Hunting for…The Big Egg Hunt NZ

Have chocolate and bikes – will hunt!

The Big Egg Hunt NZ is fun event is being held down under for the first time, here in New Zealand.  100 eggs have been hidden in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch and on Saturday the boys and I set out to find a fair few of them, and consume some chocolatey goodness at the same time.

The Big Egg Hunt was first held in London in 2010 and combined fun and fundraising for charity.  Next year hunts will take place in London, Dublin, New York and New Zealand.  The Big Egg Hunt NZ is to raise funds for Starship Foundation (a charity which supports our national children’s hospital here in NZ).  Each egg has been designed by top NZ artists and at the end of the hunt they will be auctioned off on Trade Me (our version of E-Bay), with 20 of them being auctioned at a gala evening.

With a host of sponsors, the principal one being Whittaker’s Chocolate, the aim is to find as many eggs as you can and enter the competition.  Prizes range from peanut slabs through to a gold slab (rumoured to be worth in the region of $300K).  You can do this by either texting in the unique code found on the plinth of each egg, downloading an app (this is what we did) or follow the directions on specially marked blocks of Whittaker’s chocolate.

First egg in the playground

My favourite #82 Insecta Egg by Stephen Allwood

The boys and I decided this was the perfect activity for a gloriously sunny autumn afternoon and set off on our bikes from the Botanical Gardens, in the centre of town.  To make it even more fun, we took along a specially marked block of Whittaker’s chocolate, and for every egg we found, we ate a square.

The first eggs we found were handily in the Botanical Gardens and I think Egg #82, Insecta Egg, with the butterflies and insects has to be my favourite.  I would happily have that sitting on a plinth in my garden.  Each egg is mounted on a plinth which has a biography of the artist and some talk about the inspiration for their egg design.

#72 by Robin Neate

The app turned out to be a little temperamental, so at our next stop at the Museum, the helpful guide offered us a good old-fashioned paper map for the egg hunt which turned out to be much more reliable, but she wouldn’t give any clues as to the locations of the two eggs hidden in the museum!  We hunted, and found them.  Despite being large, they were surprisingly easy to miss amongst all the other exhibits.

Egg and the cathedral ruins

The littlest one’s favourite #4 Egg Horse by Ben Foster

#85 Healing Hands by Starship kids and Hannah Jensen

The next eggs were at Cathedral Square which was the heart of our city, but is now dominated by the ruins of our now fought over Cathedral.  My eldest son struggles to see the remains of the earthquake destruction and didn’t enjoy the cycle through the empty streets, but the youngest one didn’t mind a bit, and in fact enjoyed the traffic-free streets.  Cathedral Square turned out to be quite lucrative as there were four eggs there, therefore four pieces of chocolate!  We followed the map and found the eggs and stopped and played and looked inside buildings.  The new Transitional Cathedral, commonly known as the Cardboard Cathedral provided a warm welcome and another egg.

#43 Innocence of Childhood by John Badcock

The Cardboard Cathedral

Our last stop found that two of the eggs had been thoughtlessly damaged and were being removed as we tried to check in with our app.  Despicable damage to such a fun event for a worthy cause.

Boys on bikes

#99 Hybrid by Daniella Hulme

#76 Big Birds by Sam Mathers

A damaged egg

#39 by Jimmy James Kouratoras

All chocolate consumed and happily tired boys we cycled back to the car.  They boys reckon it was loads of fun and are keen to do it again next year.

The Big Egg Hunt will run 21 March until 22 April in Auckland, Wellington and Christchurch.  Until the app is reliable, I recommend using the paper map (available online) and texting in your entry.

Chocolate reward for egg hunting

Chocolate consumed

Parenting the terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day

My two lovelies

The tricky business of parenting has cropped up in a few conversations I’ve had recently.  Each person sharing a very different story about their parenting journey.

Today I was on the phone to my TelCo and the woman on the other end of the line was telling me about her 20month old, and how she’s all of a sudden developing likes and dislikes that she’s expressing loudly.  I pointed out that I remembered at about that age my own parenting changed from mainly meeting the child’s needs (food, comfort, sleep) to shaping their behaviour with boundaries.  “This is where you really start to parent and it gets tricky” I said, “And you’ve got to try and stay one step ahead of them from now on” I counselled.  “You’re right!” she exclaimed, “I’ve never thought of it like that.”  We happily ended our conversation, and she went home to ponder how best to tackle this next stage of her parenting journey.

Waiting outside the classrooms at that end of the day I was chatting with a school-mum whose daughter’s ninth birthday is this weekend.  She happily told me about how delighted she was with the person her daughter was becoming and how much she was enjoying her.  She said that the hard years of parenting were paying off and she was looking forward to the years to come, with understandable apprehension about the teenage years.

And at the swim meet another mother was having a hard time with her youngest; a pre-schooler with a huge amount of energy who did not appreciate being curtailed to the edge of the pool to watch his older brother race.  She and I were chatting about how kids can drive you mad at times, and that she was looking forward to him growing out of that difficult to please, full of energy, don’t want to sit still phase.  We went on to talk about disappointment (in that not everyone can come first in a swimming race) and how actually it’s not such a bad thing.  We all have to deal with it in our lives, and kids need to learn how.

Later, she emailed an article she’d read called  ’10 Common Mistakes Parents Today Make’ and having read it, it got me thinking that Kari Kampakis might be on to something.  I’d discussed this very thing at camp with the teachers and their observations that kids these days are over protected from life’s disappointments and aren’t as resilient or as independent as they could or should be.  They’re building a lot of life skills into the curriculum as parents just aren’t teaching their kids these vital skills anymore.  When the ice-cream falls on the ground, don’t buy another, but share in their sadness.  It’s hard, but it’s life.

I realise now that the disappointments and hard life lessons my boys are currently experiencing, I cannot protect them from, but I can help them live with them, because you know what, sometimes, like for Alexander it can be a Terrible, Horrible, No Good, Very Bad Day and his wise mother says “some days are like that”.

Here are Kari Kampakis’ 10 common mistakes, but I do highly recommend reading the full article.

1.  Worshipping our children

2.  Believing our children are perfect

3.  Living vicariously through our children

4.  Wanting to be our children’s BFF

5.  Engaging in competitive parenting

6.  Missing the wonder of childhood

7.  Raising the child we want, not the child we have

8.  Forgetting our actions speak louder than words

9.  Judging other parents…and their kids

10.  Understanding character

The wonder of childhood

Watch what you say…kids and body image

The swimmer

A couple of weeks ago my eldest son won his school age swimming race, and being the very proud parent I of course had my iPhone camera in full swing.  Later I showed him the photos I’d taken and he immediately, and with genuine disapppointment said ‘Oh, I look fat’.  Now, I’m pretty sure he’s not fat, and to try and reassure him of this, I have in fact taken him to the paediatric nurse at the hospital and had his height and weight measured and they were both on the same percentile curve, which she explained was exactly what was needed for a healthy body.  But he doesn’t believe us.

These ‘I’m fat’ or ‘I need to go on a diet’ comments have been cropping up regularly for the past few months and it got me thinking, where did he get this idea from? and how can I make him realise that he’s a normal healthy 9 year old boy?

Over the past year I’ve been losing weight, very slowly, so of course there have been comments I’ve made on how I look, why I’m exercising more than normal, what I eat, and especially when I eat things I perhaps shouldn’t.  Over the past few months my mother has lost a LOT of weight and the difference in her body shape  is dramatic.  She has been discreet and far less vocal about it, but nonetheless the two boys have noticed that Granny eats different meals.

Having become aware of careless talk about what’s healthy, fat, and loosing weight I started to listen to conversations in the extended family, particularly around meal times, and there again it is – comments about how much they eat, what they eat, what it will do to them.  When I delicately suggested that this was happening, the well-meaning grandparents were oblivious and said ‘But we’ve never told them they’re fat’ – missing the point completely.

I read an article that made the rounds on Facebook called  How to talk to your daughter about her body and then read another quite interesting one contradicting it.  Read them and see what you think.  I also read an article on Huffington Post about eating disorders and boys, and the National Association of Anorexia Nervosa and Associated Disorders (US) say the hidden count could be 30% of people with eating disorders are males.  Many boys start out wanting to achieve physical perfection and then spiral down into full blown eating disorders.

In just a few minutes a day…

This started to ring true to me as over the summer holidays more tv time was had and when the kids programmes run out on free view channels, (Sky bless them, has 24 hour kids programmes without inappropriate advertising) informercials follow, and what do they advertise? Well apart from skin cream, exercise machines. And who advertises them? Rippled male chests and promises of just a few minutes a day and you can look like this.  Who advertises underwear on the billboards and magazines? More rippled male chests.  So, without me realising, my son has been subjected to an unrealistic image of what the male body ‘should’ look like.  He just doesn’t seem to realise that this is physically impossible for a child his age, and realistically unreasonable for anyone who has a social life and a job.

So, the combination of my unknowing comments about my own weightless, extended families well meaning comments on healthy eating, and images of rippled male chests has all contributed to my child genuinely thinking he is fat, at 9 years old.

My plan? It’s two-fold, firstly beginning with me.  I’ll explain; Marie Claire are fronting a campaign called #whywait, after research showed that the average Australian woman only likes her body at the age of 45 – that’s ten more years of self-dissatisfaction for me…  Stephanie Rumble, mum-from-school and fashion stylist challenged her Facebook followers (March 10th post) to list the things they LIKE about their appearance and to share them either online (I did!) or with their nearest and dearest.  I thought this was a great idea and well suited to my problem so over breakfast I talked about it with the boys and told them what I liked best about my body.  The aim is to get them thinking about their bodies positively, by modelling it myself.

Now we’re into term time and the rippled chests selling exercise machines are no longer part of our lives (we have a no screen rule on weekdays), so I’ve reduced that influence, and now that he’s surrounded by other 9 and 10 year olds kids, there’s  more ‘normal’ around him.  The rest is up to me – I need to think about what I say and how I say things about my body, and what we eat and I’m gently trying to encourage the boys’ extended family to be mindful that the things they say can be interpreted by small boys differently from how they’re intended.

Next time you want to say ‘Gee my bum looks big in this’ perhaps don’t, or next time you hear a well meaning grandparent say ‘my goodness you’ve eaten a lot, be careful you don’t get fat’, perhaps suggest that the child’s portion size be put on the plate for them, rather than letting the child’s eyes dictate how much their stomach will eat.  Oh, and in case you didn’t know – infomercials aren’t for kids!

Having been shocked at how easily my son has developed a warped sense of self, I’m now trying to put it back to rights.

I’d love to hear of any similar experiences, or advice?

Art: Burster, Flipper, Wobbler, Dripper, Spinner, Stacker, Shaker, Maker

Burster, Flipper, Wobbler, Dripper, Spinner, Stacker, Shaker, Maker is a colour explosion of an exhibition aimed at families that’s just opened at the Christchurch Art Gallery’s new temporary site at Art Box.  I do wonder how they came up with that name…

Art Box is a developing art precinct in the centre of town.  The venture is run by CPIT (Christchurch Polytechnic Institute of Technology) and most of it has been gifted or donated.  Currently there is the art gallery’s exhibition, a private gallery and still coming are music and artist studios.  It’s reminiscent of a mini arts centre in the middle of the empty building sites.

Christchurch has been without an art gallery for a number of years since the earthquakes, and this is the first time my family has ventured inside a building, albeit shipping containers, to experience art, and it was soooo good.  The space itself works perfectly for a small exhibition with light wood floors, white walls and natural indirect light flooding the space.  There was enough but not too much so the boys weren’t overwhelmed by the art, but the adults had plenty to keep us visually stimulated with the number and variety of the artworks.

Art Box

Entrance with the corks

Having been so long without viewing art in a building, I went to touch it, but then remembered, that of course, being art, I really mustn’t.  I’m told that the artists are very keen for their work to be handled and stroked, but the art gallery, in the interests of preserving it for future generations, are understandably not so keen.  The artwork that drew me in the most were the morphing pencil sculpture, the paint skins suspended like tubes from the ceiling, and the slow-motion video of the exploding paint-filled balloon.  All the pieces were visually stimulating with huge impact, especially for younger people who can recognise objects being used in very different ways.  It challenged their view of art beautifully.  Simple name plates next to each piece and longer interview sheets were nearby for adults.  I personally much prefer this leaner yet more in-depth way of providing information.

Dried paint columns

This is made from pencils

We went to the Family Day in mid-February to mark the opening of the exhibition, and for my easily excitable boys, this was just the right amount of stimulation.  Both went straight for the imagination playground – imagine foam duplo crossed with mobilo.  This will be a permanent feature of the learning space when the gallery re-opens.

Which bits to use…

Imagination playground

All join in

Peepo!

My youngest spied the paintings some of the kids were making using a humble salad spinner.  Squirt blobs of colour onto a round piece of card inside a salad spinner, spin hard, add more, spin again, dry with a hair dyer and ta da!  Instant art.

Squirt

Spin

Art

The littlest one’s version

Table of colour fun

The biggest one’s version

Back to the imagination playground, then they discovered there were FREE iced lollies, so they stopped long enough to sit and listen to the band and suck their ices.  There were colourful chinese lanterns to decorate with stamps and then gently blow up, and then the littlest one found the face painting lady…

The band

The stillest he ever is

Who else would he be?

Happily occupied all afternoon, we were now the last ones left with the gallery staff, so the biggest one and granddad helped to put away the imagination playground whilst the littlest one had his face painting finished.

Burster, Flipper, Wobbler, Dripper, Spinner, Stacker, Shaker, Maker runs from now until September, so in the upcoming chilly months, venture into town with the kids and have a look.

All exhibition photos courtesy of Christchurch Art Gallery.

Tidying up