Eating Out

After writing the last post I was reminded about several eating out experiences. We rarely eat out nowdays as I'm not sure if the budget can stand the amount of food we'd have to buy for Lloyd.

When Hubby was Potential Hubby he decided we should go out for dinner before his BA graduation. There was a little Thai restaurant that was near to the university and we thought we'd pop in for an early dinner before turning up in time for the graduation. We were greeted by a very polite Thai waiter who showed us to our seats and took our order. Thankfully there was no one else in the restaurant at that early hour. In very quick time our dinners were placed in front of us. My Hubby has been brought up to eat everything on his plate. After giving thanks Potential Hubby started eating everything on his plate. Everything. Including the long dried chilli garnish on the top. He turned bright red and started having a coughing fit. In no time the Thai waiter appeared beside me with a glass of water saying, "Here is your glass of water, Madam," (I hadn't asked for one) then turning to the fire-breathing dragon sitting opposite me, "Would you like one too, Sir?" Potential Hubby managed to get out, "Yes, please," before the tablecloth erupted in flames. Such politeness by the Thai people. I'm sure they were rolling around on the floor laughing in the kitchen. After the graduation that night potential Hubby proposed and became fiancee.

He really should have learned his lesson a few years earlier. At a friend's house he was served some soup and was enjoying it very much. His hostess then asked what was he was chewing on seeing as it was soup. He commented that it was the "gum leaf" she had put in the soup. LOL, it must have been a bay leaf.

When we were newly married we went with Hubby's family to a restaurant for Mother's Day with his Mum, siblings, three nieces and a nephew. One of the nieces, Miss E, was having a lovely time and decided that the bullseye lolly that came with her Dad's coffee would be nice to eat. It got stuck and she stood there choking. Hubby's brother (a general practitioner) put her over his knee, performed a manoevre which made the lolly go shooting onto the carpet then held her for a while. He turned to his wife and commented on how well the manoevre worked then mentioned to the rest of us how it would be bad for business for a doctor's daughter to choke to death in the middle of a restaurant. After Miss E had calmed down she picked up the lolly, covered with carpet fluff and I don't want to know what and offered it to her father saying, "You eat it, Daddy, I don't want it anymore."

Weddings

A few weeks ago Hubby and I were getting reading to go out. On our own. Not just for dinner, but to live theatre as well. A group at Hubby's work had organised for tickets to "Phantom of the Opera". I've always wanted to see it but finances or feeding babies has kept us from doing so in the past. Occasionally going out for dinner is nice when there's no little people to worry about. A really HOT dinner! A friend of mine says that you can tell the parents of young children when they go out to dinner. She says they bolt down their dinner at an amazing rate (forgetting the children aren't there) in anticipation of having to stop at any moment to pick up a crying baby, cut up a child's dinner or feed a young toddler. I've always felt it's rather ironic that parents ideally would like to eat their dinner hot, but in the process of entertaining a young child while the child's dinner cools down to near freezing so they'll eat it, their own dinner gets rather cold.

When Anika was around 3 months old and we were celebrating our second wedding anniversary my mother offered to babysit while we went out to dinner. At that stage Anika would be fed around 7 pm and sleep until 2 am when the next feed was expected so we figured we'd be safe to slip out for a couple of hours. Sure enough Anika went off to sleep at 7 pm and we headed out. I must have been a little nervous about it though. As we sat down at the table in the restaurant I heard a "Will Mrs. Munurph, munurph (indecipherable) please come to the telephone." I automatically assumed it was for me and was wondering if my poor mother was juggling a screaming baby. I literally ran for the phone, perhaps knocking over a few diners in my haste. When I got there all I got was blank looks when I said I was Mrs Q and was I wanted on the phone. It turned out it was for a Mr. Someone or other not Mrs Q.

Anyway, we were all getting ready to go out and I was standing in front of the mirror in my bedroom applying make up when Mike, who'd been watching the proceedings, made the comment, "Are you getting married, Mummy?" After a bit of thought I remembered that the last time I'd worn such a formal outfit to go out was to a friend's wedding so perhaps that was the connection? Maybe I need to dress up more often?

Anika took Mike to the wedding photo on the wall and he recognised that yes, that was Mummy and Daddy but hadn't made the connection that it was our wedding day then. I should be pleased. My mother-in-law told me that when Hubby and his siblings were younger they used to look at their parent's wedding photo and say, "There's Daddy. There's a pretty lady. Where's Mummy?"

When Anika was younger she loved the idea of playing weddings. Lloyd had this really cute little bear that was dubbed "Baby Bear Robert" after a friend's son Robert was born. With the huge array of stuffed toys in the house there was ample opportunity for weddings. Every Saturday whilst Hubby and I sipped on our afternoon tea there would be a new wedding. I had to put my biology background aside as bears married rabbits and had Duplo children.

Baby Bear Robert

Later Anika wrote a master's thesis on "Baby Bear Robert Land". I kid you not. It was 20 000 words long and detailed the genealogy of every stuffed toy and Duplo figure that ever existed in this house. If she hadn't grown out of this idea before we started accumulating Lego people there would be a PhD. We happen to have the Southern Hemisphere's equivalent of Legoland Windsor here.

Baby Bear Robert was a much loved bear but sometimes Lloyd's fascination with this toy wore thin. When we used to live in the country we made frequent trips to Brisbane when Anika and Lloyd were young. To pass the time Lloyd used to sing, "Baby Bear Robert's hopping in the car and he's going to Brisbane." In monotone. For two and a half hours solid. I can't give you any idea of the tune because there wasn't one.


When Lloyd was around four he was playing on his bed with Baby Bear Robert and some other toys. Baby Bear Robert was "talking" away to the other toys. We had to go out shopping before it got too late so I said, "Lloyd, time to go now, Baby Bear Robert can play and talk with the toys while we're out." "Oh, Mummy! " Lloyd exclaimed, "Baby Bear Robert is only a TOY!" Hasn't he seen "Toy Story"? To insanity and beyond.

Interesting Names

After reading TobyBo's post about 7 favourite foods (thanks for keeping the "u" Aussie spelling) I was reminded of those cute things our kids say from time to time about the food we make. Anika at the age of 4 was asked by my Dad what we were having for dinner and her reply was "bumpy chicken". These were her words for fried chicken. I guess breadcrumbed chicken does seem rather bumpy. Nowadays post-coeliac diagnosis we crumb chicken with polenta but we still call it "bumpy chicken".

Matt came up with a few names himself. Curried lamb chops were called "chopping bones". When my aunts came to visit from England 4 years ago he informed them that we were having "sticky tape pudding" (sticky date pudding) for dessert. One day when we had some Ukrainian visitors when Matt was learning to read he asked if he might have some more "extra value" to drink. The "extra value" was a bottle of lemon soda with "EXTRA VALUE, 50% more" written in huge letters on the side.

Little Mike at a fairly young age might have been making a comment on my cooking. I had made a beef stroganoff with cubed beef. He saw it in his bowl and said we were eating "rocks".

I think one of my favourites though had to be Lloyd. I was making a cake one day when he was around 3 and I was asking him what the various ingredients were to see if he knew them - flour, sugar, eggs etc. All went well with the vocabulary check until we came to the salt. "What's this, Lloyd?" His reply was "popcorn taste". I guess it does taste a bit like styrofoam without salt.

Tolerance

"Tolerance, Inclusion and Respect" - that was the title of the "values" unit put out by the school of distance education that was sent to Matt last year. This was in response to the Australian Federal Government's latest education policy that our children be taught values in schools. That's okay, I have no problem with that, though we are teaching these values as part of our day-to-day life. It reminded me of a time when Lloyd was about 8 and we had to teach tolerance.

Our boys just love weapons. Hubby was in the army cadets as a youngster and he and the two older boys like fencing (the sword type that is, not the crowbar and chain wire type). Military toys are everywhere. During one clean up of Lloyd's room I remember saying to him that his toy soldiers were doing a great reconnaissance mission as they were in every nook and cranny of his room.

Toy guns are just part of life. Recently Matt insisted that we absolutely must go to the toyshop before visiting friends. He wanted to use his pocket money to buy a revolver. I suggested he just take his rifle to visit Robert's house. "No, Mum, you can't just take a rifle! I really MUST have a revolver or it just won't work." Hubby was in complete agreeance saying that a rifle was just too big and you can't go anywhere unarmed.

Recently the three of them were using swords (the plastic type) in the family room when Anika answered the phone call from one of her friends. Miss F was trying to communicate some information regarding suitable music for Anika's school music performance video. The conversation went like this:

Miss F: The first book for piano and flute is....(rest drowned out by the noise of Lloyd, Matt and Mike going for it with the swords and yells).

Anika and I (in unison): Boys be quiet! I'm (Anika is) on the telephone.

Miss F: What's happening?

Anika: The boys are killing one another here.

Miss F (with 8 brothers): Oh, okay. Just tell them to kill one another quietly.

Where was I? Oh, yes, tolerance. One day a homeschool family of 4 came to visit. Mrs B's son John (also 8 at the time) and Lloyd were having a great time somewhere then John appeared with a rifle. Mrs B immediately stiffened and said, "John, just put that gun away please." "Oh dear," I thought and said, "You don't like toy weapons?" Mrs B assured me they didn't. Hubby reminded me later that these lovely Christian people belonged to a church that were pacifists.

That's okay I figured. We just explained the situation to our children and before the B family arrived next time we rounded up all the weapons and put them somewhere. Believe me, this was no easy feat. Hubby says that the reason the United Nations didn't find any weapons of mass destruction when they went into Iraq is because they were looking in the wrong place. They were all stashed here.

One day we visited the B family. Before getting in the car I gave the "We must tolerate and respect other's views" lecture and did a search for any concealed weapons. All clear. We were having a great time at the B family home with Lloyd and John playing outside. That was until Mr B came home from work looking a little upset. The boys followed him inside. Mrs B asked the problem. Mr B said, "They were playing war games." "Oh dear," I thought. On the way home I decided it was time to remind Lloyd of the "We must tolerate....." and said, "Lloyd you really shouldn't have started that war game." Lloyd's response, "But, Mum, it was John who said we should play a war game." Perhaps the next lecture should be, "Don't go along with games you know their parents wouldn't like."

So if you happen to see the UN tanks rolling down our little avenue in Queensland do me a favour and give me a quick warning. Thanks.

A child's view

When my oldest two children were younger I figured it was high time to teach them some catechism. The shorter catechism was a little busy for young ones so I started with the kittychism and one of the Qs and As went something like this: Q. Who is God? A. God is a spirit, he doesn't have a body like we do.

Lloyd had his own interesting understanding of this. One day I noticed him drawing a very unusual picture. The picture showed a head then a huge space and then two legs and feet at the bottom of the page. There were also two arms appearing from nowhere and a large stick attached to one hand. Like a typical Mum I said to him, "Who is it dear?" His response: "This is God, he doesn't have a body like we do." When I asked about the stick he said, "That's God's walking stick because he's always been there so he's very old."

Recently Mike, who is now about the same age as when Lloyd drew his interesting picture, was having a cuddle with Anika on her bed. Anika was reading the Bible and decided to pray. She whispered her prayers and Mike was horrified at the idea. "I'm not God!" he declared loudly.

Back to Lloyd. When he was just a little older we moved to our current house which has a family room with cathedral ceilings. Lloyd used to like playing with Anika's "Noah's Ark" which was made out of wood. One day he was asking all sorts of questions about the real Noah's Ark. How big was it? Was it as big as the ceiling? Yes, Lloyd it had to be. Was it as big as the back yard? Yes, Lloyd it was very big. "Well, Mummy," he said, "It must have been an outside toy."

Somewhere around this time Anika must have been learning about points of a compass and Lloyd's curiosity got the better of him. "Can we go to East one day?" This is when I decided to purchase a globe - problem solved.

Lloyd decided to show off some of his new-found knowledge when he was learning a bit of biology. One day Hubby came inside, quite excited saying, "There's a six foot snake on the front patio!" Lloyd responded, "Oh, Daddy," he explained, "snakes don't have feet." Maybe Hubby should have used metric?

Tagged

So, I've been tagged by Sarah so here goes:

7 things I'd like to do before I die

1. See my grandchildren and maybe even great-grandchildren.
2. More importantly, see them all grow to know and trust the Lord Jesus Christ.
3. I'd like to visit the old country (England) with Hubby and show him where I was born.
4. Sit for some piano practical exams.
5. Teach lots of children to read who are having problems.
6. Visit friends overseas.
7. Eat more chocolate.

7 things I can't do well

1. I can't stay away from chocolate either (yes, I know this is copying)
2. Draw
3. Parachute from x thousand feet (not that I've ever tried)
4. Run fast
5. Butterfly swimming
6. Creative writing
7. Tolerate spiders and snakes, especially in the house.

7 favourite movies

1. Pride and Predjudice (BBC version please! - OK it's a mini-series but it can count)
2. Top Hat
3. First Love
4. Princess Bride
5. Charade
6. Singin' in the Rain
7. Easter Parade

7 things I say often:

1. Wait a minute!
2. Love you Hubby.
3. Love you ....... (Anika, Lloyd, Matt or Mike)
4. How is it going? (referring to schoolwork....hint, hint, please stop I.M. and do something!)
5. How do I do this? (on computer)
6. What a busy week.
7. Could you play the ukulele in the bedroom....with the door shut please?

7 favourite books/authors

1. The Bible (Almighty God)
2. Pride and Predjudice (Jane Austen)
3. The Reformed Doctrine of Predestination - Lorraine Boettner (this one helped me understand TULIP) a long time ago.
4. Sketches from Church History (S M Houghton)
5. The History of the Reformation in England (M D'Aubigne)
6. Shopping for Time (Mahaney et al)
7. The Little House books (Laura Ingalls Wilder)

7 things I want to see:

1. Scotland
2. Ireland
3. Wales
4. The Eiffel Tower
5. Israel
6. Stonehenge (again)
7. Uluru (Ayer's Rock)

I tag:

No-one because I don't know anyone else.