But before I begin, let’s start with this pretty picture:

No television on entertainment unit
“Where’s our TV, Mummy?”

And yes. As much as we started out as parents who wanted to keep our child away from the “evils” of television, we ended up losing our way. Repeatedly, and without regret. I don’t know who I was trying to kid – I love film and television. I think I watched, on average, a movie a week when I was Single in Singapore. And I grew up with the original Disney heroines, long before they thought to package them as Princesses. Watching Arddun’s eyes widen and sparkle as she is introduced to my animated companions of old is always a very special treat we both share.

But our 7-year-old Samsung seems to be of that special factory breed which has a glitchy capacitor, so it’s been taking longer and longer to wake up when we point and click. In one of the rarest times an extended warranty actually worked in our favour, the tech people came today to take our TV away and fix it for free. And so we find ourselves without the gogglebox for a whole week.

Thank goodness S5 GoT just finished.

Naturally, this called for an arsenal of other distractions. I had recently recharged our old point-and-shoot Olympus (8 megapixels, 10x optical zoom), only to find the lens or digital monitor damaged. So today, I splashed out a little on a cheapie – just to see how well Arddun takes to photography.

It’s only a 2mp with a very slow reaction time, so most shots end up blurred after pressing the button. But Arddun was pretty thrilled with it. “I take pictures like you!” she beamed at me, which more than made up for the $25 price tag!

And off she went, working out how to place her fingers so they didn’t block the lens and how to use the digital monitor to frame her shot. The first few times she took a picture of me only to find my head chopped off, she accused me of “not standing right”. So yes, practice needed on how to frame a shot, methinks.

Photo of me without head
“You’re not standing in the right spot, Mummy!”
Velle and Atticus on left of shot
“That’s better!”
Photo of drawers
“I take your drawers.”
Photo of ceiling
“Look, Mummy! The ceiling!”
Photo of toys
The Princess and the Hammock
Photo of Velle holding Atticus
I think I’ve had more photos taken of me in this half an hour than I’ve had in a looooong time.
Photo of Tony without his head
Daddy’s home.
Blurred photo of Arddun's dinner
“My dinner!”

Every time she managed to take a picture without her fingers in the shot, she just beamed. After just 20 photos, you could see a marked improvement. Can’t wait to see if this becomes a passion of sorts!