Rockstarism #285 And Bumblebee In Cyberport

So Cyberport Arcade as well as the Bel Air management decided to have most of their Halloween activities over the last weekend, and if there were math involved it would look something like:

(Rockstar Is In One Of His Gluttonous Hyperactive Phases)*(I Need To Not Go Batshit Crazy Before Kings Comes Back To Share The Joy) + Kings Is Away + That Is A Helluva Expensive Bumbleebee Plasma Cannon That Wasn’t Too Easy To Find On Amazon With HK Shipping = Bumblebee Shalt Be Unleashed This Weekend.

In Rockstar that energy usually materializes less in running around screaming (though yes he does that too), it’s more an extremely exhausting round of questioning and a voracious amount of eating. Here’s an actual example:

Rockstar: <looking down into breakfast bowl with fork in hand> Blueberries. Mum. I gotta question. How many blueberries does it take to make up (the size of) the sun?

Me: <mildly irritated while making sure Little Miss doesn’t hurl herself on him as she is now wont to do whenever he Gets A Question, if only to demand a cuddle/ shove/ some attention, any attention> What kind of question is that? How can you possibly expect me to answer that?

(Thinking: No Aileen, he’s asking a question, this is a learning opportunity force yourself to stop thinking about that beer/ coffee/ ham and brie croissant)

Me: The sun is already way bigger than the Earth. I don’t even think there’s a number large enough for the number of blueberries that would take to cover the surface of the Earth, let alone the number of blueberries it would take to make up the entire mass of the Earth, let alone the sun.

Rockstar: <conversationally> So…… A really big number? Like, 100 quadrillion million…….? 

Me: <still irritable because I’m lazy to check whether 100 quadrillion million is an actual number> I said I didn’t even know if the biggest number with a name is big enough. What’s the biggest named number?

Rockstar: Oooh. Wait, wait I know that. That’s….. that’s…….. 

Me: The search engine is named after it…. Goo-

Rockstar: Googolplexian!

Me: Yeah so I don’t think even that many blueberries is enough to make up the size of the sun.

Rockstar: What about 99 googolplexians?

Me: Please stop talking. My head hurts.

(What? I hung in there as long as I could. <Make mental note to revisit someday>)

So anyway I hadn’t realized our housing development was having their party Saturday night, we were eyeing the HKD 300 per head Wisekids party after church Sunday because Little Miss has become very comfy with Wisekids and to my relief we managed to score playdates with Rockstar’s good friend, because otherwise I don’t know how we could’ve made it way across town for early service and back for the party and have lunch buddies for our now-favorite meals out at Delaney’s when Kings is away.

When I type the word “Delaney’s”,  what you should read is Mummy gets a beer. This is too cool – I get to have two kids and a beer on a weekend when there isn’t 6 hours of school to farm off one of said kids. Someday they’ll both be at the “Not Now Mum” age, and I can have all the beers I want and I won’t want them anymore but well, such is human nature – right now a beer with kids seems so…. decadent.

So anyway more pictures. Of Bumblebee stalking all over our development:

Rockstar, ever serious, appears completely oblivious to the amusement of passersby as he occasionally takes my hand, occasionally shoots off a few rounds and plods along with his plasma cannon (which btw is heavy) in broad daylight. A teenaged boy who towers over me skims by on a skateboard while doing tricks and looking super cool with the shoulder-length wavy hair and board shorts, and I steel myself sheepishly for maybe a derisive eye roll, but instead he calls out politely “Nice costume!”

Rockstar appears to still be deep in thought, I’m the one who feels 10 feet tall. My son just got rrrespect from A Cool Kid! My son cool!  He could maybe even have cool kid friends!

Remove finger and thumb from forehead now, please. I’m just saying…. Remember Rockstar has parents who grew up at least mildly socially awkward? Kings and I were never cool kids. We’d trade homework and exam notes for a proverbial seat at the cool table in the cafeteria when we’d left home for further education 😀 (I was not raised “pretty”; I was raised with so many activities and attention toward excelling that I never had that much time for a social life or any idea what to do if I had. I am also a very short-haired person – how I look today is by explicit request of the Hot Husband.)

But back to this:

We happened on this thing on Saturday when Bumblebee Rockstar was stalking about looking for some action, and I realize all the signs we pass are in Chinese – we also pass various slightly smaller kids in Halloween costumes and get some looks from all the locals (this appears to be a pretty local event with lotsa Cantonese background conversation). I’m already feeling out of place but Rockstar’s really up for some action. 

“I can’t read Chinese, is this a games event, are there any games he can play here?”

“She doesn’t speak Chinese.” “Wei, she’s speaking English.”

We wait a moment (all the while I’m feeling more and more awkward) and then a woman who speaks perfect English comes up and asks me to register. Halfway through she suddenly asks how old Rockstar is which is when it turns out he’s too old and they apologetically, politely turn us away. AWK…………..WARD.

In retrospect, the name of the sponsor, Baby Kingdom should’ve given it away <palms forehead>

Still keeping straight face (for Rockstar’s benefit because what I really want to do is hide in the fountain at the entrance), I immediately move on to Wisekids (who are preparing for the party the next day), drop Rockstar off, then walk back with his gun and mask and to collect Little Miss who has now woken from her nap.

No I did not then bring Little Miss back to participate in the Baby Kingdom thing. Once was enough. She would totally have qualified but I DON’T. I don’t qualify as Parent Dressing Up Child For Competition. I’m more Awkward Parent Who Might Accidentally Drown While Trying To Hide In Fountain Except Who Would Raise Her Kids? (It’s just amazing I have a halfway popular blog but well that also had to do with Aforementioned Hot Husband once dabbling in the building of an experimental blog platform from scratch.)

I think Bumblebee and Awkward Parent might have crashed some kind of dress-up competition – I must’ve looked like Kiasu Mum Who Has To Win Everything <cringe> – which might explain some of the looks we got from local parents with costumed kids, especially when Official Bumblebee Plasma Cannon That Plays All The Sounds The Real Character Makes In Transformers Movies In Lieu Of Speaking fired off. But you see, our mistake – WE WERE JUST LOOKING FOR SOMETHING FUN TO DO. 

The something fun to do, we found it. It involved Rockstar putting away two whole children’s linguini bolognese at 5.30pm (and still his regular massive dinner of 2 hard boiled eggs, rice, sizable fish steak and bowl of broccoli and carrots around 8.30pm) and yes this time I echoed the Delaney’s proprietor’s query, “Where Does He Put It?”

And so we call it a night. We meet two Optimuses (plural, like “octopuses”, right?) on the way out, but no other Bumblebees. Mum of Optimus pictured kept asking me, “Rockstar chose to be Bumblebee?” Uh, yeah! Ain’t it great?

And then come morning it’s Sunday, and thanks to our going-to-church-when-Kings-isn’t-around playdate buddies, we make it there and back……

 (Shedding his Rockstar disguise along the way…)

I chose this pic because of his dressed-as-a-flower-girl friend’s really nice dress (bought in KL btw) and hairdo – was wondering who that reminded me of all weekend. Just occurred to me today:

(pics from theguardian.com and hookedonhouses.net respectively)

(Not that I liked the not-really-for-kids concepts in the movie, but I loooove Audrey Hepburn, who described the role of Holly Golightly as one of her most challenging because she was an introvert playing an extrovert – in other words, she was really acting, and did a darn good job of it. Also I think she made the questionable character very elegant… Holly is classy just because she was played by Audrey Hepburn. Ok. End of gush.)

My pictures don’t do the Wisekids event justice, because I was so busy chasing after Little Miss, making sure she didn’t get trampled on (she attended the older children’s event instead of the one for kids her own age). They had art and craft to make witches and ghosts – but mostly not a lot of ghouls, more bugs – a “cave” to explore, a multi sensory room where you hunted giant spiders……..

I mention, because I initially thought HKD 300 per child was too pricey, really not worth it (we paid HKD 270 with member discount, and member + early bird discount would’ve made it HKD 240) but I didn’t have a lot of options, for that 11+am timing. Aside from the crafts and snacks and play areas we also had pumpkin goodie bags with Playmobil freebies that were pretty good quality – and matched to boys, girls and toddlers. The goodie bags were numbered to the 30 kids attending the Wisekids bash and Rockstar’s friend, dressed as a flower girl, had a Playmobil bride figurine and Rockstar had…….. A Playmobil Rockstar. So coincidental cool. And not much junk candy 🙂

I love how much people dress up here for Halloween, there’s still trick or treating around our development organized by the Bel Air Mums club (on a school night), Rockstar has a night party in school this Friday (if I’m not mistaken the big bash is by the school PTA each year and is always very elaborate and well organized), I can’t wait for Little Miss to grow a little bigger so we can start participating in all these events more. (Right now I’ve only been able to swing Whatever Is Most Doable With Toddler Along).

And by request, guess what said toddler’s “official” costume is (yes I have restrained from putting up Little Miss’ partying pictures thus far). Is it:

To. Be. Continued……..!