Bubbles

This year Santa didn’t quite deliver what Master Eight wanted – a kitten. Instead he got a goldfish.

His pet kitten has been a hot topic since (ashamedly) not long after we lost our beloved pussy cat.
“Mum, when you get me a kitten, if it’s a boy, I want to call it Michael Angelo or Rafael but Rafy for short.”
“What about Lucy?” offered Miss Six.
“What about Hatupatu,” chimed in Master Six.
“Nup, it’s Rafy,” Master Eight confirmed.
“But when you have a pet, you have to take responsibility for the good times and the bad.”
“What do you mean?”
“Well because it’s a baby, it will have some accidents. It won’t wear a nappy like babies do so you will have to clean up its wees and poos.”
His smile froze, before:
“I know, Jayla can do that!” He went off in search of his happy-go-lucky sister, who’d wandered off.
“Yep, it’s all sorted,” he announced triumphantly on returning with his sister in tow.
“Will you really clean up the kitten’s wees and poos?” I asked her and she nodded meekly.
I was not entirely convinced and getting a kitten at this time of year did not tie in with our holiday plans so he was told the kitten had to wait. Instead, I decided to test his responsibility with a gold fish. A last-minute Christmas Eve dash to the pet shop ensued where I choose a cheeky little nifty fish, who stopped to make googly eyes at me before darting around his peers and proving difficult for the pet shop owner to catch.
Of course I had to buy a bag of coloured stones and an old ship wreck for him to play in resulting in my ‘top-up’ present almost costing more than the main one. But with my soft spot for kittens, I was lucky to get out of there with only a fish and its paraphernalia, which probably had something to do with the fact all the kittens had just sold out.
Back home I hastily set my little friend up in his bowl before the kids returned and carried him down to the garage where he would spend the night.
Santa’s snacks were out, the reindeer bucket filled with water and stockings laid out on beds with three excited kiddies pretending to go to sleep within.
It took a while, they kept finding excuses to get up, until I showed them a Santa tracker online stating the next stop was Australia. I think it was most likely American and New Zealand had got lumped with Australia but I told the kids that this must mean Santa was already in New Zealand and they went hurtling back to bed, screaming with excitement.
At long last, all was (genuinely) silent and I got to work filling stockings. I carried up the fish who, by now, had calmed down and was looking rather dejected with his new surroundings without his buddies, and set it up in Master Eight’s room.
Finally, after realising I still had presents to wrap and a salad to make, replying to the children’s note and disposing of the snacks which had been left out since the morning (clearly they thought Santa should be on a diet this year – a measly packet of raisons, a rice cracker and a glass of water) I dropped into bed around midnight.
But at 4am I was woken with a light going on – Master Eight’s. I catapulted out of bed and turned it off while he was in the bathroom. But when he returned, he switched it back on.
Not wanting to do the whole Santa thing at 4am I shot back out of bed and switched it back off with a warning. Luckily he’d practically been sleep-walking so hadn’t noticed anything. But that was it for me. Like an excited kid I did not go back to sleep so managed to get through Christmas Day on strong Panadol.

At 5.45am, in raced the kids clutching their filled stockings and within half a minute everything had been ripped open. Sometime later that morning Master Eight went back into his room and noticed his fish. He was suitably stoked and, as he sat and watched “Bubbles” swimming round and through his ship wreck, proclaimed him “adorable”.

His fascination with Bubbles only lasted a few days – he is currently off camping and forgot to arrange someone to feed him.

And as poor Bubbles’ water gets murkier and murkier, I’m thinking, yeah-nah, Rafy… Lucy… Hatupatu – whatever it was – can wait.

Santa

“Mum, how old is Santa?” asked Master Eight pensively.
“Gosh, I don’t know. Pretty old I think.”
“So when Santa was a kid, who was his Santa?” he continued.
“Maybe in the olden days there was no Santa,” Master Six piped up saving me.
“Maybe he went with his dad and learned in the sleigh,” Miss Six chimed in.
Master Eight: “You know how Santa got here so quickly last year, I think it was because there were lots of naughty boys and girls.”
“How do you mean?”
“You know, he got to our place early, I think it was because he didn’t have many other places to go to.”
“Maybe. When I was a little girl I swear I saw the buckle of his belt shining in my room.”
“When I was a little boy I saw his beard,” added Master Eight.
“Really?”
“Yeah remember? It got stuck on the fire place.”
Oh yeah, that’s right. Silly Santa snagged his beard as he was entering last year.
“And his boot prints!”
So he did. He left snowy boot prints on our doorstep.
“Does Santa live up in the sky?” asked Miss Six.
“Yep,” answered her twin knowingly.
“No, he lives in the North Pole,” said older brother.
“Mum I don’t like those videos you play us when Santa opens up the book,” Master Six said.
“Why not?”
“Because at the end it gets real scary when he decides if you’ve been good or bad.”
“Yeah it’s real scary because we don’t know if we’re going to get the red light or the green,” added his sister.
That reminded me.
By the time the kids returned home from school they each had a personalised Santa message waiting for them on the computer.
As always, they squirmed with delight when Santa addressed them by name and they saw their own photo in his book. Santa then took them on a magical tour through to the barn to meet his reindeer before returning to his big wooden desk where he re-opened the book with all the information inside about the children. And then the build-up to the naughty or nice conclusion began.
The kids waited wide-eyed with anticipation as the elves went through a process to reach the verdict and then clapped with joy when the green light appeared.
However, Master Eight this year didn’t quite make it onto the ‘nice’ list and the devastation from all was absolute.
Apparently he needed to try harder to be nicer to his siblings.
But the disappointment that followed the orange light (not quite naughty or nice) was worth it for he immediately changed his tune and has become a different kid. (A subsequent message awaited him several days later where he got the green light.)
Based on the questions above, it may well be the last year this Santa approach works but, for now, peace and harmony have been restored.

# To make your own free personalised video from Santa, go to: www.portablenorthpole.com

 

 

 

Mangroves

When I found myself nominated to parent help on a school trip I have to admit, I was not too overjoyed.
When I found out it was to go look at mangroves I was even less enthused.
However, the event fell on my day off and, because I’d recently been on a class trip with the twins, Master Eight saw no reason why I shouldn’t go on his.
But I did.
Besides the fact that fair is fair, of course, and we were long overdue some special time together.
Let me just say that, although ‘day off’ conjures up images of sleeping in, meeting up with friends for coffee and general lounging around, it is anything but. My day off is consumed with all those mundane things that, before I returned to work, used to be spread out over the week – house work, gardening, lawns, groceries, town errands, exercise, Christmas shopping, amongst before and after school duties.
And I learnt from the early baby days of everyone saying that housework can wait that it doesn’t. It just accrues until when you finally take to it with the vacuum cleaner, it clogs up.
So these days off are rather precious but when a school activity falls on this day, it is also a novelty to be able to attend when most working parents can’t.
But mangroves?
A week or two before we were disappointed I missed the Limestone Island trip Master Eight went on. The night before we’d been reading Famous Five together. The five had returned to Kirren Island and rediscovered the ruins of the old castle.
He was quite impressed to discover our local island has its own ruins and even a dungeon and I was too when he relayed the day’s adventures back to me.
I knew how much it would mean to Master Eight if I went along on this outing so I rearranged my week, cramming all the Wednesday humdrums in before and after work on the other week days.
There was no postponement date on the notice which meant it was going ahead rain or shine. But I needn’t have worried about floundering around in mud for hours with the rain pelting down, for the day dawned brilliant. I went along to the school and my group of boys was waiting for me.
We set off down the Waimahanga Track and spent the day in the depths of the mangroves.
Amongst other things, I learnt that, as well as being an important habitat for many plants and animals, mangroves help to hold the land together and stop the sea water from washing it away.
I learnt that it was still possible to collect multiple bags of rubbish from the same area where 12 bags had been collected on the previous class trip only two days before.
I learnt that I needn’t be worrying about my eight-year-old’s behaviour – his peers are just as silly and trying to get a photo of them all smiling or with normal faces, at least, was impossible.
I also learnt that hanging out for a day with a bunch of silly eight-year-old boys who are just too cool for school is quite fun and humbling.
And I learnt that, although the housework doesn’t wait patiently, some days it’s rejuvenating to just wake up and smell the, er, mangroves.