Weekly ritual

We have a weekly ritual on Saturdays – me and the kid. Around 3pm, just about when she is getting supremely irritating and when I’m at the end of my patience, we set out for our weekend adventure. This involves a very steady routine. Dress up, fight about peeing before leaving house – threaten  to cancel trip if pee is not attempted, shout amidst tears, make up, leave home, walk to the nearest bus-stop, take the first bus that goes into Kingston, get down at Brooks Road, take the short walk to Kingston Children’s library aiming to reach there by around 3.30pm.

I discovered the library as a means to keep my sanity once I was alone with the kid here. She enjoys being read to and they do have a superb collection. Sometimes it’s my eagerness to read the next Julia Donaldson which far outweighs her need to go to make the trip. None the less, she does enjoy the trip. She browses the books and picks ones she thinks she may like and brings them to them to me to be read aloud. We spend around an hour or so at the library and the end of which we decide which books to take home. Considering that a lot of kids books are hardcovers and hence heavy, we limit our selection to around 5-7 books per week depending on the strength of the plastic cover I’m carrying for the books, her liking for certain books and my violent dislike for others. We normally manage a decent compromise. Sometimes her choice of books does surprise me. It is no secret that the girl loves monsters and dinosaurs. So obviously books which seem to have either of these on the cover do make it home. But I did draw the line at bringing home books about dung licking monsters and creatures who liked spider sandwiches…. Yuck!

Then there are times when she picks up books from the multi-language section and follows me around begging me to read Bengali books or Korean books. I’m good and I’m her super hero.. but even I can’t read anything other than English and Hindi. So after coming to blows trying to explain that I genuinely can't read Korean and I’m not trying to be difficult or lazy (her allegations), we decide on languages that I can read. Sometimes when we bring home books and read them, I’m surprised that most books in the lot seem to have a theme. One week, we had books about cleanliness( 3/5 books), one week it was about treating “different” people well (4/7 books), this week it is manners (2/5 books). You may assume, like I wrongly did, that kids’ books anyway cover only a limited number or range of topics and hence such co-incidences are very likely. But when you have been exposed to the world of kids stories in UK (and believe me the range is much wider than what we as adults get to read) and she picks up these books at random without knowing how to read, it does strike me as astonishing.

Anyway, library closes at 5, so we make our way out by around 4.45 and cross the road and land on Kingston high street. Next stop McD’s. Next part of the ritual – 2 medium fries and a fruit shoot – 3.17 quid for a fine inhouse dining experience. A luxury once a week and more importantly, at least 30 minutes more of conflict free time between us. Once we are done, after fighting over the quantity of ketchup, we take the first bus available into Surbiton, get down at Maple Road and walk back home to reach around six-ish.

All in all a good three hours spend outside home, fresh air, no fights, good books, fatty fries and a fairly tired kid who is asleep by 7. All in all not a bad ritual.