Sundays in My City - Sydney Aquarium

Hosted by Unknown Mami

We had a slow start today, a late brunch and kids who didn't really want to leave the house. Adam persuaded us into dragging ourselves out to the car and off to the city despite the grey skies and rain. It's kind of handy that I married him, if we had to rely on me for family outings we'd probably never go anywhere.

We settled on going to Sydney Aquarium

where it turned out they had a Lego exhibition happening

along with plenty of fish

more Lego

turtles

scary Lego

slightly tacky Lego

completely adorable dugongs

and of course, sharks of various kinds

Across the other side of Darling Harbour is the National Maritime Museum which is currently home to the replica of The Endeavour, on which Adam is booked to sail as a crew member on one of the legs of its upcoming circumnavigation of Australia. Adam will join the ship in Brisbane in May and sail with them to Gladstone.

The Endeavour

I gather there will be hammocks and being on watch and having to learn the ropes involved. If there is any climbing of rigging I do not want to know about it.

Don't forget to visit Unknown Mami's place for a glimpse of Sundays all over the world!

Bullying sucks

Every so often one of those Facebook status spams annoys me enough that I can't keep ignoring it. Tonight's gripe comes to you courtesy of the spate of anti-bullying sentiment doing the rounds in response to the video of a bullied kid lashing out at his tormentor.

Here's the status spam in question:

The girl you just called fat, she is starving herself and has lost over 15kgs. The boy you just called stupid, he has a learning disability and studies over 4hrs a night. The girl you just called ugly, she spends hours in the mirror putting on makeup hoping people will like her. The boy you just tripped, is abused enough at home. There is more to people than you think. Put this as your status if you're against bullying.

This makes me really uncomfortable because there's an implication that it's the acts of losing weight, of studying many hours, of trying to fit the beauty ideal and of being already abused that make it not ok to bully these people.

No, no, no, a thousand times no. 

It's not ok to bully anyone irrespective of whether they perform conformity or whether they have an otherwise happy existence and it disturbs me to see something like this being posted and reposted without any questioning of the assumptions that lie behind the argument.

We need to do much, much better than this.

When needs must

This evening Caitlin, Tom and I were sitting on the 2 seater lounge together watching TV (Adam Hills in Gordon Street Tonight), Adam was sitting on the other lounge, the 3 seater one, all by himself.

Clara began by walking restlessly around the lounge room, she barked at invisible people in the cul-de-sac and was yelled at to keep quiet, she looked pathetically at the kids, she stood in front of Adam and growled pointedly. He offered her the rest of the lounge on which he was sitting but apparently his growl translation circuit was broken, that wasn't what she wanted. I can only presume she was trying to get him to evict the kids for her because when I said to her "Do you want to get up here?" this is what happened.

I ended up with a great gangling lump of a dog on my lap.

And then I got kisses.

Mmm, tasty!

And we settled in to watch the rest of the show.

She looks a bit peeved doesn't she? Clearly she feels that the kids have no right to be usurping her spot on the lounge, but when there's no alternative one does whatever is necessary to get close to Mum!