It was a typically chilly winters day in London. I was at home bathing the T-Bot when The Daddy called me on his cellphone from his Daily Interminable Commute on the Tube. 

“Hey!” he shouted, “You know the Green Card Lottery we used to enter every year?” 

“Yes” I yelled back. Because I did know. 

“And then we stopped entering because there wasn’t a chance we would ever win?”

“Yes?” 

“Well! This year… phppphzzzzhhhhhhhhhhhpht.”

“What??????”

“I said! Phpppzzzzppppphhhhzzzzzzzt… and then…phhhhhhhhtzzzzztttt”

“What?!” I said “you’re breaking up! What did you say again?” 

“I said, this year is the first year they are only taking entries over the internet. That’s going to rule lots of people out. People who only have a rickety old community typewriter which is missing the z key. We could be in with a chance!” 

You’ve got to love The Daddy and his crazy schemes. We had started casting our lot with the US Diversity Visa, commonly known as the Green Card Lottery, in the early 90’s. Back then we used to write the few details required (name, address, DOB, country of citizenship) in longhand on a piece of paper, carefully attach a passport photo with tape, and mail it off to a physical address. We did this for a good few years because

hey!

why not?

It only cost the price of a stamp and after all someone had to win. 

In the meantime, life went on. We moved from New Zealand, where we were living, to France to the UK and back to New Zealand again. Then from New Zealand to the UK a second time. We declined a couple of offers to go work in the US because they were on H1B visas. We personally knew several people who had arrived on temporary visas, fought to stay in the US, and ultimately failed. Finally we stopped sending off our sad sheets of paper, and settled in London. 

So this is how I came to be in  a two-bedroom apartment in the London suburbs, giving the T-Bot his bath, while The Daddy tried to communicate from his rickety train.

“Phsssszzzzzzzt” said The Daddy. 

“Are you in a tunnel?” I asked.

“Pzzzzphhhhhhhhzzz….hhhhht”

“So… I’m guessing Harrow?” 

“Pshhhhh…gaohgaaaaaoooohhhhzzz” 

“We’ll talk about it when you get home. See you around eight.” 

“Pzzz…Yeah around then. As long as they don’t find leaves on the line.” 

(Look out for Part Two, later…)

…although I think I would be an awesome hairdresser!

(No false modesty here…)

Update on the Swimming Lessons.

Thursday: Did Not Go Well.

Friday: Looked like more of the same and then suddenly! Mr Justin took things up a few notches and the class was underwater, overwater, floating and kicking and things were looking better. The T-Bot came out of the session animated and excited at all he had achieved. Or it could have been that they were finally allowed to use all the floaters he had been coveting and so he had come out of his sulk. My little boy is not an easy read. 

Anyhow, one week to go and I have promised him that if he passes the course he will not have to go back. Actually if he does not pass the course he will especially not be going back because I refuse to pay another $130 if they can’t teach him right the first time. Obviously I did not tell him that. Just like the swimming school neglected to tell me that there was an exam to gain entrance to the class above, and that if he flunks I will have to pay again and again until he doesn’t.

No Sweat Play Areas

Last week we tried out all the indoor playgrounds in the vicinity. At the beginning of the week we did this because it was too hot to play outdoors. By the end of the week it was too wet. I am a big fan of indoor playgrounds, especially the ones which are free. But wait! Nothing is ever free. Here are some of our local options: 

1. Local mall.

Distance: Around 15 minutes. Time Spent: 2 hours playing, 15 minutes eating. Cost: Starbucks, $16

2. Fancier Mall in Town.

Distance: Around 30 minutes. Time Spent: 2 hours playing, half an hour eating, half an hour shopping. Cost: Fast Food, $11, Carousel, $3

3. McDonalds Playplace.

Distance: Around 5 minutes. Time Spent: 10 minutes eating, 1 hour playing. Cost: Food, $13

4. IKEA.

Distance: Around 40 minutes. Time Spent: 1 hour at Smaland drop in daycare, 30 minutes eating and watching Loony Tunes in the cafeteria, 30 minutes playing in the kids area of the store. Cost: Lunch, $19, various items of colored plastic crap for around the home: $45. 

5. Upstairs in our House.

Distance. 0 miles. Time Spent: Hours and hours. Cost: My hair, my control, my sanity at having to work out which tiny plastic bits go into which boxes when cleaning up afterwards. Also, Baby Sister stepped on a Lego and won’t stop going on about the hole in her foot. Definitely not the cheapest option. 

The Resident Magician

Yesterday I was out of the house hunting for treasures and left the kids digging up the yard with The Daddy (The Daddy is creating a mud pit which may, one day, with the addition of plants, turn into a tropical garden). The Daddy, if you give him the chance, is a true magician. I came home to a yard full of excited children all yelling at once about how they had made a pinata!! (recipe: old halloween candy, plastic supermarket bag, string), dug for treasure!! (old builders scrap and leaves discovered in the mud) and played with ice!! (entire contents of freezer ice maker dumped onto the driveway).

Then, their fun buckets full to the brim, they disappeared upstairs to play quietly and left me to some unaccustomed peace and quiet. It was very strange. I almost started to miss them. 

People, today we bought a Wii!

Oh, I can hear you snortling through your fingers and thinking “What? They didn’t buy a Wii until now?” Well, no. And that is a story for another day. 

So, today we bought a Wii! And for the MRSP!!  (Ha! How many of you have done that???) 

It all started when, last week, the children and I stumbled across a demonstration of Wii Fit at the local mall. The T-Bot tried it out and suddenly gave new meaning to the word animated, and even I had to admit it was mighty cool. 

This afternoon was spent dragging the children around the stores in search of the elusive console. And two hours and several tantrums later, the sweaty mess that our family had become finally found a Wii. Actually they had three at Target. So much for lack of availability.

They didn’t have the Fit part (I still have getting fit to look forward to then), but after several hours spent bowling, boxing and playing softball with the kids this afternoon I already feel a few years younger. Plus we have surfed the internet, created Miis, and checked out the weather and news around the globe.  

I resisted buying one for so long, thinking it was just another games console, and heaven knows, we have had plenty of those. But the Wii is a revelation. The setup was almost automatic, the layout is simple and elegant and even the children can mostly navigate the menus without tears. Apparently it is also backwards compatible with Gamecube games, which are readily available at our local Blockbuster.

The best thing of all? It is a family games machine, in the truest sense of the word. We spent two hours this afternoon, playing together, as a family. The games and the navigation are at everybody’s level.

And if the Miis in Wii Sport don’t have arms, none of us seem to care. 

One of my fondest memories of childhood is of my mother, dressed in her bikini, lying on her stomach on a towel by the side of the pool. Her arms and legs skimmed the cement and her neck craned like a turtle’s as she demonstrated how to do the breaststroke. It was a floundering, impotent version of the breaststroke, born of the need to Not Put Your Face In The Water - but a method of locomotion nonetheless. By the end of the summer I was adept at it. 

My ever so patient mother spent weeks introducing me to the pool in tiny, painful steps. We had moved to New Zealand from the UK the previous winter, I was about to turn seven and I could not swim. I very dramatically could not swim. The story goes that when my parents hired the local swimming teacher, the only one in town, to come to our house for a private lesson, I screamed so hard and so loud at being forced into the water that the neighbors gathered to discuss calling the police. 

Ahh, the swimming teacher. Let’s call her Mrs Beteljuus. She was a legend around those parts. A solid, accented, lady, she came second only to the School Dental Nurse (more usually known as The Murder House) in the Horror Stakes among those of us of elementary school age. While it is true that she got results, her technique consisted mostly of holding childrens heads forcibly under the water while counting, and yelling “breathe!” in tones reminiscent of a lowing bull. She was Very, Very Scary. 

So I will for ever be grateful to my mother for saving me from Mrs Beteljuus, if only for one summer. I applied myself, learned my lessons well, and soon was bobbing along confidently, my head carefully tipped back so as not to get my face wet. My mother, with her patience and stamina,  is single-handedly responsible for my love of the water today. And I thank her.

But there was, as Baby Sister would put it, “Just One Pwoblem”. I could not bring myself to put my head under the water (and how could my mother teach me, when she had never learned herself?). I could not dive in, dive under or do the crawl. So, the next summer, I found myself shivering and clinging to the side of the school pool while Mrs Beteljuus stalked and shouted overhead. 

********************************************************************************

This week I finally and reluctantly gave the T-Bot up to Mrs Beteljuus. Or her equivalent, Mr Justin, who does not hold childrens heads under the water even though he probably wants to. Desperately. At least in the case of my son.  Especially when my son is trying to bargain his way into using those fun floaty things instead of concentrating on the task in hand, namely Putting Your Face in the Pool. 

I signed him up for one of those two week courses. Half an hour, every day, in the hope that before he turns seven I will be able to turn my back on him without worrying about him going under and drowning. Today was Day Three and despite some serious whining and sulking, he has progressed from Inching His Way Around the Edge to Being Pushed Toward the Side, Arms Stretched In Front and Face in the Water and Coming Up By Himself. I am seriously amazed. This is the same child who, after Day One, told me that I had to get him another teacher, one who would “not make me put my face in the water”. The same child who, after every lesson, tells me he is “done and not going back”.

Yet, under all the dislike there is a glimmer of pride lurking, a real satisfaction at all he has achieved. I am sure he is looking forward to the freedom that swimming will afford him.

I know I am looking forward to the freedom that his swimming will afford me. And right now, my son? All that counts. Sorry. 

This morning I took my shower with an audience. As usual. The Wictor in the shower with me, the other three outside the glass door waiting for me to come out. 

Then the requests started: 

Child 1: Mommy look I made a pinata, I put stuff in it, time to play with the pinata Mommy!

Child 2: Mommy I need my pink dress, I can’t reach it, Mommy you have to get my pink dress from in my closet!

Child 3: Up! Up! Carry!

Child 4: So we need to decide if we just buy more tapes or if we buy a gigantic hard drive to store the video. What do you think we should do, buy a gigantic hard drive or more tapes? Huh? Huh?

At least I think that’s what they were saying, because they were all talking at once. 

After the general boredom which was last week, today we celebrated Day Three of Operation Park. In which we visit at least one park a day, in an effort to promote fresh air! exercise! and meet other kids! (or as the T-Bot so hopefully puts it, “make new friends!”).

Notes to Self for Future Forays to Park in 100 Degree Heat:

Do not wear those silky pants. They will not make you feel even one degree cooler. And if you do, accidentally, find yourself wearing them? Do not cross your legs in a vain effort to look more like Gisele Bundchen and less like a dumpling on an oven dish. Sweat marks around the knees and groin are probably, in most cultures, considered unattractive and even a bit ewwwwww. 

Also, children. Running around in this climate. They turn crimson. One bottle of water each will not be enough. The awesome plan of arriving early to beat the heat is also a no-go because before 9.30 we are 99.9% guaranteed to meet No New Friends and the children will do nothing but wander about aimlessly, scanning the horizon for approaching vehicles.

Incredibly, at 10am, as we are oozing our way back to the car like a family of exotic purple slugs (having engaged in some hurried sweaty play with whichever New Friends managed to arrive before we reached our limits of tolerance), there will be parents arriving, excited children in tow. And one or more of my dripping, dehydrated spawn will fall to their knees and bang their heads on the sidewalk in confusion and frustration because: New Friends!! Going in the Other Direction from Us!!

And then you, Dear Self, will have to drive them home and sling them Popsicles for a long, long time, until they cease complaining. 

Note to Husband:

Please consider the following gift ideas. Preferably for sooner rather than later:

1. Under Armour Bra

2. Under Armour Panties

3. Under Armour Capris

4. Under Armour Tee

If Operation Park is to continue, I need gear for the heat and I no longer care if I look like I got lost on the way to the gym.  Anything to wick that perspiration away.The keyword here is wick. Some serious wicking needs to be going on.

And while you are at it, you may as well find me an Olivia Newton John sweatband.

Because Shame? I no longer have it. 

It was T-Bot who noticed it. Quite frankly, I had not paid much attention to the product, let alone the packaging.

This is Freddy Flamingo, as featured on the front of a packet of Huggies Flushable Moist Wipes.

” Hey Mommy,” remarked the T-Bot, “they want us to go potty in a flamingo!”.

Then, obviously finding the idea more funny than gross, he jumped around for a while, giggling and mumbling in that six-year-old-boy fashion,

“potty in a flamingo! potty in a flamingo! ha-herrr! ha-herr! (snort)”

I know you can buy potty chairs and such with cat decals and giraffe spots and hippo faces but they are, you know, just decoration. Am I alone in finding Potty Flamingo a little disturbing?

I am so, so sorry.

I just can’t help it.

I just keep thinking of Freddy Flamingo, doing what flamingos do. Standing on one leg. Stalking through the reeds. Dipping his beak in the water. Preening his back. And … sloshing.

The T-Bot and Baby Sister have been experimenting with “knock-knock” jokes. They are quite frankly not very good at them. At any time I may be called upon to listen to and act impressed at such wonders as

knock knock

who’s there? 

lego

lego who?

lego man wearing pajamas and jumping off a couch and kicking a baddy, wow!

See? 

Somebody has been taking notes. So, this afternoon in the car I suddenly heard a little voice from the back seat: 

“knock knock!”

I answered:

“who’s there?”

and glanced back to see The Wictor all tensed up in his car seat in utter delight! and shock! that he had actually obtained an answer! A short silence. Then: 

“Pee!” 

“Pee who?”

Another pause. I darted him another look. He was about to explode with joy. He was a big boy! This knock knock thing was working! He got the power! Wow! 

“Pee who?” I pressed. 

This time, no hesitation:

“L,M,N,O,P!” 

Yeah, I know … Not quite. But the best attempt yet.