If it weren't for your gumboots...

Look what appeared in our house today!  We're such Kiwis.  ...where would you be?

Thanks to my Dad for originally finding that song.  It's a 1976 classic spawned from the rural nostalgia TV programme Country Calendar, and penned by a gentleman going by the stage name of Fred Dagg. 
 

Join me in sampling candy from the Philipines

Someone randomly brought a bag of candies in to work and left them in the break room for anyone who wanted to take a few.  Which of course I did.  And of course you get to come along for the ride.

First we have Lipps Color Burst, mango flavored.  The slogan on its wrapper presents some rock-solid logic: 'More color, more fun!'  I wasn't entirely sure how to interpret that.  So I checked the ingredient list.  Colored with tartrazine.  Woo!  Yeah!   It's got tartrazine!  I've ALWAYS thought that was the most super-awesome of the mildly-allergenic food dyes!  Buckle your seatbelts, this WILL be fun!

A nice little hard candy, pleasingly tangy and mango-ey, and I was pleasantly surprised to find that my mouth did not end up permanently dyed like a highlighter pen.  OK.  I admit it.  I think I had some fun there.

Next up is Annie's Langka jackfruit candy.  Wait.  Do I know what a jackfruit is?  Oh, wait, I remember... It's a species of tree in the mulberry family native to parts of Southern and Southeast Asia, the national fruit of Bangladesh, and has played a significant role in Indian agriculture for centuries.

Back to Annie's candy.  I guess I'd expected it to be a hard candy, but turns out it's an opaque, milky, grainy, compressed wafer that half crunched, half crumbled when I bit into it.  Now, for those of you who are jackfruit aficionados, I apologise in advance for disparaging your treat.  But I couldn't eat this thing.  It was simply horrifying.  It had a deeply earthy background flavor that only grew in intensity as I chewed it.  Like sweetly fermenting feet, it was.  I had to spit it out and go brush my teeth.
 

Within five minutes of arriving home

They were absolutely entranced with their new swarm of nanobugs.  They had to be told twice, and sternly at that, to turn them off and sit down for dinner.  On the bright side, they gobbled their food up at lightning speed in order to be released from the table and return to playing.

Fluttering in the breeze, jockeying for position on Waitangi Day

It was ANZAC day yesterday, a day of national pride and remembrance.  That got me to thinking...I don't think I've ever shown you New Zealand's flag.  Here it is.

Blue background for the sea and sky, the Union Jack in the corner to signify the country's relationship with Britain, and the Southern Cross as the navigational tool of the south Pacific.
 
And here is the national Maori flag.

 

But wait, there's more.

Winding them up good and proper before bed

Here are our little bundles of energy enthusiastically enjoying one of their favourite pop tunes, which as the result of a very long story is known in our house as 'The Mama Song'.























May I draw your attention, in particular, to Arram's 'fainting goat' routine at approximately 0:48.
 

Welcome!

I attended my first powhiri* ceremony.  That's the traditional Maori welcome ritual.  This was at work, for a new employee's first day.  We don't welcome each new employee with an elaborate powhiri, but it seemed appropriate and important in this instance.

All of us hosts-- the tangata whenua of our workplace, as it were-- gathered in our meeting room.  Our leader made a little speech or invocation to set the mood for why we were there.  We began to sing, with one of our talented clients as guitar accompanist.  The words were Maori but the tune was the same as 'How Great Thou Art', so I hummed along.

As we sang, our new employee slowly approached the meeting room, flanked by two staff members.  Our song drew to a close and the elder female Maori staff member launched a kauranga, or call --formalised, ululating, and somewhat eerie to the uninitiated ear-- in the doorway for the purpose of weaving a rope between the the Established and the New.

The new employee joined the circle around the edge of the room.  Our leader made a speech.  A community elder made a speech.  Finally, our new employee made a speech.  We sang another song as a group, intended to show our approval and integration.  We gave our new employee a gift: a small purse made of the traditional flax weaving.  Then she greeted all of us personally with a quick 'kia ora' and a kiss on the cheek.  I saw several of the men taking the opportunity to greet each other with a hongi, a swift and gentle pressing of noses and foreheads.   Then we adjourned to the break room to share some kai:  scones, muffins, sausage rolls, bread with cheese, and of course 'white tea with one' (strong black tea with milk and a teaspoon of sugar per cup).

*POE fir ee
  

A sweet toothy smile

School updates

Arram graduated!  He has moved out of Babies and into Toddlers.  Where Babies focused on sensory exploration of the world, Toddlers focuses on cause-and-effect... for our growing little scientists.  And potty training.  Oh yeah.  Over this long weekend, we'll be working on some homework on that subject!  Additionally, Arram's verbal ability has really taken off in his new classroom-- he's using sentences of four and five words now (although we can usually understand only two or three of them) and whining far less because he's better able to express himself.

Last week we had a parent-teacher conference with Amiri's teacher, and she had nothing but wonderful things to say about him.  That he was respectful, observant, and so gentle; therefore such a good friend with the girls.  That she and the other teachers had implemented a special learning programme just for Amiri-- extra focus on reading and writing-- because he displays a keen natural ability with words.  And that he's sociable and friendly.  As an example of his friendliness, she cited his morning routine:  greeting his best friend (a girl) with a hug, and then the two of them heading off for the bathroom to sit side-by-side on the child-size toilets to do their personal business, chatting and laughing the whole time.
 

Look at the cuddling sleepers

They curl up together into a sweet little brother-pile when sleeping.

More math: safety edition

Randomly encountered in today's meanderings in the National Library of Medicine was this statistic:  Auckland Hospital treated a total of 56 gunshot injuries over a 12-year period.  (Only four of them died.)  This is the largest hospital in the country and serves a large catchment population.  This works out to about 0.5 gunshot wounds per 100,000 people, per year. 

Aaaand, because I feel compelled to close the loop upon learning something like that, I had to look up US gunshot injury statistics.  75,684 in the year 2000.  Which is about 27 gunshot wounds per 100,000 per year.

Wait, is my math right?  Are there really 50 TIMES as many firearm injuries/deaths in the States as in NZ?

I checked.  My math is right.  Wow.

Furthermore, about 50% of the gunshot injuries in NZ were unintentional-- hunting accidents and the like.  Only 20% are accidents in the US.

I have to admit it's kinda weird to live in a country where the police aren't generally armed.  But it's hard to argue with those statistics.
   

The brothers model their hand-made scarves from Nanijan

This was taken by Daddy one morning before school.  Aren't they in the best moods?  And so proud of their scarves.

New Zealand's green attitude

A focus on ecological responsibility is commonplace here.  People remind each other to turn off the lights and to recycle.  Solar energy, passive and geothermal heat pumps, and rooftop water cisterns are found throughout the city.

Here's an example in a little sign I noticed in the restroom at the University.

Another noodle-eating montage

They love their new monkey-hand chopsticks from Chacha!

Arram sits in time out

Notice the crayon scribbles on the window.  (That is not what he is in time out for.)
 

A kissable little nose

We went to the zoo!

Daddy downloaded the zoo map onto his iPad early that morning, and he and the boys went through it, figuring out what animals we were going to see first.  Then we got dressed, packed some snacks, caught the bus, and then we were there!  The zoo!

We saw so so so many animals.  Look!  That ostrich looks just like the toy one Amiri has!

And because it's New Zealand, a flock of semi-wild chickens lives loose in the shrubs around the exhibits.  Look at this hen and her chicks.  And some of those poultry too.

Although in our matching math-pun t-shirts, 'nerd and her nerdlings' might be more apropos.

Then we had some lunch.

And on our way out we stopped to watch the big tortoise having a snack of celery...

...and then the boys got to have a fun climb on the big tuatara lizard!

A little hmmm for your consideration

Continuing our conversation on things being more expensive in New Zealand:  I have largely ascribed the high costs to the problem of shipping things here.  After all, it's a long way to NZ and fuel prices add up. 

But by that logic, then, conversely, NZ products would also be expensive in the US.  But here is a sweet treat at your friendly neighbourhood TJs.  From New Zealand!  But where is the prohibitive price tag??

Not fair.  Enjoy it, Americans!
 

Still warm enough to enjoy the beach

Arram elected to walk for our adventure today; no stroller for our big two year old boy!  So we walked hand-in-hand to the ferry.  Amiri made up an Adventure song for us:  (to the tune of Frere Jacques) We're going on a vabenture, we're going on a vabenture, you can come along, you can come along, but if you don't want to come you don't have to, we'll see you later, we'll see you later.

Because we didn't have to struggle with a stroller, we were able to climb the stairs on the ferry and sit on the open-air platform on top.

We played on the playground for all of two minutes before the siren song of the beach lured the boys over.  We changed into their togs and Amiri jumped right in.

And, surprise, Arram liked going in too!  Both boys went in up to their necks and paddled around!  Mama waded in up to her knees too and stayed within arm's reach the whole time.  The water was very calm (except for that one time that a speedboat made a big wake!!) and it was a good day for getting comfortable with the water.

Arram also liked finding seaweed in the sand and then flinging it into the water, digging a big hole, and the way that his shorts sagged when wet.

Oh, it was such a big fun morning.  Also exhausting.  It was intense, energetic, all-out playing for about two hours.  On the ferry back, Arram just gave up.  Climbed into my lap, laid his head on my shoulder, and closed his eyes with a sigh.  I had to carry him home and passersby got diabetes the whole way.