Weekending

Mother's Day

Yesterday was a lovely day. The boy that gave me Mother's Day gifted me these creations.



The card was made at after school care. He told me he made rock heart by rubbing it on concrete to create the shape. So fabulous! I love it.

Play date in the sky

On Saturday afternoon Kien went up to the Skytower will his friend, Arlene, and her parents. How lucky he is to have such a cool play date. Thanks, Manon, a.k.a. waldokiwi, for taking these awesome pics.

Te Arai beach

The previous weekend the weather forecast looked so good, and I really wanted to head north as a result. Jef had a number of things to work on, and Kien needed to get back early Sunday for a long overdue play date with 2 of his best buddies from school. So we took both cars and zoomed up to Mangawhai.

On Saturday afternoon I took Kien to our local beach while Jef worked on the tractor. Initially Kien could not understand why I brought his wetsuit, let alone make him get into it. I told him I know him well and left it at that. We got onto the sand and he played around for a bit.



Then, of course, he just couldn't help himself. It went from testing the water, then jumping waves. He spent ages building a pool and testing whether he could build a barrier so the water couldn't get in - just like we did at Hot Water Beach.



















I regretted not bringing my wetsuit as well!

Making pet rocks

Kien's school had a carnival in the weekend to celebrate the completion of many years of rebuilding work that went on over there. One of the activities they had organised was a pet rock competition. So a couple of his friends were over here last Tuesday to make their creations.







Glue gun, paints and a few other accessories and their pieces came together nicely.

A visit to the Auckland Art Gallery

On Sunday I took Kien to the gallery for the My Art Time with the Sew a Softie party! It was great fun. Kien designed and sewed it together. I did help him out a little bit as it was his first time sewing and he kept unthreading the needle. But otherwise he did a great job.












I had asked him what he was going to make and he said he wanted to design a ferocious monster. Then at the end of the design phase I commented that it was looking a lot like a koala. Yes, it's a koala, he confirmed. He couldn't help it. Hehehehe.





There was another exhibition for designing cardboard houses, and did that one too.



Afterwards we walked home via Myers Park.

Kien's social calendar

When we were up north the other weekend Kien said that he liked being in Auckland more than Mangawhai. We asked him why that was so. He said it was because he wanted to see his friends. So I promised him we would have the following weekend at home so he (meaning me) could arrange playdates for him. Well, talk about a full social calendar for the weekend just gone. On Saturday he went over to one of his good friend's place early morning until early afternoon. Then I reciprocated with having Hemi at ours. They ended up spending a couple of hours in the pool, and it was dark by the time his mum came to pick him up, and even then the boys didn't want to get out.

On Sunday we had Naotaka, Philemon and Sonny over. Sonny is new to the group - well, new for them all to hang out together at school. Sonny and Kien were in the same team for cricket in their first year. I must admit, having the four boys together for a playdate is much easier than just three. When its three there's always one who is left out at one point or another.

I told Kien in the morning that he needed to come up with some activities they can do. I didn't want them to be playing minecraft all afternoon. So he came up with a schedule. Firstly, they were going to play minecraft for 30 minutes. Then they were going to the playground. Well, they did play minecraft while I went to the supermarket, and then when I got home I sent them out the back to play with nerf guns.

After an hour I feed the ravenous bunch, and then they ran around some more.

Such good fun. They are all plotting another playdate. Boy of boy, the kids' social calendars are busier than ours!

Art and life

My child oscillates between being delightful and being a down right thorn in my side. OMG, this weekend!! Not sure what's going on with him but he's been so fragile; having a meltdown because he didn't like the hotpot restaurant we went to last night, and then bursting into tears multiple times today because his iPod kept crashing from the stupid game that refused to load. It's enough to drive a parent to alcoholism, I tell you! So as I sip my Bloody Mary on a Sunday afternoon I'm letting him spend all of his points on watching youtube because I just am too tired to nag.

This afternoon, getting him to practice 5 minutes of keyboard was like extracting teeth. 5 minutes! I was rewarding him with 1 point for it too! That's 20 minutes of device time, or 1/3 of $2 if he want to save for Beyblades (3 points = $2). I think I'm extremely generous with the earning of points. But no, when Kien is going through a non cooperative phase the moaning and the groaning can make you feel like your ears will bleed. But this is life, right? As adults we also go through phases, and sometimes we also feel that the amount of effort it takes to, say, do a day's work at our job isn't worth the stress for the $. But if you want to eat, have a house, go on holidays, drive a car, and be able to afford hobbies then you just have to suck it up. The points system I've put in place for Kien is trying to teach him about this - well that's what I'm hoping its teaching him...there ain't no free ride. Either that or he just thinks I'm really mean. He has asked me why his friends can get to use devices FOR FREE. I told him I didn't care what his friends get or doesn't get because I am not their parent. He thinks I'm being unfair. So my natural response to that is...life is unfair, kid. Get used to it. Now go and empty the dishwasher and that will earn you a point.

The other day I was emptying his book bag and found a certificate he got. I didn't get around to asking him abut it. This afternoon I was tidying up the dining table and found the certificate, so I asked him to let me take a photo of him holding it for this blog post. He was like, "oh, when I got it in assembly they also made me hold it to get photos taken."
"What? Why didn't you tell me?"
"Because it was a surprise", he said.
"And you were going to tell me, when?" Do you think he'd give me one photo with a decent smile after our conversation?

At the end of the year the school always does an art exhibition where the kids get to choose a piece to showcase. This is Kien's submission for last year.

The reason I haven't talked about this before is because Kien actually lost the artwork at the end of the year when they were cleaning up. Don't ask me how he could lose something so big - it's an A3 drawing stuck on heavy weighted paper to form a border. Anyway, we thought it was lost forever but then it showed up all of a sudden in his classroom at the beginning of the year. I was so happy when I found out it wasn't lost, because he had actually taken out the top prize for the 7 year olds category.

He was rewarded with $25 voucher at the local book store.

I asked him to explain to me all the details in his drawing. Oh boy, I think that's an entirely different blog post, all to do with nuclear weapons, saving villages and meteors. Yeah, too much for a Sunday afternoon frivolous post.

Saturday cricket

The season is almost over. As sad as that may sound it means that we adults get our Saturday mornings back, and Jef doesn't have to rush home on Thursday evenings to take Kien to practice. We want Kien to do team sport because it teaches him commitment, team work, bla bla bla...but in him doing extra curricular activities the reality is that WE have to be committed too, and that means no lazing around in bed on Saturday mornings after a long week at work. Oh, the sacrifices!

Last Saturday the club game was held in Kohimarama. They had a really good match, and the Grafton United Cricket Club Y3 Panthers won their second game for the season! It was a great win too - Auckland University Cricket Club Y3 Crocodiles scored 84 runs vs the Panthers with a massive 124 runs.