Beth's Lockdown Birthday, Big Bike Ride, Fan Rat, Ritickulous

Last Thursday was Beth's 8th Birthday, held in Lockdown Level 3.  She was lucky that it was the second day of Level 3, so at least we were able to order some Takeaways for her dinner that night (she really wanted Chicken Satay Skewers).

She had a good birthday morning I think, she was up super early (as expected) but didn't complain when I said she had to wait until everyone was up until we could do presents.  I cooked pancakes for her and both children ate those happily, glad for the excitement of having pancakes on a day that wasn't the weekend.  Eventually everyone was awake so Beth got to start unwrapping her presents.  This year she got:

• Tie Dye Kit from Granny
• Book from Granny
• Unicorn Books from Pa
• Inflatable Cheerleading Mat - We gave this to her early because of Lockdown so she could practise Cheerleading on it.
• Pink shoulder cape from Granny
• Hanging Net for her toys
• Proper Dogtag for Charlie
• Slush TY Toys Slippers
• Winking Pusheen

So she did pretty well really for a lockdown Birthday, she's lucky Sarah is so good at ordering things in advance and had a good stash of stuff.  The only thing we didn't have was a nice birthday card, but I went to the supermarket the night before and managed to find a really nice one.  Which seems odd for the supermarket but there you go.  

Lots of people rang her on video call for her birthday which was nice, the highlight being Fletcher ringing up and singing Happy Birthday to her.  So cute.

Sarah made her a Puppy Dog cake too which we had after dinner.  I think she had a pretty good Birthday, she seemed very happy and told me that night as she was being tucked into bed that she was sad her Birthday was over.

The day before that, Peter C came over (Lockdown Level 3, means he was allowed to) and made Pasta with the kids.  They seemed to enjoy it, the pasta dough was made and then dyed a redish/pink with beetroot dye.  The pasta turned out OK, probably a little bit too thin so it dried out fairly easily.  Still a few days later I made them lunch with it, though they didn't eat heaps I think that was because they didn't enjoy the cheesy pasta sauce I'd made more than not enjoying the pasta.  At least it was a different activity for them, something to do and it was nice to see Grandad after 2 and a bit weeks of not being able to.

There's been some good lockdown learning going on, especially with Theo's class.  His teacher has been good at having a classroom catchup each day at 10am.  So I set him up with that each day, usually needs a pen and paper, though on Friday he had "Crazy Experiments" day where he needed paper and water and all sorts.  Gotta say I was a little nervous about giving a 6yo water inside near my spare laptop, but he's a good boy and the laptop was up out of the way.  In the end I actually helped him do a couple of the experiements and they were quite fun, the Pepper one we'd both seen before but the rainbow ink one was a very neat visual effect which Theo really enjenjoyed.

Beth's class has instead been more focused on handing out activities for the kids to do each day, or asking them to build their own experiements and that sort of stuff.  Some parents obviously don't have to work because their kids are uploading 60 page essays or growing Crystals and all sorts of other magic. Nevermind, back to school for both of them tomorrow so the education system can take care of teaching Beth, we haven't done a great job.  It's hard when you're both working full time though, even though we give them snack boxes etc they still want your attention at least 5 times an hour.  Makes it hard to get anything done sometimes.

Sarah screamed out on Sunday, I thought it was just going to be a cockroach.  Nope, there was something in the overhead kitchen extractor fan.  It's been on our list of things to replace for a while now, so after some confusion as what best to do, I just pulled it out.  And sure enough caught up in there was one very pissed off lookig oiled to death Rat.   How it got into the duct I don't know but yea.  Now we have a big hole there, one lockdown is over we need to find a new one and get it fitted and all that sort of stuff.

Finally got a plan for the backyard from the people that we contracted to develop one.  And, thank fuck, it looks great.  Really nice.  I'm sure we won't be able to afford everything it suggests, but it gives us a really good idea of how it could look.  We've got a meeting with them tonight to understand a few things like where the bore and the pool pump will fit into the picture, but yea.  Really good.

Went for our first all family bike ride on Sunday.  Took the long way (up John's Road) to Taradale, had some takeaways sitting on the benches in Taradale.  Wasn't quite as nice as being able to go to a proper cafe or similar, but it was good fun the four of us all biking.  On the way back we stopped at a dairy and had icecreams, then kept going home.  Once we were nearly home I said to Theo if we turn around and ride 1 more KM we'll beat your previous distane record of 11.22km (which was when we rode out to the Pukutapu) and he was dead keen to do that.  So we turned around and did that, in the end he did 12.4km which is very impressive!  Lots of tired people when we went to bed that night, but I'm glad we took advantage of the lovely weather to get out there and do something.

That's enough for the moment, I'm sure there's more stuff to add but I'll come back and add it if/when I remember.

Oh yea, Biscuit got a tick!  I saw a small spot on him when I was patting him and it just looked like a pimple had burst and covered over with blood.  Anyway when I thought "I'll just check that spot" 24 hours later it was a gross looking thing.  A quick Google confirmed it was a tick!  I followed this really bizzare guide which said to just gently rub the tick in circle for 30-40 seconds and it'd drop off.  I thought it was utter bollocks but hey, I didn't have anything to lose except 40 seconds and blow me down if it didn't work, after agitating the tick for 30 seconds, it just dropped off.  Mouth/headparts all intact.  So you bet I stuck that little fucker in sticky tape so he wasn't going anywhere.  Thankfully Ticks in NZ don't carry anything terrible.  I know where he would have got it, I take him running up where there are cows.  I'll get him some tick/flea killer pills and give him those on a regular basis.

Ok I think that's enough for the moment, until I remember something else.