Morning Tea

Having spent a lot of time with Australian parents lately I have gotten to know their patterns. Everybody wakes up and breakfasts and delivers older children to school. And then the little ones are taken to some sort of activity - storytime, a playgroup a park or swim class if you are a keen parent. At 10:30 am all parents turn to their children and say "would you like your morning tea now?" The children stare back like they are crazy because children are always hungry and what sort of a question is that. Out come the tupperwares. For some reason I am fixated on this part of the day. Maybe it is the quaint name, or maybe it is the universal timing, but more likely it is the actually tea. The tupperwares have compartments! And in each of the compartments is a nice little thing to eat - small sandwiches with the crust cut off, cut up fruit, slices of muffins. They leave me feeling like I need a parent who will hand me similarly stuffed tupperwares every few hours. Once the activity is done the lucky ones go for a coffee with a friend and everyone else scampers directly home. Home to feed the children lunch and put them to sleep. And after nap time children likely get afternoon tea though this happens in the  privacy of the home so I can't be sure. Big children are fetched and driven to afternoon activities where the parents sit and watch enthusiastically. And then everyone goes home to eat and bathe and sleep at 7pm. Well really it isn't unique to Australian parents in general but seems to be what parents do. Except for some reason I never got the memo about my role as a stay at home parent so I never have done this and instead just observe others with intrigue. Until now that is.

Yup for the past five weeks I have adopted the above schedule. Tova decided a while ago that she was really the boss of all of us and that she was going to take full advantage of being two. Part of this involved deciding she was done napping. And I am all for those sorts of decisions because napping is really a bit of a hassle and more fun can be had if the nap disappears. Except while she was ready to stop napping we ended up being unable to happily hang out with her if she didn't nap. The second half of our day became very heated and unruly and violent. And when she got really tired she would hit her sister and yell at the top of her lungs that Sophia was hitting her and both Sophia and I would have to cower in another room. My go to move has always been to carry on my day and let my children fall asleep on my back or in the stroller. But Tova is a strong child and strongly decided against this plan wanting only to sleep at home. And to her credit every afternoon she goes to sleep at home without much fuss. So here I am for the first time in my parenting career following the set daily plan. Sometimes I even get into my role enough to bring cut up fruit in Tupperware. Sometimes I even am motivated enough to make dinner earlier in the day with Sophia while Tova naps. Okay well that happened twice but I talked about it for about a week after each time. Tova has become much more enjoyable and the days are easy and relaxed. But I find it all very dull and am guessing this period of conformist tranquility won't last.

I was musing over all of this when we got back home for fetching Aurora. Our neighbor was in the hall and we got to chatting. I casually mentioned we were going to go make cookies. She looked surprised and asked if the kids need a snack first. "Don't they have a milk or a Milo when they get home?" I didn't know what to say and let her know sure they drank milk sometimes while I thought to myself MILO? Really? People still drink Milo? She asked if it would be hard to make dinner if we were going to bake to which I answered that we would make something quick after. And then I realized that I really had a long way to go. Yup we went home and the children ate leftover matzah on the floor while I cleared the counter. Then instead of making dinner we spent a long time making and designing cookies and exhausted from all that time in the kitchen I quickly boiled some pasta. That's alright though because I really don't think children should be drinking Milo after school or ever really.

The yup I'm two face