Friday 23 November 2012

Christmas Un Fair


I think my Christmas cheer and goodwill is almost out and it is not even December yet. So far we have bought and sold raffle tickets (school and Brownies,) bought for and donated to three class hampers, signed up to help to run three different class stalls and decorated and filled goody bags with sweets and small toys to sell at the fair. The Friends of the School Association are also asking for homemade cakes, workplace donations, unwanted soft toys, games and DVDs and unused toiletries. These all have to be remembered to be brought in to school on different days.

On the way up to school one day this week, I saw the collection table and clapped my hand to my head;
“Arghh! forgot it was toiletries today” I said aloud.
“Toilet trees?” queried Emilia “Toilet...Trees!”

I am starting to think, either she has a very unique way of looking at the world, or she’s very thick. She has always been extremely literal.

On top of all these things to remember, last Friday, we had to bring in a bottle for the fair’s bottle tombola in exchange for the children going to school in Mufti. We have only forgotten Mufti day once, and fortunately we live close enough to the school, to realise on our way there and still have enough time for the children to run back home to change. 
There are worse things than wearing school uniform on a Mufti day, and that, as my friend discovered, is getting the day wrong and sending them wearing Mufti on an ordinary school day!

The children were also invited to wear something spotty that day and donate 50p to Children in Need. This is a challenge in itself, not so much for the girls, but we resorted to circular stickers on socks and gloves for the boys.

I am all for good causes and the ‘Friends of’ do an amazing and full time job putting it all together, however, we have not even been to the fair yet and I feel even less inclined to part with more cash, just so the children can buy all this rubbish back again.

Bah Humbug!

Monday 12 November 2012

Trickle Treat

I was reading with Emilia recently when we came across the phrase ‘trick or treating’ in her book.
“What’s that?” she asked
“What do you mean?” I asked, incredulous, “you know that, we’ve done it loads of times on Halloween.” I know it is only once a year, but you’d think now she’s eight, she’d remember at least four of the times.
“Oh!” she said, “I thought that was Trickle Treating.”
“Trickle Treating? That doesn’t make any sense though. It is called Trick or Treating as if people don’t treat you, you play a trick on them. Didn’t you know that?”
Talking it through, I realised that this has just never come up. No-one has not given them goodies on Halloween, in fact we only knock on the doors of those neighbours who are likely to do so.

Actually, until this year, we did ring the bell of a neighbour who apologetically answered his door empty handed. The children were away to the next door before he’d even finished his sentence. (Despite, Emilia being aware now that we were entitled to play a trick on him.) The need for sugar far outweighed the desire to toilet paper his house in retribution. It simply did not occur to them. Besides they’d already had enough fun with toilet paper in the ‘wrap up the mummy’ game at our street Halloween party.

 
Emilia’s belief that this was ‘trickle’ treat, did get me wondering about all the other stuff we have never explained, that we assume the children understand, just because it is obvious to us.

I found another example this week in the form of Patrick’s Christmas list.
This included:
mntl helicoct
mntl car
mntl baot

Emilia had taken the list and in her pink pen, corrected the spelling so I could understand it.

She had corrected it to ‘mocontrol’ (helicopter, car, boat.)

It took me a second, mocontrol? Of course ‘remote controlled.’

Another one I have never explained.

I do love their funny little misunderstandings. I had read nearly the whole series of the Naughtiest Girl in the school to Emilia before she admitted “I don’t know why they call her, the Bold Bad Girl, Mummy, because she has hair in the picture on the front cover.”
It did take me a minute or two to work out what she meant.
“No, not bald, bad girl, bold, - you know, meaning she is cocky, confident, headstrong, brave, cheeky.”
What had the poor girl been imagining all that time?

My sister grew up having a lovely image in her head of life being a ‘butter dream.’ This was from ‘Row, row, row your boat, gently down the stream, merrily, merrily, merrily, life is but a dream.’ She never really got what a butter dream was, but went along with it anyway.

Anyway, back to Halloween. Our Halloween party was great fun, with all the children dressed up in weird and wonderful costumes, and some of the adults too. Mark came as some weird, creepy bearded photographer, with a clawed hand which would randomly and violently appear from his stomach to shock you at the least provocation.

We had some scary boxes for the children to put their hands into, full of;
Eyeballs and worms (peeled grapes and spaghetti)
Witches fingers (gnarly green pickles with a nut stuck in the top for a fingernail)
Guts (the slimy innards of a pumpkin) from which you had to retrieve a ping pong ball eyeball on which was written whether you got a Trick or Treat.

We did have crying at our party. I discovered there is nothing quite so dispiriting as seeing the little face of a child crumple and boo at the sight of my scary make up. At least, I hope it was the make up.