"No reading at the breakfast table"

I'm writing this post to show off how much of a real mother I am, what with all my baking 'n all.  Other mum blogs often seem to involve a lot of craft and cooking and so I'm just trying to keep up with the pack here folks. I have to admit that I do bake every weekend so that the kids have things for their lunch boxes.  That's because at the start of the year we instituted our new system (helpfully outlined by my 9yo daughter).  They can only have one item of packaged food (I know, I know, one too many, I hear you say, but I always feel it is good to share my failures) and so I've been forced to be disciplined about cooking for them. The challenge is the same with anything I cook for them.  Finding things they can/will actually eat (rather than things that make me feel like a real mother/blogger).  One child has an intolerance to cheese so these don't work so well for him. Cheese and bacon scrolls And they don't like dried fruit, so sudd...

On a crowded peak hour train yesterday the lady opposite me asks me about my dress.  She tells me she likes it, she likes how colouful it is.  I laughed and said I felt a bit out of place in the city where everyone is wearing black, but I felt that I needed some colour to brighten up my day.  We chatted for a minute or so about where I'd bought it from, where it was made. And then I pointed out that another lady opposite me was wearing bright red so she wasn't wearing typical city colours either.  The three of us chatted for a few minutes about how crowded the train was.  The lady who initiated the conversation had only moved from China two years ago and wanted to know if Sydney was always so busy, so crowded.  The lady in the red top started talking about how busy she found Sydney when she moved from Queensland 15 years ago. THEN the bloke sitting next to me starts talking about how much slower the pace of life was in Israel where he had come from. ...

O dear - I have a great sense of deja vu.  Back here again.  We've just spent the last few weeks trying to think about a high school for our second child.  A daughter and different to our oldest child.  We always knew she'd go somewhere different to our son, so we had to start from scratch when it came to looking for a school. We've decided to send her to the local school that we're automatically in the eligible area for.  All I had to do was tick the box on the form and send it back to the school.  It felt a bit too simple.  Just our local comprehensive girl's high school.  She can walk to school, or ride her bike if she wants.  It's public.  It's all a bit too low key and straightforward.  Surely this cannot be right.  Where is the endless visiting of school's open days?  Auditions?  Tests?  Scholarships?  Have we taken the path of least resistance?  Have we not tried hard enough to get her into ...

So I turn 40 today.  Yesterday my work colleagues put on an incredible lunch for me - they do like to celebrate with vast quantities of food.  Today I'm going to go out for coffee with a group of my school mum friends.  And tonight I'm going to celebrate my birthday in true style (well, at least 'consistent' style in my life) by going on our annual church weekend away.  In April I'm planning a party.  So thus we are in the Festival of Jenny. How do I feel about turning 40?  I feel pretty fantastic to be honest.  I don't think there is much else that I would want from life that I haven't been able to have or experience in my forty years.  This feels like a great blessing and privilege to me.  Lovely family that brought me up, crazily unusual childhood, got to go to uni (a few times), I've been married for 17 years to a man who is incredible (and we still like each other - more incredible), have five (five? wow, really, that is truly unexpe...

Last year I taught Year 4 Scripture for a term and it almost drove me mental.  How could 10 kids for half an hour be so frustrating?  And then I had to run a kid's club at my old job in the public library for Kindy kids each week.  How could one hour a week with 20 kids be so hard? Well, it's because I hadn't remembered my cranky teacher voice.  I'm rediscovering it.  And I'm a whole lot better at it now that I've got my own kids.  I now know what it means to actually care about the kids, yet be really firm with them.  They aren't mutually exclusive (which I suspect is what I thought when I was a young (pretty bad) teacher). I'm also a whole lot better at sounding angry, yet being in total control of my emotions.  Those terrible tantrum years in the shops have trained me well.  Internalising emotion - regulating it.  Not taking everything so personally.  I'm certainly a lot less worried about what other teachers think of me than...

I might have the answer!  My 9 year old has been designing ads for a play she's writing for her Scripture class at school.  They made me laugh.

Ahh, there's always one.  The perfect view (we decided that it would be a great spot for a marriage proposal), yet not all five were in the mood to cooperate for the photo.  This is from our trip to the zoo a few weekends ago.  No. 4 child hadn't eaten enough lunch at this point in time.  It shows!

Some kind of Moonie type wedding at our place.  Rapunzel barbie up the front is either the celebrant or more likely the organiser telling everyone what to do.  Bizarre times!

Another culinary masterpiece.  The well-known 'Puffy Sticks'.  Oh, you've never heard of them?  Cooked puff pastry (plain or the fancy alternative, with cheese) is all the rage at our place this year.  They are a big hit in the lunch boxes or warmed in the microwave for afternoon tea. And I can hear you wondering - 'Wow, where did she get such a creative name from?'  Why, from my very own creative head, I have to admit.  Ahh - such brilliance ...

Moving out of work in a public library to a school library, means that I don't get easy access to the latest adult fiction, but I'm fast picking up speed on the young adult front. Last week I read a book called 'Feed' by Mira Grant.  It was about zombies and bloggers.  I have to admit, I haven't spent much (like any) time reading about zombies (or bloggers for that matter).  But one of my colleagues convinced me to read it. I did think the writing was clunky and laboured.  And the author kind of over-explained every concept in the book.  But in the end I didn't mind it too much.  Basically the idea is that a cure for cancer and the common cold has been discovered in 2014 and released into the atmosphere.  Unfortunately a viral mutation occurs, so that while people don't die of colds and cancer, when they do die, they don't really die.  They then stagger around as zombies looking for people to feed on (thus the title). Of course the 'feed'...

Last week a work colleague of my husband's said that lots of people had been asking her if she knew how I was going.  So, I'd better tell you how my transition from the SAHM camp to the working mum camp is getting on.  Seems there is some interest in it. Obviously from my lack of writing on my blog, I'm feeling pretty swamped.  I'm not unhappy, our family isn't unhappy, my marriage isn't unhappy.  I just feel tired.  And slightly panicky a lot of the time. The slightly panicky feeling comes from a variety of sources.  Making I sure I get ready to get to work in time.  Dealing with the mysteries of a new job.  Making sure I've signed all the appropriate notes for the kids (I spent 90 minutes last week solidly signing notes and writing cheques for the kids).  Helping the kids who need help with music practice.  Paying all the bills.  Making sure homework is ticking along.  Buying stationery, sports equipment, sheet mu...