An Epic Tale of Pony Acquisition

Today we went on a fabulous quest! Narrowly avoided dragons, rode dinosaurs, battled hunger and thirst, wander over hill and dale, eventually uniting eight friends to prove friendship really is magic.

Today we decided to take advantage of the fabulous weather that we have been having and explore a new playground. After doing a bit of research, I came up with Marla Dorrel Park, which happens to have a dragon right in the middle of it. Excited, we packed, and ultimately forgot, a picnic and set out on our journey. All the way there, we discussed how brave we would have to be facing a dragon, but decided we were mostly excited! Upon arrival, we learned that the dragon was off visiting relatives and would not return until 17 April. We decided to return to our old stomping ground, where we thought we might see a purple dragon, having previously battled a gruffalo there.

On the way, we passed a park filled with dinosaurs that were being ridden and climbed by an army of children! We decided to skip the purple dragon and instead play with the friendly dinosaurs. Archer rode a triceratops and Lily rode a t-rex and they both slid down a brachiosaur’s tail. Just as our tummies began to grumble and we began to miss our forgotten rations, some beautiful music could be heard from afar. The ice cream man! But, alas! We only had enough gold to buy yummy frozen treats for one of our adventurers! We were ill-equipped today indeed!

We talked sadly about how these things sometimes happen, and remembered we had ice cream in the freezer at home. Happily, the two littlest adventurers skipped back off to play with their mighty dinosaur friends. Daddy and Mummy adventurer decided they had been so good about the disappointment over the ice cream, that we would take the little adventurers to Chick-Fil-A to get an inexpensive, but delicious, treat!

Waving good-bye to our prehistoric companions, we headed off for some yummy pre-dinner snacks. But we had forgotten one very important fact: Chick-Fil-A, being a fast food establishment that serves religious beliefs in steaming, bizarrely inappropriate, piles with their delicious chicken, is not open Sundays! Oh no!

“How about McDonalds?” piped up Lily the Brave and Thoughtful. Great idea! But the nearest had no playground and the car was getting hot, even with the air conditioning on, so we decided to go through drive-thru and take our booty to the playground near our house, instead.

It seems many hot and bothered adventurers had had the same idea as us, as the line at the drive-thru window was a dozen cars deep. And it really was getting hot in the car.

“Go in McDonalds?” murmed Archer the Smart and Dribbly. So Daddy pulled out and parked, instead.

As Mummy was ordering, Lily the Shrill spotted the My Little Pony Happy Meal toys, which do not come with $1 ice creams. The kind server said they could choose a toy each, despite not ordering the meal. Archer was very pleased with his Rainbow Dash, but Lily the Observant and Insistent, who had DJ Pon-3, pointed out that they had only acquired two of the possible eight friends, and it was very important to reunite all the friends, or there might be catastrophe.

Mummy and Daddy, being of the clan Brony, felt it was probable she was right, and decided everyone could enjoy a Happy Meal for dinner.

But alas! Another bump in the road! This establishment only had Princess Luna and Rarity! We had only reunited four of the group! And Mummy and Daddy were dinnerless!

Grinning wickedly and giving a sly wink, Daddy says, “Mummy, why don’t we try another McDonalds?”

No luck!

“How about just one more?” The thrill of the chase, and the increasingly warm car, had made our senses muddled.

And here we discover two more of our pony friends, this time the most important Princesses Celestia and Twilight!

Satisfied, we assured our littlest adventurers that when we go grocery shopping Tuesday night, we can get another Happy Meal and hopefully get our last two friends, Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie.

Daddy, muddled from over indulging the children and spending nearly 30 minutes in a very warm car, pulled out of the parking lot in the wrong direction only to discover the next available u-turn point was yet another McDonalds. Another wicked grin and sly wink and Daddy ventures in alone.

Mummy and Lily and Archer the Bored and Hot wait for what seems like a very long time for Daddy to return.

When he returns empty handed, everyone feels very sad, until with a triumphant flourish he produces both Fluttershy and Pinkie Pie from his pockets! Mummy wonders how much gold it cost to acquire these two without a food purchase.

Nothing!

As it turns out, all McDonalds restaurants must have a customer care box with a full set of toys in case someone insane wants to buy the set all at once, and due to a mix up between two people conversing by headset, Daddy, and not an employee, was sent to the back of the restaurant to help the pregnant server lift the box of toys. Because of the mix-up, and his hilarious tale of misadventure, he was allowed to take the toys for free! What luck!

And so, having united all eight ponies, we headed home to play basketball in the last of the sunshine with our neighbours and new friends!

Hello Trixie!

Today, as with every other day, I was listening to Lily play an elaborate game of pretend with her dolls and toys. Today it was tea with Casey, who is a Barbie doll and a baby doll called Baby. They were shopping and having a tea party. But, for the first time today someone was in attendance that was not represented by a physical object. Her name was Trixie and according to Lily was a human girl that was her friend. She would come to her birthday party and bring a gift. I didn't think much of it and she didn't mention her after the game stopped.

And then this evening, while in the bath, Trixie came to play again.

"Who's Trixie?" Bob called out.

"I think she's imaginary?"

"No, she's from My Little Pony. One of the little ponies."

"The three little sisters? That doesn't sound right. Ask her."

"Lily," Bob began, "What colour is Trixie's hair?"

"Blue."

Smug look at me over the cat-walk.

"Is Trixie a pony?"

"No Daddy! A hoo-man!"

And so it unfolded that Trixie is a four year old girl with blue hair and green eyes. She apparently got her cutie mark bath towel from Target and had already hung it next to Lily's Tinkerbell one on the hook. She also needed tucking in and a kiss goodnight.

And I'm happy to welcome Trixie into our house.

According to this article on Psychology Today, Lily is one of the 37% of children, most of whom are oldest, only or have restricted television viewing, that have imaginary friends. She is more likely to "be less shy, engage in more laughing and smiling with peers, and do better at tasks involving imagining how someone else might think." The last two qualities are qualities that Lily has had for the longest time. Empathy is definitely one of her strengths. I hope this new friend helps her combat her shyness.

This is one parenting adventure I'm really looking forward to!

http://www.psychologytoday.com/blog/singletons/200806/imaginary-friends-any-in-your-house
http://family.go.com/parenting/pkg-preschool/article-826297-the-real-reasons-kid-create-imaginary-friends-t/
http://www.babycenter.com/404_is-it-normal-for-my-toddler-to-have-an-imaginary-friend_11537.bc

On further reading there's blue haired pony called Trixie that makes an extremely brief appearance in Equestria Girls. Our Trixie is otherwise different, having green eyes, being a little girl (Lily knows the ponies are "grown ups") and displaying already thought out likes and dislikes. She's currently tucked into bed with her dolly on Lily's bedroom floor.

Go home North Carolina weather, you're drunk

At home, when the seasons change, for the most part, it is final. You might have a day here and there that is uncharacteristic, but seasons are fairly well defined, even if there is little difference between each one.

Here, this is not the case. While spring hasn’t officially commenced, I believe it happens mid-month, unlike at home, which is the beginning of the month, we are starting to see the most delightful signs of it everywhere.

Birds as brightly coloured as parrots, in shades of red and blue, singing their hearts out. Blossoms springing from every tree and shrub in all the colours of the rainbow. Grass and trees in every shade of green you can name, and a thousand more. Squirrels darting here, there and everywhere, much to the extreme delight of my children.

But the weather simply cannot make up its mind.

Since we arrived we have had days where shorts and t-shirts have been chosen over jumpers and long pants, and other days with snow, ice and sleet. Last week was so cold, the children refused to go to the park, because despite the gorgeous blue sky, it was mainly under 10 degrees Celsius. And with the weekend came delicious warm weather, and on Monday and Tuesday we felt sweat start to spring up on our skin when we played outside. Yesterday heralded a warm, overcast day, ending in an epic down pour. And with that down pour, the warmth was gone, and today it is cold again. Maybe still okay for a park trip in the afternoon, but we’ll be wearing jumpers and socks.

One of the largely unexpected side effects of this constant rapid change in weather is that everyone has a constant mild cold. By everyone I don't mean the Maidens family, I mean everyone. It was the first thing most people said to us, warning us of the fact we would now be living with stuffy sinuses indefinitely.

And can I just say, of all the things to love about this place, this genuinely sucks. We are warm weather creatures, our family. We like hot sand, and sweat, and pools and the ocean and none of us can stand this teasing. I want to say blue balls. I’m going to call it blue balls.

The worst bit is that, as though the government is mocking us, we are now on daylight savings time. Which was awesome on Monday and Tuesday, the children ran out into the cul-de-sac to kick footballs barefoot and in t-shirts at 6:00pm when their daddy got home, but today just signals another hour we can’t play outside. 

Fortunately, after a cold and overcast weekend, we’re forecast for low to mid twenties (C) for the rest of the month. And I am most definitely glad to see the back of winter.

One Month!

One month! Today (well, yesterday, internet was being true to AT&T standards last night) marks one month since we first set foot in our lovely new home, all the way on the other side of the world.

I have a Week One, Two and Three post to post retroactively, along with Photo a Day posts, but thought I’d hold out and do the one month one first as it seems to be quite an important milestone.

This month we have managed quite a lot, as you’ll see in the retroactive posts!

This week, after a month of using a blow up bed, and developing various aches and pains as result, we are finally getting a bed delivered! It is a good quality king size pillow top with box spring base and was a great bargain at $799. The children have had their twin/ single size mattresses since we got here but will be also getting their box springs in the delivery. I’m so happy about this! I really like having a good bed and am very, very fed up with our blow up, despite it being a really rather good quality one. It also makes me irrationally happy that we all have the exact same bed, only in different sizes. They arrive Wednesday.

We wanted to be careful with the cost of the beds as we have exactly zero furniture and because of the huge saving on the bed, it was over 50% off, we were able to pick up a lounge and dining room table, a luxury we thought was still a while down the track. These items are being delivered Friday and I’ll be very, very glad to be rid of the four camp chairs we are using at the moment, two borrowed from neighbours and two bought from Walmart for $10 apiece. These may also be a source of the various aches and pains, they are certainly the source of the numerous blobs of caked on food I’ve been scrubbing off daily as the children struggle to sit in them and hold their plates of food. The lounge is a very cheap bonded leather one, and I think I counted five times I said to the salesman “I’m buying this cheaply on purpose. I will be getting rid of it in two years. I don’t want you to add $170 in warranties.”

We also managed to pick up some book shelves for $16 each so now the toys are neatly placed on shelves instead of all over my floor, so we are very happy with our little home right now. We’re still hoping to buy a BBQ for summer, but are otherwise extremely happy to have some more concrete and comfortable furniture. 

This week we also decided not to ship the animals for another month. It was about $1500 more expensive than we anticipated (we’re working on that, hopefully it’ll be more in the ball park of what we thought) and the crazy weather is persisting, with ice and snow yesterday. So we’ve decided April and true spring is the way to go.  We miss them horribly but it’s the right thing for us and the right thing for them. At the end of the day, we could have skipped the dining table, gone with the cheapest quote and had them here in a few weeks but the weather, and the cheapest quote, are rather dubious and they are extremely happy where they are and it really is just a couple more weeks.

In other news, we found a soccer club for the children and they’ll start within the fortnight, hopefully and Lily commenced a community ballet class. It’s a bit of a flop so we’re investigating schools. Next is swim classes. Archer is obsessed with basketball, so he’ll start that around his third birthday. Lily has been discussing doing “’nastics” but we’re hoping to convince her to do cheer leading instead, as we think this is the better sport for her. They frequently ask to go back to kindy, but we’re holding off until the new school year.  

On Friday we are having a housewarming of sorts, inspired by my ability to pick up a lamb roast from Costco and my eagerness almost any day to cook pumpkin soup. I’m also trying my hand at a pavlova. Two of the neighbor families are coming and it promises to be a fun night.

At the end of our first month, I can truly say that this is one of the best things we have ever done. We love our home, we love our neighbours, we love our community and we’re all very, very happy. 

I can’t wait to see what the rest of the year holds!