Christmas Gifts 2015

Let me record, before I forget, the highlights of the Christmas gifts -Nina's poo emoji chocolate coated meringues for Ruby, Grace's 'blue Basil with black beard and beret' for Craig, Lily's pottery bells for me and, not pictured, Ruby's handmade body wash and scrubs for everyone.

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.  

FIVE

Lily turned five. It's a big deal, five and takes us well out of the world of very early childhood. There will soon be no more kinder, no more Fridays just the two of us. Before long she'll be reading and making her own bed and expanding her world outside the family. Everything about how I feel about this has already been written - probably throughout the recorded history of humanity -in more eloquent and appropriate words than I could hope to find so I won't indulge my own somewhat divided emotions. Instead I'll record the gorgeous gifts her sisters made for her: Nina a little stuffed bunny that Lily named 'Bunette'; Ruby, who loudly declares that she 'does NOT like sewing' made a little penguin wheat pack, which Lily named 'Penguana'; Grace spent ages constructing a box, with lid, to contain her 'make your own Pikachu necklace' gift. She exhorted Lily several times to 'respect the box'.

I stole the idea for the cake from here and succumbed to Lily's penchent for pokemon with a Pikachu onesie. The big girls made up a treasure hunt for Lily to find their presents - they spent ages coming up with the rhyming clues and the collaboration was not always harmonious, but it paid off in cheap thrills for Lil. It was a kindergarten day so Lily handed out party invitations to her class and we brought in special fruit skewers (cheap thrills for the kinder kids - so easy to please at that age) and she had her little chest puffed out with pleasure and pride. It was a lovely lovely day.

Still Life

Paintings by, from top to bottom, Grace, Nina, Ruby and Lily. They all count as still life because Lily's is actually a portrait of her doll, Gretel. These say so much to me about my four girls. I love them all.

Show Time

There is no doubt we are blessed by the presence of Kim in our home twice a week and more if we are lucky.  She minds the kids but she does so much more than that.  These are the stick puppets she made with Lily, Grace and Nina whilst Ruby was at netball training last week.  I'm particularly fond of the guy with frankfurt hair, Nina's tiny zip-loc bag guy with titchy hat, grace's bow-tie-wearing banana and Lily's baby monster with blue wool hair.

Their stand also doubles as their storage box.  We like boxes a lot in this house.

Boundless Plains to Share

Refugee Week

This story was very sad but it was exilent too. Because it shows that Australia is quit rich. We have food and clothes and water too. We are lucky and we also don't really let refugees in our country. We should help refugees somehow. We need to share. 

Grace wrote this after a school visit from a young man who came to Australia as a refugee from Burundi and is now a successful hip hop artist. All my girls were very impressed and moved by his story. 

Cotton Reels, Toilet Rolls and Pegs

After the excitement of the musical, the school has a 'Day of Repose' for all the children (and teachers) to recover. I had to work, but by all accounts it was a disasterously hilarious day, starting with a hot chocolate that was undrinkably bitter and moving onto a lamington that never arrived, insects that smash pottery and walls that leap out and bang you on the head. Ruby wrote it up as a blurb for a horror movie, which was pretty funny. They did make these little dolls though - Grace made herself, Nina appears to have made Sideshow Bob's sister and you can probably guess which one is Lily's.

Things to Do When You Are Bored in The School Holidays (Pt 5)

Grace's

Nina's

Ruby's

Lily's

Make weird furry monster cousins for your monster friends. These were made with Kim. Both Ruby and Nina have done quite a bit of sewing these holidays, mostly clothes for their toys. I used to try to steer them into projects that I thought were suitable for their skill level - pillow cases, bags and so forth. But of course it is much more fun and interesting for them to attempt the things they actually want to make, even if they are not always totally successful. And because they are in control of these projects, I don't have to be 'patient' with them, I don't have to help them, or really do anything at all except show some interest in the finished object. Ruby, in particular, has really increased her confidence in sewing. Like quite a few eldest children I know she can be quick to feel she is 'no good' at something if she doesn't get it right immediately. I don't believe anyone is good at sewing immediately, (or piano, or cooking or a million other skills). You have to either methodically learn or, as I prefer, plunge in and stuff up and try and press on.

see other things to do when you are bored in the school holidays here, here, here and here

School According to Grace

I really love that stage where they are just starting to write on their own. It is such a joyous realisation isn't it, the power of the written word (even if written backwards).

Welcome

I'd live here.

What Pirates say in Love Letters

Dear Me Love
Arrggh
from Pirate

Monster Mash

Old jumpers, old tights, scraps of felt, odds and ends.  Kim made these with the girls last school holidays but Ruby's (top) disappeared for an extended visit with the dust balls under her bed and only re-emerged last weekend for photographs.

Motherlode

Grace to Craig 'Where is your present for Mama?'
Me 'I'm not his mother '
Grace 'But you're his wife'
Nina 'Well, not actually his wife.  His common-law wife.'

Ruby made me Nigella's brownies.  If they weren't necessarily cooked all the way through, well, brownie mixture is delicious as well, isn't it?
Lily made me a lavender bag ( I was corrected when I called it a sachet) at kinder, and two cards.
Grace finger knitted me an awesome necklace in beautiful blue wool.
And Nina made me a pompom, which I know she really loved, so it was kind of her to part with it.

It is sometimes hard to believe that all these girls are really mine.  I looked at them sitting on the end of my bed this morning, thrilled with their hand made gifts, so healthy and so different, and felt amazed and incredibly lucky.