Titanic

The past few years I have been trying to get the kids into movies enjoyed by my generation. After-all things haven’t changed that much have they? The storylines are still the same. But ‘Croc Dundee’ was a fail and only generated upturned noses and a lone watcher (me) after a walk-out.

My god, I loved that movie! I still remember circa 1987 sitting in the Regent Theatre placing Jaffa after Jaffa into my mouth and chortling with my brothers.

But I guess the digital quality is not the same and, I had to admit, the picture looked lame. It just wasn’t how I remembered it.

Annie and Grease held my daughter’s attention but the boys, once again, left the room to play Lego, feigning disgust.

And then along came Titanic.

Sunday night saw us lined up in front of the tele and it wasn’t just the prospect of staying up late from the 3-hour 15-min duration which held appeal. The kids have been asking questions about the Titanic for some time so when I noticed a re-run programmed for TV3, I recorded it and decided they could have a crash-course in history.

I must admit, since watching its debut at the movie theatre while at university, I had no yearning to watch it again – I think it was the Celine Dion song which was off-putting. But, with a new appreciation, I sat transfixed with the rest of them, including the new kitten who had front row seats on the bean bag.

The nude scenes had the kids covering their eyes while rolling round convulsing with hilarity, likewise the expletives and when Rose ungainly pulled the middle finger. It goes to show how sheltered they must be – long may that last. They were even shocked by all the smoking – how times have changed.

They were pretty sombre towards the end with the drowning scenes and sure they would have nightmares but they didn’t and woke the next morning and promptly watched it again.

That’s a lot of free educational baby-sitting during the school hols which has rekindled my desire to hunt for more.

Old-Fashioned Picnic

There’s something pretty special about seeing your daughter running around your old school playground wearing the same dress you wore there yourself 30 years earlier.

My mum likes to keep things so a number of former favs – Care Bears, Cabbage Patch Dolls, as well as clothing - have surfaced over the years, much to mine and my daughter’s delight.

It helped that said dress, white with red trim and spots, interspersed with red apples, still looks brand new. It was for an ‘old-fashioned picnic’ the school was hosting to celebrate winning the environmental and sustainability focus award and to strengthen the shared partnership and relationship building between school and home. Usually in uniform, the children were allowed to come dressed in old-fashioned clothing, bringing an old-fashioned, healthy plate of food and sharing old-fashioned games.

Old-fashioned to me conjured up women in long, layered, petti-coated garments, looking rather sullen, and black and white of course. It didn’t occur to me that the 1980s might seem old-fashioned to my children.

Although slightly disturbed at how, in their minds, I was now on a par with those sullen women from the ‘real’ olden days, I relished the chance to bust out my old (but new-looking) dress for my daughter to don.

With matching red ribbons (again my 30-year-old originals) she skipped off to school with her brothers and when I joined them at lunchtime for the picnic itself, I was surprised to see that most of the other kids had similarly worn clothing from the eighties era.

The tables were groaning with food, much to my horror. You see, the twins hadn’t passed on the message that it was to be a shared lunch and all the other parents had outdone themselves making bread and butter pudding, along with a description of how it was made during the war to utilize every last morsel, a cultural dish from an International student, club sandwiches, pie, fruit kebabs and plenty of home baking.

I sat there shame-faced watching everyone eat this delicious cuisine and sheepishly turning down offers of lunch before the games started and what fun we used to have!

After watching the kids delight in Blind Man’s Bluff with one of the grandads, egg and spoon races and clapping games, to name a few, I recalled and demonstrated some elastics moves before realising I had a few more jiggly bits than back in the day and stopped to catch my breath.

Later, my dress came home intact, apart from a smidgen of red jelly spilt down the front

and it was washed to be put away with the baby outfits passed down from mum, to me, to my daughter. Several of them have a J sewn onto the front: my mum starts with a J, as do I and my daughter and, although it is a coincidence (we’re certainly not emulating the Kardashian’s), I’ve told her that, to carry on the tradition, she, too, has to name her daughter something starting with J, no pressure or anything. I’ve already got a few suggestions.