This is half-pie.

I just can’t stop singing this song: it’s insanely catchy, and the kids love it too:

It’s from They Might Be Giants‘ new children’s CD of science-themed tracks, which arrived for us from Amazon earlier in the week. Recommended!

Usually on a day like today we’d I’d just sloth around. It’s Sunday, after all, and by the time I’d have removed the piles of cat crap from the lawn it would be too dark to mow it anyway.

Not today though. Today was all action. The kids were up early as one of Bella’s friends was staying overnight. After Bella’s friend went home, we headed into town for brunch with the Wellingtonista. It was a little bit unusual in that this time partners and kids were invited as well; however, kids being catching, they were placed safely down the far end where they couldn’t disturb people too much. James‘ Milo brought along Blokus along, which we had not played before, and he beat us comfortably while we waited for lunch.

Later on, we headed down to the stadium for the football.

We’d been prepared for cold, like good parents, but the direct sun beating in on us was extremely warm and bright. This is normally a good thing, but not (bad, bad parents!) if you are without hats and sunscreen and sunglasses.

I was still feeling a slightly boozy halo of wellbeing from lunch, and I think this, coupled with an over-stimulated sense of the occasion, made me go and buy hats for the whole family (I think this is the same impulse that makes you buy an expensive t-shirt at a gig – I am all-too susceptible there as well).

Super styley, eh?

Well, I can’t say that I like my new hat that much (and Rebecca doesn’t seem a huge fan of hers either), but at least I have something to wear to the next game. (There were less obvious styles that in my haste I overlooked in favour of an expression of tribalism.) The girls love theirs, so that’s something.

The game itself: well, it was as good as the last one we went to, except for the ending, in which the opposition team, notable only for a very famous ex-Liverpool player being the captain, scored an equaliser in the last minute of extra time. I’m not really what you’d called an informed watcher of sport, though I enjoy watching it live in life (over live on TV).

I also discovered that the one drawback of daytime football matches is that small kids don’t just fall asleep when they’re bored: they have to be kept entertained with food and drink. That is what parents are for.

Anyway, after all that we went to a drama production that one of Bella’s friends was in, which was charming, clever, and also concise; this last virtue being most welcome given the day’s various excitements.

And so the weekend was satisfactorily completed.

We had yesterday and today at a beach house in Waikanae, lucky us, to help celebrate Bella’s ninth birthday. And the weather could not have been better.

Well, it was pretty good all over the country really. Just look at this:

Yes, that’s Mt Ruapehu, around 180 km away (we could also see Taranaki, though he was harder to find). The skies were clear for hundreds of kilometres in every direction.

And while the air temperature was not that warm, the sun was hot enough today to encourage the kids into their togs for a paddle, and for Helen, with whom we were staying, to haul out the sea kayak for rides.

They were considerably more keen than I was.

Though last night as I stood in the setting sun on the balcony overlooking the beach, glass in hand, even I was thinking about a little adventure on the water:

Probably just the wine talking, that was.

I have two very pleased little girls this evening.

But then kids are always interested in the things that obsess their parents (or in this case, just one of their parents)¹.

The Green Snapper cards for children became available today, and by coincidence the girls and I were able to catch a rush hour bus home this evening to try them out. Although it would have been possible for them to travel on my card, it’s not something that’s a good idea during the rush hour given the impatience of other commuters (it’s too easy for other people to push past and tag on with your collective fare), and the varying levels of bus driver knowledge on how to allow it.

So I thought that a green card each would have them able tag on for themselves, and give them a chance to take a little more responsibility for themselves.

The cards worked pretty much as you’d expect. Both girls needed a little coaching to tag on and off, but no more than many adults did this time last year. And travelling in the bus is still something of an exciting novelty for them (though something we want to do more of). But I still have a couple of issues with the new cards.

1. The first, and least significant, is the crappy lanyard Snapper provide for them. While I’m grateful to have obtained some free ones for the girls, they don’t seem robust enough for my liking. This must surely be a job for the crafty people entering the Smarten your Snapper competition, right?
2. Secondly, management of multiple cards is becoming more important. While you can register more than one card under a single login on the Snapper website, to add money to those cards or get an accurate balance via the website, you have to a) have the cards physically on you and b) have a computer running Windows. The first is not always going to be possible if the girls are looking after their cards themselves, and the second is unlikely given my home computer is a Mac. I want more ways to be able to fund card balances without having to go into a shop to do it – like being able to Bill Pay into a balance that can be distributed between cards via the website.
3. Thirdly, once kids learn they can use their cards at shops to buy an ice cream and a packet of chips then some, at least, are going to find themselves short of enough balance to travel. I would love to be able to fund two balances on each card (and this goes for the red adult cards too) – one that works only public transport, and one that works at the corner dairy and other retailers. The cards should be able to do this: their little chip is capable of more than they’re currently being used for – I hope. (The question would be can the supporting retail hardware, business processes, and processing back-end handle it?)

So, another chapter in the ongoing Snapper story. It might not be the chapter we were looking for (fully integrated travel across Wellington, for example, will need more contributing authors than just Snapper alone); and could have been a little better written maybe… but my girls seem to like it.

¹ Last year: Snapper, an introduction and Snapper: What about privacy? and Snapper: What about privacy, again?. I seem to be much more relaxed about the technology now than I was back then; though I still only use the cards for transportation purposes…

Rosa’s sixth birthday today. She went off to school with a princess badge emblazoned with a giant “6”, so no-one could mistake the day, and a brand new pair of pink velvet trousers run up the previous evening by Rebecca.

And tonight, we went out for dinner. Yesterday I had asked her where, if she had the choice, would she like to go for a birthday dinner. She thought for a bit, and announced: “I’d like to have my Japanese dinner!”.

Turns out what she actually means is teriyaki squid at Chow in Woodward Street – and that’s what we did. The girls ate a plate of squid each, and tipped the sauce into their noodles and ate those too. What little remained they’ve brought home for the fridge. Lunch tomorrow will be exciting.

Rebecca and I had a bowl of curry each, some satay sticks and perhaps unnecessarily, some fishcakes too. Luckily, the staff at Chow, on learning that it was Rosa’s birthday, took hers off the bill. We had great service and lots of fun from the staff there.

We had to walk slowly back to the car, though Rosa, whose infectious happiness had made one of the staff jokingly call her “drunk on squid”, ran ahead and back all the way, covering twice our distance.

And needless to say, Bella wants to go there for her birthday, too.

Becky has had quite a bit of stuff back from Ponoko recently, something which the girls love as much as she does. Because this means there will be all sorts of interesting offcuts to be employed in projects of their own.

This morning Bella and Rosa were engaged in a bit of co-operative construction: offcuts, glue, paint – out on the deck in the sun. After dinner they showed me what they’d built:

It occurred to me that I’d seen something like this before, and I said so to the girls. A quick websearch later and, thanks to Dewalt on Flickr, proof:

Maybe I’m just being a Dad here, but does not the girls’ creation look like the Red Fort of Delhi?

And it turns out Bella’s not completely convinced either, though she’s willing to take my word for it.

In this country we get to have Good Friday off, which is very nice. Especially so as today was one of those glorious Wellington autumn days of warm and still weather. So in about the middle of the afternoon Rosa suggested we take the bikes down to the park (something we don’t do as often as we should because of the rather large number of steps involved).

Bella thought it was a good idea too; and Becky had finished what she needed to do for Craft 2.0 tomorrow… so off we went.

Of course, no sooner did we get there than the bikes were forgotten:

But really, there’s just too much to do at these sort of places:

Later, a couple turned up with a cute corgi and a croquet set. Our girls introduced themselves and had themselves a game while Becky and I kept the poor old dog company.

And really, going to the park was about the most exciting thing we did all day. And this was VERY GOOD.

Today was Bella’s birthday party. She liked last year’s outdoor effort so much that she asked for a repeat:

Today was even warmer and sunnier, and after a couple of hours out there I think I’ve gotten a touch of sunburn. In September! We couldn’t have had a better day. And the eleven girls and two boys (the latter being her cousins) enjoyed it too, with all the usual party attractions culminating in a making of one’s own tiara and a dance-like-a-fairy competition (won by: everyone! Yayy!).

As you do.

Anyway, like last time another ersatz legend was demanded. And I had an idea.

Yesterday I had watched a very good little documentary from the University of Otago’s iTunes U site about the tui¹ and how they mimic the other birds around them (and occasionally car alarms), and then pass their songs to the next generation. There was an intriguing suggestion that the songs of some tui could incorporate the lost voices of species now extinct, like the huia or the South Island kōkako. Maybe some student of avian palæolinguistics could one day reconstruct their songs from the voices of contemporary tui…!

So there we were in the flax clearing, a place often frequented by tui. Clearly then, the tui are the keepers of songs, and this place was their headquarters, where they get together and share the songs they’ve gathered from across the country. Or some such… it’s all a bit lame to write down now, but seemed to make perfect sense to the collection of eight-year-olds in front of me at the time.

Ahh well. It was a good day.

¹ I have a question. Which is the proper way to spell the name for this bird: the correct Māori way, which would be “tūī”, or the ordinary usage-as-an-English-borrowing “tui”? Given that the original English name for this bird, “Parsonbird”, has fallen into disuse, the Māori word would appear to have been borrowed, relieving me from remembering to add those potae to the “u” and “i”. On the other hand, I’ve been writing “kererū” rather than “kereru” all through this blog. Or… should I be italicising where my intent is to use the Māori? Suggestions welcome…

With all this crap weather lately, the weekends can drag a bit. The girls often ask to get out the old iBook (“Bella & Rosa’s rorohiko” says the label on it) and visit their favourite websites over and over and over again.

A couple of weekends ago I’d finally had enough of the sound effects of Elmo’s Potty time and Puppy In My Pocket. You can actually use a computer for more than just games (passive entertainment) or work (drudgery), I told them, you can actually make things too. (I’d been meaning to have this conversation with them for a while: but having seen Mr Reasonable’s blog posting the whole idea was front-of-mind again.)

This took a bit of explaining. They’d already had some contact with Ponoko – Becky has been doing stuff with Ponoko since it started – so Bella cottoned on quickly. Her idea was to make some special necklaces that she and her best friends (“the Secret Sisters”) could wear. We got Inkscape running, and she quickly used the Draw Freehand Lines and Fill Bounded Lines tools to draw what she wanted.

I had to take it the rest of the way. Using the Stroke to path tool I could change her outlines into something the laser could etch, and then added a cut line around the outside and a hole for the necklace to attach to. Clone by four, and there we had it. We uploaded it to Ponoko, where Bella chose clear perspex as the material. Five days later, she had it her hands, and she was well stoked. (Unfortunately, I can’t show the results, as these remain highly secret.)

The next weekend, it was Rosa’s turn. Being a bit younger I found she had a little frustration with using the mouse, trackpad or even the drawing tablet to draw directly into Inkscape. So she drew what she wanted on a piece of paper and I traced this into Inkscape using the drawing tablet. Again, I used the “stroke to path” tool to create thick lines that the laser could etch, and added cut lines around the outside (this time using the handy Offset tool to do these). Rosa chose clear perspex for her material, and she got her work back earlier this week:

What you see is a small self-portrait, a dog, and a cat. All that’s waiting now is the addition of loops and chains. Like Bella, Rosa is stoked with the results.

So it all turned out well, and both girls are thinking about what to do next.

And while I suppose it’s a little debatable how much of the technical effort here actually belongs to the girls, the creative effort is theirs alone, and that’s the main thing. They both feel like they’ve made things using the computer whose reality matched their creative vision. This can only lead to good in future, as their technical abilities catch up with their creative abilities.

Rosa turned five today. Tomorrow she goes to school. Why, it seemed like yesterday etc etc. You’ve heard it before.

Anyway, at her last Playcentre session this morning she had a few visitors: her elder sister, and a couple of slightly older friends who had started school themselves in recent weeks. It’s nice that her friends, who had already gone through this, could come and acknowledge her transition to school. Not that they would have thought of it like that – for them it was a good chance for a morning off, in a much loved and comfortable environment.

Not that school won’t be either of those things – Rosa’s had a couple half days there already; she’s been going to meet her sister after school for years now; and she knows her teacher. She’s so ready for it: she’s driven to make letters and decipher numbers; and ostentatiously feigns the reading of books.

I’m not sure if we are ready though. Like with Bella, we’re left a little bereft. And now Rosa, our last baby.

Oh well. I guess this is when I’m supposed to have one of those photos of the tiny wee girl, with her brand-new back pack on, walking to school, away from the camera. But perhaps better would be the same, but hand in hand with her big sister, laughing and shouting some nonsensical rhyme… probably the truer portrayal.

You can imagine.