Oscars for all my friends!

Do you agree the Oscars seemed to be about rewarding performances that elevated otherwise pretty average movies? Except for Bret McKenzie in The Muppet Movie, both were awesome. (Slight bias from a Kiwi here...)

Bret McKenzie on the red carpet Photo: Mario Anzuoni/Reuters

I don't know of anyone who saw Tree of Life and didn't end up doing their utility bills by the light of their  iPhone. Same with Iron Lady despite Meryl Streep's ever-charming shrugs, head turns and enigmatic smiles. The only resonating scene from The Descendants was George trotting in his flip-flops around the corner to friends. My Week With Marilyn: great ensemble cast but a slight movie... Michelle Williams is a sweetie pie and captured the spirit of the tortured star, but distractingly, looked nothing like her.

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I can't pretend I watched any of the Oscars, some All-Star game was on the same time, so now you know the master of the remote in our house is an eight year old boy called Cy.

But I did take the opportunity to hand out a few of my own awards during the weekend.

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The Descendants Award for best Dad on the island:
While I was in Berlin and London Kevin looked after the kids for 10 days without any help - and ran a business at the same time. His email to me in London: "We miss you as a mother and wife but also as an eligible driver." I arrived home and he didn't seem too crazy...

The Midnight In Paris (Dali) Award for best line:
Man Ray: A man in love with a woman from a different era. I see a photograph!
Luis Buñuel: I see a film!
Gil: I see insurmountable problem!
Salvador Dalí: I see rhinoceros! 
I arrived home from London to find 10 packets of beef jerky in the cupboard. Anyone who doesn't know what this is: it's dried beef in plastic which does not need refrigeration. There is nothing about any of those words that should be together in one sentence. I immediately went to throw it out. Kevin said: "Don't touch that - I just joined the Jerky of the Month Club and that's my first shipment." Retract above.

The Hugo Award for winding us up all the time:
Cy, eight, says the f-bomb three times and is video taped by his brothers, Harley, 14 and Jackson, 12. As explanation for his cussing Cy said:  "They took a bite out of my peanut butter sandwich while I went to the bathroom." Fair enough? Just don't put that tape on YouTube, I said to Harley and Jackson. (Good parenting, right?)

The Iron Lady Award for services to motherhood:
For an hour yesterday I heard loud piercing screams coming from outside. Not wanting to be a helicopter parent I paid them no mind and went back to my random online viewing of red shoes. Eventually I glanced outside to see that all three boys had take off their shirts and were batting each other really hard with ping pong balls. All of them were totally covered with red welts in the shape of balls. What an inventive game, kids! (Sometimes it's just all worthwhile...)

The Descendants Award for being comatose throughout:
This last week I have been sleeping morning noon and night, jet-lagged, discombobulated and not knowing whether I am Arthur or Martha. But George, I could be revived. (Oh Jody ...BeHave!)

The Artist Award for maintaining silence when needed:
No recipients this year.

Any award giving in your weekend?

My Name Is Tallulah

Today's news that Demi Moore was hospitalised for inhaling "whip its" (nitrous oxide) for fun made my heart sink. In fact, I'm mad at her. Not that I'm bothered by what she inhales. I'm mad because she's in the news again. And because both our daughters are called Tallulah.

Source: Demi and Tallulah, 16,  at a fashion show last year

When we named our Tallulah nearly 11 years ago, we wanted a name that was unusual but not dodgy. "Make sure you name her something where she can be Prime Minister of New Zealand" said one friend. "Make sure it doesn't sound like someone who's working the pole" said another. We were living in London at the time and the newspapers were full of the just-released CIA file on Tallulah Bankhead (what a dame!)

We were vaguely aware that Demi and Bruce had a daughter called Tallulah, now 17, but they seemed to be spending a low key life in Hailey, Idaho. Both their careers seemed on the ebb. Turns out, Demi actually made make seven films over the ensuing years but none of them rang any bells and after seeing Charlie's Angel the critics fixated on how she must have spent a lot of time whitening her teeth.

Image: Rex

I don't wish her any ill. She's not a bad actress, or not as bad as some would like to think. In About Last Night, she shone as a fabulously sexy girlfriend who had a funny friend.  Ghosts: kind of the same but older. Indecent Proposal: just sexy. Okay but what about A Few Good Men? She was stalwart and didn't get her kit off, which is considered good enough acting in some circles.

I felt sorry that her relationship with Ashton didn't work out (mind you it was an open relationship and she consoled herself in the arms of a 25-year-old.) I don't care that she's had an estimated $220,000 worth of plastic surgery.

It's just that I thought she was in Hailey, Idaho for the duration and it was safe to call our daughter the same name as her daughter.  Now she's everywhere and bouncing Angie off the magazine covers with her sad eyes and gaunt everything. Soon her daughter will be on those same covers.

Our Tallulah, 10, at home yesterday getting ready for Colonial Day at school

All we need now is for one of the Teen Moms to call their daughter Tallulah. In a Social Security Administration report, last year Maci (Teen Mom MTV) was the top trending name while Bentley (her son) was No.1 for boys.

Any new or comeback celebrity threatening to infringe on your name?

An edited version of this is on Huffington Post.

(Today I'm also over at BritMums writing about Giveways - can you attract more readers without losing cred?)

Right Place, Right Time

I've made no secret of the fact that our youngest, Cy, says and does things at the wrong time. Deliciously passionate about everything, especially "baksetball" he runs through life with an enormous grin on his face - unless he's howling with rage. But he can get himself in hot water. And yet sometimes, just sometimes, it all comes together....

Cy, seven, with the Warriors cheerleaders

Last night Cy lined up to get a supersonic-sized soda (as you do when you're age seven) at the Warriors game. For anyone who doesn't follow basketball, the Golden State Warriors are an NBA team in Oakland and they are "super-famous and super-awesome."  He turned a second later and there were the Warriors "girls"!

Other times Cy can get in a muddle. At age four at pre-school, he raised his hand to go to the bathroom and was subsequently picked to be the "husband" at a mock Mexican wedding ceremony. For years later he was asked: "How's married life Cy?" and "How's your wife, Cy?"  "But" he would plead: "I didn't want to get married. I was just raising my hand to go to the bathroom."

I spent much of my early life failing to be where I was supposed to be (and yet having a bloody good laugh anyway.) Except one night, 16 years ago, I got the right directions to a party in Chelsea, London. That was the night I met my husband. If we hadn't met that night, our paths would have never crossed. That was the night I got it right.

Can you think of a day or night you were magically in the right place at the right time?

(We've just done the random draw for the cashmere-blend scarf Giveaway. The lucky winner is Trish of the hilarious British blog Mum's Gone To... Trish, email your address to me at jbrettkelly@gmail.com and we'll send it right away.)

Leave Everything On The Court

Sorry, somehow I had a prolonged bloggy break. I took one day off and it became two weeks... What happened in the meantime? For one thing Steve Jobs died.  I didn't know much about him as I'm a bit of a Luddite. He created Apple, which is 40 mins from here and Pixar is just down the road. Who was Steve Jobs? An I-God who changed the world for all time? Or a blimin' big meany who made his staff cry and simply made talky and writey stuff look skinny and sweet?

He was for sure, fascinating and inspiring. A friend sent me the speech Steve Jobs made to Stanford University in 2005 and it started ringing bells for some reason. Jobs tells how he started College but then decided to leave: "After six months I couldn't see the value in it.... " Who does that remind me of? Our seven year old, Cy.

Cy on the schoolyard in the rain

On Friday I picked up Cy from his second grade class and ask that parental standard: "How was your day?" He gave the same grumpy answer he's given off-and-on since kindergarten: "Oh, they're wasting my time....wasting my time again."

As though they are distracting him from his proper day job of fielding million dollar endorsement offers,  placing bids on large commercial buildings and advising the White House on the debt crisis.

And instead of ruling the world from his corner office on the 26th floor of the TransAmerica Pyramid, he finds himself in a classroom struggling to sit on a rug "cross-cross apple-sauce" and to resist blurting the haikus of "hiiilaaarious" nonsense that enter his mind. Let's just say the path to the principal's office is not an untrodden one for him. Every day I wince, afraid to ask: "Any notes from the teacher, Cy?"

On the way to soccer yesterday he said: "At College if you don't go to class, are you sent to the office?" What would you be doing instead of class, we asked. Watching NBA with my friends and eating pizza, was his quick-as-a-flash answer.

Tallulah, 10 and Cy playing on our front deck in the rain

Cy has two gears: howling raging indignation and beaming brightness. In fact his every being follows Steve Jobs' exhortation in that same Stanford speech - live each day as if it were your last. Or as one friend says: Cy leaves everything on the court. He wakes up each morning with a smile on his face and singing a snatch of Cody Simpson. With a cracker in his hand and a trail of crumbs behind him, obsessively checking scores on ESPN.com there is literally nothing else in the world to complete him.

Harley, 14 receives football wisdom from Cy, 7

Until we're ready to leave for school. It's 8.15am and he's wearing an airplane headrest, ski gloves, tweed men's cap, pajama pants, no shoes and he's drawing "Go Penn State" on his chest. Asking if he has made his lunch yet evinces howls of rage "Why, why why me??" even though he's been up for two hours.

The lunches. Because Cy has lost at least 20 lunch boxes he simply grabs whatever bag is at hand:  the blue plastic in which the local newspaper arrives, a large brown grocery bag from Trader Joes or  - if he can't find anything else - an 18-gallon trash compactor bag. Standing at the fridge he chucks in a couple of handfuls of Goldfish crackers, two apples and random leftovers from last night like lamb chops (unwrapped) and a jar of peanut butter. He looks in his 18 gallon trash compactor bag, nods his head, his work here is done.

Cy assembling his lunch

Cy's lunch

Steve Jobs concluded his speech with: "Stay hungry. Stay Foolish." Cy thinks nothing of disrupting the house, the laundry, and everyone's room to find that perfect soccer practise t-shirt.  You see his team all take their shirts off after practise and whip each other with them. Turns out, it's a bit of science finding that perfect whipping shirt.

Finally, his lunch in hand, his shoes on, he dashes out to the car and swings himself through the open front window of the car into the back seat (his latest trick). He grins and sings all the way to school.

Cy gets into the car

The other day I dropped him off at school in the blurring, howling rain. He jumped out the car with no raincoat, natch. Instead of running for the shelter of the front entrance as everyone does on a rainy day, he walked round to the back, to the playground. He had a huge grin on his face, he must have been thinking about seeing his friends, shooting some hoops or kicking the ball around...

I parked and watched as Cy splashed onto a completely deserted playground. The torrential rain almost eclipsed his tiny figure on the vast empty blacktop.  I saw Cy raise his arms and his face to the rain:  "Why isn't anyone else out here?"

Surprise! and Survive!

At a friend's surprise birthday party on Saturday night I had a revelation - there are few problems that can't be softened by a glass of champers, doing the whoo whoo dance and karaoke rendition of "I Will Survive."

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And this from me, a person who enters every karaoke party with the mantra: "Don't let me sing, not going to sing."

The surprise party was a welcome break from days and nights of vacillating between filling out forms and not (but thinking about them anyway.) Responding to emails and not (but thinking....) This year our four kids are at three different schools and it's been an even louder blasting of Back-To-School paperwork, emails about sports teams, carpools, after-school activities, evening meetings and constant, constant pleas for volunteers.  You respond - more work and more driving. You don't respond - guilt, guilt, guilt.

Amidst this, two other birthdays; Kevin's and Harley's.  Since Harley was born 14 years ago, it's been a family tradition that Kevin's birthday passed without fuss. (Okay I always forget.) But this year - surprise! - I had nothing planned for Harley either. Pretty shameful as Harley always orders gifts and makes cards for others.  I was relying on the potluck dinner after his football practise where all his teammates sang him Happy Birthday. "Wasn't that a lovely dinner, Harley? Nice birthday treat for you!" The next night my friend Gloria and her family took him to Fentons for ice-cream where the whole room sang him Happy Birthday again.

Harley at Fentons

Kevin's birthday last night. Surprise - again we were rescued us from another cake-less night.  All the kids and I had to do was clean up and friends arrived with chillybins packed with drinks and dinner: Mike's skirt steak with chimichurri sauce, fresh corn, Sandy with Veuve,  her mustard gourmet mac'n'cheese, heirloom tomatoes and peach pie.

Cy and Tallulah getting the house ready

Tallulah's card for Kevin

Between the birthdays, the emails keep coming, twisting me into knots of indecision. West African dancing, percussion lessons for Tallulah, 10?  Fantastic! I spent a week mulling over which class she would love the most, could she handle two things after school, how on earth could I pick her up? I left it so long the classes were full or cancelled. "Mum, I didn't want to do it anyway" Tallulah confessed: "soccer is enough for me."

I just emailed another parent and a refreshing auto-reply came back: "I have sworn off email for the time being." That got me thinking - what would happen if I didn't look at my emails? I suspect... I will survive. With a little help from my friends.

Tallulah waves goodbye

Knutty Knitters, Crafty Critters

When we lived in London, the weekend days were spent wheeling the kids around the Tate Modern, the evenings at Sadler's Wells Ballet. (Okay we did that once) Don't feel sorry for us high-brow bods though, we continue to be constantly totally steeped in the arts. Plus crafts.

Harley, Cy, Jackson and The Bench

Cy, 7,  finished his bench at Carpentry Camp. Okay it's not Damien Hirst's cow in formaldehyde, nor is it Tracy Emin's unmade bed. It's better. It speaks to me of human suffering (well a few bangs on Cy's fingers anyway). I made a bench, Mum, Cy said. And he really did. A three person bench. With arms.

Meanwhile at my parent's house in Ohope Beach, NZ,  Tallulah and her cousin Leah, both 10, were the crafty girls, knitting up a storm.

Knutty Knitters

Mum, Dad and the girls

This verbatim email message from Mum: "Talulah learned to knit this morning Tho sh e did say sh e had learned at age 5 she did one row of 10 stitches and said THATS IT I CAN DO IT Im going to knit My mother a poncho Tonight after another go and 3 more rows she says PERHAPS A S CARF Good day They love the pool its well supervised and lots of fun We are lucky with the weather much warmer today love M."

Are all our mothers' poetic emails worthy of staging at the Tate in a clear vitrine case? Collectors...I think so.

Next my sister Pietra gave cameras to both Tallulah and Leah and below are the results... They're natural documenistas, Pietra said.  How do children frame things so instinctively?

Aunty Pietra

Whale Island

Man with his dog

Rubbish bin

Meanwhile in Oakland, Sadler's Wells it wasn't, but there was a certain standard of dance at our friend Martin's birthday held by Mike'n'Kenny's.  Aided by a couple of these Mike-invented martinis - tomato water, vodka and shredded basil and a stick of tomato and mozzarella -  I challenged the other three blokes to a Wii dance- off.

I'm just so blimin' artsy I couldn't help adding in CatDaddy and bits of the Dougie here and there. Just keep it simple the others said, you're adding stuff in.  I lost to everyone including this bloke here, 7,200 to 4,000.  Blame it on the shredded basil.

You don't know whether to laugh or cry do you? What art encounters were in your weekend?

Hallows Gallows Humour

Spoiler Alert: If you haven't seen Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows this post will read like a bunch of old bollocks.

Cy at the movie

Two weeks of cold and dreary weather has enveloped me in a pasty-faced dark-clothed ennui. Much like "Grey Lady," the ghostly basement-bound Helena Ravenclaw in Harry Potter... except without the fabulous cheek bones and her ability to swoosh away from kids who ask too many questions.

Image: 

The truth is, despite all the comings and goings, I have been spending waaay too much time with my kids. To their endless questions about "Where is my...(insert any of following: pen, hat, lunch, candy money, day of fun-filled activity) I have tried Helena's enigmatic: "If you have to ask, you don't know. If you know where it is, you may ask" or words to that effect. But the result is snorting derision from the elves rather than a sprint off to the Room of Requirement.

I also have to report that the elves are not following orders:

*Cy, 7, shaved his legs. Everyone does it at the tennis courts, he said, including the coaches. I told him his leg-hair will grow back long and black. "Who cares" he shrugged: "I'll just shave them again."
*I asked Harley,13, to email Jackson,12, at his week-long sleepaway camp. I was hoping for a sweet brotherly note. Harley noted there was a Bellyflop Olympics. "J-Dawg" he wrote Jackson: "Win the Bellyflop competition or don't bother coming home."

Jackson and friend Chase at camp

*When Jackson got back from camp I asked Tallulah to give him a hug. Without a hint of irony she said: "Jackson was away?"

Tallulah in backyard

*After Harley spent 12 hours straight watching TV, I told him he needed to get more exercise. The next day I found him lifting weights...horizontal...while watching TV.

Nothing else for it: I headed off to my nearest Room of Requirement. Turns out there is no ennui that a new sequined sweatshirt can't cure. It's the veritable Resurrection Stone of spending. (Unless those sparkles belong to a diadem and your name is Valdemort.) And then the sun came out...

How do you cure your ennui?

Jackson

On Sunday, Jackson, 12, went off to his first week-long sleepaway camp. We were asked to send a letter which would be given to him today. Here is my letter. (And thanks to Vix of Vegemitix for reminding me how much we need superhero costumes in our lives.)

Harley and Jackson, nine years ago

This weekend, Kevin and Jackson 

"Dear Jackson,
Remember when you were little - from age three until just after you started elementary school - you wore a superhero costume every day? How many of those costumes did you have? Superman, Batman, Robin, The Green Goblin, we had two boxes full of them and you wore them all.

It still makes me smile to think of your skinny little person climbing into one of those get-ups. I would tie it at the back and fix the mask over that wiry red hair of yours. Somehow, seeing your freckly nose poking out of that garish fabric and a peek of your crooked smile, all was right with the world.

The funny thing was, you were incredibly shy, quiet and self-contained and you disliked the attention it attracted. "Superman!" people would call to you all day, everyday: "Look at you! Superman! Oh boy - we're all safe now!"

You shrank from those well-meant calls: "Why do they think I'm Superman?" you once asked genuinely puzzled: "Can't they see it's just a costume?"

I have wondered for years why you wore those costumes every day for two years. You weren't trying to be Superman or Batman or Robin, you didn't like the attention, so what did those costumes mean to you?

You suddenly stopped wearing those costumes a couple of weeks after starting elementary school. We could never find out why.  Just recently you finally told me that one of your friends had said: "Jackson, we're at Big School now. You need to stop wearing those costumes. That's baby stuff." I was really sad when I heard that. It was too late to tell you that many grown-ups I know would love to wear a costume every day. That it wasn't costumes that made you special, it was the fact that you had chosen to wear them.

Maybe that's the thing; you knew you couldn't be Superman but the costumes were somehow protecting you from all that the big world could thow at you.

Jackson, I wish I could fold you into one of those superhero costumes again...and nothing from our human world would ever bring you harm.

Love, your Mum"

Harley

Last Friday our eldest Harley, 13, graduated - they call it "promotion" here - from his elementary school, a kindergarten though 8th grade Oakland public school. That means for the past nine years he's spent six hours a day with the same 23 kids.

We talk a lot about tolerance, but this is it. He has never fallen out with a classmate and rarely speaks badly about anyone. He doesn't gossip about what goes on at school - I wouldn't catch a whisper of the occasional drama if I weren't good friends with the girls' mothers.

Harley, age 6. First day of school, 2nd Grade

Harley, age 13. Last day of school, 8th Grade

And yet he has another trait - do the two go hand-in-hand? Insouciance. I had seen that word written so many times and never quite knew what it meant.  Recently I saw the word used again by Sarah. It basically means slacker. Lighthearted unconcern, nonchalance. It's the opposite of anxious or solicitude, the uneasiness of mind. Perfect! When once I thought of Harley as being peculiarly disinterested and content to do everything half-arsed except for watching acreages of television, I now have a beautifully lyrical word to describe him. Two beautiful words actually: Insouciance Decelere.

Harley's yearbook photo

Flicking through his yearbook I happened to notice Harley's baby photo was one that I had not seen before. Apparently Harley couldn't be bothered to bring in a baby picture of himself and handed over a spare one from his friend. The computer teacher, who was collating the yearbook, realised too late.

baby Harley

Throughout school he was genuinely dumbfounded by friends who strove for A's and A-pluses: "Too much work" was his view. His views on the future: "Someone has to go to community college." He is secure in the knowledge that there is a highly-paid job out there where the first prerequisite is to quote verbatim whole episodes of Malcolm In the Middle. The second pre-requisite knowing the stats for the most obscure basketball player at the most obscure college.

Though he never had any interest in computer games, his computer skills have us slapping our heads. Slumped in his chair, facing half-on to the computer, leg up on the wall and other hand texting on his iPhone, he can do anything on my blog, photos, in-box or whatever. I confess I might have collected him from his classroom once or, er, twice to get out of a computer pickle. When that seemed extreme, I would call him or email. "Mum" he whispered from the bathrooms once: "I'm at school, stop calling me...I already told you...just click on computer and the devices button... "

Harley's mother embarrasses him again by taking too many photos

He has five categories for anyone: kinda annoying, super-annoying, really nice, super-nice and okay. His opinions on anything - except burgers - are evinced only following hours and days of probing from me. But he never volunteers a bad opinion of anyone and has never complained about anyone at school being mean to him, though I know they have. When I enquire about scraps at school (not involving him) he shrugs, he knows nothing.

But get him on burgers and he will talk for hours.  Are In'n'Out burgers better than Wendy's? Could go either way. But the best is Nations. No further edification and extrapolation, that's pretty much the tenor of the argument.

Harley (right) and schoolfriends at Stinson Beach

Which is not to say he doesn't hear or see things that go on. Once when Tallulah was distraught by how someone was treating her,  Harley told her: "Just say in your mind: You're so bloody annoying, I can't stand it." Or, he says, just make a joke: "Is there a buzzing fly in here? I can't see anyone but I can hear something super-annoying."

After a day abseiling in Mexico, rock-climbing in Santa Barbara, playing basketball with Oakland's best or attending a carnival-like party in San Francisco, you will ask him how it was. "Good". That written four letters cannot convey how he says that word. As Darth Vader can suck the air out of the room so too can Harley suck the emotion from any given word.

In Carmel

On the other hand he is flexible and independent despite being shy. He could be happily dropped off anywhere from the age of two.  When he started school, he wanted me to just open the car door and let him hop out. He was mortified when it transpired that parents had to stand by their children at the entry door. What about I come in to help with art projects, PE, field trips? I would ask him. They have enough mothers already, he told me every time. Or: Cancelled! he would say.

He helps without being asked: he has made his own lunch since he was seven and everyone elses' since he was nine. He brings the groceries up without being asked. For years he has babysat the younger kids if we go out close by. And is always ready with a "Want to play baseball Cy?"

Though he hates being photographed, or any kind of attention, he knows to show respect. This weekend he was invited to be in the court of a classmates' Quinceanera, a coming-of-age ceremony, and he was happy to wear a tuxedo.

Harley signs the book for Victoria at her Quinceanera

Harley was just about to turn five when he started our little Oakland school of 350 children. We had just arrived from London where he had attended a private pre-school opposite Hyde Park called Ravenstone House. It was set in an leafy old cemetery where the bodies had been exhumed. Somehow he had acquired a plummy accent. But he slipped into his new school instantly and within months he had gone from "Mummy - what's for tea?" to "Yo, yo, s'up, mama."

He did keep a few expressions for a while. After escorting him to the hallway, his long-suffering kindergarten teacher asked:  Do you know why you're here? To which Harley answered: "We've been very, very, naughty."

And he was often heard to mutter: "Oh bloody hell, not another Learning Centre again!"

The girls in Harley's class kept telling him before graduation: "Your mother will cry so much at graduation. You're her firstborn. She'll be so sad." Harley replied: "Oh she's not like that. There's no way my mother will cry."

Harley at his Promotion

"He's gone now" parents of much older kids told me: "Once they get to high school they're gone from you." Part of him will still be here, continuing to watch endless re-runs of Two and a Half Men.  Interspersed with shooting hoops... right outside the TV room. But when I saw him walking down the aisle at his graduation ceremony, I saw the truth and I cried. I knew that part of him had left forever. And it was a very sad day.