Monkey on the Lam and Lack of Sleep

Did I mention the lack of sleep?!

I haven’t posted in a long time because it actually turns out, and this may surprise you, that (I’m pretty sure no one has ever mentioned this before) being first time parents (are you ready for the big reveal?) is ACTUALLY really difficult and time consuming. I know, right? Who would have thought! So in lieu of an actual post here is a collection of random things that have happened lately. As you read please imagine the screen covered in small finger prints in shades of egg, banana and ketchup. Otherwise it won’t match the rest of my décor.

Two weeks ago the biggest news in my town was a wild boar wandering into the more fashionable of our two shopping malls and running amok. Tiger asked me of the boar had been male or female. I responded that it was probably a young male if it was wandering around by itself. “I think it was female” he replied. When I inquired why, he responded “Because it wanted to go shopping!” So many gender stereo-types already at such a young age (T.T) At the time, I thought “wow, you really know you live in the country-side when a wild boar is the main topic of conversation”. Little did I know that a major story would break the following week that captured the attention of the entire prefecture: A monkey went missing from the mountain where he usually lives! His name is Benz and he is 35, which is about 100 in human years, so grave concerns are held for his well-being. Tiger’s school made a special announcement to all students and a huge effort has been made to locate Benz. The husband and I, clearly not being locals, immediately thought of the Colbert Report:

We are now in week two of the Benz saga and having spent a long time in a hospital waiting room yesterday I can confirm that the TV news is still playing hourly updates on the situation. Additional search party recruits have been brought in. There are several tribes of monkeys on the mountain and Benz was originally the leader of the B tribe, but after a torrid affair with the head female of C tribe he defected and became leader of the C monkeys. Speculation is running rife that he may have tried to return to the B monkeys and been rejected, or possibly had another extra-tribe affair and been caught out by the unforgiving C tribe females. I am not making any of this up. Seriously. This has been a huge story down here. 

The World According to Tiger:

On our first full day with him we went to the pool. He was pretty scared and wanted to know if there were sharks. I said no, just humans. Then my JUST-turned-8 son came out with this gem: “Some humans are sharks.“ Deep kid, very deep.

Two days later we took a train to an amusement park. It was a short walk from the train station. Tiger is not a big fan of walking, but is a huge fan of whingeing.

Tiger: The amusement park is really faaaaar.
Me: Not at all, it’s near!

After a few seconds of pouting he puts on a cute voice and asks

Tiger: Why is the ferris wheel the same size as my thumb?

Feeling happy at the change of subject I put on my best friendly teacher voice and say

Me: That’s because, you know, things look smaller than they actually are when they're far away.
Tiger: Aha! Far! You just said it was far away!

Damn it (>_<)