sentimental me

It’s been a sentimental year really. My Mum’s house burnt down in February. She was lucky to get out alive. She had taken a sleeping tablet before bed as there was a raging storm outside. Lightning hit the house in the middle of the night and followed the electricity lines into the kitchen and set […]

pull-ups, not put-downs

In her 1995 Boyer Lecture titled “A Truly Civil Society”, Dr Eva Cox, an Australian sociologist and social commentator, said that our homes are the most toxic places for our children. She said that it was an indictment on our society that children are safer with kind strangers in early childhood services and schools than they […]

kid’s skills

My youngest boy is the kind of kid who develops habits. He has had a habit of sniffing for a while now. It started with a bout of severe hayfever. I cleared up the hayfever by removing all yeast from his diet (bread, crackers, flavoured crisps, sultanas – yeast is in a lot of foods). He is […]

pedlars parade and conscientious shopping

Our school holds a Pedlars Parade every year, the day before the Easter break. It is probably the biggest event and fundraiser of the year. The children go to school in costume and bring a tray of wares to sell at school in a recreation of a market. My eldest boy was a viking selling […]

weird dinners

Anyone else do weird dinners? My husband is a great cook, he understands the science of cooking. I am more of an assembler. I hate cooking, mainly because I don’t understand it. I took technical drawing at high school instead of home economics, because I hated that girls and boys, but mostly girls, were herded into gender stereotyped […]

soccerday

Saturday is now officially Soccerday.

more talk about friendship, and taking a fall

The discussion continued this week on friendship. My eldest boy is starting to reflect on what “good friends” say and do. He noticed that he had what looked like a bite, fang marks, on his hand. It did look like a bite but there was no redness, swelling, or pain. He mentioned it to the […]

it’s been a hard week

♥ Lots of lessons learnt and dispensed this week. We have always told our boys “friends come and go, but brothers are forever”. I had two brothers growing up and we did everything together. We learnt how to play by playing together, and we learnt how to fight by fighting with each other. Forgiveness was an […]

the benefits of being busy

From March to August, Saturday is renamed Soccerday at our place. At the moment, it’s soccer trials for the two older boys. All three are playing this year. My boys are busy. One early morning for school band practice. Shaolin kungfu one afternoon. After school care one afternoon. Over to friends’ after school one to […]

pug awakenings and arrival of the sock monster

It has always been difficult getting the boys up for school. They like to squeeze so much life into the day that they are reluctant to go to bed, and thus the bookends of our day are tricky. I have been guilty of letting them continue their play way past bedtime on many occasions because they are […]