Jess & Tom watch a car chase with guns blazing.
Tom roots for the shooters while Jess holds her breath.
When its over a guy says to a girl “You OK?”
Jess (16) asks Tom (12): “Do you think he likes her?”
Tom: “Huh?”
~~~oo0oo~~~
Category Archives: Family & Kids
Don’t complain to us . . .
The day we moved into Elston Place Sheila brought Jess & Tom to the new house as we moved our stuff from Windsor Avenue a couple of kilometres away in Westville.
Standing on the driveway, four-year-old TomTom looked up and saw the resident vervet monkey gang precariously wobbling across a wire high above.
He started fulminating against them, and They shouldn’t be here and What did they think, and This was OUR house . .
“TomTom, they belong here and we welcome them and we live in harmony with them, my boy” says Dad.
Unimpressed, Tom muttered:
“Well, they mustn’t come and complain to us if they get shocked!”
True Grit
While on chemo,and having lost all her hair, Aitch pulls up outside Tom’s school. Please go and fetch Tom, Jessie.
No, Mom. Come with me. But Jess you know the school well, and I'm tired. You go. Moan, groan Jess, I haven't a wig or a beanie or a hat with me and you know Tom gets embarrassed by my bald head. He doesn't want his friends and teachers to see me bald. Well, Mom: Tommy's just going to have to grit his teeth, says our Jess. So they waltzed in arm-in-arm. Here's Mom & Jess in wigs:
That’s Haram, Dad!
Mohamed came to play, then ended up staying the night.
Mom Rookaya, in answer to my query, said “just not pork” so I thought I had meals under control.
Supper I pick up a packet of pasta and say “Here’s yours, you guys. Cook it yourself” to the two nine year olds.
NO DAD! THAT’S HARAM! says my TomTom.
What?
HARAM. You can’t give that to Mohamed!
Oh. I look at the packet: Cheese and bacon Carbonara. Oh, OK.
(Phew! You saved my bacon, boetie, I think. And who woulda thought TomTom would know these things, I think).
~~~~~ooo000ooo~~~~~
Later we go down to Vetch’s beach where they reflect on things . .
The Photographic Record
Every year Trish got a professional photographer to the kids’ parties. Me, I’m scrooge. I’ll take the pictures. I can do this! So at the kids’ uShaka Waterworld party I tried to photograph everyone. But I didn’t get one of lovely young Hannah, and she left early.
I told Tom.
“Doesn’t matter,” he says, “She’s a brownie/blondie hair kinda person.”
Oh. That’s obviously okay then.
Tom with friends whose pics DID matter . .
~~oo0oo~~
Another brilliant, money-scrooging decision was not to have two separate parties, as Aitch used to. Turns out joining fourteen year-old girls with ten year-old boys was not a clever idea! These below do not blend well with those above. Who would’ve known?! I rushed around searching for bodies all day. Never again!
Xmastime Hedge Mail
Jess was 12 and Tom was 8 and even though they would (sort of) believe me when I would say: “Err on the side of spoiling your Mom n Dad, and listening to your Mom n Dad if you want Xmas gifts”, they felt they would hedge their bets and write to Santa as well.
Off they toddled up the road to the PnP centre with their aunt Janet, visiting from Botswana, to post their petitions in the big red letter box.
Jess had given me a copy of hers. It said “Please may I have . . “ before each and every separate request. Extreme politeness was evident.
Tom’s envelope was addressed to Father C. Jess thought it would be better to address hers to Santa C – more formal. Janet had helped with the spelling.
All together now they shoved them through the slot and turned to go.
After two paces, Tom swung round, looked hard at the slot and said sternly: “Read them, OK?”
——-ooo000ooo——-
Below an earlier – 2007 – letter:
Talent
You can’t understand teenagers. Whenever I offer to sing to Jess and her friends to save her the cost of tickets to Justin Bieber she says “OmiGawd, Dad, NO!”
When they’re in the car and I offer to sing instead of listening to their CD’s, iPods, Blackberrys or whatever, I get a loud chorus of “No Thanks Pete!” and whispered giggles to Jess about her weird Dad. And some “OMG”‘s.
But she has a soft heart*. Yesterday she came to me and said, “Dad maybe old people would want to listen to you”.
~~oo0oo~~
* also, I'm the main source of funding
Bicycles in the Bush
Dusted off the bikes and threw them on the back of the bakkie and headed off to Albert Falls Dam for our first mountain bike ride in years. Picked up a friend for Tom and a friend for Jess. Two more bikes.
Got there too late for the official start, so no hurry. Took the bikes to be pumped up (about six flat tyres out of ten) and brakes fixed. Off we went on a 10km ride through the nature reserve.
What a bunch of wimps. There was so much whining it sounded like King Shaka airport.
A small herd of bewilderbeasts and zebra thundered past us, spooked by the other riders in the actual race. Also saw nyala, impala and oribi.
Then we saw fresh rhino dung and the panic set in. “What if they charge us, Dad?” Relax! Just pedal on! And hush. Enjoy the day, I say. “We wanna go home”, they say. Eventually they go on strike and say “No further!”, folding their arms.
So I head off into the distance and they’re forced to follow, muttering something about cruelty.
They enjoyed it. “When can we do it again, Dad?”
Yay! Study leave! Freedom!
“Dad, I’ve got tomorrow off for study leave! “Can we go to the Pavilion?”, says Jess, pulling my leg, rattling my cage and testing my alertness.
Luckily I twig she’s revving me and I say, “SURE, dear! Let’s spend the whole day there and spend LOTS of money!’
Tom pipes up in the background: “He’s saying no”.
=======ooo000ooo=======
2012/11/04 Brauer wrote:
What her Dof Dad seems to have overlooked is that she might be majoring in sociology and there’s no better place to do research than at the Pavilion.
—————————————-
Oh, she’s definitely majoring in sociHology. She and Rita Durban went shopping to Pavilion today. When I got home she was hopping up and down: All those clothes she’s been on at me about for AGES she’s finally got!
And is she CHUFFED!?
I had a fashion parade tonight. Mostly shorts, baggies and short tops.
She has one dress. I think she has worn it once.
She wore beautiful black slacks and a short salmon-coloured top to her cousin’s wedding.
She dances here all day every day, but wouldn’t dance at the wedding.
My Jess.
Her main focus now is her 15th birthday party. This Saturday. Dancing disco with boys, then a sleepover, girls-only.
BUT HAVE I BOOKED THE SLIPPY SLIDE?
————————————————————————
We have not been able to reach you
On 2013/02/20 12:34 PM, carshop wrote:
Dear Thomas,
We have been unable to contact you since your vehicle enquiry from CMH Land Rover Silver Lakes. Please contact Org R on 012 8_9 5__0 from CMH Land Rover Silver Lakes to discuss your vehicle enquiry. Feel free to contact our support centre by email carshop@cmh.co.za or call us on 0861 carshop should you experience any difficulties.
Sincerely,
~~oo0oo~~
Hi there
I’m sorry!
Thomas is 11yrs old and was on a “wishing” spree without my knowledge!
Please cancel this request.
Thanks a lot
Pete
~~oo0oo~~
Hi Pete,
Thank you for your response, I’ll cancel your – or shall I say Thomas’s – request with the dealer.
Glad the boy has good taste in cars.
Keep well.
Kind Regards
Vicki
Carshop Team Leader
————————–
From: Pete
Sent: Wednesday, February 20, 2013 2:15 PM
To: carshop
Subject: Re: We have not been able to reach you
~~~oo0oo~~~
Brauer: Fully understandable. Having been forgotten to be picked up at school so often by his dad he deserves his own wheels and shouldn’t be embarrassed in front of his peers by arriving in a skadonk;
Reed: Would Evoque some ire no doubt! Hope it was the Diesel Turbo 6 speed manual. (Probably the automatic, though, so he could drive it).
Stoute: Where’s their sense of humour? Didn’t even offer him a test drive!
~~~oo0oo~~~
skadonk – Land Rover
City Boys
So Devan and Lungelo are staying over for the night. Devan was just visiting, but when his young blonde divorced Mom came to fetch him the trio convinced her it would be SO UNFAIR if he couldn’t also spend the night.
Him being rather pale he was noticeably pink as they’d been in the pool all day. Oops. Suntan lotion. Right. Tom & Lungelo not so much. Once Devan’s Ma had left I lined them up and issued each wif a stone – about plum-size.
What now, Dad?
“City slicker wimps need to learn a few basic skills” I drone while I line them up in front of an upended big black dustbin with a white HTH bucket on top. At a distance of four metres they all missed the target by about five metres.
“Seewaddimean?” says Dad. “Take turns and don’t stop till you’ve each hit the bucket five times.”
They loved it. They reckon they’re ready to hunt big game now.
.
As his classmates were here I called him Thomas, like they do.
‘Dad’ he says, ‘I’m Tommy’.
Suits me.
=======ooo000ooo=======
The pic is Tommy, Lungelo and another pale mate Ryan. Another day, another place, but same year!
Tommy Can You Hear Me?
On the school run one morning my Thomas is singing along with me:
I am a rock
I am an i-i-island
And a rock feels no pain
And an island ne—ver dies
Dad, he says, pretending to be really asking, not just being a smart-arse:
Do you really not feel pain?
=======ooo000ooo=======
and remember:
Brauer asked: Totally reasonable and innocent question. So what’s the answer, ‘Swanie the rock’? ‘Peter the Rock’? True Granite?
Which reminds me of Larry the Yank back in 1969 who said of the Afrikaners in Harrismith: ‘They just hate being taken for granite’.
Jessie won’t swim
Jessie’s gala day looms. “I’m NOT swimming!”
I said That’s OK, lend me your cozzie and Mom’s wig and I’ll swim in your place.
HORROR! “NO DAD! I’ll swim!
Roses are red . . .
Roses are red
Violets are blue
I have five fingers
The middle one’s for you
– Jess & Tom
I PAY for this education!?
Local warming
Tom comes into my room and says “Dad, your room is the coldest in the house”.
That’s because my windows are open. You & Jess close your windows and live in stuffiness.
“Oh” he says, “Are you not a CO2 person?”
Being a single-parent household . .
. . is not so bad.
Tom just had a mate stay over who has a Four Parent Household. Well, two households.
There’s Mom and her boyfriend and Dad and his girlfriend. They alternate weekends.
Mom’s in hospital ‘getting better because she has stress and then she’s very hard on me’.
This morning Mom’s boyfriend arrives to fetch him. Little oke, doesn’t look a day over 19, sports a huge tattoo on his one arm and neck, driving an old Uno.
Tom said as they left ‘He looks very young, hey Dad? In his early twenties, hey?’ Always has an opinion my Tom.
Walking back to the house he hugs me and says ‘MY Daddy’. Little rat.
Lots to be grateful about!!
Except later I give him his medicine. As he swallows it he grabs his throat, looks at me with wide eyes and says dramatically: “I’m having a seizure!”
Little shit.