Day 25 How to get a child out of the house pt 2

Today Illi had arranged to visit her friend Carlina’s house. I like that Illi and Carlina are with the same phone provider, because they get free texts to each other. This is especially important when they text random one word messages to each other like “meow” or “pineapple.”

I dropped Illi off at 10am and met Carlina’s mum. When I went back to pick Illi up at 5pm, the first thing I noticed was the chalk drawing on the road. There was more on the mailbox and also on the path as I walked up to the front door.

It seems that Illi and Carlina had been spreading their random-ness around! Not only had they named the street Pineapplopolus, but they had written it on the road, the gutter and the mailbox (luckily chalk is easily removed)! The other thing they did that had pretty much worn off by the time I got there, was they coloured themselves in with chalk too! The above pic is of the very large declaration on the road of Pineapplopolus and I must make mention of my guest photographer for today...Illi...Thanks!

Day 19 Getting the gear.

Since Kindergarten, Illi has been taking dance classes of some discipline or another. She started with All Stars which did dance drama and singing, then she went to ballet, then jazz and tap, then callisthenics. Now at the beginning of year 8, she has decided she doesn’t want to dance any more. I insist my children do some sort of sport as if they weren’t committed to attending, they would be totally inactive (at least they have to attend a class a week of some sport to get them out the door).

When we were in Newcastle Declan went to Tae Kwon Do, but here in Canberra TKD did not work out well for him and he started Karate with some school friends. For a few months, Declan and Sean have been hassling Illi and she finally gave in and decided to join in and try karate too!

Declan has grown so much in the past year that he needed a new Gi (karate suit). The thing is, he didn’t need the top and the bottom at the same time. So he swapped pants some months ago but only swapped to the new jacket recently. It turns out that we threw out the pants in a bag of clothing going to charity ages ago, so while we had a jacket suitable for Illi, there were no pants to go with it!

I tried ebay and a local sports shop but I was either going to have to fork out $30 for a pair of pants or $35+ for a whole Gi. Then I had a brainwave…what if other people also donate their Gis to charity?? Today’s pic is of Illi checking out things at Vinnie’s at Tuggeranong where we found a suitable pair of Gi pants for $8! At next Tuesday’s class, she will be suitably attired!

Day 18 How to get a child out of the house pt 1

Today I had a fairly busy day going here and there. I also tried to structure my day so that I could taxi Illi to an outing she was to attend. Unfortunately she decided not to meet up with the group of girls but I am still yet to hear a reasonable excuse as to why. So far these holidays, neither Illi nor Declan have done much at all, preferring to play with their computers or watch tv than step foot outside. So today I used one of my back up tempters to get Illi out of the house. She made a comment yesterday that she had NOTHING to read (hmmm…I seem to remember a child who got 2 new bookcases for Christmas, who had no trouble filling them!) so I said that I was going to the library and that if she didn’t come, there was no way that I was going to be at all sympathetic to her “nothing to read” whinge!
The above photo is our much loved library bag with my books and Illi's DVD still in it, Illi has already taken her pile of books and is working her way through them. I have a feeling she will be in trouble for not turning her light out at a decent time tonight!

Day 14 Saturday jobs.

In our house, to get pocket money, you have to do your Saturday jobs. Saturday jobs must be done by 12 noon. They must be to my satisfaction. If completed before 12 noon and I am asked to check, you have the opportunity to fix any mistakes by 12 noon. If you do not ask for them to be checked and I check them after 12 noon and they are incomplete, no negotiation is entered into, you just don’t get paid (but you STILL have to complete the job properly). The rate of pay is commensurate with the year you are in at school…interestingly, even though the children are now capable of earning $8 and $10 instead of last year’s $7 and $9, they haven’t realised this yet as they have not succeeded with the 12 noon deadline this year!
The above pic is of the dining room and kitchen when Illi had the chairs up to sweep when doing her Saturday jobs today.

Day 8 I'm left with questions.

A few days ago, Illi cooked dinner and as she was cutting up the chicken breasts, she put a few pieces of raw meat on a plate for the cats. To our surprise, they ate it. This was surprising because they won’t eat raw fish or cooked mince. So the yesterday I bought some ‘moist’ cat food at the supermarket and fed them some, and they licked the plate clean. Today I gave them the rest of the food that had been in the fridge and although they started out rather enthusiastically, they didn’t finish it. This leaves me with the question…why? I wonder if it was novelty yesterday, or whether it goes back to what something Dr Harry said once about animals not really liking food from the fridge because it is not fragrant enough. I guess tomorrow may provide the answer.

Oh, the pic is of them when they started out happily getting into the food when I first put it on the ground…the pic really highlights the difference in size between our 2 year old GREY cat (Angel) and our 9 month old WHITE AND GINGER cat (Caramel)!