Back on the Asphalt

As hard as it may be maintaining enthusiasm while waiting for the Daddy Person to press the camera button (in the end I made rabbit ears behind his head) this was the easy (and cute) bit of the 2014 school run.

The rest was more a case of trying to land on your feet and hitting the Asphalt running.

Last year She-Who-Worships-Pink was attending school in Kindyland which was daunting enough considering the five classes of 25 kids each. But in fairness it was separated from the main school with its own playground and facilities.

Not so this year, now we've joined the scrum.

Oh My Dog - school drop off in the big, BIG school..it's a three ring circus (but with several more rings).

We arrive in the midst of hundreds of gingham clad clowns barreling around, cartwheeling, ricocheting off each other, off walls, out of buildings through doors and hallways.  We are dodging balls and skipping ropes that whip through the air like a series of detonations spewing sports-equipment shrapnel.

Parents everywhere with stunned - 'if I could just remember your name' - expressions, are waving nervously to each other while ducking, weaving and trying to work out where to deposit their shouty, flailing excited offspring.
Others are staggering around Quasimodo style- hunchbacked under the weight of school bags awkwardly looped over a shoulder and their teary offspring firmly attached to one leg.

After the first school run, I found this little pearl on Face Book:

Well I cant exactly do what ever I want, but what I can do is plan my day and logistics.  All without halving the time-frame because of my little co-pilot's need to incorporate a multitude of pit-stops and "I neeed to look at it mummy!" detours..

Just give me another week and I might even get my Mojo back :0)

Love and Other Drugs

I can't be mum, I want MY mum!

Even a  thoroughly reformed non-breeder like myself enjoying the many delights of parenthood, finds less than delightful; being unwell and, being the mummy myself, not having one to take care of me 'till I'm better.

 

I've been poorly for a few days - my back is awful and the pain starting in my waist going through to my legs has been keeping me awake every night, most of the night :0(

So my days involve knocking back drugs & napping. Not too productive. Or healthy.

My favourite cocktail at the moment contains equal parts Ibuprofen & paracetamol with an Aspirin chaser.. Thank God I had a couple of posts up my sleeve or my inactivity and drug abuse would have really depressed me.

Yesterday we had Lucie's final big school orientation and today we are having an uber-lazy morning (Lucie is still in her PJ's at 2pm!) before we head to the French market in Killarney. (perhaps another interesting anthropological excursion?) Then again, since it's raining cats and dogs that ambitious idea may also remain in it's pyjamas.

I've made a pair of silly-socks: (Taking step-by-step pics for this rodeo). And a couple of loads of washing and that's about all I'm capable of.

I'll go to the chiropractor again tomorrow. Last visit he was quite anxious that I had such severe sciatic pain down 'both' legs and all the way to my toes. So I'm not allowed to go to gym (aww damn) and definitely NO LUNGES! (Booooo Hoooo - not)

It's kind of nice to dag around with not much to do- Lucie's been fighting something off this week so she's in a constant state of the happy-sads. High as a kite one minute and crying us a river the next.

She got really upset Yesterday morning reading a Winnie the Pooh book about a Valentines Day party Pooh bear threw. She cried her eyes out when I informed her it wasn't Valentines Day and I ended up making her fairy bread with my heart shaped cookie cutter for breakfast. Good nutritious choice there.

Of course she couldn't possibly eat them until we had cut out decorative paper hearts and a banner AND made Valentine cards for everyone including her giant toy panther.( who also needed a party hat)

Earlier she'd used the cookie cutter to trace around and draw walking heart people which we stuck goggly eyes on.

All this before her Big School orientation morning number three and i didnt have her lunch-box even nearly ready..

 

So I guess I got off lightly with only that and the silly-sock request. (thanks for that idea, Play School) but I did have some tiny pine-cones and more glue on eyes (to make hedgehogs) as my back-up plan..

Thank God for ABC for kids is all I can say, I owe my relaxing day on drugs to them alone (except Play School because they have waaay too many "you could do this at home" ideas.)

What do you do when you're sick and you cant get time off  (being mum)?

Big School Unicorns

There I was just inside the school gate with my little girl turned tree hugger.. That is to say she had wrapped her arms & legs around the trunk of a jacaranda, refusing to go a step further. Screaming ; "NOOOO we have to go home NOOOOOW!

Frantic attempted bribes where quietly uttered causing a momentary lapse in concentration and a loosened grip, but a nano-second later, having lost her hold on the tree she had me in a death- grip instead.

How did it come to this? From leaping out of bed singing "Big school today YAY!" weeks of whining, "why cant I go to the big school NOW?!"

From all that excited anticipation to life & death dread? What the f^ck?

Lucie had been looking forward to 'big' school orientation day like it was Christmas coming early. I can't count the times she'd nearly drowned us both in her tears going to pre-school, insisting she was big enough for big school and that's where we had to go.
She would bounce up and down in her booster seat every night as we drove past her new school playground. And she was super-excited about the kids going to 'big school all getting Unicorns.

Ahh, yeah. "Honey, there's something mummy needs to explain..."

Surprisingly she wasn't especially disappointed when it turned out that instead of getting a unicorn she got a blue gingham dress and a hat with a brim like a dinner plate.

And on the day, where am I?

Stuck in the playground sitting on a log, with Lucie attached to me like a paralysed koala, blocking one annoyed kid behind me wanting to walk the length of it. The kid behind me, like most of the other kids looked happy had excited exploring the new environment.

Well 'most' of them... 

I walked Lucie to the class rooms on the pretense of looking to see "what fun games they have" and gradually seeing familiar looking art projects taped to windows, reassuring drawings of dinosaurs, she relaxed enough for us to get her into her classroom and into a seat.

It was still was touch and go for a bit and when I saw the teacher approach with another little girl I thought Lucie might bolt.
Little Elizabeth as her name tag said, was catatonic poor poppet.  Obviously too distressed to cry, she was staring ahead with like a bunny caught in the headlights and her chest was heaving in short sharp gasps. The kinder teacher was rubbing her back and talking to her in that reassuring tone police negotiators in movies use on people about to jump off buildings.

Jeeez.

But everyone survived the morning. There were tears: a few kids , one or two parent's. A big noisy tea party in the school hall for the parents where intermittently a few snuck away to peep in classroom windows; you know just to check..

But our little drama queen came out happy, with a fist full of artworks. She wore her uniform proudly all day, to the shops to buy lunch and at home until bed-time.

And I managed to find her a Unicorn anyway.