Wombat Divine

On Saturday evening we took Henry and Maya into the city to see the Myer Christmas Window Display. Every year they base their display on a different theme. This year it's Wombat Divine by Mem Fox. It's a kids book about a Wombat desperate to be in the school Nativity play but it's difficult to find him the right part as he's either too fat, too sleepy or too clumsy. He ends up fitting in perfectly as the baby Jesus.

We have had this book since Maya was Henry's age. It was much loved by her and is now much loved by Henry. The pages are all dog eared and smeared with vegemite and other assorted food items. The illustrations in the book are beautiful and the Myer display has clearly been in keeping with the book. They've even managed to find fabrics and colours that are all identical to the book.

I wasn't sure how Henry would cope with being in the city as I tend not to take him out in public very often because, dare I say it, he's a right royal pain in the butt. He runs off. Nothing can hold his attention for more than two minutes (except Fireman Sam). I was surprised that he enjoyed the window display enough to actually spend a total of about five minutes admiring it. As soon as he'd seen enough he of course took off. Fortunately we were in the mall and there was plenty of room for him to run without fear of being run over by a vehicle of some kind.

When we left we took the glassed elevator down to the carpark. We stood him in the elevator, told him to hang on and look outside. After the first level the lift descended into the darkness of the carpark and poor Henry must have thought he was being thrown down a well as he started shaking and was on the verge of tears but was too much in shock to actually cry. As the lift stopped he said "oh, oh don't like that lift Mummy". I picked him up and he was very tense and his heart was beating fast. The joys of running wild through the mall had been replaced by a fear. I only hope he isn't now psychologically tormented by the experience and will re-enter an elevator when the time comes to do so.