Of One on One Times...
The school holidays have just finished. One of the things I value immensely is creating one-on-one time opportunities with each of my kids.Oftentimes life gets in the way and constraints on the number of hours in the day and the weekly calendar means that I am usually running around with the both of them and missing out on their individuality.Last week I had the best times with them.Master 9. We spent Sunday afternoon on the couch playing PS3 games. Just slobbed. Ate chips. Boy stuff. It was awesome.
The next morning we got up early and caught the train in to Auckland’s CDB. He was a little off-balance as he’s not great with crowds. It’s interesting to see how much of me is in him.
A short ferry ride from the Downtown terminal saw us arrive at Rangitoto Island for a day of exploration. He’d previously been really nervous about the idea of walking on a dormant volcano, so much of the purpose of this trip was to remove some childhood fears.
Rangitoto has an amazing landscape and is a fantastic day trip.
We walked around to Mackenzie Bay, and then stopped for a break. Master 6 hadn't really done this kind of trek before, so was a little knackered after 1hr... Happily he wasn't in a complaining frame of mind.
We then made the climb to the crater and summit.
After lunch we headed down into the forest and found the Lava Tunnels.
He’d been looking forward to this part of the trip!
All up I think we walked 10-12kms over 5 hours or so. A fantastic day, and so great for our relationship.A couple of days later I collected Miss 6 for our turn. As it happens, she's currently a little camera shy so fewer photos for my recollections. Sigh.The first stop was a local café to drink a hot chocolate and plan the day.
She decided that she wanted to explore MOTAT (without her brother running proceedings) and then on to visit the Sky Tower.MOTAT was fun. They run school holiday programs which kept us occupied, including a ‘find the letters’ competition which meant we needed to explore the entire museum.Fonterra is the sponsor of the National Science - Technology Roadshow, and they were set up on-site, and I was fascinated to see how Miss 6 went from experiment to experiment, trying everything, testing everything, and for a relatively long length of time. I may need to explore ways of introducing her to science. She seems to have a thing for it.
We then caught a bus in to town (Oh my, Public Transport!) and walked up to the Sky Tower. She was given a camera for Christmas 2011 and it’s cool to see her size up subjects and take photos. And of course the views are spectacular!
I was pleased to see that the Sky Tower has packs for kids to play with. Word Searches, Colouring In and more. I managed to get through the gift shop without having to part with too much money.We finished off the day by stopping off at the London Lolly Shop before catching a train home.
The chance for me to bond with my kids individually and see how they’re both growing is special. And something I actively maintain.I can’t wait until the next time.- S