Grace's Birthday

Grace, aged eight:

Cartwheeler

Handstander

Red-riding-hood wearer

Wombat lover

The Pokemon Party

I've watched lots of kids go through phases of intense interests. At mother's group the boys seemed to go through a 'Thomas the Tank Engine'-dinosaur-pirate cycle. My niece has been through a Dora the Explorer obsession. And one of nephews has always had some particular collectible on the go. But my girls haven't really ever had a particular 'thing' they were into - until now. Lily has discovered pokemon and something about them just totally speaks to her.  Kim brought over a tub of pokemon characters she had for her boys when they were little and they have been endless playmates for Lil since.

For those unfamiliar with the pokemon thing, they are creatures with various powers that pokemon trainers (humans) have to catch and tame.  The pokemon live in litle pokeballs and come out to assume their real size, which can be tiny or giant.  Trainers engage in battles using their pokemon and have to chose the characters according to their stengths and abilities.  Pokemon can evole into new beings - the most famous, Pikachu, is the middle evolution of itself, the first being Pichu and the third being Rachu (I think I've got this right.  I'm learning a lot from Lily).  I think we've all embraced it at least in part because it is Lily's own thing, and it is so sweet to see her being thrilled by havig her own thing that she can tell us about as it is so often the other way around.

A few weeks ago Lily was thrilled by coming up with the idea of having a pokemon birthday party.  I knew that in all likelihood no one in her kinder would be at all familiar with pokemon.  They were popular with kids about 15 years ago and now are really a gaming thing, much beyond four and five year olds.  But who cares?

Grace drew a pikachu for the invitations, Nina made pokeball decorations, and all my kids dressed up as characters and did a fanatstic job of running the party.  I don't know how we ever did kids parties without their help, especially at kinder age when the parents mostly stay for the party so Craig was busy playing host.  We played the usual games, I made a terrible hash at decorating cakes to look like pokemon (they are laughably hilarious) and the children were adorable.  Have little kids got nicer or am I more tolerant (unlikely)?  No tantrums, everyone was polite as could be and sweet as pie.  I didn't get a decent photo of the cake but to be honest there wasn't a photo that could be taken to make that cake look decent.  Picture a round icecream cake, covered half in red jelly frogs, half in white marshmallows and with a mint pattie in the middle.  A dentist's dream.

Cafe De Paris

Ruby turned eleven last month, but her birthday was during the school holidays and we didn't get ourselves organised until this past weekend to have a party.  Unwittingly I organised it on Mother's Day, but I like to think that I gave the other mothers the gift of a few hours alone while their off-spring pretended to be in Paris for the afternoon.

Ruby has long had a fascination for Paris.  I rashly promised to take her when she is sixteen and that won't be a terribly painful promise to keep.  I turned 18 in Paris and that is the last time I was there, sitting on the steps of Sacre Coeur, trying to smoke, trying to be cool, with my glamourous friend Susan who had moved there to study, and feeling like anything was possible.  Hard to believe that was 25 years ago.

Anyway, her party was 'afternoon tea at the Cafe de Paris'.  We had macarons and eclairs and 'champagne' and petit fours, as well as party pies and cocktail franks and entirely un-French party games, such as the new-to-me 'chubby bunny' (look it up, it is most decidedly not sophisticated), pin the mouth on the Mona Lisa and a blindfolded makeover which produced some hilarious results.  There is nothing quite like the excitement generated by a group of ten and eleven year old girls. 

The cake was the now traditional ice-cream number, hastily decorated with curly wurly bars, maltesers and strawberry and cream 'flowers' at the base.  It didn't look all that flash but it tasted delicious.  And the really lovely thing about kids this age is that they are old enough to appreciate the effort involved and young enough to still be thrilled by the lollies.

I was especially pleased at the costumes we managed to rustle up out of existing clothes and a bit of ribbon I already had.  We only had one beret which went to Ruby, but an old bowler hat, french braids and a moustache gave a frenchish air to the others.   Lily went as a mime.  Perhaps it was the mask of face paint, perhaps it was because she was meant to be silent, but she was suprisingly chatty and confident, playing all the games and even holding hands with some of the guests - very unusual for our Lil, master of the baleful stare, the dirty look and the pouty lip.

I'm getting these birthday parties down pat now.  I'm learning where it pays to expend energy (orgnise the games and activities, have yummy fod that will get eaten) and where it doesn't (decorations, fancily decorated cakes).  Even given that Ruby and Nina shared a party for the first 7 years, I've still hosted 25 birthday parties, with another one this weekend.  I guess I should have figured a few things out.

Parks and Recreation

I've been told that we now require Park I.D's to go into our garden.  The Park Ranger, Fred, is apparently a pretty reasonable guy, but the night rangers are really strict and you don't want to get caught without your Park I.D.  Having said that, it may only apply in some futuristic alternate universe, seeing as 'Maya's' Park I.D. was only created on the 5 of November 2015, and bizarrely she was already six even though it would appear that her birthday is not until the following day......
It's not too bad though - that Park I.D is valid for longer than my licence.

Beach Weekend

We took Ruby's friend Indigo away with us for the weekend. All five girls spent hours and hours playing in the tree house. I guess they were orphans, judging by the graves of 'Ma' and 'Father'. We climbed the lighthouse and had our friends round for afternoon tea. They brought a passionfruit sponge, my favourite. Ruby and Indigo both have Doc Martens, but I note that Indigo's, though older, are in far better nick. Grace made a pom pom and has worn it every day since. She has barely taken off the fingerless gloves that she wore as a pickpocket in the school musical, either.  Nan and Pa came over and we climbed the ridge and made a fire and toasted marshmellows.  The wattle was out all along the Great Ocean Road.  You could smell the end of winter.  A typical weekend away, extraordinary in all the usual ways.

What Does a Horse Say on Your Birthday?

Craig turned 47 last weekend. Nina explained that the horse decorations and riddle was appropriate because 1 August is the horse's birthday (in the southern hemisphere). I don't know how or why she knows that.

Lily drew a picture of our old dog Pablo.

Grace drew a picture of Daddy.

Nina made a teeny tiny mouse and a teeny tiny surfboard (it's the third surfboard she's made for Craig now), packaged in the handmade horse box.

And Ruby made her famous ooey gooey brownies. They are very very good.

We went to the footy and sat in the cheer squad and waved flags and pom poms (Thanks Terrence and Bede) and I discovered that Bulldog supporters have a strong sense that the world, most especially embodied by the umpires, is against them and their kind. I was quizzed about my affiliations by the man sitting next to me who must have sensed that I was not 'born a bulldog' like our eldest, who has the certificate to prove it. We provided Lily with the unique (amongst our girls) experience of watching her team win and we had a crazy late dinner with friends in Chinatown which the kids survived fuelled by lemonade and spring rolls.

Little Sheoak

We went for a walk this weekend, to the top of the ridgeline.

This was the view:

If I were a spiritual person, I would have something profound to say about this place. We made a campfire to toast marshmellows. Craig was enticed away by the surf and the girls and I spent the next few hours alone up on the ridge, watching the weather roll in, wondering if the spots of rain would become something more.  Craig took the car so we would have been stranded which added a slight air of excitement to our adventure.

Lily entertained herself by taking photos on my phone. It is about the only time a photo of me gets taken so I quite like it, though it also involves deleting a billion snaps of legs, floors and blurry toys.

I love the colours of the bush. We were hoping to spot a koala, which we know are in the area.


But contented ourselves with this fellow who was entirely unphased by us.

Check out the size of this fungus (toadstool? mushroom? I'm never clear on the distinction)

And right next to it, this tiny delicacy:

The girls played an elaborate game for nearly two hours: they were Clara, Jenna, Susie and Lucy, ages 13, 10, 6 and 4, taken in 'off the streets' by a wicked 'manager' who made them spend all day burning sticks which he would then use in some unspecified way in his charcoal business.  They were forced to sleep together with only one blanket between them and were woken at 4am to start work.  'Lucy' (Lily) contracted a fever and was given some dispensations from work.

The main point of the game seemed to be an excuse to burn sticks in the fire, but the plot became quite elaborate, with visits from 'matron', the slightly kinder wife of the manager, his sweet daughter, Michelle, and periodic inspections from the mayor, to whom they were forced to lie about the conditions of their employment. Transgressions were punishable by removal of supper and more hours of work ("15 without a break"). The manager didn't know their names but called them all 'rats', though when they performed well for the mayor, who was happy to let this sweatshop continue, he rewarded them by cutting 5 hours off their working day.  (Have Craig and I been modelling a good work/life balance?  Hmm)

The game was rather Dickensian, even a bit sinister, but as always I was intrigued by the way children play.  It really is a skill that completely disappears at some point (I'm not sure when.  I remember playing these sorts of games as a kid but cannot remember when I stopped).  The way that games evolve organically, the way that children can slip in and out of various characters without explanation or question, how compromises are reached, how plot suggestions are made, accepted or rejected are all quite mysterious to me now.  Of course this does not always, or necessarily, happen seamlessly but on this day it did.  I wandered around, collecting bits of wood, taking a few snaps, absorbing the view.