Youth of Today

Two weeks ago, on a really hot day, I took the kids to the pool for their swimming lesson, but because it was hot we went straight from school so we could all have a nice long muck-around in the pool to chill out.  Unfortunately there was a bunch of hideous yoofs there who had pretty much taken over the hill area next to the big pool and were being really unpleasantly anti-social: muchos swearing, illicit smoking, being rough, kicking a football.  Because I wanted shade and to keep an eye on my kids I sat near them: this was a mistake, and after a ball kicked by one of them whistled past my ear I gave it up and moved our stuff.  It meant I couldn't see the kids if they were in the water so I had to stand pool-side in full sun, but it was better than being near the yobbos.  The lifeguards weren't really in a position to do anything about the situation; for a start their job is not crowd control, it's making sure people don't drown, and furthermore most of the lifeguards are quite young and the yobbos were in a big boisterous pack.  I was pretty cranky when we left.

One week ago as we approached the pool for swimming lesson, a journalist from the Real Estate Newspaper (ie a local/borough paper funded by lots of real estate adverts) doorstop interviewed me about whether I'd witnessed any incidents and so I told her all about it.  Then she asked whether I approved plans to set up a Police Register of known anti-social offenders, and although I felt a bit nanna-ish, I said I basically would approve because seriously! If you're in a public place you need to behave appropriately.  Which means consideration for other people.  And if you don't understand or respect this, then why should you be let into public areas to spoil it for everyone else?

Today the local rag arrived and there was my name, supporting bans on louts.  I felt completely embarrassed when I read it, I reckon I blushed for a good 10 minutes.  Which is not to say I don't stand by what I said, but eek!  I'm in the paper, being an outraged mother!  Hilariously, I read it to the kids this afternoon, and when they heard I was mentioned by name they looked delighted.  Then when I read the bit about "her two primary school aged children" I swear they puffed out their chests.  Cherub was later observed marching round the kitchen singing we're in the pa-per, Caroline and Climber and Cherub are in the pa-per.




(You can click on the photo to see it at Flickr, where it's a more reader-friendly size)

Its Own Reward

We've been sending a regular donation to Medecins Sans Frontieres, which I was happy to do, despite my Uncle, who does our tax, telling me we couldn't afford it. But in light of the steep rent increase I cancelled it this week. I intend to fly the Supporting-Worthy-Causes flag in these straitened times by selling raffle tickets for the three charities who are always ringing me, (Caroline we're just calling to thank you for your support in the past blah blah ... righto just get to the point and ask me to sell another book!) and throwing change in collection tins that are rattled at me. A regular donation might have to wait a year or so now. However, a small contribution to our school's Junior School Council's food drive for disadvantaged people at Christmas was well within our means.  I thought maybe the kids would have been quite into it, maybe been a little fired up by the JSC talking to them at school about the importance of helping others less fortunate etc, but my kids just looked slightly bemused (rather than say virtuous or rewarded) at this Advent Activity.

Posting the Santa Letters

Having the advent activity box is making me feel very organised this Christmas, I must say.  Although, shh, it's early days yet, plenty of time for me to fall off my I'm-so-organised Pedestal.  But anyway. Letters to Santa written and posted as of today, which means plenty of time to receive a reply from the North Pole.

We had a very lovely morning in the city with Jen's mob, who are also being Very Organised.

Can't go anywhere without a little climb first, natch.  Jenny has a lovely magnolia just perfect for this.



Then it was off to catch the tram; as we walked to the tram-stop the kids played bum-tiggy, that's where you can only get ... erm.. is tigged the right word? Anyway, it's like tiggy/chasey/catchy but if you are it, you can only make someone else it by hitting them on their bum.  Lots of backing into walls / trees or holding your hands over your behind in this game.



First stop Santa's special Letter Box in City Square.



Then time to have a long play at the water wall.  While they were mucking around there, Cherub slipped and fell on his butt, much to the delight of a passing elderly-ish tourist who pointed and laughed loudly at him.  He didn't think much of that at all and came over to complain to me about it.  Just as I was murmuring don't worry sweetie I think she's a bit crazy, she validated this statement by whooping loudly and splashing around in the water wall herself.  She was having a great time in Melbourne!



We had lunch in a food court, then caught the tram home.  The trip was enlivened by the kids doing a bit of tap on the tram (I think the other commuters were quite interested in this) and then by Climber succumbing to his innate urges.



Wouldn't you like some of that upper-body strength?

Letter to Santer

Glitter Bomb on the Kitchen Table

My friend Phillipa all but fell over laughing at me when I told her about my trip-dive-and-splat accident in the deli section, so it's hardly surprising that on seeing me in the supermarket today she immediately asked wanna play spies?  But I told her it was far too dangerous, because I am very sensible now.

Paper Chain

In further news of good blogging people and the ipod dilemma,  I received some lovely eclectic mp3 help from Jac at six impossible things which I am enjoying no end.  I also had an email from Kate at Inner City Garden which said her Bloke was wondering if I'd tried the Auxiliary function on the new stereo and of course once I read it I thought oh yeah! and wondered why I hadn't thought of that. I think the USB port confused me. My brother, being quite the IT man, also emailed me to suggest the same thing. So now I have ipod in the car again, which is much much better for drowning out any annoying boy noises from the back seat, like explosion sound-effects, incomprehensible and silly brother jokes that go on and on, or the occasional snipe at each other. It also means I quite often get to hear them singing along to songs they like, which is one of my very favourite things.



Also, my knee is still massively bruised, but it seems to be all show and no punch (ie spectacular colour but no pain unless you press it) and I've happily tapped on it all week.  Picture here if you like.

Advent Box

As if Christmas wasn't busy enough, I decided that an extra good thing to do in the lead-up would be to whip up a homemade Advent Calendar, so that the boys would have a special Christmas activity to do each day.



I found lots of good ideas on the web, for activities and for construction.  (Home-schooling sites are a mine of information.)  In the end I put in a mix of very easy, achievable activities for the days when we were also fitting in school/sport/tap-teaching - like reading a Christmas book at bedtime, or doing a Christmas maze printed from the net - and fussier activities like card making or tree decorating were carefully plotted to fall on days with not much on.



As for layout, I used Aunty Cookie's Christmas Wrap (left over from last year) to make origami envelopes and then stuck on some faux dymo labels. 



By the time I'd finished all the folding and stuffing and sticking last night it was nearly 1am, so all the envelopes were stylishly dropped in a box for discovery in the morning.










Cherub was probably more excited about the chocolate advent calendar, which is for bedtime.  He also, for good measure, asserted that mine wasn't really a calendar (fussy fussy, it's a calendar in a box, okay?). And not content with that, little fidget-gidget that he is, he managed to push down the Number 1 envelope that I'd left sticking up, which meant that as Climber opened the first envelope and read aloud the day's activity I practically had a heart attack.  You don't hang your stocking and leave a present for Santa on December the 1st, not in this house anyway.  No, no, no put that one back and start again with number 1 please!