Born in a tent?

Because of leaving the back door open, there are three flies in the study and a pigeon in the kitchen. That is the second pigeon this week, and it is only the beginning of the flies.

Once inside, both flies and pigeons are difficult to remove.

Also – and really, you’d think I’d know better – never miss the meeting when the tasks are being handed out.

A patriotic family

The most mature of the fruits of my loins knows the second (and the first) verse of Our National Anthem. I’ve just watched him singing it this morning at school.

AND HE HAD HIS HAND ON THE GENERAL AREA OF HIS FRIGGING HEART.

Also, his jeans were falling down just a tiny bit, because I forgot to get him to do the bounce test (do these stay up my love? bounce, bounce yeah, these will be fine) after he put them on and before we left home. Anyhoo, details.

He seems to have learnt it (the national anthem) the traditional way – by his teachers at school – whereas I learnt it because my mother liked a bit of a sing after she had a brandy or two. Or three. That’s when I learnt all my best stuff.

book week dress-ups

‘It could be as simple as a sarong over their clothes’. The notice about the book week parade (suggested focus: our Asian neighbours) is probably intended to reassure. And if ‘Asian dress-ups’ stretch you too far, then any fairy tale or book character will be welcome.

So, you could take this opportunity to help your child think of something interesting and imaginative to wear. Perhaps you could use some of the many hundreds of bits of paper now strewn across the floor of the car. They had lots of things about our Asian neighbours written and drawn on them.

Or, when you are in the market buying the ingredients for your father’s Birthday Feast, you could just pop into Chinatown and spend five bucks on a stereotype.


Then, the next morning, when your little boy decides he doesn’t want to go as Chinese, but would prefer to go as the long-time favourite super-rabbit


you cajole him into wearing the stereotype hat you spent five bucks on (there’s no rabbits in Asia you lie), because while you trust that you have raised a resilient, independent-thinking child who won’t be crushed by big boys dressed as Jack Sparrow chanting some rhyming equivalent of ‘you’re wearing pink, fluffy bunny ears there’s nothing super about that’, you aren’t ready to have that trust tested in the battleground that is the school yard. And there’s nothing wrong with that really, is there, because it is a mother’s job to protect her child. You can use that mother-love idea to justify just about anything.

So, in the great race to raise children free of stereotyped and laden thought patterns – thus taking advantage of her real chance to make a true and a great contribution to lasting change, because let’s face it sitting on stalls and stuffing envelopes hasn’t been especially effective, has it – she has stumbled at the first, second and third hurdles. And fallen flat on her arse at the fourth.

She closes her eyes for a moment, wallowing in the liberation that failure brings. Then she picks herself up, dusts herself off, sighs and stuffs another 500 envelopes.

beta blogger

Now with more ways to procrastinate…should my titles be this shade of pink, or should I go for something a little more mauve. Apparently, green would match this colour scheme, but I’m not so sure.

And this is why I will never, ever, not never do a renovation, because you have to start to care about such things (exactly which shade for the bathroom tiles), and in renovations it all costs money too.

Of course

I’m doing that beta blogger thing and I’ve lost my sidebar. It wasn’t much really, and it had lost its witty edge, but I did kind of like it. Plus, it took hours to do all those links to my favorite blogs.

Did I back up my old template? No, of course I didn’t.

Cool to have labels but.

Memories

Today, my littlest boy had his first day at pre-entry which is the thing you do in the term before you start pre-school (kindergarten). And so, I spent the day reflecting on how different my life will soon be, and how very sad I am that I won’t be having any more children, and particularly won’t be having any more babies, and I was thinking how much I love babies and what an excellent baby-mother I am (not too good on the three-year-olds, but ace with babies), and how wonderful the days alone in hospital with my littlest baby were…

And then I remembered the strangest thing.

The extra sheet that they put on top of your normal sheet in your hospital bed (to collect seeping blood and other associated muck) is called a kylie. The nurses say such things to each other as ‘did you bring the kylie’ or ‘oh, do you think you can sit up while I just change your kylie’.

And being of the era when kylie could very easily have been my name, and also having a Best Friend at school with that name, I do think someone should have put more effort into that name.

Controller

School Governing Council minutes: done.

Washing status: incomplete but in control.

And my bedside book pile, has recently been augmented by a nice big stack of mags courtesy of the recent house guests. I can, therefore, report on the:

Acquisition of new knowledge:
‘If you put on weight all over, like Kelly Osbourne does, you could be a classic C-type. “These types are either very short or very tall,” Dr Walker says. “They don’t tend to be of average height, and they tend to have round heads and young faces. When they put on weight, they tend to put it on everywhere.”

Major craving: Dairy products. “A C-type is much better off on a higher-protein, high-fat, low-carb and lower-dairy diet,” he says.’

Best workout: Cardiovascular/aerobics with muscle conditioning.
Source: Woman’s Day: June 26, 2006, p. 73
(it’s the one with Katie’s wedding diet battle, pregnant Nicole’s wedding drama, Shannon’s new baby joy Heather Mills’ skinny crisis plus her new divorce scandal, and the exclusive Kerry Whelan’s hubby begs ‘tell me where my wife is’ on the front cover)