Gone camping

LIKE most children mine have their failings.
But consumerism, so pervasive among kids, is not one of them.
They don't own all the electronic gadgetry because, among other things, it would drive me crazy trying to police the use of it.
So, when they ask for something I don't dismiss it out of hand. That was until the eldest, 10, started making noises about a tent.
I'm no snob but camping has not figured in my repertoire and it's not something I want to add now.
People insist if you camped as a kid you have fond memories.
Soon all three kids, at the instruction of the eldest, began a chorus of "can we get a tent for Christmas?".
It was ringing in my ears as I ducked into Kathmandu and did the sums. This tent could pay for itself in a few nights.
The sub-plot was that they could go with their Dad. Afterall, he's the one with the fond childhood memories.
The eldest asked if ``Santa'' brought a tent would it be set up in the loungeroom.
This troubled me. It was too big for inside and probably even our courtyard. There could be tears on Christmas morning when they found Santa had left a canvas bag weighing 24 kg.
Then I heard Big4 was offering a free night of camping. The most convenient was in the Western Suburbs.
My plan was for my husband and I to set it up for the kids as a surprise while they were at school and creche. He knew better than to resist. In any case, he was working that afternoon so wouldn't be there for the animal hour.
The day arrived last Friday and we took the tent from its hiding place and made our way to Braybrook. A dust storm came through and we hung on to the tent for dear life. An English couple, happily ensconced in their van, took pity on us as did a nice bloke from New South Wales down for the Pearl Jam concert.
``It's usually a good idea to have a practice run at home,'' he advised.
Three-quarters through, we realised the porch would hang half way across the road, so we left it dangling.
We raced home and grabbed some basic gear and I picked the kids up, telling them I had some jobs to do.
As we rounded the corner, the children were excited. Then came the big moment. ``Awesome'' they declared as they bumped around as if they were on a jumping castle.
After dinner at a nearby pokies pub, I picked up a slab to give to my Good Samaritans.
"Big night," a Grey Nomad asked as he stepped from his well-appointed caravan. I explained our adventure.
"You usually do a practice run at home," he said.
After a swim everyone was asleep at 9pm. Then my husband turned up at midnight looking for a key for the loo. His usual ride home was confused when he said he was off to Braybrook not Richmond. ``Have you split from your missus, Mate?" he asked.
Too early we found ourselves breakfasting at McDonalds early on Saturday.
The two eldest were wearing their school uniforms because in the rush a change of clothes was forgotten.
"It's OK, no one knows us,'' I promised.
Back home, they were buzzing, hoping we may be able to leave Melbourne for our next trip.
It's reinforced my view that they do not need gadgets to have fun. But, I'm making no commitments. I am too consumed with trying to get the tent back into the bag.

Overdressed

THIS supermumwannabe has finally run up the white flag.
It's hard to say what particular event in the past week tipped me over the edge.
It may have been the row with the four-year-old last Friday morning about what outfit she would wear to creche for dress-up day.
The kids donated a gold coin to pay for the randy resident rabbits to get ``fixed up'' because they were getting too cranky.
The previous day she had settled on a particular Angelina Ballerina outfit, wisely eschewing the one that had busted seams.
But come 7.40am, as we prepared to take the second child and his friend to the before-school chess session, she had changed her mind.
So, in between wiping sleep from eyes and sponging toothpaste marks off tops, I was doing a shoddy job of mending the dress.
At bedtime the night before the eldest child, who had four weeks to research and answer four simple questions and type them up, realised she had left her draft at school.
That meant after chess drop off we had to pick up the notes and head to the cafe so she could type up her homework on the laptop and put it on a memory stick and print it out at school.
But the seeds were sown earlier in the week when Special Friends Day was staged. The two school aged children were happy to have their Dad go along which was a bonus because that meant we, read me, did not have to hit the phones trying to rope ``special'' people in.
The kids dressed up as book characters with an emphasis on animals.
My son was happy to go as knockabout cat Old Tom from the Leigh Hobbs' series. At the weekend I headed to the Op Shop to buy an orange flannelette sheet for the body. The plan was to sew up some loose fitting pants and top but I ran out of time what with other weekend commitments. We cut a hole in the sheet and draped it around him, fashioned some ears and added the requisite scars and bung eye. He carried a plastic fishbone. My daughter was going as a creature from Where the Wild Things Are. I bought orange wool and wrapped it around cardboard to create tassels that were sown into a pantyhose gusset (minus the legs) to make a wig. She had a furry coat to complete the effect. Sure, it was all simple and unsophisticated but it still took hours.
The next day was another prep transition session for the four-year-old at 2.30pm. I was at work but because my husband was starting work at 4pm he took her.
Then on Thursday, the kids galloped from their classroom with more great news.
The Melbourne Cup was going to make a pitstop at our school and they should dress up in jockey colors!
So, at 3am the next morning during a restless night I found myself thinking about jockey colours and how best we could execute this. All very simply, mind you.
In, fact for the next couple of days I mulled over how this could be done simply. But there was some respite because I then turned my attention to a low-key Halloween celebration on the Saturday night. While people decry it as crass American commercialism, we like to think of it as an Irish festival. My son turned his Old Tom outfit into a pumpkin turban, my older daughter pinned a Batman cape to her black t-shirt and donned a witches hat. The pesky youngest suitably put on a vampire outfit because I often feel she is sucking the lifeblood out of me.
I delivered some goodies to the pre-arranged stop off points for ``trick or treat''. Then we headed off and luckily for us a friend of a friend happened to be related to Olympic medallist Steve Hooker. He answered the door and there was much excitement.
But come Sunday it was back to jockey colors.
I reached for the formguide and the decision was quick. The kids would go as Allez Wonder's jockey. It meant I had to draw a yellow shamrock, cut it out, back it with some cardboard and pin it to their red school tops.
The morning, despite the fact that more than half the school was AWOL on a long weekend, was fantastic.
When my children related the week's activities to their interstate grandmother she was horrified.
``I can't believe all these things, it is just too much,'' she said.
The children had omitted to tell her about their dad doing fruit duty at kinder, a working bee for creche and the myriad of other excursion and incursion forms, raffle selling rosters and the like that all had to be dealt with in that same week.
I know daughters-in-law aren't supposed to agree with their mothers-in-law, but I do on this one.
I don't know what the answer is. Having less children. Ignore all the dress up days and then your kids feel sad and left out. Attend community run creches/kinders but refuse to help out.
Discourage schools from all these extras so they can focus on the basics.
In the meantime, we're bracing for a another few big weeks. The four-year-old gets her Buddy for next year, her older sister becomes a Buddy and then there's Christmas choir practice, excursions to Healesville and Werribee zoos ...
Thankfully, the only one dressing up this week is me - on Oaks Day.