In character

M - Weary and long suffering Mum.
C - Sensitive and slightly melodramatic young Child.

1:30am a couple of nights ago.

Noises off - creak of door, pad of small feet belonging to Child.

C: Mu-um
M: Hngft
C: I can't sleep.
M: Do you need to go to the toilet?
C: Mmm.
M: Come on then.

C and M exit.

A long time passes.

Voices heard from outside door:

M: Time to go back to your bed.
C: I want to be in your bed.
M: I know, but you need to go back to your bed.
C: I won't be able to sleep in my bed.
M: Why won't you be able to sleep in your bed?
C: Sister is crying.
M: Why is she crying?
C: She says her ear hurts.

M's footsteps rushing upstairs to her other daughter who despite being stoic is whimpering pathetically in pain.

R38

Suddenly becoming in loco parentis to a 16 year-old is a fascinating experience. Sometimes it is just like parenting 6 year-olds but it is also very enjoyably different: he dresses himself every day without help and without being asked!

Today I took B to the Weta Cave and I started telling him about Peter Jackson's early movies: Bad Taste and Braindead. Suddenly I realised that they might be R18*. I'm pretty fussy about what H & K get to watch (basically G rated DVDs and some PG rated nature/science documentaries we watch with them). But also I know that I watched R18 movies at 16-17 and thought that the restrictions were mostly pretty stupid at that point.

So what do I think is appropriate for B? After some thought I think if I'd enjoy watching a movie with him it is appropriate for him to watch because I don't like movies that are both violent and horrible, and I'd find anything too explicit embarassing. Looking at movie ratings nearly everything rated R18 falls into one of these categories so I don't think I'll be corrupting the young lad soon.

*Actually they are all R16.

Running with words

Look I'm posting! I'm not apologising for not posting. I have had a lot of things to put here but they haven't been making it out my fingers.

So what's going on with me?

I've just become host mother to a 16 year-old German AFS student, B. My mental images of this relationship owe rather too much to the Alien movies but I'm not actually expecting him to come bursting out my chest.

Now one of our children is 6'2" I don't think I can keep using "the midgets" as a collective noun for them. Any suggestions?

H is waiting for an operation on her shoulder. The first of many she'll have in the next 10 years. for a congentital condition called MHE. Four months ago they said her operation would be in the next six months. Waiting sucks but I'd prefer universal public healthcare to the alternatives.

My neurological oddity is officially unimportant.

I had the swine flu and 2 months later I finally think I'm totally over it. In June, just before I got sick, I set a goal to go for a 20-30 minute run/walk at least fortnightly from the middle of August. When I set the goal it seemed very, very easy and very, very far away. Today I actaully started and the achievement has made me blog.

Treating tricks

A couple of updates:

I have been to the neurological ophthalmologist (because I couldn't get an appointment with a neurologist [backstory here then here]) and he says that my jerky eye tracking is "asymptomatic" and I should only worry if it starts to cause me problems, e.g. nausea. Given that my concern is that it is a symptom of something else this is only partly reassuring. I am trying hard to be reassured as there is no advantage in worrying. He is also going to chat to a neurologist about it and let me know what they say.

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My plan for world domination is progressing, this year we lured 99 trick or treaters to our door. Last year we had 70. I think next year I should cater for 130.

The consumption and development of brains

School holidays has overtaken my life but it is ok:
45%
Yesterday as a 4 year-old chatted to me about playing Halo 2 (which is R16) on the xbox in his bedroom I was struck by the wide variety of options we have as parents. I expect he is better prepared than H & K for surviving a zombie apocalypse.

The Adventures of Pooh

I am in bed with my computer, taking it easy after a nasty tummy bug, not yet 100% but improving.

H is wanly watching a DVD clutching a container. She threw up last night, I'm not sure if it was the start of the tummy bug or just too much mucous from her cold but she is very pale.

D is looking after our nieces, H' & I, at their house. H' is not at school because she is convalescing after her own tummy bug.

S, H' & I's mum, is at school doing my parent helper duty.

Parenting is all about logistics.

Expecting someone taller

H & K don't like to compete with each other. They like to be first equal. If we offer a reward they like to receive it simultaneously even if one of them earned it first. This is particularly true of K who likes everything to be fair so long as she's first. I think that I needed a caesarian because K was so upset that H was being born first, if they could have come out simultaneously, or K first, they both would have been fine.

We don't have a height chart, marks on a doorway or whatever. Largely this is because I was too caught up in the present for the first year or more to look to the future and partly it is because having not started one it never seemed like the right time to start. Now I realise that for our family, for H & K, it is the right thing to do. Currently, despite information to the contrary K believes she is taller than H and H believes that she is the same height as K and everyone is happy. Who needs objectivity?

Playhouse bunnies

Shhhhh... don't tell anyone (especially not H & K) but we have started talking about getting rabbits.

K loves rabbits. Whenever we have seen the local magician who does rabbit tricks she spends ages captivated by the rabbit in its cage afterwards. When we visit my parents she organises us to go and feed the rabbits that live next door. At school H & K are studying pets and so they've been finding out that some of the kids in their class have rabbits. K has started to dream of having a rabbit of her own.

If we do get a rabbit I think we'll get two. Preferably of a large breed to face down Andy. I'm thinking they'll mostly live in a hutch that we move around the front lawn but also hop around inside the house for exercise. Not sure if we'll go for baby bunnies or adults from the SPCA.

Key performance indicators

On Thursday we went to H & K's first parent-teacher interview and got their first school reports. They are doing so well at school. I am so proud. The report grades them A: almost always, S: sometimes or N: not yet, for a variety of things. For example for Reading they are graded on "Enjoys books", "Shows an understanding of the story" and "Interested in reading activities". They both got As for everything!

At the interview their teacher said she'd asked a few of the children in the class who they like to play with and many had included H and K in their answers. I am very pleased that not only are my children doing very well academically but they are also socially successful. The first is something I found easy and the second is not.

I feel this reflects what entirely splendid people I have the privilege of nurturing and how well we have muddled through.

Holy Monday

On Monday I got a call from school - H had banged her head and could I come up and see her. I arrived to find a rather reduced H in the sick room with a bloody hat. It is always impressive how much head wounds bleed. She spent the rest of the school day colouring at D's work so as not to interfere with my busy schedule as an at-home mum.

H says she banged her head falling off a ladder in the play area. K says H fell of a handrail onto a concrete path (outside the play area). I'm slightly worried that the discrepancy might be caused by H blacking out but I think it much more likely that she was on the handrail and she knows that that is slightly naughty. My children tend to be over cautious so I try not to make a big fuss when they are brave enough to have accidents.

K was upset when I took H home. Being at school alone is hard when you're a twin. Then to further unsettle her her first baby tooth came out. It is a sign of maternal insanity that I am proud that my children are dentally precocious. First baby teeth at 5 months, first adult teeth at 5 years. D and I tooth fairied together.

Domestic Human

H & K have started school and I'm enjoying the luxury of not being on duty for kids or paid work during the school day. Instead I am busy catching up on a million things around the house. Last week I did mumble years of tax, this week I've been changing around H & K's room and wear their clothes are stored. I have weeks of house maintenance organisation, mending, sorting things out and emergency preparedness ahead. I'm enjoying having the house to ourselves after years of sharing it with a nanny.

Mother and housewife does not sit comfortably with me. I feel the need to justify myself, get D's approval and stress that it is only temporary. But it is fun!

Let them eat cake

On Saturday H & K had their birthday party. 22 members of their extended family came as well as 9 little friends (with 5 accompanying parents) and 9 big friends.

Last year they had an excellent party at the pool and I really like having party entertainment that comes with the venue and not having to cleaning up before or after. So this year I asked them where they wanted their party and we agreed on the zoo. We had it in the old elephant house where the flying foxes and assorted reptiles now live. We also had a 'contact visit' from Billy, the blue tongued skink, and Toby, the leopard tortoise. They were much admired and gently stroked.

A lot of the party food was different kinds of fresh fruit and vegetables: e.g. pineapple, watermelon, cherries, grapes, blueberries, cherry tomatoes and carrot sticks. So after the party we donated the leftovers to the zoo to feed their other animals.

Overall it was a great success although I was too busy anxiously fluffing around to enjoy it as much as I might have.

School is ruthless

H & K start school on Thursday. The last couple of days we've been practising getting up and walking to school on time. I am looking forward to them starting school but also apprehensive. I remember the social battlefield of the playground all to vividly. School taught me that I was uncool, unpopular and too smart. These are not the lessons I want my children to learn.

I do want them to learn the joy of academic success, make friends, develop independence and participate in our culture. Here's hoping.

The midget's right hand

Impact of time out:

"This is my gun," said H. "If I shoot you with it you have to stop and think about what you did."

Independence begins at home

Yesterday I filled in the forms for H & K to go to school next year. There were enrolment forms, contact forms, dental clinic forms, public health forms, new entrant forms and even ICT user agreements for them to sign themselves. Today my babies are so grown up they went to the postbox without me.

Glue ear

One particularly chatty little trick or treater said to me:

I've seen you in my street. My mother said you must have gone to a party and forgotten that your hair was green.

Cultural contamination and begging

H & K love Halloween so for the last few years I have been perfecting the art of attracting trick or treaters to our house. This year we got about 70 which is astounding in a country that doesn't go in for it much. It helps we have easy access and live in a street with lots of families. My technique is:

1. Decorate so people can tell you know it is Halloween. We stuck pictures of ghosts and jack o'lanterns which H & K coloured in in the front windows and tied some balloons outside.
2. Be generous so kids will tell each other it is worth visiting. Three wrapped lollies each is considered generous around here.
   
3. Look harmless. Two pre-schoolers jumping up and down on the garage roof in their pyjamas does the trick.
   

Wednesday evening from 6 'til 7:30 H & K alternated between jumping up and down on the garage roof in their pyjamas and woolly hats, and rushing downstairs to answer the door.

K: "Why did you say 'munch munch munch munch munch'?"

me: "Because it is more fun to eat you than listen to you whine."

Sometimes my parenting surprises me.

Angst in her pants

H is very good at putting two and two together. Sometimes she goes a little to far though and makes five. Our student nanny is from Melbourne, yesterday, when I went to Kelburn with H, I realised she had renamed Kelburn to Melbourne in her mind. This kind of thing generates wonderful malapropisms. She had a conversation with Damon about the "Terrible Arks" it took him a while to figure out she meant the "Wearable Arts".

One day I was on my own putting H & K to bed. They had just got settled and were sweetly snuggled down in their beds and I was just about to give them each a kiss, close the door and give a sigh of relief, when H leapt up and started wildly scratching her bottom. My heart sank. I thought I'd finished my motherly duties for the day and now there was a problem. I even knew the cause of the problem - overenthusiastic wiping. And as I pulled myself back into mummy mode I said:

"Do you have bottom angst?" I thought it was a rhetorical question. I thought it was a way to take it lightly, remind myself that some problems are unsolvable and lighten my mood.

"Yes." H replied with absolute conviction. "I have bottom ants."

Baby I miss you

I am helping out a friend who is a sole-parent with a 2.5 year old , J, and a 3 month old, T. She lives 90 miles from Wellington. I drove up Monday and I am staying for 10 days. It has been lovely spending time with J and T. T is a very good natured, easy going baby. The kind that the baby books promise but only a freak of nature delivers. J is a bright, determined and mostly very sensible wee person. He takes being a terrible two seriously and drives his mother to distraction as often as one would expect.

I am homesick for my children. The last few days when T gives me smiley gurgles or, to J's delight, my well placed suggestions enable him to conquer the tall ladder at the playground, I ache for my children. J and T are lovely and loveable but they do not fill the gap in my heart.

This physical longing for children of my own is deeply familiar. It is the feeling I had when I was facing infertility and trying to conceive. Now the ache is for specific children, H and K, but it is the same sensation. My friend told me to go home if it is too hard. Too hard? I put up with two years of this not knowing if it would ever go away, how hard can it be for a few days that I can end whenever I choose?