I have lived in England for 25 days. England is England, I've been here before, I know what it looks like and yes, settling here is not quite the same as visiting, mostly because when you're on holiday you don't need home insurance and landline, broadband, a school and furniture, and you don't need to teach your children that it is not sensible or acceptable to walk into strangers' houses, go upstairs and look around.
People have asked what I see as the biggest difference between South Africa and here and I usually say: Everything. But something has come to my alarming notice and can certainly be placed squarely in the Incomparable Box.
In Forest Hill, London we visited the Horniman Museum. The kids were interested and gave the displays all the attention a five- and two-and-a-half-year-old can muster until their stomachs roar louder than the stuffed walrus. So we queue for a toasted sarmie (I refuse to call it a sarnies) and some coffee. While waiting and then sipping my coffee I was exposed to the most bizarre and utterly hideous scene. At the opposite table a dad and two kids (minimum 6 and 4 but more likely 7 and 5) arrive with their food and drink. Dad is carrying everything; he dumps it on the table and tells the children in a I'm-trying-to-teach-a-Pekingese-English tone to wait while he goes to get the ... high chairs.
Once stuffed into said chairs he then proceeds to open the wrapping on the straws and put it in the foil juice hole, unwrap their sandwiches and cut them into small pieces; they hardly ate a morsel, probably no space due to the pressure of the cross bar on their stomachs or perhaps they felt ill at the sight of it as I did. Then, "now what are we going to have as our special treat for daddy's day out? And remember if we ask for it we must eat it." We? I lost count of the number of times he told them to behave as he went to secure 'our' brownies. How could they misbehave, they couldn't move.
Since then I have made a study of the British 'baby'. In Cheltenham last Saturday I spied a large leg protruding from a stroller, I peeked in and to my horror found a child of school-leaving age staring back. Parents are laden with baby bags and bottles for kids nearing ten and eleven. Bottles hang from the mouths not of babes but of brutes.
Today started rainy so I took my two, five and almost three, to one of those hideous hellholes termed 'multi-leveled soft play' barns filled with screaming children and bustling adults. Regarding the British obsession with Health and Safety I can safely say that the number of adults sitting in the balls basin below a slide, or crouching through tunnels and helping children up child-sized steps and then reaching down for them and hauling them up half-a-meter, was a safety hazard. An alarming, gob-smacking hazard. How will these children ever learn to be confident, and God forbid take a risk, when a parent is forever THERE, aiding, assisting and cautioning.
Comparatively my kids are feral and I'm a negligent mum; I don't react unless the crying or screaming reaches a certain decibel or continues for longer then it takes me to finish my thought (long). A mum called out that a little girl was crying looking around for the mum, no response. Some time later she saw me with my daughter and pointedly remarked, "It was your little girl crying up there." To which I replied, "She seems fine to me." And she was, she was already halfway across the room yelling for her brother.
Give me wild over pampered any day and as they say, twice on Sundays.
Wednesday, 26 August 2015
Tuesday, 30 June 2015
Singing Like a Bird
After years of dithering my husband and I made the decision to relocate; lots of reasons, none of them relevant to this blog. Once we set the ball rolling everything just fell into place, one after the other, after the other after the other after the other ... gathering such momentum that at times it was difficult keeping up. One of those things is that my husband was offered a great job starting 1 July.
We're organized, bordering on, okay! totally OCD; so before he left I started selling things on FaceBook groups, we chose our favourite books and started packing up; or rather piling up. The freight company pack to ensure you're not shipping across your morning stash of 'mommy's little helpers', the pellet gun for noisy neighbours or my still-sealed bottle of ground coriander.
In all this organized chaos though we have left the children's rooms relatively untouched in order not to disrupt their little worlds too far in advance. In fact my husband has taken across their second set of linen – Dora and Thomas – to make up their rooms there to ensure continuity.
We didn't make a big scene at the airport – kiss, hug, love you dad, see you soon. We have a glass in the kitchen with a photo of dad squashed at the bottom ala Cabbage Patch Kid and exactly the amount of smarties in it as the number of sleeps til they see their dad. Pats on the back, I'm an amazing mom, we're amazing parents and of course I can manage five weeks on my own with them, the house, packing and a job.
Over and over and over again I repeated the serenity prayer this morning in order not to actually do my daughter (almost three) bodily harm. From the moment her dad, her special, her favourite, her everything, closed the car door at the airport she thought: Game On Mom – in a quavering Chucky sort of tone.
She's on a deliberate go-slow, a lobotomized incapability of following the simplest instruction and 100% hearing impaired. But that's not the worst, she has developed the most torturous whine. It's soft, but loud enough to jack-hammer against my ear drum, pained in a desperately plaintive, I'm all alone in the world and no one cares sort of way and REPETITIVE.
itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy ...
bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast ...
big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear ...
And boy does she have stamina. Endurance that would put Iron Men to shame, hour upon hour she can go on with this mantra.
Babies crying and the theme song to Barney played over and over are actual forms of torture used today in war to get captives to talk. In between other heinous methods. But when their tormentors leave they flip the "We're a happy family ..." switch.
Well little girl, a round of applause – no electrodes on sensitive body parts, no pliers (I lost all my toenails in a recent ultra anyway) – you broke me, I'll do it, what do you want to know? My phone number, banks account number, password to every online site I'm registered with ...
... anything, I'll sing ... like a bird.
We're organized, bordering on, okay! totally OCD; so before he left I started selling things on FaceBook groups, we chose our favourite books and started packing up; or rather piling up. The freight company pack to ensure you're not shipping across your morning stash of 'mommy's little helpers', the pellet gun for noisy neighbours or my still-sealed bottle of ground coriander.
In all this organized chaos though we have left the children's rooms relatively untouched in order not to disrupt their little worlds too far in advance. In fact my husband has taken across their second set of linen – Dora and Thomas – to make up their rooms there to ensure continuity.
We didn't make a big scene at the airport – kiss, hug, love you dad, see you soon. We have a glass in the kitchen with a photo of dad squashed at the bottom ala Cabbage Patch Kid and exactly the amount of smarties in it as the number of sleeps til they see their dad. Pats on the back, I'm an amazing mom, we're amazing parents and of course I can manage five weeks on my own with them, the house, packing and a job.
Over and over and over again I repeated the serenity prayer this morning in order not to actually do my daughter (almost three) bodily harm. From the moment her dad, her special, her favourite, her everything, closed the car door at the airport she thought: Game On Mom – in a quavering Chucky sort of tone.
She's on a deliberate go-slow, a lobotomized incapability of following the simplest instruction and 100% hearing impaired. But that's not the worst, she has developed the most torturous whine. It's soft, but loud enough to jack-hammer against my ear drum, pained in a desperately plaintive, I'm all alone in the world and no one cares sort of way and REPETITIVE.
itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy itchy ...
bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast bobil toast ...
big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear big bear ...
And boy does she have stamina. Endurance that would put Iron Men to shame, hour upon hour she can go on with this mantra.
Babies crying and the theme song to Barney played over and over are actual forms of torture used today in war to get captives to talk. In between other heinous methods. But when their tormentors leave they flip the "We're a happy family ..." switch.
Well little girl, a round of applause – no electrodes on sensitive body parts, no pliers (I lost all my toenails in a recent ultra anyway) – you broke me, I'll do it, what do you want to know? My phone number, banks account number, password to every online site I'm registered with ...
... anything, I'll sing ... like a bird.
Thursday, 2 April 2015
Eco-Terrorists
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.
... 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.
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.)
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