Ready for School?

Lil was not keen on going to kinder this morning.  'It's boring' she said in her dismissive way.  'All we do is play and draw pictures and make up stories about the Yarra.'

Crime and Punishment

When I was a child I was obsessed with robbers, and believed that they came to our house every night, not to take anything, just to lurk in cupboards and freak me out.  So I was amused to see Grace's weekend entertainment: this 'Robber Weekly' magazine, which kept her amused and chortling to herself for quite a few hours.

I love the names she came up with: John Dickly, Thomas Stoe, Dick Beensly, Marshel Owen (the only female robber in the band), Oscar Pleed, Matt Tissly, Joe Deen and Marct Tistoe.  Don't they just sound like a list of convicts?

The Punishments 'Stay out in the cold with no food; Stay with me but no food: Do chores for me'.

And the Crimes: John Dickly stole the boat that peapol were on and sank it.  Thomas Stoe stole the line of 'i's (family joke).

Red Riding Hood, as told by Grace

My favourite part of Grace's re-telling of this tale? - Little Red's finger, pointing to her Grandma's house. And the wolf's response to being asked where he is going 'well not rilly enny were'.

Arnie Jones Minkplush

Dear Arnie Jones Minkplush
I have feelings for you that you probably don't know I have.
You are kind, gentle, caring, loving and I like you that way.  When I talk to you my eyes light up like starts.
Arnie Jones Minkplush, I love you

yours sincerely
Your Secret Admirer

Parks and Recreation

I've been told that we now require Park I.D's to go into our garden.  The Park Ranger, Fred, is apparently a pretty reasonable guy, but the night rangers are really strict and you don't want to get caught without your Park I.D.  Having said that, it may only apply in some futuristic alternate universe, seeing as 'Maya's' Park I.D. was only created on the 5 of November 2015, and bizarrely she was already six even though it would appear that her birthday is not until the following day......
It's not too bad though - that Park I.D is valid for longer than my licence.

When the kids play around with your phone...

I found these photos on my phone. Kind of creepy, kind of lovely.

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'.

Spoiled for Choice

I don't like to vote above the line. I don't trust the preference deals done and can't be sure I understand how they will pan out. The fact that Steve Fielding got in on the back of ALP preferences a few elections back was pretty disgraceful. However deciding where to place all 97 candidates below the line was not an easy task this year.

How to work out which of Family First, One Nation, Rise up Australia, the Citizen's Electoral Council,  Palmer United Party et al, should get pride of place at number 97? Then there were the candidates that I had no idea about: 'Stop CSG' was a mystery until I googled CSG - Coal Seam Gas - I probably should have known that. And how confusing was the name of 'No Carbon Tax Climate Scpetics'? Was that 'No' to sceptics about climate change and the carbon tax? Or was it 'No Carbon Tax - we are climate scpetics'? A judiciously placed comma would have helped. The Pirate Party sounded like something my kids might get invited to, and it is easy to be burned by parties that have words like 'social' and 'equal' in them. Is 'Socialist Equality' for socialist equality or are they actually a right wing conspiracy theorist group? Some made their platform clear - motoring enthusiasts, smoker's rights, legalise marijuana but I'm not sure whether to be amused, proud that everyone gets a chance to raise their issues, or despairing that our senate election took on a certain circus quality. I'm tending toward the latter but I'm as much to blame as anyone else. I could have done my homework, found out who was running and researched each platform, weighed my choices, made informed decisions. I was lazy, and bored, and disengaged.

Instead I spent the day cleaning out the bathroom cupboard and helping Ruby sort out the mess under her bed. It took hours and hours and was exhausting and cathartic in equal measure. I like nothing more than getting rid of stuff, a sentiment shared by many other Australians it seems. Out with the old, in with the new.

Whilst going through my bathroom cupboard I found a large bottle of Chanel perfume; a gift from my dear friend Nic, whose father bought her a bottle duty free every overseas trip he took.  As he went overseas frequently she had a shelf of unopened perfume and passed one along to me.  However I  don't really wear perfume, so it sat unused for more than a decade.  Can you already guess how this story ends?  I gave it to Ruby and Nina, with warnings that they use it only very very sparingly, very very occasionally and take special care not to spill it, as it has a wide open neck and a big glass stopper.

Yesterday I returned from work to find the house in an uproar.  Somehow Grace had got the perfume and managed to spill about three-quarters of the bottle on Ruby and Nina's bedroom carpet.  That was a lot of perfume, very strong, concentrated perfume.  Grace was beside herself, Ruby and Nina were convinced I'd be furious, and everyone had a developing headache from the overpowering fumes.  White vinegar, carb soda and strenuous mopping did little to dilute the smell.  The big girls slept on the floor of the playroom last night, their room being uninhabitable, but this morning the smell persists and permeates the entire house.  It is a little like living in a department store or the house of a lady of a certain age.

Mousie Brown's Lunch Order

It's a been a while since Mousie Brown featured here. It is true that he has spent quite a bit of the year in a little tin with some friends, sitting on a desk under a pile of ephemera. But nevertheless, he has not been inactive. It appears that he is still attending that school with the extremely pricey tuckshop. Cheese roll, eleven bucks?!!

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.

The Filest

I wish she had finished this before getting distracted.  I'd love to know more about a filest.

What Pirates say in Love Letters

Dear Me Love
Arrggh
from Pirate

We are Somewhat Amused

Someone graffitied our spanking new letter box. I am sort of amused and sort of cross.

Monsieur Aubergine and other Vegetable Creations

We grew this bizarre eggplant in the garden. Nina decorated him for the now-annual vegetable sculpture competition at the Harvest Festival. He was so naturally fabulous he didn't need much adornment but check out some of the other vegie creations.

Aren't they great?

How to Make a Crib (in one thousand easy steps)

I found this sheaf of stapled papers stuck up with blu-tac in the playroom. Nina has set herself a project to build a crib (what we would actually call a cot - see cultural hegemony) and has worked out her plan:  the days she will and won't work on it (I will not make the crib on my B-day....Ruby's B-day is the 21st and I won't make it on her B-day either), the measurements of the blankets, a paper model and 'ideas with chalk'.  She's got her birds eye model and her layered model (labelled).  This is more planning that I have ever done in my life.  Certainly more planning that I did for any actual babies I had.  Where did this child come from?  I am simultaneously awed and bemused by her.

Romance

drawing by Ruby

Recently I wrote a romance novel for fun. There was a competition which spurred me on to do it, though I'd tossed the idea around in my mind vaguely for several years. My heroine is a lawyer who is working on a pharmaceutical class action. She is not me. She does love to sew but she's not me. She rides her bike to work but she is most definitely not me. She falls in love with her boss and they win their class action, he declares his undying love and they go to the pub. Quite an Australian ending I thought, except for the bit about winning the class action, as anyone who has ever run a personal injury class action in Australia would know (bitter? me?).

I got exactly nowhere in the competition, nor did I deserve to, but it was a most enjoyable and educational experience. In my brief foray into the world of aspiring romance writers I discovered what I suspect must plague every writer or artist of any description; a complete lack of any ability to judge one's own product. In my actual field of endeavour - the law - there are relatively objective parameters of success. Winning a trial is a good indicator that you haven't stuffed things up really badly. Discussing cases with colleagues and finding that others share your view on a matter, debating issues with counsel, analysing a legal point and finding your opinion validated by a judgment all give you indications that you are on the right track. I imagine that if I took on case after case and kept losing, or if I routinely missed the issue, or asked the wrong questions or overlooked a crucial point of law, I'd probably realise that I was not much chop as a lawyer.

But how do you know if you are a good writer who just has to weather the rounds of rejection before your talent is recognised, or if you are simply a hack and should leave well enough alone? (I ask this as a rhetorical question, I'm not proposing to quit my job and attempt romance writing as a career). I wrote this book and I liked my heroine (who is not me) and I adored my hero, who was dedicated to social justice and spoke fluent Italian. However after finishing the novel, and reading plenty of genre fiction and some of the other competition entries, I could not for the life of me tell if mine was on the side of 'kind of okay and shows promise' or on the side of 'stick to being a lawyer and never ever enter this realm again'. I really couldn't tell. A few friends said nice things, but frankly, of course they would.

I'm taking all the positives out of this experience - I learned a lot, I really enjoyed the process, and I can now say that I've written a novel (though to be honest I cannot imagine the occasion when I actually will). I discovered that it is not easy to impart crucial plot information in an interesting way. It can be difficult to avoid 'he said' in conversations, but annoying to have your characters constantly 'snapping' 'riposting' and 'opining'. Writing the actual romancy bits, the kissing and so forth, was quite bizarre. And trying to stick within the conventions of genre fiction but to transcend cliche was a challenge. To real writers, of real, published books, in whatever genre, I tip my hat. It's a hard job with lean rewards and I'm very glad that someone does it and that that person is not me.

Vampirology

A Book For Young Vampires: This book will help any young vampire with any thing they need to know "What is happening to me?"

Wings & School

Growing Up
v funny eyebrows
beginning of moustache
puffy lips (he has been biting himself overnight)
Growing up can be very hard for a human but for a vampire it is SUPER hard however do not worry:
Before.....2 Weeks Later
So it is very easy and quick for a vampire to return to normal or turn into an adult.

Fangs & Dentology
2 out of 3 young vampires will have a fang overbite but do not be discouraged.  As far as my research goes there is only 2 vampire dentists in the world so most young vampires will have to go to a normal dentist.  DO NOT bite the dentist even if it is SOOO tempting.
If your dentist says you need braces, don't panic just stay calm.
When our dentist is puting the braces in your mouth, it is okay to bite him/her.
"MUNCH". Your dentist will collapse in front of your very eyes but only bite him/her if there is no one else in the room.  Well maybe your mum or dad is okay.  If a nurse is in the room it is okay to bite because she/he will become paralyzed.  It will work this way if there is only 1 human in the room.

Love the broken heart t-shirt, the expression on the winged vampire's face and the way she has nailed this genre of pre-adolescent 'self help' books.

Science Experiment (inadvertent)

During the recent hot spell Ruby asked if she could freeze her water bottle to take to school the next day.  I kind of forgot that she might not know that you can't fill a water bottle up to the top and freeze it.    Quite impressive, isn't it, the power of water?  That's stainless steel.