Mike and I have been talking a LOT lately, about what to do with ourselves. We have (shh, I apologise in advance) too much money right now. We have no idea what to do with it. There is a plethora of options and we can’t easily choose between them.

* Move to Europe. I love this idea, but I’m concerned about being so far from family (plus our families would be sad because we are SO AWESOME).
* Move somewhere random, like Japan. I’m not so keen on this but Mike is applying his engineer’s brain and is intrigued by the structure of the language - and if that isn’t a reason to move then nothing is.
* Fly to Singapore, buy a caravan and spend a couple of years travelling around Asia and Europe. Crazy but cool, and also unlikely.
* Stay here. SO BORING UGH.

Then there’s the less permanent, short term ideas:
* Go to Florida in October accompanying Mike on his next work trip (he’s just back from Prague)
* Go to Australia in December to see Muse in concert and take the kids to Dreamworld etc. (Cheaper and closer)
* Save up until January and go to Europe with Mike on another of his work trips, and check out Spain and relocation possibilities.

Another problem with moving is that I’d probably need to get my Master’s or Honours to qualify to teach overseas, as most countries require a four-year degree. I’m thinking about doing my Masters in Education part time anyway because some of the course material is cool.

Oh, and another, more boringer option is:
* Pay off the mortgage as quickly as possible. HOW BORING.

Amy is being very chatty at the moment. I said to Mike, who just got home, “She didn’t even have a nap today!”

Amy: You said no nap, Mummy! Teachers said no too.
Me: That’s right, I said no nap.
Amy: Jae pushed me into the doors.
Me: Which doors?
Amy: The sleep-room doors.
Me: When? Today or yesterday?
Amy: Yesterday.
Me: And what did you do?
Amy: I tolded him STOP DOING THAT.

Ethan is in the University of Canterbury’s alumni magazine today. They have an article about multiculturalism in the classroom, and came to Ethan’s school and took a photo of his class, which has at least half a dozen ethnicities represented, maybe more. His face is half-obscured by another child but his face will be half-seen by, I’m guessing, one or two thousand alumni.

“No, Mum, the dragon’s not scary,” she said in a teasing voice. I said yes, I was scared, so Amy picked up the dragon, placed it in a nearby wire basket, then picked up the basket and carried it through to the bathroom where she put it up on the highest shelf she could reach.

“You can’t see it now, Mummy, so it’s not scary,” she told me.

* Over the past week we’ve had gas-powered hot water installed and ripped out an interior wall, as our new heatpump made the gas fireplace redundant. Renovation is fun, in an unexpected “oh crap, no one said there was a huge lump of concrete behind this wall” sort of way. Our bank account is unimpressed.

* Mike may be allergic to our new kittycat, who is tentatively named Kira. We’re going to hold on for a few more days. If things don’t work out (as in Mike doesn’t stop sneezing or wheezing), then she will hopefully return to her previous owners.

* I took Ethan to Horton Hears a Who today. He loved it. It was very spur of the moment and not conducive to my placement preparation [see first note, above].

(Renovation photos will undoubtedly follow.)

Anyhoo.

I got us a cat! Poor Mike. A college friend has had kittens (well, obviously, her cat had them, she only feeds and shelters them), and had offered us a kitten a couple of months ago. I thought about it, and talked to Mike, and he thought about it, and neither of us was willing to make the decision. Getting a pet is a pretty big decision, really.

Going back a bit further, like, uh, to when Amy was about 18 months old, she developed a paralysing fear of animals. We went to a friend’s house one day for coffee and playtime, and Amy and Ethan ran to the door and rang the bell. The friend’s daughter opened the door without thinking and their large labrador cross leapt out straight into Amy, barking loudly and jumping excitedly all over us. He was just happy to see us, but he towered over poor Amy and she has never been the same since. It’s slowly getting better, but for a while she would see a dog across the road and start whimpering and trying to literally climb my legs to get away from it. Now she will stop and think, and sometimes she will try commanding a barking dog to BE QUIET! but if it turns towards her she does the whimper-leg-climbing thing again.

So I knew we needed to give her plenty of experience with smaller, gentler animals to help regain her confidence (obviously caution is good, but not in such great doses), and the kitten seemed ideal. But then there’s toilet training, behavioural stuff (kids and cat), what happens if we go on holiday, etc.

With Mike away this time for slightly longer than usual, and the kids being tired and cranky and sick for part of the time, I have been tired and cranky and stressed off and on as well. They’ve actually been great, really, but they have the usual periods of grump and fighting and whingeing and in the evenings I collapse, too tired to do much else but dread the next day.

So we got the cat, who is now about five months old, housetrained and children-trained. She has been here for just over 24 hours and we have only lost her once! This morning I made the executive decision to let her out to explore the section, and she immediately disappeared next door (who would’ve thought?). We went to find her and she turned out to be stuck up a cabbage tree and only came down in the end because the back-fence neighbours started a car right below her perch, which scared her half to death. She hasn’t been outside since. She is asleep beside me, and having a cat to snuggle with and pat and be nuzzled by, and for the kids to talk to and amuse, has given us all a much-needed distraction while Mike is gone. Amy is still nervous if the cat approaches her, but happily follows the cat around the house, making cootchie-cootchie noises at her. Ethan is putting into practice things he has been learning at school about caring for pets and reminds me that our cat needs food, water, sleep, and cuddles.

“Hello,” said Spongebob.

“This is my pal Patrick,” said Spongebob.

Patrick is a starfish.

Spongebob is a sponge.

Today Spongebob watched Patrick.

This door is going to open.

Spongebob opened the door.

Bye bye!

The two of them, and Amy, had a fantastic time playing, riding their scooters, eating ripe figs and grapes and Kit-Kat bars for afternoon tea (the chocolate bars being a gift from our visitor (via her mother)) and playing board games when it got cold outside. After they’d eaten and returned outside, I came out to put a jacket on Amy. Ethan came up to me in the middle of a race with his friend, and leaned to whisper in my ear, “I like her!”

It was adorable. I think he was taken by surprise; he tolerated her at daycare because she was one of his adoring fans, and I don’t think he cared one way or the other that she was coming to play. But then it turned out that she liked scooters and Megablocks and playing BiJingo just like he did! She was actually kind of cool! And so they could be friends. Aw.

…

Also, Ethan has written a book. About Spongebob. I will follow up with photos and translations of his phonemic-style spelling.

(Roleplaying — apparently the aforementioned two cars are Mum and Dad.)
Mama. I don’t know. Dad, what are you doing, Dad?
I said what are you doing, Dad. Ummm, I’m doing work. Okay, bye.
I’m broken, Mummy.
Want a cuddle? (kissing noises) Good. Bye Daddy.
How was your work? Mum, how was your college? Good. No, I didn’t go, I’m at college.
…
[What are you doing?]
Um, I’m working. You’re the Dad, Mum. I’m the Mum.
What are you doing, Dad?
[I'm working at work. What are you doing, Mum?]
Um, I’m just driving. Mrrrooommmm. [Where are you going?]
Um, I don’t know. In the garage. Okay bye!

And then, four days later, you’ll finally put down the mouse, gaze blearily at your neglected family, and say something like, “I don’t know who I am. Help me, strange people.”

Finally, after the intervention, you can thank me.