NannaAnne's present

It was with great fanfare that NannaAnne stopped by on her way home from work yesterday with a present - which was a very big book! The Wind-up Plane Book comes with a wind-up toy plane which you can see it in the bottom right hand corner of the picture. Several pages have a track built in so that you can wind up the plane and race across the page. Ben can't yet wind but loves the racing part. And what's more, the story is about a boy called Ben who is going on his first plane trip with his mum and dad and baby sister.

This evening we contemplated the double page map of the world at length. We have a couple of globes on the front hall table so Ben is aware of maps and happily he is taken with this one. I think this is probably due to my brother Nick's trip home from London in January, because I was able to show him where Nick and his girlfriend Anna both live. He seems fascinated that we live at the bottom of the map and they live at the top. Just wait until we get to the parts about how baggage handlers do their job!

I must add the Magic Pudding to my to-buy list because we went to the Children's Garden today at the Botanic Gardens and Ben had a great time climbing all over the sculpture of same. It's a shame I cut the Magic Pudding out of the photo - I laugh just looking at him because he's such a grumpy old boot.

Ben's in his nappy because they've turned the water feature back on - hooray!!! I have to say that garden is the best place for 2 year olds in Melbourne, without any shadow of a doubt.

Wind-up plane book is by Gillian Doherty and illustrated by Stefano Tognetti

The Magic Pudding: being the adventures of Bunyip Bluegum and his friends Bill Barnacle and Sam Sawnoff is written and illustrated by Norman Lindsay