Girl Lacer has a 'what I did in the half term' homework and the rate we're going we're going to run out of space on the piece of paper they gave. Saturday was a birthday party, Sunday was her birthday party, Monday was going to the shops to spend her birthday money and yesterday, Tuesday was going into central London to Tate Modern.
The shopping trip into town alone was exhausting, not only did she have birthday money to spend but there were three separate craft activities; making egg box spiders in the bookshop, making anything you want out of suitably Halloweeny materials in the bottom of the shopping mall and the piece de resistance a craft treasure trail in the department store. So as well as spending quite a lot of money, we had to do all the art activities as well, which was great for Girl Lacer but Boy Lacer is not yet ready for the sort of thing, even though he loves drawing and sticking at home, I think it's the communal part of it that he doesn't like. I did try him on a colour your own fridge magnet, which started off well, with him studiously colouring in a bat orange but then he wanted to change colours and something didn't agree with him because all hell broke loose. Then the shop assistant tried to put a magnet on his bat and he did not like that at all. We're getting to the stage now where he meets strangers and they think he's a 'normal' little boy then he does something and you can literally see them step back with a look of "Oh" on their face.
The shopping trip had another element of risk added to it. At lunchtime Boy Lacer was drinking his drink in his pushchair, started to get whingy and then suddenly it was like Niagra Falls. No nappy on this earth could hold that amount of wee, so we had to rush into Mothercare and buy a pair of trousers but unfortunately they didn't have nappies in his size and as he was showing an inordinate about of interest in a packet of big boy pants, I got those instead thinking he was unlikely to do another wee for a while and doesn't tend to do anything else when out. At this point he was out of the pushchair and put it this way, everyone in that store would have known his name as I was trying to coral him. We went to the changing room and I didn't even open the door as I could hear loud hand driers over the other side of the door and he gets hysterical at those. So me and Girl Lacer corralled him into a corner of the mall and changed him there, me fully prepared to get arsey with anyone who challenged me, I'd have said he was autistic and terrified of hand driers so I didn't have much choice.
Girl Lacer ended up buying a number 5 numberjack, more craft stuff (honestly I could open a store on ebay with the amount of stuff already here), a Sylvanian families play thing and a mini etchasketch which when I saw them looking exactly like they did in the 'olden-days' as Girl Lacer would say, I squealed "Look, mummy and daddy had that toy when we were younger", to which Girl Lacer replied very seriously "No mummy, it's that toy that was in that movie with Woody" (i.e. Toy Story).
Tuesday, we went into central London to the Tate Modern, the kids (and mine) favourite art gallery. I decided to take the kids in via bus and tube instead of the train as I hate trying to get the kids on and off the train. At Waterloo it's not too bad as it's the final stop so the doors stay open for longer but at the station we get on, they have a stupid 30 second rule and try getting a push chair and a 5 year old across a large gap between the train and the platform in 30 seconds. They're meant to have guards at the station to watch to make sure everyone gets on safely before the doors close but the number of times the doors have started to close as I've been mid getting the kids on. I feel this is going to be a permanent problem for us, I hope one day Boy Lacer will be out of his push chair but he could permanently have problems getting across the gap.
So we got the bus, got caught in major road works, eventually made it to Richmond and then got on the District Line to Westminster. Boy Lacer loved it, saying repeatedly with a big grin on his face "I like trains" or "I like tracks" or if feeling particularly expansive "I like train tracks". We got to Westminster, got to the lift down to the Jubilee Line and of course it wasn't working. So I gave Girl Lacer the option, we could do something nearby or we could walk to Tate Modern from Westminster even though it was a long walk and she said very firmly "Tate Modern". So we exited the station, I showed her Big Ben and we walked across the river, me pointing out the hospital where she'd been born. We then walked along the river along Southbank, it was a really nice walk with lots of fantastical street performers, golden and silver moving statues and a chameleon riding a stationary bike, amongst the attractions.
When we got to Tate Modern it was straight to the new Turbine Hall exhibit (always the kids favourite bit, they loved the crack when they saw it). The new exhibit by Dominique Gonzalez-Foerster was fantastic, as you walked into the turbine hall, on the walk way over was the legend describing the story of the exhibit and underneath was big red and green plastic strips shielding the rest of the hall. The legend described that we were in 2058 and it had not stopped raining, not a day, not an hour for years and the rain had made outdoor statues grow big like tropical plants, so they had brought them into the turbine hall for shelter, along with rows upon rows of bunkbeds for the citizens of London to take shelter from the rain. As we went through the red and green plastic strips we could hear heavy rain and thunder and there were the blue and yellow bunkbeds with no mattresses, just a scattering of thumbed apocalyptic books. Towering over the bunkbeds were these gigantic statues including the spider which Girl Lacer had seen before and she recognised it was alot bigger and she was like "Wow, it's real, it's magic". On the back wall was this gigantic screen showing clips of old sci-fi movies. You can go on the bunkbeds so Girl Lacer of course had a go and Boy Lacer read some French literature.
After that we went up to the family area and got an activity book for Girl Lacer to do, so she raced around the art gallery, with us in tow, copying pictures and sculptures and doing her own interpretation of Matisse. Then she sweet talked me into some chips in the posh cafe and Boy Lacer was having a drink, I checked his nappy beforehand, it was virtually empty, Boy Lacer takes a drink and Niagra Falls opens again. Luckily I was more prepared this time but I still had to change him in corridor outside the toilets as he refused to go in. After that Girl Lacer spent some more money in the very lovely Tate Modern shop and then of course we had to go and see the new turbine hall exhibit again. I just love Tate Modern, it's the perfect over the top place to get kids interested in art.
By the time we finished it was dark (Boy Lacer: "Mummy, light off!") and we had a cold walk back along the SouthBank. I decided this time to brave the train as it's quicker and luckily it was so crowded there was plenty of people to help us get off at our stop. By the time we were walking home it was very very cold and I had two miserable cold kids but still I think we had a good day.
Today we're not doing anything thank god as I'm ill. Mr. Lacer has been a martyr to a fluey, virusey thing and now I've got it and of course life goes on when I'm ill. I ache all over. Tomorrow we're meant to be going to Kew Gardens with a friend and Friday it's Legoland so I better get better quick!
Original source: http://lacer.wordpress.com/?p=1514
