Great moments in life: I'm sitting on the couch watching the World Cup, Korea v. Uruguay, with Penny sleeping next to me and Myron in the kitchen painting on kraft paper. One of the best investments I've ever made, that kraft paper. You buy huge rolls of it at Rotblott's on Adelaide and then whenever it's rainy, as it is today, just unspool a few metres of it and let the kids go nuts with the paints.
Yesterday before dinner the kids and I were in the schoolyard across the street, teaching Penny how to go on her push bike, and this little girl came over, Layla, and a carful of Portugal fans drove by honking their horn and Layla kind of went, pshaw, and said, "I don't know why they're honking. They only tied." This girl being like, six years old. We talked a bit about the Portugal-Brazil game, how neither of the sides were trying all that hard because they didn't have anything at stake. She really knew her stuff. To see how far she could go I asked who she thought would win this morning -- Korea or Uruguay? "Korean Republic," she said, without any hesitation. "I think South Korea is Korea DPR," I said. "No it isn't," she said. "DPR is North Korea." I checked later, and she was right.
Went swimming again earlier this week with the kids and it went way better. The key was the banana bread snack we bought from Ella's Uncle on the way over. They went into the pool with full stomachs and we stayed nearly an hour. After we even had the time to tour the Luminato installation in the park, Ship O' Fools, this Chinese Junk crammed full of fascinating little noise-making devices. So maybe I've mastered the swimming.
I have not, however, mastered taking the kids out to dinner to restaurants. We went to my sister's birthday dinner on Thursday night at Julie's Snack Bar, off Dovercourt? Full-scale disaster. I'd fed them before the actual dinner, I took them for walks when they got restless, I got them cool drinks with swords and maraschino cherries and still they couldn't sit still for more than five consecutive seconds. The night ended with Penny playing at the door and she lost it when I took her away from what really was a dangerous, finger-amputating swinging mechanism, and then when Myron realized we were leaving, he lost it, so that as we left I had a wailing kid on each arm and basically sprinted for the car.
Later, Isaac, my sister's fiance, realized Myron actually had a legitimate beef, he was freaking out the way he did because he wanted to stay for cake, cake that he and Isaac had picked out earlier in the day at the bakery down Dundas. So Isaac saved a piece for each of the three of us and we had them the next morning. But yeah, I think I'm going to give up on the eating-out-with-kids tip. Not when it's just me. It just isn't worth it. Remember that Chris!
Myron took the top photo, a section of the table from Julie's Snack Bar. I think he's broken the camera. The wages of letting your 3.75-year-old learn on your family camera, I suppose. If you click on the images you can just see what's depicted has all these horizontal bars on them. Also the sensor is having trouble dealing with light.
Myron's tower, the tallest yet.
Another courtesy of Myron from Julie's Snack Bar. Notice the blurriness? Also, whoa, I'm noticing this whole growing-my-hair thing may be getting out of control. I was aiming for Jack Nicholson from Five Easy Pieces but I think things are creeping toward Peter Tork circa the Monkees.
Oh, one more thing, about the post title -- just as I started this the announcer noticed that the South Koreans are great at "dead ball situations." Corner kicks and free kicks, I guess. What a great phrase.
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