Author: toughmotheruk

My son is discovering politics…

Last term it was the student council. First off was working out his ‘platform’. He was loathe to promise something that sounded good but couldn’t be delivered. Not a usual tactic…

Then, there was the vote bartering. There were a few boys standing and they all worked out who they would vote for – although post match reports indicated there wasn’t a lot of follow through… That sounded more like the common understanding of politics!

However, they hadn’t factored in maths – only one girl in the class threw her hat in the ring. So all the girls voted for her. The boys’ votes were distributed amongst a larger number so the girls won the day!

This term, it has been the house captains. My son came to me, instead of dad, to prep his speech. We kept it short and sweet, focused on his strengths (getting people involved and accurate counting apparently).

Unfortunately, the change of tactics didn’t pay off either.

Then his sister waltzed in last week to announce she is now the “Class Ambassador for the Rights of the Child ”.

Due to a failure in the democratic process, no speeches or votes were needed.

It goes without saying that he was very happy for his sister…

They say moving house is one of the most stressful things you can do. And that was before covid!

Somehow it has been a six month process for us – New Zealand’s efficient system worlds away! To be honest, we’ve not been in any rush and we were all agreed for a move just before Christmas, and then… my son got covid.

Luckily, he hasn’t really had any symptoms. But, his isolation was due to end as we moved. So there went our plan for packers sweeping in to pack the house up! Instead, there was a last minute dash for boxes. A significantly different context to leaving NZ with my backpack (admittedly, many years ago now).

My technique was quite different from my husband’s. Sorting was quite simple: bin, box, charity shop. (Although I know better than to turf the “lucky log”…). He has a few more categories so we settled on a happy medium. I spent my time on the 80% and he covered the 20% that my categories apparently weren’t appropriate for.

There was also an interesting pattern from the kids. They were “very busy” when it came to packing and suddenly found a lot more things that could be ‘on-gifted’ when it came to unpacking: translation – I can’t be bothered taking it out of the box.

It may have been beneficial for (lack of) auditing purposes that I unpacked the new house, while my husband cleaned the old one…

My daughter hit a pretty big milestone recently. She wanted her ears pierced for her birthday.

It bought back memories – my mum had been adamant that we couldn’t get our ears pierced. “If god had wanted another hole in our ears he would have given it to us”.

However, for some reason mum said yes when my younger sister asked. So I made her wait a week so I could get mine done first…

For my daughter, the actual event was pretty quick and painless…

Until the infection – when I needed to do a small surgical procedure.

Apparently holding dad’s hand helped. Although the next door neighbours may have wondered what was happening as there was quite a lot of wailing and gnashing of teeth.

Withdrawing the earrings was fairly straightforward (subject to some wailing and gnashing). Replacing them and inserting the butterfly on the shank of the earring was, however, delicate, requiring just the right amount of pressure to get it on…

Unfortunately, I didn’t judge this correctly.

As my dad would say, I didn’t feel a thing…

Since Covid, our kids have been sleeping in the same room. To begin with, it was a cheap sell to mix things up a bit – the only available sleep over.

Then my daughter moved downstairs last May, kicking my husband out of his ‘study’, to get a bit more space.

My son then joined her as he was lonely – he could no longer “talk through the wall” to her and it was cooler. Remember the actual summer we had last year?!

Then September came and it started to get cold and dark, so they moved north again (up the stairs).

This year the migration south has been a bit shorter, with indications of indecision as they roam between rooms.

We’re watching for a more settled pattern in the coming weeks…

Sticking with the zoo, we had a very memorable experience! We fed a Pygmy Hippo and gave the penguins their brekkie as well as watched the lion rip into his.

However, it did emphasise why two weeks of quarantine is not high on my list of things to do.

We had elected to stay in a single room lodge – the kids very quickly chose the single beds, somewhat logically, leaving the double sofa bed to their dear parents.

That seemed kind, until we arrived back from the night tour and opened up the sofa to see that a third of it was the wooden base – with no apparent mattress or covering.

My husband tried convincing the kids to change around, but they weren’t having it, so, after much tossing and turning, we settled for the night.

That is until my son went to the bathroom about midnight. My husband spotted the opportunity and was snuggled up in the bed in no time.

My son quite vociferously protested, but did try sleeping on the sofa. Briefly. Before deciding to top and tail with his sister…

Who woke up at 3 complaining about an extra person in her bed. As she didn’t want to try the sofa she quietened down pretty quickly…

For them both to wake up at 6am excited to start day 2, which they weren’t allowed to do until 7!

I’m not sure we’d all survive 14 nights of that!

I’m now double vaccinated.

I was a bit anxious going for my second jab as the first was a bit traumatic.

The actual injection went very smoothly and reminded me of tailing time on the farm – just a lot quieter as lambs weren’t baa-ing to be reunited with their mums after being ear marked, vaccinated, drenched and tailed.

Perhaps ironically after that analogy, we’d gone to stay the night at the zoo. A Christmas present after our trip to New Zealand was a Covid Cancellation.

While we were having dinner in the Mini Beast Pavilion, my daughter started telling us about the discovery of the small pox vaccine. Her latest school project. My son popped up to demonstrate how it would have felt “back in the day” and landed a beautiful punch directly onto my vaccination spot.

He took one look at my face and decided that inspecting the mini beasts behind the glass was an excellent idea.

When I could speak sensibly, I agreed with him.

One month later and I realised I was still rubbing my shoulder.

However, the second vaccine seemed to sort that out. Now I’m just waiting for the halo (of “full” protection that is).

A few weeks ago we went out for a bbq at a friends house. How the world has changed given the novelty of that!

We’d had a great night and I was walking home with my son when he announced he was “kid drunk”.

I wracked my memory but couldn’t recall them being out of sight in the garden or, for that matter, anywhere near any booze.

There hadn’t even been an overabundance of sugar as he’d announced he didn’t like cake (since when?!).

I relaxed when he went on to say that he just wanted “to jump and run and talk in really long sentences”.

Not sure where he got that from?!

Funnily enough, he did then disappear for a nap the following afternoon.

What’s it like to live a day without electricity?

I remember dad making us do it. I think to help us appreciate all the things we took for granted. Toast, tellie… was there anything else?

So I thought it might be a good exercise to do with the kids.

The look from my daughter when I suggested it spoke volumes. But she got into the spirit of it – even rounding up the iPads and anything electrical to put in a bag the night before.

This was after my son had clarified that anything requiring electricity to charge was not allowed but batteries were ok…?!

I was rethinking the next morning after said daughter had come in for the third time before 7.30 to tell us she was bored.

When we did venture downstairs, she had completed some painting – apparently she was so bored she couldn’t think of anything to paint… perhaps that’s how modern art started….?

From there, the hammock saw more use than it has in the last 10 months (since minecraft was discovered), and the kids talked. A lot.

There was further rethinking at about 4pm when the kids continued to keep talking, mostly about minecraft. It was lovely.

We made it through (with a lot of talking) and everyone agreed it was a good day. Though they haven’t volunteered a repeat!

The other day my daughter rushed into my office (bedroom) after school. Guess what we learned about today mum?

Umm…

Puberty.

Cue muting my line and turning off the camera.

I made the mistake of asking one too many questions. Apparently they hadn’t covered the making babies part. So we did.

So that’s how a baby is made, my daughter observed, so kind of like chemistry then?

Umm… I guess you could say sperm and egg fusing is like chemistry (although as a friend observed, it’s actually biology…)

Nah mum, I meant like when a boy and girl kiss…

I think that confirms that there has been way too much Netflix.

At that point, she decided that was enough of that and wandered away. Just in time for me to answer a question on the call. I just about held it together.

She’d obviously been paying attention to her lessons though because when her older brother asked what puberty was (he missed those lessons due to Covid), her response was rapid…

“You’ll get hair on your pits, hair on your bits, hair on your face and your voice will drop.”

Job done.

My son came into the room the other day and announced he had a deep philosophy.

Cue throat clearing and dramatic pause…

“The darkest nights have the brightest stars.”

Riiiight.

That might have been profound if it hadn’t come directly from Bumblebee, the Transformers movie, which we’d watched the previous night.

Still if that was his takeaway, perhaps tv ain’t all bad.

It has definitely felt appropriate as we’re starting to see signs of spring, with daffodils and blossoms starting to appear. Added to that, the kids are going back to school on Monday…

While my daughter is a little bit reluctant (she’s worried the snacks won’t be as available and there won’t be as many breaks?!), I have to admit I’ll be very pleased to drop them off at the school gate.

The stars are aligning…!