Weekend woes and wins

It's been hot and humid all weekend. I've got a lurgi that comes with a sore throat, headache, shakiness and mild nausea - every time I try and do anything other than sit on the lounge I end up a gasping, sweaty, can't stand unsupported mess. We've gone nowhere and done nothing except housework and I had to argue with David to convince him to watch Blade Runner with me. It's doing my head in I tell you! And my sore throat is putting paid to any serious singing practice.

On the other hand, my dog is cuddly and cute, the air-con works, my kids and husband bring me hot and cold drinks when I ask them to. I had lots of dvds to watch and all the clean clothes got folded as I sat on the lounge watching the end of season 6 of Lost. Don't ask, it was a can't look away from the train wreck thing, Adam kept having to leave the room in order to protect the TV.

The reason I was forcing David to watch Blade Runner is that he has to pick a sci-fi movie to prepare a presentation on for English. Of course all he's thinking of is "PRESENTATION  - ARRGH! Run for the hills!" I, meanwhile, am thinking "Cool! English assignments are so much better than when I was at school. Let's watch ALL THE MOVIES!" So, 10 Mum points for enthusiasm, not so many for practicalities. I think we'll watch Serenity next. What? Isn't that what kids are for, to project one's own obsessions on and live vicariously through?

I had planned to cook shepherd's pie tonight. I was lacking enthusiasm for the idea until I pulled up my recipe post from a couple of years ago, now I reckon I might be sufficiently motivated by the prospect of evoking another burst of praise from Tom:

"Smashed potato! Ooo, I LOVE smashed potato! Mum, that's just the way I remember you making shepherds pie. I LOVE your shepherds pie, it's the BEST!"

"You do know it tastes different every time I make it 'cause I don't use a recipe, don't you?"

"Yes, that's what I like best about it, you never know what you're going to get!"

I'll report back if there's a good response tonight!

Back to school

Off to High School! Today was Caitlin's first day of Year 7, nothing like 40 degree heat* to start things off with a kind of molten whimper. The Principal and the Year Advisor both devoted part of their welcoming addresses to reminding the kids to drink lots of water and not run around in the sun during recess and lunch, I don't think they'd have needed much reminding - it was a stinker of a day.

My mum came over in the morning to pick up some stuff I'd printed out for her and to see the kids off to their first day back at school. Consequently most of the photos I have are of the kids looking at Mum's camera instead of mine.

Tom seems fairly cheerful about going back to school despite being convinced that Year 4 is going to be horrible. Someone seems to have told him that he might have to do some actual work this year.

Two down, one to go - David starts Year 8 tomorrow.

*For my USian readers: 40°C = 104 Fahrenheit (aren't I kind to save you having to go do the conversion yourself?)

Friday Fragments

Hosted by Mrs4444.

I'm doing a blog giveaway over this weekend, one lucky reader will be getting a parcel with lots of goodies in it: 2 pairs of Christmas earrings, a copy of one of my favourite picture books, a travel version of Connect Four, some yummy chocolate and a scrumptious scented candle. Click through for details and to enter.

On Monday Adam did canteen duty at the primary school, it was Dads Do Lunch Day and Christmas was the theme. So he got dressed up. It was a big hit and a whole bunch of kids even asked for his autograph - he signed the inside of their hats "Santa" with a smiley face wearing a Santa hat. When the kids asked where his elves were he pointed at our Canteen supervisor and said "There she is." So then she had to sign their hats too, as "The Elf."

If you look closely you can see that Adam was an expendable Santa.

This morning I went into Caitlin's room to see how she was going getting ready for school. We had to leave early as there was a dress rehearsal for the school dance group on at 7:45am. She'd just finished getting dressed and was shrugging on her denim jacket when movement caught my eye and I looked down to see a large-ish (about 1.5cm) black house spider running up her jeans leg past her knee and heading further north. I was rather surprised to find myself not hesitating at all to reach out and brush it off with my bare hand.

They're poisonous but not deadly, if you want to see what one looks like there's a very good shot here on Flickr. We have them all over the outside of the house, I think this one probably got in through the damaged flyscreen on the sliding door leading from Caitlin's bedroom to the back deck. Fixing of flyscreens is going on the to do list for the weekend.

Need something to read while you sit in front of the air-conditioner/fan/fire (depending on your location and climate!)? This looks like it's worth checking out:

December Lights Project

We love short stories.
We love writing them, and we love reading them. But most of all, we love sharing them.
At this time of year - as the sky goes dark by 4.30 pm in Wales, where we live, and the cold wraps around us, chilling to the bone - what we really want more than anything else are stories that make us laugh and feel good about the world.
So we thought we'd gather some, and share them with with you, as our December Lights Project.
You can read the stories here.

Don't forget to head on over to Half-Past Kissin' Time for more Friday Fragments!

Asking for help

This morning I went with my Mum to see the counsellor that she'd seen a few times when things had got a bit too much after she and my Dad parted company. We made the appointment a couple of months ago at a point when I was feeling very concerned about David, worried about my dad and Adam's mum and had begun to feel very much like I had when Tom was very young and Adam had been traveling every second week and I had ended up on anti-depressants for a while.

I'm a little less immediately worried about David at the moment, but everything else is pretty much unchanged and my mood has truly sucked of late. I've felt stuck. Unreasonably teary. Easily angered. Disconnected. Unable to cope with stresses that I would normally take in my stride. I look at my life and think "My life? It's pretty damn good really. So why do I feel so fucking awful?!" I don't think I've been much fun to live with recently, either for Adam or the kids. I do a lot of apologising for my state of mind. Definitely time to ask for some help.

So I came away from the appointment this morning with a recommendation for someone to take David to see for help with his anxiety, a whole bunch of useful ideas for managing Adam's mum's alcoholism and dementia issues, a request for a nice long list of blood tests for myself to take along to the pathologist, a script for the same anti-depressants that I'd had before (and had done the trick before) and a further appointment for myself with another psychiatrist in the same practice. (Sadly I can't keep seeing Mum's doctor, who was OMG just wonderful, because she's winding down her private practice.)

Mum and I then went to Open Day at the school. We were too late to see Tom playing his flute in the band because we went over-time at the doctor's but we saw Caitlin in the Senior Dance group and in the Choir. Classrooms were visited, lunch was eaten, library books were donated. Then, because we also hadn't had time on the way back from the doctor's to drop by my house for me to pick up my car, and Mum had left early to meet up with friends, the kids and I walked home in the sunshine. Which was nice.

Tonight I cooked a rather awesome even-if-I-do-say-so-myself Thai red chicken curry for dinner and Adam asked if I wanted to open a bottle of wine. One of the reasons I don't usually drink during the week is that when I'm tired all it takes is a glass or two to leave me feeling very woozy indeed and once that happens you can kiss goodbye any hope of me doing anything useful. So I felt I needed some outside input into the decision making process:

My tweeps are enablers:

I forgot to take a before picture, and I'd like to point out that Adam helped with the cellar decluttering, here's the almost after pic:

While I was finishing off that particular decluttering task Adam was downstairs helping Caitlin clean up her room. There are no before pics of that either so it may not be obvious from these shots that anything was achieved at all. But perhaps if I tell you I haven't actually seen that carpet in many weeks you'll have some idea.

Tomorrow, vacuuming!

Linkfest No. 17

Stuff I thought was worth sharing...

Karen Healey, at Attention Rebellious Jezebels, reviews books "in dialogue style in a spoilerific manner that often renders in-depth, wonderful works nonsensical" and is also highly amusing.

Charlotte of Charlotte's Library asks Where are the Good Mothers in Middle Grade Science Fiction and Fantasy?

Ladysquires at Shitty First Drafts explains Why I'm Not Proud of You for Correcting Other People's Grammar.

On the subject of the Ethics Classes trial:

• Teaching Ethics as an option to non-scripture at Motherhugger.
• Practical things you can do to help - a post in the discussions section of the St James Ethics Centre Facebook page Towards an Ethics-based Complement to Scripture in NSW Primary Schools
• Deborah at In a Strange Land is tempted to say, "Diddums"

A few words from an Ethics trial class student

My niece attends one of the schools involved in the Ethics classes trial. Yesterday her mum posted a photo on Facebook of an article appearing in their local Village Voice newspaper in which Annika is quoted on the subject of the ethics classes.

Click to embiggen

"I think the ethics classes are really fun," Leichhardt Year 5 student Annika Rees said. "The teacher gives us situations like whether we think something is fair or not, and then we discuss the topic and give our own opinions. It's important because it gives us an opportunity to see other people's point of view and perspectives on things without anyone being right or wrong. That means we feel like we won't be judged on our answers and gives us a chance to justify what our perspectives are."

So there you go, a small glimpse of the view from inside the Ethics classes trial :-)

(Also, way to go Annika!)

Fragments from a fractured week

Hosted by Mrs4444.

I've had better weeks than this one just gone, but I've had worse too. I'm writing this sitting in my sun drenched lounge room looking out at blue sky and listening to birds in the garden and thinking life's not so bad really. It helps that I've just unloaded all the brain clutter from the week here for your entertainment. Or not. Whatever :-)

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On Wednesday morning I was woken early by Jack as he sneaked up on to the end of our bed and stealthily crept right up my leg, over my hip and settled on my ribcage. Pretty much a complete failure of covert operations I have to say - there's a lot of cat there and the paw pressure is quite significant. The dog wasn't fooled either and she has a policy that states that if Mummy is cuddling someone else then there must be simultaneous Clara cuddles. So I end up with a husband on one side, a dog on the other and a cat on the top. Cosy. Then Clara snuggled a little closer and stuck her nose right up against Jack's. I held my breath for the inevitable claw-swipe...and Jack reached forward and began grooming Clara's forehead. We've come a long way from the mutual loathing and murderous impulses of their initial relationship.

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I wrote a fairly long paragraph here about a stressful afternoon with one of my kids but then decided there's really no need to record the details for posterity. Suffice to say that I spent Wednesday afternoon and evening going through a very familiar cycle that involves a lot of raised voices, at least half a box of tissues, lots of challenging conversation and very little school work getting done for the time involved.

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Thursday started with an alarm that didn't go off and us therefore waking up about 30 minutes before Adam and David were supposed to be heading off to work and school respectively and an hour before Caitlin was due at school (for an extra before school thing). I therefore didn't shower before driving Caitlin and Tom to school, arriving 6 minutes late. Adam and Dave left about 15 minutes late. I came home, got myself sorted out and headed over to the high school 30 minutes late for canteen duty, only to find that I wasn't even rostered on this week - I'm on next week. Brilliant. I stayed anyway because they were short-handed and now won't have to go next week, so that's something I guess!

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I do this thing when I have paid work to do at home where I just can't seem to get stuck into it unless either the house is empty or everyone in it is asleep. I had work to do on Thursday that needed to be finished by Friday morning and, because I wasn't home while the kids were at school, I didn't end up starting it until midnight. I sent the critical email off at 4am and went to bed cursing myself for being an idiot. Adam very kindly left me in bed when the alarm went off and got the kids off to school and I spent a lovely relaxing morning pretending I had no responsibilities. I hope that doesn't mean I forfeit a similar experience on Sunday.

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My very lovely husband has purchased tickets for us to go and see Bill Bailey perform at the State Theatre on July 23rd, can't wait!

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That's all from me folks! Now, head on over to Half-Past Kissin' Time for more Friday Fragments!

Thursday is Scripture day at school

This afternoon Tom came home with a 1964 pre-metric Australian penny that he'd been given by his Scripture teacher for remembering the weekly Bible verse. I asked what the verse was and he quoted - Peter said "You are the messiah, son of the living God." I asked if he thought that what the Bible claimed Peter had said was true and he looked at me like I was silly and said "No" with an undercurrent of "Duh!" So then I asked if he'd told his Scripture teacher that he didn't believe it, and he answered "HELL NO!" Which struck me as rather amusing. It also made me go and print out Penny Sharpe's petition in support of the St James Ethics Centre school ethics classes trial.

The provision by law of a period of time each week for Special Religious Education, taught by volunteer "scripture teachers" recruited by the churches, in NSW schools is a legacy of a deal made between the government and the churches back when public education was just being established. The Education Department ruling that students who opt out of SRE may not be given any useful instruction during that period is not codified in law, is unjust, and must be challenged.

My kids go to Scripture because they'd rather stay in their classrooms with their friends than go to the library and twiddle their thumbs. Approximately once a month I remind them that they have the option of not going, if the alternative was something other than thumb twiddling I'd haul them out of SRE so fast you wouldn't see them for dust. I feel a vague guilt that I'm not making a point by having them opt out, but it doesn't feel right to use my kids as pawns in a political or ideological exercise so I let the decision rest with them. No doubt if we lived in an area with a higher proportion of non-religious types there'd be a critical mass of kids opting out and my lot would be in the library watching dvds and colouring in along with half the school.

The St James Ethics Centre has developed a course designed to provide "an ethics-based complement to SRE" and which can be offered as a "meaningful secular alternative during the allocated time for SRE." This ethics course is currently being trialled in 10 Primary Schools in NSW despite frantic efforts to stop the trial, in particular by the Anglican and Catholic churches. There is also an ongoing campaign being waged against the possibility of the Ethics course being favourably reviewed at the end of the trial and subsequently being rolled out to all schools.

I really, really hope that the trial is a huge success and that the decision makers in the Education Dept and in the NSW parliament do not allow themselves to be swayed by the loud voices of a well organised religious lobby and I'm not going to simply hold my breath and hope over this, I'm going to do what I can to make my voice heard and let the government know that there are many, many voters who disagree vehemently with the things being said by people like Peter Jensen. I'll be writing emails and voting in polls and talking to people in my community and I think I'll print out a few more copies of that petition and get to collecting signatures, if you live in NSW you might consider doing the same.

Good things

Today both Caitlin and Tom had major roles to play in the school's ANZAC assembly (and I had a little role of my own too*).

Tom's class was running the assembly, there was a short video about World War 1 and the ANZACs and then some of the kids gave a presentation. Tom got to dress up as a soldier and tell part of the story of the Gallipoli landing and the meaning of ANZAC day. He did really well, speaking clearly and confidently with lots of expression. Proud mum was proud.

They then sang "One Day" for which, because when rehearsals were under way it was apparently decided that the verses were a little too difficult for the kids to sing, the teachers invited Caitlin to sing the verses solo with the rest of the kids joining in for the choruses. So she did. Proud mum was proud again.

The video of Tom talking was not a great success but the one of Caitlin singing is ok, the camera ran out of memory just before the end and the quality isn't great as Adam was sitting way up the back of the hall but here it is anyway.



Click here if you can't see the embedded video.

Tom was wearing Adam's old slouch hat (he used to be in the Army Reserve) because when I arrived he had on a way too small slouch hat which made him look utterly ludicrous. Unfortunately Adam's lacked a chin strap and kept slipping back when Tom was signing the words of the song.

This photo doesn't quite do justice, the too small hat was perched on the very top of his head.

I took one look at him and grabbed my phone to ring home "Do you know where your slouch hat is? Yes? Good, grab it and come NOW!"

Turned out to be a bit of a family affair all round in the end.

* I was the parent representative placing a poppy on the wreath.

Sunday in my City - Photos from my phone

Hosted by Unknown Mami

The building works at my kids' school - they're getting a new library, new loos and 2 new classrooms, all part of the BER government spending spree.

The demountable classrooms that used to be where all that building work is going on had to be relocated to the oval, so the kids are missing half their sports field till it's all completed. Luckily there's a local park with a nice big oval just up the road so the kids can walk there for sport.

There's a bunch of other work been going on around the school too, one of the buildings had a new roof put on, lots of painting and re-carpeting has been done and part of the playground has been resurfaced.

I mourn the loss of the pavers, they were so much more aesthetically pleasing, but OH&S decreed that the trip hazards must go. It doesn't look so bad really.

Back at home we've had some very persistent visitors to our back deck lately. They hang off the flyscreen at the door and screech demands for food. I gave in.

The cardboard box really needs to be replaced with a proper bird feeding platform one of these days.

On Saturday we headed off to Berrima for a combined groups training day for reenactment combat. I wasn't fighting, unless you count finally conquering the tablet weaving that I'd been avoiding finishing for months because the cardboard tablets I'd improvised while at a friends place were so horrible to use. Adam collected a nice batch of bruises, Tom and Caitlin spent the day climbing trees, Clara basked in the abundance of attention from dog-lovers galore and David gave his iPod a good workout.

I took some pics and vids of the combat, here's a small selection:

Friday fragments and Linkfest No. 15

Hosted by Mrs4444.

When you get to the bottom of this post don't forget to come back up here and click on this link to Half-Past Kissin' Time so you can go check out all the other fabulous Friday Fragments posts!

I missed fragmenting last week and I've barely blogged at all recently, I ought to have a whole bunch of stuff to offload. Let's see what's lurking in the corners of my brain...

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I spent Saturday night in a small, inadequately air-conditioned room, with a fabulous group of women from the Hoyden About Town blog community, singing loudly and hilariously for 3 hours. Karaoke is so much fun even if it does result in a sore throat the next day. We did everything from Meatloaf and Cold Chisel to Abba and Simon & Garfunkle - there was even a rickrolling courtesy of FP. I'm already looking forward to next time!

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David's first 2 days of high school at the end of last week were a great success, he came home happy and excited, telling us all about his classes. Then on Monday and Tuesday he went to the Year 7 Orientation camp at Vision Valley and came home exhausted and miserable having been separated from his friends both for the activities and for sleeping arrangements, fed pretty crappy food, and generally having a rotten time. What a massive waste of time, effort and money. I had to bully him out of bed and off to school on Wednesday morning, he was in tears and I was so close to giving in and letting him stay home. I had a good cry myself after he'd gone and spent the day in a state of anxiety over whether he was going to have an ok day. Fortunately he came home much happier again, it seems actual classes at high school are a Good Thing. Except for PE - he's not at all pleased that they're doing bush dancing.

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We've been harvesting quite a good crop of tomatoes from Tom's vegetable garden, perfect for slicing nice and thick and having with cheese on Sao biscuits.

Tom's tomatoes

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Things with my Dad have been slowly improving and we're on our way to having the money side of his life sorted out. I'm now managing his finances so if things start to go off the rail again I should know straight away. I feel somewhat weird and conflicted to be in this role especially as when Dad is well he really should be perfectly competent to look after all this stuff himself. I'm going along with him to his next psychiatrist appointment so I can have a chat to his doctor about it too. Dad's still pretty vulnerable but he's a lot better than he was 2 weeks ago and I'm fairly confident that he's not going to end up in a major depression. So that's good.

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I finally got myself a Diva cup after more than a year of intending to do so. It is awesome. That is all. (Actually, I can say plenty more so if anyone has questions - ask away!)

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I finished reading the first Sookie Stackhouse book, I enjoyed it enough that I instantly picked up the second one and started on that. Good thing I bought the box set of 7. The fact that it took me a week to get through the first book says something about my state of mind though, I'm finding I can't concentrate on a book for more than 30 minutes at a time. Stress sucks.

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And now for some links:

At Hoyden About Town Lauredhel posts on the ILCA press release "For Haiti Orphans Wet Nursing Can Save Lives"

At Upside-Down Adoption Atlasien posts about "The Dangerous Desire to Adopt Haitian Babies"

Chally of Zero at the Bone hosts the Thirteenth Carnival of Feminists

I need one of these.

Jill at Feminitse posts about "Tim Tebow and the anti-choice Superbowl ad" and also links to a YouTube ad responding to the Tim Tebow ad featuring Sean James and Al Joyner (none of whom I know anything about but apparently some people are interested in the stuff these people do and say).

Deborah's new car and new hair made me laugh :-)

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.

Friday Fragments

Hosted by Mrs4444.

Things about which I am glad:

Despite my fears I did not have an excruciating back spasm and find myself swearing loudly in the middle of delivering my Parents & Citizens Association President's report to the hall packed with the entire families of nearly every student at my kids' school.

When Caitlin tried to pick the front door lock with a stick this afternoon she broke a piece of stick off inside it thus preventing the key from fitting in the lock. The sliding security door uses the same key as the front door (which was the only key I had with me) and the bolt that slots into the floor on the inside of the glass sliding door was undone. So I could still get into the house. The broken off stick was successfully removed with the aid of a large needle. So I didn't have to pay for a locksmith.

There are just three days of school left.

I remembered to get the kids to make cards for Adam's birthday tomorrow, even if I did have to get them back out of bed to do it.

There are fairy lights all through the trees and shrubs in my front garden - it's like living in a fairy grotto. We don't so much put our Christmas lights up as chuck them semi-randomly into the garden, I like it that way.

Wednesday next week is David's last day in Primary School. I do not anticipate getting teary over this.

My Mum came over this afternoon and helped clean up the house for our Christmas party tomorrow, she supervised the de-chaos-ing of the kids' rooms. I think if I'd had to do that on my own today there'd have been murder done. My Mum is made of awesome, I may have said this before.

Did I mention that school finishes next week? And that it's a short week? Only three days!

Oh, and my back seems to be all better now, I was a bit worried that I would still be in pain when it was time to head off on our camping trip but it looks like I'll be fine.

Things about which I am less thrilled:

My dad, who's bipolar, gave us all a bit of a scare on the weekend when it became apparent that he was a little bit, or possibly even a lot, manic. Thankfully his doctor had already begun adjusting Dad's medication and he'd started to come down again by mid-week. Dad's only had one full on manic episode, it was pretty devastating.

I have not yet managed to find the time or motivation to bake any fruit mince pies. Brendan is going to kill me unless I get my arse into gear tomorrow morning.

The kids all drank huge glasses of milk with their dinner tonight and now there's no milk for the morning.

Tidbits from Tom:

On being given toad in a hole* for breakfast: "No toads were harmed in the making of this hole."

On how he feels about his drama award: "I'm like a cat contemplating its second name** and feeling proud."

*Yeah, I know, the egg version isn't really toad in a hole.

**Referencing T.S. Elliot's The Naming of Cats -

"But I tell you, a cat needs a name that's particular,
A name that's peculiar, and more dignified,
Else how can he keep up his tail perpendicular,
Or spread out his whiskers, or cherish his pride?"

Wordless Wednesday

At Presentation Night tonight one of the two Outstanding Achievement awards given out in each class went to Tom. I may be just a little bit proud of him. Again.

For more Wordless Wednesdays click here.

I'm really rather fond of this time of year

Here we are at the beginning of December, my house is strewn with Christmas decorations, the kids have decorated the tree, we have strings of lights ready to festoon the garden, I have all my special Christmas candles out, the Advent calendar is hanging by the dining table, there's Christmas music loaded up on the iPod and I've started my annual re-read of Connie Willis' Miracle and Other Christmas Stories. Yes, I'm an atheist celebrating a pagan mid-winter festival co-opted by the Christian church to commemorate the birth of a man who was was almost certainly not born on the 25th of December and I'm doing so in the middle of summer.

Of course I'm also rather stressed by all the STUFF that has to be done in the next few weeks and when people ask me how I am I tend to reply "A little weary..." and I whinge about being asked to do extra things like make 40-odd jelly cups and cook brownies for a year 6 mufti day on the same night as I'm hosting a P&C executive meeting at my place and having my mother-in-law over for dinner. But I do it any way. Because it matters to the kids. But I made Adam cook the brownies. (That was last night by the way.)

Is there a point to all of this? Well may you ask...there did seem to be one when I started....
(It would help if I wasn't half-way through my second glass of Stanton and Killeen muscat.)

Oh, I know! Christmas, it makes me happy, for lots of reasons that are to do with family and friends and celebrating life and sharing and thinking of others and reconnecting with people we don't see often and good food and drink and silly traditions and memories and endings and beginnings. So what I thought I might try and do through December is write a little about some of those things and try to explain why I, I really like Christmas.

Meanwhile, I'm going to finish this glass of wine and eat another chocolate elf.

Bye, bye November

It's been fun, I've written 12 times as many posts as I did last month making it through my third NaBloPoMo with relative ease and, I think, only minor irritation to my family.

We have 2 and a half weeks of school left for the kids, that's only 12 days of primary school to go for David. I got his high school orientation info pack today, so many pieces of paper, so many forms to fill in, fees to pay (I'm interested to see that these include a voluntary $100 per student donation to the P&C - wonder how many people pay that?), new systems to learn, it's all a bit overwhelming.

There's a nice vague handout about the Religious Education program at the school with references to "inter-denominational" "non-threatening" and "significance of religion" which as far as I can see equates religion with Christianity and completely disappears any other faith, or lack thereof. I'll be interested to see an outline of the lesson program (the handout offers one on request). It's a program that was introduced when I was at the school, I remember it as being monumentally tedious, and that was when I was heavily involved with one of the churches that developed and still financially supports the program. There's a notable lack of references to the optional nature of Special Religious Education and no indication of what kids who opt out would be doing during that time - I'm not surprised by this and I don't believe there are any regulations that require that information to be offered, but it's interesting.

I'm tired. My head is full of little, and not so little, things I have to do, or remember, or talk to people about, or go to, or shop for. I have speeches and reports to write for the P&C. Work is relatively busy. November was a fairly hectic month for us and I really just want to stop for a while, but December promises to be just as full-on. I'm so looking forward to the holidays, I plan on sleeping and reading and playing games and not being in a hurry to do anything.

More thoughts on Scripture in schools

I started to respond to comments on my previous post on the subject but it was getting kind of epic, so I thought I'd better chuck it all in a post of its own. This may be a little disjointed! (BTW, Scripture = Special Religious Education, or SRE, but no-one calls it that.)

A couple of people made reference to the thumb-twiddling in the library being not such a bad thing, I must admit I very nearly included a disclaimer in the original post to the effect that I was quite sure the kids were perfectly happy with the thumb-twiddling :-) Actually I believe my kids' school encourages reading which is something I'd have been very keen on as a kid had I been at all aware that Scripture class was optional.

My memories of Scripture are of some poor sodding volunteer coming into a classroom full of kids who saw the lesson as something they were not required to take seriously, like being a substitute teacher, only worse because you have no hope of convincing the kids that anyone cares if they don't do the work. As for the subject matter, it was pretty much exactly the same as we were getting at church in Sunday School, very much of the indoctrination of impressionable minds variety.

From what I see of the stuff my kids do in Scripture now it's also very definitely of the teaching dogma variety and not at all of the comparative religious studies style, and really why would it be anything else? These classes are largely being taught by volunteers who are doing it because they believe it's important to bring the kids into the fold not because they want to equip them to understand the various world religions. When your kindergartner comes home on a Thursday afternoon and tells you very seriously that all the houses in your street were made by God, or that Adam and Eve were the first people, or that the whole world was flooded and wasn't it a good thing that Noah was around it becomes very clear that myth is being taught as fact and that I have a problem with.

It's quite true, as Toni mentioned, that some schools positively encourage kids to visit all the different Scripture classes, my nieces have done a bit of swapping around between Protestant, Catholic and Buddhist classes at their school. Perhaps the nature of the classes is different in other schools, perhaps there are whole cohorts of enlightened Scripture teachers out there delivering lessons that invite a critical analysis of the subject matter, which incidentally is perfectly possible even with 5 year olds. Hey, my Mum has done a bit of Scripture teaching in the past, but the last time she did so (filling in for a friend) she was so disgusted with the curriculum materials and the lesson plans that she was expected to follow that she swore never to do it again.

From St James Ethics Centre on Facebook:

Those schools that have completed an expression of interest in being a pilot school are confirmed as participants in the pilot. They are Darlinghurst, Crown Street, Ferncourt, Rozelle, Hurstville, Bungendore, Neutral Bay and Baulkham Hills North Public Schools. Another school is 80% through the process. There is room for just one more.

Don't suppose there's much hope of grabbing the last spot for our school.

Ariane mentioned one of my big doubts about this whole exercise - where are the volunteers to teach ethics classes going to come from? I know the churches often have a fair bit of trouble filling the volunteer roles to teach scripture and they have a presumably highly motivated pool of people to draw on. I, of course, find myself answering the question in my own head with "perhaps I should..." at which point the other half of me jumps up with a cartoon sledgehammer yelling "don't you DARE think about volunteering for anything else" and squishes the idea flat. It's all very well saying "What a wonderful idea, we should definitely have ethics classes offered in all schools" but that's not going to be much use if there's no-one to teach them.

Mind you, even if there aren't enough teachers to go around, there'll be some no small victory in breaking the anachronistic hold of the churches on that half hour of SRE a week should the trial be deemed successful and the NSW Dept of Education and Training' policy on the matter changed to allow the classes to be offered across the board.

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.

Market day

We held Christmas markets at the school today.

In 40 degree heat.

(That's 104F for you non-metric types.)

I shared a stall with a friend, it was our first markets for both of us so we had no idea how it would go. Thank FSM that Simone had organised a table cloth and clever deployment of a box for our display, 'cause I completely dropped the bundle on that aspect of things.

Our stall

It was a bit breezy and the earring displays were exhibiting slight nautical tendencies, sailing across the table every so often. Eventually we managed to arrange and wedge them into place such that they stayed more or less put.

My end of the table

I'd been rather dreading being outside for 6 hours in that hideous heat and I guess I wasn't the only one who felt that way because it was really quiet.

It did get a bit busier than this...but not by much.

If I was assessing the day on the basis of financial return I'd have to admit it was a bit of a write-off. But, as I got to spend my time sitting in a comfy chair, in the shade, with just enough breeze to make the heat bearable, in the company of a good friend and chatting to people we knew as they came by and admired our cool stuff, I'm willing to call it a Good Day. Of course I now have a whole heap of stuff made, photographed, priced and ready to put up for sale on-line. Watch this space!