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)

At the movies

‘You know, if there were a situation when we might bump into each other, I reckon I’m the kind of person James Spader might possibly be able to love and marry and live with happily ever after,’ she said.

She looked into the lolly bag. He had chosen all of his favourites – bananas, bullets, milkshakes – and none of hers – chicos, freckles, sherbs. It was true that when he had asked do you want any lollies she had said no. But still.

‘Yes, you are,’ he said, holding tightly to the bottom of the bag.

‘So do you reckon, if James Spader did happen to be in Adelaide right now, and he did happen to come to this movie, and he did happen to fall in love with me, do you reckon I’d go home with him?’

‘No,’ he said, reaching past her indecision and grabbing a banana for himself. She thought of making a joke about the price of bananas. Are lolly bananas expensive? she thought of asking. But the bananas weren’t worth the joke anymore. And anyway, this was the movies. Of course the bananas were expensive. Six bucks for a drink and a couple of lollies, and that’s on top of the fifteen dollars each to get in, because their membership had expired not long after their first child was born.

‘Really? You really think no?’ she asked. She looked at him, and when he looked at her, she did not have to look away.

He bit the banana in half before he spoke. ‘No, you’d still be going home in a metallic-coloured station-wagon.’ He put the other half of the banana in his gob.

She looked back into the bag, decided on a milkshake and pulled it out.

‘They never used to be square,’ she said. ‘They’re supposed to be cylindrical.’

‘They’re the imitations,’ he said. He scratched his cheek. ‘The pretenders to the throne.’

She unwrapped it. There was less wax on the paper these days. She put it in her mouth, chewed.

‘Tastes the same,’ she said.

‘Yeah, and they still get stuck in your teeth,’ he said.

And then the usher opened the door, and they said thank you to him as they walked in.

Thursday afternoon

Here’s what I wanted to do today:
Write first draft of synopsis of first (unfinished) draft of new big writing project for submission to the September round of project assistance grants which would probably not be successful this round, but would at least help me to focus myself and clarify thoughts and provide pivot for further developing my ideas.

Here’s what I could be doing which wouldn’t be achieving the Most Important Thing, but would at least be productive:
Typing up minutes of school council meeting for distribution as promised.
Hanging out washing that has just finished.
Folding clean, dry washing.
Bringing in dry washing from the line.
Tidying, then cleaning, desk which is such a mess it is getting me down.
Thinking about tea, because there are house guests who will want feeding at some point.
Writing interesting blog post about family holidays or about rotten things in my fridge.
Cleaning fridge.
Defrosting freezer.
Sending proposal of Very Good Idea for an article to an editor who will ignore my email.
Ringing The Mister to apologise for being a bit grumpy on the phone earlier on, then explain why I am feeling a bit grumpy, thus making him feel slightly bad for forgetting once again, thus regaining the upper hand and the power to choose where we will dine tomorrow evening and which movie we will see this evening while house guests care for children.
Unpicking the toes of the socks, find out how to do proper socks, then finish socks, then deliver to friend.
Ringing Grandfather to ask how he is getting on.
Reading a book.
Gathering information about internet censorship and China and contacting people who might be interested in campaigning on said issue.
Similarly, gathering information about child soldiers and contacting people who might be interested in campaigning on said issue.
Going for a walk, thus gathering ideas and momentum, improving health, the chances of losing a bit of the red wine pudge and well-being.
Organising father’s birthday present.
Playing the piano.
Finishing essay which someone is interested in.
Studying more about organisational diversity.
Phoning a friend to moan about pathetic life.
and so on…

Here’s what I am doing:
Hitting refresh on bloglines every five minutes, listening to Days of our Lives and getting pissed off with myself whenever I look at the time