A Whale Of A Time

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.  

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 It's all in the bag...). 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.

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.

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.

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.

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".

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.

Making tracks...

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.

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).

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.

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?"

You just can't win!

A star is born....

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.

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.

His brother did not turn a hair at his performance.

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."

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 God made some heads perfect, the rest He had to cover with hair...), and was obviously dismayed that I could suggest something that would so blatantly exaccerbate the situation.

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.

The Beach Boys

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.

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).

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".

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.

We missed the flowers again, but I think the antics of the kids more than made up for the lack.

I can deal with anything as long as I am wearing the right clothes...

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.

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:

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.

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:

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

Any car/monster truck/motorbike = 2 points

Lightening McQueen = 5 points, unless pictured with Mater, then take off 2 points

Bob-the-Builder = 3 points, unless pictured with one of the trucks/diggers/grabbers 

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

Buzz lightyear is worth 7 points, but only if pictured without Woody.  If Woody is there, minus 5 points

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

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.

Also, if the shirt has a hoodie on it, add a further 5 points.

If the shirt has sleeves that are too long and need to be rolled up, take off another 5 points.

No tracksuit pants with cuffs at the bottom, no matter how cool, can equal a pair with no cuffs at the bottom.

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?  

Let me know how this works out for you!

My fingers may be small, but I can still wrap Daddy around them...

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.

I wanted to photograph the results for posterity.  These are not all Father's day presents, but are all special in some way:

This is Paddy's fire-engine.  I particularly love the ladder and also the sirens placed strategically on the top.

This is the card that Little Miss Snoopy made while at music classes (with a bit of help from her lovely nanny).

 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".

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....

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!

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.

A class act...

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.

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!"

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."

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.

So, pros and cons - is that not just like life?  It can't just be clear-cut, can it?