Yeeeeee Haaaaaa

The Class Lists are done. Handed in. Finished. I have Class Co-ordinators assigned to most classes but Year Co-ordinators are a bit thin on the ground. Oh well, I'll have to do a bit of arm twisting. Next week.

Now I'm off for some retail therapy.

Could someone come over and attack my ironing pile please? You know how much I love ironing.

Hey Mum, it's finished!

Finally, Mum's birthday present is finished.

Padawan Learner helped me make the cord this afternoon: "If I knew it was going to take this long I wouldn't have helped...".

Consider it in the mail...soon.

Two Dames Pass in the Early Evening

Early one February evening two Grand Dames of the Sea head out to sail

QEII

One old, and on her last voyage

Queen Victoria

One young, and on her maiden voyage

They salute each other with much horn blowing as they pass

and half of Sydney came out to watch

Has it been a week already?

It's been crazy town here this week. How does that happen? I think sometimes it just does. Although in my case, lack of preparation would have something to do with it. So, to fill you in:

Weekend: Have I ever mentioned that I have the pleasure (ahem) of being the Fundraising and Functions coordinator at our school. Don't ask how I ended up with that role as it is a sore point. Anyway, this past weekend we had our Kindergarten welcome evening and the Year 5 welcome evening. These are held to welcome new parents to what are our biggest intake years (we have a gifted & talented intake at Year 5). These evenings, which are hosted by a parent from those classes, were very successful and a great chance for me to check out which Kindy parents will make good fundraising/functions helpers.

Monday: Spend entire day inputting details of the parents of 700 students for the class lists. I am TOTALLY the wrong person to be doing this as I have no patience for numbers. See Wednesday. Thank god I have someone who is doing Yrs 5&6 otherwise I'd be a mental case by now. After day of fun with numbers I take kids to baseball practise, followed by clarinet practise, followed by Parent-Teacher information night and then straight onto bookclub where we discussed, nay, mutilated, this book:

How would you expect a bookclub full of mums to rate a book about a guy who cannot help himself but have multiple flings with a wide range of women while his wife dies of a particularly agressive form of breast cancer? And think it is totally okay. There may have been a bit of aggro in the room that night.

Tuesday: Loads of changes to the class lists resulting from late additions/changes sent in by parents. Quickly put together flyer for school function happening at school in two weeks - send into newsletter. KelpieBlossom goes to second ever soccer practise and LOVES it. But the timing means I drop Padawan Learner at tennis, rush KB to soccer, pick PL up from tennis and then back to soccer which drags on until 6.30pm. Of course I have no dinner planned. First take-out of the week is earlier than expected.

Wednesday: KelpieBlossom home sick. Go to Pilates anyway. Aaaaah. Get foot massage and back massage from Pilates instructor. Is true angel. Take KB for full spine x-ray (long story, no real dramas) then collect PL from school early and take to specialist appointment followed by swimming lessons. Then realise at 10pm that due to impatience with numbers I have made large stuff up on the excel spreadsheet containing the class lists. Grrrr. Remedial work takes 3 hours.

Thursday: Finally hand in class lists for K-2 (postpone others until next week, yay). Start new book (see above). Another day involving appointments set at seemingly 10 minute intervals, juggle kids to ballet, take and pick up Firegazer from appointment 38km away, pick up from play dates etc. Ironing washing piles up, no food in house. Feeling a tad strung out.

Friday: Aaaah. Will take mental health day. That is after I see Padawan Learner's teacher about various issues. After my weekly tennis lesson (which is really just a chat-fest and opportunity to get all frustrations out on the ball) and catching up on shopping, washing and basic home hygiene I indulge in retail therapy:

but, sorry mum, your birthday present is still in the manufacturing stage (I promise to get onto it right now):

...or at least very soon.

Have a great weekend!

Freedom from Homework Part II

Gotta love KelpieBlossom's teacher. Remember I said she hated homework but that she would set it each fortnight per school policy - and she doesn't care if the child doesn't hand it in?

Here is this fortnight's homework (she's in Year 4):

• 20 minutes reading, daily
• Practise your spelling
• Teach a parent something you know about St Valentine
• Help with the housework or gardening
• Tell a joke to a family member
• Help with the shopping
• Play a game with a family member
• Practise your tables

In other words, she's asking her students to be an active family member. Our house is so much more relaxed without 10 maths/science/HSIE worksheets and a mini project to complete.

I should've sent her a Valentine's Day card.

P.S. I'm off to Padawan Learner's Parent-teacher info session on Monday. His teacher is new, young, blonde and looks like a Barbie doll. I bet the classroom is full of Dads, all of whom will volunteer to do reading groups.

Page 123, sentences 5,6 & 7

Frogdancer is quite confident that I can read. However, she didn't consider whether I can count. Numbers and I just don't mix. So when Frogdancer tagged me for a book meme that required me to count I was a little nervous but here goes.

The deal is I grab the book closest to me (with more than 123 pages), go to page 123 and write out sentences 5,6 and 7. Then, as is meme lore, tag 5 people.

I'm warning you, this is not going to be pretty. Not just because of the counting challenge but because the closest book to me is my current bookclub read Love Life by R. Kluun. This book can really be described as a racy book about breast cancer. Yep, racy.

The author is a monophobe that beds a wide range of women while his wife is dying from an extremely severe form breast cancer. So far he's not endearing himself to me. The quoted section takes place just after his wife has a mastectomy. The author is talking to a work colleague:

'I held her head up with one of those little containers under
it, you know, one of those foetus-shaped egg-boxes.'

Maud hugs me. 'Has she - has she seen what it looks
like?'

That's the 3 sentences allowed, but so you are not left in the lurch here are the next two:

'No. The doctor recommends we take the bandage off together'.

I tag Fairlie, S from TeamSAK (when she's feeling up to it), ArmyWife, and anyone else who wants to join in (Fe, are you reading this?).

Freedom from Homework

Just back from our parent-teacher info evening and it's true! The rumours are true! KelpieBlossom's teacher does not like homework. In fact, she HATES homework. Yeeeeeee Ha! She will, of course, hand out homework per school policy every Monday - however she doesn't care if you don't hand it in. Man-o-Man.

It's a meeting of the minds. She has all these new fangled ideas about children playing after school, talking to their parents about their day, getting bored ON PURPOSE. Time enough to knuckle down in high school.

This new teacher acknowledges that some children may need extra assistance in some areas in which case she will call us to discuss this and set child-specific homework. My beliefs exactly.

Can you tell I'm happy? You bet.

However, there was silence from the parents at the back of the room who have their children tutored 5 days a week...

Thumbs optional

This morning I went into KelpieBlossom's room and noted, in my most calm and serene voice, that perhaps she should pick up all the clothes and other detritus that was strewn across the floor. She responded by looking at me in a manner similar to puss-in-boots above and said:

"But, Mum, that would be impossible for me to do - I am a very cute Kitty and I do not have disposable thumbs"

In my very mature way I then spent the rest of the morning saying things like "those with opposable thumbs can come with me, those with disposable thumbs better stay at home".


*pic from here

SYTYCD

Those of you who watched Episode 3 of SYTYCD on Wednesday would've seen that two P*le Dancers got through to the choreography section. One of those dancers was my Pilates instructor (E). A former dancer with an international ballet company E took on recreational P*le Dancing as a gymnastic challenge and is now one of the best in Oz. She's keen to promote recreational p*le as a Dancesport as distinct from the nightclub version. Albeit with stratospheric heels.

The judges were wowed by E's performance.

Fairlie, I'm sorry I didn't give you a heads up about this so if your Foxtel IQ played up then check out this YouTube clip of E from last year's studio Christmas Party.

*apologies for the *s but I'm trying to limit the 'interesting' hits I'll get from this post.

** logo taken from ten.com.au

Milestone

Padawan Learner is not keen on home readers. Last year he brought home four home readers in the first week of first term and took the same ones back in the last week of school*. Nevertheless he seems to have learnt to read. A secret he likes to keep from his teachers.

I know he can read because at night-time he can be found reading (aloud) Dr Seuss books, Captain Underpants, Tashi or some movie tie-in book about Transformers, Dr Who, or Star Wars. He also understands all instructions in video games and reads stories out of the newspaper.

However, in my view, the real milestone in reading is when a child chooses a book, then disappears and doesn't re-appear until it's finished.

That happened yesterday.

After a visit to one of our favourite bookshops, Padawan Learner sat at the kitchen table and read until his new book was finished. I know he was reading because he still reads out aloud. I know he was "getting it" because he was laughing and telling me what was going on while I was cooking dinner.

This is the book that has started this next phase in his reading life:

Whatever takes his fancy. If he's reading, I'm cool with it.

*BTW I don't blame him, they are tragically boring and I never pushed it.

Unravelling

I'm having a go at cables (well Zig Zag really) and I have to say it is going mighty slow. Just out of view in the picture is a cable that zagged when it should've zigged so I have been doing a little unravelling. Even worse, I didn't realise for several rows. Aaaaargh!

If this knitting was for me I would've shrugged and continued on. However, it's for my mum, for her birthday next week, and she has an eagle eye for knitting errors.

Just so you know mum, your birthday present may not arrive on time.

Yawn, is it time to go home yet?

If your child has just started their school year they may have been asked to fill out a number of worksheets about "what I did in the holidays" or "what I like about school".

Here is the worksheet that came home from Padawan Learner yesterday:

ABOUT SCHOOL THIS YEAR

I think my favourite subject will be:

Maths (yep, he would've added 'science' if he could've spelt it)

My favourite school lunch is:

Meat Pie (as if you'll ever get one, but good try)

In School it would be very strange if:

We had no classrooms (again, hopeful, but true it would be strange)

My favourite place in school is:

The Playground (that figures, see above)

This year, I really want to do this in school:

Go to bed

Yes, well, yawn, I know the feeling...

Kaftan Days Part III

Fairlie reminded me that 10 years ago, almost to the day, I wore a Kaftan to The Poolboy's 30th Birthday*. Spooky. Except that time I was also barefoot and pregnant.

This is exactly the kind of Kaftan I'd like to wear in Sydney now. Except maybe not so paisley. Or so polyester.

Oh, the comfort. The breeziness.


*not my real hair, not my beads, so not my sunnies and god knows how many people had worn that Kaftan from the hire shop before me without it being washed. blurgh.

Teams and the Saturday Sport Vortex

If your son is more of a one-to-one kind of guy and not that much into groups of people should you insist that he plays a team sport? Do you get sucked into the vortex that is Saturday sport? Because it seems like a vortex when your child just isn't as interested as the other kids; and the other kids (and their parents) all seem so "Gung-Ho" by comparison.

Our Padawan Learner loves to kick the footy, pass the rugger ball and hit tennis balls up against the wall. At home. With Dad. That's cool. He has always said he wants to be a scientist and a Wallaby* when he grows up.

He likes going to training because they play lots of fun games and the canteen sells sausage rolls. But he just hates the games on a Saturday. He doesn't like the competition, the rules, the overwhelming number of kids. When all the other kids are grappling for the ball he's staring into space down the other end of the field.

So why do we do it? Why did we register him for the U8s Junior Rugby (union) today? I guess we just think that, one day, if he ever decided to give it a real go he'll at least know what to do and where to line up. And maybe, just maybe, he'll learn a thing or two about being part of a team.



*Aussie Rugby Union team