“Dad, I am not a statue to be looked at.”
Leila O’Meara
Leila and I were in The Reject Shop today and saw those cheap voice-changing microphones they make for kids. She wanted one, so I bought two – one for her and one for Finn, in different colours.
This seemed like a simple and effective plan: A microphone for each child, identical in every way, except that Finn’s is blue and green and Leila’s is pink and yellow. No chance of confusing which is whose and no reason to fight over them. At 2 bucks each, a cheap and cheerful afternoon’s fun with little to no risk. Or so I thought.
I went outside to bring some washing in and left the kids happily yelling (aka ‘singing’) at each other through their mikes. As I was coming in with the first armful of stuff I spied Leila crouched on the ground while Finn attempted to put the fake bit of cable hanging out the bottom of his mike into her ear. I was suitably horrified and made a big deal of telling both of them that we never, ever put things in other people’s ears (except their hearing aids, of course …). Finn accepted this cheerfully enough and then promptly attempted to insert the same bit of cable into his own ear, past his hearing aid mould. I cut the pieces of cable off both mikes and went back outside.
After a couple of minutes I could hear Leila crying so came back in to see what was going in. When I got there she had her mike, but was still upset. I asked her what was wrong. “Finn took my microphone and gave it back when he saw you coming.” (The clothesline is outside her bedroom window) I bet Finn is starting to regret the days when he used to complain that Leila couldn’t talk …
I asked him why he took Leila’s microphone. “Because I wanted it.” I didn’t bother to ask why because the answer would only have annoyed me. Instead I sternly told him that there was absolutely no reason for him to take his sister’s microphone and that if I saw him with it again he would lose his own, along with his Lego. An over-reaction, perhaps, but necessary to make the point I thought.
I went back to what I was doing, only to find them a few minutes later, playing sword fights with the microphones … I suppose it was too much to expect they’d just use them to sing through.
Last night as I was doing some tidying up in the garage, I made a pile of dusty, faded or slightly battered baby toys that I found. As I bundled them up for the op-shop, I realised that neither Finn or Leila are babies any more and I felt a twinge of sadness.
I am not even sure why I felt this way. I just love our kids more every day and I wouldn’t wish for them to be babies again. Still the realisation that our baby days are behind us was a strangely poignant moment.
Part of our Saturday morning is to go to the local library for story-time after Finn finished his swimming lesson. During the story, these two are the life of the party, living every moment of the story and offering suggestion in response to even a hint of a question.
Their favourite bit is at the end of the story where there is some kind of craft activity, almost always colouring, cutting and a little glue to bring it all back together. I might find it all a bit dull, but it’s a terrific way to entertain the kids and they love it.
Finn was keen to see Toy Story 3 and Nicky was feeling sick yesterday, so the time was right to take the kids to the movies.
Leila was terrific. She sat and polished off a bag of lollies and watched the movie. She asked for a drink of couple of times, but that was no drama.
Finn, on the other hand, was a little more work. In opening his packed of sweets, he pulled to hard and lost half the packet in all directions. For the first hour of this film, he was fine. But once the bad toys starting making some gains, he sobbed and demanded that we leave. I kept Finn at bay for a while but he was carrying on so much that we did leave with about forty minutes remaining.
It wasn’t a great movie-going experience, but there are worse things in the world.
After much planning and wrangling, I whipped up twenty-five album sales at work and Deborah Conway and Willy Zygier came to my school yesterday and played a short set for the staff after school.
While a twenty-minute set seems really short, it was a real treat at the end of a workday and it was a lovely experience. The audience just had to excuse Leila’s coughing and yelling (as you can tell in the short video).
Finn has swimming lessons at 9am on Saturday mornings, and Leila will not hear of being left behind. While he swims and fools around in the water, I read Leila a book and chase her around. They used to have a good, little collection of kids books, but now they are down to the Gruffalo’s Child. I might have to start taking books of our own.
After swimming we go to the local library. We get there about twenty minutes before opening time, so we sit around and the kids clown around some more.
Once the library opens, I find the books that I have requested over the interwebs and the kids move the furniture around in the kids area. Finally, I become responsible and pull them away from the cubby-building so that people can sit down for story time.
Story time is good fun. Both Finn and Leila sit right down the front and answer every single question the childrens’ librarian asks the audience about the book. Then we do the craft activity, which is always colour, cut, then paste. Finn and Leila love it.
At about half past eleven, we head home. With any luck, Nicky has managed a sleep in, and I’ve had a pleasant – if somewhat tiring- morning with two lovely kids.