Tag: school holidays

Post 86

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Post 86

Second last day of school for 2016 for boy 2 today. Today he formally says goodbye to, two of his closest friends, one that he has grown and had adventures with since he started at kindy when he was 18 months old. The other he has been at the same kindy and school the whole time but only became friends with about 3 years ago. My big, little guy, I call him this because he is as tall as me and has bigger feet than me but is still only 11 and the baby of the family. He is not a book learner, give him something to do with his hands or an activity or task where he can move around and he is keen to learn anything.   This is my boys nature, even as a toddler I would read to him and he would politely close the book, while I was reading it to him and walk away or just start playing with a toy that caught his attention. Ask him a mathematics question and he spills the answer without even thinking. We made a decision early on in primary school to keep him down a grade than where he should be at. I initially, felt extremely stressed over the decision but the stress was more my ego and fears about him socially than anything to actually do with my boy. He seemed at peace with the choice and has since started listing a number of positives, with being older than his class mates.  He is excited as he will be able to get his learners licence in year 10 and he will be able to drive himself to school by the middle of year 11. He is also pointed out that he will be 18 when he goes to schoolies. I recently asked him how he really felt about not moving onto high school next year and he said with a shrug of his shoulders “I’m glad”. He didn’t elaborate and I didn’t want to hound him.

He wrote his goodbye speech to the oldest of his friends, he was a bit stressed about it because he wanted it to sound worthy of his friend and their friendship. I asked him to bring it home so I could help him with it, but he wanted to do it on his own. He asked if he could get a haircut for the assembly today, his father took him to the barber yesterday and is looking incredibly handsome. When I woke this morning he asked if I could drop him at school early to practice his speech and be prepared for a meeting of next year’s seniors that was being held at 8.30am.

I have my tissues and camera packed in my hand bag for the 1.00pm event.

Post 78

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Post 78

 

My husband sent me a text this morning. “Morning babe, you look hot today.” So I sent him back the feature photo on this post with “thanks love you – def don’t look hot this am, pulling my hair out over a kid who doesn’t want to do his spelling words”. This photo is my reality this morning, 6.00am I am telling one boy to get off this PlayStation and go and feed the chickens please. And I have the other one still in bed. The kettle over the gas element so far has taken 7 minutes to boil – I put too much water in there. Wednesday means homework is due in and spelling words need to be tested, for boy 2. Boy 1 eventually drags himself out of bed and starts getting ready for school at a snail’s pace.

The moment in time that this photo was taken I had just been screaming at boy 1 to get out of the shower, as  he had been in their for about 10 minutes, boy 2 was standing in front of me asking me to sign his spelling words untested. I had only had half a cup of coffee, and the dog tried to sneak through the door and sleep in the lounge room. What a morning, we filed out the door at 8.00am with boy 1 coming in the car with me so I can drop him at school and boy 2 riding along the path to his school.

Wednesday, means Wednesday coffee with the girls. We had to change venue today as our usual haunt is being renovated. We went to the local library and enjoyed a coffee at the café outside. I always claim that I am not a great school mum. However I had always thought that being the great school mum meant hanging around at the school all the time and being part of the carpark mafia. I was sitting at coffee this morning and looking at all of my lovely school mum friends as we sat and inhaled coffee, debriefed on our morning, recommended books about teenagers, and outlined school holiday plans. I love my little school mum crew catch ups on a Wednesday and am so grateful for them – love you ladies. We are a mixed bunch, of badass Mums (we still have to see that movie).

Day 28.

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First day of school holidays today.  My boys are always a bit feral for the first couple of days of holidays. That’s ok. They are tired from a massive term at school, sport and coming down from the stress/high if being on the go for 8 weeks. So yeah this morning was attitude plus and pushing boundaries.

My hubby took the covers off our bright orange 1975 Valiant, and we took Val and the kids out for fish and chips.  We went to Bribie, ordered fish and chips and spread out on the wide concrete steps that line a section of beach and enjoyed the greasy meal, while watching people fish and others coasting along on the calm blue/green water in their luxury boats.

This afternoon I sat with my bestie, her husband, her Mum and her mums partner eating rocky road and drinking red wine.  Not only was my cup full of red wine, but so was my heart at the wonderful, funny conversation, that then turned into me interviewing my besties mum for my #mesistertribe. Can’t wait to write about her, an amazingly interesting woman.

When I got home from my afternoon of great people, wine, chocolate, conversation and an abundance of mozzies. I found messages from Daphne my #mesistertribe feature from yesterday, liking the post I had crafted about her  ( thank god). Because we all know how much I stress about those posts.

My heart is full today.

End of day 28

Curled up on the lounge next to my hubby typing this on my phone.  My thumbs are killing me.

My feral, cranky children where delightful after spending time near the sea water.

6 days of School holidays left

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Today I let them free-range.  Yep like the chooks, free-range. See we have all had enough of each other, (13.5 year old yelled at 10.5 year old for coughing, too early in the morning. 10.5 year old told 13.5 year old he is a midget – 10.5 year old as tall as 13.5 year old) they have had enough of me, (cause I don’t let them eat copious amounts of sugar and have limits on screen time) I have had enough of them and we have all had enough of school holidays.

 

I mean for the love of God, 7 and a bit weeks is enough.

 

Although my little darlings would never admit it, I think they also miss the routine of school and after school activities. So today they played on the play station, they played cricket, went next door and visited their surrogate brother (the neighbours kid who is like a brother), played more play station. Because they had asked me 333,800 times over the school holidays what they could do and lamented about how bored they were. They pecked their way through the home baked, gluten free goods, fruit and sandwiches; I let them because if I was asked for the 563,700th time what was to eat, I was going to go insane. While they turned completely feral yelling at each other in the yard, while they threatened each other with cricket bats and farting in each other’s faces, threw insults and cricket balls at each other, while they wrestled on the ground with each other.

 

I closed the windows in my office, closed my eyes, shoved ear buds in my ears, turned up my iPod and did 30 minutes of power yoga.  

 

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I have spent the last 48 days being the mother that monitored what they were doing and where they were every single moment, and there has been beautiful moments on these holidays (holidaying at the beach, surfing, hanging out with friends, sitting in front of the TV watching cricket, outside playing cricket in the sun, allocated amount of screen time). With 6 days to go, I let them roam free. I let them fight and sort out their own battles, I let them decide what to eat and when.  No doubt this time next week, when they are both back at school, that evil bitch Mothers guilt will make me feel bad for today and my less then stella mothering. But I think we all learnt some lessons today and we survived. Let’s see how the next 6 days go.

 

School holidays tomorrow

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End of school for another year. THANK god. I am extremely excited to not have to do school lunches, iron uniforms, and battle the ridiculous school traffic for the next seven weeks. I am over the moon that I don’t have to even try and attempt to help with year 8 homework (especially algebra) and battle with my other kid over a book review (especially seen as this kids HATES reading).

Our school celebrates end of year and summer holidays with a school disco on the eve of the last day. What a hoot it was tonight. It was kinda like being one of the cool/rebellious kids at school. Paid for our kids at the front door and dropped them off to have a fabulous time dancing up a storm. While we found a café area out the back where the music was just the perfect background noise to our conversation over pizza and wine.

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I am seriously the worst school Mum, honestly. While I was sitting drinking my red wine tonight at the primary school disco, I was watching the awesome hard working, incredibly organised volunteer mums who run the p and f for our school. What wonderful, dedicated women who do a fabulous job, they had the canteen running smoothly, they were spray painting kids hair for crazy hair night, they had an orderly line up at the front door taking the money for cover charge, the DJ was great and kept all the kids entertained and engaged for 3 hours.

A massive shout out to these awesome women, who are fabulous examples to their kids showing support to the school and how to actively participate and be involved in the school community.

I did a bit of research on how else to help out around the school:

Help the teacher with mundane tasks that frees up their time eg: sharpening pencils, helping to organise supplies or the classroom environment.

Volunteering for in class activities, not only helps the teacher, but your child gets to see you being actively involved, and it also helps you to see what is happening in the classroom and how your child is going.

Tuckshop

School reading and library help

Help out on sports days and swimming carnivals.

Volunteering not only helps the school it also connects you to others, it increases your friends and contacts your social and relationship skills

  • Volunteering increases self-confidence. Volunteering can provide a healthy boost to your self-confidence, self-esteem, and life satisfaction.
  • Volunteering provides a sense of purpose.
  • Volunteering combats depression.
  • Volunteering helps you stay physically healthy.

What about some interesting stats on volunteering from the Australian Bureau of Statistics

People with a child aged less than 15 years were the most likely to volunteer regularly (29% of people in couple relationships and 27% of lone parents).

Women who volunteered regularly spread their time between sporting organisations (26% of female volunteers), education and training organisations (26% of female volunteers),

Among regular volunteers, over half of women (55%) participate in food preparation and sales activities.

There we go a bit of food for thought for the school holidays. Happy holidays everyone. I wish everyone love, and a happy, safe, and sane holiday.