"No reading at the breakfast table"

Last weekend A and N performed at the Sydney Opera House.  It sounds a lot grander than it actually is.  They play in a one hour concert with about 25 other kids.  It is a part of the Suzuki method that our kids are following. As I'm convincing my children to practice their music each day I do often ask myself (and they ask me) why we're going through all the agony of endless practicing! Rowan and I gained a lot of pleasure from being able to play instruments when we were teenagers.  I played the piano and violin and Rowan the clarinet, guitar and bass guitar.  Rowan's guitar is very handy for live entertainment at children's birthday parties!  We were also able to contribute a lot to our churches when we were older teenagers and learnt a lot about serving our church communities in this way. When I was a teenager I enjoyed being involved in musicals at school and orchestral groups.  I liked that I wasn't simply defined by how well I did or didn't achieve

Following on from my post of trying to work out how to make Christmas less crazy, my friend (a playgroup/preschool/school mum - our kids do all the same things!) has written a post on her blog that I found quite inspiring.  I like the idea of making Christmas less wasteful and by doing so I think we're forced to be more thoughtful about what we give people and why. Thought I'd share it with you (although we have already failed miserably by planning to drive and fly to visit the relatives over Christmas). HAVE A BRIGHT GREEN CHRISTMAS Celebrating Christmas need not cost the Earth. Here are some ideas for celebrating Christmas without damaging the environment. * Make your own gifts. * Give things that can be used up, like art and crafts supplies, or food. * Ask for presents that are something to do rather than something that takes up space, like asking for tickets to a show or admission to the zoo or a museum, or to classes that you want to attend. * Give gifts of

Kids drawing the heavenly host! Wow - I'm getting old, because I find the lead-up to Christmas creates this sense of dread in the pit of my stomach. Come mid-November, I walk around with a list of "THINGS THAT NEED TO BE DONE" flying through my brain.  I use capital letters because it feels like a capital letter type of list.  Presents are of course on the list.  That's mostly not too hard.  I quite like gifts.  I do find the odd person a bit tricky to buy for though.  You always think that you're finally DONE, but then there's always one person who you haven't bought for. What else is on the LIST?  Cards, Christmas tree, baking, presents for the teachers (x5 - full-on!), food for family get-togethers etc, etc. Every year I think that I should make one of those lovely advent calendars with Bible verses for each day.  I do think about it every year.  Nice thought.  It comes and it goes.  Bit of a failure in that area.  But we do have a knitted (not

I'm sure you've all missed my ramblings but I have been doing something vaguely constructive.  I thought I'd show you a little of what I've been madly working on.  My uni assignment has been to design a digital library for diabetes researchers (see, librarians don't just say 'shush' and get cranky about torn books). The diabetes bit has been a bit of a struggle.  I have no background AT ALL in science or medicine.  Oh, sorry, I lie.  I did do first year Biology at uni and got 52% - they expected you to be there at uni at 9 AM four days a week, which for an Arts student was a bit of a joke.  So I missed most of 2nd semester.  Which was on animals.  1st semester was plants.  All I remember about the animals was a lot of dead cane toads which I made my lab partner dissect.  And there was Year 11 Chemistry ... But, A N Y W A Y - back to the matter at hand.  I have no concept how I will I go in this subject.  But I have learnt lots.  So if you are ever des

I know I said I wouldn't be blogging for a little while but I'm breaking my own rule. I wanted to share this funny story with you (well, it's amusing to me anyway which is probably just an indication of how desperate times are). Last week my 5 yo went off to his first orientation visit for school.  My oldest child (a boy) and his class were helping to look after the little kids.  Part of the visit was a tour of the toilet block.  This involved a lesson by the kindy teachers about the urinals which is apparently a bit of a stumbling block for some of the kindy boys when they start school. As my oldest child tells me the story goes, "So, now boys.  In the holidays before you start school you need to someone to take you to practice going to the toilet at a urinal.  Now can you all say 'urinal'?  Let's all say it together.  One, two, three "U R I N A L". Of course my younger child didn't even care and told me he'd been visiting the s

My apologies.  I don't have any great insights for you this week!   I have a huge assignment due for uni and I will be much more technologically skilled after I finish it (one can always hope!). And the rest of my life is its usual crazy self.  It goes on regardless of any agendas I have of what I'd like to achieve. Even though it is stressful, life helps put uni assignments in perspective.  I can't get caught up too much when there are (apparently) urgently required ribbons to be bought for the dance costume, parents to be picked up from airports and children who seem to keep getting hungry (what is  with that?!). So I'm taking lots of deep breathes and I will be back soon to dazzle you with some new pearls of wisdom (LOL!).