Sayonara, Nana

My mum, Sweeney and Harper's Nana, left for Christchurch tonight. Sweeney and I were her personal shoppers today, parking her in changing rooms throughout Wellington and bringing her things to try on. Worked on her to buy a lovely red poplin top, but she resisted our charms.

I've been to two Max outlets, in Christchurch and Wellington, and both had a box of toys by the fitting rooms. Brilliant. I could check through every single rack and Sweeney was fully occupied with a concrete truck and a teeny car.

My first experience of Sweeney being really really naughty in shops today - two horrible, destructive instances of split seconds of truly vile behaviour. Over with in an instant each time, but I'm still erasing them from my memory and committing my life to never ever having it happen again. Gods help me, that one episode of Supernanny that I watched really paid off when I popped him on the floor outside the shop for a public timeout. It really works - okay, it took a few attempts before we got through the stipulated two minutes - but he came back to being All Lovely Sweeney pretty fast. Well, maybe 80% Lovely Sweeney. The timeout process is becoming more complex as he gets older - he's more oppositional, he's more determined on his own course, he himself is more complex. Good times ahead.

We took meatballs and tomato sauce from How to Eat up to KimberleyHarperJoe's for dinner, then loaded Nana into the car and off to see her take off in the big silver bird.

I didn't get to spell it out to you at the airport, Mum, but it's been lovely having you here. Come back soon. Move up here. We'd all really like it. Looooove you.