While our friends have gone off to Malaysia on holiday for the next three weeks, we've been asked to look after their bird and dog while they're away, and to look after the kids they usually look after after school for the next week. There are four of them - a four-year-old and a six-year-old boy and a 13-year-old girl, and an 8-year-old girl from a different family. For some reason the eldest girl doesn't like boys and always snubs us or hides from us whenever we come to visit! Now that we'll be looking after them after school for the next week, it is up to us Anderson brothers to introduce her to MAN. So here's how DAY ONE went:
The youngest finished kindergarten at midday, so I drove my mum to the kindy to pick him up. Before we left for home my mum wanted to have a look through Foodtown, so she made me hold hands with the little boy. He ended up dragging me around the place showing what his parents usually buy him, like chocolate cake and chocolate milk. I wouldn't mind swapping places with him! This little kid is so random at times, and asks so many questions, but I guess that's just a sign of a very curious child!
When we got home (with the lounge tidied at the last minute!) my dad gave him some paper to draw on and some pictures to trace and so he drew some pictures of planes. It's funny seeing my parents with little children as they're so different! Maybe that's what they were like to us when we were younger!
After lunch, I had the task of entertaining him right throughout the day, so I got out some of our old toys. It just happens this kid turns out to be a Transformers fan! I also introduced him to some of our exercise equipment which he took a liking to, especially the exer-cycle. After lowering the seat down for him, he started cycling and cycling until he had cycled for 1km! He then took a break to play more with toys before we decided to watch TV.
When his brother and sister and the other girl got home it all went crazy! The two girls stuck together and played around on the piano while the boys played around with the exercise equipment. I tried talking to the eldest girl but she didn't really talk much. My mum later asked if the kids needed to get anything from our friend's house, so we led them there. I checked up on the dog, but the dog managed to get inside the house. With Aonghas, my mum and me not being too keen on picking up the little dog and getting bitten or hurting the dog, we relied on the four-year-old to get the dog out of the house for us, which wasn't such a great plan! The dog ran upstairs, and then when we finally chased it downstairs ran under a bed! I went back home to ask the girl (who had been eager to get back to our house away from us!) if she could get get the dog out of the house as we were afraid of him, and she sighed quite heavily!
The two boys and the girl soon left when their friend's dad came to pick them up, and so we were left with the other girl. Aonghas and I played a little basketball with her outside in the cold (she was only wearing a t-shirt while I was wearing four layers of clothes!) before she said she had never seen a college student do homework and wanted to see Aonghas do some! We found out Aonghas didn't have homework, so we decided to play some board games while Aonghas went off for his squash thing.
An 18 year old vs an 8 year old in chess...who won? Depends on which rules you go by. If you went by her rules where any piece can go anywhere, she won, but if you went by the official rules, it probably was a tie. I then tried some card tricks on her which didn't work, before Hamish and I went up against her in Monopoly.
We were talking to her while playing games, and it's amazing how much she knows! The latest she's ever stayed up is 1am and she usually watches Desperate Housewives. She sometimes watches C4 so she could basically tell me everything going on with Britney Spears and Paris Hilton, and when I put some music on from my phone's loudspeakers (such as Akon and The Fray) she could sing the songs well!
Her dad eventually came and so I don't exactly know who won Monopoly, but as soon as the last kid left, I slumped on the couch and took a break. Tomorrow's another day!
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Yesterday I went over to visit my relatives on my mum's side. Finally I could practise listening to my mum and her cousin speak Cantonese to each other and try to figure out what they were saying! We drank tea and had our cups refilled constantly till I needed to go to the toilet. I'm sure I had ten cups of tea by the time I left!
Soon Joshua my nephew came home from school. Damn he goes to St Kents! I managed to start a conversation with him about Star Wars which led him to explain to me all this stuff to do with Star Wars. I wonder what he'll be like in 10 years time!
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I went to see the Rutherford College production 'Joseph and the Technicolour Dreamcoat' last night with Heather, my mum and Hamish (OK pretty much my family except for my dad who went to see it tonight) and I must say we were impressed! It's great seeing how far people have gotten since those days of Wizard of Oz and Aladdin. Troy was the lead male (or is it male lead?) as Joseph, while Michaela was the lead female (or female lead?) Troy will always be Tin Man to be though, and Michaela will always be Dorothy to me! We also noticed the girl who played Toto (the dog) in the choir! She was only a primary school student back then! It was good to see heaps of music (complete with harmony!) throughout. I caught up with them after the show, as well as with Alex during the break, Andrew and Chelsey who was doing the lighting. So if you have a couple hours to spare from 8pm-10pm tomorrow or Saturday night, go check out Rutherford College's production! Oh yeah by the way Aonghas is playing trumpet too...added bonus ;)
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