Conversations in the Car 2: In which a parent is berated by her eight year old for excessive computer use

Sally is eight. Sometimes she makes up little songs. I’ve already shared with you her song entitled “You eat your own crap and I think its gross”. Lately she has been singing a little ditty, the words are “I’m good at maths yeah”, and the tune varies from day to day. She has been selected for an advanced maths group at school and this has affected her self image considerably. 

On Thursday morning I had to drop all four of my kids off at different locations for them to start their school days. Kat and Rosie to the bus stop and secondary school respectively, Emma to soccer training and Sally to primary school. Sally was the last one left in the car. She chatted to me from the back seat all the way from the soccer ground to primary school. She chose the topic. She was on my case:

“Mum, what percentage of your time do you estimate you spend on Facebook?”.

“Oh, that varies Sally. Sometimes I get sick of it and don’t go on for days. I’m having a patch at the moment though where I’m probably on everyday”.

“Yes, but what is your estimate for the average time you spend on it as a percentage?”.

“Oh, gosh, not that much. I’d say point two percent”.

Sally starts laughing in the back seat. I was sure she wouldn’t understand what point two was so I clarified my position:

“Point two is less than one. Its a fifth of a percent”.

Sally continues to laugh but through her laughter she manages to articulate the reason for her mirth:

“Point two of one percent!”, she says with laughter bubbling through her words, “that’s really funny because my estimate would have been seventy-five percent!”.

Oh god, I thought, she is a clever one. I laughed too, out of surprise and delight at how well she understood her percentages. Her perception of my computer use, however, has given me food for thought!

Here is a video sent to me by a close friend who is also on facebook. She is currently living in the UK. We share photos by sending them through the ether via facebook, we use the chat on facebook to sync times for phone calls. If you are on facebook too you might appreciate it:

A Little Ray of Sunshine

“A little ray of sunshine 

Has come into the world

A little ray of sunshine

In the shape of a girl”

by Glen Shorrack (The Little River Band).

In the mornings the sun streams through the large window at the front of our house. Sally’s window art comes alive and casts colourful dots into the room. If you look closely, each little speck of colour is an individually crafted work of art portraying her shiney young and joyful view of the world. 

Sally’s joy and love is captured in her artwork. It spills off the windows… 

… and onto vases:

This vase has happy little fish added to it.

This one has smiley faces, hearts and flowers.

On this one, Sally has added a little bee in a garden of flowers.

She’s my Little Ray of Sunshine.

The Hot Pink Coat

Last night I went to a theme party. You had to go dressed up as your favorite character from TV. My daughters went as: Ash Ketchum (from Pokemon), Sponge Bob, Mulan and Robin the Boy Wonder. The hub went as Leonardo (from Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles).  This is the story of how I chose my character.

I’ve had a busy week. I’ve been teaching, had a couple of seminars to attend in town, had heaps of errands to run (like getting the operating system on my laptop upgraded) and out in the evening twice during the week: once to dinner with girlfriends and once to a primary school disco decoration-making working bee. The theme for the disco this year is Outer Space. At the working bee I drank too much champagne and covered trillions of donated CDs with sparkly contact (these will hang from a large net on the ceiling and reflect the disco lights). And on top of that, the Real Estate Agent wanted to bring people through our house to begin the process of selling. 

On the night before the house inspection we had a massive tidy-up. I even finally decided to tackle the tiles on the kitchen walls that had been ‘burnt’ a few weeks ago. I had been heating up a pan of olive oil, forgot about it, the result being greasy, black stains on the tiles above the stove. When I tried to clean the tiles I could get one layer of black off, but the remaining layer was impossible to shift. I tried detergent, Ajax surface spray, Jiff, bathroom tile cleaner and I would have tried suger soap but we were out of it. Every cleaning agent I tried just seemed to shift the greasy black from one spot to another. It looked dreadful on the cream tiles. Out of sheer desperation I decided to give the Windex a whirl. I couldn’t believe the result! The grease dissolved before my eyes. It wiped completely clean with no effort at all. I am not a sharer-of-house-cleaning-tips by any stretch of the imagination, but I was so impressed with the Windex that I felt like ringing all of my friends to pass this one on. I called my family in to witness the miracle. “Look: this is what happens if I use the Ajax. Now look at the Windex”. Squirt! “Wow!!!”.

I’m not the only one who knows about the special powers of Windex either. The young man at the Apple Computer Shop used it to clean the keys on my laptop for me when I went to pick it up. He extolled the virtues of Windex (ammonia-free) to me as he cleaned. He said it was possible to purchase expensive cleaning agents for the keyboards. “But they probably are made of this stuff”, he beamed as he held up his Windex bottle. I told him my Windex cleaning story. He nodded and anticipated parts of the story, finishing my last sentence for me, “and it dissolved completely?”. “Yes!”. We smiled at eachother, bonded for a moment by shared awe for Windex. (I have never felt so connected to a computer sales person before!).

When Kathleen asked me to decide on my costume for the fancy dress I said I wanted to go as Kaptain Windex! “No you can’t! You just made that up. It has to be a character from TV”. “Damn, I’ll have to save that one for a super hero party“.  

I was stumped, tired, uninspired and considering piking on the whole dress-up thing. “Come on mum”, said my kids, already costumed-up themselves, “get off Facebook and think of a costume”. Then it hit me! I could wear my hot pink Donna Koran coat, recently purchased in New York on a whim and not yet worn (due to the fact that it is incredibly loud), and go as Agent 99 from Get Smart, my all-time favorite TV show from the seventies. 

I promised Kate I would tell the story of the first time I wore the coat. My promise has now been fulfilled and here is a pic to cap it all off:

 

My List

Hello Possum. Are you a list-writer? I do occasionally write myself lists: shopping lists and lists under the heading “things to do”, and little reminder lists in my diary. You see, I have a motto: “if you think your life is under control, then you have forgotten something”. Sometimes I forget to write lists, or forget to write things in my diary, or forget where my diary is. Just this week I forgot I had a date at the cinema with my friend Lana. She waited for me in the foyer for half an hour. I was mortified and rang her straight away the next morning when I realised. She said the people-watching in the cinema foyer was entertaining and not to worry. 

Miss lionheart tagged me in a list writing meme to “list 5 things you wish to achieve during the week ahead”.  Originally conceived as a motivation meme, for me it is a way of remembering what the hell I need to do. Here goes:

1. Work out a fun activity using pulleys for grade 5 and 6 children.

2. Organise a catch up date with “the gang” and another movie night with Lana.

3. Ring the curtain guys and make an appointment up at our new place.

4. Watch and take notes on at least 4 videos of student interviews for my study.

5. Go through the kids’ wardrobes, put away summer gear and recycle gear nolonger worn.

Oh boy, if I achieve number five, it will be a miracle! 

If you would like to have a go at this meme, let me know and I will pop a link to your site in here.

 

A Sunday Cook-in

Hello Possums. We ran out of bread today. It was too hot to bother leaving the house so we made bread instead. Kathleen likes to make bread rolls in the shape of snails and Sally’s bread rolls are made as round faces with extra bits of dough to make the smiling features of the face.  I made a loaf much to the children’s surprise. I don’t think I have made a loaf of bread within their living memory. My loaf tin has been sitting unused for as long as we have been living in our current house (which is eight years). I took the loaf out of the oven and began cutting it while it was warm. The smell lured the children back to the kitchen. “Hey, that’s the best thing since sliced bread”, Kathleen quipped as she entered the room. She stood at the bench watching and smelling as fluffy warm pieces of bread fell away onto the cutting board. “Wow, that looks vaugely edible!”, she remarked with genuine surprise. 

Anticipation of the sweetest kind

My youngest daughter, Sally, is excited about the approach of Easter. Generally in Australia, Easter has lost a lot of its religious significance. An old school buddy of mine, who is now a poet, father and garlic farmer in Mulumbimbi, describes Easter as “The Pagan Chocolate Festival”.  

Sally made a little basket over the weekend and decorated it with Easter symbols: coloured eggs and a rabbit. She enlisted the help of her oldest sister, Kathleen, to ‘blow’ the contents out of one of our free range eggs. She decorated the empty shell with her window art paints. Once it was dry she placed it in the basket and brought it to me. “Look what I’ve made, mummy. Do you think the Easter Bunny will like it?”.  

Lately in the car driving to and from school or to and from her activities, she has been asking me questions like, “Why does a bunny bring us easter eggs when rabbits don’t even lay eggs? Chickens lay eggs”, and, “Was there some sort of saint like Father Christmas who had something to do with rabbits?”.   All I have been able to respond with is, “Well the eggs are probably to symbolise new life because Easter is when Jesus came back to life. I don’t know what the rabbit has to do with it!”. This did not satisfy her. On another occasion she persisted, “Why does a rabbit bring us eggs at Easter time?”. Inadequately I responded with, “Probably because rabbits can hop”.  

Every day she has been asking me, “How many days before Easter now mummy?”. This morning in the car she actually remembered for herself what the count-down was. She announced happily from the back seat as I merged into a lane of peak hour traffic, “Only sixteen days to Easter. I can’t wait. I just can’t wait!”. Her older sister, Emma, who was in the front next to me muttered under her breath, “I can”. Emma is in grade six this year and a bit too cool to be anticipating Easter with any visible sign of excitement. However, when Sally asked “How does the Easter Bunny get into our houses? Father Christmas comes through the chimney, what does Easter Bunny do?”. I suggested, “It probably comes through our cat flap”, but Emma turned to me with a sly smile and responded to Sally with, “I think he must have a master key that opens the door of every house”.  

I have to admit though, Sally’s count down is making me excited. At Easter time, I will be flying off to New York for a week-long conference! Before I go I’ll have to purchase four chocolate treats, one for each of the girls. I’ll have to wrap them and entrust them with their father. I feel a slight pang that I won’t be there to put the chocolate on the kitchen table on the eve of Easter Sunday. But I feel equally as sure that the children won’t need me to be there for them to enjoy their chocolate!

Nature’s Way

Hello Possums. Those of you from Australia, we are a month into the new school year and I hope all of your children have settled in well. 

Sally, my youngest, adored her teacher last year. A young gay man, many parents last year including myself believed he was the best teacher in the school. He was nurturing yet firm, had high expectations yet provided essential encouragement and support. He was always happy and always had time to listen to the children. He treated them like active agents in their own education. It is a special person who can connect like this to seven-year-olds.

Sally was devoted to him. When her older sister teased her saying, “Your teacher has man-boobs”. Sally calmly replied, “That’s just nature’s way”. This, of course, left her sisters in hysterics. But she did not laugh.

I wondered how she would go with her new teacher this year when I picked her up from school on the first day back. I expected her to complain that her new older, female teacher was not a patch on Mr Grey. Driving in the car on the way home Emma was in the front and Sally in the back. I peered into the rear view mirror to ask her what she thought of her new teacher. “Oh I’ve got the best teacher in the world. You’d love her mum. She’s old like you and she has a daughter in grade three just like me. You should come into our grade and meet her”. The positive response surprised me. Emma and I exchanged bewildered looks. “What about Mr Grey?”, I enquired, “I thought he was your best teacher in the world!”. Sally made a face. “Well no”, she said with a grimace on her face, “he’s got man-boobs”.

.

‘Adrenalin City’ or ‘What Some Parents Go Through Whilst Supporting Their Children In Sports Of Their Choice’.

Hello Possums. I hope you had a good weekend.

I took my daughter Rosie up to a river in country Victoria for a slalom kayaking race. We both entered it. I had not paddled this river or anything like it for about twelve years. I have been training in slalom technique for a year now but I have never attempted to approach slalom gates on rapids before.

In a past life (before kids) I was a white water touring paddler. Slalom is very different to touring. In slalom much more precision and forward planning is required. The course was a difficult one because the Australian Institute of Sport were using it for national junior team selection. Competitors lined up from Victoria and interstate. The selectors sat on the banks filming contenders’ runs. There was quite an audience.

I wondered what on earth I was doing there. Had I been given a number greater than one hundred and thirty-one I would have chickened out for sure. As it was my number was one hundred and twenty-four. I was up before Rosie! I couldn’t chicken out. I did it for her. On my first run I missed a third of the gates (there were eighteen). But I got down the course and handled all the rapids okay. My second run was better. I still missed the hardest gate and I capsized on the second last gate and went through the last two upside down. But I rolled up and finished the course. I was thrilled. My time was way longer than any of the junior champs. And the competitors in my age group are all ex-olympians or world champs. But both of my runs were personal bests! (One because I’d never done it before, and one because I cut eighty points off my original time).

My friend Bree had come to watch. She was equally excited for me and super encouraging. She wondered if I would be awarded the gates that I went through upside down. Laughing, we went over to the score cards to check. One of Austrualia’s most famous olympians was there checking the junior contenders’ scores and he overheard our conversation. 

Bree: I think you deserve to get those gates because your boat went through it. Yeah sure it was upside down, but it still went through!

Me: Um, maybe not. Oh look here’s my card. I’ve been penalized for it. I suppose your body has to go between the gates.

Famous ex-olympian: Its your head.

The famous olympian may have had a wry smile. It was hard to tell. He is a bit of a remote character.

On the second day. Rosie and I arrived after a fun night and good night sleep at Bree’s. However, we were shocked to learn that the course had been changed. We ran to check it out. It was very different and equally as difficult, perhaps even more technical in places. I had pre-race heebie jeebies like you wouldn’t believe! The self talk went something like: What the f#*k am I doing here. Inside me I was feeling like the donkey who won’t even advance towards the carrot and has to be bodily pushed forwards with its hooves churning up the ground in protest. In the water, one of the junior girls from Victoria said to me: are you going to do it? Wow, I’m so proud of you! I did a quick warm up and launched myself at it. Had it not been for Rosie I would never have done it. As it was, someting akin to primal fear came to my aid. My concentration sharpened to a point never before during a slalom run. Usually I banter with the judges as I take the gates, but this time I was one hundred percent focussed on the course.  

At the end of the run I was overwhelmed. I took off my helmet and burst into tears. The women who paddled before me was very encouraging: You looked great. You’re paddling well. You can ferry glide, just get your angle right in the big rapid next time, ferry out to the first and back for the second. You’ll get those gates for sure next time.  Bree was ecstatic. I was a proud mess. I had only missed two gates and got through most of the others cleanly. I cut my previous best time in half – three personal bests in one weekend! 

Stirring Risotto

Hello Possums. Being back with the program has multiple benefits. I now have the head space to contemplate hosting dinner parties again. I started with a small one. There was a lot of work to do. We don’t have a separate dining room. We have one large room, elevated on our sloping block, with floor-to-ceiling windows at one end overlooking the Yarra River. The kitchen is in a corner of this room separated by an L-shaped bench. Along the wall diagonally opposite the kitchen is our ten-seater table made of a big slab of red gum. It is at this table that we eat family meals and entertain guests. Opposite this, on the other side of the big space are two large brown leather couches and a coffee table. I often read at these couches because it is a light spot, I enjoy the view out of the windows and it is quiet. The TV is in another part of the house.  I refused to have the TV in the same room that I spend most of my time.  When the TV is on it distracts me from my thoughts. I prefer to have peace or listen to music.  Chapter by chapter I have read Harry Potter and the complete Deltora Series to my children sitting on these couches. Much of our family living is done in this room too. Homework is done at the table, craft is done at the bench, toys are played with on the coffee table and couches. Consequently, prior to hosting the dinner party the room was a shambles: books and papers in piles on the table; pokemon figurines all over the couches; window art on the bench; notices from school all over the bench too, etc, etc. The kitchen needed a bit of a clean as well. However, I was in a good mood. I hadn’t hosted a dinner party for at least a year (well, maybe eight months). I was relaxed and in the mood for cooking. I turned my ipod on and took my time. I tidied and cleaned and completed the scene with some yellow snap dragons. Earlier that day at our local butcher I had purchased a boned leg of lamb marinated in lemon and herbs. It had been a coolish day. I felt as though I hadn’t warmed up properly all day. This often happens in summer. We get out of practise of needing a jumper. In the butcher’s I noticed the smoked trout and remembered a lovely dill and trout risotto I used to often cook for dinner parties. Risotto to me is a warming comfort food. I almost regretted ordering the lamb when it occurred to me that I could cook a plain risotto to accompany it. I felt inspired. Our holiday to Tuscany came back to me. I purchased crusty bread and fresh salad greens. Back in my kitchen I hoped that I still had some arborio rice. I found a packet of Italian rice given to me by my friends we travelled with. Whilst the leg of lamb roasted in the oven, I invented my risotto. I was surprised to find I was out of brown onions. Luckily there was one red one. I fried it up with some extra virgin olive oil and added the rice. Next a quarter of a cup of unwooded chardonay. I sipped on the rest of the glass of chardonay whilst I stirred. I added the stock cup by cup, stirring all the while. One of my friends, Harry, used to always cook risotto at dinner parties he hosted. I often think of him whilst I’m stirring. He said it is the stirring that releases the glutin to give the risotto a creamy texture.  He usually cooked risotto with porchini mushrooms. I hadn’t decided exactly what I would do but deliberated over this whilst stirring. I decided not to add the cherry tomatoes or olives I had because I wanted the kids to eat it. It didn’t need to be terribly extravagant because it was accompanying the lamb rather than being the main deal. I added some basil pesto and a spoon of roasted eggplant paste, tasted it, added a pinch of salt, tasted it again. It tasted good, but was missing excitement. I grated a decent handful of fresh Australian parmesan and little lemon rind, stirred these flavours in and tasted it again. Perfect! The good thing about risotto is a large batch takes no extra time. I can cook enough to ensure a quantity of left overs. I ate it for lunch the following day. Without the lamb the subtle flavours were more easily discernable. The hint of lemon was magic. The Italian rice had perfectly held its texture. … In writing this post I have been reminded of not only the dinner parties my friend Harry has hosted, but also the times I have tried to match-make him with my single friends. Each time was a disaster in completely different ways, but equally hilarious in hind sight.  I promise to fill you in later.

Life as usual and how to get a word out of your 15 year old

Hello Possums. I’m back at work. I love it! My quiet, spacious office overlooks a park where students sit on the grass and laugh at lunchtimes. I had a morning cuppa with G (the mature and interesting young man I have written about, who has become a treasured coffee date friend). For lunch I have picked up a large mixed salad from the cafe next door and am eating it as I write. Work is quiet at the moment. I am focussing on transcription of interviews and classroom audio tapes – a time consuming exercise. It sounds boring but because I will be analysing these transcripts at a later date for my study, it is actually very interesting to me. I just wish my shoulders didn’t get sore holding the typing position for long spells. If it weren’t for this I would just plow through it. As it is, I need to take a break every hour at least. You may be surprised that blogging is a break under these conditions. But I sit differently whilst blogging, a relaxed posture possibly. This is my second day back. Yesterday I rode my bike in. Riding in after the holidays is always a good test of fitness. To my surprise I did the ride easily. The jogs along the beach and the occasional pump class at the local YMCA seem to have kept me strong. I tested out my new digital speedo thingy that I got for Christmas. I now know that the round trip is 29km and my maximum speed was 52 km/h. I used to say those digital speedo gadgets were not for me. I refused to install one on my bike. I used to say I didn’t get why people cared about their trip stats and emphasized that it was a boy thing to do. But I went on Around the Bay last year and was thrilled to hear the speeds we reached coming down off Mt Martha. And when the hub said, “what do you want for Christmas?”. I said, “one of those digital trip meter thingys for my bike”. Riding always puts me in a good mood. When I got home, I changed onto my bathers and tied two kayaks onto the roof of my car. My slalom lessons with Rosie had begun for the year as well. I was still hot from my ride, but both of us appreciated being on the water because it had been the hottest day in awhile and also quite humid. I had done a little paddling over summer and I was very pleased that my slalom technique was still okay. Our session with our new coach was fun. When I got home, after a quick shower to wash off the Yarra water I went straight into the kitchen to prepare dinner. Kathleen arrived home from karate. How was your first day at you new shool, I asked her. Okay, she replied. I thought that was all I was going to get out of her. She looked hot from karate, and she was probably too tired to recount her day. I left it at that. Later, when she had set herself up on the kitchen table to do some homework, and Sally was sitting at the bench doing a bit of window art, I felt a surge of happiness which came out of me like this: I stepped out from behind the bench, threw my hands in the air like a victory gesture (you know like the gymnasts do when they’ve done their routine) and said, “I’d just like to announce that I’ve had a really good day”. “Yeah, right”, said Kathleen only half raising her head. “Yep”, I continued, “I rode my bike in and blitzed it. Then canoeing was really fun. I haven’t slipped back on my technique at all and I reckon it was my best session ever”. Kathleen raised her head to look at me then and smiled, “I had a really good time in drama today”, she said. And this is how my conversation with her about her first day at her new school began. I am happy to report that she loves it. She even thinks her maths teacher is good! (If you know Kathleen you will know the significance of this!).