a new initiative in the house gets rounds of applause

We had a family meeting the other day to discuss the level of chores the children were doing.  We have raised it to:
- making their bed every day
- making their own lunch
- unpacking the dishwasher every day
- tidying their rooms once a week
- cleaning the bathroom once a week
- vacuuming their rooms once a week
- feeding the dog every day
- taking the dog for a walk
- putting on at least one load of washing a week

They complained and carried on like they were convicts bound for Botany Bay - but the new list has been working well, and I feel like they are contributing to the household.  And when they were being a bit first world princess about it - I made them watch the TEAR video about first world and third world kids.

After this meeting I asked - are there any other issues to raise?  Gabby said 'can we choose what to eat?'  So I said (in a stroke of brilliance on my part) 'you choose it, you cook it'.  So I made them plan a menu and tell me the ingredients to get.  And they are cooking a night a week each.

mixing sausage roll mince

It is fantastic.  I will see how long it lasts.  But if they are able to take responsibility for what and how they are eating and learning skills about how long it takes to make dinner (Annika misjudged the other night and it was 7.30 before her dinner was ready) I count it as a win.  Even if it only lasts a month.  But I am hoping this one lasts for a longtime.

and they were delicious.  And even contained vegetables.

 A round of applause to the cooks.

unlikely partnerships

This is Scooter 'sharing' some slightly out of date yoghurt with the chickens.  I wasn't sure about the correctness of giving possibly sour yoghurt to chickens and dogs - but they seem to have pulled up alright.

Scooter loves the chickens.  So much that she is constantly digging little holes under their fence so they can come out and play with her.  And by 'play with her' I mean she wants to herd them into the one space and then lick their necks.  The chickens stand up for themselves ok - they peck her on the nose if she becomes too loving.

They are going very well these chooks.  They eat anything I throw in there, and produce four eggs a day.  Their contented 'brrrrkkk' is lovely in the morning, and they are good at aerating the soil (kicking up the mulch).

You keep them in line Scooter.  You chickendog.

A real conversation not half an hour ago

Mum!
What?
Mum!
What do you want?
You never listen.
I'm listening now.
Come here it's important.
Hang on. I am not instant time transport mum (unappreciated humour)
You never come you don't care.
Ok I'm here now (thinking about words with friends turn) what did you want to say?
It doesn't matter
Well it obviously does - you are upset.
You're not going to listen anyway.
I am listening (clutching side of pants to remain calm)
I am a horrible person and a terrible daughter. Just go away.
But I just came in here.
You didn't want to. Go back to your movie
(words with friends. Breathe) Stop doing emotional manipulation and tell me what you would like.
You went out of the room - you always ignore me
Not always, only when you have been in bed for an hour and it is quarter past nine and sleep should be happening
Just LISTEN TO ME
Ok
I just want to talk with you
What did you want to say?
It doesn't matter now. You're not interested.
How about we practise your breathing and go to sleep.
I can't sleep. I'm not tired.
In, out, in, out - your muscles are sinking through the bed
(breathing)
Good night
Don't leave me
Never. I love you.
(breathing. Sleeping)
(leaves to have words with friends turn. Unsure what needed listening to and what the issue was. But glad to remain relatively calm and have a sleeping child.)

Brilliance or laziness

I have decided that we are going to eat everything in our pantry. Some stuff has been lurking in there for months, and I just keep buying more without thinking. Tinned tomatoes, curry pastes, rice crackers - they will be made into a meal. We are only buying milk. And fresh fruit/veggies. I am going to make my family keep going until we can see the back of the cupboard. It will be like a pov version of ready steady cook. What can you make with pasta, half a jar of olives, frozen pastry and tinned tomatoes? And the mystery meat in the freezer?

It may also be that I hate going grocery shopping and avoid it at all costs. I read blogs about meal planning and buying at markets and making sure the food miles are low. I support all that - but I am the person who dashes to the shop at 6.15 to get a vital ingredient. I am in love with convenience. When I see a house in the remote wilderness I never think 'how romantic to get away from it all and live in the amazing outdoors', I think 'where do they get milk and bananas'.

So I will never be able to hold my head up high in the made from scratch group. Unless it is made from scratch from completely random stuff in the pantry. With a shop right nearby.

you are de vine

and we are de branches.

Boom ching!

But seriously - whenever I am gardening I think about how quite spiritual it is.  All that pruning and growing and reshaping, pulling out weeds and encouraging the 'good' plants.  It is no surprise there are so many gardening/farming stories/metaphors in the Bible.

This vine climbing and creeping over the pergola has to come down.

The pergola is just too rotten.  The vine is one of the reasons I love this house.  As soon as I saw the vine over the patio I knew we had to buy this house.  It was so....viney and sleeping beauty castley. But sometimes you have to do dramatic pruning because the inside is all rotten.  I am going to keep the bottom of the vine and see if I can grow it up again into glorious covering of the patio when we build a new pergola.  In about twenty years.

And then this appeared after the storm yesterday afternoon.

That dead tree right there.  Really.  I had no idea we had a dead tree right near our house.  Amazing.  The rainbow lorikeets love it.

.....

in training

The girls went over the road to play armies with the neighbourhood boys.  Gab was on a team with Ben - and she spent AGES getting ready to play inside.  Ben was getting frustrated waiting for his team-mate, while Annika and Luke started taunting and trash talking how they were going to win.

And then Gab came out with this backpack.  She had packed all the things an army paramedic would need - bandages, medicines, splints, cream, a phone and extra weapons.  She was ready for any eventuality that may occur on the playing field.

I can honestly see Gab doing this in the future - marching off into battle with a backpack full of medical supplies.  She is calm when faced with injuries.  While Annika and I are dramatizing and running around she will go and get an icepack and sort it out.

I think Annika and Luke won the battle on the day.  But Gab won the battle of preparation.

if I just....

I have been thinking as the year started about how we are pushed to feel discontent.  It is what advertising banks on, and there is often the sense of dissatisfaction that you haven't quite got what the other people have.

'If I just had that extension on the house our lives would be easier'
'If I just worked more our money would be okay'
'If I just was ten kilos lighter I would be happier'
'If I just had well behaved children it would be easier'
'If I was just in a different job I would be more fulfilled'
'If I was just a better cook, photographer, craft head my blog would be more interesting'
'If I just....'

I have to snap out of the 'if-I-justs' and either be content with where we are, or be thankful for the hard work.  You don't remember things that are easy.  You remember the hard stuff that got amazing results.  Which is why I think you have to tell your birth story to as many people as will listen (not that I am going to tell my birth stories here..yet.  I'll wait til we know each other better - okay?).

As I have started work again I realised that having a few years experience is a blessing, and hard won knowledge is respected.  So from having the wobblies about starting work again a couple of weeks ago to enjoying working with the kids has been a mind shift.  Lots of thinking and praying and a positive 'tude has helped.

Last week at the girl's school a boy was knocked down by an out of control car.  He was just walking out of school, minding his own business, and now he is in hospital with multiple injuries with a long recovery ahead.  It could have been any kid at the school.

I will not be discontent or dissatisfied.

If I could just remember that.

mickey story chapter thirteen

You may think I have forgotten about Mickey.  My small but charming friend who is nearly seven years old (Children! You turn your back and they grow like weeds).  I have recently had a cup of tea with Mickey's mother, and she has filled me in on some more Mickey escapades.  I feel my role in these conversations is to be calm and listen incredulously.  And supply tea with sugar.  And cake.  Much cake.  Not that we support our emotions with food........

She informed me about a recent event in the life of Mickey.

Mickey's mother was having a holiday up the coast with the children, so they were sleeping in one room with some of them on the floor.  She was just dozing off when she heard a squirt squirt noise coming from Mickey's side of the room.  Thinking he was just getting a quick sip from his water bottle she turned over and tried to ignore it, chasing the deep deep place of sleep.

The squirting continued, and she opened her eyes to blurrily make out Mickey grinning in her face.  Recognizing the wild look in his eye she quickly looked for the source of the squirting.  It was not the placed drinking from the water bottle she had imagined, but the squirt squirt noise of tomato sauce being squeezed all over her bed.

Tomato sauce.

Like he was setting up a scene for CSI.  She almost expected him to do a  chalk outline and set up police tape.

Mickey your brain goes in directions we cannot even begin to start to guess.

The dog has a conehead

Scooter was de-sexed on Friday, after realizing she was very close to being able to have puppies. And after her little operation she has to wear this cone for 10 days. She keeps forgetting she has it on and running into chairs and doorways, and trying to get her ball from under the table. It is officially called an Elizabethan collar. There are far too few ruffles on it to be truly Elizabethan.

I feel bad for her.

But it is also funny that the dog has a conehead.

surely I am not old enough

to be the mother of an eleven year old.  And I am pretty sure this sense of disbelief will continue for a long time to come.

This was her reaction after receiving a rip stick for her birthday from Grandma.

Hoping to not make a visit to emergency with broken bones from rip stick adventures.  She can already ride it around the house.

And check out the most excellent echidna icecream cake created by my husband - a man of many talents.

Happy birthday my darling complex pre-adolosecent waves of moodiness creative fascinating beautiful generous anxious girl.  Looking forward to seeing how you grow!