Maeve has waited her whole life for this day. Today she started school. Last night she set out her things. A new bag, new knickers, new socks, new shoes, a new hair clip and a hand-me-down dress (that has seen a few years of school already, and quite a few kinder sessions last year too … Continue reading Mother duck said ‘Quack, quack, quack, quack.’ But none of the five little ducks came back
When I went to put Elsie’s lunchbox in her backpack yesterday morning, I found in there her reading diary from last year, a few sheets of colouring in with Indonesian words and phrases written on them and lots of worksheets, mostly unfinished. (No lunchbox though, thank heavens. I have taught her to do that much.) Things … Continue reading Getting up earlier? It works.
Dear Nasty Lady, How are you? I’m fine. Actually, I take back the ‘how are you?’ because you’d have answered with some sort of pained statement containing an expletive about socks or something about needing a stubby. We really enjoyed the school holidays. It was all very relaxed and fun. I’m sorry you missed it … Continue reading A letter to the woman who drove our children to town this morning
We’re late. We need to be out the door. But you’re doing up your buttons. There’s three of them. So we’re going to be at least 30 more seconds late. And I still have to strap you into your carseat and unstrap you when we get there. That’s another 8 seconds. I’ll carry you to … Continue reading I did up her buttons. Apparently I just ruined our child.
There’s an old saying, 'Why use a picture when you can say a thousand words?’ Some people get it around the wrong way. This month, Fat Mum Slim has a photo-a-day challenge. She’s given a list of 30 prompts and is encouraging people to get on board and take a photo a day using the … Continue reading Is your glass half full?
Take a rubber band. Stretch it. Now place it over an empty toilet paper roll. Staple it there all the way around. Now try to stretch the rubber band. This simple experiment would have helped me last night before I sewed the ruffle on the elastic neck of Elsie's Book Week Parade costume. Three weeks … Continue reading Leaving things til the last minute
I was really bad at running cross country at school. It made me sick with anxiety. It was a cruel thing to do to kids; make them leave the warmth of the classroom where they were learning good lessons about the placement of the apostrophe and 'it's' vs 'its', to go out into the bush … Continue reading And the gold medal goes to…
When you put a lukewarm cup of coffee in the microwave, it's quicker to press Start and let it start cooking on high for one minute, than it is to press the '1' then the '5' and then Start. I'll just stand here and watch and I'll stop it after 10 or 15 seconds. I've … Continue reading When your tank is overflowing…
It's cool how there are some friends you don't speak to very often , but when you do, it's as if you'd just had a coffee yesterday. Or a laugh in a shop fitting room earlier that morning. (Don't get me wrong, talk-more-often-than-that-friends, you're cool too.) Sometimes when you get together with don't-talk-very-often-friends, you each … Continue reading I’m sorry I haven’t called
