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Sunday, November 27, 2005

Babysitting, Ducks and Christmas

What a weekend...

With clearity of mind and a heart full of faith I decided to babysit a 4 year old boy the entire weekend, he came here Friday evening and left Sunday evening. Smári and I have been best friends since his birth and according to him: "Monika owns a little bit of me". God, that was just ... actionpacked! On top of it all I am still recovering my voice and am slightly shakey because on Saturday I had to start my penicilin treatment.

Little kids are amazing and things you can´t possibly prepare for,can happen. The little guy had a nightmare the first night here. How does one deal with these things at 4 o´clock in the morning with one eye barely open?

Oh, and we went to the cinema as well. Oh, yeah! Little Chicken was our final choice, since I had to talk him into it for an hour or so, explaining that Harry Potter-The Goblet of Fire is really not suitable for his age. And what did happen when the advertisements before Little Chicken started? They showed scenes from Harry Potter and I had to go through the same explanations all over again. Half way into the movie the little guy had to pee. Nevermind that we arrived early at the theatre and I tried to convince him beforehand that a trip to the bathroom might be a wise decision, but he ignored the suggestion and pointed his little finger in the direction of the pop-corn stand. We had a good seat, right in the middle of the room and the other guests were delighted when I stood up and carried a tight-faced 4 year old that could barely hold it.

Anyways, there are some things that just make you smile and love them for their minds and hearts. Smári is very interested in heroes and until recently Spiderman topped that list. But he changes them so quickly I sometimes lose track. One evening I rented a movie "Peter Pan" and of course Smarí was very impressed with Peter´s many abilites. Secure in my knowledge of Smári´s loyalties to that wall climbing man in tight pants
I said: "Yeah but he is no Spiderman, is he?!"
Smári: "No he isn´t, he is much better than Spiderman."
Me buffled: "What do you mean, what is wrong with Spiderman."
Smári:"Monika, does he have a knife and can he fly?"
Now, how do you answer that without looking stupid?

And a final little anecdote to amuse us all. I took Smári and his little brother (2) downtown. There is a little pond right in the middle of Reykjavik where you can go and feed the pond-creatures. It is Christmas time and lavish decorations make children beg for all sorts of things. We were dressed warmly and it was chritmassy outside, so I decided that this might be a good moment to teach the kids about Christmas spirits and the joy of giving. I told them that instead of sweets (they are active enough, why pump sugar into them) we should buy the ducks and swans some bread, becasue it is cold and few people are outside and the poor animals are probably very hungry. I did not see that one backfire!
So we did buy some bread and walked to the pond, fed the creatures, the kids had a great time and I smiled at my ability to have those two wrapped around my fingers. It was lovely and I hated myself for not bringing my camera and take a picture for you guys. All of a sudden Smári turns around and informs me that we need to go back to the store and buy more bread, because the ducks were still hungry and nobody else was in sight to feed them. I thought and thought and thought and decided to do just that. We walked back to the store puchased another bread, went back to the pond (me with a sore throat and my feet were getting cold) and Smári distributed the bread so carefully and equally that it was a pure joy to watch him. Another 20 minutes past until the kids had finished the bread when Smári comes and...yes, we needed another bread becasue we had forgotten one tiny duck with the green head. I was not having any of it and said that more people would come and the duck would just get some food then. Arguing with a four year old is easy, because you are so much more able to argue and draw conclusions than he...until those eyes look up at you, a tear is forming in the corner of the eye and a squeaky voice says: "But it is Christmastime and you said it is nice to give and share!"
To keep a long entry from becoming longer, a third bread was purchased (the lady behind the till smiled at me in that knowing way, she probably has kids!) and fed to the ducks and swans. I helped to speed the process along and made extra sure that all the green headed ducks got a crumb.
Now that I sit here, in my warm room, feet under a blanket I smile looking back at all those hours where someone else´s feelings were more important than my plans and comfort.
Good night everybody!

Posted by Minka :: 10:45 pm :: 11 Royal Subjects

11 Comments:

At 00:51, Blogger Unknown said...

that was so nice of you, sweetie! it doesn't take too much to bring a smile on a child's face :))

 
At 01:51, Blogger Fred said...

Welcome to my world times three. Ours are one year apart, so we had plenty of that going on many years ago.

How nice of you to do that for someone. I'm sure they appreciated it very much, and it sounds like you got to spend a weekend with a terrific young man.

Where were you when my kids were younger? :)

 
At 05:25, Blogger Doug The Una said...

Sweet story. Monika. You're alright ;-)

 
At 11:58, Blogger Minka said...

Karma, and it is usually those things that you don´t think about yourself.
Smári: "you´ll get many presents this year from Santa!"
Monika:"I hope so. How do you know that though?"
Smári: "You are never naughty."
Monika: "Sometimes I am, we all are, everybody is now and then, grown up or small children."
Smári:"But you never raise your voice and you always listen and your room is tidy too!"
Apparently these are the measurements for a nice person through a child´s eyes.
Fred, I lived many miles away somewhere ignorant of that there is a country outside of East-Germany ;)Was I even born?
Doug, thanx *blush*. You´re ok, too!

 
At 14:42, Blogger AsianSmiles said...

glad you had such a nice time with the kids, and i'm sure they had a nice time with you too.
another good thing abt kids is that they don't forget nice & sweet people. i'm sure they'll never forget you :)

 
At 20:13, Blogger Doughboy said...

Good to see you doing good works in your community. Anything you can do to help out your fellow man is always a good thing. Keep up the good work and I hope you continue to blog. It seems to be a good outlet for you.

 
At 20:14, Blogger Doughboy said...

;)

 
At 20:48, Blogger Minka said...

asiansmiles, I can´t wait to have them back. It is good when you can borrow them for a little while and when youa re tired you just return them ;)
doughboy, yeah I guess blogging is a good outlet. Partly because you can go on and on without anybody interrupting your train of thought. And you don´t really bother anyone, becasue those that don´t wanna hear it just don´t read on. Good for both parties.

 
At 11:20, Blogger Minka said...

Sarah, we definately enjoyed it very much. We even had to go afterwards and get a little pez in the shape of Little Chicken. I think Smári just had to get over the dissapointment of not being allowed to see Harry Potter.
He was very upset by the fact that the father did not believe Little Chicken. And giggled a lot when he kissed the "ugly" duck! We saw it in an Icelandic translation as well, so I think a lot of the jokes were lost in the translation. But my favourite was the fish out of water and the little alien-baby. Gosh, that was so cute :)

 
At 11:09, Blogger Tryggvi said...

No mention of the Potter boy? Well, it must come as the next entry. And Monika, u are the most patient and loving babysitter I have ever seen or known. U really should work with children.

 
At 12:04, Blogger Minka said...

Sarah, most Walt Disney movies or animated films get translated into Icelandic so the children here will understand the context. Besides, Icelanders are extremely proud of their language and try to inforce it wherever they can ;) There is also an option of seeing the original version with English speech for the grown ups -those are usually funnier.
Tryggvi, thank you for that. It surprised me a little that you think that highly of my parental abilities, but I am glad you feel that way.

 

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