The Weekend In Pictures

Friday night:

Rockstar’s school’s big Halloween bash organized by the PTA. Extremely elaborate costumes galore (but these were taken in the last hour+ when lotsa kids have already shed parts of their costumes in favor of running about, and early birds might’ve started leaving). We’d arrived in the second half after I settled the baby and watched a fully dressed Rockstar-sized Ninja getting into the back of a cab just as we prepared to unleash Rockstar on the party.

(Yes, these are pictures of a Na’vi from Avatar sitting front row at the clown show. Because we were seriously impressed. Some of the costumes worn by both grownups and kids were amazing cool.)

There were lotsa “scary” ones too, but not easy to take good pics in the dark and then also without showing faces (many of which are elaborately made up – I am also easily impressed with stage makeup because I have very very low tolerance for anything on my face – some of the grownups and kids had full-face in green or red paint, zombie makeup, etc) – as we picked our way through the debris close to end of party (before cleanup), we even passed scraps of school uniform in fake blood.

Rockstar of course was Iron Man, that is his serious face while showing off a flashing skull pin the dad gave him. Friend He Was Running Around With was a T-Rex, but by the end of the evening had shed his costume, showing off this T-shirt instead:

Was exhausted cos I’d been up since before 3am that day (baby blues) and dreaded the party. But very thankful we made it in the end, because of the added enthusiasm for school that Rockstar now has – he’d confided in our some time baby nanny that school was “too much work,” so I jumped at the opportunity to ask if he’d rather still be in Kindy with less work AND fewer cool parties. No prizes for guessing what he said…

Saturday:

Ms Rockstar’s head gear got some attention from the locals in Sai Kung. And she’s not even a dog (Sai Kung is Dog Lover’s Village).

You’d think he was tired next morning, but Nooooo. Doesn’t even sleep in. Rockstar insists we take the (hour+ each way) drive to Sai Kung because he misses the food (?!) This is Ms Rockstar’s first time. She does not travel well – hates car rides, hates being in the baby carriage more than a few mins, hates napping outside………! Rockstar does valiant job of (initially) distracting her from blistering our ears.

Rockstar and JD playing fetch…

Celebrity turtle… (Is that Ah Wo? Maybe not. Ah Wo had a helper in attendance who kept picking him up at the first hint of trouble. This one is gobbling grass that is often pooped on not just by dogs but cows. Rockstar refuses to take a picture with it. Probably because it is moving quite fast and chomping the grass with serious gusto.)

Cheap thrill:

Bought this “silk” scarf for HKD 39 at one of the little makeshift stalls in the village as a souvenir and because I liked the skulls which reminded me (just a bit) of Alexander McQueen’s stuff… The black “satin” piping is a dead giveaway that it’s a cheap scarf tho 😛

Expectedly, this happened in the car on the drive back. Which led to this:

Kings breaks out the super powers. Just before the baby’s bed and bath time we are still in the middle of nowhere (she started up the moment we were in the car, before we were even moving, we sat with our ears ringing 15 mins, then pulled up…….. somewhere, to make her sleep.)

Rockstar asks, “How come she always sleeps when Daddy does that?” Rest of the time he sits quietly, having tried in vain to distract her again, except for the occasional “Ok, ok” when I do the ole’ I Told You So and add Don’t You Dare Insist On Sai Kung Again. But honestly, he holds up real well. It’s me whose nerves are on edge.

After the pic above when she’s drowsy, we get back in the car – and she immediately starts up again. HOW Can You People Not Get The Message The First One Thousand And Five Times I Told You??? HATE….. CARS!!! 

Singing Amazing Grace under my breath helps some. Except….. Then this happened:

Wrong child fell asleep! One moment everything is just quiet. Ms Rockstar is lulled into a grudging acceptance of her current predicament.

In… CAR! AGAIN!! What is wrong with you people? H-A-T-E….. C-A-R-S!!!

<me singing Amazing Grace quietly and praying she goes to sleep>

<suddenly a body falls against me which is how we realize Rockstar is out>

<Kings immediately tries to talk to him to keep him awake, but it’s too late. Elvis Has Left The Building>

Her……….. n-ot so much.

So we get back in the night. That’s our weekend. I know it’s only Sunday morning, but we’re done. We refuse to do anything note-worthy today. It Shalt Be The Boringest Day Imaginable. And the kids’ll like it or else.

ps: Well Ms Rockstar probably would, anyway. She seemed to breath such a sigh of relief when we got home, even though she didn’t actually sleep – we put her in her crib and voila! 15 mins later, sleeping baby. Rockstar, on the other hand……… up till 11pm. Sigh.