Reading

I only started reading when I was in my teens. Prior to that I was never really interested in books or comics. The only books I have a clear memory of reading are the Usborne Puzzle Adventure series, these I loved and would read over and over again. Other than that I know I had Famous Five and Secret Seven books but I don't remember reading them. The same with Roald Dahl, I remember we had them but don't remember reading them. I never really enjoyed reading, it was always something they made you do at school and those books were always dull. They were books chosen by adults who thought they'd be fun or interesting for the kids, like The Secret Diary of Adrian Mole.

Things started to change when I was 12, almost 13. Jurassic Park was released in cinemas and I watched it with my family. It was one of those movie moments which stick with you your entire life, I remember it vividly and still get goose bumps when I watch it. It was total magic, with the CGI looking incredibly real at the time. After seeing the movie I saw the book in the shops and decided I wanted to read it. It was the first chapter book I remember finishing, the first 'grown up' book. I remember the moment I finished it because for me it was a staggering accomplishment. I was sat in the armchair at home, beside the balcony. I remember finishing it and deciding I absolutely wanted to read other books by Michael Crichton. That was the moment I became a 'reader'. From then on my reading started gathering pace. Over the next few years I read The Andromeda Strain, Congo, The Terminal Man, The Lost World and Timeline all written by Michael Crichton. I also read the entire series of Dirk Pitt novels by Clive Cussler, a series which totally appeals to a teenage boy; loads of action, classic cars, alluring women and plenty of humour. Eventually I discovered Terry Pratchett and the Discworld, I can credit his books with vastly expanding my vocabulary, imagination and sense of humour.

So why all the preachyness about reading? It's something I want to pass on to my kids. It's something which is fundamentally important to me as a parent; never mind that I'm a teacher and it's what we tell other parents, that's not why it's important to me. I believe a love of reading is one of the single most profound and life changing interests we provide our children with, it is something they must have in their lives. Reading offers anyone the opportunity to infinitely expand their horizons; reading can change the way you see the world and offer you an escape for a time. I say this as someone who struggled mightily with reading and writing in school, but went on to study and love English Literature and Theatre. 

I should add that my parents sowed the seeds of my interest in reading when I was a child, they read to me every night until I was quite old. I remember being read The Wind In The Willows, The Hobbit, Where The Wild Things Are, and a whole lot of other books. This is how I'm trying to encourage my kids to read. Every night we read three picture books before bed. There are days when neither Sher nor I can be arsed to do it, it would be much easier to use Cbeebies Bedtime Stories (which are brilliant) but 3 stories only ever takes about 20 minutes and it's time well spent. I'll ask some basic questions as I read and the kids respond really well. The kids love the stories, they join in with silly voices, point out everything in the books, talk about how the characters think and feel, and they are totally enthralled every time. Both kids now 'read' their own books, Benny will sit with his book on his lap and go through it page by page (usually back to front but it's still a basic skill), Carys will read from memory, and sometimes sound out the odd word. I'm monumentally proud of both of them. I can't tell you for certain that it's made huge changes to my kids, but I can say that they are both able to express themselves very clearly, both have large vocabularies for their age, and both are able to pick up on some quite subtle meanings within a story. Reading is also an excuse for me to be extremely silly which is something I don't get to do often enough. So, here are some of our favourite books. Christmas is coming up, maybe your kids will like them too?

    

    

   

       

    

    

    

      

    

              

Moves Like Jabba

My body feels broken by continually lifting, throwing and carrying my kids. It’s broken because I’ve made the choice to be the best Dad I possibly can be. I never regret it, but it hurts A LOT some days, especially my back. I have a slightly crooked spine. I spend most of my day climbing stairs as I walk from one classroom to another. I sit on chairs designed for people literally half my size, my knees approach my chest as I hunch over to check student work or play games with them. Sometimes my legs are splayed down and out at an odd angle, making me look as though I desperately need to pee, all so they fit under the little tables I use with my students. Then it’s home to kids who have literally infinite  amounts of energy, which I know doesn’t come from the food we’re feeding them. I eat their food half the time and I’m like a freaking zombie, complete with grunting noises and an ineffectual shuffling gate. Still, I’ll pick them up, whizz them around till they pee or barf on me, because it’s fun and most importantly it tires them out!

A recent weigh in showed that wee Benny is close to becoming Big Benny, weighing just 10 pounds less than his sister who is double his age. When I carry them they wiggle and flop about like wild chimpanzees on The Crack. In my efforts to keep them balanced on me or stop them from plunging from my shoulders and smacking their heads on concrete, I find myself grunting, groaning and flailing like Jabba as he's being strangled by Leia.

For the love of Buddha STOP MOVING CHILD!

Carys in particular likes to link hands under my chin, around my neck specifically, then she’ll lean back as far as she can, cutting off valuable oxygen to my brain and rendering me incapable of any speech other than “ggggaaaaaccccchhhhkkk”. Now you may be thinking, “well jackass, just pull her off”, to this I say HA! Clearly you’ve never experienced the full might of a small human with a death grip on your neck. Also please don’t call me a jackass, it’s rude. Carys leans back so I can’t really reach her, sure I can grab her legs which are on my shoulders but then all I can do is push her off onto the concrete. The very thing I want to avoid and live in fear of doing. So I flail like I’m giving the Team America signal. You know the one.

Fun fact: If I had facial hair it would look exactly like his.

Sometimes I can reach her and pull her forward, which is why I always try the flail manoeuvre. She’s so good at this, she could take down a WWE wrestler without trouble. Grab hold, giggle manically while he flails uselessly and eventually collapses, then she’d laugh so hard she’d pee on him as her finishing move. If flailing doesn’t work I bend forward, almost bending over double. This pitches Carys forward and stops the grip of death long enough for me to ask her not to do it (other Dad’s I hope you’re taking notes, this is parenting gold). I can then stand straight and continue walking with whatever dignity I have left. Usually this is none at all because her wriggling and my flailing have caused me to sweat profusely through my t-shirt and down onto the tops of my pants, causing large sweat stains around my chest, arm pits, and the top of my arse. Since my nipples don't seem to sweat there are usually two small, circular dry patches which people naturally stare at, like I'm a topless Playboy bunny, only instead of envy or desire in their eyes they have more disgust and revulsion. On top of that my shirt has rucked up, revealing my man muffin tops as well as my pink boxers which had to be bought because I took Carys with me and let her choose which pairs to get. I promised she could choose so there was no backing out. I even tried the old "what about this pair instead love?", to no avail. So, along with every man’s staple of Star Wars, Superman, plain black and plaid boxers, I now have PINK, ORANGE and PURPLE. The caps indicate just how damn bright they are.

With Benny on my shoulders it’s different and only marginally better. He hasn’t figured out out to do the Carys Larynx Crush. Instead he does one of two things; beats on my head like it’s a bongo drum or grabs hold of the sides of my head and leans his full weight from one side to the other. This initially was a game I played with him, where I’d lean a little bit to the side and pretend I was about to fall. Cue hilarity! Then he realised I really would move with him if he had a firm enough grip and leaned with enough weight. So now I stagger like a drunk while he laughs hysterically. The best part is when he’s done with being on my shoulders, this is usually when he’s leant all the way over to one side and decides now would be a good time to get down. I have to catch him as he begins to slide off my shoulder, but not scare him by yelling “NO DON’T DO THAT!!”, instead I use my inside voice to scream it while I bring him safely down to the ground.

Having kids is fun. It really is. They are tough little nuggets. I love that they get such a kick out of playtime with me, and from something so simple as silly movement. I’m lucky that I have the strength and general good health to be able to do all this stuff. But it comes with a price some days, and it’s ok to say no sometimes. If I don’t I’d be in agony. On the plus side, all the jiggling, throwing, choking and flailing has led to me having great times with my kids, increased the muscle mass around my shoulders, chest and back, and it’s taught me that I can move with the speed of a fucking cheetah when I need to.

I GOT YOU!!

Sickness

I don’t know about other parents but I’ve never gotten used to my kids being sick. It’s something which always causes fear and tension in me. Lots of people told me many things before I had kids, as I’ve said before, but no one really talked about the sickness. If they did it was usually in a “you don’t know what you’re in for” kind of way. It was always, something along the lines of “hope you’re ready to clean up another person’s barf, har har”. No one really mentioned the arse puckering terror of seeing your child’s temperature rocket to 40 degrees celcius. Incidentally if it stays at that temperature for too long it can cause neurological damage. A fun fact I picked up now I’m a parent with access to the internet. 

Whenever my kids get sick my mind will generally go plunging down the anxiety inducing worst case scenario thought track, like a Mack truck with broken brakes plunging into a ravine, there’s little I can do to stop it. The internet only makes things worse. We’ve all Googled symptoms of an illness we’ve had, and we’ve all been terrified to find we have Cancer, Ebola, sudden terminal onset low libido, menopause or just DEATH; and not excema like we thought it might be. 

I TOLD YOU IT WASN'T MAN FLU!!

We all do it, it seems to be a human trait, how many of you watched Still Alice recently then went and told all your friends you for sure had Alzheimer’s? When my daughter recently came down with something it was the weekend, the doctor’s office was closed and we didn’t want to fork out several thousand dollars for an on call doctor. So I consulted The Oracle of all things, Dr. Google. This was, as it always is, a mistake. My daughter had a fever, pink cheeks, a body rash and a cough. Go ahead and Google that. I had a choice of 25 different illnesses to choose from on WebMD, as though it was a sickness combo menu. This was provided I ignored the other results saying it could be 1 of over 100 things, I was after all trying to narrow it down a bit. Of those 25 things the scariest were meningitis, MRSA, and Rotavirus, all of which can be extremely dangerous or potentially fatal. Fortunately I figured it probably wasn’t any of those things, and was more likely Scarlet Fever which was also a choice on the sickness menu. Turns out Scarlet Fever isn’t just something which happened in the 1800s, there’s been a resurgence recently. Another fun fact I recently found out, it’s estimated that about 60% of Staph A strains causing Scarlet Fever here in HK are drug resistant to a particular kind of antibiotic, though fortunately there are alternatives which are effective.

My wife and I recently had a casual discussion about our family’s general health over the past 5 years. We realised that each one of us has been in hospital in that time. Sher wins with the most visits; 3 for babies and 2 for health related surgeries. Carys has 1 surgery to her name, an adenoidectomy which has helped her health somewhat. Benny has been admitted once for a mystery viral illness; he was hooked up to an IV, given fever meds, and antibiotics, after a few days he was released. I’ve been admitted to hospital with a mystery respiratory illness which affected my ability to breathe, caused a constant fever and general lethargicness. I had 3 different types of antibiotics, was hospitalised for a week, and it still didn’t go away. We’re not sure why it did eventually go, but I think it’s because I had osteopathy which helped open up my chest, literally because my lung had partially collapsed with the bacterial infection sitting in the collapsed part. Sher was NOT happy about that one. 

So between the 4 of us, we’ve had 7 hospitalisations over 5 years. This is both a testament to the availability of health care here in HK (THANKS Obama...no wait), and a testament to just how sick we’ve been. We can’t even begin to count the number of times we’ve been to the doctor. Carys has quite frequent illnesses, and we think it’s largely due to the pollution here. It’s almost always a respiratory illness. She’s had a postnasal drip since...forever so she’s pretty full of phlegm. From the age of 2 she’s had weekly, if not daily doses of Piriton or Aleve, both medications to stop anti-histamine responses. She seems to be quite sensitive to the air, no joke, she tells us the air is bothering her. When the pollution is high it bothers her nose so much that she’ll be in tears about it. She tells us her nose bugs her and will rub so vigorously at it that she causes a nose bleed. Some mornings we walk into her room and her bed is like the scene of a brutal murder, there’s blood smeared everywhere. Some nights she’ll wake us crying because her nose is so itchy she can’t sleep. That’s with air filters going all the time. We don’t think it’s allergies, it’s year round and when we travel overseas we haven’t had to medicate her. I’m deeply worried about the effects of frequently medicating her will have on her long term health. Similarly, I’m worried Benny will have the same issues. 

A while ago we stopped asking why we were all getting sick. The answers were pretty clear to us; first and foremost for Sher and I it was probably stress about almost everything including but not limited to, money, work, sickness, and money. Next it’s because we live in what one of our doctors called a petri dish. Discovery Bay is a bit of a closed system in some ways. Kids generally don’t leave the island for any reason, all their friends are here, they live here, many go to school here. We can shop here, see the doctor, dentist, go to the gym, swim, eat out, all within a 10-20 minute walk of our homes or a 5 minute bus ride. Once an illness gets into the system it does the rounds, hitting many, many people. It’s difficult to avoid these illnesses because you’re in contact with the same people, the same objects, every single day. This is doubly true for our kids who have a small number of play areas to use here; once one kid smears his boggers over the climbing frame dozens of kids will come into contact with it in a short space of time. Not all parents are vigilant about their child’s health, outsourcing this responsibility to their helper either by choice or necessity (the work culture in HK is insane and toxic in itself, with people expected to stay in their offices until 8pm or usually later, as well as working weekends. It’s just an accepted part of living and working here.). As a result you have kids whose faces are caked in snot running around outside, hacking their wee lungs up, sneezing on every surface including your face and generally spreading whatever nasty bug they have to others.

A final reason we figure we’re all sick frequently, and it’s the one that bothers us the most, is the pollution. It’s been clearly proven that high levels of pollution have been linked with increases in respiratory illness among other illnesses. Here in HK the levels of pollution are high on an almost daily basis, though the government uses standards and benchmarks which are decades out of date which results in their measurements showing pollution levels to be low or moderate. If they used the updated standards we’d see the levels are hundreds of times higher, and thus hundreds of times more toxic. In my lifetime, Hong Kong has gone from a highly desirable location to live and work, to a hardship posting requiring added incentives to get people over here. Despite this the government has no interest in changing things. 

An average to bad day in HK, courtesy of:
http://www.strippedpixel.com/hong-kong-air-pollution/

So, the question for us became how can we stop the sickness. The answer we came up with was simply to leave HK. If it is the pollution, the closed system we live in and the stress linked to living here then it’s time to get the hell out. We can’t in good conscience stay here if it’s costing us our most valuable asset, our health and the health of our kids. Personally, I’m fucking tired of living in fear of my kids coming down with some illness AGAIN, because that means another trip to the doctor, more drugs, possibly another hospital visit. I’m just tired. And I’m angry, I mean thoroughly pissed off like I want to kick the living crap out of someone because the place I live may be causing my family to become ill. I’m angry that the government doesn’t seem to be living up to it’s responsibilities of safe guarding people and tackling the source of so much illness, choosing instead to treat the symptoms. The health care here is great, but I’m tired of having to rely on it on a near monthly basis. I’m also scared that one day the sickness one my family members has will be one of the terrifying Google results. 

At the end of the day, sickness is going to be a part of our lives no matter what. Where you have sick kids, usually you get sick adults too. Kids need to build their immunity so I won’t stop ours from playing in the dirt or socialising with other kids. However, we have the choice to live in a place which supports my family’s overall wellness. It’s a luxury many others don’t have. I reached the point where I couldn’t make up excuses for living here anymore. There are many good reasons to live in Hong Kong, but they aren’t good enough for us anymore. The pros no longer outweigh the cons. We have the luxury of choosing to live somewhere else for the wellbeing of our family and while there are no guarantees being in a new country will be better for us, we’re pretty sure it will do. So we’ve made that choice and are leaving. Sickness can kiss my sweet ass as I walk out the door.

Beautiful Black Holes

This is a black hole, courtesy of Hubble.

Did you see that movie Interstellar? Me neither, but I hear it had some freakin huge black holes in it. Now I'm just a husband, father and space geek so I know next to nothing about black holes, singularities or other spacial phenomena (do, doooo, do, do, do). What I've been told by people massively more intelligent than me, people like Neil deGrasse Tyson, Carl Sagan, Bill Nye, Stephen Hawking, and Brian Cox, is black holes consume everything and anything nearby, then (potentially) spit out matter and energy at tremendous speed. 

This is a representation of a child, who is somewhat like me. Courtesy of Gary Larson.

Now I have kids, I can say quite firmly that they are terrestrial versions of black holes. If you've ever been around a small child at play, meal times, doing nothing at all, you'll understand this. Have you ever seen a young child with a toy? If you don't remember then you haven't, because at some point that toy will have been streaking towards your head at close to the speed of light. If not your head then it will have made a beeline for the nearest most fragile object, or more likely your genitals.

I think parents have a common misconception about children and toys, we all assume kids want the next best toy (at least in the developed world). We fill their rooms with all different kinds of plastic crap which ends up being consumed very briefly by the child, then violently hurled somewhere or at something or someone before being forgotten. Our response is, stupidly, to buy even more crap because it's generally easier than shifting furniture to get at that tiny car your kid threw under it! Thus we feed the little black holes even greater quantities of matter to consume.

As a parent we can sometimes worry in a "we need to talk about Kevin" kind of way because we find dismembered toy parts all over your house. Kids are creative so a Barbie head in the bed, Godfather style, while your child stares and giggles at you from the doorway is actually a likely occurrence. My own daughter has taken to drawing pictures of people on fire, and playing games where her toys are burning. I know why she's doing it, there was a fire in the building which terrified her, but it still unsettles me each time she does it.

Don't forget the cannolis....

Other times we end up cursing the toys or the kids who left the toys lying about because inevitably we've stepped on the pointiest part of them which is of course lying in a prime position to impale your foot. We live in a small flat so at least there are no stairs to tumble down, adding to the agony of our now throbbing foot. The toys we step on will usually break so that's more food for the little singularities. Unless it's Lego which as we all know is nearly indestructible, and can practically lop your foot off if stepped on at just the right angle leaving you to spend the next few minutes cleaning up blood from your fresh wound.

If we're honest with ourselves, we generally hate a lot of the toys our kids have. We worry they don't set a good example for our kids, like Barbie, Monster High Dolls, or the Walter White Breaking Bad doll found next to the kids section of Toys'R'Us. We worry they're made too cheaply to last more than a few moments in the clutches of the intense vortex that is our child. Then there's the aggravation they'll cause us. When I was a kid electronics were small, but not tiny like they are now. My Lego fire truck had two little flashing LED's but it didn't whoop or blare at me, I had to make the noise and I did, very enthusiastically. Toys with electronics were generally pretty clunky things, not to mention expensive. Now though, EVERYTHING has something that beeps, bloops, honks, blares shitty music, or damn near blinds you with flashing lights. Rape whistle make less noise than some of the toys my kids have. They love them, but I want to sacrifice them to ancient Gods in an elaborate pagan ritual involving volcanoes, a scantily clad maiden (played by my wife), the feasting on the flesh of my enemies (very Paleo) and lots and lots of heavy implements for bashing the crap out of the toys. Before I can do any of that though, the batteries in the damn things die because it's been used for all of 10 minutes, and my children wail at me to "fix it Daddy, make it go" and I have to find that one TINY screwdriver that'll open the toy's battery compartment, wherein I find the dessicated remains of an ancient generic brand battery which is covered in more dust than an Egyptian Mummy and turns out to be twice as deadly as one of their curses. Mild chemical burns treated, I can attempt to replace the batteries only to discover the cheap ones that have just taken minutes off my life after I inhaled whatever that powdery crap is on them, have corroded the connections past the point of use. The toy is dead. My children are in pieces, clutching at my legs "why won't it go?! You said you'd fix it!! Ai no Senor!!". And another of the few hairs left clutching tenaciously to the top of my head, like a drunk holding onto his brown bag liquor, turns grey. But the inner pagan ritual guy is dancing a jig, probably naked if I'm honest.

Despite all this, we or in my case my wife, still buy our kids toys. My wife only buys toys secondhand so they're much cheaper but still in pretty good nick. I don't like the clutter we have in our house because of the toys. I don't like that the kids hardly use any of them (I do like that instead they choose to play games together or just sit and draw. I'm quite proud of that actually). I do like that they have the choice of using them, to feed their imaginations, to build stories around or just while away an hour or two in mindless fun. My kids need that, they deserve it and I'm grateful they have it. Play is a fundamental part of childhood, essential to children's development. Toys help. So I'm happy to keep feeding my wee black holes, because the results can be beautiful, even when I'm lying on the ground groaning after some cheap plastic geegaw has violently impacted my Johnson.