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It’s back to school and not a day too soon! Summer holidays doncha just love ‘em…
Christmas has well and truly been and gone now and although Santa didn’t arrive this year in a Holden Ute, nor did we catch him at the Surf Club in an inflatable rubber boat, he did call in to our little corner of NSW.
On the Big Day, the kids were eager to get downstairs at just after 6am to see if he’d been.
Sure enough, Scarlett confirmed it as the first one to see the gifts under the tree. Ted tried his hardest to find the sleigh-tracks on the front lawn by peering through the blinds and satisfied himself that the man in Red had called in, even having time to polish off a bottle of beer and half a mince pie! Think I might have to skid the car round the lawn next December 24 to convince him. Lottie was simply dumbfounded by it all.
A couple of new bikes, a slot racer set, some I-pod stuff, electronic Dora computers and a few swimming pool goodies were among the special gifts this year from family afar. Wrapping paper soon outpiled the pressies so I don’t think Santa will have time to wrap them all next year. Normality returned to the day after the first rides on bikes, in pyjamas of course, a quick test drive of the RC car and a cup of tea for Dad. Then it was time to get in the pool and try out the masks and snorkels! Later in the day Grandad Manchee and Ted had plenty of fun racing round and round the slot track, we stuck stickers in Scarlett’s books, played play-doh critters and baby doll got dressed and undressed a thousand times.
After 40-odd years of northern hemispherical cold, damp, grey, white, sometimes all four at once conditions on Christmas Day, it still seems very odd indeed to be barefoot and shorted slaking the thirst with a cold beer over the sizzling barbeque! Not that it stops thousands of natives doing the whole roast turkey, ham, crackers and paper hats thing; maybe we’re just past that bit. Instead some steaks, sausages, kebabs and a few prawns dressed up with salads and fruit filled everyone and nobody missed the Queen’s speech.
The rest of the holidays have passed with regular trips to the beach and an awful lot of swimming, New Year’s Day was a bit crowded so we’ll give that a miss next time. Lottie has now mustered enough confidence with her little swim vest on to step off the bottom step and float about the pool swimming herself, although she still likes to swim on my big fingers (thumbs). With a full time place at the day care now, she’s talking a lot more too. Favourite at the moment is doing and getting everything herself (no surprise there then), playing in her bedroom and “I poosh shoo win”. Another reference to the pool whereby I get pushed into the deep end bringing about raptures of giggles from her.
Scarlett has also taken to the full time placement well and will ‘graduate’ this year from day care to Kindergarten at the big school. Mind you after just one week, she’s been desperately asking for a day off because Ted hasn’t been back to school! The morning protestations have grown so tiresome that we’ve managed to fool her by getting Ted to put on his school uniform for the drive to school with a change of clothes in the car. Phew!
She spends a lot of time in her own little world and the rest of it annoying Ted. Just the other day as we sat having dinner the conversation was about the recent shuffle of bedrooms to give them all their own space. Both Scarlett and Lottie remarked in unison that,
“Zoe, your room’s a mess”, which had all of us falling about laughing at the spontaneity of such a true and accurate observation!
Ted’s been having a ball these summer holidays. Before he hooked up with a local lad round the corner he’d spend time out on his bike at the boat ramp or the water’s edge and it must’ve been on one such foray that the Steve Irwin in him found a pet crab which was brought home and found in a jar under his bed. It reminded me of the huge snail he found in France that lived in one of his shoes for a while. His fascination with all things technical grows and grows and we’ve had some interesting chats about gravity, space and stuff mechanical. I was tickled pink as we watched a Discovery hot rod make-over when he asked if the people in the garage could look out of the telly and see us in our living room!
Beautiful.
If he’s not near the water he can be found batting a can down the road with a broomstick or chatting with the dog-walkers we all know. Now that he has made friends with another lad the X-box phenomena has been discovered and is beginning to fire an interest that I suppose is inevitable but I believe still a bit off-puttable. Interestingly he described a game to me the other day that I know and detest. It’s all about stealing cars and racing through the streets, smashing up the scenery, defeating the cops and general delinquency. What I found frightening was the fact that he didn’t know how to do any of this – until he was shown. So now, he’s beginning to learn these things and in the game-makers quest for reality it has to be very real to be attractive to the gamers. Worrying isn’t it?
Anyway in my draconian way I’ve shown him my utter disgust for this kind of thing and requested that he plays something else. Preferably outside involving crabs, water and bikes! The attraction of BMX seems to have more of a pull than X-box…
His best little stunt was perhaps the funniest as his experiment with the shoes was unearthed. Several of his sisters’ shoes were found in the freezer. Why? Because he wanted to see how cold they would get! Now he knows that not only do they get cold but upon taking them out they also get very wet!
School holidays, doncha just love ‘em!
Last Night, just before Scarlett snuggled down into bed I asked how her day went at Sunshine day-care.
“Oh it was fine, actually we went to Africa for lunch” she replied all wide-eyed and serious.
“Really?” I enquired.
“Oh yes, we went out the gate, down the road across the bit at the bottom, round the roundabout and through another gate into Africa. And it cost us sixty dollars”.
I was truly amazed and even more impressed that they managed to do so much at day-care. “And what was the weather like in Africa?” I asked.
“Well, it was actually warm and windy because the hot sun warms everything up and the wind blows very warm” she said.
So taken aback was I by this wonderful description of such a beautiful sounding place, all spoken I might add with abounding enthusiasm that I just had to ask if it was possible to be taken there one day as a guest.
“Oh no, no!” came the reply and with rattles of uncontrollable laughter Scarlett revealed they hadn’t really been to Africa – they just had lunch outside today!
Sweet dreams little Sunshine.
Laying in the water face up I raised my arm enough to see the hands on the twenty year old Sub at just before 6:50 am and without upsetting my balance slid it back into the water to stretch out a little more. Just then the pump clicked on and began humming away, the tinkling of small bubbles pumping through the pipework was all I could hear with my ears submerged. Far above me the turquoise sky stretched forever, cloudless and edged by the half dozen palm tress that fringe the pool.
The water was as flat as a pancake and floating here felt so easy, even my slow to repair little finger gave no pain or soreness. The image imprinted on my mind then as now was that of a holiday scene, a special treat, the kind of place that we would go to once a year for our holidays, but not this time. This was me getting ready for another day.
The hubbub of our mornings always starts very early with the first of the little ones appearing any time from 6:30 or thereabouts . There’s always the dishwasher to empty, there’s always a basket clean washing to hang out and of course there’s breakfast to prepare. This particular morning saw me in front of the game with most of those chores out of the way and double figure minutes in hand before the first breakfast would be required.
The palm-framed turquoise gently disappears and is replaced with that strange orangey coloured screen that you can only see with your eyes shut. A few weird shapes like microscopic organisms appear on my screen and begin to float across it, slowly at first then darting here and there as I chase them with my eyes shut, drifting in and out of thought.
And then, all too soon the pool gate is rattling and someone’s calling my name…
