Today we were supposed to go to the Christmas Tree Farm to pick up a live pine, as is our custom over Thanksgiving weekend. When the children woke me up at 6.45 (what is so strange about that? Tell me…what???) they were bouncing around and excited about our visit to the farm.

We did get a christmas tree today, but we didn’t make the 45 minute drive to Christmas Tree Farm. What changed our minds? Was it the price of gas?

No, not the price of gas.

We were, purely and simply, too tired to drive out into the country, take a bumpy hay ride to the tree plantation, wander about choosing a tree, get bitten by fire ants while cutting it down, bundle the children onto a line of hitched-together carts disguised as a train, and then listen to them whine all the way home about how hungry they were, until we felt obliged to run through the drive-thru at McDonalds.

So we went to the local garden centre and in 5 minutes had chosen and paid for a much better tree than we would have found at the farm. For the same price. Another 5 minutes and the nice man had tied it to the roof of my car without even hanging around for a tip. The strangest thing? The kids never once asked for the farm. As long as they got their tree, they didn’t care.

There must be a lesson in that, somewhere.

Happy Thanksgiving!

Caption: When my children are being especially obnoxious and I need to get something done, I make them go out into the yard and I give them iceblocks.

Now, don’t say I never share.

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(Update: I was half expecting someone to comment that those iceblocks contain gasp! artificial coloring. Was prepared for the onslaught. But everybody has been very nice about not mentioning it. Then this morning I took another look at the photo and realized that my eldest is also holding a lollipop. EPIC MOTHERING FAIL!)

Right now it all seems to be about Christmas inzaburbs. Or rather, presents. I had to take the boys shopping with me this morning and while I was there (TJ Maxx, if you must know) I found a toy which Baby Sister has been coveting and which I had resolved not to get her ask Santa to bring because it is just too expensive for what it is.

Goodness knows we have piles enough of grotesquely molded plastic without adding even more, but it is too late, my children are already aware of the outside world, and have done nothing for the last few weeks except make request after request for items of dubious quality. Such is life. Also, I love a bargain, and this is one, battered box and all. So I bought it.

Unfortunately (or fortunately, if your monniker is Baby Sister) it is rather a large item and so of course the T-Bot noticed, as did The Wictor, who erroneously decided it must be allowance day, attached himself to a Thomas train and, when denied it,  tantrumed his way to the checkout and all the way out of the store.

Then, to avoid awkward questions about why I was buying something for his sister and not for him, I was forced to reveal to the T-Bot that I had already bought him a present from me. So sorry Santa, you get credit for one less thing this year… I spent the rest of the afternoon deflecting intense questions of the what is it, where is it nature.

And then he gave up, went upstairs and erected a “trap” in the hope of catching any passing stray toys.

Rest assured that my children will not be getting all the plastic they desire this Christmas. They will also be getting other items, carefully chosen by me, things they do not know they want yet. Like these, which arrived today and are ever so cool and nifty (the robot is my favorite, but they are all good).

And judging by past Christmases, this is what they will still be playing with in years time, when all the bright and shiny toys of the moment have been long forgotten.

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And now, I need your help. I have three children and everything they are asking for seems to be yet another variation on something they already own. Are there any original yet exciting toys left out there (of the plastic or other persuasion, I don’t mind) ? Let me know, below. You will win nothing - but my undying gratitude.

I think I have mentioned previously that spelling is not the T-Bot’s strong point. On Friday I decided to try  a technique from the book The Visual-Spatial Classroom. I bought this e-book last week in the hope that it might help us with some of our - um - let’s say sticking points in our learning adventure.

The photo above shows our work with the ea sound, or phonogram. I wanted to use a word that the T-Bot would be enthusiastic about, and after looking through his books he chose the word beast. I asked him to copy and illustrate the word, then I wrote it and he made it beastly. We did some visualization, with him studying the page and then shutting his eyes and trying to see it in his mind.

Next we did the same with the word peas. In typical T-Bot fashion, he had to draw 120 peas as his illustration, and in the shape of an elephant. Sigh. Did I ever say homeschooling this child was easy?

Now you are dying to know if the technique worked, arent you? Well, I was semi-hopeful. And I guess it was semi-successful. The next day I asked him to spell beast and he totally missed the ea sound, which was what he was supposed to be learning. However, he also did not throw out a random string of letters in a panic, as he has been known to do in the past. He actually closed his eyes and spelled out b-e-s-t. Not p-o-t. Not l-m-n-o-p.

So we - or the technique - need a little more work. I’m giving this one 3 Stars and a Watch This Space.

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In other news, are you desperate for ways to clean up your vintage china? I thought so! I posted all about it here. You’re welcome.

Posting-wise, I am on an enforced slowdown right now. The whole household caught some awful respiratory virus and I have let things slide a little too much - now Christmas is only just around the corner. Panic!

I will mostly be blogging at Century Finds, and not about my children. I am not going to say goodbye though, because last time I said goodbye I couldn’t help popping back up again a few weeks later, which reeks a little too much of attention seeking behavior.  But don’t be surprised if this turns mostly into a photo blog

And here is my first photo. I don’t usually post photos of other people’s children, but in this case I hope it will be OK. Babies. They all look the same anyway don’t they? And they change so fast that he won’t be recognizable next week. Also if you dare try to kidnap him, you will have me to deal with. SO DON’T.

But I do want to share. Because this is my first ever great-nephew!

Don’t you just want to cuddle him? You don’t? You must be a man then! What are you doing on my blog?

(Are men allowed? Did I allow that? Mumble mumble, not sure. Now, where’s my zimmer frame?).

… provide them with the right color markers!

I ration out our shoebox full of markers and crayons otherwise The Wictor tips them over the floor and generally goes crazy. On Monday I was in a hurry and just grabbed a handful of random colors. Still, it does make for very modern looking cards!

And in the end, the real reason for making them was the handwriting inside. The T-Bot copied his text neatly, while Baby Sister made a good job of tracing over my pencil lines. And they didn’t even notice they were practising.

On Saturdays my children are prone to begging and pleading to go to the park. By this they mean that they want to go to the playground, rather than just any old open space to which we would like to drag them, such as  “Daddy’s Park” (where The Daddy goes running) or “That Park with No Childrens Stuff Where We have To Walk Forever” (Nature Reserve).

Sometimes we manage to buy them off with a DVD from Blockbuster instead, but last Saturday I must have been feeling generous or energetic or guilty because I said yes.

Getting to the Playground is, however, a major undertaking. We do not have a decent playground in our neighborhood. There are token parks, or as the neighborhood association so quaintly calls them, pocket parks. I personally do not see any use for this type of playground, and I believe that the local children feel the same way, as the only movement you ever see around the mini slide and swing set is that of squirrels and stray dogs. Sometimes the dogs in question are not even stray and their owners do not appear to be carrying any form of pooper scooper.

So, OK, local amenities, not acceptable. This means we have to load up with water bottles, snacks, spare clothes and first aid kit and drive 15 minutes into the middle of nowhere, to our nearest fully-featured playground. And it’s a good one. It has, for example, this slide.

I like to call it The Slide of Death because I can’t actually imagine how the city managed to get insured for this structure in an area where there are small kids running around. My children, however, love it.

But the park is also very popular on a weekend. Especially with birthday parties, and on Saturday there were no fewer than three birthday parties going on in the various BBQ areas around the place. The climbing structures were swarming with children, which is not necessarily a bad thing, as my kids love other children. But there was also a weird vibe coming from the playground. I couldn’t quite put my finger on it.

Was it the fact that the main play area had been taken over by fully armed insurgents?

Or maybe it was that most of the parents seemed to be missing. By missing, I mean nursing a beer next to a barbecue pit 200 feet away, while their toddlers and preschoolers ran wild.

I try not to be judgmental but please. There is a pond not 100ft away from that playground. God knows I am always losing my own children, but at least I make an effort to keep tabs.

My children played. I followed The Wictor closely just in case one of the soldiers felt like menacing him up there on the battlements. They seemed quite nice, but you never can tell.

Then a little boy grabbed my hand. “Swing, please” he said, as he pulled me toward the bucket swings. I felt a little uncomfortable. I mean, some parents get upset when you put their 3 year old on the swing and will rush over and embarrass you with nervous tales of how little Jimmy is scared of heights or can’t be pushed high because of this or that disorder. As I put him into the swing I was hoping that his caregiver wasn’t watching, and I resolved to push him gently, just in case someone was waiting to pounce.

Actually I didn’t get a chance to push him at all, because once in the swing he immediately wanted OUT. And, as I tried to wrestle him OUT, I started to wish that his caregiver would pounce and share with me the secret of how to unstick him from the swing. It turns out that Little Jimmy was heavier than he looked, and combined an inability to extract his own legs from the holes with the ability to squeal like a stuck pig.

Several sweaty minutes later I succeeded, and then we took a walk around the playground, looking for his family. “Is this your brother?” I asked, pointing at an older boy he had been playing with earlier. “Yeth!”, he said, his face opening in delight. It wasn’t. So I let go of his hand and watched him run down to the BBQ pit. I sincerely hope that was his family and he did not get taken home by some random strangers at the end of the day.

After this I decided it was time to leave. But by now Baby Sister had made a friend. Not just a friend, a BFF.  From whom she was in no way to be parted.

At first I was happy to see them running around having such fun, until I realized the other little girl was brandishing a very dirty, wooden skewer. Along the ramps, up the ladders, down the slides… all the time with a filthy, pointy skewer just inches from my daughter’s perfect face. So I approached and very nicely asked the girl to put the dangerous implement down.

“No, I won’t” she said, with the assurance of someone who always gets her way. I looked around for her parents, but I assume they were down at the BBQ pit having fun with Little Jimmy’s folk.

So I gathered up my children. The T-Bot, very excited because he had found a plastic rifle sight, which I euphemistically labeled “binoculars”. Baby Sister, dragging her feet and spelling out her name for the skewer wielding friend while making fervent promises to meet her again on our next visit. And The Wictor, who had been patiently following me around the whole time.

The kids were full of the park. They had such fun at the park! Park That! Park This!

I was just … exhausted.

Next time they ask for the park, we will be driving 15 minutes in the other direction.

This freaked me out a little the first time I drove into it - in spring and fall our local supermarket becomes a rest stop for migrating birds.

No points for guessing which movie I am always reminded of.

I am hoping that today I will have time - and feel well enough - to write about this weekend’s strange scenes at the local park. We all have some plague-like illness here. Well, not really plague-like although I am sure people with the plague feel much the same way. I don’t want to minimise plague sufferer’s experience or anything, but this is really yucky.

Last night The Daddy and I were going out to meet friends at a fancy restaurant, so I jumped out of my jeans and threw on a very pretty flouncy red skirt (one I didn’t even remember I had!), a little eyeshadow and I was ready to go.

But then, as we were getting out of the car at the restaurant, I looked down and realized I had forgotten to shave my legs. “It doesn’t matter,” I reasoned, “I will walk in quickly and sit down with my legs under the table and nobody will notice”.

Unfortunately, as we walked into the joint, within sight line of our expectantly waiting friends, I glanced down again and saw I had gorilla legs which could not be hidden. In fact they probably already had been noticed, and from across the room. They looked something like this:

You remember when you were in elementary school and you had to write a story so you wrote a fantastic(al) one full of adventures and robots and dragons but then you didn’t know how to end it so you finished off “and then I woke up and it was just a dream” ?
(I still cringe every time I see a childrens’ book author use this technique now. Unless it was Mo Willems, in which case … forgiven. )

Well, I didn’t make it up - it was a real, true dream I had last night, and also an apt illustration of how the little things are getting neglected around here. I am busy and never make it to the bottom of the List of Things To Do. I feel I need to make some small changes.

I really don’t think I should give up any part of my already lightweight social life, although I am currently debating as to whether I should be maintaining a social life at all, given all the tasks which are piling up around the house. While I am pleased to report that as of today the whole house is clean and tidy (yes, you read that right! Ten minutes a few times a day plus dark threats to the children accomplishes wonders) some pesky chores still linger.

Now, after two enforced full nights of sleep, I am starting to think anything is possible. And I had an idea!

I would like to invite you to my house!

Yes, you!

Attention, you are only welcome if you have one of the following skills to share:

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1. Sewing skills.
I have my own sewing machine and three pairs of jeans awaiting hemming. I do not like my jeans to go flippety flap when I walk. But I have given up taking them in to the little lady in the room behind the laundromat, as she seems to think the pins I stick in them are just for decoration, and they always come back plus or minus an inch from the desired length. Although I am out of necessity still wearing the last pair which she cut to hang uselessly around my ankle, they do not make me feel sexy.

I will serve you a cup of coffee while you hem my jeans. I will lean on the kitchen counter and we can chat while you sew.

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2. Sealing Skills

Are you handy with a sealant gun? The joins in the shower are starting to go moldy and normally this is my job. It is difficult finding a window of opportunity when the shower is dry, the children occupied and I do not have anything else to do. Also, the fumes are obnoxious, I usually run out of rubber gloves, and then I get sealant on my hands and the skin falls off. This does not make me look sexy.

I will serve you a cup of coffee while you reseal my shower. I will perch on the side of the bath and we can chat while you seal.

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3. Ironing Skills

Some people like ironing. I am not one of them. I could double my wardrobe and triple my husband’s if I could just bear the squeaking of the ironing board long enough to iron more than a work shirt (one at a time, in haste, around midnight). My ironing basket and my unfolded laundry basket sit next to each other in a closet and guess which one is always more full? These old crumpled t-shirts are the opposite of sexy.

I will serve you a cup of coffee (or three) while you iron my forgotten clothes. I will lounge on the couch and we can chat while you starch and press.

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4. Plumbing Skills

Feel free to drop around at any time if you are good with toilets.

We have four toilets and I fix probably one a month. This open invitation is for someone who lives close,  as toilet emergencies often need dealing with fast.

I need to be able to say “Hey! Doing anything this morning ? Why not drop around now?”

I will serve you a cup of coffee, then shout to you from the other room while you plunge an upstairs toilet.

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Open House at My Place Next Week!
P.S. Don’t worry. You will not be required to shave my legs.

I didn’t want to like Kung Fu Panda.

I think it was Jack Black who put me off. Quite frankly, Jack Black does nothing for me. And this is one movie where you just can’t get away from him. Considering he is in the title role and all.

Still, The Daddy convinced me to view it tonight (the kids were watching for the 4th time) and I found myself laughing and then I found myself relaxing and … you know … believing. And then, instead of switching off halfway through, which was the original deal, the kids had to stay up late because I wanted to watch the end.

So, my verdict on Kung Fu Panda? You might find yourself liking it, even if you really really don’t want to.
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On that note, The T-Bot has prepared his lesson plan for tomorrow, and was even gracious enough to write it all out for me so that I wouldn’t forget. And then he patiently explained it to me, because, although it is laid out so simply that even a fool could understand it, goodness knows we mothers can be dim witted at times.
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“We need a punching bag, bits of wood so people can kick it apart, and lots of colored belts.

At 10:30 we do the punching class, at 11:30 I kick on wood with my karate class, at 12:08 we give colored belts to everybody. If they get a black one, it means they are a kung fu teacher.

Then we get to drink from the juice and water sprayers and use the claw swingers. ”

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Oh. That’s OK then. I can relax. School for tomorrow is sorted.

And if the recession does cause a crime wave as promised, we won’t need to buy a dog. We’ll all put on our colored belts and throw our claw swingers about.