Christmas Rush Part 4 - Mission Impossible

Just when you think things have calmed down…so often they haven’t.

So after Much Ado About Nothing Everything, getting her there, She-Who-Worships-Pink is performing in her big-deal-first-dance-recital-dress-rehearsal and I have been evicted for an hour and fifteen minutes! I suddenly find myself with an unexpected piece of day to do with what I will and it feels like I’ve won the lottery.

So I decide to go home and write (this) among other things. I make a cup of tea, I sit at my desk, my terminally ill laptop still hasn’t croaked yet and I’m feeling grateful for my unexpected reprieve.

I sip my tea for a change instead of sculling it.

The bathroom-tile-re-glazer-guy is here setting up a lovely big stinking vat of chemicals. Despite his boss forgetting I left a key out and where, and the ensuing frantic phone calls to that effect, he’d talked our dog walker into giving him access anyway.

In minutes the whole house smells like a factory making nail varnish remover crossed and synthetic cow pooh. I pop a Telfast or two, but I think I might already be getting a bit high. How do these guys do it? One of our younger bathroom tradies, confessed to thoroughly enjoying chemical stinks –a glue sniffer if ever I saw one: no one is that excited about porcelain basins.

Coating the floor doesn’t take long and I’m finally left on my own to work albeit in a cloud of chemical stench. I whip off my reading glasses and move around the house executing strategic door closes and window opens.

 

Then there’s this sort of funny click sound downstairs and everything goes dark. The smoke detectors all start up, not their frantic emergency shriek, thank God, but loud and annoying regular BEEP.BEEP, BEEPs multiplied by three. (Two downstairs, one up)

Probably a bad weather, lightening, power-surge thing and since our smoke detectors are hard wired, they want to be helpful and let me know they’re not able to do their job. They insist I do something about it; BEEP BEEP BEEP. I go to take a look at the meter box but when I pick up my glasses, one of the lenses has fallen out and is nowhere to be found.

Closing one eye just doesn’t cut the mustard and since  it’s almost time to fight my way back into the mini CBD of North Sydney, I just leave. Throwing some blurry switches on our electrical box on my way out, I slam the door on the problem, thinking ‘what is it with this house and malfunctioning alarms?’

In North Sydney, the fire trucks and evacuees are gone now, but the rain hasn’t and I balance my umbrella on my head as I feed my last sixty cents into a meter, half a block away. I promise myself, one day to find the way into this ONE WAY street that the performance venue lives on because I can see a whole world of parking 200 meters down that street right outside.

Meter fed; I now have eight whole minutes to sprint through the tempest with Pinkster’s school uniform on a hanger and her shoes and tights in a bag. Then fly in through the loading dock, which now has an enormous truck backing into it, keep on through to the stage door and collect my little dancer from Clip-Board girl.

I need to strip her, (Pinkster, not Clip Board Girl) and change her into her uniform and raincoat and sprint back to the car, hopefully dry and hopefully before the parking Nazis arrive.

Can I see a show of hands; who thinks this is a Mission Impossible?

To be continued...

Christmas Rush Part 3 - Pass the Xanax

It's Like a comedy of errors-except that nobody is laughing.

Today is the big grand-dress-rehearsal day in preparation for She-Who-Worships-Pink's performance in the Glee Recital.  I got to bed after eleven so I could pack her lunch, early snack, late snack, dance bag, find some make-up including blush and red lipstick (yes, I cringed too). Also flesh coloured leggings and singlet (didn't see that one coming) and her news item, library book, put money in her school dress pocket because it's canteen treats day - then I printed the map from the venue website.

I'm myself yawning widely and struggling with my squirming worm of a child, to apply mascara, brow-liner, blush, highlighter and the closest thing to red lipstick I could dig out of the back of my cupboard.  With that final task sort of complete, I bundle everything up in my arms and we head off with 20 minutes to spare.

Well we sat in the drive and wasted  five minutes trying to plug the address into Homer (our Simpson-esque portable GPS).

I wasn't taking chances as we are heading into the business heart of North Sydney where town planners apparently modeled the street scape on a tangled plate of spaghetti . They then seasoned their work with a multitude of signs: NO ENTRY, NO THROUGH ROAD, ONE WAY, NO LEFT TURN, NO RIGHT TURN, BUGGER OFF AND GO HOME..


Homer, with the personality, efficiency and general laziness of his alter-ego, wouldn't wake up until we'd driven halfway to the Dance Recital Rehearsal Venue.  The first thing he says, with more exuberance than necessary, is "Turn Left Ahead!"

OK. So I keep going. Keep going into the main drag of the Central Business District in peak hour rush.

Homer tells me again to turn left and I head into a smaller road only to be confronted with two large fire trucks. Lights are flashing, hoards of people are milling around on curbs, on crossings and spilling onto the road. The building diagonally opposite the venue has been evacuated for some reason and we are detoured, and detoured some more, into a dead end street lined with parking meters. I am running low on change after filling my daughter's pocket but I have enough for the drop off - I think - if we can find how to get back there on foot.

Did I mention the rain? We've been having thunderstorms all morning. :0)

Two minutes later with, one other mother and dancer in tow, I'm sharing my umbrella with a nice teacher who is leading us through an enormous grand campus (like a movie set for St Trinians) to their Smith Auditorium. I check repeatedly that the bright yellow Pooh Bear umbrella is still bobbing along behind me. My Pinkster is huddled under it with her little friend as they run together. The other mum is ducking and diving, phone to her ear, under the stately porticoes.

More minutes pass before we are inside an enormous building doing a floor to floor search for our dance troop and we've picked up another mum and child on the way. I'm fumbling with some printouts scouring them for the emergency co-ordinator person's phone number so she can come rescue us, but before I can dial, my phone starts ringing. It's the bathroom guys, at my house, can't get in -can't remember where I left the key out for them.

Finally the search and rescue is a success and I hand my child over to a tall teenage girl with a clipboard.

She-Who-Worships-Pink is disoriented; we both thought I could stay and watch and as I stagger out into the auditorium loading dock, rain pelting my umbrella, I 'wish upon a star' for some Xanax.

To be continued...

Christmas Rush Part 2: Pass the Antibiotics

I'm looking through the rear view mirror at a large dog flying around in the back of the car and I have an epiphany of sorts.

Driving around with the dog being tossed around in back doesn't constitute exercise for said animal. Well maybe a little, considering the muscles he must flex, and keep flexing, to stay upright as I hurtle like a crazy person through roads jammed with pre-Christmas traffic.

You see the Orange Dog has some key structural problems when it comes to resting on his butt. He's like an inverted pyramid, there's a long torso with Arnold Schwarzenegger shoulders and chest,  balanced precariously on a small and quite pointy arse.  He really has to splay out his front legs to stay upright and even then it's touch and go.

So now I'm feeling really guilty (like the RSPCA might pull me over at any second) so I whip into Mackers drive-through for lunch (of sorts) for me and a treat for him. I'm not really hungry, but on doctors orders I've downed an anti-biotic for my Strep Throat, "..half an hour before food.." so I need to eat something.

I speak to the little box and say I'd like a fire-extinguisher, instead of a diet-coke, with my "meal" but he doesn't get the gag, so I ask for a chocolate thick shake instead. I need something slow moving and icy, like a liquid avalanche, to put out the burn in my throat.
I suppose a chilled beer would be out of the question.

I spend the next 15 traffic light stops dousing the fire and bouncing chicken McBites off the rear window into the back of the car.  This is an actual technique I'm using here. When I used to attempt strategic throws I would inevitably only get as far as the back seat and a large animal jumping over seat-backs in a moving vehicle makes for hazardous driving conditions.

Orange Dog keeps disappearing from view and bobbing back up licking his chops and looking very much cheered up by the accuracy of this process.

After one stop for 'the next birthday gift' (when can I start on Christmas shopping?) I let him out of the car into a nice park on the water near Manly, and we both let our anxieties blow away with the breeze across the long grass.

It's a nice day, probably because I emptied the washing line earlier, but I don't linger; I need more drugs, I need another Lemsip Multi-Relief. The thick shake's long gone and I need another hit.
Still a tad early for beer.

The anxiety rushes back when I think about the kind of tomorrow I'm expecting; most likely a big day. She-Who-Worships-Pink has the big dress rehearsal for her performance in the Glee Recital. Her Class is doing an all singing  all dancing review of 'Hey- Ho' from Snow White And The so-many-more-than Seven Dwarfs (at last count they had fifteen).

She'll miss half a day of school and I have to drive her, in hair and make-up (?) to somewhere (?) I have no clue how to get to.

We have Homer of course. Homer is our portable navigation thingy. It has not only Homer Simpson's voice, but it seems to have acquired his verbal opinions and reliability. Meaning; he won't always get you there by the quickest route (sometimes not at all) but you will arrive (if you do) laughing.

One of these days I'm gonna try Yoda's voice and see if The Force improves our chances.

After that I need to get her scrubbed off, back in uniform (school not dwarf) and back to school.

Then I'll have exactly two hours to; finish the novel, (yeah right), blog, do more laundry, make another batch of veggie lunchbox pancakes for the freezer, go back to the supermarket for the things I forgot today.

Tomorrow is also news item day, library day, canteen money day and swimming after school. If I don't forget something, or do something outrageously ditzy, it will be a miracle.

Oh and pray I'm home if and when the bathroom tile guys show up so we can have a working bathtub for the weekend.

Fingers crossed.....

To Be Continued...

Tantrum Busting

For the Stuff I Made portion of this week, I've decided to swap the pins and sewing needles for my art pens and get cracking on a request from one of my lovely rodeo readers.

It's not sewing but it's crafty and definitely helpful for Parents, Grandparents, Aunts, Uncles, Baby-sitters or Nannies. Handy for anyone at all who negotiates, from time to time, the minefield of tantrums and difficult behaviour of small people learning to assert their will on the world.

If you're not familiar with it, I have a Rewards Program page where I post free Rewards Charts for Kids.
I even offer customized charts in PDF format.
How nice am I??

It all started with super-dooper SuperNanny Joe Frost.  A friend mentioned to me she would love to try Joe's reward chart idea,  but she just didn't have time to make one, and why didn't I do some and put them online for other parents etc. etc. etc...  So I have :0)

Am I nice or what???

Ok I'll stop saying that now.

But recently someone actually took me up on my offer and all I could send immediately were girls' charts. Trouble is I was a bit light on the boy's not having had time so far to illustrate them.

So this is what I have produced this crazy busy week, high as a kite on acetone fumes coming from our almost finished bathroom renovation. It's just as well I didn't have time to bring out the sewing machine; I would have made a hash out of anything I attempted and it's much easier to erase mistakes on paper huh?

But wait there's more!

For loads more rewards charts and suggestions on how to use them, click on the Rewards Program page tab. There's an email link where you can make personal requests and also individual charts to copy, save and print at home.

Good luck. 

PS: Because of its popularity, I'm always adding to my Rewards Program page so it's worth checking in regularly if you're a bit shy to ask for something specific. Cheers

Christmas Rush Part 1: Pass the Lemsip

It's started already; playing ruthless games of catch-up, eating out of bags passed from drive-through windows while stuck in traffic and calling it mealtime. I'm also driving around with a takeaway cup in my car cup-holder so I can take a chug of Lemsip Multi-Relief at each traffic light.

It's the Christmas rush and it's only bloody November.

I was reading an old post from around Christmas last year and man was I stressed. Well what's changed?

I don't have all the twelve apostles (teachers) to buy for, we are down to one, so that's something. Don't get me wrong, self confessed gift-a-holic here. I love gift giving, adore it..it's the driving, mall parking and finding bit that sends me into a sweaty tail-spin.

But it does seem that our girl is not the only one with a birthday in December. Pretty much ALL of her school friends seem to as well. 

To make matters worse for my shopping (and ongoing bathroom renovations) schedule, I have been bed ridden for days. Turns out I have Strep Throat, which would explain why I've sounded like Sly Stallone for four days in between squeaking like a Japanese Cartoon character.

Meanwhile I have a bathroom with no shower screen, a working bath but you need levitation skills to use it because the floor's not finished; "Just try not to walk on it as much as possible and don't get any water on it yet.." Has this man ever bathed a five-year-old?   The vanity can't be completed till mid January but we can live with that so long as nobody takes out the old ugly one.

So here I am  with the hairdresser (for the first time in six months) having my hair chemically relaxed. After a week of torrential rain (and tornadoes no less), the temperatures and humidity have shot right up and my hair looks like Marge Simpson's sister Selma. Unless I'm prepared to hit it with a straitening iron five times a day - like I have time for that! However my frizz goes nicely with my voice, now I think about it, because I sound like Selma too.

Having just 20 minutes left on the parking meter, it dawns on me that I should be at my doctors appointment in fifteen minutes, and my hair is still doused and dripping with smelly chemicals (kinda like the bathroom; totally the same smell). I'm wishing on my life that I could be chemically relaxed in a way that would, similarly, not wear off for another six months.

I get altogether too twitchy to focus on the  gossip magazines' discussion of Miley Sirus's Twerking and tongue action for another second. But miraculously, I'm out of that chair in ten minutes, across the road into the Doctor's office and out again in seven minutes flat!

Waiting for the lights at the crossing takes longer and I'm still stressed out because the car park is expiring as I do an impatient little dance, repeatedly tapping on the 'cross' button. I've read somewhere (stupid gossip magazine probably) that if you press them a lot they get annoyed and change the lights faster.. or was that for elevator call buttons?

I'm thinking of how the local council employ highly motivated human blood hounds to monitor the parking meters, they can literally smell an expired meter.  Did you know that stressful situations can lead to gross exaggeration and over-generalization? That could be more gossip magazine wisdom. I need to step away from the crap magazines - 90 minutes with nothing else to read and my brain's farting like a dog after a bowl of baked beans.

Anyway I used the pharmacy as a short cut, jogging through, tossing my prescription over the desk puffing;  "sorry. Parking meter. Back in a sec.." continuing through the back door past a knowing, nodding  pharmacist.  My car was parked opposite their back door with no ticket. Phew

When did my days get divided up into these minute increments?

Right after moving my car I charge back into the Pharmacy, then make a hit and run grocery shop, followed by a side trip home to load up the refrigerator and stack and start the dishwasher.

I posted two gifts earlier, neither of them for Christmas. The sky is looking ugly again so I've emptied the washing line but not the basket, and I still have to go out and find a gift for this weekends birthday party.

Oh and walk the Orange dog before the school run.

This is why my day is divided into minute increments.

As much as I love the end result, it's the means I struggle with, and that's what makes me really not keen on this time of year.

To Be Continued...

All I want for Christmas is......

Little Girls Can Be Mean

 

For all my parental moaning, and there's a lot of that here, I have to give her credit, She-Who-Worships-Pink is a 'Nice little girl'. But she wears her heart on her sleeve.

She's kind and engaging, she worries about other people's, other kids', animals and even insects' feelings.
A kind of sweet observation which appeared on her pre-school Development and Learning report: "[Pinkster] will often go out of her way to include younger less and confident children in activities, and will offer comfort to others when they are upset."

This is a trait in her that we're particularly proud of but there's a down side. She  just doesn't 'get', or deal well with, the kids who aren't 'nice' back. Starting school has been tough on her emotional resilience. She's been thrown into a large group of kids she doesn't know well and not all of them display behaviour that is 'nice'. Some of the behaviour is a far cry from 'nice'.

We recently ran into a kid from her school on a weekend. A kid who used to run across a room to give Pinkster bear hugs. My girl ran across a park to hug her back. This other child stood there rigid with the most awful expression on her face. Disdain? Mortification? Abject horror? (Somewhere along those lines.) Needless to say she didn't hug back and Pinkster released her looking confused. Our child's numerous attempts to engage the Go-Away-Girl in a friendly manner where just painful to watch. And the reactions of Go-Away-Girl, who when she spoke, her comments were rude and borderline cruel.

Later on, we had an emotional, ill-tempered little girl on our hands who didn't want to play with her toys, the iPad or do anything much at all. We asked her if she was being cranky because she was feeling bad about something and she told us straight; Her friend didn't like her anymore and Pinkster was worried that she wasn't fun and that means none of the kids will be friends with her anymore and she will be all alone forever..

A dear friend of mine (one who returns my bear-hugs) recommended this book Little Girls Can Be Mean a while back and although I still haven't finished it, I picked up some handy advice.

We sat down with the Pinkster and told her that we were very proud that she'd been so nice to Go-Away-Girl and that she'd tried so hard to play with her and share her toys and fun games. We pointed out that Go-Away-Girl wasn't playing with any other children at the park so Pinkster shouldn't blame herself for not being enough fun.

We told her that to be kind and nice and thoughtful, like she is, is the most important thing and it always makes us proud.  I told her; "Kind girls like you wont always keep the same friends, but you will always have lots of friends because you're so nice to everyone."
We added what a shame it is that Go-Away-Girl maybe doesn't know how and if doesn't learn, then she'll end up with no friends at all.

Pinkster got up, scooping up her two favourite Barbie dolls and said, "Well, that's her problem!"

Yup. Point taken.

We've had a lot of  "She/he doesn't want to be my friend anymores over the last couple of years and I find myself asking the question; if it's a choice - do I want her to be bullied or the bully?

Neither is the short answer.

But I guess if, as the book says, you encourage regular open discussions on this stuff then you can avoid the serious bullying and help your child build up some emotional resilience and confidence in their own social skills, while still nurturing the niceness and empathy.

If I found it a bit meandering in it's style, I think this is a very useful book for any parent raising girls. I love that my little girl is such a sensitive soul, but I'd hate for it to have an adverse impact on her and it's nice to have some informed advice and strategies in place.

So I'm giving it a plug at a time when its been most relevant for our family.

By the way this is NOT a sponsored post. Like all of my recommendations on this blog - I only recommend stuff that I've found to be good (because I like to share) and nobody pays me to do it. (worst luck)

There are other books on the subject I haven't read but would be interested in down the track..(when I've finished this one)

Michael Thompson, PhD,  
Best Friends, Worst Enemies;
Mom, They’re Teasing Me

Rachel Simmons, 
Odd Girl Out 
The Curse of the Good Girl

Rosalind Wiseman,
Queen Bees and Wannabes 

A Mad Hatter

There's something to be said about school uniforms in that you can seriously cut back, not only on clothes, but accessories too.

I still need to come to terms with that.

I don't know what our little Pinkster has more of; shoes or hats. But I know this, after putting clusters of hooks inside both her wardrobe doors, I still couldn't accommodate all of her hats.

It all started with one special hat. I loved it, The Daddy Person loved it and The Pinkster loved it. So we continued up-sizing, as she grew, until the sad day Pumpkin Patch stopped making them.

Seriously who could  blame a parent for getting besotted with this look?

I just couldn't deal with the loss of all that cuteness not to mention style and comfort. So I copied it. Apologies to Pumpkin Patch, but what was I to do?

So for five years I have played around with this little baker-boy cap. It's been done in blue denim, black denim, tan corduroy, pink corduroy, white faux fur; just to name a few.

What I most like is that after I've made her a dress or jacket I can throw together a quick hat with the left overs.  I designed her a black denim pinafore with contrast top-stitch detail (inspired by Bettina Liano circa 1990) and...
 

 
...I had just enough black denim left over for the hat. I didn't have enough for the band though, so I used a strip of 'pleather', which turned out to look like a well-planned design detail.

Pumpkin Patch started making their Baker boy caps again after taking a couple of years' holiday from that style but I prefer my own now.

This plain denim one (above) was my prototype and it saw her through two years of daycare and all seasons. Then one day it was lost and she was distraught.

I had no denim and no old jeans on hand so I went to Vinnies (St Vincent de Paul) and bought a pair of second hand jeans.

This was my first 'cut-up couture' venture and the old jeans set me back $12!!!!

Outrageous huh?! it's not like they were vintage Levis or anything!!

Anyway I'm sure you always wondered what a $12-second-hand-jeans-cut-up-hat would look like:

The original hat turned up a week later in the beach bag :0/

So now we have two denim hats and I still have more than enough denim to make another one.  Problem is you only get one fob-pocket per jeans and that detail is what gets all the 'oohs and ahhhs' on this one.

The cute little belt above the brim is actually a coverup as the band wouldn't sit well enough for the likes of my perfectionism.  Gathering and easing heavy denim into a thinner band is no tea party I can tell you, but add in a few more layers with studs on the brim and it's pretty tough to get it all perfectly flat.

The corduroy cap below was much easier being softer fabric. For all the brims I used stiffening hard enough to make a lampshade and that's a lot of fun to feed through a clunky domestic sewing machine (not!).

I wont do a tutorial on this because I'm guessing only seasoned sewers would attempt it, and you don't need the likes of me telling you how to put something like this together.

However I am willing to let you have a copy of my pattern above to fit a 52- 55cm (20" - 21 1/2") head size. Click here to download my A4 PDF pattern to print and cut out, or click here to request the pattern by email. It doesn't look like a store bought pattern but it works like one.  If you are handy with a sewing machine you could whip one of these up in say and hour; hour and a half.

So that's it for the 'stuff I made portion' of the rodeo this week, enjoy your weekend. :0)

Puppet Sock rescue

Since She-Who-Worships-Pink was a baby she's suffered from dreadful eczema especially on her feet and  hands. The doctor told us "cream her hands then cover them with cotton gloves at night, in extreme cases damp cotton." 

 OK except for one thing: no one makes 'cotton' gloves for babies or even toddlers in fact anyone under the age of say 20. 

 So I looked at the socks I had on her creamed feet and decided to cover her hands with another pair.  But she wasn't having it. Socks are for feet NOT for hands. So this little dilemma hatched the puppet sock idea. And Lord knows with the speed at which her feet were growing I had plenty of outgrown ones to work with.

So for entertainment or medicinal purposes this is how to make easy-peasy 15 minute sock puppets...

Gather up your stuff: Scissors, needle and thread, a fine paint brush, eyes & maybe noses*, fabric paint and a fine paint brush.

 I bought packets of various sizes and kinds of eyes from Lincraft (a large craft store in case you're not familiar) There are sew on ones, press together ones (like those used for  teddy bears) and glue-ons. You could also buy noses or just use old buttons. 

These eyes below (and their nose counterparts) are pushed through the fabric before attaching the back clip on the inside. But I prefer glue or sew on eye if they're for bedtime as the back of the clip can be scratchy.  The last thing we want is more itching and scratching!

In this case I've used sew on eyes which are very cheap and stay on in the wash (no worries about whether the glue will hold).

Then just stitch away as you would a regular button.

After your buttons are in place, take some spare fabric, or as I did, an old face-cloth and stuff the socks into more or less the shape you would have if there was a foot or hand inside. 

Then use your fabric paints to finish the face

The Pinkster is more than happy to wear these little guys to bed on her hands if fact she settles herself to sleep having conversations with them. :0)

So they are the easy-peasy 15 minute  sock puppets. 

Our friend Mister Puppit Sok pictured at the top of this post is a little more elaborate;

He has stitched on ears I pulled off a Halloween black-cat hair-band (bought from the Two Dollar Shop)  Self covered buttons for eyes which I embroidered with white thread and a button for a nose.  I also tucked in the toe of the sock to make an opening mouth and tack stitched that at the corners to make it stay in. 
You can even see him in action here..

My next sock project is to turn a pair of old brown knee-high socks into giraffes using fabric scraps and some of the tan fabric paint I used above to make the giraffe spots.

Good luck with yours :0) 

Show and Tell: Use Peas or Sticks

I know the whole world has gone all high tech on us, but when did Kindergarteners start presenting to class by clicking through PowerPoint presentations?  If your kid's struggling to say: 'USB drive' clearly, should they be carrying them in their school bags waiting pop them into the teacher's Smart Board at any given moment?
(Sheesh.)

 I had heard that we would be expected to 'up the show-and-tell ante' when She-Who-Worships-Pink started big school. The stories circulating around Pre-school about PowerPoint presentations in Kindy were thought to be an urban myth.

The Pinkster started off the school year with single printed pictures and a bit of 'giving the talk' practice. Then came the flip-chart because mummy wanted to mix it up a bit in response to Pinkster's hints about the other kids' 'Use-peas'.

I played dumb for a bit and stuck with he flip charts- for which she had come up with the ideas and to hand draw the cover. I would then print some suitable images under her critical direction.

But the pressure piled on as more and more kids started bringing in 'Use-peas' ( USB drives) with 'presentations' for the teacher's smart board.

And finally stuck in a post office queue I was cornered;
'Look Mummy! A pink monkey, isn't she cuuuuuute!'
Then as she grabs one: "What's it for mummy?'


We went home that day with her first USB stick and that's when Pinkster really 'upped the ante' for both of us.

Naturally putting together a PowerPoint presentation and image manipulation (even my signature 'bad' image manipulation) is beyond your average five-year-old.

So, having scoffed myself at parents who prepare presentations for their kids, now I've joined the hall of shame. Is it?

I did chat with the teacher about the validity of this because I don't want to be one of those parent's who does their kid's homework for them. Also being on my P plates with this whole school mum thing, I am in a constant sate of; 'am I doing this OK?'

Miss Lovely Smile said that at this age they would expect parents to help their children find and put together images, if that is what they're using.

The point of giving a 'news' presentation is less about the visual aids and more the talking points. Miss lovely smile suggested it's better not to add words to the slides, so that children are encouraged to do their own talking.

More and more I discover our little Pink worshiper is quite the art director. She gets some pretty fancy ideas and I sometimes struggle with my limited skills, and even more limited electronic resources, (like this limping-towards-death's-door laptop) But still it's been a lot of fun for both of us.

Here is our first Wowser Use-Peas presentation which was: "choose your favourite sea animal and tell some facts about it."
As She-Who-Worships-Pink also worships dolphins, this is what we came up with:

* I wish I could take credit for the cow and dolphin image but sadly I'm just not that good and my available graphics software is even worse. It is a Desktop Nexus wallpaper

Some interesting facts moving clockwise:

1. Dolphins are meat eaters, but they don't eat hamburgers or chops;
2. Dolphins communicate by whistling;
3. Baby dolphins are called calves;
4. Bottle-nose dolphins are the most common species;
5. Mummy dolphins are called cows*.

She actually remembered all of that, except the bottle-nose bit. I hoped the bottle be a visual clue, but she did us proud none the less.

This week she was all over the topic; If you could have a dinosaur for a pet, what kind of dinosaur would it be? What would you feed it? And what are some of the things you would do with it.?

She came up with all her own answers then told me 'exactly' what images she wanted. (oh boy)

These are self explanatory and Miss Lovely Smile gave us a big thumbs up for both entertainment value and confident delivery;

This is our actual school - our actual street and 'Rexy' is just about on the school crossing.

So if your small-person is starting Kindergarten in the new year and you hear the urban myth about PowerPoint presentations for Show &Tell. Let me tell you; it's no  myth. My advise to you is that you'd better brush up on those computer skills or take some night classes, because one kid does it and by year end they're all doing it- whether you like it or not!

That's peer-pressure at its finest.


More about Big School :

Herding instincts

A Woman's work

Big School Unicorns

Lunchbox Lush

Dolch & Kabana

This is so not a fashion post, not about  Dolce or Gabbana but a little on the designer side none the less..

Dolch is a word list, compiled by Edward William Dolch, PhD.  And kabana is what I'm contemplating for lunch while I add the finishing touches to our Sight Words posting box.

I discovered sight words when She-Who-Worships-Pink began Kindergarten. These are high frequently words (in some schools referred to as such) and the foundation of Dolch's "whole-word" method of beginning reading instruction. First year homework in Big School all revolves around sight words and there are 100 of them! (To begin with) So if your small person is starting school be prepared to knuckle down and get creative. Mrs Crawford's Class is an excellent place to start.

Our Prototype

We (new school mums) were 'encouraged' to get creative with games to make the learning fun and I came up with sight words Twister, Monster Sentences and many other games.

But the all time favorite (and least elaborate) was Sight Words Post Box. The Pinkster came up with the idea of  posting her word-cards into her money box and the idea just grew from there. Now her class has three of our custom-made post boxes and Miss Lovely Smile, tells me they're a huge hit with everyone in the classroom.

Post box assembly line

Making the boxes is the easy part. Just get a small solid box, cut a slot then paint it; easy-peasy. Making the sight words cards with envelope format on the back was tedious.

But not for you! You can download a PDF file of the words in envelope format here, there are also postal service stickers to print and glue on for the US, UK and Australia. 

So our own Post Box has become a little character; from the addition of googly eyes, the accessories just keep coming.

He began wearing glasses, which were attached with an elastic band at the back of his head. But his glasses started to slide down, so he needed a nose. Using cardboard applied with a glue gun was just asking for trouble not to mention burnt fingers, so I would recommend some spare Mr Potato Head body-parts, if you have them, as a quick, easy and painless option.

Mister P's extreme make-over

And, after all this, Pinkster (my art director) decided he should have hair!

So here he is in all his glory!  Mister Post Box's teeth were added after the art director arrived home from school. She took the time to brush his hair before deciding he needed something to 'chomp' the letters with.

It could have been worse; I fully expected a demand for clothing, which I'm sure will come.  But I so don't fancy sewing (or gluing) high fashion to fit on a box.


OK, I'm off to the kitchen; haven't any kabana so I'll settle for a hot-dog.




And speaking of eating...

I will never starve

MacGuilt Attack

Pass the paracetamol