Information Hold-outs

You’d think between three kids in the same class I’d be able to get some information out of them about their day.

It was the twin’s first school visit sans parents and I was picking up their friend as well.

Unfortunately that was the day of the weather bomb and ensconcing three kids in as many jackets and under umbrellas was no easy task. The one who was without an umbrella, due to it blowing inside out and therefore being rendered useless, had already wandered off into the elements while I helped one who’d just put his jacket on inside out and his bag, back to front. 

We needn’t have bothered. By the time we reached the car we were soaked. Just the simple task of depositing each child into their seat and figuring out what to do with three erect umbrellas gained a saturating.

Then at the other end, trying in vain to remind them to take off their soaked jackets and shoes fell on deaf ears. I followed a trail of water up the stairs to their room where everyone was already excitedly playing trains.

“Is someone going to tell me about their day?” I asked for the umpteenth time.

“Nah, we’ll tell you about it at dinner time,” came the reply.

I switched tactics: “Ok, did Jai get any growlings today?” I asked his sister who is always keen to nark.

But even this didn’t get a response. They were so excited about their playdate, their morning didn’t feature.

Mister Seven has been a master of this mute void of information for some time but I had expected the younger ones – especially a girl – to be more forthcoming.

Hence the reason I put my name down to mother help one morning a week. To be a fly on the wall is the only way I’ll gain insight into their school days.

I made another attempt at afternoon tea time when the three of them were perched up at the bar.

“Yes, Jai got a big growling for being too loud again,” shouted Miss Four before proceeding to fill me in on all the naughty antics of each kid that had occurred that day.

“Oh and I learnt how to write ‘I like being in room 10’,” Master Four recalled.

Finally I was getting somewhere.

“Would you like to show me how?” I asked.

But that was as much as I was going to get as my question was drowned out by the burping (and subsequent giggling) competition now taking place.

Later at the dinner table I got another snippet when Miss Four formed the shape of a ‘T’ to notify me she needed to be excused to the toilet. This was closely followed by her siblings making T-shapes with their hands, just for the novelty of it.

As a result, I soon found myself dining alone and none the wiser about their day.

Winter Sickness

Clearly I wasn’t touching wood when I declared no one in our house had been sick all year. As punishment, that night it started. Word in the hood was that kids were dropping like flies from a particularly nasty viral bug doing the rounds and Master Four was first to bring it home. Unusually quiet and listless, he stayed home from kindy the next day. 
Strangely, when one twin gets sick the other has boundless energy and as Miss Four bounced off the walls I thought ‘Just you wait – you’ll be next’. 
Sure enough, the next day she went down but when Miss Four gets sick she gets it three times as bad as the boys. After the weekend, while her brother was fine to go back to kindy, she lay on the couch whacked after a night of croup and now delirious from a temperature raging up near 40 degrees. 
The delirium caused her to wake lashing out and accusing me of all sorts of things there was no way I could have done. At this point, in walked a pale Master Seven from school, who promptly put himself straight to bed. 
The next day I had a dilemma. It was the twin’s first school visit and Master Four was itching to go. There was no way his sister was up to it so we resigned to staying home. But then, after a collective dose of Pamol, Ibuprofen and Broncial Syrup, she suddenly “came right”. 
It probably wasn’t my best call but, with two now begging me to take them up to school, I decided to go for a little while and sit Miss Four up the back with me. It’s funny how the loudest of children suddenly go shy when they first start school. However, as my school teacher mum always says, it doesn’t take them long to come out of their shells and by the end of the morning Master Four had already received his first ‘growling’ for being too loud. (The kindy teachers later told me their ears had a nice rest that day.) 
Anyhow Miss Four pulled it off and came home and slept off her big morning. 
Of course, if there’s one thing kids are good at sharing it’s their germs and, after a week of them coughing in my face, it was inevitable that I’d catch the bug. This is when I really began to appreciate what the kids had been going through and wished I’d been more sympathetic. 
I’m no hypochondriac but the headaches were a killer and, still dealing with three kids who were not 100 per cent, I was beginning to feel a little delirious myself. This became apparent when I went to give Miss Four another dose of Pamol and she pointed out that she’d just had one. With three different types of medicine on the go for three children at different stages of their sickness, I was basically a walking medicine dispensary and in my sleep-deprived, ailing confusion, I’d forgotten the golden rule: write down every dosage. “So which medicine did I just give you?” I asked Master Seven. “The white or the pink one?” 
“Remember mummy?” he asked, looking at me like I was barmy. “You just gave me the pink one and Jai the white.” 
This was when I started the dispensary chart before putting us all to bed. 
To top off the bad week I had to make a last-minute emergency journey down to Mount Maunganui. Driving for five hours while in this condition is not ideal and I longed for the days when one could actually stay sick in bed. 
Anyhow, apart from the last vestiges of that nasty bug – the ongoing cough – I’m pleased to say we’ve come out the other side. 
And I’ve learnt my lesson – I’m touching wood.

The Boy Who Cried Wolf

The Boy Who Cried Wolf is a phrase that has been bandied about in our house for some time. I’ve constantly recited the title to the kids when they’ve fabricated a story or given a false alarm. But, like a piece of oft-repeated family folklore, I realised it had become unremarkable simply by its familiarity. 
Did they, indeed, ever know its true meaning? It was time to give them visuals so I ordered the book and, at last, they discovered what I’d been harping on about. The Boy Who Cried Wolf, complete with interactive flaps, went on to become the most popular book of all time in our house, holding the interest of the seven and four-year-olds alike. 
I heard myself preaching the title to a group of friends up at the local one evening recently as we wound down from our respective tumultuous weeks. 
We were being regaled by one with her daughter’s ability to misconstrue a situation, the latest being her insistence that she could bring her new puppy into school the next day for a show and tell. 
“Are you sure?” asked her mother repeatedly. 
“Yes, I swear!” insisted Miss Six. 
So she went about rescheduling work appointments for the next day, which happened to be the big storm. Managing to get to kindy super-early, she kissed off Master Four and delivered her daughter and puppy to school on time. 
“I kept asking her if we could do this tomorrow,” she recalled. “But it was this day that had been organised apparently.” 
Upon reaching the class, and now covered in mud from one excited dog, she was met with a bemused teacher and it soon became apparent there was never going to be a show and tell. 
“The teacher explained that they had talked about the dogs they each owned but no mention of a show and tell opportunity. It turns out it has been suggested by the other teacher that, before he got too big, she could bring him in but not the teacher of this week. 
“(Miss Sixes) reply was: ‘Oops, I forgot.’” 
 “So did she get to show and tell anyway?” we asked. 
“No, the teacher said we could, since we had made it that far but where would the lesson in that be?” 
Clearly Miss Six was on a role that week for my friend found herself in the same situation only days later. 
“They needed blue tutus for the film festival and, as I had made one for her ballet show last year, I was under the impression the class needed one more. So, as it had to be plain, I stayed up that night picking the jewels off and adjusting it to fit in with the water theme. Days later I noticed it sitting on the classroom shelf and, when I asked if it had been needed, the casual reply from both child and teacher was ‘no’. 
“And, to be clearer, it never had been."

Martha Stewart and Rainbow Spaghetti

“All these mums who are on Pinterest, making rainbow spaghetti and homemade playdough… I’m all like ‘I had a shower today and kept the kids alive – Go Me!’” read the quote doing the cyber rounds recently.

What the heck is rainbow spaghetti anyway? And if you don’t know what Pinterest is, join the club. I would look into it for the sake of shedding some light and, although I have friends trying to get me into it, I am going to choose to remain oblivious for fear of being lured in.

As for the homemade playdough, I tried that once and, although I restricted it to the outdoors only, there were little bits of red playdough trampled into the deck for weeks after. Now it’s banned but that’s what kindy’s for isn’t it?

But seriously, has anyone tried making rainbow spaghetti?

It all sounds very Martha Stewarty. Speaking of Martha Stewart, she once gave a demo on Oprah Winfrey on how to fold a fitted sheet. Despite the benefits of MySky and therefore being able to rewind and pause live tele … and rewind and pause … like 30 times, and then watch in slow-motion, I still can’t fold a fitted sheet.

Epic fail.

But who cares what a fitted sheet looks like once it’s stored away in the linen cupboard, right?

Damn it.

Martha Stewart has a lot to answer for in setting the bar so high. All this folding fitted sheets, home-made jams and hand-sewn curtains… I mean, I cook and clean but can’t sew to save myself. In fact in form two we had to sew a cushion in the shape of a stuffed pig. I was the last in the class to finish, staying in at lunch while the teacher, clearly missing a lunch break, sighed repetitively from her desk. The pig fell apart and lost all its stuffing within a week.

I’m sure the older generations despair over this lack of sewing ability - with the exception of some - common in today’s youth. Is it still even a compulsory subject or have they given up?

For a while, whenever the kids returned from sleepovers at their nanas’ I noticed their favourite, well-worn soft toys would come back mended. But then it got to the point where they were springing leaks left, right and centre; as a result, baby, rabbit and bear are now adorned in fancy plasters, thanks to my patch-up jobs. 

However, after the fitted sheet failure, I had more success last night with making a paper dart for Master Four via a step-by-step Google guide. Good old Google. Who knew the process was so intricate and there were up to 15 steps? No wonder my dart planes always dive-bombed.
But this rainbow spaghetti, as Martha Stewartish as it sounds, now has me intrigued. So you’re going to have to excuse me while I go Google it.