It's bizarre how the lens through which we see things changes. As a child you relentlessly pursue anything that slithers, crawls, flies or hops with total disregard for the animal in question. As an adult we carefully place a tupperware over a wayward spider, slide the lid underneath and then through it tupperware and all, skin crawling outside. Sitting on the stoep we'll revel in the beauty of an African monarch butterfly, whimsically following its flight path ...
... followed closely by two children with nets in their hands and danger in their eyes. My immediate reaction is horror; I have to stop myself from shouting at them and lecturing them on how the torture of small defenseless animals can lead to life of sociopathic behaviour. After a deep breathe I realize a) they'll never catch it and b) I did it too (and I never caught one).
Shamefully though I must admit to catching what I call Rose beetles. Large, at least an inch long, bright yellow beetles with black spots. We'd tie cotton to their back leg and 'fly' them. What's amazing though is that I had no problem taking them off the bush, handling them, or rather manhandling them to tie on the cotton, but if one flies toward me now I recoil.
So it's a kids' thing and this is how they explore their world. Before my son had the nerve to explore it himself he would pull me by my index finger all the way to the object of his interested and then touch it with MY finger. I complied but their were times when it was just too gross.
Over the past couple of years I have felt dreadfully sorry for many Shongololos (centipedes). My son has build them extravagant homes thoughtfully equipped with kitchen and garage, shoved them in and then shoved them in again when they chose not to move in.
You can just imagine then their delight (my daughter has embraced the pastime too) at being let loose in a campsite in the Kruger National Park.
Dung beetles were it. They pursued their frenetic activity with the same dedication and conscientious spirit as the beetles which can dispatch a mound of elephant dung in a matter of minutes. They prodded and poked, built barricades and obstacle courses for an insect sadly not equipped with the capacity for either reason or logic.
There's a significant difference though between the Small Five and the Big Five: we don't trifle with elephants. Keep the windows closed and avoid antagonizing herds of pachyderms.
Our daughter is going through a mind-numbingly enthusiastic elephant phase, or EFANT! Bumping along a back road we came across an elephant in the road. We cautioned the kids to whisper as we could see significant movement in the bush to the left (turned out to be six in all). We'd seen a couple of lone males in the past two days but the penny hadn't quite dropped for her that these were indeed the living, breathing, incarnation of her obsession. Just then, with the possibility of a mother and calf separation the penny crashed in recognition, she opened the window and pointing madly began yelling: "EFANT! EFANT! EFANT!" Leaping around the back seat, opening the other window and continuing her booming welcome to elephants a mere five meters from the car.
(No worries re climbing over her brother, game viewing turned out not to be his thing and he had taken to squeezing himself behind the passenger seat singing Gungnam style.)
This morning an outside guestroom was being cleaned. Gazing at nothing, coffee in hand, I noticed something flying through the air, across the stoep and into the flowerbed below.
It turned out our housekeeper was dispatching frogs from the room, it also turned out that our dogs are much like children.
Thursday, 2 April 2015
Monday, 23 March 2015
Things you never thought you'd say, or hear
Firstly, welcome to my single Russian reader! здравствуйте (I truly hope I haven't said "I like to eat small children for dinner").
This is an interactive blog, there are things we have all said to our children and heard from them that have made us howl with laughter, left us gobsmacked or just plain done our heads trying to fathom how on earth they came up with that. So please comment and add your most outrageous remarks, I'll put them together and we can all feel sane in the knowledge that it's not just us. Universal madness is so pacifying.
My all-time favourites:
1. Ellie, put down that rhino!
[Ellie is the Jack Russel and the rhino was of course small and plastic. He lost a leg. Be grateful for small mercies, the giraffe his head. She took exception to these small benign creatures.]
2. To my daughter: Stop eating the wall!
[Sure the plaster on the low verandah wall is coming adrift but I have no idea where her fondness for brick and mortar came from. I also have no explanation for this but thankfully she has stopped eating our house.]
3. Don't pick your teeth with that aeroplane.
[To my son. That being the operative word, as opposed to any other aeroplane.]
4. To my daughter: Take that eye out your nose!
[At which point she rammed her little finger even higher up her nose. Said eye was one of those decorative crafty types with the moving part inside. Needless to say we had to pin her down and extract it with tweesers.]
My daughter has yet to come up with some true pearls, her age has its limitations, but from my son on berating him for not listening and asking if he actually had ears and what they are for he replied, in all seriousness:
"I'm saving them for emergencies."
[He's four.]
This is an interactive blog, there are things we have all said to our children and heard from them that have made us howl with laughter, left us gobsmacked or just plain done our heads trying to fathom how on earth they came up with that. So please comment and add your most outrageous remarks, I'll put them together and we can all feel sane in the knowledge that it's not just us. Universal madness is so pacifying.
My all-time favourites:
1. Ellie, put down that rhino!
[Ellie is the Jack Russel and the rhino was of course small and plastic. He lost a leg. Be grateful for small mercies, the giraffe his head. She took exception to these small benign creatures.]
2. To my daughter: Stop eating the wall!
[Sure the plaster on the low verandah wall is coming adrift but I have no idea where her fondness for brick and mortar came from. I also have no explanation for this but thankfully she has stopped eating our house.]
3. Don't pick your teeth with that aeroplane.
[To my son. That being the operative word, as opposed to any other aeroplane.]
4. To my daughter: Take that eye out your nose!
[At which point she rammed her little finger even higher up her nose. Said eye was one of those decorative crafty types with the moving part inside. Needless to say we had to pin her down and extract it with tweesers.]
My daughter has yet to come up with some true pearls, her age has its limitations, but from my son on berating him for not listening and asking if he actually had ears and what they are for he replied, in all seriousness:
"I'm saving them for emergencies."
[He's four.]
Tuesday, 24 February 2015
Extreme Tantrums
We finally quit the city and found not just a mountain but an entire range as the backdrop to our historic house; no way were were raising our children in the city. (See http://kerrincocks.blogspot.com/2015/01/opting-out-firsts-in-free-state.html) for an idea of the months of house, town and province hunting that went into this final move.
For a long time people asked us if we had settled in to small town living and our answer was always a very definite yes. It wasn't a question of settling in here but rather, we realized after a few restless months, getting Jo'burg out of your system. You're so accustomed to the Go-Go-Go that you take it with you wherever you ... well, Go.
But we did settle in and finally breathed out the last of the city.
"Do you ever regret your decision?" People ask. "No." For so many reasons, a major one is the children.
We now have two.
The only time they are inside is if it's raining, if they're eating, sleeping, bathing or watching Pet Patrol. The house isn't small and we're blessed that they each has their own large bedroom and a trunk full of toys but they want out; the pool, the garden, their bikes, the mountains, exploring old mining adits, you name it, they're in, or at least my son is, our little girl is slightly less inclined to tread where even angels play.
My son and I have spent five hours hiking, scrambling up sheer rock faces that the Jack Russell needed help with searching for the source of a creek, we've climbed trees on Lone Tree Hill (perhaps there was only one when it was named), we've driven dinky cars over rockscapes, dragged bicycles over impossible mountain tracks and done a scary amount of rock climbing.
He's four.
I am endowed with the same adventurous spirit and the same energy levels and the same desire to see what's around the next bend, over the next rise and when you look again it would not be inconceivable for us to be in Swaziland. I even almost talk as much, but he wins hands down on that every time.
So when frustrations turn into tantrums and moods escalate out of proportion I recognize the need to release this negative energy. We are cut from the same cloth in this respect. When I'm snappy and short-tempered my husband will always suggest a run. So when he's all over the place, crying, throwing things and generally inconsolable and dare I say, hideous, we take to the mountains.
At first the suggestion is met with more crying and outbursts of reluctance, but I'm stubborn too and force on the right gear, throw some water bottles and a snack in a backpack and grab his hand (or wrist), still kicking and screaming and leave the building.
He loves to run. The first time I handled a tantrum in this way we ran up and down the streets, me next to him, silent, him wailing but running, me encouraging him to let it out: "Scream as much as you want." After a kilometer or so he simmered down but he's stubborn and wouldn't concede a victory to me so maintained a modicum of feigned anger and resentment.
We veered off the road and up a mountain track (his choice), as we began to explore even the anger abated. A sheer rock face a hundred meters or so behind the house stands sentinel to the mountains beyond (although there are obviously paths around and over it). The rock is pock marked and from the bottom looks an easy climb and he wanted to climb it.
The parent in me rose above the adventurer and I said I didn't think it was a good idea. His face clouded over and the adventurer and OMG I can't do the wailing anymore won out. So up we went. It's always halfway up or two hours into a gruelling hike that the dreadful realization of what an irresponsible mother I'm being sinks into me, it's a cold, hard dread.
We were almost at the top when the climb became impossible, he was overtly scared, I was covertly terrified. Two options ... we agreed on down. Fifteen minutes up and over an hour down and five minutes home.
His disposition? Sunny, cheerful, full of confidence, proud of his achievement and most importantly, happy.
(And he still loved him mom.)
For a long time people asked us if we had settled in to small town living and our answer was always a very definite yes. It wasn't a question of settling in here but rather, we realized after a few restless months, getting Jo'burg out of your system. You're so accustomed to the Go-Go-Go that you take it with you wherever you ... well, Go.
But we did settle in and finally breathed out the last of the city.
"Do you ever regret your decision?" People ask. "No." For so many reasons, a major one is the children.
We now have two.
The only time they are inside is if it's raining, if they're eating, sleeping, bathing or watching Pet Patrol. The house isn't small and we're blessed that they each has their own large bedroom and a trunk full of toys but they want out; the pool, the garden, their bikes, the mountains, exploring old mining adits, you name it, they're in, or at least my son is, our little girl is slightly less inclined to tread where even angels play.
My son and I have spent five hours hiking, scrambling up sheer rock faces that the Jack Russell needed help with searching for the source of a creek, we've climbed trees on Lone Tree Hill (perhaps there was only one when it was named), we've driven dinky cars over rockscapes, dragged bicycles over impossible mountain tracks and done a scary amount of rock climbing.
He's four.
I am endowed with the same adventurous spirit and the same energy levels and the same desire to see what's around the next bend, over the next rise and when you look again it would not be inconceivable for us to be in Swaziland. I even almost talk as much, but he wins hands down on that every time.
So when frustrations turn into tantrums and moods escalate out of proportion I recognize the need to release this negative energy. We are cut from the same cloth in this respect. When I'm snappy and short-tempered my husband will always suggest a run. So when he's all over the place, crying, throwing things and generally inconsolable and dare I say, hideous, we take to the mountains.
At first the suggestion is met with more crying and outbursts of reluctance, but I'm stubborn too and force on the right gear, throw some water bottles and a snack in a backpack and grab his hand (or wrist), still kicking and screaming and leave the building.
He loves to run. The first time I handled a tantrum in this way we ran up and down the streets, me next to him, silent, him wailing but running, me encouraging him to let it out: "Scream as much as you want." After a kilometer or so he simmered down but he's stubborn and wouldn't concede a victory to me so maintained a modicum of feigned anger and resentment.
We veered off the road and up a mountain track (his choice), as we began to explore even the anger abated. A sheer rock face a hundred meters or so behind the house stands sentinel to the mountains beyond (although there are obviously paths around and over it). The rock is pock marked and from the bottom looks an easy climb and he wanted to climb it.
The parent in me rose above the adventurer and I said I didn't think it was a good idea. His face clouded over and the adventurer and OMG I can't do the wailing anymore won out. So up we went. It's always halfway up or two hours into a gruelling hike that the dreadful realization of what an irresponsible mother I'm being sinks into me, it's a cold, hard dread.
We were almost at the top when the climb became impossible, he was overtly scared, I was covertly terrified. Two options ... we agreed on down. Fifteen minutes up and over an hour down and five minutes home.
His disposition? Sunny, cheerful, full of confidence, proud of his achievement and most importantly, happy.
(And he still loved him mom.)
Wednesday, 4 February 2015
Ching Chong Cha Cheat
Ching Chong Cha
Hick Hack Hock
Rock Paper Scissors
Which ever you choose to call it, hopefully not the latter – zero imagination – it is probably the one game you cannot cheat at. It's Ching Chong behind your back and on Cha you present your flat hand, fist or ... hang on a minute ...
In wanting to describe the placement of your fingers for scissors I realize it is the double-fingered, vulgarism of old, now discarded in favour of the single middle finger, but I digress. Peter Pointer and Toby Tall, with Tommy Thumb, Ruby Ring and Baby Small tucked in represent scissors.
So it's somewhere between 5.30 and 6.00am and neither my husband nor I can physically open our eyes let alone move a muscle so actions like nipping to the kitchen to warm a bottle, remove a dry nappy and pop her on the potty, respond cordially to the now ten-minute old plea of: "Can I have breakfast please?" Are just not possible.
Regardless of the night before, actually getting myself out of bed in the morning is a gargantuan task. My husband does it. Not because he's a morning person or because he finds it any easier, but because he knows I will outlast him.
In order to even make it (dressed with my teeth brushed) to the front door with the kids (dressed with their teeth brushed) and all the necessary apparel for their day, who swims on a Wednesday? I have to go to sleep, sleep, not bed, no later than 9.30, at a push 10pm, but then I'm risking throwing on yesterday's clothes to get out the door.
Before I had children I couldn't understand why my parents ate dinner so early. Now I know. Habit. Years of eating early so you can go to bed early so you can get up early.
Is it hideous to every now and then wish with every fibre for those precious Sunday mornings before you had kids?
Here's how bad it is:
Hick Hack Hock
Rock Paper Scissors
Which ever you choose to call it, hopefully not the latter – zero imagination – it is probably the one game you cannot cheat at. It's Ching Chong behind your back and on Cha you present your flat hand, fist or ... hang on a minute ...
In wanting to describe the placement of your fingers for scissors I realize it is the double-fingered, vulgarism of old, now discarded in favour of the single middle finger, but I digress. Peter Pointer and Toby Tall, with Tommy Thumb, Ruby Ring and Baby Small tucked in represent scissors.
So it's somewhere between 5.30 and 6.00am and neither my husband nor I can physically open our eyes let alone move a muscle so actions like nipping to the kitchen to warm a bottle, remove a dry nappy and pop her on the potty, respond cordially to the now ten-minute old plea of: "Can I have breakfast please?" Are just not possible.
Regardless of the night before, actually getting myself out of bed in the morning is a gargantuan task. My husband does it. Not because he's a morning person or because he finds it any easier, but because he knows I will outlast him.
In order to even make it (dressed with my teeth brushed) to the front door with the kids (dressed with their teeth brushed) and all the necessary apparel for their day, who swims on a Wednesday? I have to go to sleep, sleep, not bed, no later than 9.30, at a push 10pm, but then I'm risking throwing on yesterday's clothes to get out the door.
Before I had children I couldn't understand why my parents ate dinner so early. Now I know. Habit. Years of eating early so you can go to bed early so you can get up early.
Is it hideous to every now and then wish with every fibre for those precious Sunday mornings before you had kids?
Here's how bad it is:
- I caution my husband not to trawl for a movie on the tellie; it'll end too late.
- I talk myself into no longer liking a programme I've always enjoyed; it's a double bill and ends too late.
- Some one gave us the complete goodness-knows-how-many seasons of Breaking Bad over six months ago. We know we'll never just be able to watch a single episode each night, once we start it'll be full-on, "Just one more." It'll end too late. We've actually likened the commitment to having another child.
- We turn a DVD movie into a mini-series.
- Every day I promise myself I'm going to spend some time writing in the evening. I don't. I crawl guiltily across those broken promises into bed with my book making small groaning noises in appreciation of how good it feels to be lying down.
So our cheek's are plastered to our pillows, our daughter (legs too short to climb out of bed on her own and use the potty and developmental age too young to fetch and warm her own milk) has given up on calling "Maameee" and is now calling, "Daadee" and our son is now in the kitchen banging about with stools to reach the items necessary to make his own breakfast – enough to chill the core of any OCD parent – and I say: "Ching Chong Cha?"
Eyes closed on Ching Chong, we both manage to peer at the result, hands raised aloft on Cha .
Round one: I lose.
Round two: I win
Round three: In a do-or-die final I pull out my scissors and watch, aghast as his paper morphs into a rock!
Friday, 9 January 2015
Dere's Gold in Dem Dar Hills
The one thing no parenting book prepares you for is children's parties.
Family for tea and cake for his first birthday and, "Oh good heavens no party, he'll never even remember" for his second. At this stage we had not been to another child's party.
When he turned three we had. Or should I say I had, my husband would rather saw his arm off with a plastic spoon.
There are degrees of insanity at these parties, but I was in no doubt I had witnessed the full insanity thereof. For his third birthday his two besties came with their construction vehicles; we let them loose in what would become my veggie garden.
The next year I saw it all again. Parties that must take the moms weeks to prepare, the long, low table and little chairs. Each child's place has a beautifully made (I still have them, they're too perfect to throw away) goodie bag with the latest favourite TV show characters perfectly reproduced and stuffed, to my eternal horror, with sugar in equally well-crafted likenesses. And the cakes, good heavens, the cakes ...
Then there're the moms, encouraged to accompany their child who at least provide me with material for my blogs. It's all so perfect until the kids arrive; within five minutes it looks like a crime scene.
So when our son's fourth birthday came around I knew what I didn't want. No Disney theme, no low-slung table, no rot-your-teeth-just-looking-at-it goodie bag and NO MOMS.
The thought of entertaining them at home was also a non-starter so we took to the mountains; that is after all why we moved here. Since we live in one of the oldest gold mining towns in the country the mountains are pocked with old tunnels and excavation shafts.
The invite Specified old clothe,a headlight and no moms.My friends thought I was mad, taking what started out as six kids but ended up closer to 12 into the mountains on our own. I said, "Bye."
I have a commanding voice and before we left a few short, sharp instructions were issued to a group of seated, super excited kids.
Rule 1: The Jack Russell goes first, she will take care of anything untoward on the path or at least notify us thereof.
Rule 2: Any fighting, you get taken home.
Rule 3: We all have legs and we're all going to use them, no 'uppie'.
Rule 4: No pushing and shoving in the shaft, walk don't run and help each other.
Then we crammed into cars and headed for the creek.
Early that morning we'd nipped out to mark a not-insignificant trail to the old shaft with balloons.
Those kids ate up that trail, they ran from balloon to balloon. They shouted, they whooped, they tripped they fell, they shed not a tear. When they got to a steep, rocky part of the trail I knew some may need help and was prepared to offer piggy-backs, but no, if my mates can do it, so can I and up they scrambled, some on all fours.
It was as if they could smell the gold, it was so obviously one of the most exhilarating things they'd ever done that every moment was priceless and because our son knew the trail it was his 'show'.
We had of course also prepared the shaft with gold.
And to their enduring pleasure they found gold and stuffed their 'prospecting' bags so full they couldn't carry it all. On their own they would notice someone who didn't have any and shared unprompted.
They stumbled back into the light for juice and half a cupcake and then went straight back in.
We walked back to the cars with heads filled with magic and gold, tired legs and a party still talked about.
They were incredible, not once did I need to raise my voice or use my super stare; their energy had been allowed to follow unrestrained, their imaginations unencumbered ...
... and we had as much fun as they did.
Family for tea and cake for his first birthday and, "Oh good heavens no party, he'll never even remember" for his second. At this stage we had not been to another child's party.
When he turned three we had. Or should I say I had, my husband would rather saw his arm off with a plastic spoon.
There are degrees of insanity at these parties, but I was in no doubt I had witnessed the full insanity thereof. For his third birthday his two besties came with their construction vehicles; we let them loose in what would become my veggie garden.
The next year I saw it all again. Parties that must take the moms weeks to prepare, the long, low table and little chairs. Each child's place has a beautifully made (I still have them, they're too perfect to throw away) goodie bag with the latest favourite TV show characters perfectly reproduced and stuffed, to my eternal horror, with sugar in equally well-crafted likenesses. And the cakes, good heavens, the cakes ...
Then there're the moms, encouraged to accompany their child who at least provide me with material for my blogs. It's all so perfect until the kids arrive; within five minutes it looks like a crime scene.
So when our son's fourth birthday came around I knew what I didn't want. No Disney theme, no low-slung table, no rot-your-teeth-just-looking-at-it goodie bag and NO MOMS.
The thought of entertaining them at home was also a non-starter so we took to the mountains; that is after all why we moved here. Since we live in one of the oldest gold mining towns in the country the mountains are pocked with old tunnels and excavation shafts.
The invite Specified old clothe,a headlight and no moms.My friends thought I was mad, taking what started out as six kids but ended up closer to 12 into the mountains on our own. I said, "Bye."
I have a commanding voice and before we left a few short, sharp instructions were issued to a group of seated, super excited kids.
Rule 1: The Jack Russell goes first, she will take care of anything untoward on the path or at least notify us thereof.
Rule 2: Any fighting, you get taken home.
Rule 3: We all have legs and we're all going to use them, no 'uppie'.
Rule 4: No pushing and shoving in the shaft, walk don't run and help each other.
Then we crammed into cars and headed for the creek.
Early that morning we'd nipped out to mark a not-insignificant trail to the old shaft with balloons.
Those kids ate up that trail, they ran from balloon to balloon. They shouted, they whooped, they tripped they fell, they shed not a tear. When they got to a steep, rocky part of the trail I knew some may need help and was prepared to offer piggy-backs, but no, if my mates can do it, so can I and up they scrambled, some on all fours.
It was as if they could smell the gold, it was so obviously one of the most exhilarating things they'd ever done that every moment was priceless and because our son knew the trail it was his 'show'.
We had of course also prepared the shaft with gold.
And to their enduring pleasure they found gold and stuffed their 'prospecting' bags so full they couldn't carry it all. On their own they would notice someone who didn't have any and shared unprompted.
They stumbled back into the light for juice and half a cupcake and then went straight back in.
We walked back to the cars with heads filled with magic and gold, tired legs and a party still talked about.
They were incredible, not once did I need to raise my voice or use my super stare; their energy had been allowed to follow unrestrained, their imaginations unencumbered ...
... and we had as much fun as they did.
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