My baby turns TWO

On the Friday before, Arram's class made him a beautiful card.

They had a cake at afternoon tea, and Amiri was brought in to Babies to enjoy the treat with his brother and his little friends.  The teachers weren't able to take photos during this party for us, unfortunately.

Then on the big day itself, Arram started out by demonstrating that he's getting to be Such. A. Big. Boy. by sitting on his potty.   And playing Angry Birds.

We Skyped with grandparents and opened presents.  We had hoped to go to the zoo, but it was raining.  Instead we played lots of games and did some dancing.  After naptime, it was time for the cake.  Amiri picked it out.  Both chocolate AND vanilla!

He didn't understand what we meant when we asked him to blow out the candles.  We really probably should have practiced.  But it was OK.  Your wish still counts when your mom helps.

And then it was CAKECAKECAKECAKE time!

Then the brothers got to finish out the evening with a movie.

My little guy.   My sweet little Arram.  Two whole years old.  Happy birthday, my darling.
 

They're just doing their chores, and thinking about someone

The kiwiberry

My wonderfully observant and generous husband presented me with a punnet of kiwiberries today.

Kiwiberries?

Kiwiberries!!

They've got the green of kiwis.  And the shape.  But they're only the size of big grapes, and there's no brown fuzz.  You might be able to see some rough patches, but in general their skin is quite smooth.  At $3.49 for seven, they're considerably more expensive per gram than their non-berry versions.

They look like kiwis in miniature.  They taste just like them, too.  Maybe a little sweeter and a little less tart.   One nice bite of yum.  Seal of approval.

Follow-up questions:

--Are they genetically engineered or something?  Or are they a real thing?
Come on, there's no Frankenfruit in NZ!  It's a real thing, an actual non-hybrid, non-messing-with-nature plant also known as the hardy kiwi.

--Te Puke?
Tah Pookie.  An afternoon's drive away on the Bay of Plenty.

--But what if I wanted to walk there?
Google's got you covered.  Just press the Walking Man button.  So what are you doing ALL NEXT WEEKEND.
 

Preferable, I suppose, to the Furious Fifties and Shrieking Sixties

The arrival of autumn has brought windy weather.  The meteorologist made reference to the Roaring Forties in explanation:  the relative lack of landmass in the southern hemisphere results in some spectacular west-to-east air currents.

And since we're on the topic of latitudes, naturally I had to look some things up.  Auckland is just below the southern 36th parallel.  For reference, what's just above the 36th parallel in the US?   Why, the Four Corners.   City-wise, it's San Jose, CA; Springfield, MO; or Norfolk, VA.  
 

A giant step backward re: my efforts to acquire a taste for raw fish

Upon arriving home from mid-day errands:  Guess what's for lunch? Sushi!  Lots and lots of sushi!  Look, Amiri, your favourite:  smoked salmon.

Eating and eating his wonderful lunch.  Six or seven pieces:  salmon, avocado, lettuce, rice, and seaweed.  One or two sweet-corn rolls too.  What a good boy.  We are so proud of how you've been such an enthusiastic eater.  Now, naptime.

And multiple attempts at getting out of naptime:  I'm thirsty.  I'm not sleepy.  My tummy hurts.  Arram is kicking me.  The motorcycle outside was too noisy.

Upon being let out of the defiantly sleepless interval in his room:  Daddy, my tummy still hurts.  Oh.   Owww.  It hurts--little hands clamp desperately over mouth--a second of terrible, anticipatory dancing-- then--GLUUUUUUURP.

Oh, God, it was like a strafing run.

Daddy's lap took a direct hit.  Significant collateral damage to the couch.  A moment to re-load, and devastation rained down on the carpet.  Mama appeared with a hastily-grabbed towel that caught much of Round Three, but the erratic motion of the Source (maybe if I scoot backward fast enough I can outrun it) resulted in significant shrapnel damage to the lower limbs of all troops.

A quick hustle to the bathroom and the vomiting finishes up neatly into the toilet.  Silkwoods all around.  Clothes changes.  Stash children on the clean couch with water to drink and nearby buckets and towels on their laps, just in case.   Then, the damage assessors move in:  early estimates point to a Level Twelve Sanitation Emergency.  Unfortunately there is no ready-made cleaning product for removing half-digested fatty raw fish from carpet and upholstery, so improvisational engineering includes buckets, gloves, scrub brushes, and grim-faced determination.

The current situation has stabilised and reports from Tummy Central suggest that no further incidents are to be expected tonight.  Olfactory sensors have been deployed for ongoing environmental monitoring.
 

Just look at that HAIR.

Some fabulous photos of our little guys in their cold-weather gear.

But I still don't pronounce it ahl-you-MIN-ee-um

NZ uses British spelling variants instead of the American ones we're used to.  Colour instead of color, organise instead of organize, that sort of thing.  As someone who writes for a living, I found this extremely disconcerting.  My first few editorial reviews came back with, 'hey, what's up with all the zeds in your document??'  Much like learning to 'hear' the Kiwi accent during the first few post-emigration months, I found that written communication also had to be translated.

So first I got good at compensating.  Did you know that Microsoft Word has a spell-check dictionary for New Zealand English?  It does.  And it's much different than the Australian or British dictionaries.  Different as, mate.  So I applied it to the template for all my documents.  And then, I made an effort to not rely on the spell-checker.  To embrace the quirks of my new homeland, to acquiesce to the preferences of the Queen, and to type out 'paediatric' and 'anaesthesiologist' while stoicly repressing my shudders of cognitive dissonance.

And now I have to say I'm a convert.  I blithely typety-type out things like 'He recognised that his behaviour was odd...' and just recently I've noticed that I've included things like 'favourite' in my hand-written shopping lists.  And that I change my internal spell-checker based on whether I'm writing for an American or Kiwi audience.  Still, you may notice Imperial flourishes from time to time.
 

The goal is for NZ to be tobacco-free by 2025

There are cigarette machines here just as in the States.  Notice how the warning label is large and to-the-point.  And you have to ask the waitstaff to activate the machine before you can use your eftpos (debit) card.

More warning labels on these:  Smoking causes mouth cancer.  Smoking causes gangrene.  Tobacco smoke is poisonous.  You are not the only one smoking this cigarette.  oooh, I think I like that one the best...

And just look at these prices!  $16 for a pack of Dunhills.  $14.50 for Pall Malls.  I don't smoke, so I don't have a sense for whether these are fancy brands or not.  But I'm pretty sure they're not charging in the vicinity of eleven bucks a pack in the US!

A party in the park

Our little boy is happy again on the seesaw.

And here's Amiri enjoying some Russian fudge.

I told him he could go in up to his knees

The setting is perhaps somewhat undignified... but at least he's sitting still

Ma is White
Whero is Red
Kakariki Green
Pango is Black
Mangu is too
A, E, I, O, U

Kowhai Yellow
Pakaka Brown
Kikorangi Blue
Parakaraka is our Orange
A, E, I, O, U

Don't even get me started on GPS coordinates

I'll open today's edition of 'Something to file away for the next pub quiz' with a quote from Thornton Wilder's classic play Our Town:

"I never told you about that letter Jane Crofut got from her minister when she was sick. He wrote Jane a letter and on the envelope the address was like this: It said, Jane Crofut, the Crofut Farm, Grover’s Corners; Sutton County; New Hampshire; United States of America; continent of North America; Western Hemisphere; the Earth; the Solar System; The Universe; the mind of God - that’s what it said on the envelope. And the postman brought it just the same."

This is a fine if somewhat flowery example of the way that letters are addressed in New Zealand.  My domestic mail makes it to me with a simple name, street, and suburb or city.  Apparently the building number, apartment number, and post code are optional.  (New Zealand doesn't have states; cities are the primary regional identifier.)  Since there is generally such a dearth of written information on envelopes, I have a great deal of respect for the posties who are clearly able to compensate via detailed mental databases-- and in an urban environment, besides.

Now, about those post codes.   They are four digits long, and range from 0000 in the far North to 9999 in Southland.  They operate much like ZIP codes in the States.   As a kid, I remember having my ZIP code drilled into my brain (Hello, 49812!) and I know I've had my mail returned when I've absentmindedly forgotten to write it.  So why are post codes used so haphazardly in New Zealand?  I think it's a question of cultural uptake.  Post codes were only just introduced in this country in 2008.  People are still getting used to them.  Some people still don't know what theirs is and need to look them up.  New Zealand Post encourages residents to include post codes on our mail in the interest of efficient delivery.  But with the vast majority of domestic mail being delivered in 1-2 days even without post codes, such a promise is small incentive.

  

I don't think this bedtime thing is working

The feijoa*

Here are some feijoas from the grocery store.  Kiwis LOVE feijoas.  They make them into ice cream and smoothies.

These four little beauties set me back $2.55 NZD.  Chopped 'em up into quarters. 

Feijoas are the size of limes. They look like limes inside too but they're not citrus.  You eat them by nibbling the soft inner pulp.  Closer to the skin, they get too grainy to eat.  They smell sort of flowery, and taste like sour kiwifruit.  Quite nice.

The experts warn that feijoas have a short window of ripeness, and imply that they are unappetizing when overripe.  Conveniently for my little experiment, I think I must have gotten one that had gone a bit too far (the one in the far back, the one that's just slightly browner than the others).  Unlike the rest of the batch, it was softer and had an offputting, distinctly 'chemical' flavor which immediately brought to mind the industrial cleaning products from my grim high-school jobs of yore.   OK, that's a check in the 'replicated' column...

Fun feijoa fact:  Feijoas get their aroma and flavour from naturally-occurring methyl benzoate.  Just like snapdragons.  And cocaine.  Nature does some weird stuff, yo.  Kiwi drug-sniffing dogs must get awfully frustrated during feijoa season.

*The j is pronounced like a y; rhymes with 'balboa'.
  

The lantern festival

For Chinese New Year, the Lantern Festival came to Albert Park in the centre of town.  By 'lanterns', I mean all manner of complicated and fantastic animals and scenery assembled from thin, brightly-colored fabric shells stretched over wire forms.  At night they're lit up from within by strategically-placed lights.

Lantern festivities took place too late at night to allow for proper appreciation by the children, so we strolled through the park during the day.

Mama, I think that might be a real horse.

We spent a good five minutes checking whether any of these were real sheep.

Amiri does not appear in the last two photos because there was a small possibility that these were real dragons, and he wasn't about to take his chances by getting too close.

 

A nice lunch out

We grabbed some lunch one weekend at the Queen's Ferry hotel, formerly a frequent drinking spot for known Criminals and now a restaurant with some very nice food.

Voted Auckland's best fish and chips:  fresh tarakihi fillets with Marlborough sea salt-dusted chips, Queen's Ferry tartare sauce, and a green salad.

A lamb mince patty with garlic and pine nuts on a bun with tzaziki, feta cheese, and salads.  And of course the gorgeous chips on the side.

We had such a nice time.

A truly calorie-free dessert

I received this lovely gift recently from my sweetheart.  mmmMMM!  Doesn't it look good?

I bent down to smell its deliciousness.  And stood back up, perplexed.   It smelled a little... off.   Not at all like a creamy chocolaty cheesecake should.  Or on second thought, it actually looks a little funny too... maybe it's an ice cream cake.  Or a pudding cake?  Wait.  Something's fishy.  What IS that?

Soap!  It's a giant bar of handmade soap!  There's this guy in Auckland who makes beautifully scented soaps as a side business, and his specialty is soaps that look like food.  This one is called 'Mint Chocolate Cheesecake'. 

We chopped it into pieces and I'm loving my luxurious showers.
 

Of errands and injury and innocence

What a big, busy Sunday we had.  First we had our breakfasts; the boys ate four eggs apiece.  Then we got ourselves ready and went to the grocery store.  We bought $85 worth of groceries--my backpack fits about $40 unless it's all truffles and foie gras-- but it was OK since we had extra storage space in the bottom of Arram's stroller and in Amiri's backpack.  We snacked on a cheese-and-onion bun, and strawberry milk for the kids, on the walk home.  Arram got tired first and then they both had naps.

After naps we got up and started off for an adventure across the Harbour.  When we were almost to the Ferry Building, Amiri waved a pesky fly away from his face.  Then he started to scream and flail around wildly.  'What's wrong, what's wrong?!?'  'Fly bite me!!!!'

Well, it wasn't a fly at all, but a wasp, and it had stung him right next to his bellybutton.  We scurried over to a bench to examine the wound, and two amazing gentlemen from Auckland Adventure Jets came over.  I thought they'd arrived just to cluck at the pathetic child, as people do, and to make things more complicated for me by wanting to talk.  But they had a first-aid pack from which they supplied antiseptic wipes.  Amiri said they felt cool and good on the sting.  And then, as Amiri's wails quieted and he snuffled up his tears, they gave him a hat just like theirs.  (Thanks guys, that was really great of you.)

We'd missed our boat due to the drama, but that meant there was time to buy an ice cream before the next one.  Which was of course the ultimate cure.

The swelling and redness went down fast, see?  He was OK.

Once we arrived at the park with no further mishaps, we did some of this...


And some of this...


And for the big finish, THIS.

The necessary room

Americans tend to use euphemisms when referring to the room with the toilet.  The ladies/mens room...the powder room...even 'bathroom' is usually not completely accurate.  Europeans call it the water closet or just WC.

In New Zealand there is no such mincing around the point. 

Photos from Amiri's party at school

Arram was brought in to Amiri's classroom with the big kids for teatime.  He was a little nervous but his brother looked out for him.  Amiri was impressed with the big cake.

OMG they're holding hands I can't stand it

And yes they have matching shirts

Then there were candles and singing.

Then it was time for eating.  Amiri got the first slice!

What a fun party.  Even Arram relaxed and had a good time.

Our birthday boy

Four years old!  What a momentous day.  Somehow four seems very grown up, in a way that three just wasn't.

Some highlights from today:

--Opening presents in the morning
--Going to a cafe for breakfast

His right eyelid is swollen from an unfortunate mozzie bite yesterday.

--Having his whole class sing him Happy Birthday upon arriving to school.

--Having cake at teatime, and Arram being brought in from Babies to join him for tea

--Making a birthday crown

--Receiving birthday cards from his friends

--Being brought to ELEPHANT RESTAURANT for dinner, just like he wanted!

--A wristwatch with hands, just like Daddy
--A Jack the Goat story at bedtime, written just for him by Grandpa

Restaurant conversation:

Mama, who's that?

That's Buddha.

Buddha has curly hair like me.

Yyyyyyaaaaaaaaay! Sushi!

Here are some lovely rolls from Sushi Pac down the street.  We've got salmon and avocado on the left, and tuna with sweet corn on the right.

The boys LOVE sushi.  It stems from an Event at school in which Amiri's class made sushi.  They rinsed the rice, boiled it in a rice cooker that one of the teachers brought from home, and then stirred it.  They watched the teachers cut up the cucumber, carrot, and egg.  They soaked the seaweed.  Then they all got to assemble the ingredients just so and roll them up.  Amiri loved it so much... I saw the candid photos that the teachers snapped of the class and he had a big silly grin on his face in every one.  At home, he told us the story of Making Sushi over and over, enthusiastically and proudly.

So what is there for parents to do at that point but to go and buy some sushi?   At first we got them the 'easy' vegetarian rolls, but it soon became apparent that their tastes take after their Daddy's and we introduced the more challenging options featuring raw fish into their menu.  They love them all.  They also (passionately, intensely) love the soy sauce fishies.  They sometimes nibble but mostly leave the ginger.  The wasabi packet is completely unacceptable.

Earthquake update

It's bad but nowhere near as bad as it could have been, I suppose-- property damages far outweigh human casualties.  The confirmed dead number between 30-60, depending on where you get your news, and search-and-rescue teams have brought in sniffer dogs to find survivors in the rubble.

I'm finding that foreign news sources are the most reliable.  Local reporters seem to be overly emotionally involved and prone to fearmongering... for instance, today's paper screamed, '300 feared dead!' but the story below the fold reveals that the actual number is only 38.
  

The Christchurch earthquake

Poor Christchurch.  There's been another earthquake.  They had one about five months ago, and have been having a scary series of aftershocks ever since.  Today there was another big one.  And it looks pretty bad.

We're on the other island, and we didn't even feel it.  We're safe.

But there are reports of major damage, deaths, and injuries there. 

The local paper's website has information about it.  Click to read, and then hit your 'refresh' button.  They update it every few minutes.

The earthquake in September was a 7.1, same as the earthquake that basically levelled Haiti.  But Chch sustained amazingly little damage in that quake-- mostly cosmetic.  They attributed the lack of deaths/injuries to the fact that it came at about 4:30 AM and everyone was at home in bed instead of out in the street where things could fall on them.  Today's quake was 6.3, they're saying, followed closely by aftershocks of 5.7 and 5.3.  Reports of structural damage sound more widespread this time, not surprisingly I suppose since the whole area has been rattled again and again in recent months.  As for the human cost, it came right during the lunch hour, so... well.
 

Big helper

Amiri is growing up so big and strong.  So we've put him to work.  He is in charge of pushing his brother's stroller now. 

At least, when Mom and Dad say it's OK.
 

Celebrating Valentine's Day

I got just what I wanted :-)

Oh, excuse me, did I just stumble and fall into FASCISM?

I just found this photo buried in all my pics from December.  I snapped this in the Colorado airport while waiting to board our plane.  I'd forgotten about it but now in happening across it I'm all heated again.

'If you see something, say something'??  Like, inform on your neighbor, keep a suspicious eye on your family members like good DHS-jugend?  I know I've been away from the States for a while and am losing touch with some of the zeitgeist.  But come on, can this be a real thing?  Officially sanctioned and all?  The threat rainbow was kinda more ridiculous than anything, but this thing just makes me sad.

I see that Walmart is all about it.  At first I was surprised about that, then on second thought completely not. 

Well, that's it, I'm probably on some list now.  Send me food in the gulag.
 

The Soren Larsen

An old-school sailing ship docks near home from time to time.  She's gorgeous...

...and she's had quite a history, including hauling freight, starring in films, racing, and circumnavigating the globe.  Now you can rent her for anything from a leisurely sunset dinner cruise around the harbour to a month-long voyage to the Cook Islands where you'll be expected to use your muscles as part of the crew.

Little boys love drinking fountains!

Arram meets the lions

A new restaurant has put up stone lions at its entrance.  Arram is intimidated by them even though he understands they aren't real.  He roars at them when we walk by, and squeals in delighted terror when we get close.

Happy birthday, Daddy!

When I told the boys that it was Daddy's birthday today, you'd have thought I'd said we won the lottery.  They screamed 'YAY!!!!!!', jumped up and down, threw themselves ecstatically into my arms, and generally flailed about in excitement.   They both wrote their names in Daddy's card and gleefully wished him a happy birthday when we arrived home.

Later in the bathtub, I asked Amiri if he knew how old Daddy was now.  He said, 'Yes, he's forty four.'  Of course that response made me gripe internally...  Gosh, Amiri, we had this same conversation six months ago....  Your parents are not in their forties, OK?  The gray hair might be fooling you, but we've still got some time before we hit that milestone.  This kid... gonna be shoving us into the old-age home at 50...


But then he totally redeemed himself.  He started to laugh, and said, 'No, Mama, I'm joking.  Daddy's not forty four.  He's twenty three!  Same as you!'
 
 

The Viaduck

So we went out for a walk the other day, just running some errands and taking the shortcut through the Viaduct, and... um.  Our eagle eyes spotted something unusual.

Yep, don't mind me, I'm just a 40-foot tall rubber ducky bobbing in the harbour, moored up next to the sailboats.  Just gonna float here.   It's OK if you want to take my picture.  I'm just a duck.  I'm doing my ducky thing.

There were no signs, no 'event', no announcements, no explanation.  Just a mysteriously-appeared ducky and a bunch of bewildered, bemused tourists (and locals) taking its photo. 

It turns out he is capital-A Art, and also a rather un-missable bit of marketing for the rebranding of one of the TV stations. 
 

A fair go, though the water does attract the eye

Just a photo today to give a little more perspective on our home environment.  Previously, I've shown you what it looks like to the right of our balcony.  Here is what it looks like if you look down and to the left.

The low concrete building with the white roof is the Tepid Baths.  The tall building with the top cut off is Quay West, a posh hotel where a penthouse suite will set you back $1265 per night.  And Tower is an insurance company.  Parking on the street is hourly Pay and Display, which you can top-up by sending a text. 
 

Memory and reading skills

It's been over a month since we've been back in New Zealand.  Every so often, though, Amiri comes out with something that suggests he's been mulling over in his mind all the events from our visit in Chicago.  Things I hadn't even known he'd paid attention to.

For instance, the other day he was excited and wiggling around and making all sorts of nonsensical little-boy exclamations.  One of them was, 'Oh!  Shami kebab!'  Don't know how that popped up in this context, but I will keep it in mind as a suggested alternative at the point when the boys inevitably pick up swear words. 

And this morning when he came over to cuddle, he took my hand and started pretend-drawing on my skin.  He explained he was putting henna on my hands.  Drawing love-hearts and snails, he said.  'Hold still, Mama.  You have to let it dry.  Then you can go like this (miming scraping off the dried paste).'  Then he decorated my feet.

In unrelated but also Cutely Intellectual news, today Amiri read Arram every word of The Foot Book. 
 

Yeah, Mom, I got this sliding thing down

Opening hours

Here is a picture of the pharmacy at the mall.  Like all the other shops in the building, it is closed and locked up.

The issue?  I took this photo at 6:00 PM on a Wednesday. 

Aside from restaurants and places like gyms or convenience stores, shops tend to keep to business hours.  There's no picking something up on the way to work or after your commute; you have to make time to go shopping during your day, or else wait for Saturday.  It's like living in a small town inside the country's biggest city.  I still haven't gotten used to this.