Were you watching the Today show today? 

Were you watching with the subtitles on? 

I was, because I was in the waiting room at Kwik Kar with the Wictor, while they gave my SUV car a quickie oil change. This was shortly before the oil change turned into “Your brake pads are about to disintegrate, give us another $300″ and we were trapped there for an extra hour, but I digress. 

When The T-Bot was a tiny baby he would only nap on my lap. No kidding, he would fall asleep and if I tried to move him or put him down he would wake up again and then everybody was grumpy. So I spent hours and hours sitting on the couch watching the TV, with the subtitles on. Because, did I mention, noise would also wake him up? 

So I consider myself quite an expert on subtitlers (or Subtitle Executives, or whatever they call the people who sit there and type what people are saying). And as soon as I looked up at the Kwik Kar TV screen, I knew I had hit a bad one. The subtitles were either in a strange foreign language or had been typed on a German keyboard. Or both. Or maybe whoever was typing had been drinking. Heavily. A million scenarios spring to mind. 

Unfortunately I did not have pen and paper to hand, but this one I could not forget. Meet Carnal Electra: 

Today is the first day of school after the summer vacation and sometime during the night T-Bot’s fish Charlie died. This morning he was lying curled up on the floor of the tank, so I didn’t believe it at first because I thought dead fish were supposed to float. But, after an exploratory poke into the tank to check he wasn’t just asleep, I had to keep poking to make it look like he was moving. Because he wasn’t, and today as you know was the First Day of School. I didn’t want anything to ruin this.

Then Baby Sister wanted to feed him.

“That’s OK! (OMG OMG OMG OMG)” I said brightly, “I already fed him this morning. Anyway, he’s still asleep”.

Yes, I do lie to my kids, sometimes. Especially when it is for their own good. And sometimes even when it is for mine. (”Mommy and Daddy Chocolate”, for instance. Is deathly to children). 

This morning they were all cooperation and excitement, and I was a bunch of nerves, although I think I hid it very well. We were ten minutes early for the bus, because apparently the school bus is a magical thing. Not quite like the Magic School Bus but almost. The T-Bot has been begging to ride the yellow bus since he started kindergarten. Now he is going into 1st Grade I finally let him, despite the dire warnings from certain American friends about some sort of  Lord of the Flies type alternative reality which is supposed to exist behind those blacked-out windows.  I saw immediately what she meant when two smirking 2nd graders wandered up and proceeded to stare at my son as if he was something gross that had just fallen off the bottom of their shoe. But then, the other boy at the stop was a very very nice 5th grader, and the bus driver lady was lovely, like somebody’s Mom.  So I decided that the odds of surviving this bus trip were probably hugely in his favor. 

That, by the way, is my New School Year’s Resolution. To look on the bright side and not stress about anything until it happens. Last year I let the whole school thing drive me to distraction. And yet the T-Bot? Was eager to go to school this morning, so it can’t be all bad. 

Baby Sister went back to pre-school later, into the Pre-K class, and I had promised her that she would not be in with the Four-Year-Old going on Fourteen-Year-Old who terrorized her last year. Note to Self, stop being so trusting and quit making promises based on information gleaned from other people. Still, she seemed happy to be back, for now at least. 

So, children dispatched, I set off for my appointment with the new dermatologist. And I swear, as if touching a dead fish, sending my four year old into the devil’s lair, and putting my six year old on a school bus were not stresses enough for one day, the dermatologists clinic had vanished into thin air! 

Another Note to Self: Stop being so trusting and quit giving any credence to information doled out by Mr Google Maps.  I had even looked at the street view, and the fact that it showed a service station possibly should have been a clue, but I figured the clinic was somehow behind it.  It wasn’t. It was about 2 miles up the road but it took me a while to ascertain this, given that the telephone number I had written in my agenda was for a random lawyer’s office. 

But they were very understanding about me being so late, and let me in to see the dermatologist anyway. And he was very nice about me wasting his time, because the two moles which were bleeding when I made the appointment a month ago are not bleeding anymore. He declared me a very disappointing carrier of “common or garden moles” (His pun. Intentional? Who knows?) and sent me on my way.  

And now? I do sort of miss my children. It is almost school run time. And bus pickup time because (jumping in air pumping fist a la Tom Cruise, who by the way, looks very dorky doing it but I swear when I do it, it is graceful) someone else is going to bring my eldest home for me! I will not have to spend 30 minutes in the car line today! 

And that is reason enough to celebrate. 

Personally, I am not into hothousing children. I am not into private tutors and extra lessons and the like, unless they are already in high school and need some individual attention or a kick on the rear end to get them into the best college or something (I imagine. Because, after all, if and when we get to that point it will be my money at stake. And already I am crossing my fingers and toes for a scholarship or a lottery win or for them to all be running profitable businesses by sixteen. Or a miracle).

And I am not into those awful workbooks you buy at the supermarket with Fun Math! and I Can Read! optimistically emblazoned across the covers. 

Sooooooooooo. At the beginning of this long, hot summer I talked about home schooling, but by that I meant fun projects and sticker books and weekly themes and the like. You know - read about dinosaurs, talk about dinosaurs, visit dinosaur bones at the museum. As it happened we managed to fill most of the last two months with random activities which did not need a theme. 

For example, Farmyard dioramas where animals graze amongst freaky enormous flowers…

…and dinosaur dioramas, notice that T-Rex has become a vegetarian?

And then, I woke up one morning last week and it hit me that there are only three weeks until school starts. And the T-Bot has forgotten how to write his numbers. 

So this week we are following a fun theme called “School at Home!”, where we sit around a table and I fabricate things for The Wictor to do while Baby Sister cuts and glues Things that Begin with A and B and C and the T-Bot works his way through a book called Fun with Math!

Seriously. I cannot think of a worst instrument of torture. I should have checked the book more thoroughly in the supermarket, but I had three children crammed into the cart and I was seduced by the fact that it had stickers. The worst thing is that the T-Bot loves math. He hates this workbook - and rightly so - because every single page involves counting up pictures and then writing the number in a box. But I am not a teacher. And so, for want of a viable alternative I make him do it, four pages a day, followed by a sentence of handwriting, and I will continue to do so until the boy can write the number 5 the right way around without searching for an example to copy. 

I make him do it. And every day I die a little inside. 

But it’s not all bad! His reward? Science. Yesterday we did science with a volcano. It was pretty cool, even if I was mean with the food coloring resulting in lava which flowed out pink. Today we launched lego men off the balcony with different types of parachutes. Kitchen towel? Not so good. Plastic bags - better. 

And Baby Sister? She is bright, quick witted, very sharp. But as far as reading goes she is definitely waiting for her time. Things that begin with B: Cat. Toothbrush. Flowers. 

We are at the pool, and the T-Bot (who two weeks ago refused to even put his mouth in the water, let alone his whole face, or his whole body) is showing The Daddy how he can dive for squid weights. With help. 

The Daddy throws the weights to the bottom, and the T-Bot dives down, down, down. Scoops up the weights and then sits on the bottom of the pool. Puts an arm up and waits patiently. 

Look!” says The Daddy, his eyes sparkling with pride and excitement, “He’s underwater!”

“Yes,” I call pointedly. “He’s underwater!!!!!!”

“Wow!!!” says The Daddy, all emotional (His son is becoming a man), “Underwater! Underwater!”

“Um, The Daddy!” I yell, he’s UNDERWATER!!!!! 

“Oh! SH–” 

Clearly their technique needs a little refinement. On both sides. 

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. 

Already it is the third day of summer vacation, and things are going better than expected. Thank you for asking. I have been employing the “play 30 minutes, get peace 30 minutes” tactic and it is mostly working. Obviously my peaceful 30 minutes are spent doing housework and administrative tasks while they flop around bored on the sofas, but at least there is that.

We started the week with a trip to the Public Library. No, scratch that. The plan was to start the week with a trip to the Public Library but Mommy had not done her homework and it turned out to be closed until 1pm. So we went to the Post Office instead. Where my children amazed me by standing in line for 20 minutes without incident. Of course, that was way back in the days when summer vacation was still a novelty. 

We then arrived at the library at 1pm on the dot. The spawn were delighted as we have not visited this particular sacred institution since January, when I amazed even myself by occuring $42 in late fines (I am hoping here that The Daddy does not do more than his admitted “skimming” of this blog, for a $42 fine, like a new handbag, should mostly go unnoticed). Seventeen books later we were out of there and let me tell you, those books have been a lifeline. The several hundred childrens tomes we already own count for nothing next to these shiny new baubles with their crisp covers and gluey smell. I swear, glossy new library books are like horse tranquilizer where my children are concerned, and in the intervening hours we have known silence for several minutes at a stretch as they ponder the latest adventures of Arthur or that strange talking pig whose name eludes me. 

While at the library someone made a comment which threw me a little. I am still not sure how I should take this: 

The Wictor, apparently,  looks like Linus.

Also, on the way there Baby Sister threw a mini fit because I was singing the words wrong. Belinda Carlisle’s big hit was actually “Kevin has a Place on Earth”.

So, that was Monday. Tuesday was filled up with a major supermarket shop (again, all three treated it more as an adventure than a chore and stayed in the cart the whole time, a new record), then some play, some computer time (for them, not me) and lots of glum lounging on the sofas in the afternoon. When The Daddy came home they could finally stop all that asking was it pool time now, because it was! Then I only had The Wictor to look after, while the other two jumped all over their father.

Today is Wednesday. Morning. Stupidly, I did not plan any outings and as a result have been called upon over and over and over and over to help with this or play with that.  Sure, it looks like I have been sneaking away to post but it is all smoke and mirrors. I wrote this in many, many 2 minute installments. Sigh. I feel as though I will never get uninterrupted computer time again.

But I am proud of myself, for so far I have only yelled once.  

Oh and things are looking up! We do get an outing today! To the doctors at 3.15, and then probably to the hospital next door for an X-ray. I ignored Dr Google who said call 911, because let’s face it, if my brother jumped on my foot, and it didn’t even swell up or hurt when manipulated, and neither did my knee or my toes, and it was only hurting enough for me to say “ouch” when I put weight on it and cause me to sit down, I would be waiting around for that sucker to heal, instead of wasting a doctor’s valuable time.

But seeing as how there is a child involved, and CPS who we are hoping not to get involved, and seeing as I would never forgive myself if I did nothing and it turned out to be some major fracture or something, I am thinking very hard right now about how we can present this as a Magical! Doctors Office! Adventure!

Wish us luck…

A few minutes ago, I picked up the T-Bot from school. Finally the day has come - the magical Last Day of which we have been talking excitedly for weeks. As I pulled up at the end of the car line, the school audio system was broadcasting “Celebration”. And then The T-Bot was in the car, frantically pulling folder after folder out of his backpack to show me. And prizes he had bought with his Happy Tickets. And cards. And books. And I breathed an enormous sigh of relief because I hate the school run. And I won’t have to do it for three whole months. Oh, and also I will have the time to take a shower and not just on weekends.

Soon we will all go and pick up Baby Sister from pre-school and then - at least until next fall - I will gain two delicious hours per weekday. Two hours in which I will not be driving between schools or sitting stationary in car lines, listening for the 6 trillionth time to “Incy Wincy Spider”. Or worse, Baby Sister’s current favorite, “Heaven is A Place on Earth”.

Of course, during those two hours there will still be children to think about.

When I tell people my three children will all be home over summer, they look at me like I have lost my marbles. Incredible how it only takes a generation to forget what is achievable. When I was growing up, summer camp was something you read about in books. Occasionally there might be a kids theatre workshop or something going on, but that was something you had to beg to participate in, rather than a way to make your parents life easier. So tell me, why has it become so darn strange to look after your own kids? I mean, if you can, because you are home all day and all.

As the time draws closer, I am actually looking forward to it. Our nighttime routine has already started to slip, in anticipation of no more early morning schedules. Last night The Daddy came upstairs with gingerbread blobs (gingerbread men unintentionally created with too little flour) while we were reading stories, and so bedtime was delayed while we crunched away thoughtfully. We’ll catch up on sleep some other day.

Then there are the playdates. Playdates for kids and Mommies too! Nobody I know comes around after school anymore, unless pushed, because a visit that starts at 4pm… when you need to get dinner on at 5? Not really a goer. I am strangely, childishly exhilarated at the thought of revisiting the era when we would hang out all day, drinking tea and gossiping in the kitchen while the children ran wild upstairs.

I have plans of course. Huge plans. For activities and visits and educational opportunities. Crafts and baking and experiments and exercise and oh! It will be Fun with a capital F! Notwithstanding the fact that when The Daddy arrived home yesterday I collapsed on his shoulder whimpering “how oh how will I survive three months when I can’t survive three hours?”, I am sure we are going to have a great time.

But ask me again on Monday.

I remember when I told my aunt she was going to be a Great Aunt. She had actually known for quite a while, but the penny hadn’t quite dropped that she was going to *be* a Great Aunt. By this I don’t mean an aunt who is really great, that goes totally without saying… I mean a Great-Aunt, as in “like a grandmother but slightly sideways on the family tree”. 

We were on the phone when I informed her of this fact. There was a silence, a quick denial, and then another silence as it sunk in. She was only 52 at the time. But she soon got over it, and quickly slipped into the Great Aunt role like you would slip on a slinky new dress. 

Well, tonight The Daddy informed me that I am going to be a Great Aunt.  And it played out in exactly the same way. I have known all day that Eldest Nephew and his wife were expecting, and it was hardly a big surprise, but it hadn’t crossed my mind to think about exactly what my relationship would be to their child. 

And I have to say that I am still in shock. When I married the late-in-life “bonus child” of a large extended family I knew I was being incorporated into a family tree packed with nieces and nephews almost as old as I am. But no one, ever, had the decency to take me aside and explain what that could mean. That I would be a Great Aunt at 36. 

Can I reject the label?  What do you think?

I would settle for just being a great auntie. 

(A Simple Tale…)

My favorite doll growing up was a Chinese doll. Not in today’s sense of a doll made in China - she was made in France and would probably be worth a fortune today if I hadn’t, very inexpertly, cut her hair (she does look a little evil now, but remember - she used to have bangs*). She wasn’t a collector doll either, to be stood on a shelf and brought down only for the obligatory 6-monthly dusting. No, this was an honest to goodness, full size, ready-to-play-with doll who just happened to have tanned skin and Asian features. 

I loved her, very probably because she was different. And I still remember the day I decided to give her a name. I must have been quite old, I think around six, but if she already had an identity I had decided it was unsatisfactory. She needed a Chinese name. 

(Was it around this time that the Chinese government was sending out propaganda posters to foreign schools? I vaguely remember one which looked like it should be an introduction to life in the People’s Republic, but upon closer inspection was just a bunch of poorly reproduced photos of various PRC politicians, with captions singing their praises. Yes, I went to that kind of elementary school -  if there was a bare wall they would fill it with anything that came to hand).

I have vivid memories of following my parents around the house pestering them for a list of Chinese monikers. Actually, I can clearly see myself following my mother into the bathroom and my father the length of our very large yard, including through a heavy gate, all the while insisting that they must have a name for my doll. And they just couldn’t come up with anything to my liking. 

I should note that at this time we lived in a rural area where there were plenty of white and brown skinned people but very few of any Asian variety. My parents, though fairly well travelled, had very possibly never met anybody Chinese, at least not for long enough to be on first name terms. And I have to assume (to be fair to them) that they did try to fob me off with the standard fare, such as Lily or Willow or Jade. 

(A few years later we moved to the city, to an area where the mix was about 10% Chinese, but there, inexplicably, all the girls were called Jenny).

No, more likely the issue was with me being a persnickety child. Nothing would do. 

Until finally, my father, exasperated, yelled out “Mao Tse Tung”. And then, I could not be dissuaded from using this very Chinese sounding name, even through talks of  repression, cleansing and famine. That’s just the kind of kid I was. And that is how I came to have a girl doll called Mao Tse Tung. 

(*English speakers: that means a fringe. Yes, I always used to wonder what Laura Ingalls Wilder was going on about too. All those girls with bangs on their head, what on earth was the matter?). 

1. I saw a real, live Renault Megane driving down our street! I did a double take, listened hard for that spooky Twilight Zone music and then ran home to tell The Daddy, because as far as we know they don’t sell them here.  

2. Yesterday I finally found some espresso grind coffee in one of the local supermarkets. We stopped drinking espresso for a while when we got our new drip filter, but then decided it was time to use the machine again before its insides went moldy. The only problem? In the meantime it seems every supermarket in town had noticed their sales had dropped 100% and decided not to carry espresso grind anymore. 

I almost left the fancy silver Illy tin on the shelf because ye gods! $13.99 for a tiny tin of coffee? I think I was paying $5.49 before. But I am so glad I brought that baby home because tonight we had the best espresso we have had in a very long time. The crema alone was to die for, smooth and sweet like hot chocolate. 

3. The kindergarten class had a Mothers Day breakfast this morning and although T-Bot refused to sing or do the actions to the cute song they had been practicing for weeks, he was very excited about giving me the blue crepe paper flower he had made. And because he was excited, I was excited.