Last year of primary school

Well it's official - Cherub is enrolled for High School! His - and our - final year of primary school is slipping away so quickly, and I am not doing a very good job of recording it here!  So here are a few of the recent happenings for my Grade 6 boy.



Last night we watched his last ever primary school production, the Grade 5/6 kids doing Alice in Wonderland Jnr. Their normal drama teacher went on leave this term, and Cherub and his friends, who had been keenly looking forward to their last ever big production with that teacher, were very underwhelmed by the sudden change of plan.  They didn't put themselves forward for roles, and told us it was lame.  Which was a shame, and I kept exhorting them to change their tune and make the best of it. The show must go on etc. They looked unconvinced.



Actually, the show was completely fine. They hired costumes for it, and Cherub looked very cute in his lion suit.  Well, I'm pretty sure he was meant to be a lion. Other guesses include a dog, or a possum or a werewolf.  But his classmates looked quite like the cast of The Lion King, so I'm going with lion. We're still unclear as to what place wild animals have in the Alice in Wonderland storyline, but at least we parents didn't have to sew anything this year. The wig/mane looked so much like Cherub's own hair first thing in the morning that he was very easy to identify on stage.  As always, his dancing was very good indeed, and he fulfilled my stage mother requirements by being in the front row, although whether he was put there because of height or merit is unclear.



The best thing about it was it was very short, so we were none of us too tired to enjoy our traditional post-show gelati.



In other 'lasts' of primary school, Cherub had his final ever Bookweek Parade. A few years ago he went as Frodo from Lord of The Rings, this year he was determined to be Bilbo Baggins from The Hobbit.



He insisted he needed a red coat, not too long, and we eventually found one to borrow from my sister.  I also made him a little green vest from a jumper I'd accidentally partially felted in a hot wash.  To make the ears I sewed some foam padding  rounds in half and threaded them on to a hairband made from hat elastic. Threading them meant the ears were adjustable on his head, I was actually pretty pleased with myself for thinking that design through.  I found a shirt and some shorts at the opshop, and for his overlarge and hairy bare hobbit feet we put a pair of Fixit's brown socks over a pair of sandshoes with some padding down the end, then used some flesh-coloured knee high stockings over the top, which we drew hairs all over.  It worked really well. He already had the Hobbit Sword and a Ring, but he didn't look for the ring until leaving time and it was nowhere to be found, so I had to quickly fashion one out of picture wire.



Here he is going off to school in costume with all his bags for Friday (music, futsal and school) ...

 

...and here he is parading.

 

While we're playing catch-up, here are some shots of the Friday Night Futsal team that Cherub has been playing in these last two terms with his school buddies.  All the kids really progressed throughout the season, and they even made it to the finals, which is so good considering they only started this year.



 

Also a shot from Cherub's last week of soccer, because hooray, soccer season is over and we don't need to be always taking the kids to soccer!



And we don't have to be the Team Managers any more, which was stressful and boring and bad for our relationship. Note to self, don't say yes to that job ever again.  Cherub's team played in a division too high for their abilities this year, so they got thrashed most weeks. Just at the very end of the season they started to hit their straps, and so they managed one win against the second-worst team and a draw against the 3rd-worst team, before finishing the season losing 8-0 to the league champions.  We were all pretty ecstatic the week they won, I can tell you! Here's the Team Captain looking happy.  He worked his guts out all season in defence, and made us proud every game.



To end this post on a good note : here are the lads enjoying a delicious home-cooked breakfast of pancakes and bacon for Mister Fixit.
 

Happy Fathers Day.

High School Musical, Primary School Musical

Unlike our primary school, a school production at high school is a voluntary, additional activity, and in Year 7, Climber, despite having always enjoyed performing at primary school, did not volunteer.  He also had no plans to participate in Year 8, despite the fact that they were calling for tap dancers and the kid has been tapping since he was 4. When I found out about this I encouraged and cajoled (and eventually begged) him to try out, like a good stage mother. It seemed positively sinful from my point of view not to use his skills, and to miss out on a fun-filled opportunity because of either fear of failure or fear of judgement by his peers.  But nothing I said swayed him, and I eventually emailed his Home Group teacher (also the Production Director) to say he could tap and I wasn't sure why he was so reluctant to try out and could she have a word please. The upshot of which was that he did audition and did get the gig, alongside our mothers group friend and fellow tap student Pip.



The show was an off-broadway musical called Urinetown, and the school put on a great production in July.  All the kids did a fantastic job.  There is something very beautiful and heart-warming about watching a bunch of committed kids giving their all on stage.  I was extremely proud of Climber and Pip.  I am pretty sure that Climber enjoyed himself, although I think early in the rehearsal process when the dancers were separate to the main cast he felt isolated and resentful.  But once it became a performance, he seemed to really enjoy it, and had a great time hanging out backstage with some friends.  I suspect any future high school performances will be based on whether his peer group takes part (it will have to come from the girls, none of his male friends show any signs of wanting to perform), but I'm very glad he gave it a shot this year, and that he persevered and discovered it was worth it.



As for the younger son, his Grade 5/6 production went on in September, and it was fun all the way for my all-singing, all-dancing Cherub.  He auditioned for an acting role and got nothing (unbelievable!) but was not cast down.  He just had a ball singing and dancing as part of his class' routine to Happy ...



... and as part of the boys hip-hop crew to Classic. 





He was one of the strongest dancers in both numbers, and looked so cool, and so comfortable.  As always the production was heaps of fun, and again, all the kids were so committed and were having such a great time on stage that it was completely happy-making.



Little dude.  I love how much he loves dancing.

Week of wins.

Fixit started work on Wednesday. He leaves the house at 6.30am but is home at a reasonable hour. He seems to be enjoying himself, but is tired at the end of the day.  When he was first retrenched I found it annoying having him around in the morning. He kept getting in my way while I was trying to get the boys off to school! But then I got used to it. So it was weird this last few days not having him around.  I would say it actually ran more smoothly, but we all missed him too.

Both boys had music concerts this week.  Climber, in typical fashion, neglected to tell us that his flute ensemble were providing pre-show foyer music so we pretty much missed that. But the two bands he performed in during the show proper (Junior Band and Junior Stage Band) were excellent, and he looked very handsome in his concert shirt and trousers too.



Cherub was highly excited to be doing a music concert as well.  His band has only had 6 weeks preparation, and most of them only started learning their instruments at the start of last term so they only played three very short pieces, but they clearly enjoyed themselves and played with gusto.



I'm feeling proud of all the boys this week!

Oh and PS I bought new tap shoes, because my purple ones have never quite recovered from having the cracked tap-plate. There were no purple ones left in my size so I've gone with some all-black lace-ups.  Busting to try them out tomorrow morning!

In May from June

In May, Climber went off to camp twice.



The first one was music camp. Climber and most of the music kids he knows are 'novice' musicians, and as such weren't eligible for Music Camp yet, but Climber attended because of being in the choir. This meant he didn't really know the other kids at camp well enough to feel comfortable, and although he had a bearable time, he was I think a bit lonely and came home looking and feeling fragile.  If he didn't like his choir teacher so much he might have ditched choir by now, but I hope he stays with it because he has a nice singing voice.



The other camp was the Year 7 camp, which had been postponed due to the industrial action in Term One.  Owing to this and availabilities of theatres and camp locations, the rescheduled camp clashed with the Music Concerts, so on his second night of camp, Climber was bussed back to perform with the choir in the Strings and Choir Concert, and then went back to camp that same night, had his last day at camp, and then came home and performed flute that night with the Bands concert.  I missed the Strings and Choir concert because I was teaching, but man, the Bands concert was excellent.  The kids in the Intermediate and Senior bands were so impressive and inspiring.  I feel very happy that Climber is getting to do music in such a great school program.



All of these camp/concert shenanigans involved a fair bit of organisational gymnastics from Mister Fixit and me (who both work nights), not just to get a parent there to watch with Cherub, but to make sure Climber got to the theatre in a clean and sweet-smelling state with the things he needed, like his flute and shiny shoes. We were all exhausted by the Thursday, and I gave the kids the day off to recover.



In May, Cherub's class was asked to reprise their rendition of Thriller for the school's AGM, which was exciting BUT clashed with Climber's Band Concert/Return from Camp.  I explained to Cherub's school about the clash and asked if Thriller could be scheduled as first item so that Cherub and I could race to watch Climber's show straight afterwards. The teacher's initial response was that if not, maybe another child could take over the role of Michael Jackson? Obviously I am far too much of a Stage Mother for that to be an option, I mean surely there is only one Michael Jackson as far as 4A is concerned. So I set about organising a babysitter who could take care of Cherub, just in case.  As it turned out, the Principal, very kindly, did rejig the running order to accommodate me, and Thriller was the opening act, done and dusted by 6:50pm, leaving Cherub and I plenty of time to make it to  Climber's concert in Moonee Ponds by 7:30pm.  Cherub was very good again, and managed a creditable moonwalk despite performing on carpet which is not slidy enough for really optimal moonwalking.



In May I celebrated National Tap Dancing Day on the 25th by teaching heaps of gorgeous children tap dance. (It was Saturday, we were there anyway, but we did celebrate - I made them pose for photos with me.)



In May we received our school photographs. The High School went the bog-standard school photographer and we got bog-standards pictures.  But the Primary School went with a local woman and I just love the beautiful shots she took of Cherub and his class.



See the difference?



In May, we did a lot of throwing out.  Old tellies and computers, old clothes, old potties and strollers.  We were holding on to a lot of crap, stuff we felt we needed to keep "just in case", because our finances had been so tight for so long. (I don't know why we were hanging on to the potties though.  Maybe we were waiting for a poor friend to have a kid so we could pass them on? Or maybe they were just in a cupboard I didn't open very often.) Anyway, Fixit is a qualified mechanic now, and it won't break us to buy new stuff where required.  So out it all went, and it felt really good. Clothes drawers are in good order and clothing that was never worn has been passed on to the opshop. Shelf space has magically become available.  Somehow all this virtue resulted in me going out and rewarding myself with not one but two brand new pairs of winter boots at the 25-percent-off boot sale at Myer.  I haven't owned winter boots for nearly 20 years. Here are the workaday, standing around at soccer games pair. Very comfortable, and a zip at the side so I don't have to undo all those laces. The other pair is more posh.  I may wear them to the theatre.

Friller

Yesterday was the big day for Cherub; the day of the Grade 3/4 Concert featuring his star turn as Michael Jackson (when the time travellers visited the 80s).  Ever since I learned he was to have a small dance solo during the song, I have been ridiculously excited, and hounded him over the weeks to show me his moves.  I'm a card-carrying Stage Mother, of course I did. But he steadfastly refused, because he wanted it to be a big surprise.  The only thing he let me in on was that he'd be doing the famous moonwalk, so we've had ongoing impromptu sessions on that: Is this right, mum?  Nearly but you need to lift the other heel as you slide the foot back etc.  I was nearly as impatient as him for the day of the concert to arrive.



The theatre had been booked when the teachers were still implementing workplace bans on out-of-hours labour as part of their industrial action.  Which meant we had to have a daytime concert.  This was not quite as much fun, as the kids got bussed back to school straight afterwards and we parents had to rush back to collect them - no big hugs in the theatre foyer and chats with other proud parents over a glass of wine.  And no going off for a celebratory gelati afterwards, our family tradition.  Nontheless, it was fun as usual to watch all those happy, enthusiastic children giving it their all.



Another Mum and I collaborated on the zombie costumes for Thriller and I was very pleased with how cool they looked. It made that boring production line sewing and running around organising fabric dye worthwhile.  But better than pride in my own handiwork was the pride I felt in the children.  A friend of mine taught me a new word recently: Nachas, which is a Yiddish word meaning the pride or joy one feels for the success of another - often one's child - particularly if one took part in the process of achieving that success.  This concert gave me great volumes of nachas, not only for my kid but also for some of my tap students who popped up with tap-dancing solos that they'd obviously choreographed themselves.  None of them told me about it beforehand either, so I was very close to squealing when they started breaking out their well-executed moves.



As for Cherub, he did such a good job!  He was word-perfect with his lines and spoke clearly and confidently.  He danced well and sang loudly and tunefully.  And when he busted out his moonwalk the crowd went wild.  Fixit and I were bursting with pride.

 

My favourite moment though, was not his splendid moonwalk.  It was the moment just before he danced his solo.  He stepped forward and adjusted his jacket and glove. Then we saw him take a big, steadying, oh-my-goodness, here-I-go breath.  And then a little grin of excited pride crept over his face, and you can see him firmly repress it, just before he listened for his cue.  It was so cute, so very him.



Great job, Cherub!

The Dreamer and the Go-getter.

High school, tap starting back, hot weather. They're my excuses.

My physical energy has been sapped by the resumption of teaching tap, after 7 weeks of rest, and 14 straight days of temperatures over 30 degrees. Here is what that does to you...
 
 Hot cat.

As for my mental (and occasionally my emotional) energy, well that is being sucked dry by high school, high school, high school. If I haven't been trying to find large sums of money for all the stuff needed (books, uniform, the ipad, the apps for the ipad, music fees, I've lost track of all the other stuff but believe me, coming up with that amount of money in my non-earning period was a challenge! If you have a Grade 6 child, start saving up now!!), then I've been trying to help my stressed-out boy become an organised and focused person. This is not, repeat not, his natural state. (In our mothers group, all the firstborns are dreamers and all the second-borns are focused, it keeps Jen, Astrid and me very amused) That being the case, I am enormously proud of how well Climber is doing. It doesn't come naturally to him, but he is trying so hard, and mostly succeeding. The main thing is, he is approaching it with a great attitude. But the sheer volume of things he needs to remember means that, inevitably, he has the occasional lapse. Last Friday he rode the whole way to school before realising he'd forgotten to wear his bike helmet. (Bike helmets are compulsory in Melbourne. His panicked text message to me read I dont have a helmet. Help me.) And today I had to quickly run his flute and music book to school after receiving another urgent message from him. I think he misread his schedule, and of course today was the day I merely said get your bag packed and didn't actually stand with him to check his progress. Ah well, live and learn.

Meanwhile, his little brother has been putting his natural focus and drive to good effect. A week or so ago, he announced he wanted to go to school dressed up as Michael Jackson. This, we thought, was because his class are to perform [Michael Jackson's song] Thriller at the Grade 4 Concert, and to that end they'd been watching MJ videos for inspiration, and Cherub, as he is wont to do, had developed an official obsession (his words) with the single-gloved one. What Cherub was keeping under his white fedora was that the drama teacher had said he was going to select someone from the class to play the role of Michael Jackson in the performance. 



I'll have you know that Cherub's efficient and targeted campaign was wholly successful, and it was a highly excited small boy who bounded out of school to greet me with the good news that he'd been picked to play Michael Jackson.

He also attended his first ever swimming carnival and came home with an unexpected ribbon! Third place in breaststroke!



It's good to be the Cherub.

Grade 5/6 Production

Every year at our school the kids perform in a Grade Concert, singing and dancing with their class.  It is gorgeous to watch the kids each year, and also fascinating to see their improvement and development over time.  When they are Preppies they are outrageously cute but slightly chaotic; by the time they reach grade 6 they are seasoned and capable performers.  It is really quite wonderful watching how much cleverer they get year by year, and I feel very lucky to live in an age where recording their efforts, either by concert dvds, digital cameras and even blogging, is so easy.  It means that I can look back and chart the development, and boy, they've come a long way, those babies.

Last year, Climber really got the performance bug.  Grade 5/6 is the first year where the kids work with a script, which means speaking parts for some of the kids. He'd been too shy to audition for a speaking part that year, but was regretting this by the time the show went on and was absolutely set on winning a speaking part this year. When the time came to audition he learned his monologue and even got the guts up to sing (he did Consider Yourself from Oliver! and sang both Oliver and the Artful Dodger's parts), thereby putting himself in contention for a 'lead role' rather then just a class speaking role.

He was very excited when he heard that he'd got a [small] lead role and immediately asked if he could text the professional actor in his life, who replied with delighted congratulations and the sage observation that there was no such thing as a small lead role.

After 10 weeks of rehearsal, it was finally time for the Big Night.    The show was called Pandora's Box and the basic plot was: Pandora brings together 5 other misunderstood female characters from Fairy Tales / Mythology to help her engineer the re-opening of the box of sins; three geeky boys are the unwitting openers of the box, and with help from The Greek Gods, must get the sins back in the box to save the world.

Climber was cast as Hephaestus.  This is him in his toga, ready to leave for the show.  I had to go out and specially buy a white sheet, all the single sheets in our house are either colourful or covered in motorbikes or spiderman.  Disastrously, as I applied his make-up I accidentally dropped an enormous splodge of liquid foundation on to it and we had to turn it round and re-tie it in a massive panic, with the splodge on the underside at the back and only seconds to go before he needed to be at the theatre. But we made it, he took it all very calmly, and I only swore twice. Here he is in his immortal finery.




Here he is on stage with the other Gods, acting up a storm.



He was so good, if I do say so myself. He really got into character and delivered his lines with confidence and great timing, verve and energy.



Fixit and I completely burst with pride.



As well as the acting scenes, each class performed their own song & dance routine, based on the 7 deadly sins. (Well, most of them - lust was understandably glossed over, this is primary school after all!)  Greed featured a medley of Money songs, Vanity was One Singular Sensation from A Chorus Line, Pride (the teacher's routine) was I Am A Pirate King from the Pirates of Penzance, (awesome fun, you really can't go wrong with some G&S!)

Climber's class did Sloth, to a song called I'm Waiting For the World to Change, dressed as Gen Y - the shirts I helped print looked fab! - and they performed most of their routine sitting down.  Climber was also a knock-out in this, and in fact I have no idea what any other child did in that routine when he was in the front row because we couldn't take our eyes off him!




His years of dance training stood him in good stead, but his stage presence was excellent too.  Stage Mother Pride Dial had pretty much exploded past maximum by the end of that routine.



The final sin, Wrath, was a war song (Seven Nations Army), but at its close the geeky boys released Hope and the production ended with The Age of Aquarius and Let The Sun Shine In. Happy endings, beautiful inspiring children.





It was such a good night, such a wonderful show.  The thing I liked the best about it was the commitment from the children.  Every single one of them was up there giving it everything and they all looked like they were enjoying their moment. 



The audience was glowing and buzzing with delight afterwards. Fantastic. And such a lovely high note for Climber's last year at Primary School.

Grade 3 Concert

Here you go, lots of photos of adorable children wearing rompers, including Cherub in his obligatory pre-show photo, featuring Action Pose.



The theme of the Grade 3/4 Concert was "School Days".  I think it was the best concert I've seen at our school.  Not a dud number or low point to be found.  The kids were absolutely shining with energy and joy. They sang and danced with this gorgeous mix of purity and gusto.  If you're the soppy type like me, you would have had a happy tear in your eye, even as you laughed at their antics.  Especially when they sang the finale: Cat Stevens' Remember The Days of the Old Schoolyard.



Cherub's class were doing The Playground.  Their two numbers were Get Ready (not a song I was familiar with, but rather catchy) ...

 
  
 ... and The Clapping Song (3,6,9 the goose drank wine, the monkey chewed tobacco on the street car line) ...



... which included some playground activity where Cherub and his friend were completely hilarious and surprisingly competent with their hoola hooping.



Cherub and his bestie were on a high for the entire evening, and deservedly so.  We took them, as per tradition, for an after-show treat.



Mmm, gelati!