This is how today with our eight year old went.
He was up at 7am and when I went into the kitchen at 715 he dogged me, bright as a button. He looked as if he’d been up hours. Dressed, squeaky clean, full of energy.
Oh I wish a good night’s sleep would do that for me!
He poured himself a huge bowl of two kinds of dry cereal, asked where the milk was, found it and carefully carried his bowl into the dining room.
There was “nothing on television” so I left him with the birds and a lightening sky.
“Your best friend’s up,” I told hubs when I returned to bed with my tea, “and he looks dangerously refreshed.”
Later I heard them making pancakes and then he came in to investigate what I was up to,
“Aunty Vivienne?” he pushed my door open, “what are you doing?” he crossed the room to where I was following instructions from my computer.
“Yoga,” I said, impressively contorting my body in a complex but easy twist.
“Yoga?” he looked first at me and then at my plasma encased yogi. “ah yes!” and left the room.
Later he came back and asked,
“When are we leaving for the museum?”
“In an hour,” I said, “we’re catching the 11:11.”
“Aunty Vivienne, can I play in the back garden?”
“Of course, ” I said,
“Put your shoes on,” said Uncle Larry.
He bounced inside umpteen times to make sure we were still on track. He found imaginary foe among the hydrangeas, rose bushes and red berry trees.
We walked to the station. Malia had read that it could take us 3 hours if we chose to walk the whole way into Holborn. An interesting fact she discoverd on one of her iPhone applications.
On the train she read us a few more: The Eifel Tower grows 6 inches in hot weather and it takes 100 human brains to hold all the information on the internet.
Our eight year old voiced our thoughts,
“Why do you have that application Malia?”
“So that she can keep us entertained,” I decided.
After two tube rides, in carriages bursting at the seams, I remembered how nerve wracking it used to be keeping up with four children on a busy underground. Our eight year old practised balancing in the racing train, he wouldn’t hold on and swayed and bumped into people who instinctively reached out to break his fall.
I grinned and pressed his tummy,
“Pull up here…” he toppled backwards into a group of foreign students who caught him good naturedly and returned him to us.
As we walked to the museum he decided he wanted to go to the toilet so we detoured to an hotel, not knowing how active his bladder was and catching sight of his already empty water bottle I wasn’t going to take any chances.
We were in sight of the imposing building holding centuries of history when our eight year old said,
“I’m hungry, when are we going to have lunch?”
“You’ve only just had two breakfasts!”
“But I’m starving,” he insisted running ahead of me and turning aound to make eye contact.
I was about to respond by telling him he would have to wait until he was really, really hungry but knew he would reach that pathetic state within a matter of moments, instead I said,
“We have to wait until we are all hungry, besides it isn’t lunchtime yet.”
“When we have lunch will we return to the museum?” He asked.
“No, we’ll head home,” I answered as we entered the gates.
“But then I’ll be bored all afternoon, there’s nothing for me to do at your house, it’ll be boring…”
“You’ve not even got to the museum and you’re already talking about being bored. Bored is what you make of your life.” An older couple turned and smiled in our direction a knowing look on their faces.
We entered the National Museum without a security check. Admission was free with receptacles dotted around the lobby for donations. Presumably harmless bags and backpacks wandered with their owners through the awe inspiring galleries and reading room.
“Perhaps people who come to these kinds of places aren’t dangerous,” Malia pondered.
I thought the museum decided not to have us go through a security check because it would cost money to set up the system and then the gratis admission would have to be waived.
We breezed through the Egyptian galleries full of impressive terra cotta pots that had survived hundreds of years. We took photos and looked at gold and silver jewellery, wine and oil amphoras and intricately carved and painted sarcophaguses, on our way to the mummies.
“When are we going to see the mummies?’ and “I need to go to the toilet again,” our eight year old said in the same breath.
Malia and I milled while we waited, promising not to move from the busy gallery while relief was sought.
In the distance we could see the crowds and when our men re-joined us we filed past the bones, skeletons, mummies and a preserved body almost two thousand years old.
We had to be quick to capture the moment again, for we have these images of Malia, our six year old, next to shriveled bodies, in photo albums at home.
Malia kept up a running commentary with her brothers in Texas as she re-traces her steps fourteen years later, relaying pictures and text via iPhone for them to share the moment.
Our eight year old is tired of mummies now,
“Where’s the Rosetta stone?” sets us in motion once more and we’re off again.
Downstairs the now familiar toilets are used again, to be on the safe side.
The key to translating hieroglyphics was located, a quick photo snapped and our eight year old was fainting with hunger.
We bought food and ate it on the Victoria Station concourse to escape the rain.
When we look through the photos later the impatience will be suspended as we pause to really appreciate what we saw.
“We weren’t like that were we?” Malia asked later after her nap.
We shook our heads.
Our eight year old wore us all out and tomorrow we’ll rest.
Well hello there! My name is Vivienne McNeny.
I am an empty nester exploring life as a Boomer…you could say I'm happily Boomering along!
As a homeschooling Mum I have finally quit the job of role model and mentor to my four children. I do what I want to do, eat when I feel like it, enjoy life with my blue eyed cowboy and clean my house once a month or so whether it needs it or not!
In true English form I write about the emergence of my true identity now that I can no longer hide behind my children as their Mum.
No comments so far!
2012-02-16 00:15:40
HEYYYY where were MY pancakes…?!?!?
2012-02-16 20:36:35
You’re right, where were they!!
Apparently they didn’t taste as good as your American palette would remember… According to your Texan Pa. xxx
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