Sunday 29 April 2012

Sunday Morning Showers

Well, it's Sunday and after a day spent gossiping and shopping with my visiting friend, I feel fully recharged for the twins.

Bobby is playing MarioKart Wii and explaining the rules to me. You can learn a lot from kids. "What's the difference between manual and automatic?" I ask him, thinking of a gear stick or something. "You don't get turbo with automatic," he says, eyes firmly on Luigi, who is racing some Japanese opponent to the finish. "Oh," I say. Then I wonder if he knows what he's talking about, or whether he's just repeating something he's heard. With Bobby, he's so good at learning and repeating that you sometimes have to test his knowledge. Also, I'm darned if I know how MarioKart Wii works.

"What's turbo...? I offer, aware that with his eyes glued to a nasty looking jump Bobby may well be tuned out by now. He gets through the difficult bit then replies: "It's extra charge, extra fast," he tells me patiently. Oh right, so he does know what he's on about.

Alec looks on from his beanbag. He enjoys the spectacle of the MarioKart game even though he's not brilliant at joining in. We sometimes give him the control and help him through it, but between Alec and I we usually end up going in the wrong direction.

Alec's already been busy this morning, playing a loud Chinese bubble blaster that I bought him yesterday and looks precariously close to breaking already due to a questionable design. He has ditched his Vtech kids' keyboard in favour of the rather more expensive adult one in the dining room. Earlier he was eating grapes and wearing Gavin's Sannheisers (is this the best idea?) whilst picking out the grooviest sounds on a keyboard that makes your average cockpit look a piece of cake. Despite hefty learning difficulties, Al shows no fear in navigating himself round a piece of musical equipment and since there's plenty that he can't do, we indulge him heavily in anything he's interested in.

Alec's idea of groovy, however, usually gives me a migraine so I'm pretty glad of the headphones. He likes the rockiest, the loudest, the fastest rhythms possible. Input, input, input with Alec, who's a sensory seeker. With his Vtech, there's also optional buttons for slick interruptions, so we can occasionally hear: 'Oh yeh!' 'Check it out, check it out...' Al, clutching one headphone to his ear and putting a rare amount of focus into his remix, looks like he'd be at home in Ibiza.

Gavin has been trying to watch the Andrew Marr show in the bedroom but there's frequent interruptions. Bob came in to tell him that CBBC was making an 'Oooo-eee-ooo---ee-uuuueeee' noise and could he fix the telly? Alec came in to admire himself in the long mirror and collect a plastic frog that he'd left there earlier. Gav eventually gets to rant at the screen in peace, which is his idea of a relaxing Sunday.

And me - I think I'll have a go at Mario in a minute. Minus the turbo.



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