- Published: 30 August 2022
- ISBN: 9781761048494
- Imprint: Random House NZ
- Format: Paperback
- Pages: 288
- RRP: $35.00
Needs Adult Supervision
Lessons in Growing Up
Extract
A little adventure
Eddie has asked us if he can walk home from school. It's only about a five- to ten-minute walk and we walk it a lot. But he wants to do it alone. He desperately wants some independence. He has a plan.
He will walk with two friends. And will carry his phone and call us if he needs us.
I'm so excited from him because he is so excited. He will be nine in September. He wants to feel independent. I think that is especially important to him because he has very little independence, due to his illness. He can't have sleepovers. He can't have playdates without us being there. We try to do spontaneous stuff but that's hard when you have insulin and food to factor in. We are still not even at his two year 'diaversary' - but he has a plan.
And he told us his plan.
He will take his kit and oversee 'medication'. He will also take two bottles of water.
His friend will oversee food. Because they apparently need a lot of snacks for the walk.
But my favourite bit - they want to bring a net and a spade. In case there is an earthquake, and they get stuck and have to get food. Two of the three kids are vegetarian, but he told me solemnly that he could catch an eel 'if it was life or death.' And, he informed me, ‘You can’t take a knife to school. But we will use a stick if we have to take the skin off the eel.’ But that’s a last resort, ‘because we are going to use the spade to dig up vegetables and pick fruit.’
They will take a notepad in case they have to leave a note to say thank you to the person whose fruit they took.
They will bring two sticks to start a fire.
They will bring one sleeping bag each, just in case.
And they will bring a book to share, in case they need entertainment.
I guess they’re all set, huh?
The first walk home will be in a month, so they have plenty of time to work on their survival skills.
How good, honestly. There’s going to be three kids with hiking packs on, walking five minutes home down the road.
Needs Adult Supervision Emily Writes
Ever thought 'I wish there was an adult around', then realised you're the adult? Emily Writes, best-selling author of Rants in the Dark, shares stories of growing up as your children grow up.
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When a baby is born, we say welcome.
It Has Been A Day My day started at 4 a.
The idiot box: my first hazy television-related memory, bathed in the blue-tinged glow of a cathode-ray tube, hails from when I was about three and therefore a complete idiot myself.
When I was very young, I was massively influenced by television. And comics.
Life is a game of chess. You should try playing it with two queens.
To'asavili was dreaming of cows swimming under the sea.
My writing career unofficially began at McLean Hospital, the psychiatric affiliate of Harvard Medical School in Belmont, Massachusetts.
How this new condition changes language, not we or us or ours but I and me and mine, mine alone the hollow hours.
On the crest of Hopetoun Bridge, I stop and take a selfie.
I grew up in an Italian family that, not unusually, put great import on food.
MY NOVEL TURTLES ALL THE WAY DOWN was published in October of 2017, and after spending that month on tour for the book, I came home to Indianapolis and blazed a trail between my children’s tree house and the little room where my wife and I often work
After my parents married, they found it impossible to find accommodation, and for much of the time during the first two years or more had to live separately at the homes of relatives.
