Black and white

emoji rocks for mother's day

grace at the optometrist

nina playing the trumpet

ruby's 12th birthdya party

grace and lily at the underpass

Lil at my work

The kids have played a round robin of colds and flu.  This week was Lil's turn.  The first day she had a temperature and was miserable so I stayed home but the next day she was pretty chirpy so I took her into work with me.  How much did she love my whiteboard!  She's just hit that stage where she wants to write everything all the time.  This says Gols (girls) and, behind her head Bois (boys).  Sweet sweet sweet.

Nina gave up the piano and took up the trumpet.  I maintain that I don't care if they learn music or not, but that if they do they have to practice.  Piano practice with Nina was unbearable, for both of us.  As a child I was also an incredibly grumpy instrument practicer, but was blessed with a much more patient mother.   Nina is not so blessed and in the end it was not worth the insanely ridiculous levels of rage I would experience trying to get her to practice an instrument that she professed not to particularly care for.  The wonderful wonderful thing about the trumpet is that I know NOTHING about it.  I learned piano for about 15 years, but the trumpet I can't even blow.  I don't know how to make the notes and I can't help her, even should she want me to and I think this is a great thing for us both.  Because, however much I try, I am just not the sort of person who can listen to the piano being played without butting in with my ever-so-helpful suggestions and my little carping criticisms.  It's something I especially don't like about myself.  So when she plays the trumpet and calls out 'how did that sound?' I say 'great!' or 'much better', and when she says 'it sounds kind of wheezy' or 'the valves are sticking' I say 'oh dear' and 'remember to ask your teacher about that'.  Oh sweet relief of an absolution of responsibility.

Ruby turned 12. Twelve!  She got her ears pierced.  I took her to a crazy hipster tattoo parlour where her ears were expertly perforated by the most tattooeed and pierced person I have ever seen.  Even his eyelids were tattooed.  He had holes through his nose so you could see daylight from one side to the other.  He was an incredble looking man, with a gentle and professional manner and I would highly recommend getting ears pierced with a needle over a gun.  She has had not the slightest hint of redness, blood, infection or weeping from either ear in 4 weeks.  

Gracie (she wants to be Gracie now) got new glasses.  She wears a kilt with suspenders, a crocheted poncho and runners, like an escapee from the 70's.  Sweet sweet sweet.  Today in the car she asked me what a convertible was.  I remembered coming across that word in Nancy Drew book and never knowing what it was (but surmising it was some sort of car).  I explained and said, why do you ask?  'Well in my book, there's this girl called Nancy and her father gives her a convertible'.  Turns out she is reading Nancy Drew.  Ah the passing of time and all that. 

Canvas

by Ruby

by Grace

by Nina

by Lily

Over the Easter break Kim got the girls to do a painting on canvas.  Thank god for Kim.  Once I was that mother who got the paints out more or less daily, made playdough weekly, did endless craft projects with the kids, sat them on my knee letting them guide the fabric through the sewing machine, displayed their work in an endless rotation on walls and on this blog.  And I didn't do it out of matyrdom or because I thought I should. I really liked that stuff.  I loved nothing more than hauling all the craft stuff onto the kitchen table and getting all the kids involved in some messy project.  It was my number one way to pass an afternoon.  When other kids came for plays it wasn't unheard of to sew bags or make potato prints, or stick bits of pasta onto cardboard and paint them.

Now it seems all my kid-crafting mojo has left me.  After more than a decade of parenting I just cant be bothered.  Painting seems like a lot of mess and hassle, and then what do we do with the finished products?  The art work on the walls has remained unchanged all year.  The idea of sorting through it fills me with ennui.

Maybe that is just the way it is - we are moving onto a new stage and lingering in the last one isn't so interesting (for me).  Unfair on Lil, who is forced to listen to chapter books when I'm sure the others still got picture books every night at her age, and who doesn't even get to watch half the favourite movies of the others because they've all grown out of them.  Movie nights on the whole are more difficult now - the tastes of a 12 year old and a 5 year old rarely intersect.  Do we just abandon the idea of a family movie and run it over two nights instead - little kids and big kids? I dunno.

I think I peaked too early, went too hard, too fast and left nothing in reserve.  

The Best Reference You'd Ever Get (also flattering to librarians)

'She's fantastic Kim, if you met her you know what I mean.  She's as friendly as a librarian and you can tell her anything. She's as funny as a clown and makes me laugh, a lot. She's as patient as a teacher with a class of cheeky kids. Not only is she our babysitter she is also our friend. Every morning when we hear the doorbell we run to the door like a pack of bloodthirsty wolves hunting for their prey. To see her is always a joy and every day she has a new story to tell. She is as amazing as every act in the circus put together and I love her like a family member.' 

By Nina 

Nina's Stick

Whilst I was on craft camp Craig took the girls to the bush for the night with Nana and Pa. Nana is determined that age and dodgy ankles won't inhibit her walking up to the top of the ridge (at least partly because that's the only place she can get mobile reception and she is plugged in to technology, my mother-in-common-law). She invested in some fancy hiking sticks and Nina adopted the idea for herself. She chose a likely looking bit of wood and polished it up with Craig, carved her name in it and gave it a coat of varnish. I had a bit of leather that we threaded through as a strap. I'm quite jealous of this piece actually. Isn't it lovely?

Back to the 50's

Kinda hard to recreate the 50's in a Federation house.

Cuties

The Chocolate Game

This is what they're all hoping to get a bit of....

The Cake.  Yes, I know. But it tasted fantatsic and every singles skerrick was eaten.  That's mango swirl icecream there.

Disaster

Averted

When Ruby and Nina were little I thought I was pretty clever to have had children born two years and one day apart. One party, all the friends and family catered for in a single event, easy peasy. Of course the parties weren't actually that easy peasy, and by the time Nina was in kindergarten the sorts of games and activites that were suitable for 4 year olds didn't really cut it for 6 year olds. And thus ended joint birthday parties.

But now, doing parties on back to back weekends is, I admit, pretty tiring. However low key I think it'll be, it always involves at least a major tidying the house (and clean up of my sewing room whihc is also our dining room - not a small task), a fair bit of thinking and planning for games and such and quite a bit of cooking.

Because Nina was born the day after Ruby I always feel a bit guilty that her birthday comes in the wake of the previous days excitement and treats and cake and goodies. So I do try pretty hard to make sure that Nina's party doesn't feel second best, or like an after thought (even though one year we did delay it by six whole months.....).

This year I reckon we put on a very good show. Despite what I said in the previous post about not focusing much on the decorations, Nina wanted a 50's theme (we've been watching 'Grease', that's the only explanation I can come up with) and decorations seemed the only way to make that theme actually resonate. I couldn't think of much about 50's culture itself that I really wanted to replicate in party form. So we played Elvis and decorated with polka dots and bunting and the kids got decked out in skirts and bobby socks and that sufficed.

We played old fashioned party games, most I remembered from my own childhood - the chocolate game, passing the life savers toothpick to toothpick, musical statues, hot potato (our reverse sort of pass the parcel which avoids the need for a billion layers of wrapping paper) and various team games. I'm always pleasantly surprised by how much kids, even sophisticated kids with lots of technology and entertainment at their fingertips, still love party games. Warms my heart. The cake was, of course, the standard ice cream cake with lollies thrown on it. I swear these are getting worse with each party. Pretty soon they'll just be a carton of icecream and the guests can add their own lollies. I'm not sure that anyone will care much.

Fantastic Mister Fox

I saw a pattern for Felix Fox, by Cynthia Treen Studio at my local fabric stop in Jamaica Plain last year.  How far away and long ago that already seems.  I bought the pattern, meaning to make it for Nina for Christmas but there were visits to New York and Washington and things to do that meant sewing took a back seat.  Also the pattern called for pipe cleaners to be inserted in the arms and legs for positioning and I couldn't for the life of me figure out where to buy pipe cleaners in Boston.

Instead I sewed him up for her birthday - I would have liked him to be a bit more orangey, but the only orange felt available at the time was a bit bright, so he is brown instead.  And for some reason his smart red suit looks rather like pyjamas, but that's okay.

I added the satchel, felt envelop with letter from Mousie Brown, and folder with tiny presonalised pencil and miniature note pad.  This is so very up Nina's alley (and also so very up mine).  I did try to make a cat (but without a pattern) for Ruby, but that is still a work in progress.  My first attempt came out as a possum/rat/bilby cross.  Definitely not feline.

Stormy Seas

Nina brought home these two paintings from school this week. That very contained little boat, neat as a pin, under those rather menacing clouds and that tempestuous sea could be emblematic, I suppose, of her somewhat opaque personality. She's so often such a together little girl, always busy, often on her own, deeply immersed in creating something and sailing contentedly along. And yet the storm clouds and the rough seas are never far away. Like all parents, I wonder in which particular ways I will fail each of my children, and with Nina I suspect it will be my failure to comprehend what causes the electrical build up that releases the lightning, and my vain attempts to calm those waters when they need to rage.

Spell

A spell that makes a toilet apear when you deperately need to go but you are in an unconvenite place. do this spell it will make a toilet apear in a convenitent spot so you can go. don't worry it will have walls and a sink so you can go in private and wash you hands.

Happy Halloween!

School's Out (Nearly)

School is nearly out for summer.  In just 6 more school days, the girls will finish up for the year and we will head overseas, whilst their classmates battle on for another 6 weeks.  My girls can barely begin to imagine how lucky they are; no school, a long airplane trip during which they have been promised they can watch as much TV as they want, a white Christmas.  I think I'm most looking forward to having time to just be a family together, corny as that sounds.  I'm sure it won't be stressfree, but it will be much closer to it than the past 12 months have been.

Craig thinks it is very strange that, after spending 5 days a week at school, the kids come home and play school for hours. Their games are very involved, and there may be work books written, home work assigned, spelling and maths tests and strict (much stricter than in real life) teachers.  Leaf Cottage, at top, is obviously a very able student.  I like this line; 'With her social problems though, maybe you could help her find a friend at the orphanage'.

Hannah's Baby

Nina's classroom teacher of the last three years, Hannah, is expecting her first baby. I've made her something, but Nina also wanted to sew for the baby and so she made this set of bibs. I love this fabric (PB&J by BasicGrey), and thought it particularly appropriate for a teacher. Nina is getting to be an accomplished little sewer. She took the curves like a champ and did a very neat job.

The Beat Goes On

Nina and Grace have started tap classes. I find I am very keen on tap. It's the first time any of them have done dance classes, apart from the ubiquitous 'creative dance' that all children under 5 seem to be required to attend. Not that I have anything against creative dance. It's very cute to see 3 year olds run around and 'make a shape' and play with pretty stones and pretend to be a wind. But I find something about these tap classes really appeals to me as I sit and watch each Saturday morning while Craig takes Ruby to netball. It's the rhythm, the discipline, the coordination within the group. When Nina's class do their warm up and they are all in sync it is just really cool to watch (and hear). It's interesting too, seeing how kids do it - some all small and compact and precise in their movements, some all arms and gangly legs.

On Sunday they were to perform their rhythms at the Collingwood Toy Library Fair. The top picture was what greeted us as we arrived. It got steadily worse. Decisions were made to cancel, but in the end they moved under the old bleachers and performed on the concrete, for their damp and cold parents. I was so pleased that they got to do it, and that both girls remembered their routines. Grace concentrated so hard that, if you didn't know her, you'd think she was having a miserable time. She was actually having a ball and was terribly thrilled with herself. Ever since, I've woken to hear her thumping out her steps down the hallway.

Things to Do When You are Bored in the School Holidays (Pt 6)

Line up your collection of mentos wrappers and take a lot of photos of them;

Make a billion pompoms;

Then teach your friend how to make them;

Have someone over for a play who is also the youngest of four and as sweet and stubborn as you;

Beg your mum to take you out for pho;

Take iPhone photos to compare eyes with your siblings.

Thank Goodness for Blogs

How else would I ever remember that tonight, while reading the final chapter of 'The Wolves of Willoughby Chase' to Ruby and Nina, they were so excited when Sir Willoughby returned after being shipwrecked that they got up and started jumping on their beds for joy. And after we'd finished they re-told other especially wonderful bits - when Miss Slighcarp pretends that she was only joking about locking Bonnie and Sylvia in the dungeon but Mrs Brisket gives the game away by mentioning that two children are already locked up, when James sees them again, how Simon is going to be a painter. Isn't a great book a truly marvellous thing?

Anti Animal Cruelty Game

Nina made up this game - progress by being kind, regress by being cruel to animals. I'm not sure whether I like best her tiny writing, her very neat layout, the sentiment behind it, or the array of options she has provided for feedback from her teacher, Hannah.