Tough Mother

Now that the kids are years 6 and 5, they could, in theory, walk themselves to school.

If you’d asked me a few years back, I would have declared they’d be taking themselves off by now. Encouraging independence and all that.

Turns out, I quite enjoy the morning walk.

Mostly, we now leave the house in a civilised fashion, and, sometimes, we even get to the end of the road all on speaking terms.

On the days where this doesn’t happen, I usually have an unexpectedly enjoyable chat with the kid who hasn’t walked off in a huff, as they polish their halo by displaying their continued civilisedness.

One morning recently, as the three of us were almost at school, I asked whether they’d like a change. Both were quite quick to say they wanted to keep up the routine.

I was just congratulating myself for some successful parenting when my daughter confirmed that it was one of two slots she scheduled in her day to talk to me.

The other being after her bedtime.

I don’t know whether it’s because my daughter is approaching the wise old age of 10, but she is keeping us updated on her long term plans.

Mum, I’d like to get another piercing when I’m 15. 

… we agreed we’d discuss it when she’s 18.

Mum, I’m not going to get married until I am 50.

Marvellous – plenty of time to save.

Mum, I’m going to be a nonalcoholic when I’m older.

A little bit of questioning clarified that this meant not drinking any alcohol at all. Ever.

… that might have been because she was walking home after we’d had a very nice Sunday lunch with friends.

Perhaps one to add to the diary to check in 10(?) years time…?

My daughter and I had been doing maths when we both decided it was time for a break. There was a slight difference of opinion in what that should look like, but I convinced her that we should go for a walk. 

At least that was the initial plan.

She then grabbed a skateboard, snack and football, before we were finally able to get out the door.

To then get about 100m down the road, when she realised that she can’t really skate…

So I ended up powering the process by dragging her to the park. There may have been some Mutley-esque mutterings about the exercise we (she) was supposed to be doing.

However, we had a great time. Lunch and literal skipping though daffodils, followed by a bit of football. To spice things up, we had to add an activity, cartwheel, handstand or something, before kicking the ball. Which was (again literally) my downfall, when I sprained my ankle when failing to jump over the ball.

I thought I handled it very calmly, until my daughter told me to stop swearing!

I had visions of needing to call the park service for some assistance, but I managed to hobble to the closest path, from whence my daughter then alternated between pushing and dragging me home on the skateboard.

As she observed, lucky she brought it…

There may also have been some murmurings about the amount of exercise she was having to do to save me…

I was going to write about my daughter discovering Valentine’s Day, but then the war in Ukraine began.

The other morning we were walking to school when my son asked for an update.

I explained that Russia had invaded and the Ukraine was defending itself courageously.

My daughter asked whether the UK was fighting. There was then a debate about whether we should, that perhaps it would be best not to get involved.

My son, who is learning about World War 2, pointed out that standing back didn’t work out well then. He then poignantly reminded my daughter of what they’d learned about bullies – that bystanders who do nothing are just as blameworthy…

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).