The status of a fork
Salsa af Stavsnas
Ellinor Ristoff Staffan Ehde
Mon 29 Sep 2014 07:59
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One of the biggest benefits when doing this journey
is to be with the kids, of course. You might take it for granted but timewise we
are with them almost every hour we are awake.Thank god it does not mean we have
to play with them all the time and to be honest it can be tyring with a boy who
keeps nagging you about what an airplane can do and what it cannot
do...
Then you have highlights like small expeditions
were we all explore together and it is truly amazing to see the world with some
eyes that are 10 or 6 years old.
Yesterday I took the kids to the cave we found the
other day, this time we had plenty of torches, camera w flashes, and the kids
brought some Saturday candy to consume in the cave (yes we are soon running out
of candy, they get 10 small pieces every saturday).
It is funny how kids just love to PREPARE an
expedition, if you don't stop them they will bring half the boat.
Ellinor stayed on board for some yoga and to do
some sewing (the big machine is out of the closet).
Once outside the cave, we anchored the dinghy,
Erika jumped in and by the shore she scared off a Manta Rey, or whoever scared
who. Then I helped Andreas to the shore wich is like a shelf under a
ceiling of lava rock, Andreas is scared of touching coral on the way
up.
After that I got a big bucket that I
could swim holding above the water, in it we had the kids "supplies" and my
waterproof backpack with camera and tripod.
We crawled inside (it is really hard to get in) and
as we entered the big chamber our lights revealed something even more
spectacular than we could see before. The kids started to play around and I
started to shoot pictures. It is amazing that roots from trees have worked their
way through the lava and into the cave. There is also a small lake inside with
some shrimp. Other than that the only animals we saw were cockroaches and
spiders.
We spent a good hour in there and once we came out
again it was really hitting you, the daylight.
We tried to get Erika up on another island were
there is a cave that looks like the jaw of a shark, but she could not get up. A
murray watched us closely from a coral head just a meter away.
This kind of expeditions are not everyday stuff,
this was saturday and normally we have school in the morning and the days goe by
with the same assignements every day.
One of them is the dishes and the kids always have
to dry them. That is also another part of life were you get to see each other
all the time. Drying dishes, now you think children will just do it and get it
done. No.
As things evolve kids start to prefer some things
over others. For instance Andreas loves to dry the sharp knives, the bigger the
better, they are exciting and dangerous. Well since he found them interesting
Erika starts to compete for them. If one is drying let's say a plate and I just
washed a knife, that person will want to get done to get the knife. That is just
the beginning, as time moves on different things get different
status.
Next thing, as I have written, is that they listen
a lot to books in their Ipods. Well since drying dishes is boring the Ipod comes
on and I have two mute assistants that have to be shouted at if I have something
to communicate. Well as they listen and dry the dishes their reaction to what
comes up next to be dried creates grounts, yepees, no-s, ITS MY TURN TO DRY
THIS! and other animal-like noises.
I remember when my oldest daughters went to
preschool and they always looked at the bottom of the glasses to check what
letter or number they got in that glass and how that created funny things among
them, now I can see the same thing evolve in our galley.
I guess we all do that everyday without thinking
about it, everything is measured, everything has a status.
Tyring...
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