after kindy (probably around the time I get him some dinner) and he forgets about her until the next time. I was almost feeling jealous of her invisible presence but I realise it’s a boyhood crush and really I’m still number one in his life.

JJ did concede last night that his kindy worker has told him that fairies are pretend. I asked him how he felt about that and he was fine. I thought he would be devastated but he took it in his stride.

The fairies still make a mention in our everyday lives though. I think this is because I haven’t told him that I think they are pretend so he can still talk about them with me.

JJ brought this picture home from kindy the other day. I’m presuming he told the teacher what to write on it.

I love the drawings. His perception of how people look is fairly new for him and if he’s anything like me this is how he will continue to draw people for the rest of his life.

I particularly love my ‘boobies’ – they are the little pink dots down near where my bellybutton actually is. I only know these are my boobies because when he drew a picture of me the other day he made a point of drawing my boobies.

I also love that I talk to him – how could I not, and that I let him go to kindy. If he didn’t go to kindy I would be insane.

Our house has been overtaken by fairies. They are absolutely everywhere and I’m powerless to do anything about it. This is all coming from my four-year-old’s mouth regarding the invasion of the fairies. He doesn’t call it the invasion, that’s been my take on what’s happening.

It doesn’t help that his early childcare worker is perpetuating the fairy thing. According to JJ she is magic, she is a fairy, she can fly, she did it, her magic did it, her magic can do it. Quite frankly I’m a bit sick of hearing about how wonderful she is but at the same time it’s kinda cute.

And I’ve decided if you can’t beat em perhaps you’ve just gotta join em.

JJ has started blowing kisses to me and asking me if I can feel them. He might blow a kiss in a different direction to me, or be standing on the other side of the room when he blows me a kiss and tonight I told him that I felt his kiss because the fairies delivered it to me. ‘How did they do that?’ he asked. ‘They picked it up and brought it to me.’ I said.

I can’t even escape fairies in my journey around the blogosphere. Joy wrote a poem, ‘Fairyland‘ which I printed out and I’ve read to JJ twice now. After reading it to him last night I left it on the table in the lounge and he asked if I could read it to him tonight so I did. As he passed it to me and got ready to sit down he said, ‘I’m so ‘tescited”.

I know I know, I’m also perpetuating his fairies belief. Why not ey?

We went to a local event recently where they had a face painter. She asked JJ what he wanted and I’m surprised he didn’t say a fairy. When people he doesn’t know ask him a question he clams up. Believe me, he’s the complete opposite with people he does know well. I sometimes call him Chat Chat because he just doesn’t shut up. Anyway, when he wasn’t forthcoming with a suggestion for a face painting, she suggested fish.

This is the result. It’s nothing to do with fairies.

Recently JJ missed out on a kindy field trip to the zoo because he was sick that day. As a result I promised to take him to the zoo. I fulfilled that promise the other day and off we went.

The weather wasn’t that promising, in fact the weather report said it would rain so I went prepared with wet weather gear which we used. There were advantages to going on a wet, non-weekend day except for the group of school kids that made our picnic lunch noisy. I digress though.

I considered seeing if any friends wanted to come with us but I decided in the end it would be good just for mum and son to have an outing like this together without having to worry about others.

The reason I didn’t want to put this trip off until nicer weather was that are some gorillas at the zoo that are only there for a few months.

The gorillas (during the four times or more we walked past them) weren’t up to that much. They sat right at the back of their enclosure out of the rain. JJ was very disappointed that he didn’t get to see them climbing.

I’m glad I did make the effort in the end because it was a lovely day despite the rain. JJ was really ‘tescited’ about going as he informed me a lot. On the way he told me all the animals he wanted to see which was just about everything the zoo has to offer.

It was his day so he was the one who I asked what he wanted to see and/or do next. He would grab me by the hand and say, ‘Come on mum, let’s go and see the penguins’, or something similar. Because of his excitement it rubbed off on me and helped me forget about my sore knees and aching legs by the end of the day and helped me forget that we’d walked around the zoo twice with numerous goings back and forth between animals.

We were around for the feeding of the seals at the beginning of our excursion and the feeding of the penguins at the end of our excursion. We also got to feed some deer in the children’s zoo area. You take your life into your own hands purchasing food then feeding it to these animals. They are used to it and know what type of packaging it comes in and if you let your child hold it they’ll just grab it off them and attack it in a frenzy until it’s all gone. I’d seen this happen with some other people and when it was our turn doled out the food to JJ who was a bit freaked out by all these animals chasing him for food.

There’s also a cocky in the children’s zoo whose verbal repertoir consists mainly of, ‘Hallo cobber’, ‘Have you been a good boy?’. I tried to teach him a couple of new things but didn’t have the time to invest in it.

See more of our zoo photos.

On the way home we stopped at Trims so I could buy a new pair of boots. My Blundstones are ten years old or more and are falling to bits so I wanted to replace them. I bought a cheap pair of slip on black boots last year and they didn’t even last me the winter so I thought I’d spend a little bit more and get some decent boots. I settled on some Rossi air cushioned sole boots. I wish I had them before the trip around the zoo as it would have saved my poor knees a bit I think.