tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-73071479774119835132024-03-12T18:42:29.206-07:00Life in stereo - a guide to living with twinsA PhD in psychology and working with children for many years has done nothing to prepare me for the experience of living with my own twins. I often tell people I was a much better psychologist before I had my own kids - that's what having children does to you. It takes all those firm ideals, standards and dreams and confuses them, turning them (and your life) into chaos. This blog is about that, and also about the wonderful, maddening and exciting experience of life with identical twins.Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.comBlogger109125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-14216889067288560702016-07-31T14:40:00.004-07:002016-07-31T14:40:56.130-07:00Speak lifeIt's been so long since I had a chance to write. What have I been doing in this time, you might ask? Well...<br />
We found out that we were having a bonus baby a few weeks after the boys turned seven. The little girl had just turned five and started big school, and it was a time for great transitions for all of us. I remember feeling a bit off, my hormones were crazy and I felt ill every evening. I woke in the night to horrible night sweats. After a few days of this, I lay on the couch and cried about it to the Sweetpea. "I am going through menopause!" I screeched dramatically through floods of tears. Not that it was unexpected, but that I wasn ready to give up on my body being the source of life for another little one. I was devastated.<br />
However, two pregnancy tests later, I was a bit relieved and possibly more apprehensive. After suffering a miscarriage the previous year and all of the emotion that went with that, I could not bear to think of the long weeks and months that stretched out ahead with our little one growing inside me and the possibility of once again losing all of those hopes and dreams for another member of the family. We were still lighting a candle every Friday for the unborn child, and I could not face the idea of having two small candles to be lit on our table. As the pregnancy progressed, I started having panic attacks, diagnosing myself with every form of non specific and terrible complication on Google (thanks, Dr Google!). I was anything but the serene and in-control older mother I had hoped I would be. I was a ball of sodden nerves wrapped up in hysteria. It was the boys who eventually came to my rescue. You hear about children parenting their parents. Well, I had the chance to experience this when they were only seven. They had been listening to a song by Toby Mac called "Choose life" Eye On It (Deluxe Edition) by tobyMac https://itun.es/nz/G2-6Q<br />
It's about how the word we utter are powerful and that we have the power of life and death in our tongues. These little boys of mine reminded me that I had the choice to make of whether I would speak life over their child in my womb, or with my fears and insecurities unwittingly speak death. I'm so glad they did. From that moment on I chose to speak life to my unborn child no matter what happened.<br />
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Almost a year later, now, I write this while our newest member of the family slumbers peacefully on my chest. The Snuffalupagus, as we fondly call him, was born safely in December and has enriched our lives with his presence ever since then. He has allowed the boys to become older brothers of a much younger sibling and what joy it is to see them picking him up and comforting him when he cries. Little Miss Snoopy has had her dearest wish to be a little mommy come true right in front of her eyes. <br />
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Take time to choose life!Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-18405663612017716222014-09-04T18:38:00.003-07:002014-09-04T18:48:54.487-07:00Divide and conquer? Or united we stand? The age-old question of whether we should separate our twins in school...<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Since our twins first went to school, we were inundated by well-meaning advice from many different sources about whether to split them up or keep them together in the same class. Friends, other parents of twins, family members and even the teachers and school all weighed in on the subject, and unless you have nerves (and convictions) of steel, it is possible for you to doubt yourself at every turn as to whether you are making the best decision for your twins. Starting school is such a big step in any child's life, yet twins potentially have a secret weapon to combat the </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">period of adjustment, </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">loneliness, and fear that every child needs to face on first stepping into a new entrants' classroom. </span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="color: red;">So why the pressure to split them up?</span></span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I think the answer can be found in the history and stereotypes with which schools and parents have traditionally approached twins in the classroom, especially identical twins. After all, for a teacher, it's just more difficult to have a set of what is essentially the same person in your class, no matter which way you look at it. It is hard to call out a name and never be certain that you have the right one (in fact, mine sometimes answer to each other's names just because they don't want to offend). There's no denying it's complicated. Traditionally, schools have always decided that it is better to split the children up so that "they can develop into individuals, with their own peer groups".</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">That is all very well, but, if your twins are as close as mine are to each other, there is no denying that you are removing them from what is essentially their own primary peer group (i.e. their twin), who is their best friend in all the world, and forcing them to be alone and make new friends without the benefit of the support system that they have had next to them for the whole of their lives. Some twins will rise to the challenge, and go on to develop those relationships with others as would be hoped. However, for some it is not as easy. They develop insecurities and emotional abandonment, and the whole thing is essentially very difficult for them to cope with.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Nowadays, schools allow parents to weigh in on whether their children should be left together or split into different classes. We had a big decision to make when ours first started. Being the person that I am, I turned first to the research that had been done on whether to split them or not. What I found was very interesting: there is practically no research done on whether twins thrive better together than apart. However, I did find one article (that probably can't be generalised because of the very little research done on the subject) that stated that separating twins (monozygotic i.e. identical twins only) in the first year of school leads to more internalising problems for those twins, and that these problems tended to persist over time and also increased over time following the first year of the twins' separation Those separated twins also experienced more academic problems than those that were kept together, and had poorer reading abilities. However, dyzygotic twins (non identical) who were separated after the first year of school tended to work harder than those who were kept together.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The article also discussed separating twins later, and found that separating identical twins later in their school careers might not be the answer either. The twins separated later also experienced more internalising problems and poorer academic results, and the authors think this is indicative of emotional problems developing in the twins. This does not mean that all twins who are split up in the first years of school will go on to develop emotional issues, but it does show that some twins who do show emotional distress when they are first split up will continue to have emotional problems as they develop.</span><br />
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<span style="color: red; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So based on this research, what is the answer?</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I think it is </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">firstly </span><span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">important to differentiate between identical and non-identical twins when thinking of whether to split them up or not. Identical and non-identical twins seem to respond very differently to the effects of being separated at school. Internalising problems are present for both sets when they are first split up, but the emotional problems are persistent only for the identical twins. This might be because identical twins experience a closer relationship generally than non-identical twins.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The result of this is that any decision to split up twins in order to "enhance their individual development" must be taken into consideration against the weighty knowledge of possible negative effects on their emotional adjustment which can potentially be long-reaching. This is definitely not to say that all twins should be kept together in the school setting, but rather that the family and school should <span style="color: red;">collectively</span> <span style="color: red;">come to a decision based on the twins' needs,</span> regardless of school view or pressure. Also this implies that any decision to separate the twins further down the track should be taken with extreme care and consideration, and accompanied by meticulous planning for how this should happen. It is easy to assume that because they are older, they will take separation better, but this is not supported by the research. Schools should keep an eye on newly-split twins to see if there are any signs of emotional disturbance and intervene where necessary. Separation is never a permanent state - if the twins don't appear to be coping, they can always be reunited later on.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv84MhpA_OtbVWUMG0K-nGv1UlEbm8H9U8RCr18xKB5N5dsPwonD5NCrGXn87AP4YJ2LT0adRUsqO09-rTvhPLwDxVk06W6fa5HNVGwqG8LmaEDGOC8Kb7vG24_3UpFu_-wM9qcNnNvos/s1600/IMG_1136.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjv84MhpA_OtbVWUMG0K-nGv1UlEbm8H9U8RCr18xKB5N5dsPwonD5NCrGXn87AP4YJ2LT0adRUsqO09-rTvhPLwDxVk06W6fa5HNVGwqG8LmaEDGOC8Kb7vG24_3UpFu_-wM9qcNnNvos/s1600/IMG_1136.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So what did we decide for ours? Well, all the research on this lead me to another resource that we found invaluable in making the decision to keep ours together for as long as is needed (and given the year they have had this year, I am really glad we did!). The resource is a questionnaire that I would heartily recommend for all parents of multiples - <span style="color: red;">"Together or Apart - a Checklist for Parents and Teachers of Multiples". I found it online at http://tandm.curtin.edu.au/dloads/school_checklist.pdf</span></span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It provides a framework for guiding any discussions that you might have with the teachers and school and also help you to stand against any pressure you might feel to separate your multiples against your will!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">However, that doesn't stop the endless comments from others, and especially teachers, that it might be better to split them up. We have noticed that anything amiss in the classroom can be laid at the door of there being a twin in the class too. The one is shy and talks softer at group time? It's because of the twin. The one taking slightly longer to learn to do their letters properly? It's the twin. And so on. I think a teacher has approached us on average about once every six weeks asking whether it would not be better to split them up, and with no better reason given than the above. When I ask, "Are they disruptive in class together?" the answer is always no, in fact the opposite: they encourage each other to perform better. Like I said, it takes convictions of steel to stand against the pressure. But take heart, if your decision has been well-considered and thought through, and also discussed in conjunction with the school, you can feel confident no matter whether your decision is to keep them together or separate them.</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lastly, good luck!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">**Please remember, the decision we made to keep our twins together was the one we made after careful consideration of many factors like independence, social skills, experience of being apart, language abilities, interests, friends, age and so on. What worked for our twins will almost certainly not be the same for yours!</span><br />
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<span style="font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif; font-size: x-small;">The article I mentioned is "What effect does classroom separation have on twins' behaviour, progress at school and reading abilities" by L.A. Tully, T.E. Moffitt, A. Caspi, A. Taylor, H. Kiernan, and P. Andreou in Twin Research, Vol 7 Number 2, pp. 115-124.</span><br />
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Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-75529772557534376132014-04-29T00:10:00.000-07:002014-04-29T00:11:39.681-07:00The power of a woman....<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbQueTZztlLZppwAIzN5-aXj70W7YynJSHQYTo8cKJSMgakhycuWVxrwmYzAEbqXGo0-3pa2MTlTKSAeJjWjWg3OsnbRAvBanqF-b0j73STn4MltH4dSrL5R1lwzhTtBUEjuihp0NHe90/s1600/IMG_1475.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjbQueTZztlLZppwAIzN5-aXj70W7YynJSHQYTo8cKJSMgakhycuWVxrwmYzAEbqXGo0-3pa2MTlTKSAeJjWjWg3OsnbRAvBanqF-b0j73STn4MltH4dSrL5R1lwzhTtBUEjuihp0NHe90/s1600/IMG_1475.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Having a girl thrown into the mix really changes things up a bit in the play spectrum. Before Little Miss Snoopy came along, the topics were invariably the same: two superheroes (depending on the flavour of the month, these varied from the innocent Fireman Sam, to the more heroic Ironman and eventually Wolverine, etc.) take on the world and innumerable bad guys to eventually emerge victorious on the other side.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now, however, the game has changed. I overheard them all playing in the toy room today:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ironman: "I will destroy you, Joker."</span><br />
<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Superman: "You will not catch me alive, Darth Vader."</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5dcFHmTMxG50nR0OriB8KQd0k5rCiSYJXcvrNTwiY24fv2ZtfTcLQB7GBNCzrAqcE8oBg1rPMTrvPjR7Sg4oI2TewnQl70kuQvbZzeFn1UKN5u1CMozK_wuE_ljVZ3Rv3fgsHBFoJnuc/s1600/IMG_1480.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: center;"><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5dcFHmTMxG50nR0OriB8KQd0k5rCiSYJXcvrNTwiY24fv2ZtfTcLQB7GBNCzrAqcE8oBg1rPMTrvPjR7Sg4oI2TewnQl70kuQvbZzeFn1UKN5u1CMozK_wuE_ljVZ3Rv3fgsHBFoJnuc/s1600/IMG_1480.JPG" height="240" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Pause as they run around shrieking and jumping over the furniture. Things fall over and crash down.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then I hear the sound of the play stove lighting up and the pot being put on to boil.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Into the mayhem, Little Miss Snoopy pipes up: "Boys, it's time for lunch!"</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When I look around the corner, there are the two heroes, sitting at the table, eating a hearty lunch of fried egg and a vienna sausage, complaining all the while but doing it anyway. Little Miss Snoopy is busy rustling up something else on the stove and under protest, they are sitting there until the meal is finished.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #990000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Ah, Joker and Darth Vader, your evil attempts to make the superheroes succumb and give up crime-fighting are nothing compared to the ministrations of a good woman!</span><br />
<br />Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-12758695650344619392014-03-17T16:08:00.001-07:002014-03-17T16:08:24.487-07:001006 reasons not to make a Minecraft cake...For the twins birthday, we asked them what they would like for a cake. Being iPad monsters at the moment (not that they are allowed much time, but hey, they'll take what they can get!), they of course decided that they wanted a Minecraft cake. Minecraft is a game that uses pixels to construct an imaginary world of trees, water and earth. Everything is perfectly square. I looked it up on the net and thought, how hard could that be? Just a square cake, nothing fancy. We'll do it. Six and a half hours and two very frustrated parents later, the task was done. Ok, so it looked a teensy bit like a Pinterest fail, but the kids loved it! The Sweetpea has made the proclamation that from now onwards, we buy the cake. This is why:<br />
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Reason number one: You need to start with a perfectly square cake. This is harder than it sounds.<br />
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Reason number two: You have to cover the cake in butter icing that is sufficiently sturdy to hold the weight of about a thousand small squares of fondant.<br />
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Reason number three: You have to colour fondant icing into twelve different shades of green, brown and blue:<br />
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Reason number four: All the blocks you cut have to be exactly square. Also have to be about 2cm square. There is no ruler this size.</div>
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Reason number five: When you put the blocks on the cake, they have to meet across the cake from four sides.</div>
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Reason number six: Blue fondant turns your teeth blue:</div>
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Reasons numbers 7 to 1006: You have to cut a thousand little blocks:</div>
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Enough said!</div>
<br />Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-17021955499317134232013-12-17T00:35:00.000-08:002013-12-17T00:35:00.773-08:00On becoming an (attachment) parent<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I thought I might tackle a serious post for once. I have had various parents ask me recently about the importance of attachment, and some others coming up with some really frightening definitions of what they think "attachment parenting" means.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I didn't think I would be an "attachment parent" when I first started out. I thought that I would have all the answers, that my kids would go to sleep when they were told, that I would have the ability to let them "cry it out" while "exercising their lungs" as parenting "experts" suggest (wow - could there be any more "quotation marks" in a single sentence? I think not! They are there to indicate my sarcastic/disbelieving voice). However, when my babies were born, nothing could be further from the truth. Something in me, hormonally speaking, or perhaps just the eons of mothers in the generations before me, would not let me leave my little ones to cry even for the shortest of instants.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I think I have said before that twins are fully capable of planning a tag-team approach to sleeping when they are very little, and ours were no exception. At one point in our journey with the boys, it got so bad that both Peter and I were not sleeping more than forty minutes in a night. We both vaguely refer to that time as "that August", because neither of us can quite remember what exactly happened there. Like survivors, our minds have blacked out the worst of those times.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was in that stage of sleep-deprived desperation that we aimed to do something about it. We decided to consult a self-professed expert (ah, never trust anyone who has to profess <i>themselves </i>an expert) in the intricacies of baby sleep. A baby whisperer, if you will. Except that she was not a whisperer - no soft techniques here. She was in fact a baby nazi. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Babies need to learn how to cry it out, so that they can settle themselves, she said to us at our consultation. You are on duty as parents only until six o'clock at night, and after then, you are off duty as parents until six in the morning, she said. The babies will cry, she said, but let them cry - they will learn eventually, and then peace will reign in your house. Remember, she said, the babies are just cross with "the doctor" (meaning herself), and if they can manipulate you back into the room by trying various methods such as weeing/pooing on themselves, or even vomiting, these should just be seen as manipulative attempts to gain attention, and should be ignored, she said.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The Sweetpea and I left her consultation in silence. When we were alone, I turned to him, and in my firmest voice, said to him "That was the most valuable thing I think I have ever heard in my life!"</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"What?" he said.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Yes," I continued, "'the doctor' has pointed us very clearly in the way we should go. We should take every single piece of her advice, and do <i>exactly the opposite</i> of what she has suggested we do." Luckily she had given us a scrap of paper with all of her suggestions already typed up on it (she must just hand them out to parents like us after her consultations), so we could consult it from time to time to make sure we were doing the exact opposite of her recommendations.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And so, by default, we became Attachment parents.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When our little ones squeaked, we were there for them. We patted and held, rocked and carried, wore them in slings, and slept with them in our room. We made sure that their needs were met (note I say <i>needs </i>- some attachment parents believe that every <i>whim</i> should be met, and I do not think this is in the true spirit of the original attachment ideals). We cuddled and kissed, listened to their fears and encouraged them through the difficult parts. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It took a little while, but they started sleeping easily through the night. They became the confident sleepers we had always wanted, just by us slowly and gently teaching them. No leaving them to cry, just a gradual moving away until they felt confident to do it on their own.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And now they are grown? They are boys who know they can come to us with what ever problem they have and believe we will be there for them and that we will do our best to understand them and work with them towards a solution. That has stood us in good stead over the past year of their transition to school.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #3d85c6; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">All parents are free to make their own decisions on these sorts of issues, and no-one should be made to feel bad for making a choice that suits them. But these were the decisions that worked for us. Nowadays, when a friend of mine falls pregnant, I make sure to recommend two books to her: <b>The Baby Bond, by Linda Folden-Palmer, and The Science of Parenting by Margot Sunderland.</b> Both books, based solely on the latest research into the infant's developing brain and the effects of the stress hormone, cortisol, on it, are invaluable in a quest to find out which path you want to follow as a parent. Good luck!</span></div>
Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-60989071030185698432013-07-22T20:46:00.000-07:002013-07-22T20:51:57.697-07:00Back to basics<div style="border-bottom: medium none; border-left: medium none; border-right: medium none; border-top: medium none;">
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nxI7_LQNYFf9jl99ghNRIduM-HbZRPbZNR9h-9AYSdmsdAixK7EUcIVgGccLMct3JFjrouuWD92HuNoFjbPFmQgTQFAScn5inLU0vs6-LnCfbDzy63fA4hwkdIP-BNb1s6YYXvRPIEg/s1600/Natey.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nxI7_LQNYFf9jl99ghNRIduM-HbZRPbZNR9h-9AYSdmsdAixK7EUcIVgGccLMct3JFjrouuWD92HuNoFjbPFmQgTQFAScn5inLU0vs6-LnCfbDzy63fA4hwkdIP-BNb1s6YYXvRPIEg/s320/Natey.JPG" width="214" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj5nxI7_LQNYFf9jl99ghNRIduM-HbZRPbZNR9h-9AYSdmsdAixK7EUcIVgGccLMct3JFjrouuWD92HuNoFjbPFmQgTQFAScn5inLU0vs6-LnCfbDzy63fA4hwkdIP-BNb1s6YYXvRPIEg/s1600/Natey.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"></span></a><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Children will always find the ways to push the boundaries in some way. If there is a rule, it was made to be broken. If there is a tree that parents have said not to climb, the only thing for it is to find out by yourself why they said you shouldn't (as happened recently to one very swollen-faced little boy in our family who fell out of a tree and was luckily saved by catching his jaw on a branch on the way down).</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I was speaking to the mother of a patient of mine the other day about this. Her little one insists on making rude signs at people in the park. She has no idea where he gets it from. I comforted her by letting her know that mine are no different. It's just the degree that differs.</span><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQE3hB6j5bdGqIt1jbbTgRJBCn7CaCKrAJOjbeV1bDNoMPQMssw6nlCBLTIwK2w1m0r23_p_dynds5n4a0kVtqnEl-NAbyUI1-rtVKaV_6IXOFEFUqGphxx9NIqfy8ThfSLR8Q9kA7ahQ/s1600/Raphy+2.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; cssfloat: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img bba="true" border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgQE3hB6j5bdGqIt1jbbTgRJBCn7CaCKrAJOjbeV1bDNoMPQMssw6nlCBLTIwK2w1m0r23_p_dynds5n4a0kVtqnEl-NAbyUI1-rtVKaV_6IXOFEFUqGphxx9NIqfy8ThfSLR8Q9kA7ahQ/s320/Raphy+2.JPG" width="214" /></a></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"> </span><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">I came down the other day to find my two in fits of giggles as they wrote on pieces of paper on the dining room table. It was those sorts of giggles that you know spell out "up to no good". One would write a word and the other would read it and chortle in a Dr Evil kind of way. I was curious to see what was going on, so I went to stand closer. What was written on the paper was "pardn mi" (pardon me). Not very evil, you think. however, there is a history to this. </span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">In our family, we have always been wary of using words like "fart" or "piss" in our conversations. I just hate the words - they seem crass and unrefined to me, so I never say them myself. With the result that when one of the boys broke wind early on in life, I told him to say "pardon me". Somehow, they both just assumed that this was what it was called. From then on, that bodily function was called a "pardon me", and no one ever thought to change it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">Move forward several years, and there they were, at the dining room table, writing the rudest word that they could think of to write. "Pardn mi". Laughing evilly all the time. </span><br />
<span style="font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;"><br /><span style="color: purple;"></span></span><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, "Times New Roman", serif;">And in the end, it turns out that their pushing the boundaries behaviour is just as subversive as any other child's - it just has different vocabulary.</span><br />
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Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-79269599001479537692013-05-03T15:44:00.000-07:002013-05-03T15:44:01.559-07:00Birthday madness<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzGG_wE_UPm8q8kBGg8MHM1FTa1F2-hvjSyWAQ3Uu2J_E4wAMB22Uor9RopbceVtwYYM_Al_Pwy2NKfYnCva_LQwPci2SrwlJ1gi2GZefwAHRNww8XWElJ-apdLnHwBfnwXzkMXzYmTFQ/s1600/IMG_8624.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgzGG_wE_UPm8q8kBGg8MHM1FTa1F2-hvjSyWAQ3Uu2J_E4wAMB22Uor9RopbceVtwYYM_Al_Pwy2NKfYnCva_LQwPci2SrwlJ1gi2GZefwAHRNww8XWElJ-apdLnHwBfnwXzkMXzYmTFQ/s320/IMG_8624.jpg" width="213" /></span></a><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">With three kids so close in age (Snoopy is two weeks after the boys), it is usually impossible to split the birthdays without causing ourselves much madness and mayhem. After all, our anniversary is there in the middle of the birthdays too. However, the romance tied into our anniversary usually consists of a wake-up kiss and then an almost-divorce when we try to put together the cakes that are invariably required for the next day (I am not sure how it always works out like this, but we seem to schedule the combined party for the day after our anniversary every year. This year, I thought I was being clever and scheduled it a week away from the anniversary, only to find that I had been looking at the wrong month on the calendar, and bizarrely, the anniversary was once again the day before the party. It's like Groundhog Day.).</span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Anyway, these are the cakes that almost caused another divorce in the family. Having a technically-minded person who actually understands what is meant by the words "slide rule" and "randomised control study trial" (<u>so</u> not me), and a person who says helpful things like "I think it should go up a bit on the side that has the flowers" is not a match made in cake-decorating heaven. But all came right in the end. The boys had a pirate treasure chest this year, and Snoopy had a mermaid. Needless to say, the treasure chest, with all the chocolate coins, was a hot favourite.</span><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> </span><br />
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<span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA0oNPQxRutbqFmRMMG2f4CdnHrtzSVthHOgVgu0QV15n4paY3PdMG6KrbtF94CxoLltOO5-1v-i7HT-xg3h8OI1TpTk36yHjfIM4uD4zJTfgoBkRt32MK_hAk5W_fSDXHM83cycD4mMQ/s1600/IMG_8646.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiA0oNPQxRutbqFmRMMG2f4CdnHrtzSVthHOgVgu0QV15n4paY3PdMG6KrbtF94CxoLltOO5-1v-i7HT-xg3h8OI1TpTk36yHjfIM4uD4zJTfgoBkRt32MK_hAk5W_fSDXHM83cycD4mMQ/s320/IMG_8646.jpg" width="320" /></a><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvfuR3ReimjkMWLZtY9M7eXfE5JyUOAmFLutxaaQRdwABpOoMwwK1YoTd8WeAHICl87DV3IpB7B2omDhcU6jHjmm6-mvtae_psj36pHaGWf0IcBVDk20_Q_5xjyfy39OcYZZswwy8_1pE/s1600/IMG_8632.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhvfuR3ReimjkMWLZtY9M7eXfE5JyUOAmFLutxaaQRdwABpOoMwwK1YoTd8WeAHICl87DV3IpB7B2omDhcU6jHjmm6-mvtae_psj36pHaGWf0IcBVDk20_Q_5xjyfy39OcYZZswwy8_1pE/s320/IMG_8632.jpg" width="213" /></a></span></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwtBTYkYBrmBOgTKUVJ-n3hQ7VKjZCxGrcp12SVWUfx-DEihihU80N-CIRfEUyxWhBgEZPygQaptUO0Egz1ZAzYOuUr5o-zGE8JQJwBr2J0SUwKZhKysF-WKfjKNkGmSK7syjSiobPb8/s1600/IMG_8652.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiDwtBTYkYBrmBOgTKUVJ-n3hQ7VKjZCxGrcp12SVWUfx-DEihihU80N-CIRfEUyxWhBgEZPygQaptUO0Egz1ZAzYOuUr5o-zGE8JQJwBr2J0SUwKZhKysF-WKfjKNkGmSK7syjSiobPb8/s320/IMG_8652.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The treasure chest</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrcRBT5p8RIH3w_8QKrMwR_gYOsXDgaZnSBl-_06ZFFcy6RRaCgutihEeBSE2ks5D-oYdZYfL6fSpAaV5KBLfEE4uwuhUXXQyanI7JMfjG0UVUUepTsZXJdU0UUJQQrIJLA7xkdftVReo/s1600/IMG_8655.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjrcRBT5p8RIH3w_8QKrMwR_gYOsXDgaZnSBl-_06ZFFcy6RRaCgutihEeBSE2ks5D-oYdZYfL6fSpAaV5KBLfEE4uwuhUXXQyanI7JMfjG0UVUUepTsZXJdU0UUJQQrIJLA7xkdftVReo/s320/IMG_8655.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_Kx69PdwsdINx5-9gfKFjpFBldVGaCbPLEmd-zh2JD6Jkj9BdLz6ccg-SXP35dmqsX5Frd5aeAEHxSaUj6IXGg9osMELiV3mQXCQ6NTpYpJIvFcZ8acJo_j2GNLnZngOByjyiyNAPoQ/s1600/IMG_8660.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhV_Kx69PdwsdINx5-9gfKFjpFBldVGaCbPLEmd-zh2JD6Jkj9BdLz6ccg-SXP35dmqsX5Frd5aeAEHxSaUj6IXGg9osMELiV3mQXCQ6NTpYpJIvFcZ8acJo_j2GNLnZngOByjyiyNAPoQ/s320/IMG_8660.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is a very serious business!</span></td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBNd3Y-3G8mdSQKvWYhxjuuLQ1MjP1m3ozQj915QpATX5Gha_owUmlcd8tKNkQ2NqvHeuqHLic-khUEZACXHeYr1EXHCMyRgtdR_QTyZ8esFyG4yELHtCLpW1RX0nTbrb9rtwQ8mbfCi4/s1600/IMG_8664.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: purple; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiBNd3Y-3G8mdSQKvWYhxjuuLQ1MjP1m3ozQj915QpATX5Gha_owUmlcd8tKNkQ2NqvHeuqHLic-khUEZACXHeYr1EXHCMyRgtdR_QTyZ8esFyG4yELHtCLpW1RX0nTbrb9rtwQ8mbfCi4/s320/IMG_8664.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-5833903600325915952013-04-15T02:23:00.002-07:002013-04-15T02:23:33.696-07:00If the tooth be known...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiokOXjsS3ZIoeH9emPslYFHUIZ1M8KNjDoavktARn_gBSKem0uR7kQbNMLFbbyFsYs1JTr4s9ow3cAw8Joa60_JBUCzBBY-3gFnNhNgcuo7HtY8Aj2T-TtDa38xX3eBiwUN46WLVYFxb0/s1600/December+to+March+2013+031.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiokOXjsS3ZIoeH9emPslYFHUIZ1M8KNjDoavktARn_gBSKem0uR7kQbNMLFbbyFsYs1JTr4s9ow3cAw8Joa60_JBUCzBBY-3gFnNhNgcuo7HtY8Aj2T-TtDa38xX3eBiwUN46WLVYFxb0/s320/December+to+March+2013+031.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I never fail to be amazed at life - sometimes when you are down, it knows just how to make you smile again. And at others... well let's just say it knows when to kick you when you're down too (I don't mean that to sound as harsh as it does, but let me explain...)!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So we had finally got over the whole "going off to school/big boys" hurdle, and I was middling along nicely and managing not to stare like some frenzied loony in through the back window of the classroom every day as I was leaving, when we were sitting at the breakfast table, and Paddy says "My tooth is loose!" </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It was as though my whole life flashed in front of my eyes at that time. My immediate response to him was: "No, it's not!" (Perhaps more snippily than was warranted by the statement.)</span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"It really is," he whined.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"It's actually not," I repeated, hoping that by saying it, it would come true.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5GbJrU2mknMffVHSjWQTONP1fXOAFm3VBqpob2LifoAJFUs7u9PlWiYSVeReOunODN-Cje29DZmKZdfn-DwfBvM3t2ruZVtn3iQLsjgg48FAJXH3QPbXpDb770RsD2vdCGWzVGILsmTQ/s1600/December+to+March+2013+032.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh5GbJrU2mknMffVHSjWQTONP1fXOAFm3VBqpob2LifoAJFUs7u9PlWiYSVeReOunODN-Cje29DZmKZdfn-DwfBvM3t2ruZVtn3iQLsjgg48FAJXH3QPbXpDb770RsD2vdCGWzVGILsmTQ/s320/December+to+March+2013+032.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But something in me knew. And as he opened his mouth for me to see, and that little tooth was wiggling all over the place, I was struck by the unfairness of the situation. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I had just said goodbye to my little ones at school, had to have their fifth birthday parties after celebrating their births about, what, like two weeks ago?, and now, I have to cope with them losing their small, beautiful baba teeth. Really! You have got to be kidding me!</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv4MInG1c04PclE7l2-F-8bS8nI-mcM3T0E5zCaA9ojIvnGi-c5owm1EzcUJo0Rs5UAEChIqIjvVzkgeF16RFXAG5J6VKCsI1q6MLw24wk246Ret3e2JEB05Ws2z1Qr2_acKoVnAvPtzY/s1600/December+to+March+2013+033.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiv4MInG1c04PclE7l2-F-8bS8nI-mcM3T0E5zCaA9ojIvnGi-c5owm1EzcUJo0Rs5UAEChIqIjvVzkgeF16RFXAG5J6VKCsI1q6MLw24wk246Ret3e2JEB05Ws2z1Qr2_acKoVnAvPtzY/s320/December+to+March+2013+033.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And like any good mother should, I rose to the occasion. I dissolved into tears. I freaked out and scared my child. And I responded in such a mature way:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Don't you dare wiggle that tooth! Ever!"</span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Okay, so that lasted about two seconds.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><br /></span></div>
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<span style="color: #4c1130; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">(Just for the record, I have made it up to him. I told him about how it is all a natural process of growing up; I have shown him the new, very visible and absolutely huge tooth sticking out the back; I have shown him the identical one sticking up out of Sam's gums; and all is fine again. For them. Not me...)</span></div>
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Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-62839846372802930502013-04-09T22:44:00.000-07:002013-04-09T22:44:08.927-07:00Beginnings...<span style="color: blue;">It's been really difficult to write over the past few weeks. So much emotional baggage to deal with that it has been almost impossible to offload any more on this blog. The reason for all of this is very simple, and probably (definitely) a natural part of childhood: the twins have started school.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHx9_A1xCb2Ityd9JwU1M_GBZ4IifR_uV1v6tp2QxSiflyMZfZDWczADWXHMlnSwf6YcV2cqXWiX4IbrySguB1eA0h4k0C1c4tcP0GbHMQAaZ5vW7QuWd1jutOyf0tMmOzGU9h4EPltv0/s1600/IMG_8501.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiHx9_A1xCb2Ityd9JwU1M_GBZ4IifR_uV1v6tp2QxSiflyMZfZDWczADWXHMlnSwf6YcV2cqXWiX4IbrySguB1eA0h4k0C1c4tcP0GbHMQAaZ5vW7QuWd1jutOyf0tMmOzGU9h4EPltv0/s320/IMG_8501.jpg" width="320" /></a><span style="color: blue;">I have heard from helpful parents in the past so many times now that if I had a dollar for each time, etc., but it's true - they grow up too quickly. You can remember the precise instant when they are first placed in your arms after they are born, their exact smell, and suddenly, in the next instant, it seems, you are expected to wish them well on their first day of school. There is nothing quite like that feeling of bereftness as you walk away from them for the first time, leaving them in the care of a stranger for the better part of the day, the week and the rest of their lives. I am not sure that they were aware of the import at the time at all - they happily waved goodbye and went to sit on the mat with their new-found friends. It was me that was left to stand outside the class, looking through the window at my grown-up boys, feeling kindof silly and as though I had too many arms or hands and nothing to do with them. It's amazing how you can still feel the imprint of their tiny hands in yours even long after you have left them. What's sadder though, is the feeling of them pulling away, wanting to run, to play, not to be bound to you by that ever-present hand. How each time they run off, they tear a small piece of you away with them, as though they had been grafted there and are having to physically rip themselves away. No words have ever said it better than a poem I once read and have reproduced - it's by C. Day Lewis:</span><br />
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><em><strong>It is eighteen years ago, almost to the day –<br />A sunny day with leaves just turning,<br />The touch-lines new-ruled – since I watched you play<br />Your first game of football, then, like a satellite<br />Wrenched from its orbit, go drifting away</strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><em><strong>Behind a scatter of boys. I can see<br />You walking away from me towards the school<br />With the pathos of a half-fledged thing set free<br />Into a wilderness, the gait of one<br />Who finds no path where the path should be.</strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><em><strong>That hesitant figure, eddying away<br />Like a winged seed loosened from its parent stem,<br />Has something I never quite grasp to convey<br />About nature’s give-and-take – the small, the scorching<br />Ordeals which fire one’s irresolute clay.</strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><em><strong>I have had worse partings, but none that so<br />Gnaws at my mind still. Perhaps it is roughly<br />Saying what God alone could perfectly show –<br />How selfhood begins with a walking away,<br />And love is proved in the letting go.</strong></em></span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47;"><em><strong><br /> </strong></em></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWYqCz9Zp57qtbrSPuP6oNSYfAk-7CQPU9cdakTFnFpQ8xSVfyDOpJM7MwDceQgFW0V2rEfnVNLhwpGBzrpxvvWevnk0TuUSwPxvRKhudQpWUrtsxDEFE4xX9qWIbMat0yrxIomH3UZnY/s1600/IMG_8503.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="213" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhWYqCz9Zp57qtbrSPuP6oNSYfAk-7CQPU9cdakTFnFpQ8xSVfyDOpJM7MwDceQgFW0V2rEfnVNLhwpGBzrpxvvWevnk0TuUSwPxvRKhudQpWUrtsxDEFE4xX9qWIbMat0yrxIomH3UZnY/s320/IMG_8503.jpg" width="320" /></a></div>
<span style="background-color: white; color: blue;">It's these last two lines that have given me hope and the courage to show a brave face instead of parading my aching heart. </span><br />
<span style="background-color: white; color: blue;"><br /></span>
<span style="background-color: white; color: blue;">For selfhood to develop, they have to walk away. And for you to love them fully, you have to let them go.</span>Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-88322069586381867692013-02-27T01:32:00.000-08:002013-02-27T01:32:26.509-08:00Just add water...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfVYg87Edhily360494PWvFshJEaJFPpRz01pcDoMfTdQtpRMZGwXwqqnKaRxCpTukBg7OFRnUbunni6P_GmblGSFR6jH_T3fJnhvNTIVklhRuwhmoNWZZhG_RsgqQ9A-0MLK3KGugdDY/s1600/December+to+March+2013+050.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhfVYg87Edhily360494PWvFshJEaJFPpRz01pcDoMfTdQtpRMZGwXwqqnKaRxCpTukBg7OFRnUbunni6P_GmblGSFR6jH_T3fJnhvNTIVklhRuwhmoNWZZhG_RsgqQ9A-0MLK3KGugdDY/s320/December+to+March+2013+050.JPG" width="240" /></span></a><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The high days of sun and summer are finally here. I can't remember experiencing a proper summer in the past few years, but maybe that is just because I have mostly been inside with a child attached to my breast to be outside in the sun getting a (slight) tan and having fun in the sea. But now, with the kids just that little bit older, the trips to the beach are not so much daunting as exhilarating, and everyone has fun for at least a morning without squealing to go home (I was always the first to do the squealing, let me tell you).</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We have consequently been spending some halcyon days in the sun on the various beaches around us (and if you have not yet made the trip to Scorching bay, do yourself a favour and put that right immediately). We were there recently and, apart from the teenagers who insisted on smoking something that had to be rolled up in paper and did not smell like tobacco, it was sheer heaven. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We all swam, even the children ( which is unusual) and on the beach got into a conversation about God, much to the bemusement of the teenagers, who probably weren't functioning the best even when not high on what looked suspiciously like pot. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX28bhqkXTUwaJbLM1oFzM7Ol6ALB4SACPgdobw0awyQXgJbhAdcgVPt-IKCz8AIcxIwsUiNoAcdcZHcA9RwwALorIU4hJBQyy797WJq5gREnj1qKDSTloGrYY_iVWBOmviFy9AWYIXc4/s1600/December+to+March+2013+049.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiX28bhqkXTUwaJbLM1oFzM7Ol6ALB4SACPgdobw0awyQXgJbhAdcgVPt-IKCz8AIcxIwsUiNoAcdcZHcA9RwwALorIU4hJBQyy797WJq5gREnj1qKDSTloGrYY_iVWBOmviFy9AWYIXc4/s320/December+to+March+2013+049.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Could God drink the whole ocean?" asked Paddy.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"I suppose he could if he wanted to," I replied.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Then he would get a very fat tummy," added Sam.</span></div>
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L<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">ittle Miss Snoopy, bright as a button and obviously absorbing every word, threw in her comments:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"Just like Mummy," she said with satisfaction, patting my tummy happily.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn7SINFCAta44_rL3Gwl1NkZZpWXWDsvBqt3Oc1XR_MCDjRGetjVGyhzXYRE6ettqoOCuCLQ56gKQBvz07OXeX9f5zo1l_NZCDtjZokQatD2ebSLKAbtyEuSj9_S_L-yBPHPLto0NukKo/s1600/December+to+March+2013+047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span></a></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn7SINFCAta44_rL3Gwl1NkZZpWXWDsvBqt3Oc1XR_MCDjRGetjVGyhzXYRE6ettqoOCuCLQ56gKQBvz07OXeX9f5zo1l_NZCDtjZokQatD2ebSLKAbtyEuSj9_S_L-yBPHPLto0NukKo/s1600/December+to+March+2013+047.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgn7SINFCAta44_rL3Gwl1NkZZpWXWDsvBqt3Oc1XR_MCDjRGetjVGyhzXYRE6ettqoOCuCLQ56gKQBvz07OXeX9f5zo1l_NZCDtjZokQatD2ebSLKAbtyEuSj9_S_L-yBPHPLto0NukKo/s320/December+to+March+2013+047.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #0b5394; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Needless to say, the high-as-kites kids behind us thought this was the funniest thing they had ever heard. One even ended up on the sand, he was laughing so much. I personally did not find it as funny as all that.</span></div>
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Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-28150174489853394222012-12-09T22:28:00.000-08:002012-12-09T22:28:07.587-08:00In the eye of the beholder...<div class="separator" style="clear: both; text-align: center;">
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2EEhAiVs2BPkRn54Fp8UFBSfTRxEqnHYeq027jOFDx2cIxc_yeVLFGJXV0j4KK-QUlfrsGWBp1Y7Jok10gMV6Z9AZJ-4p_WynHiO18XsPKBIqcmsN3lEk4SUKOr33iDOQ1BdsI5EmXQQ/s1600/Sept+2012+120.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh2EEhAiVs2BPkRn54Fp8UFBSfTRxEqnHYeq027jOFDx2cIxc_yeVLFGJXV0j4KK-QUlfrsGWBp1Y7Jok10gMV6Z9AZJ-4p_WynHiO18XsPKBIqcmsN3lEk4SUKOr33iDOQ1BdsI5EmXQQ/s320/Sept+2012+120.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
Time for another post about the child's perspective. I recently came across the following while downloading my camera images and realised that Little Miss Snoopy had managed to sneakily lift my camera from my bag, take a few photos and then turn the camera off and return it to the bag. I was totally confused by the photographs for a while, thinking "why on earth would I have taken that picture?" <br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-V1fJq_zAviDkypJFFVhF5JFTP5XMkMghXqpM6f5Y-BJn5BvReNL5DSX62GR5fKXqDak2EuCFZJ6GAsQiyjqw5eXhMtzpJndpZt4SeyQQxCOHtre8Q9ye9V1mKC4uOcsGaiC1OiaUn4A/s1600/Sept+2012+127.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh-V1fJq_zAviDkypJFFVhF5JFTP5XMkMghXqpM6f5Y-BJn5BvReNL5DSX62GR5fKXqDak2EuCFZJ6GAsQiyjqw5eXhMtzpJndpZt4SeyQQxCOHtre8Q9ye9V1mKC4uOcsGaiC1OiaUn4A/s320/Sept+2012+127.JPG" width="320" /></a><br />
<table cellpadding="0" cellspacing="0" class="tr-caption-container" style="float: right; margin-left: 1em; text-align: right;"><tbody>
<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCYsbs-TF2OSexvP8nlOrEfmampLKR1ef6GN2qG3axCG6xseI1HawoxetRNmvME1ZoTLnATtnaujIVMNxqjmUJdKxOpPcgP7XnH7H-WJAkQdfpz-vvOngU_VZyk_aU-Re_YnmahAtdPQ8/s1600/Sept+2012+122.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhCYsbs-TF2OSexvP8nlOrEfmampLKR1ef6GN2qG3axCG6xseI1HawoxetRNmvME1ZoTLnATtnaujIVMNxqjmUJdKxOpPcgP7XnH7H-WJAkQdfpz-vvOngU_VZyk_aU-Re_YnmahAtdPQ8/s320/Sept+2012+122.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">A charming still life<br /></td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEEfa4n-AoBZG9SkBne6QZkgayNubc9vkbPXaMkdEWVPNbc-OH2O5yVUuvOrZOvOi6AwYEwkYdaOEdXYiZPnQZyNiZEZdHqE1zJEEG4HvvD1ac42NPyG2abK9tRTyn3HHkYWscqc5ye-I/s1600/Sept+2012+128.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgEEfa4n-AoBZG9SkBne6QZkgayNubc9vkbPXaMkdEWVPNbc-OH2O5yVUuvOrZOvOi6AwYEwkYdaOEdXYiZPnQZyNiZEZdHqE1zJEEG4HvvD1ac42NPyG2abK9tRTyn3HHkYWscqc5ye-I/s320/Sept+2012+128.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Another "what on earth...?" moment</td></tr>
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<tr><td style="text-align: center;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyphenhyphen7eCPf2kIAh_MbcEdZQgrzmJ8noPzmiqDgZmyVnOrRS7yuEe2r3Uukf4GcwiRCIhdhbmMe0t_DZjKi1n00e1dhv5UrZ3KUbGekJCKbKaMzIFsRwVhyphenhyphenAhKL6Q3xQgbcs_QWov5Rxd-HM/s1600/Sept+2012+132.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: auto; margin-right: auto;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhyphenhyphen7eCPf2kIAh_MbcEdZQgrzmJ8noPzmiqDgZmyVnOrRS7yuEe2r3Uukf4GcwiRCIhdhbmMe0t_DZjKi1n00e1dhv5UrZ3KUbGekJCKbKaMzIFsRwVhyphenhyphenAhKL6Q3xQgbcs_QWov5Rxd-HM/s320/Sept+2012+132.JPG" width="320" /></a></td></tr>
<tr><td class="tr-caption" style="text-align: center;">Almost some human life in there....</td></tr>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibqd3SfuTJgcIde_bTb-rONwLkpjwYNpiMUs-NlycLjiJzF6nJYDx2p2weRfbkCNY1CqFCf4oF4FYrB-Y64ktKG8Qr80qDtEtni5uJxDYbIm-0Je7GmE8At1rt4kn8UUmgxDWF5_jiYKg/s1600/Sept+2012+130.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEibqd3SfuTJgcIde_bTb-rONwLkpjwYNpiMUs-NlycLjiJzF6nJYDx2p2weRfbkCNY1CqFCf4oF4FYrB-Y64ktKG8Qr80qDtEtni5uJxDYbIm-0Je7GmE8At1rt4kn8UUmgxDWF5_jiYKg/s320/Sept+2012+130.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="text-align: start;"></span></div>
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<span style="text-align: start;">Until the culprit revealed herself on the photos...</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpm-9CTX54RdYj-PqifqWfL03DBM8xf5xfcvmtKAkYT3irqBJ4_aKmOPrzXssKPqOhb8QcUipcIuEe6ZdS1wntugvUvnqpR-jDZIF_6wzT6xYnmJRgLDipiiiStuCFv_SQGXSACJgOun8/s1600/Sept+2012+069.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhpm-9CTX54RdYj-PqifqWfL03DBM8xf5xfcvmtKAkYT3irqBJ4_aKmOPrzXssKPqOhb8QcUipcIuEe6ZdS1wntugvUvnqpR-jDZIF_6wzT6xYnmJRgLDipiiiStuCFv_SQGXSACJgOun8/s320/Sept+2012+069.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs96OlvP0dLg2qjktwsS-GvchMwwa0wLza1lwLAK3eJDHT4SxtGMwFkkKE2crkIcCbZq5NCmdlrkRapOwFA_35lmE2yQvzGROEMgz1KN-D6Da54ohAw3YvY4xSMKg0nFkGoepGUuu0Xk0/s1600/Sept+2012+068.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhs96OlvP0dLg2qjktwsS-GvchMwwa0wLza1lwLAK3eJDHT4SxtGMwFkkKE2crkIcCbZq5NCmdlrkRapOwFA_35lmE2yQvzGROEMgz1KN-D6Da54ohAw3YvY4xSMKg0nFkGoepGUuu0Xk0/s320/Sept+2012+068.JPG" width="320" /></a></div>
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<br />Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com2tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-51330833496213575512012-12-05T22:19:00.004-08:002012-12-05T22:19:50.781-08:00Bear-ly funny<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL-xn__cbcm2dk3cKt31KUEXxbUvXtnvsJFUDANXXIFbZdg8VDT0bvlafGOmUicFaCqR8yxU7hI7Z7Y6Mbs2ZsX3k0NFj7YD08UugJ9zFLHYiJaImRx6QvBVLM3WRlZfAlN38XUiwTeHU/s1600/September+2012+005.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiL-xn__cbcm2dk3cKt31KUEXxbUvXtnvsJFUDANXXIFbZdg8VDT0bvlafGOmUicFaCqR8yxU7hI7Z7Y6Mbs2ZsX3k0NFj7YD08UugJ9zFLHYiJaImRx6QvBVLM3WRlZfAlN38XUiwTeHU/s320/September+2012+005.JPG" width="240" /></span></a><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Once again, we were off doing a locum in another part of the country. We have found it a great way to spend time together as a family without having to worry too much about anything. The places we go to are usually so small that there is almost no chance that a pregnant lady is going to come into the hospital in distress, so the Sweetpea has almost the whole weekend to spend with us while ostensibly "working". We get to stay in lovely motels, and it is a like a paid holiday. What could be better than spending a holiday earning money for doing nothing?</span></div>
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This last time was exactly the same. After spending the weekend visiting every park and adventure playground in the vicinity (it's a small town - there were only two), we were back at our park of choice, the one the boys' insist on calling the Giant's Castle. It actually looks so much like one that we have actually thought about applying to the local council with our suggestion for the re-naming of their "Queen Elizabeth Memorial Park". I am not sure they would go for it though.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKs0_2XdYjrNOq7UKqFqyzi8cYtDEBCo3YAREWWootWtCC8qZW5NwiKbioYxSezMlWXkiPrPY9ED8mMBRG4sx2LdHG4aRK_ZERGmiOBDTNJashGdyfegnmY9dIlI90jBqqPcfl6sc0kf8/s1600/September+2012+006.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiKs0_2XdYjrNOq7UKqFqyzi8cYtDEBCo3YAREWWootWtCC8qZW5NwiKbioYxSezMlWXkiPrPY9ED8mMBRG4sx2LdHG4aRK_ZERGmiOBDTNJashGdyfegnmY9dIlI90jBqqPcfl6sc0kf8/s320/September+2012+006.JPG" width="240" /></span></a><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We were playing in the one section of the park when we saw some people running around the park carrying a huge brown stuffed bear, at least the same size as one of the boys. Curious, when they got near us, we asked what they were doing, leaving the kids to play on the Jungle Jim behind us. Apparently, the people were taking part in some sort of dare, where they had to take photos of the bear "doing" as many interesting things as possible - already he had been down the flying fox, been on a scooter, etc, and was now making his way around the park swinging on the kiddies' swings and going down the slides. The bear's people then rushed off towards the Jungle Jim on which our lot were playing. The kids had not noticed the people with the bear before then and were happily playing on the top level. There was some discussion amongst the bear people as to how to get the bear up to the top to let it then go down the slide. Eventually one of the guys (obviously the one with the most to prove), swung the bear with a mighty heave and threw it up onto the top of the Jungle Jim. The huge brown beast came flying down through the branches of the overhead tree with a vengeance, and our lot, packed onto the same top level, were speechless with horror as they saw this menacing creature literally flying out of the tree to jump on top of them.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0SkN_IV6NzZ_961UL_pvA-jUk3k69EEtpMBibWUlFQ6UsQ6plQKKgTzVIJSP10OM80h4Itcf3U00soy5WedKXA4GrGjxhx7cVluHlLTfV2oByrwrz5wT9_i2bWAvNx7YomES3CqWWwmY/s1600/September+2012+010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg0SkN_IV6NzZ_961UL_pvA-jUk3k69EEtpMBibWUlFQ6UsQ6plQKKgTzVIJSP10OM80h4Itcf3U00soy5WedKXA4GrGjxhx7cVluHlLTfV2oByrwrz5wT9_i2bWAvNx7YomES3CqWWwmY/s320/September+2012+010.JPG" style="cursor: move;" width="240" /></span></a><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Little Miss Snoopy, the closest to where the bear landed, was having none of it - she had such a fright that she started screaming at the bear - the naughty creature - how dare he frighten her? And then she burst into inconsolable tears. The Sweetpea and I tried to comfort her, but I am afraid the situation was too funny for us to be of much use.</span></div>
Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-65207125615047195182012-11-26T21:32:00.001-08:002012-11-26T21:32:14.247-08:00A Whale Of A Time<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the great things about a kindergarten is the trips. Every term, our little ones get to go somewhere exciting, and normally, the teachers require parent helpers to go along and make sure everyone stays on the right side of the law. It is a time filled with over-excited kids, crammed onto buses with long-suffering parents, screeching and laughing and generally causing havoc and mayhem. And this term, the excursion to the local marine reserve coincided with an almost total eclipse of the sun. The excitement knew no bounds. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">On the bus, the boys and I put together a rudimentary pinhole camera which I patched together with some receipts and an old paperclip which I found in my handbag (see <a href="http://ii-life-in-stereo-ii.blogspot.co.nz/2011/10/its-all-in-bag.html">It's all in the bag...</a>). The boys were fascinated as we tracked the position of the moon and the sun by using the camera, and shivered as the air got colder and the daylight turned to a weird twilight.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMDrgBcFDNnv0R41l1w0N3uWVX5UMWd89ooANrEM-cLkDgA6RPJCZXCCCcYYikxIJeebl2BFRBxiI1fykuuOceoGqH_a_iHfxdb12u-jQIK8l7EOzWPCoI_I89qlA-jCjG7t5fHq1EHZ4/s1600/story_image_6966b5876896182bb3fe9b915ee34ab4_640_wide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="150" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgMDrgBcFDNnv0R41l1w0N3uWVX5UMWd89ooANrEM-cLkDgA6RPJCZXCCCcYYikxIJeebl2BFRBxiI1fykuuOceoGqH_a_iHfxdb12u-jQIK8l7EOzWPCoI_I89qlA-jCjG7t5fHq1EHZ4/s200/story_image_6966b5876896182bb3fe9b915ee34ab4_640_wide.jpg" width="200" /></span></a><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then we got to the marine reserve and the leaders of the troupe advised us that, as parents, there was a job for us to do that only we could do. Expecting it to be something about safety, none of us was prepared to be handed a hat in the shape of an extremely unattractive sea creature and told to put it on and not take it off for the whole trip around the reserve. Mine was an especially unattractive specimen of crab, with long pincers that dangled around my ears. Not my finest moment.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">The twins were absolutely fascinated by the touch pool. One of them picked up a large shell, and then dropped it just as quickly as a huge hermit crab emerged with an angry glint in his beady eye. However, the hermit crab took one look at the crab on my head (ever so much larger and nastier-looking) and decided to make a bid for freedom. He scuttled back into the pool over the boys' hands, causing great consternation, upon which they promptly asked to be able to hold him again.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkT377IulKOyCVwIvImBJY58_4aoycBHusbKv4qtcvx6K0fXf79yw2hKUK_PqPFSIBErmZtFZqDA3Xte1e1JT778NeEmtKbDB9zxlI6U08bD00aWjIfi_sUrMxq9PiCD9R1XPB1i1xXIY/s1600/story_image_0d4435c2aac3a1ac1d0bc3a3f2a307fa_640_wide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhkT377IulKOyCVwIvImBJY58_4aoycBHusbKv4qtcvx6K0fXf79yw2hKUK_PqPFSIBErmZtFZqDA3Xte1e1JT778NeEmtKbDB9zxlI6U08bD00aWjIfi_sUrMxq9PiCD9R1XPB1i1xXIY/s320/story_image_0d4435c2aac3a1ac1d0bc3a3f2a307fa_640_wide.jpg" width="275" /></span></a><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But what made the biggest impression by far was the octopus. I have always heard that an octopus can squeeze through a hole as big as its own eyeball, and here we saw that it is true - the octopus flowed through the most minuscule of holes as though it was being poured through like water. The boys were fascinated to learn that the mommy octopus stays with her eggs once she has laid them, never eating or going away until they hatch, and in the process gets very thin and sick and sometimes even dies.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">They were very upset by this story, especially seeing the small clusters of eggs on the sides of the octopus tank. "It's okay," I explained, "the people at the marine reserve will feed her and make sure that she doesn't get hungry".</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPpQHNlLTEdxvFaJIX_RKOks7KCxBPATJgPczRMoAwoE4mf58liFNwQ9gxpvo4wPSWnhYC2rhH5UA1Dw0eLLqmvPowdyOULwZrb3D6eBKct-F0itfhJKeJL-IjHJmDLQYEBLSCZ5TyHm4/s1600/story_image_b95ee64159cf05130a8136b138ce197a_640_wide.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="255" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjPpQHNlLTEdxvFaJIX_RKOks7KCxBPATJgPczRMoAwoE4mf58liFNwQ9gxpvo4wPSWnhYC2rhH5UA1Dw0eLLqmvPowdyOULwZrb3D6eBKct-F0itfhJKeJL-IjHJmDLQYEBLSCZ5TyHm4/s320/story_image_b95ee64159cf05130a8136b138ce197a_640_wide.jpg" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As we walked back to the bus at the end of a wonderful day, Sam spoke his thoughts freely: "If you were thin and sick, Mama, I would feed you so that you didn't die!" he said.</span></div>
Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com4tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-17383848524894254062012-11-01T00:51:00.005-07:002012-11-01T00:51:59.217-07:00Making tracks...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_1Iji0hwSf5aoW9yO4R1F01oSpJ4_tbwKQkSABgQziabodogpEg1s_4Od6DAnxkDzjTLELk4GLIGOIxuOLujURCJWxiJFT3O-9BimYVoZOQvxF1vZurtRz2iHZyIMB0N_DifU-SXf600/s1600/Sept+2012+103.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg_1Iji0hwSf5aoW9yO4R1F01oSpJ4_tbwKQkSABgQziabodogpEg1s_4Od6DAnxkDzjTLELk4GLIGOIxuOLujURCJWxiJFT3O-9BimYVoZOQvxF1vZurtRz2iHZyIMB0N_DifU-SXf600/s320/Sept+2012+103.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">There are a lot of firsts in life. The first smile. The first word. The first steps. And then there are the firsts that are a bit further removed. The first boat ride. The first bike ride. And the first train ride.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Living in a city where there is so much emphasis placed on sustainable transport, etc. I have to ask the question: how is it possible that the boys are four and a half and have never been on a train before? It's a question I have actually asked a few times over their lives, but somehow we have never managed to make it as far as actually getting on the train before this time. It took the great-uncle coming out from South Africa to finally get us as far as the train station. And what excitement there was (actually, I think it might have been the great-uncle that was the most excited, but I digress).</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhzRGEFnk0v7EYol-rQ7ywTCBYPyA3mMbja4bVIBv7ORQSxJaYzi0gKeiRLs4XPLtkirrt_zW537CJfiC5DvdQFedKcTGhtuAnAefCwuioXAT1rFWlZf7KIgYc9n7DMdb23gbe4FBzzyU/s1600/Sept+2012+108.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhzRGEFnk0v7EYol-rQ7ywTCBYPyA3mMbja4bVIBv7ORQSxJaYzi0gKeiRLs4XPLtkirrt_zW537CJfiC5DvdQFedKcTGhtuAnAefCwuioXAT1rFWlZf7KIgYc9n7DMdb23gbe4FBzzyU/s320/Sept+2012+108.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Making it to the station in time to actually catch the train was the greatest of feats. Normally, even allowing for the extra fifteen minutes it takes to strap everyone into the car, I am routinely late for everything by about half an hour. However, miracle of miracles, we were actually early for the train. Which is how we by mistake managed to catch the wrong train and end up taking the fast train all the way, arriving in about three point two minutes. As far as train journeys went, it could have been more exciting. Not to mention the fact that we were in a carriage full of businessmen on their daily commute. I can't help but wonder if their trip was made more exciting by the little voice piping up loudly as we went under each and every electric pylon (about three thousand in total on that trip): "We go under, we go under, we go under.." etc., ad infinitum.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe6lD5chWB9EJ9mDZ5kiMLzFvnyO-rsszDPwC87s3H5WHDeIusA0ioKK8E7rci3DTl03k2IoWu7OT8DuUCDKYKfAoPHclgkqT2FBobKce-R_NyvPETHVjDBHKR4gsCGocutppPd5CzYsg/s1600/Sept+2012+114.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhe6lD5chWB9EJ9mDZ5kiMLzFvnyO-rsszDPwC87s3H5WHDeIusA0ioKK8E7rci3DTl03k2IoWu7OT8DuUCDKYKfAoPHclgkqT2FBobKce-R_NyvPETHVjDBHKR4gsCGocutppPd5CzYsg/s320/Sept+2012+114.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As we got out, the kids were already begging to be allowed to go back on again. Luckily we had the return journey still to come. After our time at the water park, we had to run all the way back to catch the return train, this time at least making it onto the right one. And this time, all the way home, the little voice piping up: "Are we there yet?"</span><br />
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<span style="color: #660000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">You just can't win!</span><br />
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<br />Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-22046593369480155962012-10-02T00:08:00.006-07:002012-10-02T00:08:55.061-07:00A star is born....<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Accidents will happen, they say. However, I am sure that, for a boy (or man, I'm just adding), no accident is as serious as when they lose face in front of someone else. Even the most privates-clenching insult is nothing as compared to the fact that, although not seriously hurt, they are the source of great mirth for someone else who witnessed their moment of falling short.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Sam was flying around merrily on his scooter on the deck today, as both he and Paddy do on occasion. Yet today, they had set up a challenge course, racing in and out of the other various vehicles that make up the parking lot that doubles as our deck. All three kids park their trikes there, as well as a large yellow tipper truck, two ride-on motorbike toys and a toy scooter belonging to Little Miss Snoopy. As you can imagine, the course was relatively hazardous with all of this lying around. Scooting too fast around the corners, Sam somehow managed to catch his back wheel on a tricycle and came off, head over heels, landing at the feet of his astonished brother. Although unhurt, his brother's obvious lack of sympathy for his plight made the whole situation ten times worse and he let off a yell that one would only expect to hear if he had fallen off the roof.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">His brother did not turn a hair at his performance.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;"><a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3EqzTJ9OVfd7Aaf-GkoixqAOQBuxKxt3v7Oy0MmaD_NC2TPal3dhch171Qn3H-0IdtO_txgBIy5zdwYhS9WfcBIhhyMoE6tP6VuQNXupofP80-l5BQ-P5WXjiltqw-C9mxIrsDQ_Cblg/s1600/IMG_0315%5B1%5D" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi3EqzTJ9OVfd7Aaf-GkoixqAOQBuxKxt3v7Oy0MmaD_NC2TPal3dhch171Qn3H-0IdtO_txgBIy5zdwYhS9WfcBIhhyMoE6tP6VuQNXupofP80-l5BQ-P5WXjiltqw-C9mxIrsDQ_Cblg/s320/IMG_0315%5B1%5D" width="320" /></a>Eager to encourage a bit more of a show of empathy, I told Paddy he had to pick Sam up and bring him inside to the couch, and then get him a drink and see if he was okay. Paddy duly helped him to the couch and fed him the juice, asking him if he was fine, but Sam's wails continued unabated (a bruised ego is one of the worst injuries a man can acquire). I sat next to Paddy and offered a suggestion: "You could try patting him on the head to calm him down."</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">Paddy was horrified at my words. "But then all of his hair will wear off." He obviously remembered my story of when they were both little (in <a href="http://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=7307147977411983513#editor/target=post;postID=4944781012711141985">God made some heads perfect, the rest He had to cover with hair...</a>), and was obviously dismayed that I could suggest something that would so blatantly exaccerbate the situation.</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #0c343d;"><span style="font-family: Georgia,"Times New Roman",serif;">I could not hold in my laughter at his comment, and, seeing his mother acting insensitively, Paddy also began to laugh too until we were almost hysterical together. What kind of a mother laughs in the face of misfortune? But unfortunately, the more I tried to stop, the more we laughed, and the more offended Sam became, and what was originally a little accident now was the biggest accident in the world. However, on further examination, Sam's snorts of distress began to sound unmistakably like snorts of laughter,until all three of us were giggling together on the couch, accident forgotten.</span></span></div>
Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-91861317216258045042012-09-23T01:30:00.002-07:002012-09-23T01:30:34.285-07:00The Beach Boys<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6RficR0bdmyr9QlawiCSbdzGuJI5fDlnMt55TSTUudsZuASNBpHFkSIEWjkyKEgz9cfXxZCuPD6t7Gq1w_GpkhYJKfZd3Ig6HMCJItpp4-9m_E84QjbJ6uD6ViqofSAs6cKCooKmXh-o/s1600/Oct+2012+009.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi6RficR0bdmyr9QlawiCSbdzGuJI5fDlnMt55TSTUudsZuASNBpHFkSIEWjkyKEgz9cfXxZCuPD6t7Gq1w_GpkhYJKfZd3Ig6HMCJItpp4-9m_E84QjbJ6uD6ViqofSAs6cKCooKmXh-o/s320/Oct+2012+009.JPG" width="240" /></span></a><span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Some experiences are just never meant to be repeated. When I was pregnant with the twins, about five or six months along and just before we returned to South Africa to pack up all of our worldly possessions to move halfway around the world, we went to a beach nearby on a lovely October day. The sun was shining, and it was (relatively) hot, but the thing that struck us the most was that the beach was covered in plants, and that those plants were blossoming with flowers with the most potent aroma I have ever been privileged to smell. It was as though the very essence of life itself, all of the most beautiful moments and heart-rending instants had been distilled into a perfume, and these plants were exuding it there, on a beach in the middle of nowhere, with no other people to witness it. Now I am not saying that the fact of my pregnancy and the joy I was feeling at carrying the boys had nothing to do with the way I perceived that beach and those flowers, but I do know that the Sweetpea was just as impressed and awestruck.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Every year since then, we have returned to Flower Beach (as we dubbed it then), faithfully, at the same time of the year, like pilgrims making their way to a shrine. And not once have we seen those flowers again. Today was no exception. After telling our lot that we were off to see Flower Beach, we took them to a beach which had, unfortunately, not only no flowers, but a large amount of sheep droppings instead (Flower Beach is part of a farm, although the farmer is kind enough to let the public have access to the sea). </span></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">One of the main attractions of the beach is that it is so isolated, yet today when we were there, a surprising amount of people were on the beach (at least eight other people). Isolation means no facilities, if you get my drift. With kids, almost every opportunity to be in the open is an opportunity to wee on a different bush or patch of ground of some sort, so of course it was not long before all of our three needed to go. On a beach that had as it's major feature heaps of sheep droppings and no cover for about 500m in all directions. Once again, I cursed the lack of forethought that had made me leave the potty at home (even I have been known to use this precious item in dire circumstances). I elected to stay with all the goods on the beach - I didn't want to walk all that way over the sand to see little boys trying to write their names in the dry bits - and Sweetpea got to drag all three superstitiously over to the closest available cover. It was performed with the utmost discretion, with the Sweetpea pretending to point out the interesting fauna and flora to the little ones and moving them in the direction of what we fondly called "the wee hole".</span></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Little Miss Snoopy unfortunately missed the need for secrecy. "I go wee, I go wee, I go wee," she sang in a piercing voice the whole way back over the sand dunes. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #20124d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We missed the flowers again, but I think the antics of the kids more than made up for the lack.</span></div>
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Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-18989757997175650762012-09-08T00:54:00.001-07:002012-09-08T00:54:54.639-07:00I can deal with anything as long as I am wearing the right clothes...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4AR82XpYI4uDqPhyphenhyphenLtcEO0KBA26jeAhJ6xc1CXB2THy05sSLcIe9CzsnuwHcgDvrENb01a13tmj1HADa8gpIhDi7dwCXdIygrNMrnzVsrFQjvQ0bJJcwQjGZ4rdJ8_xVC63LQQLPFGfM/s1600/2012+June+holiday+014.CR2" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEi4AR82XpYI4uDqPhyphenhyphenLtcEO0KBA26jeAhJ6xc1CXB2THy05sSLcIe9CzsnuwHcgDvrENb01a13tmj1HADa8gpIhDi7dwCXdIygrNMrnzVsrFQjvQ0bJJcwQjGZ4rdJ8_xVC63LQQLPFGfM/s320/2012+June+holiday+014.CR2" width="213" /></span></a><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">As they grow older, I have realised that dressing, which used to be so simple, now is a trial of epic proportions. I suppose it is good training for the bathroom-bound years of being a teenager, when every spot and hair is examined for hours to see if it is passable or not. But I am definitely getting a taste of it now.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">When they were little, I could throw anything on them that would keep them warm. Cute little body-suits, adorable jerseys that made them look a teensy bit like girls, the works. Now I have to consider the relative merits of each outfit before I even present it, and here is why:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I have to consider the relative powers of each item of clothing, in relation to what I will be dressing the other child in. A t-shirt with a Spiderman pictured on the front will obviously out-weigh a Bob-the-Builder: that is a no-brainer. The one who gets Spiderman that day will lord it over the one who gets Bob, making sure that the t-shirt is exposed at every possible turn. But the clothing debacle does get more subtle than that.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinw9LOKMj9v1lhq3SbofrrjqE5fo6Ir673yyq3qLv_3OISGAR6R4BETUCoOyD5Xer7jO6396Q1tZM0XXLXm6xepKpS6a4ezNFuz_F-lVIjxN9RXXNxXGX0JwWH_dbCS7tn48DS2HA_pms/s1600/Aug+2012+014.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEinw9LOKMj9v1lhq3SbofrrjqE5fo6Ir673yyq3qLv_3OISGAR6R4BETUCoOyD5Xer7jO6396Q1tZM0XXLXm6xepKpS6a4ezNFuz_F-lVIjxN9RXXNxXGX0JwWH_dbCS7tn48DS2HA_pms/s320/Aug+2012+014.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I would like to know who came up with the idea of putting more than one super-hero on a shirt? For mothers of twins, especially if you choose not to dress them in the same outfits, this is a real trial. After all, my mind has to hold so many diverse and frankly essential bits of information, that it has no room for intricate calculations of whether two Spidermen (black and red) and a Batman out-weigh Superman and Iron-Man. Obviously, the twins know immediately whose shirt is carrying the most referent power, but I have to admit that as a mom, I am at a loss. With the result that I have come up with a points system to figure it all out. It goes like this:</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">A skateboard/bicycle/ scooter = 1 point, unless having fire on the shirt somewhere (especially coming from the wheels), in which case add 2 extra points</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Any car/monster truck/motorbike = 2 points</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Lightening McQueen = 5 points, unless pictured with Mater, then take off 2 points</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Bob-the-Builder = 3 points, unless pictured with one of the trucks/diggers/grabbers </span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Any Disney character, including Shrek, is a minus point, especially if it has fur on it (like Donkey), in which case it is -2 points</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Buzz lightyear is worth 7 points, but only if pictured without Woody. If Woody is there, minus 5 points</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Superman, Spiderman, Batman or any other man, if pictured alone = 10 points, unless the logo is not visible, in which case take off 2 points</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-_3VBnF31XDH1JRV2uXMu5bYvr2huljLHbnBKgfSGXMriwmEoeL5X_hLnuAnNHlYvIXz7n8kluytLVIDEsAlRo6bnZu7N52x46-bgI5KU41S40Kvs4CMSYPYQQAel_mhpaMuYTcAfj84/s1600/2012+June+holiday+105.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg-_3VBnF31XDH1JRV2uXMu5bYvr2huljLHbnBKgfSGXMriwmEoeL5X_hLnuAnNHlYvIXz7n8kluytLVIDEsAlRo6bnZu7N52x46-bgI5KU41S40Kvs4CMSYPYQQAel_mhpaMuYTcAfj84/s320/2012+June+holiday+105.JPG" width="213" /></span></a><span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Superheroes in tandem with each other = 10 points for the shirt, plus a further 5 points for each additional immediately-recognisable superhero. If the superhero is unknown, 5 points are deducted for each guess the kids have to have to figure out who it is. This often results in a minus figure total awarded to that item of clothing.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Also, if the shirt has a hoodie on it, add a further 5 points.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">If the shirt has sleeves that are too long and need to be rolled up, take off another 5 points.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">No tracksuit pants with cuffs at the bottom, no matter how cool, can equal a pair with no cuffs at the bottom.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Calculate the amount per outfit for one child, and then make sure that the outfit for the second child exactly matches this number. See, brilliantly simple isn't it? </span></div>
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<span style="color: #783f04; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Let me know how this works out for you!</span></div>
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Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-60320098491196514192012-09-02T01:43:00.001-07:002012-09-02T01:43:38.665-07:00My fingers may be small, but I can still wrap Daddy around them...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxiY3C55hnWHPuqhWHyOSq9Evi_Y0Zj88iexSdiJOmsdhfBDrny44_Lt9gaxXp7z-8OE7BwSQc4kKV0IOkbbIPsd9V5u_0dJI2W0waq11L9Ef3q7USIKyl0mQg_XhJMYSrgpEOsCNecG4/s1600/Aug+2012+010.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgxiY3C55hnWHPuqhWHyOSq9Evi_Y0Zj88iexSdiJOmsdhfBDrny44_Lt9gaxXp7z-8OE7BwSQc4kKV0IOkbbIPsd9V5u_0dJI2W0waq11L9Ef3q7USIKyl0mQg_XhJMYSrgpEOsCNecG4/s320/Aug+2012+010.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Father's day is an inspiring excuse to get the kids to make something lasting for us. I'm not saying that they don't ever make things, because they do, but on the majority of occasions, kindy is filled with superheroes and villains, and if one of ours puts paintbrush to paper or something like that, it is what we call a Big Thing. They like drawing, and doing artsy things; just not as much as they like running around with capes on and shrieking after the bad guys (who, coincidentally, think that they are actually the good guys). So I thought I would take the opportunity to do a bit of gentle persuasion (read: blackmail) and get them to make something nice for their dad for father's day.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I wanted to photograph the results for posterity. These are not all Father's day presents, but are all special in some way:</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlfkN01KbmjfPX01eOlkfbr3k0CUuwF3c2xtGP6goxjpvzZdWMdSWo6HTvL7IqVGHcWc54jqIUyry5EdZi-OeNOX9ptu5I2ESwDr8QZhPrCFB3DuPMwwmRZhEmPObUyCWjtpMazAk5lb8/s1600/Aug+2012+003.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjlfkN01KbmjfPX01eOlkfbr3k0CUuwF3c2xtGP6goxjpvzZdWMdSWo6HTvL7IqVGHcWc54jqIUyry5EdZi-OeNOX9ptu5I2ESwDr8QZhPrCFB3DuPMwwmRZhEmPObUyCWjtpMazAk5lb8/s320/Aug+2012+003.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is Paddy's fire-engine. I particularly love the ladder and also the sirens placed strategically on the top.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix8vJ7vT0_k12t91VFw-yhxKfaSV8v11BgJk5fraL2dx-xpC_1iveaPAmxYAuaR3ceaCQrlZ7ZvrlTqOwHRRvjZFJ06pmbq1EwrxkPFgKKuRKSKaLGTqFskXvA0NAI1JOhcFB9itQ5rL0/s1600/Aug+2012+016.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEix8vJ7vT0_k12t91VFw-yhxKfaSV8v11BgJk5fraL2dx-xpC_1iveaPAmxYAuaR3ceaCQrlZ7ZvrlTqOwHRRvjZFJ06pmbq1EwrxkPFgKKuRKSKaLGTqFskXvA0NAI1JOhcFB9itQ5rL0/s320/Aug+2012+016.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This is the card that Little Miss Snoopy made while at music classes (with a bit of help from her lovely nanny).</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRptNj3oHPXEHIIm3uQlCCa7b5uxQy73TO4O_Ihn3yZdE5o4XQPh73bZspQcrtq_UP04ENF-rwfP1nl387loHB92Vc9v6VX5-5tZUJrvjgzbffeKC5Wq0nPZnSj1ihsHQX4Q3CGHbBAbM/s1600/Aug+2012+017.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhRptNj3oHPXEHIIm3uQlCCa7b5uxQy73TO4O_Ihn3yZdE5o4XQPh73bZspQcrtq_UP04ENF-rwfP1nl387loHB92Vc9v6VX5-5tZUJrvjgzbffeKC5Wq0nPZnSj1ihsHQX4Q3CGHbBAbM/s320/Aug+2012+017.JPG" width="320" /></span></a></div>
<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"> This is Sam's impression of a snake. When I asked why it had three eyes, he told me "the middle one is his nose!" He then pointed out the tongue, because "all snakes have sticky-out tongues".</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1FQAL9c7Fd2PtT2YUGo2ERiA5Aar_h4sXLMqz6abfttfPcKEilpc6foC32du-gvzAU10y8_gfaPwtcP0RHFojHKyuQMFfah0sZwKCs1LN1i4W5eSuBGOJlteovjk_sCHa11_w8Q0C6Gk/s1600/Aug+2012+019.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh1FQAL9c7Fd2PtT2YUGo2ERiA5Aar_h4sXLMqz6abfttfPcKEilpc6foC32du-gvzAU10y8_gfaPwtcP0RHFojHKyuQMFfah0sZwKCs1LN1i4W5eSuBGOJlteovjk_sCHa11_w8Q0C6Gk/s320/Aug+2012+019.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Paddy made this for me, because he didn't want me to feel left out. He knows that I love coffee and so he made me a special box full of "coffee" so that I could have it all the time. I haven't tried it yet, but he is wanting to know when I will....</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmdpmJxbsiFhzouVrhyphenhyphenmEyOdFPa2UZNfRrKVlOhTWKtBfS1uS1eX2ydbamIHAOZvdEaDFqkPkduQT9INGah1b97NtQs4Gvo1T2rJa4tUzoBellS8g1RfM-wRuRxGZ3X-AyQeFNe4QUsmg/s1600/Aug+2012+021.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="margin-left: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEhmdpmJxbsiFhzouVrhyphenhyphenmEyOdFPa2UZNfRrKVlOhTWKtBfS1uS1eX2ydbamIHAOZvdEaDFqkPkduQT9INGah1b97NtQs4Gvo1T2rJa4tUzoBellS8g1RfM-wRuRxGZ3X-AyQeFNe4QUsmg/s320/Aug+2012+021.JPG" width="240" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Little Miss Snoopy made this lovely boat at playcentre, and we have kept it ever since. I find it extremely difficult to throw away anything that the little ones make for me - I can see myself in my old age living surrounded by heaps of junk like in those awful houses they show on Oprah at times. Oh well, so be it!</span></div>
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<span style="color: #741b47; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">And the best thing about all of these priceless little gifts? The way their little faces look when they hand them over to the recipient: pride and excitement and the joy of giving all wrapped into one small little face. So, Father's day does not comprise fancy gifts of watches or cufflinks, or even not so fancy gifts of socks or ties. But somehow, I think our dad has the better part of the deal.</span></div>
<br />Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com3tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-34399412431609877722012-08-18T02:21:00.001-07:002012-08-18T02:21:40.430-07:00A class act...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1krQD9yX-IoMS6QBCKFhDrOcvxq4J2TEM6G079u1mZPVn4Gml7cVZkBgBUx56he1Jf4yGXcjg7O8nXkkmsB3hHw1FTDXpshMklAvUQ-jmCWe_hILk0QX2HtoaczKUcYBfZXvmSuZ3S_0/s1600/2012+June+holiday+071.CR2" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEj1krQD9yX-IoMS6QBCKFhDrOcvxq4J2TEM6G079u1mZPVn4Gml7cVZkBgBUx56he1Jf4yGXcjg7O8nXkkmsB3hHw1FTDXpshMklAvUQ-jmCWe_hILk0QX2HtoaczKUcYBfZXvmSuZ3S_0/s320/2012+June+holiday+071.CR2" width="213" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We made a decision not to have a television or access to TV in our house. It was mainly because we wanted to allow the kids to play instead of watch, to act themselves instead of watching someone else acting. This decision has had some unusual repercussions.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Firstly, we had no idea that when it came down to it, our kids would not be able to handle adverts. Those mildly annoying breaks in programming that everyone learns to sit through with patience so that they can get to the real business of watching the programme they actually want to watch. While we have shown the kids the odd DVD, and movie, they were obviously totally unprepared for something that could interrupt their viewing pleasure at the drop of a hat, and with little or no warning, and be totally unrelated to what was happening before. When we allowed them to see a movie on television the first time, the ad breaks almost led to tears of frustration and irritation, and repeated calls of "Mama, the DVD is broken again!"</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhGKWxTveLCa6NIi5dtJYd17gLsoAjg9_wg_fu0CLtikvhfZkCegCkMsXXzuvJ88ZcGhQqiaaL61jgnRrRvn6JmyBpuHEx0n0WBdtCFVfg2b7CYd8ZgceCCTaGltqkwSTaOU-lGG6nktk/s1600/2012+June+holiday+074.CR2" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjhGKWxTveLCa6NIi5dtJYd17gLsoAjg9_wg_fu0CLtikvhfZkCegCkMsXXzuvJ88ZcGhQqiaaL61jgnRrRvn6JmyBpuHEx0n0WBdtCFVfg2b7CYd8ZgceCCTaGltqkwSTaOU-lGG6nktk/s320/2012+June+holiday+074.CR2" width="213" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Another outcome that was totally unforeseen took us by surprise the other day. The boys came home from kindy looking very subdued and visibly upset. I of course asked what the problem was. "Liz (head teacher) said some very bad things to Tanya (other kindy teacher)" said Sam. He was crying by this time, and I was alarmed. I could only conjecture what the teachers might have been saying to each other in front of the children, because he refused to say any more, and would not let me know what had been said at all. I approached the teachers concerned with trepidation, not wanting to overstep my place, but because the kids were so unhappy. Turns out that there was an innocent explanation. Apparently, some of the children in the kindy had been mean to the others, and had said a few things that the teachers thought needed to be addressed. In order to do this, the teachers put on an Oscar-winning performance at mat time to show the children what it feels like when opne child calls another names or says that they don't want to play with them. All the children took it in their stride, apart from my two. Not having ever been exposed to actual people acting before, like on TV, as opposed to cartoon characters, they were unaware of the fact that people can act, and say and do things that are not real. Even though I explained it very carefully to them, they were not convinced. Sam kept on stubbornly repeating "I don't believe she was acting."</span></div>
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<span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">It took an intervention on the part of the teachers to finally get him to believe it, and also they had to stage another skit that showed the children how Liz and Tanya were making up, hugging each other and saying they were sorry.</span></div>
<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3XVCLp1fRYTlk1ESLNzjOPstgX2AcpiGWv2QDjOwdLVjCRULm08XCKs7rO78omHJ29n8pruC3qE7t9zKNqxy2XPjfYPDI2S1W4PYky4f2MW0iwmmiyKt1pViuZgXcwByOUbBGWOlR0i4/s1600/2012+June+holiday+108.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh3XVCLp1fRYTlk1ESLNzjOPstgX2AcpiGWv2QDjOwdLVjCRULm08XCKs7rO78omHJ29n8pruC3qE7t9zKNqxy2XPjfYPDI2S1W4PYky4f2MW0iwmmiyKt1pViuZgXcwByOUbBGWOlR0i4/s320/2012+June+holiday+108.JPG" width="213" /></span></a><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYCzaJBbZdBvdnZTM3diEEtH6eaff-FVWPdrqeNbeJz_f5a8QqK2_VsJ6hlu-DTYiNzc1AYTwvp4h3B45HTBh48dJ4gQa1CY3Uw3E-u-U933USVDCFw5TqyZKvxR974IAG9lKMN-prxKg/s1600/2012+June+holiday+111.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; display: inline !important; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgYCzaJBbZdBvdnZTM3diEEtH6eaff-FVWPdrqeNbeJz_f5a8QqK2_VsJ6hlu-DTYiNzc1AYTwvp4h3B45HTBh48dJ4gQa1CY3Uw3E-u-U933USVDCFw5TqyZKvxR974IAG9lKMN-prxKg/s320/2012+June+holiday+111.JPG" width="213" /></span></a></div>
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<span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">So, pros and cons - is that not just like life? It can't just be clear-cut, can i</span>t?</div>
Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-4907634347534947052012-08-04T00:07:00.002-07:002012-08-04T00:07:29.627-07:00BF4EVA (Or Best Friends Forever, for those who don't talk text)<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYaGHdfu8ypyKyGKs6T5EORH-NIVazAq3ZfUfTOGXGCcUyJY7tDL5AdA-BiF_E7XIyf_FMDkRO91iLJTM4oNmD38gyA4-OhaRln5w7f8AoN6RTedY0vI0AlTE3BZwH4GVWoroCD-DgMq4/s1600/Tunnel+Galley+Aug.+2012+058.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiYaGHdfu8ypyKyGKs6T5EORH-NIVazAq3ZfUfTOGXGCcUyJY7tDL5AdA-BiF_E7XIyf_FMDkRO91iLJTM4oNmD38gyA4-OhaRln5w7f8AoN6RTedY0vI0AlTE3BZwH4GVWoroCD-DgMq4/s320/Tunnel+Galley+Aug.+2012+058.JPG" width="240" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">To have a twin is to have a best friend for life. If you are lucky, that is - some twins I know fight like cat and dog. I am one of the lucky moms - my twins are inseparable: one of those dyads you read about who feel each other's pains and stand up for each other in fights. This has not been without its own set of complications, however.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">For the last few weeks, I have noticed that Sam has not been as happy at kindy as he was previously. He has been clingy when I try to leave, crying at night that he doesn't want me to leave him alone at kindy by himself. This, for Sam, is highly unusual. He is confident and outgoing, loves to approach other kids and is eager to form groups to play. Of course, the first thing that went through my mind is that he was being bullied. I am not sure that I would handle a situation like that well, to be honest. In fact, the exact phrase that went through my mind (although not printable in a family-related blog like this) was something like "if I catch the little sod that is hurting my boy, I will make him wish that ...etc, etc..."). Anyway, after much suspicious and devious questioning on my part, I established that, mystifyingly, there was no bully. Great! But also, what could it be that was upsetting him? For ages, I tried every psychologist's technique in the book to try to get him to tell me what was going on, but with little success. He just didn't want to go, he was unhappy, and so on.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">This continued for about a week and a half. I dropped them off at kindy as usual, but stayed just that bit extra, making sure they were settled, playing games and finding things for them to do so that when I eventually left, they would be absorbed in what they were doing. But nine times out of ten, as I headed for the gate, the forlorn little figure of Sam would be standing alone in the midst of a crowd, mournfully watching me go. It was enough to break my heart.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Then, one day when I was there to pick them up a little early, I noticed that, sitting between my two boys on the mat was a little usurper. A girl. After mat time was finished, Paddy came rushing up to me. "This is Eva," he crowed. "She is my best friend here at kindy," he announced proudly. And then it hit me. Sam, whose whole life revolved around Paddy, had suddenly been confronted with the fact that his brother had other friends, and that he was now the odd man out. The piggy in the middle. The third wheel. They had always interacted with their friends as a dyad, and now, here was Paddy going off and making a friend of his own. What a hard knock for such a little boy (and such a sensitive one at that, too) to take. </span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEictPrQkOFJA576R9y9dnPkvomO-WTUIJwisTUoTo9AcKogYMkrNHg3S88SYDBG7oACumx_z_gMALPp8nvZfSFaNWdgVknWTrc27DvKhpeUEcD4Sx2fqEZ0WVwS_534Bz_ax7BlbRN7_as/s1600/Tunnel+Galley+Aug.+2012+096.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEictPrQkOFJA576R9y9dnPkvomO-WTUIJwisTUoTo9AcKogYMkrNHg3S88SYDBG7oACumx_z_gMALPp8nvZfSFaNWdgVknWTrc27DvKhpeUEcD4Sx2fqEZ0WVwS_534Bz_ax7BlbRN7_as/s320/Tunnel+Galley+Aug.+2012+096.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">But worse, how to put it right? Of course they will make friends in their lives, and there is a good chance that those friends will not be friends equally with both twins. I fretted for days, before eventually speaking gently to Paddy about having his brother as his best friend and other friends as just friends, then speaking to Sam about how he should try to make friends with other kids at kindy. In other words, I was generally not doing anything that was of much use at all.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">In the end, the situation resolved itself. One day, when picking up the twins from kindy, Sam bounced into the car, bright and happy. I was very relieved and asked him what had happened that day. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"I decided to change my mind," he declared definitively.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"What do you mean?" I asked.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">"I just thought I was tired of being sad, and I changed my mind to be happy instead," he said. "People like it better if you are a happy person," he added.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #38761d; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Wow, I thought. Imagine if we adults could just change our minds like that? What could we achieve?</span></div>
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<br /></div>Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-20520724791630353172012-08-02T01:50:00.003-07:002012-08-02T01:50:58.066-07:00Just give me the pig skin, and nobody has to get hurt...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOWyD_V06JPfx5t9olS3Kcvv8uZn_HHPwKmwsFGf5QOj6MhkJDNMvqSb4TLXdAi7yYxux3tkyEPwd5vjImRvqWvgftdV-dqFSJ5O2hzDtbuUap1J8ZVYQRwcTKL0_8Vn58YGzpoNvLvNw/s1600/Tunnel+Galley+Aug.+2012+050.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgOWyD_V06JPfx5t9olS3Kcvv8uZn_HHPwKmwsFGf5QOj6MhkJDNMvqSb4TLXdAi7yYxux3tkyEPwd5vjImRvqWvgftdV-dqFSJ5O2hzDtbuUap1J8ZVYQRwcTKL0_8Vn58YGzpoNvLvNw/s320/Tunnel+Galley+Aug.+2012+050.JPG" width="240" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">I am not sure whether I understand "manly behaviour". In essence, men and women are so different, and nothing could be more apparent than when they play games. It starts young, apparently.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">We recently had a wonderful picnic in Tunnel Gully, an amazing reserve that encompasses a long tunnel, built in Ye Olden Times, out of somewhat fragile-looking bricks and mortar. In fact, so fragile-looking that certain stalagtites have started to depend from the roof in certain places, a fact that a mother's mind instantly computes into her trusty inbuilt mom-o-meter of risk. (Mine went something like this: Stalagtites + Water = Instability of some kind minus the fact that the tunnel has been here for literally yonks and has been observed by several thousand tourists = okay, maybe it is safe for family to traverse. But quietly.) </span></div>
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<span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">After the usual wandering through the tunnel, me answering the usual flood of questions in a distracted way due to praying that said tunnel would remain standing for another few minutes at least, we emerged thankfully into the daylight on the other side for a picnic. It was at this juncture that the Rugby Ball made its appearance. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Now I have nothing against rugby, per se; apart from the fact that it seems rather a pointless game, a fact which is somewhat mitigated by the general handsomeness of the New Zealand team (after all if that many good specimens of menfolk want to get all sweaty running around after a ball and flexing their muscles, who am I to complain?), but I am not sure that I want <b><i>my</i></b> menfolk to be part of that. I don't think I am in any danger of that happening, to be honest. But, as far as I can make out, where a bunch of women would probably stand close enough to each other to get a good conversation going and in the lulls, kick a ball cooperatively to each other, it seems as the though the major goal of the manly interaction is to show off how well the ball can be kicked. Even when that means that the majority of the game is spent traipsing around after a ball that has been kicked so far that it has actually been sighted in orbit by the astronauts in the space station. There is no such thing as gentle kicking to one another so that the smallest and weakest members of the team (i.e. the four-year-old twins) can easily retrieve it. No, rather, that ball has to have the hell kicked out of it so that, like a pack, they can all run screaming after it to retrieve it. I think I counted two kicks in the entire game, and about forty minutes of hard running to find the ball as it shot into the forests and even, once, near to the entrance of the tunnel (about a kilometer away).</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcyOTz-N1_t2nw0Itv8GTnOrp4B46D8iDXQ-UAEFZ7a-67Rspn52XpalNr_PAwU_AxWKCktZ-RNXSRo0VOHE4IOMoo5g6ojjcKjavZ9FqscYIbzUSnlfwcmrzwFUo80zkgCsRDkbqH0bc/s1600/Tunnel+Galley+Aug.+2012+092.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjcyOTz-N1_t2nw0Itv8GTnOrp4B46D8iDXQ-UAEFZ7a-67Rspn52XpalNr_PAwU_AxWKCktZ-RNXSRo0VOHE4IOMoo5g6ojjcKjavZ9FqscYIbzUSnlfwcmrzwFUo80zkgCsRDkbqH0bc/s320/Tunnel+Galley+Aug.+2012+092.JPG" width="240" /></span></a><br />
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<span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Luckily for Little Miss Snoopy and myself, caught in that horrible space of having to admire extremely boring manly interactions of this sort, an unknown dog appeared as if in an answer to prayer, grabbed up the ball, and with a single clench of its jaws, and an audible bang, that oval sucker burst with a satisfying pop, and the game was over. </span></div>
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<span style="color: #274e13; font-family: Georgia, Times New Roman, serif;">Score: Men = 0, dog = 1. Yay - go, d</span>og!</div>Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-11756436542975495942012-07-21T00:41:00.000-07:002012-07-21T00:41:09.728-07:00A flood of fun<div style="text-align: justify;">
<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">There is a fine line to walk between disciplining your child and squashing their creativity and innate helpfulness. We had to discover which side of that fence we wanted to walk on this week.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The Sweetpea does Kung Fu for fitness. He always says it is really hard exercise, and raises his eyes to heaven as though to implore help for just how difficult it is, but secretly, he loves the chance of going out at night, being with "men", kicking stuff and saying things like "board-breaking" and "shall I do a chi-na (whatever that is) on you?" It's every man's man's idea of a good night out.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjru3oc0pvAXnvNysMRxZT2fK3DWXjY5DCgz4IehWgcu_sxByc7-Yk1SAyticSdYiVktQxyZ831FT_igEzbGNAmWXJD4kDJturKOZ7WuiyS0dMI44S43VYnqym_Wdhg7ZE486NQk6bJZlo/s1600/Masterton+July+2012+012.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjru3oc0pvAXnvNysMRxZT2fK3DWXjY5DCgz4IehWgcu_sxByc7-Yk1SAyticSdYiVktQxyZ831FT_igEzbGNAmWXJD4kDJturKOZ7WuiyS0dMI44S43VYnqym_Wdhg7ZE486NQk6bJZlo/s320/Masterton+July+2012+012.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><span style="background-color: white;">But, unfortunately, it is most often during this man-time that things go horribly wrong at home. I normally do all the usual things, in the right order, but sometimes all the best intentions lead to terrible consequences. Wednesday was no exception. After feeding the kids, I took them down onto the trampoline for a while to burn off some energy, where we played our usual fast-paced game of "the spider on the trampoline". This involves me sitting in the one corner of the trampoline, pretending to be a spider, as the kids run past shrieking and I then try to catch them. If, by mistake, I actually do catch one, I spend a long time "eating my prey" by biting their little bottoms and tickling them all over until they are rescued by their siblings. It can get quite long and involved and raucous. </span></span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">On the night in question, Paddy excused himself to go upstairs to the loo. After he had not re-appeared for about fifteen minutes, I got suspicious and headed upstairs to find out what was going on. I was confronted by a strange noise. It sounded a bit like a cross between a waterfall and an extremely heavy downpour in the Amazon, the likes of which David Attenborough is always commenting on. I could not place it.</span></div>
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<span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Then I noticed that it appeared to be raining in the lounge, in fact, so much so that large puddles had formed under each of the light fittings, through which was pouring (literally) liters of water. The carpet in the lounge was under about two centimeters of water. But it got worse. As I walked towards the stairs to my bedroom, I was surprised to see that a waterfall was indeed flowing gracefully down my stairwell. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Rushing up the stairs, I found my bedroom flooded, as well as the bathroom, and the bath overflowing.</span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ7n_cSGGhjhDqLTRvphHDAtF1EY5CPBL8qc-8imcTpb4N23iDwLG-MT4jKccypkmxB-ys40Ol6Hi9mJZ0eNR341XGm6ufNB89vhKjYHheYPt1yybVwQwxBrTOkpTwCG1C84JxWJuDtAg/s1600/Masterton+July+2012+065.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiJ7n_cSGGhjhDqLTRvphHDAtF1EY5CPBL8qc-8imcTpb4N23iDwLG-MT4jKccypkmxB-ys40Ol6Hi9mJZ0eNR341XGm6ufNB89vhKjYHheYPt1yybVwQwxBrTOkpTwCG1C84JxWJuDtAg/s320/Masterton+July+2012+065.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In the midst of rushing around frantically, I fear not doing much good at all, I managed to find out that Little Miss Snoopy, aware of the fact that we usually go to have a bath immediately after supper, had kindly decided to run one for me. She had snuck off quietly, put in the plug and started the taps, all by herself, no doubt believing herself to be a very clever girl.</span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And Paddy, you might ask? Where was he all this time? Turns out that, on his journey through the sodden and dripping lounge, he had got a bit wet. Not wanting to repeat the experience, he had rather decided to play quietly in the toy room, until I came upstairs and sorted the problem out. Fifteen minutes of flowing water later, I did, but by then, the damage was done.</span></span></div>
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_bhItc2eK5RIJ_NqYvoTivcdEJFqEu1BoB6bNAcFI9bvXPcjf7MHRF47upWNO-_RiGrl13yTvM0SoxzZUROeqsEPqaOEElKdJX1VSgu-buU2vASyNu8mIyKMzJII1ekuQv8wVGiTMJEc/s1600/Masterton+July+2012+073.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em; text-align: justify;"><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh_bhItc2eK5RIJ_NqYvoTivcdEJFqEu1BoB6bNAcFI9bvXPcjf7MHRF47upWNO-_RiGrl13yTvM0SoxzZUROeqsEPqaOEElKdJX1VSgu-buU2vASyNu8mIyKMzJII1ekuQv8wVGiTMJEc/s320/Masterton+July+2012+073.JPG" width="240" /></span></a><span style="background-color: white;"></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white; color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Which brings me to my dilemma. Little Miss Snoopy was trying to help. The fact that she inadvertently caused the second Flood was a point which totally escaped her. So how hard should I be on her? And more, how hard should I be on the boy who saw the problem, and neglected to tell anyone about it, because he "didn't want to get wet"? </span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I hope I erred on the side of caution, but I must admit, the Sweetpea took it better that I did.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Well, you have been wanting to wash these carpets for a long time now," he said.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">It's true. They do look very clean.</span></span></div>
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<br style="background-color: white; color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;" /><img alt="Top Mommy Blogs - Mom Blog Directory" border="0" src="http://www.topmommyblogs.com/directory/images//banners/tmb-468x60.gif" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.199219) 0px 0px 0px; background-color: white; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.199219) 0px 0px 0px; color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: justify; text-decoration: underline;" width="468" />Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-23206019413961216782012-07-16T01:43:00.001-07:002012-07-16T01:43:55.374-07:00A Pair of Number Ones<span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Life with twins can be fraught with difficulties at times, and not for the reasons that one might expect.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqMezjeiKyiQD8VD3DxW79Qsq07Yyz9nukIskHJgDYgywu7TYy6ckPa_ExzQFtXPnOvVsBy4dyhU3N225VmOtZhgzNJXXGG1YUbH73eqkSfSDADV-HrY20FWQL_1fGSpXucdNBuLhbuGQ/s1600/Masterton+July+2012+031.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEiqMezjeiKyiQD8VD3DxW79Qsq07Yyz9nukIskHJgDYgywu7TYy6ckPa_ExzQFtXPnOvVsBy4dyhU3N225VmOtZhgzNJXXGG1YUbH73eqkSfSDADV-HrY20FWQL_1fGSpXucdNBuLhbuGQ/s320/Masterton+July+2012+031.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I think I mentioned in one of my other blogs that early on, the Sweetpea and I decided to never let the boys know which one was the oldest and which the youngest. After all, there was a period of only three minutes between them, which didn't seem like enough time for one to be able to lord it over his sibling as being the "oldest and wisest of the twins". In fact, this has remained a closely guarded secret, with hardly anyone knowing which twin is older. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The reasons for this were because we did not want anyone to be able to say something like "ah, so is the eldest the leader?" or have an excuse to treat one as the responsible elder brother, while the younger one was seen as the mad-cap, devil-may-care rake. We wanted them to grow up without any worldly-imposed stereotypes of what older and younger siblings should be like.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Every day we are thankful for our decision. For one thing, they have grown up remarkably free of the need to compete with each other. Interactions can never be characterised by that horrible phrase: "but I am older, you must do what I say". Teachers can never say to us, "oh well, he is the oldest, so he would be a bit more responsible/trustworthy/more mature."</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnZT1RFOgFJlDdU3lGhV_LHspsipYbzh1tfQjd-zSAlD2BAqS5-2yhO0g7DyJhjC-F019ASkq7GIWkhqbNFBxSX4GmbwEp55ACp90wEjyjkVpX74XrYZoyB5-3EB1lTksq0075nxKsWSY/s1600/Masterton+July+2012+034.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgnZT1RFOgFJlDdU3lGhV_LHspsipYbzh1tfQjd-zSAlD2BAqS5-2yhO0g7DyJhjC-F019ASkq7GIWkhqbNFBxSX4GmbwEp55ACp90wEjyjkVpX74XrYZoyB5-3EB1lTksq0075nxKsWSY/s320/Masterton+July+2012+034.JPG" width="320" /></span></a><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Unfortunately, we were required by law to put the birth order onto their birth certificates. So now, shopping around for a school, we were forced to confront the fact that the secret might get out somehow. Short of saying something like "well, you can view the birth certificates but then I am afraid I am going to have to kill you" (which did not seem like the best way to endear ourselves to a future educaitonal institution), we were a bit stumped as to what to do. Honesty is definitely the best policy, I thought. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">The first time I tried it, it did not go down well. I think it was in the way I phrased my request. "I would like some information on the birth-certificates to remain confidential," I announced to the two secretaries accepting my application. I could see their minds working feverishly in an attempt to figure out wht exactly I could want kept confidential on the birth-certificate. Illegitiamate twins? Twins with two different fathers? A diabolical secret such has not been dreamed up yet by the creators of "The Days of Our Lives" and "Shortie Street"?</span><br />
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<span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I could see their consternation, and when I revealed the real reason why I would like the certificates to remain confidential, it was obviously so mundane that they were only too happy to agree, and blacked out those two incriminating phrases "elder of twins" and "younger of twins" for me.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"> <span style="background-color: white;">And so now, when will the truth be revealed? The Sweetpea and I are still in doubt about that, but we are thinking maybe when they are 21, and we hand them the keys to the door. When they are old enough that their personalities have crystalised into the natural leader or follower, or two leaders, as the case may be, without having the predetermined stereotypes thrust upon them. </span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: white;"><span style="color: #7f6000; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">So I am afraid, readers, you will have to remain in the dark until that time too!</span></span><br />
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<br style="background-color: white; color: #073763; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;" /><img alt="Top Mommy Blogs - Mom Blog Directory" border="0" src="http://www.topmommyblogs.com/directory/images//banners/tmb-468x60.gif" style="-webkit-box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.199219) 0px 0px 0px; background-color: white; border-bottom-left-radius: 0px; border-bottom-right-radius: 0px; border-top-left-radius: 0px; border-top-right-radius: 0px; border: 1px solid rgb(204, 204, 204); box-shadow: rgba(0, 0, 0, 0.199219) 0px 0px 0px; color: #073763; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; margin: 0px; max-width: 100%; outline-width: 0px; padding: 0px; position: relative; text-align: justify; text-decoration: underline;" width="468" /><span style="background-color: #f3f3f3; color: #333333; font-family: Arial, Tahoma, Helvetica, FreeSans, sans-serif; font-size: 13px; line-height: 18px; text-align: justify;"> </span>Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-24308869900845623072012-07-08T00:37:00.000-07:002012-07-08T00:39:40.001-07:00Wrinkles are just antique smiles...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAXhld5b8RZNgfjG4xG9q_nT4Q37MtIAOptDLkJidq8NZ8ZF-iZchkkBIVZRfYVpw8NW-Co_SwbzoyDhWCn_cDE_NNotnsMlTxU2arxgW1T2jnjmM_dF5WX0V_El4LrtB0dxknblfW83g/s1600/100_0517.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><img border="0" height="240" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEjAXhld5b8RZNgfjG4xG9q_nT4Q37MtIAOptDLkJidq8NZ8ZF-iZchkkBIVZRfYVpw8NW-Co_SwbzoyDhWCn_cDE_NNotnsMlTxU2arxgW1T2jnjmM_dF5WX0V_El4LrtB0dxknblfW83g/s320/100_0517.JPG" width="320" /></a><span style="color: blue;"></span><br />
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">I thought we had more time before we had to answer the really tough questions in life. It appears not. And as an aside, why is it that the Sweetpea is always away for these discussions. It is really unfair and a bit rude, since he would be the one to answer them so much better than I.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: white; color: blue;">We have been away for a few weeks (as is evidenced by the lack of blogs too), and during that time, Sweetpea was acting as a locum for the local hospital. Not arduous work, but at times he was out at night, which is when the uncomfortable questions usually occur.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">Sam was musing in a concerned way as I tucked him into bed for the night. "We are getting older, aren't we?" he asked me. </span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">"Yes," I replied, "at your next birthday, you will be five, and then you will go off to school."</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">"But if we are getting older, then that means you are getting older too?" he queried, making sure all his facts were straight.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">I confirmed that this was indeed the case, that we all get older over time.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">I was totally unprepared for all three children's reactions. Sam and Paddy set each other off first - they started crying as though their hearts would break. "I don't want you to get older," wailed Paddy. "Then you will die and leave us alone."</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">Sam was sobbing uncontrollably at this point, and he set off Little Miss Snoopy, who started a determined wail of her own. Trying to comfort three wailing kids is no mean feat - I only have two arms after all. </span><span style="background-color: white; color: blue;">I called them all into my bed and positioned them, one on each side and one on the top, and tried to make them see reason.</span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;"><span style="background-color: white;">I talked to them about how they will one day go off to school, and then probably University, and how, at this stage of their lives, they will probably want to be out there on their own. And eventually, they might want to have families and children of their own, and then it won't seem as though they were all alone. But I should have recognised the futility of my arguments from the start, for while they were asking grown-up questions, their little minds could not comprehend a time when they would not feel like four-year old boys. A time when the answer to the question "what do you want to be when you grow up?" might not involve the answer "a superhero".</span></span></div>
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<span style="color: blue;">What a difficult and wonderful time of life. It reminds me of that classic quote from Aladdin, when referring to the all-knowing genie: "</span><span style="font-family: Verdana, sans-serif;"><span style="color: #660000;">Phenomenal cosmic powers</span>,<span style="color: #274e13;"> itty, bitty living space"</span>.</span> <span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: blue;">All this potential, trapped in four-year old minds.</span></span></div>
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<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: blue;">I can't wait to see what will happen next!</span></span><br />
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<span style="background-color: #f3f3f3;"><span style="color: blue;"><br /></span></span></div>Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com1tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-7307147977411983513.post-22749579990129159262012-06-26T01:00:00.000-07:002012-06-26T01:00:14.537-07:00A pinch to grow an inch...<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9XIIUCJnQvxesmTpiD_UGM05vJFRlpgCqcGxZ7ltrzIShRlF_EoWtHRMXhfo8iEv80k168UzgKBvpI6By2O7reXNx8faEYwdvx2ajhZ5DRRsM15sLJEmXOqGMjoNFPLPeZ9c47G9Eavo/s1600/Staglands+trip+082.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEg9XIIUCJnQvxesmTpiD_UGM05vJFRlpgCqcGxZ7ltrzIShRlF_EoWtHRMXhfo8iEv80k168UzgKBvpI6By2O7reXNx8faEYwdvx2ajhZ5DRRsM15sLJEmXOqGMjoNFPLPeZ9c47G9Eavo/s320/Staglands+trip+082.jpg" width="213" /></span></a><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Sometimes the things that make the greatest impression on a mother's heart are those things that are the saddest. The wry and funny things, those that are laughed at loud and long, are the ones that slip quickest from our memories. Pity, that.</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I had a sad one to deal with the other day. I took the boys to kindergarten, and, as is my habit, stayed around for a few minutes longer just to make sure that they were settling in and didn't need me before I left to do the day's chores. The boys are normally very conscious about me being with them for that time, and they take it upon themselves to show me around the kindy importantly, pointing out things I might not have noticed on one of my other humdred trips there. With great excitement, they led me around, showing me the swings, the lovely playground, the computers. </span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">One large disadvantage of having the mother along, though, is the fact that normal small infractions of the rules that usually go unnoticed are suddenly remarked on and corrected. I could see that one of my two had had enough when I asked him not to put the glass bricks on top of one another on the table, in case they fell off and were damaged.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">In a fit of pique, he said to me "Please go home now, Mama!"</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVSpDRipcRnbEwXfVhpf5LqHDjJNaA3Z8QRkHlkyCMJeiays6rl-pjfvbCsqG2blHfhzyDs00VDuJOHMtMDdkb0hY8FMvYDgJSzOmwPZPYsCH5FqijAEm8rYVYd6bhJPjHIAAreaCnquI/s1600/Staglands+trip+038.jpg" imageanchor="1" style="clear: left; float: left; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-right: 1em;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEgVSpDRipcRnbEwXfVhpf5LqHDjJNaA3Z8QRkHlkyCMJeiays6rl-pjfvbCsqG2blHfhzyDs00VDuJOHMtMDdkb0hY8FMvYDgJSzOmwPZPYsCH5FqijAEm8rYVYd6bhJPjHIAAreaCnquI/s320/Staglands+trip+038.jpg" width="213" /></span></a><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"Ok," I said, "I will go home now if you want me too."</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">I tried to act casual, like it was no big deal, but perhaps I am not as good an actress as I think I am. I gathered my things and started walking towards the door.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Within a few heartbeats, I heard loud sobs coming from behind me as my little boy came flying to find me.</span><br />
<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">"I am so sorry, Mama," he was crying over and over, "I didn't really mean what I said."</span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">Trying to leave the kindy after that became a mission impossible. Every time I tried to walk towards the door, he would break out into a new fit of hysteria, and I would have to console him again and try to get him to go back to his group. Eventually, I had to hand him over to his teacher, leaving him crying as though his heart was broken. It was the first time I have had to leave one of them upset, and I drove home like a mad thing, to jump on the phone to find out if all was okay with my little boy yet. Of course, he had been fine the moment I pulled out of the parking lot.</span><br />
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<a href="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0MNThD1bT-CNSgfDgywU8K5bvmgmS1uRvmso70WfYxoCv_gFdWZFkN7JgX7Ef9huyUHPv8qDCngSRqKIP2DQepMNKD0t46JzjQyOu439qp4lq4TE8kml2IbHhWxv3YTD96SrPM5RPcR8/s1600/Staglands+trip+033.JPG" imageanchor="1" style="clear: right; float: right; margin-bottom: 1em; margin-left: 1em;"><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;"><img border="0" height="320" src="https://blogger.googleusercontent.com/img/b/R29vZ2xl/AVvXsEh0MNThD1bT-CNSgfDgywU8K5bvmgmS1uRvmso70WfYxoCv_gFdWZFkN7JgX7Ef9huyUHPv8qDCngSRqKIP2DQepMNKD0t46JzjQyOu439qp4lq4TE8kml2IbHhWxv3YTD96SrPM5RPcR8/s320/Staglands+trip+033.JPG" width="240" /></span></a><span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">But I was made aware of just how sensitive a young child's soul can be. Later that night, as I was putting them to bed, thinking the whole incident forgotten, he looked deeply into my eyes, just as I do to them when I want them to understand some thing really important. Then he said to me, "I really didn't mean it, Mama. I don't ever want you to leave me". </span><br />
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<span style="color: #0c343d; font-family: Georgia, 'Times New Roman', serif;">And so I could go to bed that night, secure in my boy's love for me. What a great feeling.</span>Kezhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/03084462195338175238noreply@blogger.com0