Sunday Funday

Today is Father’s Day in America, and a great part of the world it turns out when you look at Facebook feeds (see – still a relevant social media tool). Not so in Australia, when Father’s Day is the first Sunday in September. For all the people that didn’t know that already, you’re welcome.

Yesterday the ‘father’ in this house started making some noises about going for ‘brunch’ for Father’s Day.* The mother in the house did some searching on the web about the ‘best brunches in Atlanta’, ‘best breakfast locations in Atlanta’ etc etc. Turns out, surprise, surprise that most of them were booked out and the ones that weren’t were a first come, first serve situation, and about a 45 minute drive. That scenario in our house is fraught with danger; first the driving part ‘are we there yet?’ could be asked as many as 65,000 times in that time period; and three members of our four member family do not like waiting in lines. I envisioned 45 minute drive, arrive frazzled, long line, look in my phone for for ‘next option’, 20 minute drive, arrive frazzled, long line, look for ‘next option’, 15 minute drive – some threats of violence in the enclosed space of the vehicle to anyone who asked ‘are we there yet?’ OR announced ‘I’m hungry’.

The best option was clearly breakfast at home because ‘don’t forget Dad you told us you’d take us to the movies tomorrow, we haven’t been to the movies yet this holidays’. Also, I had just watched the Holderness family Father’s Day video (remember them from Christmas Jammies and Snow Day?) and I was guessing that while traveling to brunch was a nice idea, it probably wasn’t what he really wanted.

So at 8am I arose from my spot in the spare bedroom (I had given up my own bed at around 1.30am due to a scenario involving a nightmare monster squashing 7 year old girls), and dressed in yesterday’s clothing to walk to the local supermarket in the ‘cool’ morning air.

The cooler morning in Hotlanta these days is around 25 degrees celcius or 77 F and 100% humidity, the walk is short but hilly. When I arrived glistening (East Cobb ladies don’t sweat, we glisten) to procure my breakfast needs I discovered many a mother with child in tow doing the same. I even found some of them in the card aisle. Phhhht. I totally had that down, I had downloaded from PINTEREST – yeah, that’s right, a full booklet that my children could use to creatively describe to their Father in words and pictures how much he meant to them.

Only one small problem.

Not daunted I pressed on. I am sure there is a website for Pinterest fails I can attach this to later.

It’s the thought that counts

Once I returned from my morning walk, across a neighbour’s back yard to avoid the last little crushing hill, I set about making a world class brunch worthy breakfast. There are no photos in case of food critic / cholesterol police but it did feature, poached eggs, organic bacon, breakfast sausage, mushrooms, onions and  grape tomatoes with a square of onion and fetta bread.  There was coffee and orange juice, flowers from our garden and the paper. Not bad I say.

After a sufficient food coma break for the father and time of course to joyfully read his Dad, World’s best booklet, there were plans made to attend the 2.45pm session of How to Train Your Dragon 2.

Mr 11 was very difficult to get out of the house, he doesn’t like movie theaters, they are cold (bring a long sleeved top – no thanks) and loud (bring some headphones – no thanks). We had to promise this was the ‘last movie he would ever have to go to’  in order to get him off the front step. Miss 7 loves the movies, she loves the popcorn and icee ordering and then forgets that she too finds it a bit loud. I had to sit between them at their request to calm any situation that may arise. All seemed to be going well, I had minimal bumps from elbows, all four held high when pushing hands to ears to dampen the noise. Then a request ‘can you pass me your icee cup – I think I need to barf’ Mr 11. A few minutes later I had the ‘all clear, false alarm’ and I turned attention to Miss 7 who at this point had tears streaming down her face – SPOILER ALERT – I thought because of the death of a character in the film. I started to tell her, it’s OK I cry all the time in movies and when I read books. No such luck, it had been too loud for her so in pushing her fingers into her ears she had scratched the inside of them with her fingernails. The apparent pain from inner ear scratches was causing the tears, that didn’t stop flowing until the movie finished.

Don’t you wish you were having my day? I sure wished I was having one of the perfect father’s day I could see scrolling through my Facebook feed. Smiling kids and dads, lovely meals prepared by OTHER people.

As we rolled back into the garage the father and I decided that we hadn’t seen a non-animated film at the movies together for over 11 years. We estimate it could be 11 more before we do.

Upon entry to the house everyone scattered for quiet time, golf  on tv for dad, building on the Kroger in her minecraft game for Miss 7 ( because every minecraft world needs a supermarket right?) and Mr 11 back with headphones and YouTube videos.  Peace at last.

Happy Father’s Day!

*before the apostrophe police who quite rightly keep a close eye on me and my many grammatical errors jump in, the interwebs told me that US law adopted the term Father’s day with the apostrophe right there.

Swim Team

Don’t do it!

Do it!

It’s awful, you will be SOOOO glad when its over!

It’s great, they will be soooo much better at it by the time its over!

Everyone gets a ribbon, no matter where they come!

The excessive exclamation marks are warranted because everyone I discussed it with had a strong opinion and they were all heartfelt.

I may have mentioned 77 days of summer vacation already. While Phineas and Ferb thought ‘their generation’ was the one deciding how to spend it, I can assure them that their parents also had to get out their thinking caps, their wallets and more cleverly their calendars – in about January.

Failing that, those of us that are less organised, not heading elsewhere for three months, new to the extremely lengthy summer holiday season for school age peoples of the USA, or ALL of the above, need to scramble to take the scraps of what’s left activity wise or enter those that accept enrollments when the ground has thawed and there are birds singing in the trees.

Swim team was one such activity. As an Aussie girl who wanted to see the swimming tradition passed to the next generation it seemed a great fit. Six weeks of 45mins a day per age group. Why couldn’t it go on all holidays I wondered? Why only six weeks?  Sounds great on paper, until the information that they train not all the same time but in a consecutive fashion. Read the fine print Nikki. Sadly too  late to fix the three and a half year age gap between Ms 6 (aka WASYO) and Mr 10.

Poolside daily 8.30-11am gets you these tan lines

Then there were the Swim Meets. A once a week reminder of the reason we were all there – a six hour extravaganza where all kids regardless of their abilities get the opportunity to swim a lap or two or four of our or another neighbhourhood pool with their parents and coaches cheering them onto victory – or just lap completion, whatever worked better for them. The theory is beautiful, the reality hot, humid, filled with volunteering pitfalls and swim parents* aplenty.

Heres the thing about swim meets – there are about 650** children from age 5-18 (most in the lower age groups) and their parents and coaches all packed onto the pool deck of a neighbourhood pool.  These pools are not Olympic swim meet certified, they are not designed for this kind of activity. Most of these kids / tweens and teens swim between three and six races EACH between 6pm and 10pm on a weeknight in summer.***

What the pool deck looks like during a swim meet – this one an ‘away’ meet when the away team gets the sunny side of the pool, lucky!

In summertime the temperature in Georgia peaks between 5-7pm. Just so you know, it is impossible to look any kind of reasonable at a swim meet and that’s before you start your three hour shift managing the 6 and under ‘bullpen’. The bullpen manager is responsible for ensuring that not one of the sugar fueled swimmers, did I mention the concession stand ‘Oh, they’re swimming they can have some treats’ (I’m guilty too),  leaves the proscribed location for the duration of the event, and gets the relevant swimmers to their relevant heats in reasonable time before they swim.

Before the first meet someone told me not to wear a dress or skirt, it was good advice – all the sweat ran straight into my shorts so at least I looked like I had an accident in my pants as opposed to it all running down my legs and looking like something else. Not kidding. I was not alone, every other volunteer parent, same thing. Someone should have tipped me off to wear a sweat band too. I am thinking of getting some printed for next year, or my head shaved, or both.****

Six weeks, five swim meets – six really if you count the washed out one that had to be continued after we waited for one hour and ten minutes in the pouring rain because you have to be out of the water for 30 minutes after each incidence of thunder.

We made it and we have the many many ribbons and one 9 & 10 Boys most improved medal to prove it. Yay us!

Swim team booty!

I also have the perfect crowd control item for my kids – if they misbehave I threaten to wear my ‘swim team pin’ (its a badge to me) in a public place, it came in my swim team photo pack, I had no idea but it works a charm.

Behaviour control badge

See y’all next year, maybe….

* As part of my ongoing identification of new opportunities for reality television shows in the US – which there are MANY, I am currently working on a proposal for ‘Swim parents’. Please treat this accordingly as a copyright notice. My idea, thanks.

**OK its probably really only 100 but it FEELS like many many more

*** Even thought the swim meet starts at 6pm you have to be there by 4.30pm to enable warm ups, volunteer job distribution and ‘sugaring up’ of the kids in advance of the 6pm kick off.

**** Someone obviously had tipped my husband off as he was out of town for five of the six events – out of town completely.

Lest We Forget

I have never been to an ANZAC dawn service. I can’t say why. I’m sure I have had a good excuse every time, but at my age there is no reason that I should not have been to at least one. I am more than a little bit ashamed. I can feel my friend Kirrin tut tutting as she reads this all the way from Canberra.

Today I have been impressed with the number of facebook posts, tweets and Instagram photos from dawn and other ANZAC services all over Australia, New Zealand and various other locations in the world. Many people of different generations set their alarms, arose, dressed themselves, braved the VERY early morning and continued to remember those who have served.

The first ANZAC day was declared on April 25th 1916, one year after the troops had landed on the beaches of Gallipoli. This year is the 98th Anniversary of that landing.

There was discussion about whether or not we would go, in the end we packed the car with picnic gear, snacks, kids and an esky and headed out on Sunday afternoon to the Australians Within Atlanta ANZAC celebrations, held at the home of the New Zealand Honorary Consul in Atlanta.

It was an hour and half drive from our house, my husband said by the time we got there it felt like ten. Despite being able to successfully navigate a twenty four hour cycle covering multiple flights, continents and airports our kids somehow are not great car travelers. Fights (physical), arguments, ‘I’m bored’ and the famous ‘Are we there yet?’ the first of these being before we had left our street were fairly free flowing. At one point there was a game of ‘I spy’ and the World’s Angriest Six Year Old (WASYO) old spotted something starting with ‘I’, after we all gave up the answer was revealed as ‘idiot’. It gives you a little peek into the atmosphere in the car, this was all before we had to stop for a bathroom break for junior team members.

Burnley Farm, Newnan.

As soon as we arrived the mood of all the travelers changed entirely. We were greeted by the sight of  a magnificent house and grounds, filling with picnickers, many other families also far from home. There was kicking the footy (Aussie rules of course), tossing baseballs (in deference to our host nation), catching butterflies in the long grass and fishing in the dam.  The many accents, Aussie, Kiwi, American and various others washed quietly over us as did the wafting smell of bangers on the barbecue.

Setting the scene

The ceremony was conducted by the NZ Honorary Consul Ian Latham and the ANZAC address was given by Flight Lieutenant Andrew Stockwell of the Royal Australian Air Force. The Last Post, Revielle and both national anthems were brilliantly completed by a very accomplished trumpeter, Hollie Lifshey. It was a short but moving service where Ian spoke of his personal memories of WWI vets from his childhood and Flight Lieutenant Stockwell spoke about what ANZAC day means to him as a current member of the Australian Armed Services. He talked about never having been actively deployed in wistful tones. I chatted with him afterwards as he played on the grass with his two year old son and he told me that he has been scheduled for deployment to the Middle East three times and three times it was cancelled, the last time within 24 hours of departure. He wishes he had been at least once.

It wasn’t a dawn service, but it was important to me as I stood there with my family and others on the lawn on a beautiful peaceful Spring day, that we were remembering our ANZACs and others that have served, as well as exposing and educating our children to the tradition and meaning of the day. Our kids as TCK’s take for granted the many different cultural experiences  they are exposed to which will be with them always, but sometimes I forget about my own upbringing and all the Australian-ness we take for granted and as assumed knowledge. That information that just ‘is’, that seeps into your consciousness over years of living in a country.

Pavs and ANZAC biscuits

The day progressed, there were pavlovas and ANZAC biscuits on the dessert table. The afternoon moved onto cricket, did I mention the grounds included a fully mowed paddock and rolled cricket pitch for the occasion? The ANZAC spirit was alive and well as the Aussies with greater numbers assisted the NZ team with fielding, the eventual result of a Aussie victory probably had something to do with this.

The supportive and knowledgeable cricketing crowd watches on

We left as the late afternoon shadows were forming after a wonderful event, happy, content and having shared part of our cultural heritage with others from our homelands, new family members and importantly our children.

At the going down of the sun and in the morning,

We will remember them.

It’s not all beer and skittles

We had not yet moved into our new house in the ‘hood but were making use daily of the community pool, given the scorching Hotlanta summer and the seemingly endless school holidays. The accents used loudly across the pool by brother and sister made us a stand out and the small community targeted us as the ‘new people’.

Introductions were made and stories shared, friendly folks who oohed and ahhhed at the countries we have lived in, shared their love for all things Aussie (a welcome change to our last country of residence) and admitted to having always wanted to live in another country.

‘But we couldn’t do it, our parents are here, they’re getting older, they could get sick and we wouldn’t take their grandchildren away from them’

Stab, stab, stab.

Unintentional stabbing of course, but it hurts all the same.

A quick chat with any expat will reveal many reasons why they love the life they lead with its swings and roundabouts, ups and downs, opportunities and experiences they and often their third culture kids would never have had if they stayed ‘at home’.

By extension this often also applies to family and friends who visit the expat adventurers in a new and different country, one they may have never been to with no good reason to visit, or just needed an excuse to return to a favourite destination. These are special and cherished times, when the visitors get an insight into the life of their hosts, sharing experiences they may never have otherwise had. We as hosts push the boundaries of our day to day to make sure everyone has a most memorable trip and send them home to sing the gospel and  spread the word to make sure our calendars with penciled in possibilities become concrete conversions into visitors bearing jars of Vegemite and Strawberry Freddos.

There are so many special memories from the visitors we have had in our time away, friends who honeymooned with us in Hong Kong – delaying their trip so we had time to return to our flat from their wedding in the Blue Mountains, my cousin who swore to never live anywhere else but her home town became a regular visitor for ‘the shopping’ and since then has moved twice overseas with her husband and kids. To this day she remains the only person I know who shopped Stanley Markets from opening until closing.

Then there was the travel pack who visited and required a mini van to ferry around. My cousin (of course), her two kids and another of their cousins, her husband, his aunt, her parents and my grandmother, 88 at the time. It was a special day shopping over the border in Shenzhen introducing her to all our regular shopping haunts and telling all the shopkeepers about her very auspicious age. I think we got actual real discounts that day in deference to her age and agility and gracious charm with the locals.

The best man from our wedding and his wife and baby – discovering en route that the baby had inherited his father’s peanut allergy, my brother and his then partner, her terrified of bird flu every time we stepped out of the house, my husband’s sister and brother-in-law came and we popped off for a blissful grown ups only trip to Kota Kinabalu.

My Dad and his wife on more than one occasion – once sailing through the harbour on the Queen Mary and of course my Mum.

South Africa was lighter on the visitors but again my brother and Mum put in appearances. I am pretty sure my brother will never forget the elephant that just wanted to say hello, his first lion spotting or sidling up to the penguins in the Cape for the best photo opportunity.

My mum was the first visitor we had here in the USA, arriving the same day as the container full of boxes. Our first two months in the new house was experienced together. The drama of the pre-school vaccinations and medical checks, the first day of school, the slight changing of WASYO’s accent to move to a short ‘a’ sound and a rolling of the ‘r’s, drop offs and pick ups at a real yellow school bus, weekly drinks on the street corner, WASYO learning to read, Mr 9 saying he quite liked the new school (relief), introducing the local kids to fairy bread at the event where WAFYO became WASYO, she experienced it all at the same time we did. She arrived armed with my childhood set of Winnie the Pooh books and read them to her eldest grandchildren each night before bed, she did jigsaw puzzles with WASYO and talked to Mr 9 about his views on life and video games and became our personal laundry lady – daily collecting the clothes from various baskets around the house and returning them later washed and folded – apparently I have to get used to no ironing (that’s a story for another time).  After proclaiming to get lost in the house on the first few days, as we pulled away last Monday on the way to the airport she said she’d come to like our home. It has been a lonely week since she has left.

Regardless of what happens next, the choices to be made about visits, before or after operations, when, where, how and who with, all five of us will have that special time in our memories. Two months where she was part of our everyday life. Daily this week more than one resident has said ‘When Mumma was here…’

It is hard to be away from family in another country, especially when every phone call or text message could be news that puts everything on hold while you plot a course home, but if we lived in Australia, an hour and a half away by car it is unlikely we would ever have spent so much time together or that our kids would have kissed their Mumma goodnight every night for two months (except for those two pesky hospital visits).

Life goes on here, next week is my husband’s birthday, the following week my Dad and his wife are visiting, Halloween is shaping up to be bigger than Ben Hur and there’s some marathon in New York on November 4th I’m running in, but family near and far are always top of mind. You take the good with the bad and hope the decisions you make, when you make them, are the right ones and that holds true no matter what country you live in.

Cara and Chewsday

One of my new neighbours/bors (in deference to how she would spell it, I don’t know if she is a good speller, just assuming she might be) is called Cara.

When you’re Australian and you’re called Cara, both of the a’s are pronounced with the a sound from car. Car-a.

When you’re American and you’re called Cara, its more like the a sound in can for both ‘a’s. Cara.

When Cara introduced herself to me she did so using the American pronunciation and I have followed her lead, giving myself what other Aussies would term an American accent when I use her name.

I do this deliberately having actually put thought into the process. Why should I change the way she says her name just because my accent is different to hers? My friend Cara in South Africa will remain addressed in the way she introduced herself to me – the longer a sound. Just because we all speak english with different accents doesn’t mean we can’t try to call someone their name they way they say it.

I have an Aussie friend in Durban who has a South African husband called Mark, Aussies again here do the ‘car’ sound for Mark – she has totally converted to the Saffa accent and it sounds a lot closer to Mork to my ears, but to his ears its just perfect, because its how he says his own name and I have a sneaking suspicion he doesn’t love the Australian accent, although he does love his Australian wife.

I only have to recall my time working in an office in Hong Kong with Creamy, Apple, Homer and Maverick* to know that there are obviously many people like me out there, unable to master the Chinese language,  and tired of butchered attempts these clued up individuals have picked themselves a more easily pronounced English alternative.

I would never have dreamed of trying to ‘Australianise’ Mvithi, Sanele or Njabulo in South Africa and while not being born in a country that learns to roll their rrrrrs I always tried my best with Birgit and Marga my German and Dutch friends. I mightn’t always get it right mind you but I try with the best of intentions.

Enter the world’s angriest six year old (WASYO – known until just last week is WAFYO) fierce advocate of saying people’s names how they do themselves, her Zulu accent being particularly good and mine particularly bad – but becoming frustrated with the mixed messages she is receiving at school.

‘Your daughter has just the cutest accent, say something honey’ is regular commentary when we’re out and about. WASYO has what is known as an Umhlanga South African english accent and is sometimes paraded before other classroom teachers and visitors to the classroom and told to ‘talk’.

It is precisely because everyone makes a fuss of her accent that she reduced herself to tears the other night saying that no one understands her. Her grandmother was worried six was the new thirteen when she explained the ‘not understanding’ part were the children in her class because of her accent. There was a lot of focus on the word Tuesday for some reason.

‘They say its Toosday and I say it like it has a ‘ch’ sound – Chewsday. But it doesn’t start with a Ch it starts with a T’

Confusing times for a Third Culture Kid learning to spell.

What to do, what to do? Struggling with knowing her current accent is an attention getter (positive in her book) but that her peers can’t always understand her (negative in her book) we decided its OK to have an American accent for school and her ‘other’ accent everywhere else, and its perfectly acceptable for people to say words differently, thats just what happens in the world. Two days since the decision and already the old accent is fading fast – that’s fast with a short a.

* These names have not been changed to protect the innocent, these are real people and real names *waving*