It is probably an act of protest - seeing that all the words she has employed haven't really worked. It's 8pm, and the cooking of dinner is in process. As I ask her to remove herself from the computer (where she has sat in a huff all day) and set the table, I realise that she is still in her pyjamas! Still.. not showered and changed. STILL! (No, I didn't pay much attention to her today!!)

Mind you, this final act of protest has stung less than the accusations that only a 14 year old can fling. Seems we have scarred the poor girl for life because we aren't doing anything on New Year's Eve. Seems that last year we sent them to bed before midnight, and OMG! She doesn't want to have such a rotten NYE again. They want to be 'crazy' and stay up till midnight... *sob sob*

Mind you, her first line of attack was to ask if she could go into town to the Jetty Carnival with friends. Whoa there! Quantum leap from what you've been allowed to do so far without supervision - and.. so... no. Not New Year's Eve. With drunk people around. Etc.

So, why couldn't we invite people around? You need other people to be able to run around crazy with...

Well.. there's the problem of the house that looks like a disaster zone, and if you want visitors then you need to pitch in and help with some cleaning up.

Which? Hasn't happened.

And, sorry, I felt too crook yesterday to even think about preparing for visitors.

And so we are the worst, most boring parents a 14 year old could ever be saddled with....

Sorry about that kid.

So it's the fireworks on telly.. and if you don't annoy us too much you can stay up and watch the midnight ones.

Ah yeah.. well.... HAPP-Y NEW YEAR then, everyone. Hope yours is more exciting than ours!

Labels: kids, parenting

What isn't worth it? Playing russian roulette with wine, that's what. The 'bullet or not' is the wine quality - and the catch is that I haven't yet worked out where - for me - the line is between being able to enjoy a glass (or two, or at the very most three) with no consequences, or feeling like total crap the next day.

You might guess from the tone of this post that I have felt like crap most of the day.

Perhaps it was the new style wine packaging - the 'brique' - which I decided was worth trying. (I'd heard about it on the radio - environmentally the future of wine packaging - but I can find stuff all about it on the net)... Perhaps it was just the fact that it was under $10. Perhaps it was the glass of Shiraz Rosé I had after maybe two glasses of the dry white...

All I know is that I woke a couple of times in the night with a headache, and woke up still with the damn headache, which then invited along a touch of nauseousness to the pseudo- migraine party it had with me for most of the rest of the day.

Which is crap. On top of feeling like crap, you feel worse because you realise it is self-inflicted. And because it's wasted a day. And because the husband can't hide being pissed off that the day is wasted, and you are in no state to go for a bike ride, or contribute to making dinner... And because neither he or the kids (naturally) have experienced post-wine headaches like this, they don't comprehend the difference between what you can do and what you can't. (ie. holding head still-ish = bearable; moving around = not bearable. And going back to sleep = not useful when you've had 9-10 hours sleep AND woken up with the frigging headache in the first place.)

You'd think I'd give it up. Wouldn't you. And I probably will this time.

Until I forget.

Labels: sick

We went away on Boxing Day for two nights to visit family.. and are back again today having a very slothful day, but that's ok, because IT'S HOLIDAYS! and we need the sloth time in between the visiting. Worth the 4 hour each way drive which will be duplicated (plus some) in less than a week.

What's important is that "I" survived christmas with the least amount of stress possible - although the cleaning I didn't do still has to be done, and no elves or pixies helped me out in that respect. And there is still more family to visit - thus more packing. (And present buying issues to deal with) Etc. Perhaps we are just prolonging the agony.

But a 'just us' christmas day had much to recommend it. No frantic cleaning. (I keep mentioning cleaning and stress in the same sentence don't I!) No visitors to prepare for. No relatives to pander to or endure. No need to hurry out of bed to get anything done.

I was woken at around 7.10 by the sounds of "Oh cool" coming from the unwrapping of Santa pressies - this year just the floor below us, because I'd banned the christmas tree from blocking the sea breeze through the window in the lounge room downstairs. (There is an open staircase leading to our room - so you can hear what's going on in the playroom quite conveniently - at times (and quite inconveniently and in reverse at others, but anyway..).. The girls had agreed on the civilised time of 7am to open presents, but I think there was some waiting endured by at least two of them who would have been awake with the sun!

The louder of the accolades that woke me were from the 14 year old - so obviously Santa has still got it.

I lay in bed and strained to hear the other reactions, but it was difficult through the sounds of the birds outside (and scratching on the tin roof!) But all seemed pretty happy. They then all traipsed upstairs to display their loot all over our bed, and we oohed and aahed over their acquisitions. Marc at least didn't have to do any acting!

They seemed to appreciate the new soft-top surfboard for all three.. and also the new computer chair (though we have discovered today that I will need to take it back because the seat slopes forward and doesn't adjust. This is what happens when you buy things in the still stressful lead up to xmas day.)

I wasn't forgotten - they did buy me presents! A 'saddle bag'/rack bag/trunk bag for my road bike plus a rearview mirror to attach to my bike glasses. And a mug, which handily replaces the one I accidentally smashed on christmas eve! And a new mouse pad which handily replaces the one I drenched in coffee in the aforementioned coffee cup accident. They got me one with a gel wrist thingy - given my RSI type- no doubt mouse-associated wrist complaints - which is taking some getting used to but is probably better for me.

Then breakfast, and then the beach - just a short stroll from our place - which no doubt I have mentioned before!

For lunch we all bogged in doing a bit to prepare. Cold prawns, and some salt & peppered (and floured) calamari on the bbq. A couple of salads, some cold chicken (roasted the day before) and ham off the bone. All pretty much a toned down version of what many Aussie families have for christmas these days. I think the excuse to buy a leg of ham is one reason why Marc still likes to do the special christmas lunch, even when it's just the five of us. (It's very nice, but I will probably be heartily sick of it by the time we finish it! - but the substance of Aussie christmas fare and the 'leftovers' phenomenon is a topic I might explore separately in another post. Sometime! Except that very soon I won't have to think about christmas for another year!)

By 4.30 it was back down the beach again... and we followed that with a very casual help-yourself-to-whatever-leftovers-you-feel-like for dinner. And put off even thinking about packing for our two-night trip away until the morning.

The highlights package:
















<

Labels: beach, Christmas

And best wishes to all as we LEAP into a new year!

We have had a very relaxing day. Two swims down at the beach.. and a nice lunch in the middle.



Hope you've had a good day too.

Labels: Christmas

It's been an emotional week.

There's the Christmas lead-up, of course, and I am going through much inner and outer turmoil as I try to manage the raging conflict I have over it. That would take me another post and a half to explain how stressed I am over trying to de-stress the whole damn thing. It is only significant here in that everything contributes (including the inevitable and ever-present out-of-whack hormones) to this gooey, blubbery mess you see before you.

There was the primary school presentation on Monday of course, with the highest academic accolade going to a second daughter! I did have to blink away a few tears, even though I knew she was in line to get it.

(Then there were the rollercoaster emotions over the eldest daughter... but I'm on a fairly even keel with that now. Sort of.)

After school on Monday Alison and I did a frantic 'Eleventh Hour' shop to buy a dress for her Yr 6 Farewell... the dress code was "good casual" ... but it had to be the 'right' dress, and the one eventually bought on the weekend after some other dramas had produced tears once we were home, because it wasn't the right dress. At 5.25, just as the shop was shutting we found The One (though I had to get ribbons sewn on as straps the next day!)

On Tuesday at school they had their 'graduation' assembly. It was a fairly casual affair, with a slideshow of photos from their year (mostly of their recent Sydney excursion).. and then a trot across the stage to each receive a certificate folder.

But then the two Year 6 classes stood and sang "Forever Young", and the tissues were coming out all over the place. I was fine until I saw a friend's mum dabbing her eyes, then I too succumbed. That trick of sticking your tongue on the roof of your mouth? It only partly works. It was straight on with the sunnies as we spilled out into daylight, and round to our 'kids' for more kisses and hugs.

And I have been a blithering mess ever since - whenever I even think of the damn song. Perhaps the lyrics aren't quite applicable.. yet they are. And even though it's my middle child reaching a milestone in her life - moving on from primary school to high school (so I've been there before, and I'll be there again) I can't stop the tears from welling up.

She is bright, smart, clever... tough, yet fragile. Capable, yet infuriating at times! And the one minute you are full of hopes and wonder at her future.. and just so excited for her to be going off to high school - and the next you want to just freeze this moment forever.

And look at her - she's just gorgeous.

And here I go with the tears again:

Labels: kids, parenting

I am ashamed to admit it.. but I left the high school presentation after reading the programme and realising that for the first time since starting high school, #1 wasn't actually receiving any academic or merit award for her year. She was receiving a 'Thank You' award for -after being invited to do so - helping a Year 10 student with a disability in her exams, as a sort of 'scribe'. (For which she missed a lot of her own classes...) This is all well and good... and it was an honour to be asked to do it.. but...

What kind of a parent am I? A disappointed one, that's what. (One who couldn't face sitting through a 2 hour presentation gig when she was stewing.) Thing is, she herself actually assumed that she'd be getting an academic award. Again. As usual. "Meh, Mum, you don't really need to come.. I mean, I get these twice a year..." (Or maybe she knew she wasn't and didn't want to say anything.) She was always in the group that got both 5 or more Merit and Academic awards. And suddenly? *pouf*... None.

I have railed on here about our travails with her Maths Attitude... and the agonising over how to deal with it. I've queried with her the apparent lack of homework being done at home, and got 'Get off My Back" and "I do it when you don't see me" in return. Not wanting to push too hard, but at the same time not wanting her to be a lazy cow, and waste her ability, it's been a tightrope from which I've slipped repeatedly...

She has basically just slid on the grease of being naturally bright... She had a good ride in the little pond of primary school, culminating in a run up to getting Dux. She even got a dream run through the first couple of years of the big pond that is high school, putting little or no effort into it.. and coming away with easy high grades. But now she's run out of grease. Suddenly she's actually got to do some work... and I wonder whether she even knows how to do it...

I know only too well how your 'star' can burn out.... Mine got me through to the end of Year 12, then fizzled and spluttered (through lack of a goal more than anything else.) Academic performance isn't everything... but making an effort and "doing your best" is what I'm sure every parent hopes for their child.

Whether next year she chooses to pull her finger out and make the most of high school is up to her... The only thing we can do as parents is to tighten things up a bit. Not the least of which will be some changes made to the previous free rein she had with the computer and TV.

This parenting gig is a tough one sometimes...

"Does this count as a special occasion?" asks Ms 12.

The kid has just got Dux of her primary school, plus picked up Senior Girls Swimming Champion and a Distinction award. Ms 9, in Year 3, got a Academic Achievement Award and a special Library award.

So the first thing asked of us when the Presentation has finished and we go over for the 'I'm very proud of you' hugs and kisses is whether it qualifies for the official family "special occasion" soft drink-for-dinner celebration !!

I think so!

(Second thing she said was 'Should I be glad you don't wear lipstick?'... as I planted kiss upon kiss on her cheeks...)

So perhaps I should find something a bit more special than a mere bottle of raspberry lemonade! #1 is also receiving something - again - (got a letter advising us of such) at her high school presentation tomorrow.

Yes, two pretty chuffed parents here... and if I can't brag about it on my blog, where can I?!

Somehow, amidst the chaos that is this house, we are raising three pretty bright cookies. An accident of genetics, perhaps? Or a gong for chaotic parenting. All three so far, have been collecting academic achievement awards all through school. (I confess... their Dad got Dux of his primary school... and Nana (paternal grandmother) got Dux of her junior high school (before having to leave at age 15) so you don't need three guesses as to the source of the dominant gene!)

No pressure on #3 either... with #1 getting Dux of the same primary school three years earlier. I am glad for her sake that she has also been achieving academically from the beginning. Even though we would never put pressure on her, following in the shoes of two big sisters getting the peak academic award of their primary school is pretty daunting stuff.

I'm also aware (from my own experience... where I was always the 'bridesmaid and never the bride' but achieving near the top of my year all through school) that academic stuff isn't the be all and end all. (Just look at what I have achieved 'academically' with the rest of my life.... NOT.)

But meantime, champagne and fizzy drink and cake and chocolate just might be the order of the day... or even the week.

(And maybe we just might head out for a celebratory dinner tonight!)

Labels: kids

Ms 12. Your mission, should you choose to accept it, is to find out whether Ms 9 believes in Santa.


Ms 12's report of her findings - ie. her brief but direct conversation with the target - is as follows:




Ms 12: "Hey Zoe, do you believe in Santa?" (really subtle undercover work there Ali....)

Ms 9: "Yep! Other kids say it's your parents, but I know that's not possible... Mum and Dad couldn't possibly afford to buy all that stuff."

Labels: Christmas

I'm not one prone to superlatives, but..actually... I had a bloody good weekend.

Even by Saturday afternoon things were going swimmingly. When I was paying for my petrol at the servo late in the day, the 'kid' serving me asked "Have you had a good day?" I tend to think this is a funny trend in cashier pleasantries - (I even got asked what I'd been up to one day, and you don't really know how to answer such a question from a complete stranger some 20 odd years younger...) but the question on Saturday afternoon did make me stop and think.

I paused, and then said "Well, yes thanks, I've actually had a really good day! A bike ride and two swims down at the beach. Can't ask for much more than that!"

Marc and I got up early and rode to town to the usual Community Ride... and then kicked back for two hours (longer than usual) over coffee just chatting, before a pretty warm ride home (to total 77km ridden before 11.00.) Social fitness. It works.

So then we all went down to the beach - just what Marc and I needed to wash away the sweat, and the girls don't need to be asked twice. The waves were great - just perfect for bodysurfing and boogie boarding. And then in the afternoon we had a cycling friend visit with her daughter, so we dragged them down for a swim at the beach later in the afternoon. Two surfs in one day!

Marc is pretty good at bodysurfing, and he is very much a bodysurfing purist. No fins, or hand planes, or any other such equipment. He still amazes me at how far he can catch a wave into the beach. Caitlin has mastered the art quite well now, too, and in the last few years (with baby/toddler/child supervision duties winding back) I've been able to get out in the water at the same time as him, and he's been able to give me some lessons. Given the right conditions, I can now do a pretty decent job of catching waves in myself, and so it's all high fives, thumbs up, and big grins all round when I swim onto a wave and ride it a decent way in. (Right now I'm working on being able to take a breath and then keep going.)

And when I (occasionally still) freak out at the size of a set of waves rolling in, my 14 year old gives me advice!! "Come out further Mum.. before it breaks." ... "Dive deeper and touch the sand."

Alison still takes her boogie board out, and much of the time is able to put herself on waves, riding all the way into shore. And this year Zoe (now with an ongoing relationship with her boogie board) has floored us all with the request "Dad, can you take me out the back?" This is monumental stuff for our little miss Chicken - there's no two ways about it, Zoe, out of the three, and compared to her peers, has always been a complete wuss with the surf. I think she took brave pills this year, but it's a hoot to see her face as Marc shoots her onto a wave, and she careers down the face of it, and zooms all the way into shore.

So now it's more or less a family affair out there. )Even if I still wonder 'who are you and what have you done with our Zoe?') And when we only have to stroll a couple of hundred metres from our house to do this, we wonder why you'd ever want to live anywhere else! I am also acutely aware and thankful that things have changed so much this year. Marc is home pretty much every weekend now, and so we get to do this sort of stuff, together, on a regular basis.

~~~~
Sunday we decided we should go tandem riding, as this friend had made a big effort to fit her tandem in the back of her car (somehow!) and bring it down from Armidale. We chose a shortish loop ride near Coffs that we hadn't ridden before. We heard there might be some waterholes to swim in out that way, so we crossed fingers, packed our swimmers, and set off.

We struck gold...

Labels: bike riding, daily

Zoe returned from her one-night rainforest education centre excursion, and bravely showed me the blood on her sock from a leech. (They had a bit of rain up there, which of course brings the leeches out more.) You learn something everyday, you know. Apparently one feed of blood can last a leech 18 months - she figured the one that the teacher got off her looked like he could go twice that! But I gather she didn't cry, just asked the teacher to get it off for her, and was, unusually, more concerned about the state of her clothes.

"Will you be able to get the blood out of my sock, Mum?"

I was impressed that she handled this little interaction with nature so well. I've known adults to scream hysterically when they got a leech on them.

But then, the bubble burst. "I've got a spider on my leg!" she cried, as she came downstairs after getting changed into shorts, and showing me this little creature attached to the outside of her upper thigh.

Not a spider, I informed her. A tick.

That shattered her. Suddenly it was very very itchy, and one tired and emotional post-camp girl couldn't hold back the tears, even when I successfully removed it using, for the first time, a special tick removing tool (like a tiny plastic crowbar) that I'd bought some time ago from the vets!! She was too fragile then to go to her tennis lesson - (Woe is me.. it's sooo itchy!!!!) and we would have been late by then anyway - so I went the TV Distraction route for my poor tired and emotional girl. (It has left an area of red, and itched like crazy yesterday, but this morning it has finally eased a bit, and she went off to school without asking for bite cream. I hope she hasn't had a bad day with it.)

Meantime, same day, Cait had come home from school holding one eye gingerly closed. At sport she'd copped a kicked basketball (yep..kicked) in the eye as she was bending down to retrieve another ball. More dust and dirt than anything; she'd had no warning and not closed her eye. A shower to rinse her eye out fixed that up. But she also had to wash out some gunk that some guy in her year put in her hair. (A Year 9, boy to girl term of endearment perhaps?)

Marc had been out in the field for work that day, and he got stung three times on the face by a wasp. (Or three wasps..who knows.) Lucky he is not allergic, but it hurt like hell at the time, apparently.

Later that night at Touch, just after he made the pass for a teammate to make the winning try, he kept running and went over on his ankle on the edge of the cricket pitch that bordered the end of the touch field, taking out a couple of big blokes standing facing the other way, one of whom subsequently fell on him, sandwiching his head between one of them and the concrete pitch. (He did the ice, and strapping thing that night - on the ankle, not the head - and then went bike riding Thursday morning. Funny how his ankle was a bit sore after that, but I don't think it's too serious. Mind you I don't think the bang to the head has knocked any more sense into him.)

And to include one more family member into the mix, I'd spoken to Alison on Tuesday night, away on her school excursion in Sydney, and she told me that she'd thrown up in the bus on the way down on Monday! She never gets car or bus sick! Most of it was in the aisle, she said. Errrr yuk. God, I pity the poor teacher who had to help her clean it up. (Yet she wouldn't take the car sick tablets I got my Mum to buy on her way to meeting up with her at their Darling Harbour food hall dinner last night. Which I found out about later. Which she will get an earful for when she gets home tonight, because WHY WOULDN'T YOU JUST TAKE A DAMN TABLET IN CASE IT HAPPENS AGAIN INSTEAD OF BEING SURE IT WAS ''JUST A ONE OFF'' ?)

Maybe it's a good thing I didn't go out riding on Wednesday!

~~~~~~
* Not my photos.. stolen as usual from a google image search.

Labels: daily, wtf

So much for my "Fortune favours those willing to get a bit wet." I had big plans for today, but I've wussed out of them because I might have got a bit damp.

It was opportunity time. Overnight I was minus two kids! - though not in the way that Jeanie suggested in last post's comments. Ms 12 is away Monday to Friday on her Year 6 Sydney excursion. Ms 9 was away last night for her Year 3, and first, overnight excursion! Woo hoo!

While the kittens were away, you'd think Mummy and Daddy Mouse might play, but there was still the remaining issue of Ms 14, the fact that He and She played netball till 7.30, and I had committed to clubhouse patrol. And then home, make dinner.. watch an interesting show on the tv about the homing pigeons in WW2, meh...

But! A group of BUG (Bicycle User Group) peoples were doing a long ride today, starting at 7 am. I realised that I was free from my usual SAHM duties for this one morning - yee ha! Ms 14 can look after herself, and so I could, guilt-free, just get up and go.

I was really looking forward to this.

So, of course, there is rain. Had one of the riders who lives the other side of town not rung to say it was raining where she lived, I might not have got up and checked the radar. There was clear sky to my east (and a rainbow to the west!)

But the radar showed LOTS of rain to the west. Coming this way, but it looked to me like it might dissipate nearer the coast. She rang me back, had discussed with others and they were going.

I got into my bike gear, and was nearly on my way, when Marc came down and looked at the radar. "It will definitely rain" said he, of greater meterological understanding than me.

So I piked.

I even went back to bed.

Main excuse was 'time of month', and not wanting wet bike nix... if you know what I mean... BUT.

Look at what the rain is doing. It's missing the area they are riding in. (which I've marked with a circle.)




And so now I am going to spend the rest of the day beating myself up about it.

Labels: grrrrr

<---- [well, we have colourful money at any rate... let's just ignore the fact that christmas spending tends to be more "fantastic plastic" than handing over the cold hard cash..]

This is the next instalment (of several brewing!) on Why I think Christmas is Crazy.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
So today I finally got into the shops in order to spend money just for the hell of it. Because I SHOULD. Because I am supposed to. Don't get me wrong, I'm pretty good at parting with the old cashola, AND I love to buy my family things. My gripe is that every year at this time I feel railroaded into a buying frenzy for a time frame that just doesn't work for me. I am much more the spontaneous present purchaser, and if I've found something just right for someone, I don't see the point of hoarding it till Christmas - not when they could be using, or enjoying it, in the meantime.

This year it just feels even more wrong, and I am verging on the melancholy about it.

Today I wandered determinedly (if that's possible to do) around the shops (specifically on behalf of Santa) trying to find this and that for the girls, and so as to obtain enough items that, wrapped, will look like Santa has 'rewarded' them for being good girls all year...??

Each year the whole scenario just strikes me as more and more ridiculous - and not only because of the extreme variation between families in what "Santa" leaves the kids.

It would help if the youngest wasn't so.. "young".. if you get my drift. For once her sisters have no incentive to wish her "older" and on a par with them in the way she is treated. Never mind that they think she should be matching them in other family and personal tasks expected of them. They know all too well what happens in other families once the youngest is "old enough", and they are not going to do a thing to hasten that (Christmas) day. (I could have sworn they'd figured it out before they were 9!!)

Most years they get some clothes - but it is getting harder and harder to buy garments of their choice (that will fit them) - and I always feel kind of bad about doing that anyway. If it's something they really need (like new pjs) then why wouldn't I buy it for them anyway. And if it's stuff they don't need - then do they need it anyway?

Most years they get books - but again, it is harder and harder to keep up with what they would like.

Most years they get a dvd each - but more often than not they don't get round to watching it! (Santa seems to bomb out quite frequently on choice.)

More often than not I will be on a roll with finding the 'right' stuff for one of them - and so then it is a matching game of finding equitable goodies for the other two.

Most years I like to find at least one 'Wow, this is so cool!' present, but even that is a hard one this time round. Not one for each of them. I'm devoid of inspiration!

Their rooms and the playroom are full of STUFF - to the point that I don't think we need more STUFF in the house. Lots of that STUFF is STUFF that they've been given in the past, and never used or played with. (Not necessarily by me, or Santa... the innocent birthday party is also to blame for filling our house with unwanted junk!) Yes, yes, we should have had a clean out, but again, there is something inherently dodgy about the idea of throwing out crap just to make room for more crap.

Naturally, today, I found a few perfect things, mostly for just one of them. The challenge now is to come up with a similar amount and type of things for the other two.

There's got to be an easier way !!

And while you're at it, why not claim half of November as well. Let's just change the bloody calendar, shall we? I mean ... Santa arriving at a shopping centre in a surf life saving boat, and kids waving and calling out "Merry Christmas" on the 24th November... ??!!

People.. please... get a grip!

Do we really need...

... Christmas in November - as well as all through December??

...TEN percent of our year taken over by the Christmas theme? Shops basically full of trinketty crap. **

... shopping centres chock full of people wandering around with huge parcels and getting in your way? For six weeks! - with the last few days where you need to don battle gear to just get through the supermarket to buy the basics.

... people asking you on the 30th November if you've finished your christmas shopping, and looking askance when you tell them you haven't bought a thing yet... (and that frankly, since we've bought a lot of stuff that we've used to enhance and enrich our lives throughout the year, it's really pretty stupid to rush out and buy everybody more stuff 'just because'.)

Can the 25th December be anything but an anticlimax with a six week lead up of "Christmas Cheer"? (Christmas "ready to strangle someone"...)

I need a new drug. One that will get me through this madness each year. That or a brave pill that might give me the guts to buck the system and opt out completely.

~~
* Photo nicked from here.

** Maybe if we cancelled christmas and all the associated throw-away crap that is manufactured we'd reduce our carbon emissions to a level which reverses global warming in the space of a year... AND if we all donated ALL the money we spent on Christmas rubbish to global aid in developing countries.. wouldn't the world be a better place?

Labels: Christmas