Category: the parenting bunny

Your Parenting Weekend: Sorted

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I know that much has been said about the Green Point Urban Park childrens’ play areas by other notable Cape Town blogs, but we hadn’t actually test driven it with the kids until yesterday. Suffice to say that we’ll be going back.

If you’re a parent of young kids and you haven’t been there yet, you’re missing out. We were there between 5:30 and 7pm yesterday evening (it’s open 7am to 7pm) and had to physically tear the kids away from the place. And while there were families around, it was serene and peaceful there yesterday (aside from Alex splitting his toe open and the associated noise), I can only begin to imagine how packed it is going to be during the upcoming holidays *shudder*.

 

Something else which is going to be busy and fun is the Newlands VWS Open Day on Saturday. Now look, I’m telling you about this because it was an amazing experience for my boy last year, but I don’t want you all to turn up, otherwise it’ll just be rubbish. Apart from all the usual fire engines, helicopters and big hoses (careful now), there are snake shows, stall and competitions:

09:00: Gates open
10:15: Snake show
11:00: Firefighting display and chopper drop
13:15: Snake show (repeat)
14:00: Best-dressed firefighter competition
14:00: Firefighting display and chopper drop (repeat)
16:00: Gates close

I can highly recommend it.

 

And then to complete your parenting weekend plans, how about a visit to the magnificent Cape Town Stadium for the Ajax Cape Town vs Bloemfontein Celtic match on Sunday? Gates open at 1pm and kick off is at 3:30pm.

Ajax are once again making this one of their Family Fun Days, with jumping castles, fussball, face-painting and entertainment for everyone. I want you all to turn up (this includes the Ajax strikers), otherwise it’ll just be rubbish.

Add these events to the School PTA Fun Day and a braai from 3pm on Saturday and I’ll be glad to get back to work on Monday for a nice break. (Just kidding boss! hehehehe.)

*cough*

1-year-old thinks a magazine is a broken iPad

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We were ahead of the curve on the Red Hartebees vs Evan van der Spuy video – posting it here when it had just 300 views, way before it had the 74 billion (is this right? – Ed.) it has now.

And I think this one has the potential to go viral too. It’s a one year old girl (the daughter of the CEO of the French Telecoms company Orange-Vallee, as it happens) who can’t understand why she can’t pinch-zoom and scroll on a magazine.

 

As her Dad says:

Technology codes our minds, changes our OS. Apple products have done this extensively. The video shows how magazines are now useless and impossible to understand, for digital natives. It shows real life clip of a 1-year old, growing among touch screens and print. And how the latter becomes irrelevant. Medium is message.

There’s nothing wrong with this. Things move on, we advance, we progress. Yes, books are great to hold and touch and smell (for weird people), but those are simply emotional responses. And while it’s fine to have emotional responses, we shouldn’t let them hold us back. We have to realise and we have to accept that in the future, books as we know them almost certainly won’t exist. Just as if I handed my kids a cassette tape or a rotary-dial telephone, they wouldn’t know what to do with it, so this one year old doesn’t understand why she doesn’t get any response from the magazines.

One thing it does make me realise is how important introducing as much new technology as possible into my kids’ lives is. Because being able to utilise touchscreens and the internet is every bit as important to them as being able to read a book was to us “back in the old days”.

Cut it yourself

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Another post that was featured on facebook yesterday evening, but needs to be popped somewhere less transient for purposes of posterity.

I got home last night to discover that while the babysitter had been making the kids’ dinner, Alex had cut his own fringe.

He was extremely proud, as you can see from the huge grin above. Some words were had, mainly about the presence of scissors (albeit safety scissors) near his eyes, but I believe that this is actually a rite of passage of sorts.

After all, it’s not like his Dad hasn’t had his fair share of dodgy haircuts over the years…

Rabbit Riots

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With the UK riots just a distant memory now and the majority of the perpetrators safely behind bars already, I was shocked to find a family who appear to have got away almost scot-free; this despite documented evidence that they were part of the problems faced by Britain at that time.
Rest assured that I have already passed on all I know to the relevant authorities. However, I thought that I should also share this damning evidence with my readers – and indeed name and shame those individuals responsible, the majority of whom appear to go by their gang names: Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail and Peter.

You can’t blame the kids: they live in an absolute hole. There’s no father figure in their lives – he was killed while carrying out a robbery – and their mother seems uncaring. Indeed, as far as I can see, they are pretty much left to their own devices for the whole day as she heads out shopping, merely telling them:

Now run along and don’t get into mischief.

Immediately, ignoring her advice, 3 of the children head out looting:

Flopsy, Mopsy, Cotton-tail who were good little bunnies, went down the lane to gather blackberries.

Presumably “the lane” is White Hart Lane in Tottenham and the blackberries come from the local O2 shop.

But this story centres mainly around the eldest sibling, Peter. While the others are illegally garnering crappy cellphones, he engages in trespass and theft in the garden of a local elderly resident.

First he ate some lettuces and French beans; then he ate some radishes;
And then, feeling rather sick, he went to look for some parsley.

I’m guessing “parsley” is street slang for marijuana or some such illicit substance.

All is going well for Peter until, smashed off his face on “parsley”, he encounters the homeowner and a chase ensues. Now all too often, we have heard of these OAPs keeling over with a heart attack, but fortunately, this guy seems stronger, and armed with a gardening implement, he goes after Peter.

Peter hides in an outbuilding and – in an effort to change his appearance – sheds his jacket. However, the old man tracks him down and Peter ends up smashing a window, “upsetting three plants” and possibly getting injured while escaping:

After a time, he began to wander about , going lippity-lippity – not very fast and looking all around.

Once he believes the coast is clear, he decides to make a run for it and manages to make it back home. No questions are asked as to where he has been or what he has done – indeed, his mother merely doses him up with camomile tea (the leporine equivalent of ritalin, I suppose) before he heads off to bed.

It’s a truly shocking tale and the worst bit about it is that it is openly and widely available to our children. Are there really lessons in here that we want to teach them? That non-existent parenting is acceptable? That petty crime has no consequences? That regular use of parsley is not something to be concerned about?

Is it any wonder we find ourselves facing these problems?

That quote, immortalised

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Those of you who follow me on twitter or have befriended me on facebook may have heard mention of this yesterday evening, but those media are transient and temporary, whereas this blog has delusions of permanence about itself.
And that’s why I’m putting this up here; so that in years to come, I can return to this place, see it again and have a(nother) little giggle.

It happened while I was bathing the kids last night. We’d just watched the International Space Station pass over Cape Town (something that the kids love) and we were talking about why the space shuttle was up there, attached to the ISS, and what it was doing.

It was then that Alex came out with that quote:

Dad, how come you know everything and Mum doesn’t?

It took a couple of seconds to register and then I had to walk to the bathroom door to quietly guffaw until I cried. I was met there by my wife, who had also heard what her son had to say as she was coming up the stairs, and had that “Don’t you dare say anything” look on her face. Not that I could have talked anyway – I was creased from laughing.

The kids spent this morning watching some spectacular images on the NASA streaming video feed as the shuttle undocked from the ISS for the last time. I spent the morning getting emails about how much bandwidth I was using.

And knowing everything, obviously.