R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

This week’s been all about those seven capital letters belted out by Aretha Franklin – R.E.S.P.E.C.T.

My biggest fear before becoming a parent was losing the respect of my own children but I didn’t expect this to kick in until their teens.

However, it was becoming increasingly evident while reprimanding Master Seven that I was losing it sooner. The wide-eyed silent mimicking was the dead-giveaway.

Time for Operation Respect.

“From now on,” I told him. “You are going to learn to be respectful. Every time you are disrespectful, I am taking away something you love until you 'get' it.”

“But what is respect Mummy?” he asked.

“Ah …” Actually that one’s kind of hard to explain without using the word ‘respect’ itself. By default I decided he could learn by trial and error.

“Every time you’re disrespectful, you will know because I’m taking away one of your Trash Packs, and every time you’re respectful, you’ll get it back.”

For some reason he just loves those Trash Packs. To me they are the stupidest toys ever invented. They don’t do anything except sit there looking ugly. And, if they come with slime in them – a bonus apparently, they can be a parent’s worst nightmare. Master Seven once decided to ‘interact’ with them and smeared green slime around his room to create an effect. I discovered it when I went to turn out his light one night and put my hand in the goo on his light switch.

I spent the next day while he was at school scrubbing dried green goo off all the surfaces, only to find it back again that night.

But I digress. Respect starts at the top and is a witnessed and learned behaviour. But that one word encompasses many aspects: respecting people’s property, feelings, opinions, space, themselves and did I say respecting one’s mother ?! My boy had a lot to learn and he was losing his trash pack collection like there was no tomorrow.

But it turned out Master Seven had that word coming at him from all directions: one day this week I was mother helping in his class when I heard the teacher mention the word ‘respect’ at mat time. I swung around and caught his eye and he flashed a sheepish grin. He’d known all along.

It’s early days and I think we’re making slow but steady progress but I hope it sinks in soon – those trash packs lining my dressing table are looking god-damn awful.

Matariki

“Ko Mummy ahau,” announced Master Four upon his arrival home from kindy.

It’s just as well I remember some basic third form Maori else I might’ve been offended.

It’s Matariki time and Onerahi kindergarten is embracing it by revisiting the history of the suburb through story telling and waiata.

Matariki is a small but distinctive star cluster whose appearance in the north eastern pre-dawn sky signals the Maori New Year and the start of a new phase of life. To mark new beginnings, the children are also planting seeds and the celebrations will culminate with shared kai and a performance of their learnings.

Although the opening phrase was used out of context – “Ko (own name) ahau”, which means “My name is …” I was still very impressed with what they’d learnt.

Along with the Maori phrases, they have been learning waiata and the kids who aren’t shy, have had a chance to sing and record what they’ve learnt into the “microwave,” as Miss Four informed me.

I take it she was one of the shy ones for she didn’t feature on the CD which arrived home with them one day this week to bring parents, like me, up to speed and put them on a par with their childrens’ bilingual abilities.

Master Four did though. He conducted a solo of Kei Hea T Tuna and proceeded to go rather pink in the cheeks when we played it back at home.

When his big brother returned from school, instead of the predicted flak, he played it over, listening intently, perhaps impressed his younger brother had managed to make it onto CD.

The CD was accompanied by the lyrics to the songs along with some common words and phrases.

This cleared up the confusion over why the twins had come home one day saying one of their teachers was “maui-a-wee-wee”. It turned out the correct word for “sick” is mauiui – they’d added a few extra wee-wee’s in there.

Speaking of mauiui – the being under the weather part, not the wee-wees – I got a call from the kindy this week to say Master Four had had a head collision with another kid. One was going up the slide as the other was coming down and, such was the impact, they both went flying through the air.

Master Four is now sporting an impressive blue egg on his forehead while the other victim had a bruised cheek. I’m unsure if they are still hoa – that’s friends in Maori – but Master Four claimed to be too “maui-a-wee-wee” to go to rugby training that night.

Power Shopping

When I announced to my friend I was taking my three children shopping she looked at me like I needed my head read.

I’ve written about clothes shopping with babies and grocery shopping with kids. I wouldn’t recommend it but, this time, we were on holiday and I had no choice.

After-all, what’s a trip to the Mount without beaching, climbing the Mount itself, an after-hours drink at the Astrolabe for old time’s sake and visiting BayFair?

What I hadn’t counted on was the fact it was a public holiday and the shopping centre didn’t open until 1pm. We got there at 12.20.

Time is precious whilst shopping with kids but, no worries, the food hall was open so we sat down and shared a plate of sushi. That killed ten minutes so I followed up with a piece of caramel slice. We still had twenty minutes till the grand opening so I paid for a ride on a carousel which they were really far too big for.

Twelve forty-five and we were camped outside my favourite shop – Valley Girl.

“Now guys, just remember you’ve had your treats so now you’ve got to be good,” I warned, fully aware I’d done things in the wrong order.

The doors finally opened and we charged in. I say charged because it really was a case of power-shopping. I wasn’t sure how long we were all going to last.

But my kids surprised me. They embraced the whole shopping thing with gusto (or perhaps it was the sugar rush) and it wasn’t long before I was being plied with garments.

“Mum, what about this?” shouted Master Four from across the other side of the shop pulling out a leopard-print one-piece.

“Ah no, Mummy’s not really into leopard print.”

“Mum what about this?” Miss Four produced a hot-pink frilly number and looked crest-fallen when I pulled a face.

I added it to my pile anyway and we headed for the changing room. I hate trying on clothes at the best of times and these fitting rooms were tiny. I allowed Miss Four to come in with me and ushered the boys to one across from us.

What is it with kids having to peer under partitions? As well as my suspicions of this occurring – the stifled giggles a dead-giveaway - it didn’t take long before the toilet humour started up.

Please don’t, I silently pleaded, frantically flinging clothes around the dressing room in an attempt to speed things up. And then they had to go and take it a step further:

“Who farted?!” yelled Master Four in his over-loud voice.

The whole changing rooms, which were bustling a minute ago, fell silent, before a bunch of teenage girls began snickering.

“We have got to get out of here,” I said to Miss Four, giving up and getting dressed. I entertained the idea of disowning and leaving them behind but then remembered we were in a different town where no one knew us. Taking a deep breath, I emerged to a combination of bemused stares and ill-suppressed smirks from the fellow shoppers in a queue, who’d, most likely, just stepped out for some quiet retail therapy. I rounded up my boys who surfaced wearing silly grins and we headed to K Mart instead. Here they submerged themselves in the toy section while I wandered off and loaded up my basket with clothes I could no longer be bothered trying on.

Leaving the store we were greeted by a marching band playing the bag pipes in tribute to Anzac Day. While Master Four broke into dance, grinning from ear to ear, the other two recoiled in horror, pinning their hands to their ears.

“That sounds terrible mum,” shouted Master Seven overtop the music. 

“Yeah mum, that’s terrible,” parroted Miss Four.

“But I love the bag pipes. In fact, we’re going to listen to them again,” I said gleefully leading them across to the other side of the mall to await the band’s circuit.

Once again, Master Four danced while the other two covered their ears. 

“But mum, why do you like that?” Master Seven asked as the resonating sounds died away. “They were terrible – they hadn’t even practiced!” claimed my bag pipe connoisseur for all and sundry to hear.

On that note, and with several purchases of which I had no idea if they fit, I decided to call it quits, probably much to the entire Bayfair’s relief.

Road Trip

Parks are essential with road trips

When Jim Hickey says there’s flash flooding in a certain part of the country most people would steer clear. But we headed straight for it.
I’d only decided to take the kids on a road trip the day before and, after booking in with friends down the line, spent the following day packing. First stop – Waihi. This was the worst-hit but, by the time I learned this my friend had already got out a roast for dinner. This caused Master Seven, who, strangely doesn’t like meat or potatoes, to fret the night before. I found him lying in bed whimpering.
“I think I might have to stay home from our road trip,” he declared.
Road trips are a lot easier than the days of yore. We no longer need to fill the car with portacots which need assembling and dismantling at each end, double strollers and then the finer, but equally important details such as dummies, bottles, pamol, teddies and special blankies. Now it’s simply a matter of packing our clothes and food and driving.
Having said that, it still took a whole day to pack.
The last time I took a roadie on my own I had two dvd screens attached to the backs of the front seats. These were fantastic and held the kids enthralled the whole ten-hour round trip. However, I didn’t have the novelty this time and, instead relied on the ipad. Between Master Seven’s Angry Bird blasting out from that, Miss Four reading aloud to herself, Master Four’s computer games and my ipod music, we sounded like a spacey parlour.
But, this didn’t last long. In typical childlike fashion, the “Are we there yets?” began before we even reached Waipu. I didn’t have the heart to tell them we still had another three and a half hours to go – make that four and a half by the time you take into account a stop-off and then missing the Paeroa turn-off (don’t ask).
So by the time we made it to Waihi the water levels had receded till there was no evidence of flooding. At our first destination, the kids soon reacquainted themselves and before long the house was filled with the sound of stomping feet and uproarious laughter, much to the dad’s horror upon his return from work.
The next day I decided to head to my brother’s in Hamilton. My old stomping ground in uni days, I hadn’t returned to the city for nearly 15 years and realised I didn’t know where a single park was. Somehow parks didn’t feature all those years ago. But we found a lovely one by the lake and waited for the kids’ uncle to finish work so we could follow him home to his place in the country.
As we pulled up, Miss Four noticed a horse float in the drive and I explained what it was for. The following morning the first thing she said was “What is a horse ‘flute’ for again?” I, once again, explained in simplified terms that it was for transporting horses from one place to another. It’s hard to imagine what she conjured up in her head from that as, just before we left, she produced a drawing of a horse and its rider holding up a long object lined with circles.
“What’s that?” I questioned.
“That’s the horse flute,” she emphasized.
I wrote a brief explanation for my brother and his flatties, who had left for work, and pinned it to the fridge. We set off on the next leg of our roadie to the Mount, where we were to meet and stay with my old uni friends and their families. This was supposed to only take an hour but took two due to missing the turn off. Once again, don’t ask.

After driving through Paeroa three times
on our roadie, it had to be done.