tiger in the grass

Today was the last day of Miss L's first term of school, and it finished with her performing the part of scarecrow in a short (10 mins!) version of the Wizard of Oz. Last year Miss L really struggled with any public performance duties, and this year was looking no different until several days ago. I was so proud of her today for taking such a big step, and she was obviously pretty pleased with herself. When we got home this afternoon, after seeing some friends, Miss L came to me with the idea of being a 'tiger'. "mumma can you please paint my face like a tiger?" As I was happily painting her face orange and black, she let me in on her plan for us for the rest of the afternoon. I was to be a leopard and we would be in the jungle like in one of her favourite books Rumble in the Jungle by Giles Andreae and with wonderful pictures by David Wojtowycz. Apparently, this play would envolve not only painting my face to resemble a leopard, but we would need a waterhole and trees. After some serious discussion about trees taller than herself being difficult to make ("we just need paper and sequins mum"?!) we agreed to make a waterhole (blue paper) and some tall grass (green paper). Unfortunately we ran out of orange and black paint so Miss L decided that I could just make leopard noises (grrr). We were both very pleased with the finished ensemble....

R came home to this very serious photo shoot taking place in the lounge room, with a giggling very fierce tiger! He thought that this deserved a photo too. Please take note of the long grass sticky taped strategically to the floor by Miss L.

By dinner time the tigress and myself were quite exhausted, but what fun for an afternoon! Who said adults don't get to play?!