Holiday Update

So far Easter school holidays have been quite lovely. We started out with the traditional Good Friday lunch with my family. That always slows everyone down a bit, there are only ever eight of us but Mum puts out enough food for thirty and when we are ready to explode she puts out dessert. We also visit Ben's Mum on Good Friday so that we can have a quiet Easter. When we got to Ben's Mums we found out that some good soul had handed her six free tickets to see the raiders v sharks match on the Saturday night. Alex wanted to go so we kept two tickets for us (Emma decided she would rather not go) and gave four tickets to Desiree. Nice start.

Ben took Al to the football Saturday night and Emma and I stayed home. We did the girly thing, I painted her nails and we watched a movie and ordered Chinese. Unfortunately I started getting ill with a virus at this point so I didn't get to enjoy the food but the company was great.

Spent most of Sunday in bed horribly ill.

Monday we went to Questacon in Canberra. The kids had an amazing time. They learnt all sorts of cool stuff and had a great time. Both kids passed out in the back of the car on the way home, they had so much fun and were exhausted.

Tuesday we packed up the car and drove into the CBD to stay at Crowne Plaza. Lovely hotel. Little hard to find, took one drive by to find the entrance. They were very nice and let us check in at 10am, which is really convenient because we wanted to see Monsters v Aliens at Imax at 11am. The movie was great, definately worth seeing. We had lunch at Darling Harbour and were booked in to do one of those Jet Boat things in the afternoon. Unfortunately when we arrived to do the boat thing they were double booked, so we missed out. We wandered around to the Aquarium and had a lovely time exploring the exhibits. The dugongs are fascinating to watch. Kids enjoyed themselves and managed to forget how tired they were until the walk back to the hotel. Dinner at the hotel was a bit fancy shmancy but enjoyable. We all passed out at about 9pm.

Wednesday Ben had us booked in for a pirate lunch on a Tall Ship. So we got up, got everyone dressed and had a buffet breakfast at the hotel. Ben and I were giggling as we went in because Alex was complaining that he was hungry and we were pretty sure the hotel was going to make a loss on his meal. Food was good. Went back to room and packed in record time. Caught a taxi to Campbells Cove and waited for our pirates to arrive. The pirate experience was wonderful. The captain has to be ADD. Seriously the man had the attention span of a duck. He was very funny. My theory is that they used to run normal sailing cruises and worked out that if you claim to be pirates the only difference is you get to be rude to the kids. The kids all loved it. He had them all lining up to clean stuff and haul ropes. Highly recommend the experience. Take food if you go, they provide lunch but ran out of some stuff before we got to the table.

Since all that the kids have played with their friends, rested and played with the dog. They went ice skating Friday night. Looking forward to baby sitting Marsha.
Emma is going to spend an evening with her Grandmother Monday night. They are going to do art together. I have to get new tap shoes for Alex while I'm at Miranda and I am taking him to the bike track on Tuesday to play with the other kids.

Bad stuff, discovered that some of Emma's friends have been sending some less than nice notes over Piczo and Ben had to send a note telling them their behaviour was not appropriate. Neighbour tried to run Alex over yesterday. On purpose. Resulted in a bit of a yelling match out the front. Oh well, I guess the good stuff still out weighs the bad stuff. When it comes to idiots nature is bountiful.

Hope everyone is well and enjoying their break.

love Dan xxxx

Another cat name

How about C-for, and people would say Oh yes c for cat, very funny. Then you could say oh yes it could stand for cat I hadn't thought of that. Subtle and amusing.

Not finished yet

Sorry but we have to keep going. Please sing along if you know the words.

Name suggestion: Kevin, you can call it the Ruddy cat.

There once was a cat named frog
Who was no bigger than my bog
It's eyes were closed
So I got hosed
Tempted to feed it to the dog

The cat soon began to feed
And we clapped when it first weed
When it had a full tum
We had to tickle it's bum
Until a little nugget was freed

Soon we heard a knock at the door
The kids had turned up just after four
They said we want back our cat
Sorry about that
I reintroduced them to the door

Donna wanted the cat which was great
But Hubby wanted to wait
Then it was urgent we bring it
And not Jackson wing it
Now it's Jackson number eight

I think we've got that out of our system. You never know we may be tempted to add a few more verses, or feel free to add your own next verse.

Cat name suggestions

To amuse ourselves Ben and I thought we should come up with some name suggestions using Jon's requirement for humour.

For the Star Wars fans: Bacca, when having dinner you can cheer chew Bacca.
Brian, when you get up in the morning to let the cat out you can say release Brian. (Life of Brian).
Mandu, or for formal occasions catMandu.
Orfa, which is what you say when it misbehaves, as in...Orfa ****'s sake you stupid cat.
Two Cities, so that as it walks past you can say there goes the tail of Two Cities.
Rover, Sam did want a dog.
Syndrome, so that if it jumps up on the bench you can say down Syndrome.
Chinese chicken or CC for short
Speed Hump (Ben was getting a little nasty at this point)
Santa, if the kids pester the cat you can say watch out for Santa claws.
My Addiction, so that you can say is someone going to feed My Addiction.
Pat, giving you Pat the cat.
name it after your mother-in-law, nothing says I love you like naming the cat after your Mum-in-law.
Freckle, because Ben thought it was funny and better than Mole (moley, moley, moley)
Economically Unsound Investment, it doesn't exactly roll off the tongue but you'd get used to it.
Bed Pan, keeps the bed warm
Doesn't Need Batteries, we all know there's nothing better than a toy that doesn't need batteries.
Price Check, giving you Price Check in the kitchen/bathroom/bedroom.

Sorry about that but we needed to get it out of our system
Dan xxx

Kids

Having a tough week with the kids. Emma has been having disagreements with her friends. They had to go to the talk room, or whatever it is called, at school to work through their problems with a teacher. Emma's teacher was kind enough to come and talk to me about it. She said that Emma had stayed very calm and argued her side well. The teacher was concerned that the two friends had rounded on Emma and were both complaining about things Emma had done and said. Apparently Emma had told one of her friends that she talks too much and had hurt her feelings. While I will admit this is not something a person would want to be told, if they are sitting next to each other in class and one of them is constantly chattering and distracting my child and giving her a headache I think she was within her rights to make a comment. Unfortunately friendship doesn't get easier just because you get older. I explained to her that I have moments too where I need to tell my friends to shut up and that the important thing is to try to do it in a way that doesn't hurt their feelings, although generally they will be hurt, you can minimise how much. So Emma has been a little sad and introverted this week because of all this stuff her friends have been carrying on with. I feel sad for her but I know that handling these situations is an important lesson and I can at least let her know that I feel proud of how well she has handled the situation.

Alex on the other hand is currently being bullied by some of the older kids at school. I was going through his room and discovered the bathroom scales under his bed. So we had a chat last night. I asked him why he wanted the scales in his room and he started to get a little sniffy and said that he needed to check his weight after meals to make sure he wasn't getting too fat. I asked him why he thought he was fat (while trying to keep my face blank so he wouldn't see I was feeling murderous towards whoever was putting that idea in his head) and he told me some of the kids at school had been calling him fatty and telling him to loose some weight and other lovely things. Upon questioning I discovered it was some of the older boys at the school and that he doesn't know who they are. We got to the school this morning and he was sobbing, he desperately didn't want to stay and wanted to come home with me. My heart was breaking and I had to push him off to class and explain the problem to his poor teacher who doesn't need this either. Alex loves gym and music, his first two classes for the morning and he was still sobbing that he didn't want to go.

Quite frankly I am not feeling very shiney at the moment. I know all children have their issues and all parents worry about their kids, I'm just feeling a little snowed under by it all at the moment. Hopefully next week will be a better week. If not, the school holidays are coming and I am looking forward to a bit of quiet recovery time.

Dan xxx