Please I'm not a camper

'You need to be at school for the camp at 6 o'clock.' 'The what?' 'My school camp.' Hhon you know I don't do camping' Long pause, face starts to pucker. "okay, I'll do the camp, although I'm sure I didn't sign anything to say I would..." I don't get there until the kids are getting ready for bed. Its early yet and still time for a bit of fun - or so I think, until very nice teacher by day turns into big scary teacher by night. "Be quiet' she roars. ' you should be asleep.' OMG its still daylight. The parents stand around shuffling from one leg to the other. So what now? Wine? Beer? Scrabble? There's nothing for it but to retreat from the threat of mozzies and face a bedtime I usually only dream about. And it would be a dream except (Jaws theme music) I am surrounded by three eight year old boys. Can we tell ghost stories? Yeah, says I far too enthusiastically for a mature adult. 'Weeeeeeellll' Child one goes off on the longest, most tangential, unscary ghost story I have ever hear. Child two has dropped off to sleep with boredom. 'Be quiet' booms scary teacher, who has now transformed into Attila the Hun. We all jump bolt upright, including the sleeping child. 'Right,' says I, 'Here's my ghost story.' 'you can't talk about blood,' says one "Or ghosts,' says another. "or vampires.' My creativity is stunted. Child one and two start to drop off to sleep. 'What do we do now?" says child three (who happens to be mine). 'We could play with the torch.' "Be quiet," roars Attila. Sighing I use my number one method of trying to get to sleep - daydreaming in detail about the day I learn I have won Lotto. The night progresses. 'Caaaaaaass, I need to go to the toilet," 'Caaaaaaaass, I cant find a torch," "Caaaaaaaasssss, I can't unzip the tent," 'Caaaasss, my airbed has come down. "Caaaaasssssss, can I get in with you?" "Absolutely not,' says I emulating Attila the teacher. There IS a limit. The night drifts on. A roar comes from outside the tent. Someone is playing the DVD of 'Where the Wild Things Are." Or perhaps I've woken up in Wellington Zoo. No, it the children in the next door tent. Hee heee, haw haw, giggle, chortle,. Now its the kids on the other side. Its in stereo. And its pitch dark. The time is 5am. Where is Attila the teacher now? Seems like its a hanging offence to talk after 8pm but 5am is perfectly acceptable. I clamber out of bed. "Be quiet,' I demand. I clamber back into my bag, I try to sleep but I am livid with the injustice of the situation. Why are early birds so righteous and night owls condemned? 'Time to get dressed', I hear one of the parents say. It's only 6.30! I abandon ship, so angry I go home and pull weeds from the garden for half an hour to calm down. Finally shower and head to work for a strategic planning session with the board - a picnic in comparison with what I've been through. Next year Dad gets the job.

Ageing: the tipping point

There's been a bit of aging going on in our house lately. Boy and girl were counting off the days for weeks off the days for weeks until their birthday while man-child ad I hid for longer under the duvet as the anniversary of each of the days we were born ticked over. Boy and girl child planed their parties with intricate detail while we adults bought in extra food ad drink and invited only friends who were older than us as a support group. !' say I'm trying to remember the tipping point into old age. When I stopped looking forward to birthdays and began to fear them. When I stopped obthering to preen myself in front of the mirror like th children and instead scuttled away pulling the loosening skin up behind my ears. I remember a mild crisis when I was the ripe of age of 22, beig philisophical at 30 and leaving the country at 40. But this year was particularly cruel. Stupidly on my birthday I decided to reintroduce myself to the gym. I got on the arc trainer, I programmed in weight and age with a shudder and strode off on the spot to make up for all the chocolate I had ever eaten in my life. Suddenly lights began flashing 'slow down' and the machine announced ' your heart rate is too high.' "Pooh" say I and puffed harder on the weight loss, cardio, make yourself look fab programme. Then, to my horror, the machine announced it was switching to manual to 'manage' my heart rate before shutting down completely. I was so angry I kicked the inanimate object and set my arthritis off again. Striding home I caught sight of boy child joyfully playing with his newly acquired birthday toys. He was terribly sad that he would have to wait another whole year until his next birthday, but bursting with joy that he would be in 'double digits.' This will of course be followed closely by the joy of being old enough to drive, drink legally, marry, have a mortgage and somewhere, sometime, you'll reach the tipping point and your loving parents will be there with the presents of your choice: anti inflammatories, hair dye and a heart rate monitor.

Heading for a Fight

I confess that sometimes the parental tax service gets so busy that we run from one thing to another without necessarily thinking what we are doing through: ballet, swimming, drama, piano, soccer, netball - of yeah and school - it never-ending. So a few Saturdays ago when I looked on the calendar and saw that a Tae Kwon Do tourament was next on th elist, I was more worried about whether the dobok (the TKD uniform) was clean and how we would fit this new activity around winter sports - than whe we were actually letting our children in for. When we arrived, boy-child boldly announced, 'My fight is at 4.30" "Fight? What fight?" I said, momentarily distracted by a nearby shopping mall. I proudly watrch girl-child in patterns ansd thought what a lovely extra curricular activity this was. But when I saw me wee son being kitted out in helmet and body padding, I started to break out in a cold sweat. My anxiety levels then excalated off the scale watching one of his little school mates kicking the living daylights out os some stranger on an over-sized mat. The fight was stopped momentarily while one of the wee boys wiped his tears and gained composure. Mothers were weeping silently and father were grinning proudly. This was surely not happerning. But there he was - boy-child, one the mat, psyched to the max. The buzzer went and the fight began. I cannot explain what I felt at that moment, but a cvoice inside my head kept saying ' this jext ain't natural. I'm supposed to be a nurturing mother and yet here I am supporting my son in a scrap." I decided to cheer for him to distract myself. 'Kick him Zandie - kick him." I called, then recoiled in horror. " OMG, what am I doing?" My sweet little boy won his fight and there was back-slapping and hand-shaking all round. Well - from the blokes anyway. The women gave each other sympathetic looks and half-hugs as we wondered how we had meandered into this foreign land. Lgic says TKD is a fantastic sport for discipline, strength, self-discovery and, of course, self-protection. Logic is, of course, correct, but logic doesn't always work for emotional mothers. The kids love it; they'll keep doing it with my full support. But next time there's a tournament I'll be coweing in the toilets - or even better - heading for the shopping mall.

Bullying and the Aftermath

Last year, I discovered that one of my children was the victim of bullying. They didn't tell me themselves - they were too embarrassed. You would think a child that has plenty to say about terrible injustices such as having to eat vegetables and make their own bed would have plenty to say about being bullied. But bullying isn't like that.
It creeps up on you like a slow groth. Sometimes you think you hust imagined it - until it happens again. Sometimes you think you're going slightly mad. All all the time if ebbs away at your self-esteem - like the sea on the Paekakariki seawall.
It broke my heart when I heard about the bullying, not just because it was nasty and unjustified, but because it was another one of life's experiences and it wouldn't be the last time they'd face it. Bullying and related activity come in many forms right through life, as we adults all know.
The irony of my child's plight was not lost on me when I knew a little about what the Board of Trustees was dealing with at Paekakariki School. A number of complaints about the way past and present staff had allegedly been treated. Each complaint had to be thoroughly investigated, taking hundreds of hours of the Board's time. Some asked why these issues hadn't come up beofre. Well it's not that simple. To stand up to an issues when you feel like you've been regularly undermined is far from easy.
Years ago as a fledgling journalist writing a feature on domestic violence, I interviewed numerous women who had been victims. Why didn't they just walk away? Well, they said, the day after it happened life was back to normal. The only thing that was different was a feeling in your belly that it could happen again anytime soon. They said it was like walking on egg shells and, you thought, if you were really careful and kept light on your feet you could keep th shells from crushing.
So I told my child what I knew about bullying. I told them that almost everyone experiences bullying at least once in their lives. I told them that bullying can be caused by stress and that it is probably inherent in all of us given the right mixture of circumstances. I said a brave way to deal with bullying was to stand up to it. But that too has its own consequences.
And the best we can do as parents who have all experienced bullying is to stand up for our children, and in the case of Paekakariki, for the teachers too.
But in the meantime, I advocate a short term solution - eye up some blades of grass, imagine they are the bullies, and then get the lawn mower and deal to them.

Lessons in Being Uncool

'Girl Child" I yelled.
"I can't get this button to work."
"I'm not the family techno-wizz," she responded.
Well why did I have children, if they can't help me programme recordings of Desperate Housewives?
Tongue in cheek- but nevertheless - I am not sure what I would do without a child of the -z-generation to guide me through the rapid changes in technology. It was Girl child who taught me how to use my i-phone, without reading instructions. It is Girl Child I call on to help me through the complexities of the modern-day TV and all its accessories.
Z-generation (and Y too I'm sure) are wired differently - they're intuitive - I read an instruction manual. There are other less inspiring things I am learning through Ms Z. For example, she has just confirmed for me that I am incredibly uncool. I knew this would happen. I just thought I might squeeze a couple more moments of adultation from her. Evidently it is 'so wrong' to invite friends to 'play.' Evdiently now you have to say 'would you like friend over to 'hang out.' Like 'let's all hang out you funky chickens?' I say making chicken movements with my head.
'That's just sad,' was the response. 'First you were uncool, now you're just trying too hard - and that's way more uncool. It's sad.'
Man, these lessons are tough - or is that - Yo these lessons are tough? I'll have to ask.
At the age of twelve, Girl child clearly knows everything. Or maybe not. Last week she asked if she could go and 'hang out' with a friend at Coastlands.
'Convince me why,' I said.
'We'd have a really good time withough grownups and we can spend money.'
'And in what way is that a good thing?"
Sit down Girl child and your incredibly uncool mother will speak to you about the art of persuasion.
There is still much to teach you ... grasshopper.

Black Friday

On the morning of Friday the 13th I watched the Breakfast telly hosts sneering at people who are suspicious about the date. I had to agree. Intelligent people don't hold out much belief in 'old wives tales' and old fashioned suspicious beliefs. One hour later I was begging at the Air New Zealand counter after having been mistakenly booked on a flight that had already departed. Could happen to anyone at anytime. So could an error that meant there was no rental car for me to pick up when I got to Auckland making us an hour late for our meeting. Nothing to do with it being Black Friday.
We were meeting with advertising agencies – you know those companies where the prerequisite to working there is that you are blonde, blue eyed and incredibly slim – and that’s just the guys. Attempting to behave incredibly cool, I got my foot caught in my handbag and went head first into the door in front of a boardroom of ‘Joe-cools.’
Back at the airport later that day there was a gate change and I ended up trying to board a flight to Christchurch instead of Wellington. As I reached down to get my boarding pass from my bag my finger smashed into the skirting board and a large wooden splinter rammed itself right down the length of my fingernail. Dizzy with pain, I heard my name being called to please board immediately. I tried to break into a run when the heel snapped off my shoe. I hobbled onto a plane full of annoyed waiting passengers. By this time my finger was swelling in red rage at the foreign object that had slammed into it. I spent the flight dipping my finger into a warm cup of tea in an effort to ease the pain – it didn’t! Black Friday? Surely just coincidence.
Back in Wellington I took my broken shoes off and walked through the airport barefoot, splashing into a freezing puddle in the dark outside.
By the time I got home, a throbbing mess, I was bundled off to the after hours medical centre to have the splinter extracted. The Dr said it wouldn’t be as painful as childbirth. The only difference was it didn’t take quite as long. $65 and a $5 packet of antibiotics later, I am typing this blog with one hand.
in the hope that I never have such a tale to write about Black Friday ever again.

Adrenalin Forest Porirua – a review of sorts

If you fancy an adrenalin hit for free, try taking your kids to Adrenalin Forest in Porirua. You will, of course, have to pay for your children. But that comes with the chance to watch your distressed offspring dangle from a 25 metre high rope pleading for help – all at no extra cost.
There are five grades of high ropes. The top is 25 metres. There are no age restrictions only height. The first sign of trouble was when the manager broke their own rules and insisted boy child could do the whole course even though he wasn’t quite tall enough. The children were whisked through to a safety briefing that had already begun. And brief it was. The key message was that once you’re up the tree you’re on your own, so don’t forget to always stay clipped on. No guides are up in the trees and to me the expectation that a nine year old boy would remember to keep clipping himself to the wires under increasing stress was mildly ridiculous.
And so it began, a slow creeping horror as boy and girl child climbed higher and higher away from terra firma with me running from tree to tree, craning my neck to yell instructions.
The first real trouble was on Grade 3. Boy child was indeed too short and not strong enough to tug the pully along as he balanced precariously sideways on a rope. He hung suspended above me sobbing 'Oh God Mama, Oh God,' and I could do absolutely nothing about it. Then it was no holes barred. All rules about not swearing until you’re 18 went out the window as he yelled and screamed down from his 14 metre high hell. "Girl child and I promised fun-filled flying foxes if he could just get through this tiny little bit of difficulty. It was, in fact only a half truth, as there were a few more challenges before the flying foz. ‘You lied,' he screamed at us in outrage. "You lied, you are liers.’
But the real nightmare was Grade 5. Let’s just say a lot of the adults didn’t dare to try this grade. One woman told me she was ‘going home to change her pants’ after the 22 metres high Grade 4.
Girl child’s confidence was rocked on the ghastly slip ropes where ropes looped in stirrups slide down as you put weight on them forcing the other side up. You then have to fling your other leg high in the air to force the stirrup down – all this while balancing 25 metres in the air. By this time I was reciting the rosary while listening to Girl child snuffling away to herself miserably alone in the air. Somehow, she got through that but on the next part the guide starting screaming at her to go back to the start. He claimed she was on the wrong side of this activity – even though there were no instructions. That was the living end. Girl child slunk over the rope and all I could hear was ‘can’t, can't, can't,' sobbed over and over again. The guide started to give her instructions but I had had enough. ‘Believe me this girl is staunch' I said. 'And if she says she can’t, well she bloody well cant’ I said. ‘Get her down.' The guide looked at me. "Now!'
And he was gone up a ladder to her rescue.
My heart was wrenched at the tragic look on girl child’s face as she was lowered down under the watchful eye of the guide. "How embarrassing' she sobbed. Despite the fact that by this time there was noone there.
Ridiculous exercises such as this are not totally unfamiliar to me, although I wish they were. A previous boss had a penchant for pushing us outside our comfort zones in similar strange and wonderful activities. But I have to say, although I often felt blind terror, I never felt as unsafe as I felt my kids were that day.

Ban Summer Holidays

There’s been a bit of talk again how we’re missing out on statutory holidays and if the special days fall in the weekend, we should get Monday off. I’m totally against the idea. In fact I’ve decided to write to the Prime Minister to suggest he bans all holidays.
If even half of New Zealand felt like I did the week I had to go back to work after a summer break, we’re in serious trouble. If the psychological state I was in was multiplied by the New Zealand workforce, the nations psyche is in serious danger and that’s got to be bad for the government – especially in election year.
Holidays give you a taste of something unrealistic and unsustainable – a nirvana where we get to focus on our health and wellbeing and our families. We are almost always nice, thoughtful and without stress. We have enough sleep, we exercise and we set ourselves up workout regimes that are doomed to failure. We are creative, we write, we paint, we garden we have take time to cook. Surely all that lack of real productivity has got to be bad for the countries GDP.
Even worse when our credit card bill brings us back to the first realistic bump and we return to work, we spend the first few days drinking numerous amounts of coffee (that we made a New Year’s resolution not to spend so much money on this year) and then skip to alcohol by late afternoon for medicinal purposes only. Our work consists of pushing our inbox around like a child with a plate full of vegetables, eyes darting sideways for anywhere we can slip them without having to actually address them.
Weekends too should probably be banned. After washing, cleaning and carting the kids around sports fields, sometimes, just sometimes, a few spare hours in the weekend beckon us back toward the road to freedom.
So John Key, forget the sale of state assets – if you want a real election platform this is it – an end to annual leave. I’m sure he’ll buy it.

Bully Bashing

Last year I discovered that one of my children was the victim of bullying.
They didn’t tell me themselves – they were too embarrassed.

You would think the act of being bullied would make a child express immediate outrage. The kind of outrage I see when they are requested to eat vegetables, make their bed or hang up the bath mat. But bullying isn’t like that. It creeps up on you like a slow growth. Sometimes you think you just imagined it – until it happens again. Sometimes you think you’re going slightly mad. And all the time it eaks away at your self esteem - a bit like what the Paekakariki beach is doing to our seawall.

It broke my heart when I heard about the bullying, not just because it was nasty and unjustified, but because it was another one of life’s experiences and it wouldn’t be the last time they’d face it. Bullying and related activity come in many forms right through life as we adults all know.

The irony of my child’s plight was not lost on me when I knew what the Board of Trustees was dealing with at Paekakariki School. A number of complaints about the way past and present staff had allegedly been treated. Each complaint had to be thoroughly investigated, taking hundreds of hours of the board’s time. Some asked why these issues hadn’t come up before. Well it’s not that simple. To stand up to an issue when you feel like you’ve been regularly undermined is far from easy. Years ago as a fledgling journalist writing a feature on domestic violence, I interviewed numerous women who had been victims. Why didn’t they just walk away? Well, they said, the day after it happened life was back to normal. The only thing that was different was a feeling in your belly that it could happen again anytime soon. They said it was like walking on egg shells and, you thought, if you were really careful and kept light on your feet you could keep it at bay.

So I told my child what I knew about bullying. I told them that almost everyone experiences it at least once in their lives. I told them I told them that bullying can be caused by stress and that is probably inherent in all of us given the right mixture of circumstances. I said the best way, but a brave way, to deal with bullying is to stand up to it. But that too has its own consequences.
And the best we can do as parents who have all experienced bullying at least once along life’s rocky roads, can only do our best to stand up for our children, and in the case of Paekakariki, for the teachers too.

In the meantime, for a quick fix, I said. Find some blades of grass, name them after the bullies, then get the lawn mowere and deal to them! Works for me.

How Bizarre

I pondered briefly with the idea of evolution, but since I’ve had children I am convinced there is a greater being who designed this interesting life we parents lead. They are someone with a great sense of humour sitting cross legged on a cloud having a good old chuckle everyday at our expense.

Someone who watched us as Dinkies (double income no kids), partying, holidaying, sleeping (oh remember sleeping?), reading undisturbed and then planted the idea into our heads that life would be all the more glorious if we had children – what a bizarre idea.

So look - there we are, swollen with pregnancy, vomiting and passing out and becoming more distorted in size – and how bizarre we look.

And – oh look at me now - going through the worst physical pain imaginable, an ordeal that should be rewarded with a couple of weeks in hospital but instead rushing home to get up every few hours to empty any goodness we have left in our bodies into a babies mouth – and how bizarre we look.

And there we are now sitting proudly showing off our newborn as if it’s the most beautiful thing, while others, more connected with reality, stare down at a screaming, purple rat and lie through their teeth at the beauty of it – and how bizarre we all look.

And – look at us now – we’re doing it all again - consequently spending years wiping poo and vomit off all manner of places and assuring ourselves that this is far more worthy than drinking cocktails by a pool at a Bali resort or shopping in Milan – now the big creator fella is really laughing.

And so it goes: freezing at sports fields in the weekend, sleeping in tents with rowdy children, baking muffins for plates in the middle of the night, modifying ballet costumes (also at midnight), regularly practicing the guitar when you don’t even know how to play it and on and on the bizarreness goes.

We’ll that’s as bizarre as I’ve got so far. But with ten years and more of this to come I could rewrite the lyrics to OMC’s top ten hit and make it my theme song. I just hope there’s somebody up there still getting some amusement out of it all.

Heading for a Fight

I confess that sometimes the parental taxi service gets so busy that we run from one thing to another without necessarily thinking it through. Ballet, swimming, drama, piano, guitar, soccer, netball – oh yeah, and school - and on it goes. So a few Saturdays ago when I looked in the diary and saw that a Tae Kwon Do tournament was next on the list, I was more worried whether the Dobok was clean and how we would fit it around winter sports, than what we were actually letting our children in for.

When we arrived boy-child boldly announced ‘my fight is at 4.30.’ “Fight? What fight?’ I said, suddenly becoming distracted about how close I was to a shopping mall. I proudly watched girl-child in patterns and thought about what a lovely extra curricular activity this was. But when I saw my son being kitted out in helmet and body padding, a cold sweat started to break out all over me. My anxiety levels then escalated off the scale watching one of his little school mates kicking the living daylights out of some stranger on an over sized mat. The fight was stopped momentarily while one of the wee boys wiped his tears and gained his composure. Mothers were silently crying and fathers were grinning proudly. This was surely not happening!

But there he was – boy-child – on the mat – psyched to the max, the buzzer went and the fight began. I cannot explain what I felt at that moment, but a voice inside my head kept saying ‘this jest aint natural.’ I am supposed to be a nurturing mother and yet here I am supporting my son in a ‘scrap.’ I decided to cheer for him to distract myself.

“Kick him Zandie, kick him,’ I called out and then recoiled in horror. ‘OMG what am I doing?” My sweet little boy won his fight and there was back slapping and hand shaking all around. Well – from the blokes anyway. The woman gave each other sympathetic looks and half hugs as we wondered how we had meandered in to this foreign land.

Logic says Tae Kwon Do is a fantastic sport for discipline, strength, self discovery, and, of course self protection. Logic is, of course, correct, but logic doesn’t always work for emotional mothers.
The kids love it – they’ll keep doing it with my full support. But next time there’s a tournament – I’ll be cowering in the toilets – or even better – heading for that shopping mall.

A Day in the Life Of...

1am: awake to horrible sound, choking? Coughing? Gagging. Oh no it’s vomiting. Stumble out of bed, see silhouette of boy child violently regurgitating lovingly prepared Coq Au Vin into basin. Get him back to bed with bowl and towel and return to chaos. Plug won’t come out properly, try to poke bits of chicken and carrot (we didn’t even have carrot) down the hole with plug in way. My lovely dinner – my soul is destroyed.

1.30am: Return to bed, and worry. Worry about work, worry about money, worry about the Hutus and the Tootsies in Rwanda. In the morning I won’t care, but 1.30 in the morning seems to be automatically reserved for mindless worry.

2.30: Husband child leaps out of bed in fright. ‘Boy Child is vomiting.’ Thanks for noticing the first time. Lights are switched on and off, there is crashing and banging and noise. I hide in bed – does he have to be so noisy? “The bowl you gave him wasn’t big enough’ he says “he’s vomited all through his bed.’ I reach for my figurative ‘bad mother’ badge - lately I’ve been wearing it a lot.

3.30: Repeat of 1am. We both collapse back into bed. I ridiculously ponder how it might still be possible to send boychild to school – bit of make up to cover pale skin and cup of pamol? Begin sleepy ‘my job is more important than your job’ conversation – someone must stay home. I have meetings. I do too. Mine are really important. Are you saying mine are not?
7.30: Wake with a start. Early vet appointment for cat to get $300 stitches out. Spot cat, grab cat cage, reach for cuppa. Where is cat? Search house. Dam. Race outside shaking cat biscuits. “Daffodil, Daffodil. Where are you stupid cat?” I stand in the rain, in pyjamas, rattling a box of biscuits screaming for a spring bulb.’ Even in Paekakariki I am looking odd!
7.45: Cancel vet, drive to work drinking tea and stuffing down toast.
9am: Meeting of millions over video conference. ‘Who is chairing this meeting? “You.” Oh dear Lord. Listen to monotonous droning. I have no idea what they are talking about. The tea hasn’t worked. I need coffee.
10am “What’s your opinion Cas? Oh no is this still the same meeting? It seems inappropriate to say what I really think. A quick power nap is all I need – where’s the sick bay?
6pm: Drive home. Arrive to Chinese laundry, bedding hanging all over house. Husband child is exhausted from trying to tend to boychild and work from home. What shall we have for dinner?
Gaze into fridge – and there it is. Left over Coq au Vin. Hmmmm. How about toast?

An Unwelcome Visitor

Growing Up - An Unwelcome Visitor

We have a new guest in our house. A guest that no one has invited. She only visits now and again although her visits are becoming more frequent.

I am sad to admit that no one in our house particularly likes her. She is volatile, demanding, unpredictable, grumpy and often distracted. In her world of what is ‘cool’ its friends that matter and life is terribly boring without them. On her worst visits she has been known to slam doors, sometimes rattling pictures off the wall.

Interestingly our girl-child clearly does not like this visitor. I know this because girl-child is nowhere to be seen when unwanted guest appears. But the most disturbing thing about this guest is that she looks almost identical to girl-child to the point where I often get them confused. It is most unnerving to greet what appears to be my lovely 10 year old girl-child only to discover it’s the ghastly look-alike visitor pouting back at me. Just as suddenly the guest disappears and my lovely daughter is back. It is most unsettling to wake up not knowing who will be in the house today– child or fledgling teenager.

Some days I’d like to toss this ghastly visitor out on to the street, but while I don’t wish to admit it, this guest evokes a few childhood memories in me. I too remember when nothing was right, my parents were so very uncool, and life was always unfair. Everyone in the world had every technical device that I did not (although in my day it was colour TV I coveted as opposed to Xbox and Nintendo DS). The entire world also got to hang out with their friends all weekend, where as I was unfairly forced to stay home and learn to sew or worse pull ragwort on the farm. How shameful it was to admit to my friends on Monday what I’d been doing in the weekend.

All in all life is getting a little more complex. Although I never thought this would happen, I find myself fondly remembering when the days were filled with feeding and potty training challenges rather than this growing psychological torment. Worst still I am told the visits will increase. I guess in time I’ll learn to get used to my new bolshie, stubborn guest. I may even get to quite like her.


.

The Terrors of School Camp

‘You need to be at school for the camp at 6 o’clock.’ ‘The what ?’ ‘My school camp.’‘Oh hon you know I don’t do camping.’
Large pause – face starts to pucker like a shriveling tomato…
‘Okay, okay I’ll do the camp, although I’m sure I didn’t sign anything to say I would…’
The event
I don’t get there until the kids are getting ready for bed. It’s early yet and still time for a bit of fun – or so I think, until very nice teacher by day turns into big scary teacher by night. ‘Be quiet’ she roars (slightly ironic given the volume of her voice). You should be asleep. OMG its still daylight.
The parents stand around on one leg and then another. So what now? Wine? Beer? Scrabble? There is nothing for it but to retreat from the threat of mozzies and face a bed time I only usually dream about. And it would be a dream except (jaws theme music) I am surrounded by three eight year old boys. Aaaargh.
Can we tell ghost stories? “yea,’ says I far too enthusiastically for a mature adult. “Weeeeeell’ …..child one goes off on the longest, most tangential, unscary ghost story I have ever heard. Child Two has dropped off to sleep with boredom.
“Be quiet,’ booms scary teacher who has now transformed into Atilla the Hun. We all jump bolt upright including No2 who was asleep. “right’ says I ‘here’s my ghost story.’ ‘You can’t talk about blood,’ says one, “or ghosts’ says another ‘ or vampires. ‘ My creativity is stunted. Child one and two start to drop off to sleep.
‘What do we do now?” says child three (who happens to be mine). We could play with the torch. “Be quiet,’ roars Attila. Sighing, I use my number one method of trying to get to sleep – day dreaming in detail about the day I learn I have finally won lotto.
The night progresses.
‘Caaaaaas, I need to go to the toilet.” “Caaaaassss, I can’t find a torch.” “Caaaaaaaaaas, I can’t unzip the tent.””Caaaaaasss, my airbed has come down.” Casssss, can I get in with you.’‘ Absolutely not’ says I emulating Attilah the teacher. There IS a limit !
The night drifts on. In my dream world I have now won lotto and recklessly squandered the spoils.
A roar comes from outside the tent. Someone is playing the DVD of ‘Where the Wild things are.” “Or perhaps I’ve woken up in the Wellington Zoo. No, no, it’s the children in the next door tent. He,he,haw haw, giggle, chortle. Now that’s the kids on the other side. It’s in stereo. And its pitch dark. The time is 5am. It’s the middle of the night!
Where is Attila the teacher when I need her? Not a sign. Seems like it’s a hanging offence to talk after 8.45 but 5am is perfectly acceptable. I clamber out of the tent. ‘Be quiet - I’ve got sleeping children in here,’ I demand looking slightly ridiculous in my pink pyjamas. . “ha ha, chortle, chortle. ‘ I clamber back into my sleeping bag enraged. Child One has departed. I try to get to sleep but I am livid with the injustice of the situation. Why are early birds so righteous and night owls condemned?
Time to get dressed I hear one of the parents say. ‘It’s only 6.30!’ Child two and three sleep on.
I am furious and give in to the fact that I will no longer sleep. “I’m outa here,’ I say. I abandon ship. Go home and pull weeds out of the garden for an hour to release my fury and so as not to wake the rest of the family, finally shower and head to work for a strategic planning session with the board – a picnic in comparison with what I’ve just been through.
Next year their Dad gets the job.

You Better Watch Out (Santa Claus is coming to town)

You’ve done it this time Santa. Okay so it wasn’t all your fault, but you are partially to blame for the sea of paper, cellophane and screeds and screeds of packaging that we have been swimming in since your clandestine visit late in December. Yes I know I can also blame the childless Uncles, and Aunties who brightened our doorway. “I wasn’t sure what to buy so I just bought them twelve presents each,” and “I hope they don’t already have their own personal computer.” Well funnily enough they don’t.
So there we sat literally in a mountain of Christmas debris. What has happened Santa, that every dam toy now has to be opened with pliers? Not to mention that they all require at least six batteries (not included of course).
Don’t laugh Santa, but in an effort to ease my environmental guilt I got the rellies ripping wrapping paper and soaking it in water to recycle it into homemade paper. Unfortunately, distracted by the incessant rounds of eating, drinking and cleaning up, my good intentions were overlooked and the large gluggy mound of mould was poured into the compost when discovered several weeks later.
Underneath the piles of paper I still had the toys to contend with. And yes Santa, we are as guilty as the rest. We laughed with a few friends about how we used to excitedly open our sock (forget the Santa sack) on Christmas morn and scream in delight at the orange and the banana Santa had left. As a child however, the joy of discovering a brand new rag doll on the end of my bed was somewhat dampened by that fact that Caroline Boon got a whole set of Barbies AND a Bride doll. (Didn’t Santa get my letter?). It was neatly explained that parents had to contribute to Santa’s costs and Caroline’s didn’t have as many brothers and sister’s presents to pay for as mine did.
So what happens to all this stuff? Well, thanks to Chinese manufacturing, many of it has fallen apart after the first try and it joins the mounds at the landfill. Under the dark of night, double-ups can be swept away and saved for the City Mission box next Christmas, while the forgotten few get put away for a boring winter day. But the bulk will litter the floors of the children’s bedrooms until we buy some more plastic to house them.
So Ho, Ho, Ho Santa, next year can you bring me a solution to my consumer woes without ruining the kids Christmas?

Elbows for Dinner

‘I caught Granna out,’ said boy-child. Most school holidays my children spend a week with the grandparents. Each time they return they are further trained in the art of farming, have impeccable manners and are deeply grateful to be home. What’s Granna done?
‘Elbows on the table!’ said a very smug child. ‘I caught her.’ ‘But Mama’ he said. “It is the most stupid of all stupid rules. I mean who decided that putting your elbows on the table is bad? They could just as easily have decided it was good,’ he ranted. ‘Did the rule makers hundreds of years ago just all sit round and make up stupid rules about your elbows and your knife and fork. I mean who cares?
‘Well, it might seem stupid but all these rules are part of your heritage. Different cultures do different things that help define them. In some countries it is manners to burp loudly at the end of a meal – but please don’t try that out at Granna’s place.’
I had to laugh at boy-child’s vision of a committee of rule makers in a board room coming up with illogical rules but within days of this conversation I was reminded how important it is to hold on to the nuances of our culture even if they don’t make sense.
I had the honour of witnessing a long held university tradition – the graduation ceremony. Using boy-child’s logic, the idea of donning a funny cap and gown, which Monty Python could have had a field day with, and marching up on stage to get a piece of paper would seem absurd and pointless. And yet I found myself sitting in the audience snuffling into my sleeve with emotion. The ceremony marks the end of a long hard journey. It is not just for the recipient, it honours their parents and family for their support and most important of all, is a role model for children and other whanau.
In this particular ceremony each recipient spoke. Every time there was a story of how the seed to study was sown, of courage, sacrifice and hardship. Hakas were performed and waiatas offered up in celebration. They were doing these things because that is what they have been taught by their Grannas (and others.)
So while it is probably fair enough that an eight year old thinks its ridiculous to keep his elbows off the table, one day I hope he understands that one simple little ‘rule’ is a tiny piece in a large puzzle that makes up the special culture he is inheriting.
And while we should always encourage our children to question – sometimes the answer to whether elbows should be on or off the table needs to wait. And when it becomes clear I hope it is a chance for him to fondly remember a lesson learned long ago from another generation.