Random Kidversations

It has taken until 9pm but the to-do list is almost done.  Well it is as done as it is going to be.  On the up side, I did manage to treat myself to a trip to the fur shop and I no longer look like a hairy ape!

In other news, here is a recap of some of the many very random conversations that have occurred around me of late.

The first was between girl-child and her bff as we walked to school this morning.  Girl-child was still all red eyed and stuffy from hay fever.  She mentioned this to her friend who also said she had hay fever.  They then began checking off symptoms to ensure that they both did have hay fever.  Itchy eyes? check  Runny nose? check  Sneezy? check  Coughs? check  Head Ache? her bff didn’t have a head ache.  Girl-child consoled her friend by saying that she could have hay fever without having a headache.  She went on to explain that sometimes you have to be 6 to have a head ache and in fact she has had a head ache for all of her 6 year old life!

The second was between boy-child and his former girl friend, (the sister of his sisters bff) who was explaining to him that if she pretended to be a dog then he could call her a bitch and it wouldn’t be a bad thing because girl dogs are bitches and it is the truth so it isn’t swearing!

The third relates to man-child’s attempt to grow a m0ustache as a part of Movember.  The kids were asking him why he was trying to grow a moustache and so he explained that he was raising money to help men who were very sick.  When they questioned what sort of sickness he went on to explain that it was about helping men with depression as well as cancers that men get.  Boy-child added that they could raise money for man flu too because that is a really bad sickness too!

I know that there were more strange conversations around me but I am too tired to remember them right now, perhaps another day.  I will leave you with the joke that boy-child read at school assembly this morning

Q.  What bird steals all the bubbles from the bath?

A.  A Robber Ducky!

Chatting with Children

Like many parents the journey to get the kids to bed of an evening involves reading a book or three and a chat about the day.  Some days it is stressful and frantic, other days it is relaxed and days like today it is simply entertaining.

After reading the first book tonight, girl-child complained of a head ache.  The conversation that followed went something like this.

girl-child, “I’ve still got a headache”

me, “Oh I didn’t know that you had a headache, where does it hurt?”

girl-child, “here and here” pointing to the side of her head and the back of her head

me, “so what does it feel like”

girl-child, “it feels like my head is too tight”

me, “is your brain growing even bigger and you are even smarter now that you are six?”

At this point boy-child, who had been sitting by quietly watching the exchange, interrupts

boy-child, “Nah, she isn’t getting smarter she has got that infectious thing that will make her brain explode.  I don’t want to clean up that mess!”

Oh the love they share.

Fortunately girl-child was happy with the concept that perhaps she was getting smarter now that she is six.  She was also really tired after another crazy week.

Kidversations

Yesterday, I was sitting with a friend sipping bubbles, chatting and relaxing after the madness of another Monday.  The kids were doing their usual kid like stuff, girl-child playing with a friend and boy-child playing wii.  I was pleasantly surprised when boy-child self regulated his wii time and came inside to snuggle, sneak chocolate and generally provide all round entertainment.

When the chocolate supply was cut off, boy-child decided it was time to play golf – his clubs hadn’t made it out to the garage and were still inside from the weekend away.  He was quite perturbed that man-child had left his clubs in his bag so he took them out and put them on the floor in the lounge.  Now despite the house being far from tidy, having golf clubs on the floor is something unnecessary for me to clean up later so naturally I asked boy-child to put them back.  The conversation went something like this…

“Boy-child, can you please put dad’s golf clubs away?”

Whining as only a 7 year old can, “Do I have to?”

Said in a slightly sterner voice, “Please put the golf clubs away.”

Boy-child grumbled, “Oh, I hate those kinds of pleases!”

My friend was sitting there perplexed, “What kind of please?”

Boy-child continued to grumble as he took all the golf clubs out to the garage, “The have-to pleases.  That kind of please means I have-to do something or mum will get grumpy!”

Naturally my friend nearly wet herself trying not to laugh at the wisdom of a child who of course was right, I would have been grumpy if he left golf clubs on the lounge floor!

My Little Golf Pro

Awards and Dinner Conversations

Sitting around the dinner table tonight chatting with the kids and catching up on the days activities, I remembered that the kids had convinced me to stay for assembly at school that morning and for once I was glad I did – boy-child won an award.  I didn’t have my camera with me but managed to get a photo with my phone.  Of course when the presentations are taking place at the front of the hall and I am sitting right at the back, this is the type of picture you get.

Boy-child wins an award!

Of course I knew the picture was going to be way below ordinary so when the assembly was over I quickly ran around to the exit to do the overbearing mum thing congratulate him and of course take another photo.  Now one would think that standing outside with very few distractions I would be able to get a decent photo of him AND his award.  Unfortunately, not with my photography skills.  I managed to get a blurry photo of him, I just couldn’t seem to get one of him with the award.

Enough with the photos!

Now looking at the photo you could almost imagine him saying ‘Mum, you are embarrassing me!’  In actual fact he was impatiently waiting for me to hurry up and take the photo so he could give me a cuddle kiss before running off to class!  I love my boy, and I hope he is always happy to give me a cuddle kiss in public.

Now back to the story…

When he was prompted about his award, boy-child quickly ran to his bag to get it out and show us.  His award was for ‘confidently taking on different roles in our performance’.  Naturally the conversation then drifted to the upcoming whole school performance next week.  Girl-child has happily chatted about her role in the concert for weeks, she is playing the dog in the story of the Gingerbread Man.  In fact it has led to tears on many an occasion when she has wanted to help with costume production instead of sleeping.  (Actually I should be finishing costumes now.)

Boy-child finally disclosed what his roles in the performance were going to be.  The story they are re-enacting is the Leaf, a book by one of my favourite authors but I haven’t had a chance to pick up a this book yet.  Aparently boy-child has a few parts in the performance, one of which is as a fly-catcher.  Now I assume that the book is about plant life, but I wasn’t quite sure so I asked if he was a person who catches flies or if he was a plant.  Instead of taking the easy option and saying he was a plant, he went on to describe the plant.  ’You know I am that plant that looks like pacman and it chomps on flies not ghosts!’  Clearly a sign that boy-child has been playing with my iphone again, but I think he may have something…

Over Share, the Gynecologist Edition

Yesterday I worked, but it was a fun day.  OK, it was a long, hot, tiring day but it was still fun.  Today, not so much.  I am tired, I have a headache from dehydration from spending yesterday in the sun and not from overindulgence of alcohol.  To add to my misery, my body is sore from my poor attempts at getting into shape.  Instead of my usual boring rant about a crappy day, I shall leave you with a discussion had with girl-child yesterday.

So to set the scene, the kids had spent the afternoon at a school fete.  They were hot, dusty and dirty so after a quick dinner we all jumped into the hot tub to relax.  When we got out, all that was required was the monsters to dry and get dressed for bed.  It was still really warm out and girl-child showed no interested in towelling dry, so I suggested that she take her swimwear off to air dry.  The conversation went something like this,

me, “Why don’t you take your togs of you will dry quicker?”

her, “I don’t want to.”

me, “Your vajootz won’t get dry properly.”

her, “It doesn’t matter.”

me, “It will if it gets sore and you have to go to the doctor.”

her, “Oh” and she started to take her bather bottoms off to dry.

A friend piped up with “You should dry properly or you will have to go to the vajootz doctor.”

her, “What’s a vajootz doctor?”

friend, “A Gynecologist.”

her, “A vagina-kiss-ologist?”

As you can imagine it was totally hysterical.  Girl-child could see us trying not to laugh, so she started jumping around singing vagina-kiss-ologist over and over.  I get the vagina part, but I have no idea where kiss-ologist came from.  We tried to rectify the situation by discussing who could be a gynecologist but it wasn’t working.  

Last resort to restore a sense of order – “Who wants to have an icypole before bed?”   Distraction by food, always a winner.

Random Time Wasting Adventures of a 7 Year Old Boy

So after a fantastic afternoon with the kids, boy-child had a major meltdown.  I had gone from being his ‘almost favouritest person in the world’ to being relegated to being ‘right at the bottom of his favourite girls list’ and I am about person 100 on the list.  Apparently I was teetering on the edge precariously, trying not to fall of the list entirely.  And to think that I was dropped all because I chose the before bedtime books and they were his ‘worst ever books in the entire world’ (today).  He wanted to read a research book instead and wasn’t prepared to read it himself.  He stormed off in a huff, slammed his door and threw himself onto his bed where he proceeded to kick at the wall and missed out on story time all together.  

Once girl-child was tucked into bed with many, many cuddle kisses, I went to visit with boy-child.  I knocked at his door only to be grunted at and told to go away.  I pottered for a bit in their study, putting things away, but still he didn’t want to talk.  I didn’t want him falling asleep not liking me, so I attempted to clean the bathroom.  

Fortunately, I wasn’t to entrenched in the cleaning when he decided he was ready to talk to me again.  He bribed me negotiated with me, he would lift my status on his friend list if I read 2 research books with him in his bed.  Since we were negotiating, I bargained him down to one book and we were both feeling much better.  After yet another book all about insects, I gave him a cuddle kiss and hoped to wander downstairs.  That was not to be, boy-child was bored and wanted something to do.  He needed a piece of paper.  A simple request, so I obliged.  

He was quiet for quite some time and then I heard him holler from the top of the stairs, “I’ve made your maths test mum.  You can do it tonight or in the morning.  I will leave it on the stairs for you.”

 

My Homework – the Maths Test

Yay, I can’t wait.  I wonder if he actually knows the answers, or if he will remember to check to see if I have done my homework.  

He also asked if I could make him a maths test to do because “numeracy is his favourite subject” and he has already done a 10 page maths test.  Apparently it was so much fun that I have to make a test that is bigger than the one he had to do last year.  It looks like I will have a productive work day tomorrow!

My Heathens

The kids asked me what comes next and I had absolutely no idea, do you?

‘In the land of the father, at the end of the son, the name of the spirit.’  

Eventually boy-child yelled out ‘I know, it’s A-Man!’

That was when I figured it out, they were playing church, or Turch as girl-child pronounces it and were trying to say ‘In the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit. Amen’  I guess it is pretty apparent that we aren’t church going folk but that they did learn a thing or two when they were on holidays!

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Oh and I completely missed de-lurking day yesterday, so instead of writing more now I am going to drop by a few blogs I lurk around and de-lurk.  If you are one of the random few who drops by here, feel free to de-lurk and recommend more blogs for me to read.

The Kids Shopping Request

The kids are both enrolled in a drama class that has a school holiday program.  As they are both still in the younger age category, 5-7 years, the program runs for 3 hours a day – just long enough to justify going home or to work to get a few things done.  I usually opt for the going home to think about getting things done option.

Now normally the classes that the kids go to are in a suburb that isn’t too far from home, that is convenient to get to and parking is always available.  I thought I had enrolled the kids at the same centre but apparently the registration didn’t go through.  We turned up there anyway – oops.  

Unfortunately they had moved the class, to a suburb that is closer to home, but involves more travel time and in the opposite direction so it was a mad dash to try and get there.  Anyway, they only missed 20 minutes of class, but by the time I sorted out why their enrollment didn’t go through, there was really no point in going home only to turn around and have to drive back again, so I filled in a few hours shopping.

The positive, or should I say dangerous side? of having their class moved is that the new class is mere minutes from Bridge Road and all the shopping that the area has to offer.  I wandered aimlessly looking at the sales, not really needing anything, or not really prepared to try things on only to have reaffirmed that ‘YES – I have put on weight!’  

I did stumble into a jeans shop that was having a giant sale and knowing that my favourite pair of jeans have just made the migration to the rubbish as there were more holes in them than actual fabric, I decided to brave it.  Besides, this shop had the exact jeans as my dearly departed and very much loved to death jeans.  I decided to bite the bullet and try on a size larger than my old jeans figuring that after so much wear mine would have relaxed and stretched.  The pair I tried on was too large – hooray, the damage wasn’t as bad as feared.  I found a pair in my old size that fit reasonably well and went to the register to pay.  

Naturally the jeans I had selected didn’t have a reduced price on the tag and the original price was $140, so I was a little concerned about how much they would be, but they fit and weren’t in a larger size (it is all about the ego).  I think I almost held my breath as they were being scanned.  I am sure that when the price came up I gasped – they were $27!  I did a double take, ran back to the shelves to see if there were more but of course they were the last pair in the store in my size.  (If I were the larger size there were 3 pair available!)  Still, I was more than happy with my purchase.

Anyway, I am clearly side-tracked as this post was supposed to be about the kids shopping adventures and not mine…  

So, driving back from Richmond after class yesterday the kids recognised the area as being near IKEA.  Their request today was that they go to IKEA after class.  Since I effectively saved $100 yesterday who was I to disagree with their simple wish, besides the airconditioning in a shopping centre is so much better than our non-airconditioning!

When we arrived, I told the kids what I wanted – storage containers, a beach toy bag and maybe a clock and they led the way.  They know the store so well that they were able to take shortcuts to avoid the ‘boring bits’  (office furniture and beds) but made sure they hit the essential areas (the chair tester, currently almost 40,000 sits, the kids furniture/toy area and of course the cafe).  They even knew where the scanner for their kids club membership cards was hiding and managed to find the toys that they won without to much grief.  

The monsters even convinced me that they could have a late lunch so that we wouldn’t have to cook dinner tonight.  With a persuasive argument that absolved me from having to make a real dinner, it was off to the cafe.  They were almost ecstatic when they realised that the meatballs were substituted with chicken, it was like all of their dreams had come true.  Then to top of a perfect adventure, it was suggested that I sit and read my book whilst they played some more!

I am not sure but I think that I may have breed future con artists who have the ability to use logic and reasoning to get what they want AND make the victim feel good about being duped!

Finding Time

I think that I am relieved that November is over.  It isn’t that the pressure to post every day was immense, although at times it was almost overwhelming, it is more that there were so many NaBloPoMo participants that I had far too many blogs to read.  Every time I opened my reader there would be another dozen or so in my ‘must read’ folder.  My ‘I really want to read this’ folder is now up to 600 and counting.  I will never get through them all, but I don’t want to hit ‘mark all as read’ because I know that by doing it, I will miss out on the best post ever written.  I know, so sad, but I can’t bring myself to do it – yet! I will clear my reader and start fresh for the new year, even if it means hitting ‘mark all as read’, kind of like a New Years resolution.

Other than having far too many post to read and not having time, the internets are inspiring me, but also making me lazy.  Everywhere I turn there are talented people making gorgeous clothing and accessories, even posting simple ‘how-to’ instructions.  I spend too much time reading about what others have done and not actually doing (anything domestic).  I spend many minutes flicking through all that is amazing online, lamenting that I wish I could do that.  In actual fact, I know I could make some pretty amazing things if I actually sat down and did instead of sitting here reading about other people doing.  

Perhaps I should make time to create.  If only I had a space that was organised enough for creating.  Well I have the space for creating, I even have the space for storing mountains of supplies, the only problem is that the aforementioned space is filled with boxes and bags of crap.  The things that didn’t immediately find a home in the renovations.  In order to use the space, I really need to clean up first, and that certainly isn’t fun.  

Perhaps that should be another New Years resolution to contemplate, get rid of crap that isn’t required.  The only problem with resolutions is that I never keep them.  Maybe I should aim to be organised prior to the New Year and then I won’t need a resolution.  Hmmm, that sounds like a much better idea, although I really don’t know when I will find the time, there is so much else that must be done, this time of year is crazy.

The kids activities are starting to wind down for the year.  The dancing performances are this weekend, then the dvd viewing the following weekend.  Prior to the performances I have to make another few ‘last minute’ costumes and then help plan how to occupy a dozen 4-6 year old kids for 3 hours.  Work wise, all of my projects are nearing completion and require me to work crazy hours, throw in planning sessions for next year and I have less than no free time at work.  Add to this a few million Christmas parties, shin-digs and get-togethers and I don’t think we have a free weekend in the foreseeable future.  It should be fun.  

First things first, the house looks almost tidy.  Sure if you open cupboards, things are likely to fall out, but if you keep the doors closed everything looks pretty…
That just reminded me of kid-comments from last night.  Friends, my best friend and her dad as well as some neighbours, came over for an impromptu barbeque dinner.  My friends dad hasn’t been here since the renovations were finished so the kids decided to take him on a tour of the house.  Just as they were about to go upstairs, after he was instructed that he wasn’t allowed to go upstairs with his shoes on, boy-child says, ‘Oh no, G (friend’s dad), can you just give me 10 minutes, I need to clean my room’, and promptly ran upstairs to hide toys.  Upon later inspection, he had hidden all of the toys/clothes/chaos that was on his floor on his top bunk and then covered it with an extra blanket.  The items he couldn’t disguise in this way he hid in his cupboard and then shut the door.  I wonder where he gets it from?  I can’t complain too much, his room looked great.  If only girl-child would copy!

KidSpeak

After a crazy day at work and a mad rush to get dinner ready before meltdown time, the kids were allowed to watch a few minutes of TV.  Unfortunately my timing was off and ABC kids was finishing so the kids started channel surfing.  

 

This is part of the conversation they had…

Boy-child, “Hey the news is on, where are the kids shows?

Girl-child, “Change the channel.”

Boy-child, “Argh, more news.”

Girl-child, “Keep looking.”

Boy-child, “Look, it’s Hannah Montana!”

Girl-child, “Why is she an adult?”

In actual fact, they had flicked over to Friends.

      

  I am not sure who was Hannah Montana; Phoebe as Hannah or Rachael as Miley?  Either way, they enjoyed a few minutes of Friends before dinner was ready!