Making plans for the week ahead, anyone for craft?

Menu plan:
Monday - spag bol
Tuesday - mango chicken curry and rice
Wednesday - sushi
Thursday - homemade pizza
Friday - prosciutto wrapped pork fillet baked on red onion and apple, with mashed potato and baby spinach salad
Saturday - steak, jacket potato, corn on the cob and salad
Sunday - roast leg of lamb with baked veggies

The schedule:
Monday - at home while solar hot water is installed (unfinished due to rain), Caitlin's singing and Tom's drama lessons this arvo, Adam's mum coming for dinner.

Tuesday - 9am doctor's appt for me, squeeze in some work maybe, 2pm funeral, 6pm my singing lesson and 7:45pm a P&C meeting. Plus Adam leaving in the afternoon for a week in the UK. Err. Not sure if all this is possible.

Wednesday - 7:30am band practice for Tom, day at the office for me, Caitlin's dance concert at night.

Thursday - Nothing. And it's staying that way. (So I can clean, do grocery shopping, wash clothes...yay?)

Friday - 8am school dance practice for Caitlin, day at the office for me, nothing in the afternoon.

Saturday - outing with the kids in the morning (where/what to be determined), Caitlin's second dance concert at night.

Sunday - come hell or high water I'm making some jewellery! If anyone would like to join me for a craft afternoon you're very welcome.

Swimming

I can't remember learning to swim, though I do remember swimming lessons, specifically taking the life-saving course at Pymble pool in the summer holidays while my younger siblings were learning to swim and going to the school swimming scheme in primary school. I know diving clicked for me when I was 9 and we were in Tahiti on our way to the US where my dad was going for a 4 month sabbatical. There is also the family story of sibling rivalry wherein I was going without floaties for the first time at 3 years old and my sister, 21 months younger than me, decided that meant she could too and plunged straight to the bottom of the ocean pool.

I have so many cherished childhood memories of swimming. Out beyond the breakers with my uncle and cousin, body surfing and ending up with a cossie full of sand on numerous beach camping holidays. Floating on airbeds in the Kangaroo River, again with our cousin. Canoeing and swimming in Smiths Lake and swimming out to help my sister and cousin who were having steering issues with their canoe. My sister and I swimming out to the pontoon in the middle of the bay at the resort in Crete and FREAKING our parents out because it was so far off shore, I was 14 (Dad swam out to "rescue" us, we beat him back to shore by a long shot and then he got disoriented on the way back and ended up off to billy-o around the shore-line). At 15 years old, going to the YMCA in Boulder Colorado on a Friday night for a family outing at the pool, in winter, and stopping off at Baskin and Robbins on the way home. Getting up at 6am to go with my Mum to the local pool to swim 1km before breakfast on school days during my HSC year.

By the time that last one was happening I had well and truly reached the point where I felt uncomfortable in a swimming costume in public. It was an effort to go to a public pool and take my clothes off, the less time there was between removing my shirt and getting in the water the better. I was about half the weight I am now.

When I had kids I made a conscious decision that my issues with my body would not stand in the way of them having the fun of beaches and swimming pools and all the things that I loved so much when I was a kid. I made that decision long before I'd even heard of Fat Acceptance and it was hard to follow through on. For a long time I had to have at least a day's notice before a trip to the local swimming pool, I needed to psych myself up to it and wake in the morning knowing that we were going. Going on beach camping holidays was an exercise in being tense and hyper self-conscious for a whole weekend, or a whole week. Even being in my in-law's backyard pool was challenging, not that any of my in-laws have ever said a single word to me about my weight, but still.

Me, David and Caitlin in Adam's parent's pool

But I did it and I'm glad I did. For one thing I have photos like these and the memories to go with them.

Caitlin



David



Me



Me, Caitlin and Tom

I had conversations with small children at beaches who informed me, as small children will, "You're fat!" and I found that I could respond with humour and be ok.

Me, David and Caitlin (and my mum's arm)

I got to be the one teaching my kids how to watch the breaking waves and decide to either jump over or dive under. (With help from Grandma!)

Me, my Mum, David, Caitlin and Thomas

David boogie boarding

Last summer I tended to be the one behind the camera, but I was still there, at the beach and the pool, in my swimming costume and in the water.

Adam and Caitlin

Adam and the kids.

This summer I plan to make sure I'm in the photos again.

50 Things post No. 2

Friday Fragments and Linkfest No. 13

Hosted by Mrs4444.

I won't be around to comment on everyone else's Friday Fragments till early next week, we're off camping at the beach for the weekend - wish us good weather and kid-friendly surf!

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Monday morning's car trip to school conversation went like this - Tom: Mum, how old do you have to be to mumble mumble mumble? Me: I can't understand what you're asking. Tom: *repeats* Me: It's like you're speaking a foreign language! Tom: How old do you have to be to have sex? Me: *enlightenment dawns, he was spelling S-E-X and I just wasn't parsing it because I wasn't expecting it*

I do love these philosophical challenges pre-caffeine and with only 2 minutes to adequately answer the question. I think I said something about the age of consent in NSW and the fact that even if you're "old enough" it's not whether you're allowed to that matters, it's whether both you and the person you're with really want to and if you both feel ready for the sort of commitment that being that intimate entails - only with smaller words.

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David went to his end of Year 6 dinner on Monday night.



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From David's page in his school yearbook

• People I Most Admire: My dad because he does medieval re-enactment.
• When I Grow Up I Want To Be: A happy adult.
• Where I See Myself in 10 Years: Successful.

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Caitlin won first prize in the singing section of the school talent quest and Tom came third :-)

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We watched The Fifth Element with the kids on Wednesday night, they hadn't seen it before because David has always vociferously protested that he Does. Not. Want. and we've always given in and watched something else instead. It was the same with Star Wars way back when, we practically had to hold him in a headlock on the couch to make him watch it. Apparently if it's something Dad and Mum like it couldn't possibly be good. But on Wednesday Adam and I told him we were watching whether he liked it or not and when he said he'd go sit in the study we were even meaner and told him he had to sit in the lounge room.

When we got to the bit where the Diva is singing and Leeloo starts kicking butt Tom got very excited and said "I love it when the girl is not the damsel in distress!"

Oh, and do believe David quite enjoyed the movie after all. I apologized for making him sit through it and he said "Yes, it was a bit silly."

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Linkfest time!

Feeling like doing a virtual culinary tour of Sydney? Check out the list of Sydney food bloggers at the end of Helen's post about the Sydney Food Bloggers' Christmas Party.

I HAVE to cook this sometime: Momofuku Bo Ssäm (slow roasted pork)

Continuing the food theme and adding maths to the mix - The Mobius strip bagel. I don't usually eat bagels but I think I may need to go buy some just for this.

Tim Minchin's White Wine in the Sun is available to purchase as a single and 50% of the proceeds from December sales will be going to Autism research.

Ethics classes to be trialed as an alternative to "Scripture"

This is fantastic news. It's about time there was something better for the non-scripture kids to do than go to the library and twiddle their thumbs.

When my oldest first started school I hadn't quite given up on the church, I'd long since moved away from any belief in god but I still saw value in the ethical teaching and the community that a church fosters. So off he went to Scripture classes, as did most of his classmates. It wasn't long before I was rather regretting that decision as I found myself dealing with the some of the less-nuanced ideas that came home from the classes. I console myself with the thought that at least he'll be well equipped to understand any biblical allusions if he ever ends up reading various classic novels and poetry. My other 2 have also gone to Scripture classes and I freely admit it's because it was easier to go with the flow and let them be with their friends. Especially as the alternative was so unsatisfactory.

Every so often I offer my kids the option of not going to Scripture class, none of them have taken me up on it, they'd rather stay with their friends and sit through lessons about things they do not believe than be bored. If something like these proposed ethics classes were available at all schools, not only would I jump at it now, I'd have been thrilled to enroll the kids in them way back in Kindergarten.

From the SMH:

ETHICS classes will be introduced in NSW schools, offering an alternative to religious studies for the first time in 100 years, the Premier, Nathan Rees, will announce today.

The St James Ethics Centre has been working very hard for some time to get this project up and running. "Towards an ethics-based complement to scripture in NSW primary schools" gives an overview of the issues involved and of the proposals being considered.

I am so very pleased to see this trial getting the go-ahead and I will be presenting information about it to our next P&C meeting at school. I only wish there were to be more than 10 schools involved in the trial. Ah well, teaspoons. Hopefully it will be a huge success and we'll see further progress in the near future.

Mondays aren't usually this bad

Today I have dealt with more than my fair share of angst.

I got up this morning with some no small effort and went to check on Tom's fish tank. I hadn't done this for nearly a week, Tom had been very responsible with feeding his fish and I've been kind of busy. In Tom's tank I discovered one very ill looking siamese fighting fish lying upside down on the gravel. Tom had to be bundled off to school hoping that his Simo would be ok, I warned him that it didn't look good. After the kids had gone to school I checked on the fish again and Simo was dead. Then I realised I couldn't see one of the rummy nose tetras either (found the corpse tonight when I did a water change).

Then I went to feed my fish and one of the dwarf gouramis was dead with the other looking decidedly unwell.

I did find baby platies in Tom's tank though, just 2 of them, but yeah, baby fish! I think one of Tom's platies was looking kind of plump!

I had a meeting with David's teacher just after lunch all about how worried he is about how David will cope at high school and how he's likely to be a target of bullying and it all so different and how he feels like he's let David down because he hasn't "fixed" him or something. Told me he didn't think David was having a very happy childhood, by which he meant David wasn't happy at school, wasn't enjoying it. Yeah, the only way David could suddenly start loving school would be if he stopped being David. I'm aiming to have him survive it myself. Anyway, he was offering to get in touch with the high school and talk to them about David so that they know what to expect. That part I'm very pleased with, I wasn't expecting it because David doesn't fit into any categories that are eligible for special consideration or help or anything.

Then I was picking the kids up from school and Caitlin came out of class with tears streaming down her cheeks because she'd missed out on being nominated to run in the prefects elections. Followed by Tom who was crying because there'd been a dead baby bird on the oval earlier in the day and as a bonus some other kid had mocked him for caring about the dead bird. And then I had to tell him his fish was dead. Almost ended up in tears in the school playground myself.

As a crowning glory Adam's car got a flat tire on the way home and because he has a silly little car that doesn't have room for a spare he had to wait for a tow truck which he was told could take two hours.

At which point I gave up and went to get fish and chips for dinner, because deep fried potato makes everything better. (Adam was home within the hour, which was nice.)

Know what else makes things better? Kids and puppy dogs having fun.

Clara on the trampoline

Click here if you can't see the embedded video

P.S. I've updated my NaBloPoMo prize offer post with the actual prize options.

Gratitude

I am grateful for flexible working arrangements that allow Adam and I to take the following circumstances in our stride:

Last night Adam went to the pub after work and left his car at work over-night.
I was giving a talk about the P&C at kindy orientation this morning between 9:15 and 10:30am.
Caitlin was attending a singing workshop as part of the Northern Sydney Region Enrichment Day for Gifted & Talented Students from 9:30am to 2:30pm at Bobbin Head about 25 minutes drive from our place.
Adam dropped me and the boys at school and took Caitlin to the workshop where he was told that at 2:30pm the kids would be putting on a 25 minute concert.
So instead of dropping the car at school, so I could go to work, and catching the train in to the office he decided he'd better work from home so that there'd be someone at home when the boys got home.
I finished at school and drove Adam home then headed off to work, did a couple of hours there and then went to pick Caitlin up.
As it happened I ended up getting home before the boys because the bus was late but it was very nice to not have to worry about it.

The singing workshop seems to have been a big hit, Caitlin had a lovely day and concert was very impressive. There were 13 kids in the group, some of them very talented indeed. They were taught by a lovely guy whose name I didn't catch and also had coaching from someone who'd been on Australian Idol whose name Caitlin can't remember (apparently like mother like daughter when it comes to memory for names :P). Anyway, it's pretty cool that the kids were offered such a great opportunity - something else to be grateful for!

With a nod of the head in Ariane's direction, who has been writing regular gratitude posts.

Link-fest No.10 now with DUFC!

Stuff for you to read.

A whole series of posts at Hoyden About Town on the subject of the proposed
"Harmonisation" of Disability Parking Permit Schemes in Australia - for harmonisation read narrowing of eligibility criteria - and the need to protest against the proposal. There are open letters to use in adding your voice to the protests and a Facebook group to join.

I am Dr Tiller - "This website was created as both a memorial to the lifework of Dr. George Tiller and as a living testimony to the courageous lives of abortion providers."

The Mum Files - a new project from my lovely blog-friend Lisa and her friend Ligia, click on over and say hello!

JoGeek at Unapologetically Fat has been posting a series titled Sewing At Any Size which almost makes me want to haul out my machine and start creating. But only almost. I do, however, expect these posts to come in very useful when I eventually force myself to get some more re-enactment costumes made.

The 13th Down Under Feminists Carnival is up, this month it's hosted by Demelza at SAHM Feminist.

Point me at your interesting finds in the comments people!