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.
Tuesday, May 17, 2011
Friday, May 13, 2011
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.
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.
Monday, March 28, 2011
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.
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.
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.
Wednesday, September 8, 2010
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.
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.
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.
Saturday, June 5, 2010
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?
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