Super Heroes

"Mummy, I want to be a Super Hero!" announced our little girl yesterday at breakfast time.

"You know," I replied, "You can be a Super Hero all the time by helping people."

"No, Mummy" she said in a you just do not get it at all voice, "I wanna kick butts!"

Oh, I do get it daughter of mine, I so get it! The thing is that as tempted as I am to kick butt, I am called to follow a really maladjusted Super Hero, one who showed how to serve, how to turn the other cheek, and he lived a life that truly made a difference.

That's my boy!

He is four years and three months old and today I heard words that just warmed my heart! If you have not dealt with a fussy eater, and I do mean fussy eater, then you will just not get it and be thankful you do not. (Just like I am glad that I cannot share in the swapping of H1N1 stories and long may that continue!)

Anyway our two arrived at the dinner table tonight with four imaginary alligators in tow. These were the baby alligators and the mums, the dads having just been taken to the zoo as a punishment for some kind of jealousy. OK, I have no idea! Every meal with our littler boy is a battle to not have a battle and it starts with the food arriving at the table. Tonight there was not a complaint.

"Yum, I like this kind of pasta, don't I Mum?"
Yes, you do, buddy!", say I omitting the fact that every time it is a struggle to get him to eat the first few mouthfuls. I leave him to do a task in the kitchen. During the week we do normally eat together but tonight we had friends coming later.
"Everything OK?" I ask checking in and interrupting a gator discussion.
"Yes, Mummy. I love it! Thank you very much"
"You are very welcome. I am glad you are enjoying it" say I, thinking I am 100% thrilled that you are showing this amount of enthusiasm and you are eating blended down steamed carrot, yellow pepper, broccoli and tomato sauce in pasta but we will not tell you that quite yet!!!
"Mum, do I need to finish this?" asked his sister.
"I'm finishing mine." said the littler boy to her surprise and my continuing delight!

Having filled up on pasta, fruit, (four small pieces, and I mean small pieces of grape but small steps are important steps, for the wee boy), and frozen yogurt, I was suddenly aware that I was in the kitchen and no-one was at the dining room table. They had had some kind of alligator emergency that had required their attention. I only wish I had taken a picture of the little girl's bedr alligators cage.

This is what happens when a friend introduces your kids to Dill Pickle, the alligator at Memorial Park in Athens, and your kids have great imaginations. You need the patience of a saint to happily help tidy the mess tho, particularly when they had started the session with a secret craft project and had then thrown everything off the bed, including the mattress so they had somewhere to keep the alligators safe!

Work

We have had a week of all settling back into school. Our little girl did great in her first few days of Primary Two. Such a change from the trauma of last year. The littler boy was just delighted to be back at nursery. He could not get there quick enough. And me? I think I might still be jet lagging. Maybe, in truth, I am just lagging!! Work was not a problem. I am fortunate to really enjoy my work and I am still just doing two days a week. It is the whole getting routines going again that seemed to be the problem. I did manage to get everyone to the right place with the right clothes on, and snacks and lunches packed, but it did feel a huge effort. This week will see me full of oomph, I am sure.

I was given "Change the world 9 to 5" from Sarah for my birthday. Remember "Change the world for a fiver?". Well this book is full of things we can all be doing while at work to make a difference and make folks smile. So Idea 86.... Avoid waste. If each of the UK's ten million office workers used one less staple a day, 120 tonnes of steel would be saved every year. I will not be able to look at a staple in the same way again. Who in the world worked that out?

These feet were made for.....

...... walking and running and jumping and oh so many more things! And they did all thru our holiday. They went to the beach, to catch fish, to the park, they rode wild rides and fun rides and "too scary for me" rides at Disney. They travelled on four aeroplanes and fidgeted many hours in Grandaddy's truck. The best things about these feet is that they were, oh so comfortably, housed in a pair of gratefully received hand me downs from Rowan.

Having examined my summer wardrobe, that is my "it is going to be warm rather than a typical Scottish summer" wardrobe, and found it distinctly lacking, I found myself drawn to rows of very attractive looking clothes in a clothes store. I was rescued by Susan who dug thru her wardrobe and loaned me some great things to take with me.

Our little girl came home with a whole bag of hand me downs from Shelbie, crazy I know to have a transatlantic hand me down relationship, but a year apart in age and exactly the same build and colour, it is just ideal and we are grateful!

And you may remember my having been upset about wearing a hole in the knees of my favourite jeans? I wondered how in the world I would ever replace them without reneging on my challenge of avoiding clothes stores. One word... Goodwill, specifically Goodwill in Athens. This is a charity that exists to create employment opportunities for people. The money they make in their charity stores gets ploughed into that. Well this charity shop is the size of a supermarket and full of great stuff. Yep, you have to hunt through an amount of not so great stuff. But two pairs of jeans, five dollars each and one (a never worn pair from the Gap) then I was a happy bunny. I also learned that I could so easily develop a thing for shoes. That took me a bit by surprise. The fact that I have a thing for plates did not. Thankfully, the whole suitcase thing pushed me into good sense and no plate purchasing. And I have found charity shops that actually do white, racks of white. I have listened for a year to Beth telling me about how I need to see this place and she was so right!

Our Aunty Bethie also let us know about Plato's Closet. This is not a charity shop. It is a chain of stores where you sell your not wanted clothes to them and they then sell them on. The secret is that they will not buy your tat only the good stuff so you have a store full of pretty good gear and a store that you would not be embarrassed to be inside, in fact it has a real upbeat feel to the place. I picked up some good things in there. One of which I will be wearing to a wedding next week. Please do not be telling anyone the dress cost $8 and the cardigan is borrowed from Susan. You just cannot go without a cardigan over here!!

The result of all this borrowing, hand me downs, second hand purchasing and a generous Grandma who took the kids on a most wonderful shopping spree in Osh Kosh B'gosh, meant we went out with a bag and a half of our stuff and came home with five!!

Watch and learn

These are pretty cool, eh? Our littler boy and I made them on the two hour flight to his grandparents, just after a three hour layover which had followed a seven and a half hour flight. Plasticene and some plastic and we were busy for at least twenty minutes.

We have just made the return journey which included a five and a half hour layover. What in the world to do with two small children for a travel time of around 15 hours? Well I had it all planned out with a couple of new DVDs and some tried and tested, guaranteed to keep them glued for hours, ones and the beauty of US airports being the willingness to let you plug your stuff in. (Not sure about UK airports.) Well, then I went and packed the charger in the checked bags. Just great! Four hours of DVD time and when to use it became the debate.

During this trip we broke the news to our little people that we were likely to cancel our Sky package on return to the UK. The grown ups in this house have virtually eliminated TV from their activities and are surprisingly unbored and definitely not lacking in stimulus. I have no problems in the kids watching TV but I am beginning to see just how much they are influenced by advertising and if it is bad now then it will only get worse, right? The little girl just has to have Lelly Kelly shoes and why? Because they come with a crazy amount of sparkles and a lip gloss. I don't think so. The little boy went through a phase recently pointing out cleaning tasks and announcing "Cilit Bang. Just one spray Mum and the job is done." It is a cleaning product, for goodness sake. The news that there may be no more kids channels from Sky was met with some real resistance but I think we will not be swayed. We have a ton of DVDs.

Anyway we found a good spot in the airport to set up camp for a few hours and I put on one of our new DVDS, trusting that this was good use of precious charge. It kept them busy for a wee while and then I saw their attentions beginning to wander, becoming completely engrossed in the unloading of a huge aeroplane parked right outside the window. It was a huge operation with trucks, cranes, trolleys, moving ramps and a whole heap of people.

"Watch and learn, buddy!" the little girl said to her brother.

"Yeah, this is great!" he replied.

Watch and learn, Mum. Who needs endless charge on the DVD player?

But I really want a pair of Mickey Mouse pj's!!

I do. I am living this week in the land of Mickey Mouse. I have swum with sharks, ridden on dinosaurs, raced down rapids, said hello to Lilo and Stitch, watched Nemo reunite with his dad, floated round a lazy river, went on safari with Kilimanjaro safari company, raced round Thunder Mountain on a roller coaster, sung "It's small world" quite a few times, flown on a magic carpet and I now want a pair of Mickey Mouse pj's.
I had a great pair all picked out, my size and everything when someone happened to mention that some child had undoubtedly been exploited to make them that cheap and well, all the magic went real fast!!! And I left the store without my pj's. Make no mistake I still want them but I do not need them and I am still committed to seeing this year of maladjustment out. I know too that while it is true that clothes which are very cheap are likely to have been made by people who are not receiving a fair wage and working in good conditions, it would be a mistake to think that just because clothes are more expensive workers are being treated right.
On this trip we have done great on borrowed, hands-me-downs, Goodwill and Plato's Closet.... more details to follow. Right now I am away to recapture the magic!