Supercherub

The Cherub has turned 10. I know!! Where did that decade go? To mark this momentous occasion - it is double figures after all - we gave him a super-suit and some flying lessons.



...and as if that wasn't enough, we also gave him Lego. Because that child would not believe it was properly his birthday if there was no Lego.
 

There was also chocolate cake with smarties on top ...



... and extended family.



(Which is why I have such top-notch photographs of the Supercherub, and his celebrations!)



Happy Birthday, you crazy diamond.



Shine on.
 

Royal Melbourne Show Visit #8

Another September school holiday, another visit to the Royal Melbourne Show!  Take that, large number of my friends trying to make me jealous with trips away to exotic locales.

Each year we manage to stay a little longer but there does come a point when the noise levels and the crowds become intolerable, and then we have to leave immediately, regardless of whether we find an unused strip of ride tickets at the bottom of our bag.  This year we went with my friend Jenny and her girls, and together had fun inspecting the arts & crafts (love those decorated cakes!), the cats, the animal nursery, the magnificent yarnbombing and even a bit of the showjumping.  Plus, as is tradition now, the children and I had a turn on the Giant Slide.

The boys were very happy to come home with a showbag each of sugar, and a little bonus, some soccer strips.  Soccer or - as Climber insists [rightfully] on it being called in our house - football - gear is priced outrageously in Australia so it seemed worth grabbing the Ronaldo and Suarez strips for a mere $20 each.  I wish now I'd thought to get a business card from the stall holder, in case we ever need more.

In other news, my sister and her kids are staying with us for a couple of weeks.  She has taken some excellent shots of the kids on the trampoline, which I intend to put up on my next blogpost, whenever that is. Computer access in a house full of holidaying children can be hard to come by.

Chins Up, Shoulders Down.

The body language of a 9yo who has just scored an own goal, below. Although it's probably more chin up, shoulders forward and hands clutched to middle. This is taken minutes afterwards where he was still fighting back the devastated tears, knowing he had to pick himself up and play on.  Poor little sausage.



And this is him at half time being consoled by another Dad.  What really, really impressed me was Cherub's fortitude in keeping himself together, playing on while wiping away tears and going on to  set up a team-mate for a scoring opportunity.  Brave boy.



The heartbreak too, is that he - being a defender - has never scored a goal in a match before. And his first one ever was a mishit header to the wrong goalmouth.  He was trying to clear it and instead he knocked it in. Ah well.  His team lost 5-3, the final game for the season. Climber's last match for the season was a draw against the top team, and Climber was put in goal for the second half, having not played goalie for the whole season. He did a solid job, despite feeling reluctant about being played there. I was proud of him too.



In other news, I came down with the gastro bug afflicting the household on Thursday evening. Bam! Talk about violent. Friday I was confined to bed trying to gather my strength for Saturday-Morning-Kidtap, 5 Classes! I was still pretty weak Saturday so I asked Climber to be my assistant tap teacher with the 3 junior classes.  He led the warm-ups for me and was a star.  A nervous star, but he did so well, and the little kids loved it. A big kid teaching them!



There was an election on the weekend as well. I was feeling pretty disillusioned with the degree of lowest-common-denominator politics and reporting so I cast my vote and then pretended the whole thing wasn't happening. As a psychologist once said to me Denial is a much-maligned coping mechanism.

And September started like this...

We had pancakes for breakfast in honour of Fathers Day, and later went out to visit the Fixit parents. Pa Fixit has just had a kidney stone of 1.8cm diameter blasted by laser, and Ma Fixit is in hospital for 6-8 weeks or so following a nasty fall last week which resulted in 2 greenstick fractures in her upper left arm, a break in her left hip and a shattered left knee. Oy, poor thing. Plus she hit her chin on the marble bench as she fell so she had a pretty impressive bruise on her jaw to boot. She's looking much better this week which is good.

 

Climber went off with his High School Novice Band on Monday to compete in the Royal South Street Competition in Ballarat.  We were all delighted to hear that their band came second, a great result for their first ever comp.  Climber says they sped up during their first song and thinks this might have cost them first place, because they were only 2 points behind the winning team.  He seems to have enjoyed the experience very much, and when I got to hear about it later he was excited and animated telling me about it all.

There was some confusion about his pick-up from school once the bus got back.  Being Monday he was supposed to - as usual - bring himself to the Tap Hall where I was setting up for an afternoon and evening of teaching. Stupidly, I did not explicitly say this to him before he left for Ballarat. But I had made sure he had charged his phone the night before and that he had it with him when he left, and I sent him a couple of texts to remind him.  When he hadn't turned up by 4pm, I rang: Climber to see where he was (no answer), the school to check if the bus was back on time (it was), Fixit to see if he'd arrived home (he hadn't) and another friend to see if he'd gone home with them (he hadn't). At that stage, Fixit who was in bed at the beginning of a 24 hour gastro attack, hauled himself into the car to look for Climber and found him walking home, not too far away.  Apparently, my little dreamer had sat waiting at school for quite a while, thinking he'd be collected by us, and then caught the tram.  When we discussed it later, I asked why he hadn't rung me when he was waiting to be collected. He said my phone ran out of charge. I said but we made sure your phone was on charge last night so this sort of thing didn't happen. He said well I may have forgotten to check the power point was turned on... Ah well. He got himself home all right in the end and I didn't want to make a fuss because the main thing was he'd had a great experience participating in the band comp.

When I finished work on Monday night, Fixit was out for the count with gastro and Climber had done a great job reheating and serving up the dinner I'd cooked, although the vegetables were inexplicably still sitting on the bench uncooked and uneaten! The kids had put themselves to bed pretty well.

Tuesday was Pyjama Day at Cherub's school.  And I had a painful pinging nerve behind my right ear, caused, I assume, either by prolonged clenching of my jaw muscles (from hearing Fixit's terrible coughs) or by sleeping on a mattress in the lounge so as not to catch Fixit's gastro.  The chiropractor and some panadol put me to rights eventually, although my tap students mentioned that I was unusually cranky with them. Call that a shuffle?



By Tuesday night Fixit was well enough to eat again, and to take the boys to soccer training while I taught.  But there was something in the way Climber looked during dinner that made me think He's Next.  Sure enough at 3am Wednesday morning we were awoken by the sound of Climber throwing up in the bathroom.  And after dealing with him and getting him back to bed we'd barely fallen asleep when we were rudely awoken by the sound of poor Cherub vomiting in our doorway, onto our floor; he was not quite as quick as Climber to realise just what exactly was going on his stomach.  So we put towels down, and spend the rest of the night getting 30 minutes rest before one or the other would be up vomiting again.

I suppose the good thing about Fixit being unemployed is that he was around to help deal with all this.  I would have been a basket case if that had happened while he was doing night shift.

In happier news I bought a lovely new skirt made by fellow blogger Melody. So that's good..

Assorted August

Fixit has manflu. I think he's had it extra badly because he's been laid off, that crash you get at the end of a long run of tension. I've tried to put up with it, and suggested Vicks Vaporub and steaming, and delivered cups of tea and hot dinners, but we're now up to Day 15 and I think someone needs to come and get him.  Maybe a Department of Human Services Intervention Unit? Because he and his sick-man noises have been around me pretty much ALL THE TIME (not going to work anymore, see) and I'm about to harm him. His mega-decibel cough, painful snoring and various disgusting snot related noises have made me so uptight that my chiropractor said there were tensed and locked muscles from the base of my neck, all up through my jaw and right to the top of my head. Enough is enough. The Top Of My Head is Tense. It's been much worse for me than for him.

Lots of Cherub doings at the moment: He had his first ever athletics carnival and came home with a 4th place ribbon in the Triple Jump. I tell my kids that Triple Jump is the one to work at, because they have dance experience and can master a step-hop-jump (or whatever the correct action is) without getting fouled, which lots of boys can't. Play to your strengths.



He also had a couple of school dress-up days. There was Dress As a Mad Scientist for Science Week, so we revamped the Graeme Garden from the Goodies outfit; the best Loony Scientist Ever.

 

Then there was the Bookweek Parade. It's all about Hobbitses for Cherub. Last year he was Bilbo Baggins, this year he was Frodo, and asked me to make him a new cloak. Ta-da! Green Frodo cloak with hood and cross-over tie in front.

 

He looks quite a lot like Frodo, I think.



I love that he still likes a dress-up. On his birthday list, he's requested a Superman Costume. We used to have one and gave it away to a smaller friend, so now I need to rustle something up. As if I don't have anything else to do. In his own quiet way Climber has also been dabbling in dress-ups. He has been very interested in soccer videos, particularly relating to the World Cup, and for many nights was wearing white shirt and shorts to bed because that's what David Beckham wore when he curved in an incredible free kick in an England World Cup Match. Then the other night he'd changed to all green because he was being an Ireland International. Pyjamas, pfft, who needs them?



Cherub has been reading his way through the 5 Rowan of Rin books. I read these to the boys when Climber was Cherub's age (Climber loved them) but Cherub does not really remember this. Another avid reader in his class got interested and borrows the books when Cherub finishes them, which lends a bit of competition to the reading endeavours and meant I woke up one morning to see this. Generally speaking I'd expect to see him playing lego before breakfast.



We bought our first ever brand new fridge with a Family Allowance refund. It is very ace having a new fridge, that seals, and doesn't frost up, and has plenty of room, and all its shelves and doors and bits. We've always had hand-me-downs before. The fridge inspector gave it an A+.



On our shiny new fridge is a magnet war. The boys place magnets on photos of each other. Every so often we'll notice that a different boy is covered up. Makes me laugh.

 

Climber gave up technology for The Forty Hour Famine, which was his high school's philanthropic project for the year 7s. He raised $320 for World Vision. He was back on the technology pretty much straight afterwards but gave it up chererfully and with pride for the duration. I was very proud of him.

 

Fixit is doing lots of fixitty projects, and putting in a few resumes to industry people. His shed is getting organised within an inch of its life. I think, like the husband of a friend of mine who was also recently retrenched, he might be enjoying unemployment a little too much. Coffees, walking, crosswords, shed-play. Interestingly though, he had a get-together on Friday with the other guys who got laid off, and they're all missing being able to talk technical talk. Seems I'm not the only partner whose eyes glaze over.


Kitty!

We've been to see Horrible Histories, Hot Shoe Shuffle and Stomp! at the theatre recently. What cultured boys. Another tap show coming up next week called Bang! Crash! Tap! It is nice to take the kids to shows, I hope they grow up to be people who go out to enjoy and support the arts.

 
 
I cracked a tap plate on my trusty purple tap shoes. The store I bought them from replaced the plates free of charge. Cracking a tap plate is pretty rare I think, but I guess I work my shoes quite hard.



Today is the last day of winter, and the sun is shining. And Fixit is getting better. Slowly. And noisily.

 

Stomp Girl

On Sunday, our whole family went to see Stomp! at the Comedy Theatre.



Stomp! is my favourite show in the world, so it was wonderful to share it with my kids, and of course they thought it was great.  It is great, it's a great show. I first saw it in 1992 and I fell in love with it. When I watched it, I felt absolutely exhilarated and inspired and elated.  I just wanted to be in that show. I wanted to sweep the brooms and bang the bins and stomp my feet. I still do. When I saw an audition notice the following year looking for Melbourne performers to be part of an expanded 'Large Scale' Stomp, I was beside myself with excitement and took myself along. 

I still remember getting the phone call telling me I'd won a spot. The call came through to me at Charmaine's Icecream where I was working, and when the lady said I was in, I felt higher and happier than I'd ever felt. It was the biggest thrill. And when I hung up I turned around to see my two co-workers - one of whom was Mister Fixit - watching me with puzzled smiles, wondering what the news was that had just visibly and audibly made my day. We hadn't started going out at that stage because I was still with the moody English boy. I really like that Fixit was part of that special day, I can still, in my mind's eye, see him smiling at me while I dropped back on to the bench in happiness.



We local performers were in the brooms routine at the start and the bins routine at the end, plus either the plastic bag routine or the tea-towels, and a few oddments involving stage clearing. I must have seen a version of the tea-towels in 1992, because I remember being absolutely determined to be chosen for that one. It involved swinging knotted tea-towels onto 40-gallon drums that had water on top, and I was chosen to perform it. I can't actually remember how they picked people for this, but I suspect I had my hand up first and highest. It was gloriously good fun to do, comic and rhythmic and wet.



I became so fit doing that show, and I had the best arm muscles of my life from all the drumming. We worked incredibly hard at rehearsals, learning our rhythms and coming to grips with our props.  You could see it was easier for anyone who had drumming experience. I had no drumming experience and very little formal dance experience either.  But I had had 3 years at drama school with lots of movement training, and I worked really hard at anything that didn't come easily, like the broom handle triplets: bang broom-handle on ground, step right, step left, over and over again at speed. Try it, it's harder than it sounds. At the after-show party, the creator Luke said to me Respect. You worked really hard, I could see you did.



The show was performed at the Melbourne Town Hall.  It was a lot of fun running around in there, and incredible to perform in front of such a large audience.



In our down time, I learned the rudiments of cryptic crosswords in the dressing room with two others.



But I spent as much time as I could peeking through gaps in the stage to watch the masters at work.



I couldn't get enough of all the routines - the zippo lighters, the sticks, the matchsticks, the buckets.



A review in The Age mentioned the local cast, saying we were lithe and beautiful, mostly.



A special Stomp shirt was made for us all with that quote on the back. I still have it.  It's tatty, and the signatures from the proper Stomp people have all but faded away. I can't throw it out though.



Being in Stomp! changed my life.  When it was over I knew I wanted the rhythm to go on, and not long after that a woman walked into Charmaine's Icecream to put up a poster for tap dance classes. Stomp creator Luke Cresswell had taps on the bottom of his boots. So I went along to try a class and have been tapping ever since.

The End of Heavy Maintenance

Mister Fixit was made redundant last Friday. It wasn't unexpected, but, in true form for our family, when it was announced that 40 jobs were being cut Fixit thought he'd go and I thought they'd keep him. I mean, why wouldn't you keep Mister Fixit? He's fantastic; Fantastic Mister Fixit. But he was right and I was wrong.

It is slightly hard to say to people oh by the way Fixit's been made redundant so I emailed our family, and I guess people around us will find out when they see Fixit hanging round the neighbourhood drinking coffee. I don't want to catastrophise it, because it may turn out to be a good thing. That workplace has been a poisoned chalice from the start, owing primarily to the management. So it is possible that he'll find another job before too long and we won't have to chip into the redundancy payout, in which case we'll be better off.  We don't know yet if it's a bad thing, so there's no point getting worked up about it. Having said that, I noticed that we both slumped a little this weekend, that we were both grumpier and touchier than normal, but I daresay that will wear off soon. Pick yourself up, dust yourself off, start all over again, as Fred Astaire and Ginger Rogers sang.