Category: Spawn

There’s so much more to it than I ever thought possible.

Inigo does maths

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Today, for the first time in over a year, Inigo and I hung out at home. We did some cooking, some painting, some splashing about in the wading pool, and had an impromptu maths lesson. He now understands plus, and equals, and wrapped his head around the cuisinaire rods. He gets that each rod represents a number, and how to work out which one.

And I feel like a mothering legend because I only got cranky once, and we mostly had a very fun day.

a crappy mood

66% for my research report. I’ll live through it, but it will make it very hard to get an HD for PSYC102. Do I need an HD? I rang Macquarie to talk about transferring (to avoid residential schools in Armidale next year), and I have to apply through UAC, which means a pile of paperwork, and a very impersonal and bureaucratic process. Which may get me absolutely nowhere.

Squish is going to preschool next year, and trying to work out which one has been difficult. Apparently all the good parents work this shit out years in advance, but I am a bit remedial in leaving it until October of the year before to start looking.

So if I switch to Macquarie, I’ll want him in a preschool that is closer to there, and if I stay at UNE it won’t matter. So I am tying myself in knots trying to make the best decision for my favourite kid, and 66% just makes me feel defeated.

Yes, yes, I know that 66% isn’t a great big stamp across my forehead that says “FAILURE”, but everything else is (relatively) easy for me, so this is forcing me to come to terms with the fact that I am going to have to really work hard to become competent at academic writing. It’s not something that comes easily to most people, so I shouldn’t feel like crap that my assignment came back covered in negative comments.

Ted and I took Squish to a new music class today. There were twin girls there. Thank FSM they weren’t boys. And that they were a little older than A&A should be now. Seeing twins is always a sharp pain, a glimpse is a shopping centre usually sends me in the opposite direction, but today I couldn’t run.

Sometimes, I can live through it. Just breathe, and pretend that I am coping, that life is ok. But there are other days, like today, when it’s just too hard.

If you’re interested in schools

read this.

An American journalist and his wife sent their three kids to school in Russia. A very moving piece, and doubly interesting because of the migrant and refugee kids in Australia who turn up on the first day of school here without speaking (or understanding) a word of English.

Mark and I are still struggling with our decision to send the Squish to the local public school. But articles like this make it seem like a good outcome is possible.

Consequences

We’re all about natural consequences in this house. Don’t put your dirty clothes in a dirty clothes basket? Eventually you will run out of clean underwear. Don’t pack away your toys? Mama will pack them away and she might hide them or put them in the bin.

So I can’t blame anyone but myself for this weekend.

The natural consequence for having done bugger all uni work for half a semester, is that I have until midnight tomorrow night to do two online tests. One for each subject. Worth 10%, and 12% of my total mark.

Between my gorgeous girlfriends, my fabulous in-laws, my amazing parents, and my wonderful husband, I am getting there. One down, the bulk of the work done for the other (with some major revision tomorrow), and I’ll have it done and dusted by tomorrow afternoon.

Thanks also go to my wonderful kid, who had to get used to being away from mama a lot last year, and he bears it well. And I get the most wonderful cuddles when he comes back to me 🙂

Here is a little video I took of him and Mark “reading” a book last week. I thought I was filming earlier, but I missed all the good bits, him sounding out words, and the absolutely priceless expression on his little face when he works it out. He is loving reading to himself a lot now, so I hope I may get a better video soon.

And then, he stuck a bead in his ear…

This morning was the Lorien spring fair. I had volunteered to help out the playgroup people with the bread baking activity, and Inigo and Mark painted a t-shirt, made a candle, and did some beading.

Then, Inigo stuck a bead in his ear…

And seven hours later, we got home from the hospital, with the sparkly red bead safely in a specimen jar.

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He was so super patient and awesome the the doctor at Westmead Children’s Hospital didn’t even need to give him nitrous while poking about in his head, and it was remarked that even much older kids had trouble keeping still. I pointed out to the doctor that he was the world’s most awesome kid, and thank you for noticing.

So instead of having friends over for a mah-jong night and drinking lads of red wine, we spent a million years in the hospital, feeling guilty for taking up time that could have been spent treating sick people.

But I have a lovely souvenir.

And the world’s best kid. Even if he occasionally sticks things in his ears. And it was shiny.