Here are the hits from a full week (see what I did there?):

1. The full moon.

We had a great view from our deck until the clouds came over at the vital moment of eclipsing. As far as we could tell there was no “blood”- moonie looked the same colour as usual to me- but we still had fun sitting up there and talking about what things we were going to release from our lives.

Liam said he wanted to get  rid of bullying, in all of the world, not just for kids at school. I like the sound of that. Not a bad plan for a better world.

Coco said she would release herself from PKD and homework.

I, of course had a list of limiting beliefs and things I want to improve on.

Nath, as is his wont, said nothing.

2. This little blackboard jotting by Coco. Cool huh?

3. Fun on the Top Deck (also known as Bar Up by the so-called gentlemen, but I didn’t say that) with these two.

It’s always a laugh. They are our ‘pre-kid’ friends, so we have a history of misbehaviour and funny, funny nights together. Life is good when you have dudes like these two in your circle. Cheers B and S. (I haven’t called them that before, but I think I may start.)

4. This from my Instagram feed. I like it.

5. The kid’s school. We love the school holidays, the lazy days, the lack of schedules, all of the fun things we get to do together and don’t seem to have time to do during the normal week. As usual I was sad to see them go off on Tuesday morning, and wanted them back, but it is a relief and a balm to have such a lovely place to send them to. They both have gorgeous, caring and motivated teachers who really do look out for them and are helping us shape and guide them on their paths. Cheers to you school, and to you teachers.

What are your hits this week?

Did you see any bloody moon? And if so, can you send me a pick of it actually red?

…From The Ashers

Things our kids argued about in the car today, before my first coffee:

• Whether or not google is actually a number.  (It kind of is, but it is spelt googol)
• Who knows the most.  (Me: About what? Them: Everything.   Okaaaay then.)
• Who is better at violin.  (Hard to say, they are both shit and sound like tortured cats)
• Who is better at Minecraft.   (Depends how you define better of course.  So they devised a competition, of which I will judge, where they will each craft a thing- say a castle- in a set time-frame.  I already know how this will end.)
• Whether or not Liam brushed his teeth properly.
• What exactly Coco meant when she said they do “skill building” first up on Monday mornings.  (By now I was shouting: You know what skills are, you know what building means, so “skill building” is both of those things put together.)
• Whether or not Loom Bands are better than Pokemon Cards.  (They are both shit and I’m close to banning both.)
• Whether or not One Direction used to be Coco’s favourite band.  (They were, briefly, in 2012.)
• Why Coco should refer to other kids called Liam by their first and last name.  (Apparently our Liam gets confused.  For example:  Coco: Mum can I go to Liam’s party?  Liam: What party?  I’m not having a party.  My birthday is in September.   I shit you not, this was an actual conversation.)
• Who the cat likes more.  (No-one.  She’s a cat.)
• Whether or not Coco meant to hit Liam with an ugg boot when she hit it with her tennis racquet.  (I don’t think so.  It’s unlikely at this skill level that she would have dared even think of connecting.  However I think she was overjoyed with the result.  Which, of course became the problem.)
• Who is better at the six times tables.  (Who cares, I still rule, so suck on that, under 10s.)

Somewhere around about here I told them both to shut-up.  I may have mentioned that they were both hopeless at everything, and that I was better, and would always be better, and they should both stop talking to each other immediately and look out their own windows, or else there would be no ‘devices’ for the whole week, including the weekend, if I heard just one more peep.

We drove along in blissful silence for at least thirty-seven seconds, as I hummed along to some young-person’s song on the youth network.  Some young person with no kids or mortgage, who was probably at this moment stressing over mid-year exams, or whether the beer-can wall would get completed before the next house inspection, or planning a snow-boarding trip to Perisher.  Mmmmm, yes, Perisher, with schnapps and sore bums from falling onto the the icy-snow and sore knees from, well, nocturnal activities…

A tiny voice from the back, broke my reverie.  “Mummy, Liam just looked out my window.”

Do your kids argue about bullshit?  Do they have their “own” window?  (And why did I say that?  Because now, there are “own windows, of course)

…From The Ashers xxx

This is a true story that happened to someone I know.  Not me, mind, my children are angels, my life is a Pinterest post.

Once Upon a Time….

To say she was looking forward to the first day of school was an understatement.  The kids, whilst generally lovely, were starting to grate on her nerves to the moon and back, just a little, so it was time for them to be, well, away.  For the safety of all.

So it was with great joy that she awoke on the first day of the first term and bounded from bed and into the kitchen to make French toast for her little chicks.  They gobbled it up along with their smoothie and their cereal, and it seemed like her day would be charmed.  She made the lunches, perhaps singing a line or two of George Michael’s ‘Freedom’ as she filled those Tupperware containers and thought about her day ahead.  She thought about silence.  And a cup of tea, drunk whilst still hot.  She thought of having a wee without anyone coming in to ask her if they could play Minecraft… Ahhh pissing in private: bliss.

*****

She pulled into the school at 7.57am, a mere thirty-fucking-eight minutes before the bell.  Not.one.single.spare.carpark.  So she drove out again, and over to the paddock, trying to remain upbeat, even though she knew her youngest always found the walk from there a bit much, what with her little legs and her lack of haemoglobin.  Today the kid would have to carry her own bag because of the bloody bookpacks that had to be taken to the classrooms.

She looked around at all the other families; beaming mothers, freshly licked children, and with a sinking stomach stone she realised: The Hats.  She’d forgotten the bloody hats.

No hat, no play.

She calmly broke the news to the kids: the oldest started whinging, the youngest screwed her face up like she did when she got a blood test (it meant a hard rain’s a-gonna fall).  So she decided to go directly to the uniform shop, and get some new ones, they’d come in handy, maybe.

They arrived at the uniform shop.  The queue was eighteen people long.  School started in twenty-eight minutes. A minute and a half per person.  It wasn’t gonna happen.   So she decided to dump drop the kids in their classrooms and come back for the hats.  This did not go well.  The youngest was crying, worrying about not getting a hat, and complaining that her bag (containing an oh-so-heavy lunchbox and a water bottle) was made of lead and she couldn’t carry it.  She gritted her teeth with a grimace that tried to be a smile and gripped the youngest’s hand to show she meant business.  The kid would walk. The kid would carry her own bag.  She might have squeezed that chubby little hand, just a teensy bit.

Whilst she was cajoling the kid to walk, the big one walked off ahead, to his classroom.  She finally got to his class, crying kid in tow, and leaving a trail of gluesticks behind her, but where was he?  He was nowhere to be seen.  She grimsmiled at more doting Mothers and sparkling teachers and went to find him.  “Stay here, right here, and stop crying, it was just a tiny squeeze,” she told the youngest.  The youngest did not stay.  The youngest did not stop crying.  She wanted to scream out one of the bad swears.  Where was that idiot kid?

After a time and a school bell, he came ambling up the path- the space cadet had toddled off to his last year’s classroom.  Sweet Jesus.

She dispatched Unit One and his bookpack, scooped up Unit Two, headed to the next classroom.

She only dropped four exercise books and two erasers on the way, so that was counted as a win.  They arrived just as the sugar-coated teacher was welcoming all the children.  She tried to disentangle, but the kid was wrapped around her leg like Christmas lights.  The more she tried to get her off, the harder that kid limpeted on.  Eventually the teacher got her free, and she was free.

She resumed a place in the line at the uniform shop, which inched forward.  Mothers jostled and jockyed for position, perhaps just so they could say “No, you go first,” to each other every few minutes, and imply greater indolence.  In the school ground nowhere to be meant good.  Nowhwere to be meant rich.

It was a long wait, and it was hot in the sun, and suddenly there was a cooling splash all up the back of her legs.  It was not water though, no, it was something much more zesty, a spew from the toddler behind her.  Everyone kind of helped the spew-kid’s-Mum (if by help you mean not moving once inch from their spot in the line, and giving her encouraging but not involved smiles).

No-one asked if she liked that the vomit was soaking into the cork of her Birkenstocks..

Finally, the wait was over, she got the hats, got them to the kids and got the hell outa there.  She came home, looked at her World Clock, found it was close enough to 5pm in San Diego, and so opened a bottle of reward.

It was sweet.

The End

How did your first day go?  Did you get spewed on?