August 22, 2011
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Moving flats revealed a boat load of unused gift certificates (GCs) collected over the last two to three years. Of late these vouchers have made their way into a little cash box that the kids refer to as "The Bank of Dad" or "Dad's Bank." (Sorry Dad and Blake, looks like there's a new institution on the block but I doubt you'll complain and I am sure at some point it will need underwriters.)
Inside this box we keep the kids' Octopus cards, tooth fairy money and gift certificates. Tess and my track record of using coupons isn't great. It's the expiry date that we hate. We like saving money and like to tuck the gift certificates away for future use. However, that's problematic. Long ago, the year the triplets were born, I gave Tess a huge spa treatment (read HK$3,000) for Mother's Day, good for three months. The expiry came and went. I convinced the spa place to extend the expiry by a month. Tess went in two weeks later and they'd gone out of business. The same year we received a bunch of gift certificates to Toys R Us. We missed the expiry date again but managed to convince Toys R Us to honour them shortly after the expiry.
Good thing then, that we moved. We found almost HK$1,000 in Dymocks Bookstore gift certificates and over $2,500 in H&M. You might wonder where all of these come from… think of four kids, two years, fifteen people/party and the math is 4 X 2 X 15 = 90 kids. Many of these kids generously give gift certificates as presents. I checked all the coupons I could online to figure out their status then marched out with the triplets on a major shopping spree. (This was actually all a ploy to get the triplets out of the house so Seb could watch Harry Potter 3 with Tess and a friend now that Seb's read the third HP book.) Just as we left I asked Tess, "Are you sure you trust me to buy $2,500 in colour coordinated clothes for the girls?" Tess had a very politically correct answer.
Upon arriving at H&M, we agreed the girls would shop first. Most of the GCs were for the girls so they had the bulk of the shop to complete. This drove Jasper crazy. Personally, I am not a shopper and hate lounging. In fact, medical studies prove shopping is bad for men. I felt for Jasper as he waited and waited and waited for the girls to make decisions about what clothes they wanted. But at least I knew Jasper was too young to have a heart attack. At one point I even said, "Get used to it Jasper. Shopping is something girls love to do and it's part of your future landscape, my friend."
Finally it was JJ's turn to buy clothes. Short process. Jasper did decide, though, that he wanted a cool new check look, pictured above. We ended up using all the GCs then had a lovely lunch at the Spaghetti House.
Next was Dymocks where some of the GCs had expired. There was NO fuss from Dymocks who still honoured the GCs. Jasper picked some books in a few minutes, the girls took forever. Argh! Last we visited Clinique where I bought a new cologne JJ and I discovered a few weeks ago: Happy for Men. (The day we found it, Jasper who was in a very grumpy mood, said after having a bit sprayed on him: "I know why you want me to have this, because it will make me happy!" Tess says Happy suits me. This is a milestone as most of the time we don't agree on cologne tastes except the three that I already have and she LOVES. (Now you're thinking to yourselves, "Charles, you're not making sense.") The Clinique staff gave the triplets a few samples. This made JJ's day because he lost the sample given to him from a few weeks ago. Overall we had a great afternoon and Tess gave me a "pass" on most of the items we bought.
Thank you to everyone who gave us gift certificates during the last few years. I assure you they were put to very good use, even the ones that might have slipped by the expiry thanks to the kind staff at Dymocks!
Thank you everyone for some great ideas on getting a better night sleep. In general, things have been slightly improved but I still go through a restless period each night. I thought people would get a laugh out of the accompanying graph from last night. (Gweipo, please note the time I went to bed!) Quite a roller coaster ride. I don't remember much of this ride except I do remember waking up in the morning and not feeling so rested. The kids were also early risers this morning, which surprised me. The girls were tired out from a Saturday night sleep over. All the kids had quite an active day on Sunday, too with early morning rugby training for the boys. I was certain would give the kids a little extra sleep this morning. They were quiet, but they were not sleeping!
Lovely Tess suggested I show everyone what her sleep cycle looks like. I forgot to get a copy off her iPhone. However, I found a diagram of a reef dropping off into the ocean that looks the same as Tess' sleep patterns. Starts with Tess reading a book, which is code for circling the airport or entering into the sleep zone: not to be disturbed. After reading for a while Tess will get sleepy, but then suddenly awaken enough to discard her book and turn off the light. Sometimes, often, this task will be left to me – I will turn off the light for Tess and move dropped book off of the bed because, Tess has already dropped off into an ocean of sleep looking like an angel bathed in white light. Tess needs no beauty sleep.
