So proud! (and yet still annoyed!!)

First things first: We're very proud of Alex for receiving an award for the highest mark in Mathematics 2C/2D for the whole school! Good on you son!

(That's his hurry-up-and-take-the-picture-already-cos-you're-embarrassing-me face otherwise known as his I-AM-smiling face! We only just made it to the ceremony in time so I suppose I'm lucky I got the picture at all!)

The boys' school has two Praise and Thanksgiving ceremonies at the end of the year; one for primary during the morning and one in the evening for the secondary students. The students have to wear full winter uniform (including their wool blazers) so not many students are keen to go as it means that they will

1. have to get dressed in their uniform again


2. have to go back to school after the end of the last day of school


3. be hot in their uniforms in the un-airconditioned gym


4. have to sit still and behave while some 'old people' drone on up at the front ("It's just like being in class and school's finished for the year ... whinge whine")

Bearing all this in mind, I had decided it wasn't worth the battle, once I got home from a hot day's work, of getting them all fed, showered and dressed in their uniforms and back to school, especially as they hadn't even been to school that day due to issues with getting them there from the new house. (I figured it wouldn't hurt to miss the last day as they would only have been cleaning anyway!)

I had planned on a nice quiet evening and all was going well until we had a knock on the door at 4:45pm. It was the postie with a big stack of mail, re-directed from the old house and post office box. Being slightly pre-occupied with other things, I left the stack of mail for an hour before having a quick look through it all.

Amongst the letters from the real estate agents and the bills, was a letter from the school dated two weeks prior informing us that Alex was going to be receiving an award at Secondary Praise and Thanksgiving and to please RSVP by one week prior to enable the school to plan the awards ceremonies. If he was planning on attending, he needed to be there by 6pm (it was now 5:50pm!) in full winter uniform.

After a hurried discussion with Alex, who decided that he would like to go, and his brothers, who decided they were quite comfortable in their pyjamas and didn't want to get dressed and go, he and I jumped in the car and broke some land speed records to get him there (close to) on time. Turned out that I could have taken my time (or at least another ten minutes) as he didn't really need to be there until 6:30pm and that the RSVP wasn't really necessary (thank goodness!)

Long story short, (I know .. too late!) we made it in time, I got to see him get his award, have a couple of free biscuits and then we got in the car and came home for a well deserved rest.

Well done Alex!

Not so well done Australia Post mail re-direction!

AAAArrrgggggghhhhh!!

Just had a phone call from Peter to tell me that Alex has been suspended for two days.

"What for this time?" I hear you ask.

Thankfully it is nothing involving violence or bullying. He has apparently taken a computer file of his from TAFE to school with him and, by using it at school, managed to compromise the school's whole network! Don't ask me how 'cos I don't understand most of what he spouts about computers these days which I know can be dangerous (hello .. suspension!) but I just can't keep up with it all.

My first reaction was dread upon hearing of the suspension .. what's he done now kind of thing.

Second reaction upon hearing what he'd done was relief. Thank goodness no-one has been injured kind of thing.

Third reaction .. laughter. He's only 15, been studying computers for a term-and-a-half and he has compromised a system managed by a rather large team of very expensive 'professionals'.

I keep having to resist the urge to slap him on the back and tell him good job! (There's a bit of history behind that comment .. knowledge about how the previous school-employed IT people were sacked with no notice and then escorted off the premises to make sure they didn't sabotage anything as revenge for the whole no notice thing. Good Christian attitude huh?)

While I don't agree with him messing with something just to prove he can, I honestly don't believe it was done with malicious intent and am therefore going to go into bat for him about the whole two day suspension thing. The system is still working; no private/confidential information has been accessed and there is no lasting damage so I think it is rather severe.

Plus there's the whole 'let's punish him by giving him more time away from school' thing. I've never really understood that especially with this child. I have explained until I'm blue in the face that it is not a punishment and teaches him absolutely nothing but the school insists that 'justice must be seen to be done'!

AAAAArrrrgggghhhh

Channelling Ke$ha this morning ... "This place about to blo-ow"

I am going to kill the child. Feel free to guess which one!


Sorry, that is supposed to be:


I shall not kill the child. I shall not kill the child. I shall not kill the child. I shall not kill the child.


The only thing saving him at the moment is the fact that I have to go to work. I will however be phoning the school to confirm that once again, he has failed to complete a homework assignment and that they (once again) have my full permission to punish him as they see fit.

I'm at my wit's end with this child.

How can I help him to see that he is only hurting himself?

That even though I am the one ranting and raving, that it doesn't really affect my life to the same extent it does his?

That despite the fact that I understand that homework is, at times, both boring and seemingly pointless, he still must do it and hand it in, on time?

I'm sure he is sick to death of me saying that it is all up to him and then proceeding to make him sit down and produce something just to get me off his back.

I'm sure that the teachers think I am an ineffectual parent who isn't doing anything about this situation.

I see them look at me in disbelief when I tell them how long I sit with him (sometimes 5 or 6 hours), only to get a paragraph or two of actual work down on paper.

I'm sure they are thinking that I am exaggerating for effect, pity or attention when all I am doing is asking for help in how to get this child to complete the tasks they have set.

I wonder how he is going to survive in the 'real' world out there without me to poke, prod and push him to 'get with the program' and to explain the subtleties of human interaction.

It all comes down to just one thing really ... I'm scared.

I'm scared he won't be able to provide for himself.

I'm scared he will get himself into dangerous situations that he can't talk himself out of.

Sometimes, I'm scared that I haven't done enough to help him and at other times, I'm scared I've done too much and prevented him from learning a valuable life lesson. Then I think that he probably wouldn't be able to apply that lesson in another similar, but different, situation anyway.

It's not that I'm not worried about the other two boys .. I am .. just not to the same extent.

Is this because he is my eldest or because of the autism?

Is it due to our personalities being similar and really being able to understand his point-of-view?

Or is it just because I'm a Mum and that's what we do?

Theyr'e baaa-ack ...

... at school that is!

I thought I was doing relatively well with being organised for the boys to go back to school. I had purchased most of the book list requirements, checked that uniforms and shoes still fitted and even thought about what they could have in their lunch boxes. Then on Sunday afternoon I realised that I was still missing some of Alex's text books.

Being in Year 11 this year, he's doing six subjects plus his TAFE Cert IV course. Actually, technically he's only doing five subjects, as the school have allowed him to use one of the grid lines as a private study session to enable him to catch up on any lessons he misses by going to TAFE all day on Fridays.

Due to the exorbitant cost of some of the text books, I had tried to get most of them second hand which I managed to do for two out of the five subjects. One of the remaining subjects (English) only required a novel which I purchased from Big W as it was heaps cheaper there than at the school supplies place. So we were down to books for two subjects: Biology and Food Science and Technology, neither of which seemed to be available second hand.

Shouldn't be too bad I thought.

Got out of this easy this year I thought.

$100 should cover it I thought.

Guess what?

I thought wrong .. majorly wrong!

One, just one, of the biology books was $90! The other two were $40 and $36. The foods book was $59. For those prices, they should sit the exams for you and guarantee an A grade!

It could have been worse though .. I could have bought all of the books at full price. That would have cost me a grand total of $452 plus stationery and all those other must-have items (like a new wireless mouse that he just had to have for the new laptop he got for Christmas.) As it was it only cost $370 for text books .. a saving of $82 .. I get to keep both my kidneys .. yay!!

Anyway, 'nuff complaining for now. They're all healthy and happy to be going back to school and I'm happy to have a little bit of peace and quiet in which to whinge endlessly write a post about the little darlings.

Hope you and yours all have a great first day back too!

Another one of those "I'm feeling so old" posts but about Lurch this time ...

... oops I mean Alex. Peter has taken to calling him Lurch (from the Addams Family TV show) because he towers over both of us and does that shudder/groan/grunt thing so well! But back to the original topic, which was of course, me and how I'm feeling so old!

Alex had his Year 10 River Cruise last night and actually allowed me to take a few photos on the proviso I didn't put them on facebook. This isn't facebook so I figure that means I can post them all here. OK, maybe not all as blogger only allows five photos per post, but that should be sufficient to throughly embarrass him get the general vibe.

Alex and his best mate Chris being 'serious' for a minute:

(Yes Chris is rather tall .. 6'2" at last measure and he's still growing!)

He scrubs up all right, doesn't he?

(even with the silly face he's pulling!)

The whole gang:
Some of the Barbie dolls other girls:

I was sure they would all freeze because it was very windy (and I was cold standing around in jeans and a polar fleece jacket), but Alex said it was warm on the boat and they all did heaps of dancing to warm themselves up, which then prompted the thought that I hoped they all had very good 'support garments' under those strapless dresses.

Apparently they all had a great time even though it was so windy and choppy that the captain abandoned plans for a cruise down to Fremantle and just did giant bog laps from South Perth to Burswood and back to the Barrack St Jetty. Alex managed to get one picture of the lights ...
which lights I'm not sure but hey, he took a photo for me!

Chris's mum Julia picked both boys up and Alex stayed there for the night and most of the next day while his brothers had to go to school .. a fact he took great delight in rubbing in every time they mentioned anything to do with school. "No more school for me-e! You've got school tomorrow! No more school for me-e!" You'll just have to insert your own visual of Lurch trying to do a conga line on his own while singing the above chant ... you're welcome!!

I'm feeling so old ... my baby is going to high school next year!

Brad had his valedictory service last night so now it's official ... I no longer have any kids in primary school. Waaahhhh! I'm so not ready for this .. because we all know this is about me and how I'm feeling and nothing whatsoever to do with Brad and his feelings about moving on to the next stage of his academic and social lives.

It was a lovely service with lots of photos of the kids throughout the years of their time at the school. We've only been there for the last five years but quite a few of the kids had been there since kindy (eight years in total so far) and it was really good to see how they've all changed and matured over the years.

There was the traditional handing out of graduation certificates by the principal of the whole school as well as the Head of Primary but unfortunately, the lighting isn't the best inside the chapel and the angle was all wrong too, so my photo of Brad receiving his certificate didn't work out (tragedy for a scrapbooker like me!)

Then came the candle ceremony. Each graduating child is given a votive candle and candle holder with their name on it and Bradley didn't want to blow his candle out after the ceremony. He was going to keep it lit until there was no more candle left. I managed to persuade him that trying to eat the supper afterwards with a burning candle in one hand and his (flammable) graduation certificate in the other, would probably result in damage or injury, so he finally allowed me to blow it out. I then had the privilege of carrying it around for the rest of the evening, which was actually a good thing because it meant that it definitely came home to be put away safely with his brothers' ones.

So here you go: my last baby leaving primary school (note the still lit candle!)

Good luck for high school Bradley! Just try your best and we'll be happy!

What a difference a week makes!

This time last week, I was despairing of the eldest child's lack of concern about his English assignments.

I was ready to impose the worst restrictions ever ... no access to anything with a screen and was going to remove (and pack!) everything from his room except for his school uniforms and pj's.

I was wondering where I had gone so wrong that a child of mine would seem to despise the written word so completely.

I was envisioning a future with an increasingly belligerent teen being forced to repeat the same things that he hated this year, over and over again.

And then his medication kicked in, along with an attitude adjustment.

And we have completed all but one journal entry and both major assignments. (Yes, I did say 'we' because I sat with him as scribe during the brainstorming sessions to help him capture the thoughts before they ran away!)

And all is now right with the world English teacher.

Well done Alex. I'm proud of you!!

Deja vu .. all over again!

This week has been a repeat of 'being pecked to death by a chicken' and I'm really, really over it. I found out that Alex is going to fail English if he doesn't extract his head from his behind and do at least some of the work he's avoided up 'til now.

The deja vu part is that we went through the same thing last term, first term, last year and the year before. I know, I know, which part of autistic and ADD aren't I getting??

I'm just frustrated that the teacher, knowing his history with work avoidance and lying about it, didn't let me know that he hadn't handed anything in this term ... and when I say anything I mean not.a.single.thing!

I tried explaining the consequences of his actions (and lack thereof) in simple terms...

"If you don't pass English this term, you fail English completely. If you fail English this year, you can't go on to Year 11 ... at all!"

This was met with blank looks so I amped it up a bit.

"If you fail English, you will have to repeat Year 10."

More blank looks...

"At another school."

Slightly panicked looks...

"And you won't be able to the computing course you want to do at TAFE."

Awareness starts to dawn that this may be serious...

"So what are you you going to do about it?"

Back to the blank look...

It was at this point that something stopped me from committing actions I would no doubt regret once I was put in prison for them and poured a bucket of ultra-calm over my head. (It must have been his guardian angel! Thanks whoever you are!!) I was then able to calmly sit and discuss the various options available to him (all of which included him doing the work, much to his disgust!) and reach a suitable compromise (none of which included doing him bodily harm, luckily for him).

In all seriousness though, I am worried that we, as parents, and the system are both failing him. If he, someone with a 'label' and a rather vocal mother, is falling through the cracks, what chance do the quiet, struggling students with disinterested parents have?

I realise that some of his behaviours are typical of teenagers but I am concerned that I can't tell which ones are teenage rebellion and which ones need active specific intervention and help. It's very much a deal with them on a case-by-case basis and hope I'm not totally screwing him up in the process.

I also realise that the teachers have many students with differing needs and abilities and are probably overwhelmed with everything they have to do. Yet I am incredibly frustrated that some of the teachers he has had repeatedly for the last almost three years, still don't understand how difficult it is for him to do some of the things they are asking.

I'm not asking you to give him a free pass or straight A's (especially seeing as he hasn't done the work!) but when I ask for more information to help him with a task, please don't act as though I've asked you to donate a lung to a chimp with a 40-a-day smoking habit. All I need is clarification on a couple of points or a more specific set of questions for him to work with and I'll get out of your hair!

Another thing I discovered in amongst everything else, is that he hasn't been taking his ADD medication. We had discussed this earlier this year and he wanted to be responsible for administering it himself. I allowed him to do it under supervision for a couple of weeks then left him to it. Apparently he decided some months ago to only take it every now and then which, of course, doesn't do much to help him at all. One day back on his tablets and he's been able to write almost two pages for one of the assignments with no arguments, backchat or dramas. What a difference a day (and some severely restricted pharmaceuticals) makes!

Now we just have 5 journal entries (at least a page of handwriting each) and a major assignment to finish before next Friday. Wish me luck!!

Oh yay .. it's school holidays!

19 days of fun-filled, full-on, in-my-face time with the boys (I'll leave it up to you to determine whether I'm being sarcastic or not!) and it all started so well ...

I had, when in a state of mind most people call insanity, offered to have a friend's two boys over yesterday afternoon after work/school to entertain play with my three boys. Then a different friend rang and asked if I could have her daughter for the afternoon as she had an appointment. No worries said I breezily and made appropriate arrangements for food and drink, causing the lady behind me in the supermarket queue to ask if I was a scout leader or something. After assuring her that the quantity of snacks was only for six children, she launched into protracted praise of mothers with more than the standard 2.4 children and congratulated me on bucking the trend. It was quite sad to see her face when I informed her that only 3 of the children were mine and that the other 3 were 'blow-ins' for the day.

The mother of the two boys came and collected them at 5:30pm after only a few instances of raised voices and threats of bodily harm (which I stopped making when I realised the neighbours were listening!) and then settled in to enjoy a lovely chat with the second friend (we'll call her Debbie .. Hi Deb!) over an extremely healthy dinner.

During the afternoon/evening, there had been some conspiring amongst the children and after some cute puppy-dog-eye looks, Andrew ended up spending the night at Debbie's house. I arranged to collect him at around 9:30am and went off to bed at a relatively decent hour for a great night's sleep and sleep-in the next morning.

After a bit of a mad panic to get out of my clown pants pyjamas, I went on my way to collect Drew, leaving the other two at home with strict instructions to stack the dishwasher before I returned, knowing full well that it would probably still be sitting there emptier than my bank account at Christmas time when I finally deigned to re-appear. A girl has to have dreams, right?

Anyway, I collected Andrew and headed to Kmart to attempt to lay-by some items for Christmas (mission accomplished), checked out the clothes sale at Miller's (nothing caught my eye enough to make me buy it) and then headed for home to make the children work spend some quality time with the children outside in the backyard.

Alex managed to start the lawnmower and mow the lawn; Bradley and I swept the patio area and got rid of some things things that had just been hanging around and Andrew pulled some weeds and helped Alex with the emptying of the lawnmower catcher. Very productive effort with a lovely result .. the patio and backyard look much better. Everyone worked well together with very few arguments discussions as to the merits of particular methodologies.

After finishing up, I told the boys the rest of the afternoon was theirs and set them free. Of course they all immediately headed back inside (I think I'm raising vampires!) and to the comfort of their electronic entertainment.

Things then took a turn for the worse when Alex tripped over his laptop computer, which was on the floor in the TV room after being told repeatedly not to leave it there, and has now broken it beyond any sense of redemption I could offer. The only thing that would have kept him away from his brothers, yet still occupied, has now gone to laptop heaven.

He has spent the last half an hour crying and throwing himself very dramatically onto his bed (silent movie heroines have nothing on this kid and his over acting abilities!) but is now laughing maniacally at something his brothers are doing .. one extreme to the other in ten seconds flat .. welcome to my world!

So now, as I sit here listening to the replacement washing machine trying to remodel my house by knocking out a few walls, I am in a bit of a quandary:

Do I attempt to have his laptop fixed to save my sanity over the next 18 days or do I let him suffer this natural consequence?

Do I spend money on getting the laptop fixed or on Valium and other sedatives to get us all through the next 18 days?

Or do I just give up and go chocolate myself to death?

Hmmmmm? Which option people? Let me know what you think ... please??!!

One step forward ...

... and five steps back again!

Alex has been suspended from school .. again .. for having an altercation with another student. He is four years older than the other child, along with a few other factors that I would rather keep to myself, so the school has taken a rather dim view of things and suspended him for five days. We are very lucky that he wasn't just expelled this time, especially given his past history.

I totally understand the school's view on this and am in total agreement with the punishment, but I am struggling with what to do about his continuing impulse control issues. I have tried to seek a referral to a different doctor, to see whether changing medications or dosages would help but they are all so busy, we'll be waiting a while for an appointment, even with private health insurance.

When I went to pick him up from the school, I was able to have a 'chat' with him before the deputy principal came in. I didn't yell, threaten dire consequences or rant and rave. I simply sat down and told him how disappointed I was to receive another call from the school when he had been doing so well. I told him how using the excuse of "I have a bad temper" just wouldn't cut it in the real world after school and doesn't even cut it now.

It was about this point that I began to cry as I talked him through my fears of having a phone call or a visit from the police to say that they had him in custody for seriously hurting or killing someone. Or that he himself had been injured or killed as a result of an argument probably started over something small. And that I wasn't sure what to do to help him as I can't be there to watch over him every second of every day 'just in case'.

Please don't get me wrong .. I'm not trying to paint him as the innocent victim in all of this (not by any stretch of the imagination!) and am extremely grateful to the school for taking mitigating factors into consideration. I'm just at my wit's end and am totally out of ideas of what to do to help. I'm so tired of this constant fight with the world because most of the time it feels like I'm fighting him and not allowing him to just 'be'. I feel like I'm constantly having to defend his right to even be here.

I know that we all have to conform to a certain degree to survive in society and I'm scared that he won't be able to do it. I'm scared that he will always be like this and will be bounced from one bad situation to another and not have the skills to get himself out. I'm scared that he will end up being in the wrong place at the wrong time, because he can be so easily led down the wrong path without even realising it.

I'm terrified that I'm failing him; that I'm not doing enough to help him get the right skills to deal with these sorts of situations. That I should have pushed harder and earlier for help. That I should have done this or that differently. That I should just let him figure these things out on his own (but given the severity of this incident, that isn't really an option.) That it's all too hard and I want to just scream "Stop the world! I want to get off!!"

And then I look around me and see how I don't have it anywhere near as bad as some others. And I think I should be grateful that he is healthy, (overly) verbal, mainstream schooled, intelligent, capable, wonderful, loving, helpful and all the other good things that make him who he is .. and I am grateful. He is who he is, I love him and I will continue to fight for him.

I'm just so scared that I'm not enough and I won't be able to help him.

I'm just so tired of this battle.

And this is why my blog is called 'life, one day at a time'...

If you met Alex this afternoon, you would never guess he was the same changeling child teen that was causing me to want to tear my hair out just the other day. I realise this is the nature of a teenager, never knowing what you will get from one day to the next but it was nice to have my happy obedient child back, if only for an afternoon.

Alex doesn't have an aide officially assigned to him at school, as the structured environment does more to help than having someone constantly looking over his shoulder ever could. However, one of the special needs aides does check in with him and his teachers on a regular basis to ensure he is coping and fulfilling his homework obligations. She, angel that she is, also volunteers her own time one afternoon a week to help guide him in the right direction with any longer-than-overnight homework assignments. Betty drops him home after these 'study sessions' as she lives just around the corner and today stayed for a chat.

She started by praising Alex for the amount of work he had managed to achieve this afternoon and went on to give more praise for the vast improvement in quality. Without any prompting from either of us, he thanked her for her help then voluntarily went and finished the project he had been working on. I was flabbergasted and jokingly asked her what she had been feeding him during the afternoon to make him listen to her.

Her reply was "I didn't feed him anything and the only reason he listens to me is that I'm not you. Haven't you figured out that teenagers never listen to their own mothers?" We both laughed before she added "Anyway, he's a really good kid and has beautiful manners. You're definitely doing something right."

And that is what I mean about taking life one day at a time. Each day is a new opportunity start over and to remind yourself to rejoice in the good things.

Let the bridge crossing commence.

Remember how I told all and sundry about my new job in this post? And how I was so happy to finally stop contributing to our financial decline be helping with the boys' school fees? Just in case you missed it (tsk, tsk!), here is part of the aforementioned post:

I will be working Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays for the rest of this term, unless the other part-timer wants the hours back, in which case I'm back on the scrap heap. Let's cross that bridge, climb that mountain, whatever else you can think of to symbolise 'getting over it', if and when we get there. Almost all the money I will now be getting paid will be going straight back to the school to pay the fees, but it's better than having to find it myself!

I would like to draw your attention the section I have oh-so-conveniently made bold for you. Apparently, she does and I will be at the end of the week.

I'm off to climb the mountain, cross the bridge and find some chocolate.

Oh Lindt, Lindt, wherefore art thou dearest Lindt?

I need to share some good news and vent as well!

Good news first:

I have been volunteering in the canteen at the boys' school for most of first term and was hoping to get a job there (oh so convenient!) when one of the other girls left at the end of the term. Unfortunately (for me) it was offered to another part-timer who already works in a different part of the school who, much to everyone's surprise, agreed to do it.

She had some health issues but thought that she would be able to cope with working the extra hours but, as she confided to me later, she hadn't realised how much standing up for 6 hours straight would affect her. She decided two weeks ago that she wasn't coping as well as she would like so told the bosses that she was just going to do her original job at which point we all thought that I would be offered the position. The bosses decided to wait it out as there are plans afoot to outsource the whole canteen, but soon realised that they needed the extra person as they couldn't rely on the volunteer (yes singular volunteer! I am the only one!!) to fill the gap.

So, to lengthen an already lengthy story, I received a phone call last Thursday as I was on my way to pick up the boys from school. I won't tell you how I broke the law by answering the phone while in charge of a motor vehicle (it was stopped at the time, just not turned off) but I will say that I very eagerly grasped the opportunity to be paid for something I had already been doing for 3 months!

I will be working Mondays, Thursdays and Fridays for the rest of this term, unless the other part-timer wants the hours back, in which case I'm back on the scrap heap. Let's cross that bridge, climb that mountain, whatever else you can think of to symbolise 'getting over it', if and when we get there. Almost all the money I will now be getting paid will be going straight back to the school to pay the fees, but it's better than having to find it myself!

And now for the vent/whinge/pity party for one ...

I am sleep deprived. So, what's new you ask? I mean I'm really sleep deprived as in I only got 3 hours sleep last night in half hour lots. I'm the kind of person who needs at least 8 hours, preferably 9 or 10 hours, to make any sort of sense and be nice civil non-homicidal to those around me. I haven't been this bad since the days of babies and snoring!

Background to the current episode of sleep deprivation: I offered to have two of the boys' friends over to spend the night on Friday. These are the same two boys who have stayed with me in the past, while their parents were interstate or overseas, or just so the boys could have their friends over for a sleepover. Both of the boys fall on the autism spectrum (admittedly at the high functioning end) but they know the rules of my house and follow them, especially the one about 'when I say lights out, that means lights out or I'll put your lights out permanently' (j/k!).

Friday night was relatively late for the boys (10:30pm) but when I said bed, all five of them quietened down and went to sleep (or at least faked it well and, more importantly, quietly!) They slept all night and when I awoke, by myself not by them, at 7am, they were all playing as nicely together as five boys of different ages are able to.

Last night was a wholly different scenario. I had lost one boy to a friend's house for a sleepover and gained one extra, not related to me and who is also apparently not familiar with the concept of 'go to sleep and stay that way for at least 8 consecutive hours'.

Now this child of 11 years is a good kid. He generally follows the rules, has manners, and plays well with my youngest. His mother is a friend from my working days and we have similar attitudes to parenting, which generally makes having someone else's child in your home a much easier proposition.

However, for some reason last night, neither of the boys could get to sleep, let alone stay that way for 8 hours. Once again, I had let them stay up later than normal (to maximise their playing time), and fully expected them to go to sleep soon after lights out at 10:15pm. I crawled into my own bed and, after fighting the dog for more of the doona, was asleep in nanoseconds.

I was awoken by Brad at 12:27am complaining that he couldn't sleep. I dragged my sorry self out of bed, went and checked on the conditions in the room and, upon finding that someone ('not me' or 'Mr Nobody') had left the climate control set at 26 degrees, fixed that, threatened dire consequences if they didn't go to sleep and crawled back into bed at 1:02am.

The threat of dire consequences obviously had no effect as after that I was awoken approximately every 40 minutes with some complaint or another, with the best one being at 3:52am when I was informed that guest child had waited too long to go to the bathroom and peed all over my carpeted games room floor. Bradley had already done a pretty good job of cleaning up what he could so there wasn't much left for me to do, apart from the few little bits he missed, do my best to reiterate the importance of sleep and head back to bed.

There were two more wake-ups after that one which I did my best to ignore, then it was time to get up and wait for Drew to be dropped off at 8am. I'm sure I look like death warmed up, with steamer trunks instead of just bags under my eyes, but I have so far managed to function due to the help of my wonderful eldest child, who has been making me yummy cups of tea without being asked.

The real injustice of the whole situation is that guest child is now fast asleep on the lounge in the games room and, despite the amount of noise we've all been making, is sleeping the sleep of the almost dead. I think nothing sort of an earthquake combined with a nuclear bomb would wake him now!

Hmmm ... I wonder if his mother knows he's turned nocturnal?

It's been 22 years and boy does it show!

I have been sitting with Alex for most of the morning so far, trying to motivate him to finish at least one piece of homework that is due in the next week. As far as I know,we have he has an English essay to research, a maths worksheet to complete and a rough draft of a SOSE (social studies/history) essay to write.

His English essay is on the effects of the internet on today's society and the pros and cons of the internet in general. One of the cons he had listed was the unreliability of some information on the internet; for example: on sites like Wikipedia. The best entry regarding this particular topic was found on .. you guessed it .. Wikipedia! We have managed to find evidence supporting some of the points he had made in his initial summary, but after trying repeatedly to find out the actual due date of this assignment, and whether or not it was to be done in class from his notes (quite a common occurrence), I we have moved on to his maths worksheet.


This worksheet was actually due at the beginning of last week and he has already received a lunchtime detention for not handing it in. However, as his teacher's aide explained to me, he is still required to complete the work and hand it in for a zero grade. I realise that this is supposed to teach them to hand it in on the due date next time, but that concept just does not fly with Alex. His logic is that he knows how to do all of the problems and has demonstrated this in previous tests, so why should he have to do it all again. I can understand his point but rules are rules, and contrary to certain people's beliefs coughcoughPetercoughcough, they don't just exist to be broken or bent so much they resemble a yoga master impersonating a pretzel.

I started doing some of the questions on my own piece of paper and was actually doing quite well with problems like:

If y = x(cubed) – 2x(squared) + 3x – 5, find the value of y when x = 4

therefore y = (4x4x4) - 2(4x4) + (3x4) - 5

therefore y = 64 - 32 + 12 - 5

therefore y = 39

and this:

Simplify (5xcubed - 7xsquared + 8) - (3xsquared - 9x + 2)

5xcubed - 7xsquared + 8 - 3xsquared + 9x - 2

5xcubed - 10xsquared + 6

Not bad for 22 years since I looked at algebra .. or so I thought. The next question involved compound interest which I always hated. I left that one for him to do and moved on to the next one:

A golf club has a 5-year-old lawn mower, which is now worth $5190.35

and which the club has been depreciating by 18% pa.

What was the purchase price of the lawn mower, to the nearest dollar?

What will the value of the mower be, to the nearest dollar, if the club keeps it for another 5 years?

It was at this point that I decided that I didn't need to know the original purchase price, as surely the club's accountant would have this information stored somewhere, for no-one to ever look at again. Besides, it was probably purchased from a 'mate' at a heavily discounted price, which was done as a favour to the president of the club to enable the seller to keep his membership after he was caught sleeping with the president's wife, so the paperwork was probably doctored anyway.

The value of the mower in five years time may be relevant to the tax department but considering that it has probably died a slow painful death due to planned obsolescence and the fact that it had probably been out in all sorts of weather, I think that working out the value of the rusting hulk behind the maintenance shed is a slightly over-rated pastime.

There were several more questions along the lines of the 'simplify' one listed above and then I got to some more word questions:

Bronwyn received her pay and spent 1/3 on rent and 1/4 paying off her mobile phone bill.

She then had $210 left. How much money was Bronwyn paid?

I did manage to work out that she was paid $504. What I'd like to know is:

• Weekly, fortnightly or monthly pay?
• Where Bronwyn is living that she only has to pay $168 rent! Maybe she lives in a share house with heaps of friends but that seems to be unlikely considering that her phone bill was almost as much as the rent. I mean .. come on .. $126 on a phone bill? Has she never heard of mobile phone caps?
• If that's the phone bill for the assumed share-house and not her mobile phone, was that just her share or is she paying the whole thing? If she is, she needs to move out and find somewhere else to live 'cos she's having her generous, giving nature abused in a major fashion!
• Didn't anybody teach her to budget? Why is she paying 1/4 of her wages out for a phone bill? Don't spend what you can't afford people! Oh, and don't forget to put some of that away for a rainy day and a bad hair day does not count as a rainy day!!
• Why do I give a damn anyway? She's probably one of the young kids of today who don't appreciate that I had to walk ten miles, barefoot, uphill, in 50 degree heat just to find a phone box to prank call someone! I don't know .. kids of today!!

Now that I have totally lost the plot forgotten where I was going with this, I think I better go have a nice cup of tea and a good lie down!!

They're baaack ...

... at school that is!

This morning was the first time in a long time that I have seen Alex happy to be going to school. He was up at 6am, ready by 6:40am (we don't actually leave home until 8am!) and was off like a shot as soon as I allowed him to get out of the car in the car park. I hope this is a sign of a good year to come!

Andrew was a bit nervous with it being his first official day of high school (because apparently last year wasn't really like high school because he had the same teacher for the four core subjects and only had other teachers for everything else .. "Jeez Mum. Don't you know anything?" insert eye roll as only a teenager can here). Alex actually realised that Drew was a bit concerned and offered to take him on a tour of the school to help him find the right classrooms once they get their timetables. Thank you Alex, for helping to de-stress my little stress head.

Bradley was very concerned that he was going to have the same teacher as last year, but luckily he doesn't. The look of relief on his face once he realised that he didn't have Mr C and that he was still in the same class as his best friend, was absolutely priceless. I'm surprised no-one reported his sigh of relief as a mini tornado!

I hope all your little and not-so-little ones have a great time at school and that there are few, if any, tears. If there are, remember that it's hard to tell the kids not to sniff and wipe their noses on their sleeves if they see you doing it, so pack some tissues for a cry in the car on the way home.

Anyway, it is very quiet around here and I have some time all to myself, so now I just have to remember what to do with it ... and if anyone says laundry, I'm going to curl up in the corner, in the foetal position of course, and just quietly melt down!!


Well, maybe not quietly ..


OK, OK, definitely not quietly!


Some things never change, do they?

Family news from the past week ..

I survived the '12th birthday movie night sleepover party' (obviously!) without too much damage. Andrew had a great birthday and a great party, even if he did come down to the lounge room and sit with me for a while because "they're all soooo noisy that I have a headache!" and that was with only three extra boys in the house.

After shifting some furniture in Alex's bedroom, I discovered our shower is leaking into his wall again., so now we're up for the cost of fixing that. Luckily, Peter was in the mood to fix it properly by re-tiling the whole shower instead of just patching it, so now I get to go pick out new tiles and try to arrange a reasonable quote for the labour involved.

I also managed to get him to agree to getting an electrician in to fix the dodgy front light and install another one. I thought I was on a roll until I figured out why he was being so reasonable ...
I bought food for the family on the weekend.

This is what Peter bought on the weekend ..


He's been wanting another bike for a while and now that we actually have a car (or three!) to transport the kids in, I don't really have a problem with him having it. He is careful, always wears the right protective gear and deserves some fun. The look on his face when he got off after riding it home was priceless. His grin nearly split his face in half! For those who want the details it's a Kawasaki Vulcan VN800 Cruiser. A cruiser is much better for a ride in the country on a fine afternoon than a sports bike. Only problem is that with his matt black helmet, now he really looks like a bikie.

Andrew went off to his year 7 camp on Monday. This will be the longest he's been away from home without one of us there with him. He's my little stress head, so he was a bit worried about the whole thing but found a kindred spirit in one of the kids who came to his birthday party, Nik, who was a bit concerned as well. They agreed to sit together on the bus for the 5 hour trip to Albany and help each other out. I think they'll both be so busy, they won't have time to feel homesick but it's good to know someone has his back. Andrew even deigned to give me a hug good-bye, after looking around and checking out what the other boys were doing of course!

Alex is in trouble again for not handing in homework that I know he's done at least part of. I have told his teachers that I refuse to put my entire life on hold to stand over him for hours on end, but some of them still don't seem to realise that getting him to think in abstract terms is like trying to milk a bull .. now matter how long and hard you try, it just isn't going to work! Mind you, the communication between the teachers and myself has improved greatly from last year so at least I'm able to suggest alternatives to tasks that are going to be too far outside the realms of reasonable expectation. I know you shouldn't wish your life, or your child's life, away but I can't wait until high school is over!!

Bradley has been wandering the house like a little lost soul without Andrew here. Apparently it's no fun to play the Wii by himself so the dog is getting a lot of extra attention and loving it!

Now I'm off to contact some more tilers so I can try to work out if the first quote is good, bad or indifferent. Wish me luck ...

Whoever invented the recorder ..

should be hung, drawn, quartered, and then set on fire for good measure!

I can handle listening to just about any other instrument being played by an inexperienced learner. (Except a violin .. that always sounds like someone is trying to pluck the hairs out of a very delicate area .. one at a time .. with a blowtorch. Either that or a cat being stretched and strangled at the same time!)

I try to be supportive and appreciative of the child's efforts. (Although the expression on my face probably gives away what I'm really thinking .. "And just what, exactly, have my eardrums ever done to you?")

I realise that it is probably the cheapest and simplest instrument available to teach whole classes of children at a time. (Though the plastic they make them out of now doesn't seem to be nearly as hardy as it used to be. There was a time when you could use them as a handy substitute for a hammer without inflicting too much damage whereas now, you can barely play them normally without something falling apart.)

I know that children, whilst being the apple of their parents' eyes, can be somewhat difficult to deal with in large groups (kind of like wildebeest, or for that matter, just about any other wild beast I suppose), but how does giving them the power to inflict mental anguish and hearing loss on anyone within hearing range improve the situation at all?

I can understand that primary school music teachers have probably lost certain pitches of hearing from being repeatedly exposed to such a monstrous instrument, but I ask you, is that any reason to try to ensure that the parents of their students lose those same pitches of hearing?

So whilst I can sympathise with the plight of the primary school music teacher, I ask you all to join me in getting these abominations banned! All in favour .. say aye.


What?


You'll have to speak up.


I can't hear you!


Does anyone know sign language?


Oh .. I give up! I'll be hiding as far away as I possibly can, trying to stop the flow of blood from my ears. Send me a telegram when he's finished practising please ....

I didn't think it would be possible to hate ..

.. homework more than I did in primary school but I do.

I have been fighting with Alex all day to get a reading journal entry done (a whole 15 lines of handwriting) and I am at breaking point. I gave up the opportunity to go out and see friends, do what I want to do, listen to music at more than a whisper, all to stay home and try to get him to do his homework.

I have tried sitting with him, prompting him. He leaned on me and complained he was tired.

I moved further away and ignored him. He ignored me right back and still didn't write anything.

I tried the assertive approach (do it or else I'll remove privileges). He said he didn't care.

I went the 'bribery' route and promised some internet time if he could just finish it before the beginning of the next decade. The sarcasm went over his head like a 747 and he went to get a drink.

I followed him to make sure he didn't put himself back to bed (for the third time today) and was told in no uncertain terms to 'get out of his face'.

I am now sitting in the study, hiding from him (and the rest of the world if you must know!) and listening to this child who was so exhausted he couldn't even get off the floor (where he put himself mind you!), laughing very loudly at a conversation his brothers are having in the other room, all the while swinging on the very same chair he couldn't find the energy to even sit on 10 minutes ago.

Another one of those things that mothers don't tell their as-yet-childless friends.

"You know how you thought that cats invented passive resistance and passive-aggressiveness? Nope. It was teenagers."

I don't know who said this originally but it rings oh so true for me today:

"Some days being a mother is like being pecked to death by a chicken."

Amen sistah, Amen!!

"Like sand through the hourglass ...

.. so are the days of our lives." (cue annoying music here)

I can remember thinking, back in the dim, dark recesses of time when I was a know-it-all teenager, that soapies were so unrealistic in the way they portrayed the same problem going on for weeks, then finally being solved, only to have the same problem re-appear in a slightly different guise a bit further down the track.

'Surely once a problem was solved' thought my very unworldly self, 'it stayed solved. People don't keep making the same mistakes over and over again, do they?'

I have now realised that, barring demonic possession, kidnapping, marrying a sibling or having oodles of money with no discernible job, my life is a little like a soap opera. There are problems that last for weeks, or even months, seem to be resolved, then rear their ugly little mutant heads in a slightly different form.

If there's anything I should be used to around here, it's weird little mutants, yet I amaze myself with my lack of ability to see them coming, lack of knowledge of how to deal with them yet again and total faith that once resolved, they're gone forever. Did I learn nothing from ditching the occasional day of school just to watch the countless never-ending angst-filled dramas? Obviously not!

I now give you .. (drum roll please) .. the Alex saga!

(otherwise known as "As the world turns .. around me. And not just the world .. oh no .. the entire Universe revolves around me thank.you.very.much!)

As you are probably aware by now, we have been having a few problems with Alex and school, namely suspensions last year for violence and numerous detentions for not doing homework.

After much discussion between Peter and I, we took him for an enrolment interview at our local public high school with the view to enrolling him there, seeing as he obviously wasn't prepared to put in the effort required to stay where he is. Peter had been threatening to take Alex out of his private school for quite some time so he finally put his foot down and arranged the interview.

(I just want to clarify that I don't think private schools are necessarily any better than public schools. I just think that in our particular circumstances, this particular private school is better for Alex than the public alternative.)

Alex's overall attitude was one of resignation to the fact that he would be changing schools and leaving his only friend behind as well as some curiosity about the school itself. The enrolment interview went well, as did the tour of the school but once Alex had it explained to him that this school was not geared toward the student who wanted to attend university, his whole attitude changed. He wants to become a science teacher or some sort of scientist/technician/engineer, all of which require university degrees and therefore university entrance subjects in high school. All of a sudden he was promising Peter the moon and stars for the opportunity to stay at his current school.

After a meeting with the current school's principal and deputy-principal (pastoral care), Peter seemed a lot happier with the current status quo. He appreciates that Alex has improved greatly from last year and while there is still some concern about his lack of completed homework, he is getting better. The two of them have made some, for want of a better word, 'deals' regarding his homework and attitude towards school so hopefully, they will start to have some effect from here on.

It just amazes me how much has changed in schooling since we went to school. As I explained to Peter, Alex was suspended for the kind of 'push-me, shove-you violence' that would have gone completely unpunished and probably completely unnoticed in our day. (Just hold on while I go grab my zimmer frame will you?) If you weren't bleeding, unconscious or had bones sticking out of your skin nothing much was done. Oh, and homework was never chased up. If you didn't do it, there were no repercussions from the school; just from your parents at report card time. (I can still remember that feeling of dread walking home to give Mum and Dad the report card that had my first ever D on it .. quaking in my boots I was!)

So all in all, the soap opera status quo continues but stay tuned for further developments. You never know, there might be a murder next.



Or the discovery of a secret bunker under the house where we could keep him locked up for years, only letting him out when he finishes all his homework (in about 30 years!)



Or even that he's a little alien mutant beamed in from another planet sent here to test human patience levels. Yeah, that one sounds good .. and scarily enough, the most believable!

And the countdown has started ..

At the moment I'm writing this (6:04pm), there are 14 hours and 26 minutes before the children go back to school.

They have been on holidays for 8 weeks and 4 days.

But who's counting you ask?

Me, that's who!

I've been counting since Christmas!

Now I am one of those mothers who has a horrible tendency to leave things until the very last moment. Procrastination is my middle name. (Well, it was going to be but I haven't got around to changing it yet!) I'm usually the one who has to stop by the shops on the way to school to buy the very-important-must-have-for-the-first-day item and while we're there, we may as well get something for lunches because I forgot they need to be fed while at school.

I was determined to not be 'that mother' this year and I was doing so well. All the stationery, books and other assorted necessary sundry items had been bought and, shock horror, labelled with the correct child's name. No algebra or trigonometry books for Bradley this year!

Their school bags were clean and filled with all the things they require as well as having clean, dry and non-stinky lunchboxes ready in the kitchen for their lovingly prepared lunches to be placed into. (A girl can have dreams!)

I had even managed to drag all the uniforms out of the deep, dark recesses of the wardrobes, where they had been shoved in a fit of childish delight (mine, not theirs!) back at the beginning of December last year. I made the children try them on two weeks ago and once satisfied that they all still fit, I washed them and ironed them and hung them up neatly so there would be none of those lovely wails of "I can't find a shirt" or "my shorts are still in the wash" two minutes before we were due to walk out the door.

So you can imagine my angst when Alex informed me after trying his shorts on again today, "just to check", that they don't fit. Believing mother that I am, I immediately demanded he show me and sure enough, they really don't fit. And not just 'they're a bit uncomfortable' .. oh no! Not a snowball's chance in hell of getting them to do up so I can't even make him wear them to school until I get to the uniform shop. (Well, I could, but he has enough issues with being seen as 'different' as it is without me adding to them).

So now, I get to go to the uniform shop in the morning, wait in line with about 100 other frustrated parents in an non-airconditioned room, with three very frazzled and hot volunteers copping flak for things that aren't their fault, hoping to high heaven that they haven't sold out of the one size I need (which is usually the case), forking over an arm and half a leg to pay for them and all so I can give my 13-year-old-son the correct shorts to wear to school.

Oh, and then go to work for the day to deal with the remnants of an Amazonian rainforest that has taken up residence on my desk in the form of a huge pile of paper to be filed properly, for no-one to ever look at it again. Then come home and turn into the Homework Police.

Aren't I a good Mum?

(save the laughter until I've left the room will you?)