"No reading at the breakfast table"

I didn't think I was particularly vain.  I had braces put on my top teeth yesterday and had two baby teeth removed.  Thankfully I have a beautiful top lip that covers it all so you wouldn't notice unless I showed you.  The bottom teeth will gets braces later on. However, leading up to it I have been feeling vulnerable about how I would look.  I also had to get glasses this week (only for reading thankfully).  Suddenly my face is not my own anymore!  Well, it's still mine.  Just a new version of it. Having teeth extracted was OK but I've been feeling exhausted and a bit sick since yesterday.  The braces do feel strange.  And my poor teeth are very sensitive.  I can't bite anything hard and it's looking like scrambled eggs for dinner. Strange experience.  I wouldn't go through this for purely cosmetic reasons (it's expensive and my teeth weren't that crooked) but I had to do something about two baby teeth that were about to fall...

I have nothing much that is profound to share today.  But here's some thoughts that have been in my head today. 1.  Crimes mothers commit:  Me:  "Please can you brush your teeth before you go to school?"  Child:  "You just make my life so difficult don't you?  You're making me late ...."  Me:  "Can you get dressed so that you aren't naked for school?  Child:  "Oh, I'm just sooo tired - don't you understand?" 2.  I live in a community - my stress levels are down today due to the kindness of other mothers who have helped me with baby sitting and taking my kids to sports training.  I never take this generosity for granted. 3.  Apparently there is a "critical shortage of librarians"  (or that's what I heard on the radio at 5.55 am this morning on my way to the gym).  I gave a loud 'hurrah' but I also suspect the shortage isn't in Sydney.  Canberra is the happening place for librarians. 4. ...

Thanks to the mystery dealer who deposited a box of 100 Earl Grey Twinings tea bags on my front steps this morning. You aren't helping me in my attempts to reduce my tea drinking ...  But I am ever so grateful.  Lovely surprise.

It's all the rage.  The government is always on about future proofing.  So are major corporations.  Future proofing is planning strategically for the future.  Getting organised.  Contingency plans.  Succession planning.  Making sure you don't get caught out.  Not living in a reactive way.  Change management. Well, I think I know a thing or two about all of that. Here's what future-proofing looks like in my o-so-glamourous life! 1.  Cooking dinner in the morning so that when (like this afternoon) the three year old throws a tantrum that lasts for about an hour, there is actually something for us to eat. 2.  Bringing the washing in as soon as it is dry, rather than thinking "O, I'm too tired.  I'll just get it in the morning", hearing it raining at 2.33 am and then watching it go mouldy as it continues to rain for the next fortnight. 3.  Checking to see who has wet their bed overnight at 7.30 AM rather than discov...

Rowan and I went on a date on Friday night and saw (appropriately) the movie, "Date Night".   It was a little scary because it was like looking in the mirror at ourselves.  The movie is about a couple who go on a date every week but go to the same restaurant, same routine and it's all a bit the same.  They look at each other and say, "Do you really want to go?  Are you too tired?  Maybe we're too tired.  Maybe we should just stay home". That's how we feel every time we plan to go out.  By the end of a busy week we're stuffed.  But they are shaken up by their best friend's marriage falling apart and decide to change their normal same-old routine.  And the aftermath is certainly not 'same-old'! It's funny, pretty silly (and as a bonus, not too long - so you get home early ...!) and easy to watch.  Tina Fey and Steve Carrell as the couple are great and believable.  And at the heart of it is a high value of marriage.  It values ...

As I wearily approach Sunday tomorrow I've been pondering how church works for introverts. I like people.  I like talking to people a lot.  But I also need a lot of time of on my own so I can keep enjoying talking to people.  I don't get a lot of time of my own because of my family, so regaining energy can be challenging. This is certainly in the "what happened to me?" category.  I used to love being with people all day.  In fact I would struggle to be on my own.  I can remember when I had my first baby, organising activities for the mornings and the afternoons so that I was only on my own for his sleep time in the middle.  I loved being away on conferences so that I had people on tap all the time. But I've changed.  I love being at home on my own.  Not quite sure why.  It is partly the kids, but it could also be getting older, having a fuller life ... Back to my original question.  How does church work for introverts? Bei...

I love this post.  I know just how this mum of 5 feels.  Glad I'm not alone. http://www.elizabethesther.com/threes_a_crowd/2010/04/losing-the-joy-of-mothering.html

So I think the saying goes "It takes a village to raise a child". Well, this week it has taken a village to enable one woman to write one essay.  Which isn't finished.  Almost.  I think.  Maybe.  Can you sense my lack of confidence? Anyway my 'village' has been my kind husband taking a day off work.  My in-laws coming for a day and running mega craft/painting activities.  My patient father-in-law untangling the kites which have been sitting in the shed for 18 months.  And my mother entertaining the children with her made up stories yesterday.  I'm so grateful for all the help and I don't think the kids have suffered too much - I've been at home the whole time. I'm doing two full on subjects this semester.  It's the biggest load I've ever taken on and it means that for 12 weeks all I think about is getting uni work done.  But the rest of life doesn't slow down.  And I find it so, so hard to say no.  Using uni as an ex...

I never thought that a public airing of my weakness for a good cuppa would generate such discussion! So here's the update. I've decided on a compromise.  Going cold turkey and then finding no reasonable alternative was too much.  So I'm having a couple of nice cups of tea a day and enjoying them a lot more.  Maybe I had fried my tastebuds by drinking so much that I couldn't even taste it anymore. I'm also going to be diligent about not drinking proper tea at night. But I have to write a very tedious essay this week on library management (as if little old me, mother of 5, aging rapidly, will ever be managing a library - it is quite amusing really).  So that will be the real test.  Can I manage to get through a week of battling through an uninteresting assignment and not get hooked again? Of course you do realise that the real test comes when you're faced with the pressures of life.  (I've heard the Biggest Loser rhetoric).  Maybe I need to go t...

Over the past few months I've been thinking a lot about mothering, guilt , failure and success .  A few months ago a friend passed me a magazine article titled "The Myth of the Perfect Parent" by Leslie Leyland Fields. You can read the whole article here.  As I read it, I felt a sense of relief flow over me.  Finally, something about parenting that made sense to me. " We are responsible to teach our children the fear of the Lord, to impress his laws on them                            when we "sit at home and when we walk along the road, when we lie down and when we get up" -  meaning all the time (Deut 6:7).  And we are commanded to not exasperate our children, but to "bring them up in the training and instruction of the Lord" (Eph. 6:4).  But we must be clear about our own limits.  We are not capable of producing perfect followers of Christ, as if we were perfect ourselves.  O...