Uncool: I realised I have forgotten my 7 times table.

Cool: I have a calculator on my laptop and one on my phone. Plus ten fingers to count on if I really get stuck.

Uncool: At a meetup of moms in the park, Mom1 started yelling at the Mom2, in front of all the other moms and our children, for a decision she had made, one which didn’t actually affect her at all, using words like “you can’t do that!” and “that’s disgusting!”. (For the record, disgusting didn’t actually have anything to do with the issue).

Uncool: Although I thought Mom1’s behavior was atrocious and her stance ridiculous,  and I totally sided with Mom2, I didn’t speak up in public. I didn’t do this because I had just been through a 10 minute grilling by Mom2 which involved phrases like “if he doesn’t go back to school now he will fall so far behind he will never be able to go back” and “he should be getting specialist help”. I was feeling rather bitter and unhelpful.

Uncool: Mom3 managed to add her voice wherever it would be the most unconstructive. As in helping criticize Mom 2 and me.

Cool: All this made me take stock of my situation and have some constructive talks with The Daddy, and I emerged from the process realizing that I am totally satisfied with the decisions we have made and the way we live our life, and am in fact the happiest and most fulfilled I have ever been. So there is absolutely no reason to look outside the family for any guidance.

Cool: It might be fun to find myself some new friends.

Cool: On Friday afternoon The Daddy came home early and I managed to get to the hairdressers.

Uncool: I think she gave me a Rachel.

Cool: At least I don’t have so much hair now. And it will eventually grow out.

Cool: I went to a friend’s art exhibition on Friday and saw lots of awesome new canvases.

Uncool: I met a friend of a friend who is no longer a friend because she is so apparently so appalled by homeschooling. She was desperate to get away and used the excuse “I just have to …um… see the paintings in the other room”.

Cool: I then found lots of very interesting people to talk to while she seemed to be drifting around the room alone. (Insert very immature raspberry here and maybe a casual flip of the bird, or as we Antipodeans would do, The Fingers.)

Uncool: On Sunday the T-Bot’s Sunday sport was cancelled and nobody bothered to tell us.  We were the only ones to turn up with 60lbs of gear to find the field empty.

Cool: So we went as a family to the park instead. We took the bikes and the T-Bot finally mastered the art of 2 wheeled cycling (I know, I know, it has taken a while. We are not big on cycling). He was so determined to do it and so proud of himself afterward.

Cool: Then we went for a walk and found frogspawn. The children were captivated by our stories of raising tadpoles when we were little.

Uncool: The frogspawn disappeared and we realized it was probably just bubbles of pollution.

Cool: We went to get ice cream and sat in the sun and everybody was happy.

I would like to introduce you to a couple of Baby Sister’s birthday presents which I find - despite myself - supremely amusing.

We have already reviewed Tattooed Barbie.

Here’s another:

Her younger sister Teresa - and her peeing cat, as seen in this commercial. An awesome gift, and she loves it, especially as it is not long since we got our own cat. But talk about taking Playing Mommy to extremes. Now she’s not only looking after plastic babies, she is wielding a pink plastic pooper scooper and changing the kitty litter. Just like Mommy every morning. Except Mommy doesn’t have to hold the cat up and squeeze its sides to help it do its business.

Thankfully. Mommy wouldn’t handle that sh*t.

Then there is this present:

A Shining Stars Unicorn. Nothing strange about that, you say.

Except, she had to name this friend for Cuddly, Fuzzy and Nounours. And she chose to name it ….

Horny.

After two days of trying to gently talk her out of it, she finally relented. Now the unicorn’s name is Stacey Butterfly Tuesday Horn.

I was going to make a comment about how it sounded like a stripper name, but then I did some impulsive googling and discovered there are a lot of very clothed people with serious faces and advanced degrees called Stac(e)y Horn.

So I decided against it.

My two eldest looked to be trapped in some kind of net box ….

And they didn’t seem the least bit concerned by the situation.

Yesterday was Baby Sister’s birthday. I learned a hard lesson last year, when I had the whole party organized in 20 minute segments, only to have half the little girls lock themselves away in an upstairs bedroom with a box of Barbies and refuse to come out. This year we stuck to a few crafts, some cake, a pinata … and of course a Bouncy Castle:

Yes, it really was that big. The lady who delivered and set it up actually suggested - in all seriousness - that next time we ask to keep it overnight. So that we could camp out in it.  America continues to amaze me.

So plenty of room for all the kids to jump, although all of them didn’t end up in it at once, because half of them were upstairs playing Barbie.

Speaking of which, the haul this year was almost exclusively Barbie. We are overflowing with them already, and every one is a favorite. Forget Barbie’s Dream House/Real House/My House. I think we are headed for Barbie Sorority House. Especially with the addition of Totally Stylin Tattoos Barbie. Yes, we got one of those and in case you were wondering about all the hype, she does come with a “tattoo gun” stamper which makes a scarily realistic noise. It makes me a little uncomfortable but to the kids it’s just another, less messy way of applying some pretty cute and inoffensive temporary tattoos.

They don’t seem as interested in applying the mini tattoo stickers to Barbie.

While I am just itching to give her a tramp stamp. Because I am evil like that and care nothing for my childrens’ morals

So, just like that Baby Sister turns 5. I took her to buy her main present yesterday. We bought her a very expensive new bike. I say very expensive because at the rate we currently ride (about 10 times a year), if it lasts her 2 years it will have cost more than $10 a ride. But my hand was forced. I started off by buying her a (what else?) Barbie bike, which was the only toy store bike I could find which had relatively good reviews. And I wanted to like it. It is lightweight and has cool styling. However, its main feature is that none of the parts fit together properly. I discovered this after several frustrating hours, one trip back to the store for a bike center employee to look at me condescendingly and tighten a few screws, and the hassle of the front brake falling apart in my hand as I tried to adjust it for the umpteenth time. The last straw.

At which point The Daddy and I discussed things and decided that our children need to ride a lot more. You need to get me my money’s worth, young woman!

…

PS I know these birthday posts are supposed to be all sentimental and full of poetry about how I remember her soft baby head and baby toes and it seems just like yesterday - but honestly? I was too sleep deprived. Don’t remember a thing. She just kind of lay there and went gaa and waa a lot.

Now that she is 5 she doesn’t do that, so much. But dammit, we do need to find a storage solution for all those Barbies.

I am a little worried that this post came off a little negative. Like I was gritting my teeth while homeschooling or something.

The truth is, while other commitments mean I really do not have the time to homeschool and keep my sanity, home schooling itself has turned out to be a pleasure.

I enjoy the T-Bot’s company and we have fun doing what we do. If I was a SAHM whose only other major pulls were Target and the laundry this would be a snap.

Now, for another one of my why-do-I-do-this-promoting-people-who-aren’t-paying-me-a-dime things:

I have mentioned that spelling is not a strong point. Although the T-Bot is slowly “getting it” he didn’t seem too convinced for a long time when I explained that half the time putting words together is just like his beloved Lego* . You join bits to build something that works.

We tried taping phonograms onto duplo blocks, which was OK except for the unbelievable amount of work it took cutting up those itty bitty bits of paper and sticking them on. Then The Wictor started crying because he wanted his Duplos back. So when someone recommended Reading Rods so I decided to give them a try.

Reading Rods are from the same company who make cuisinaire rods, which have always perplexed me. It was always difficult enough remembering addition and multiplication tables without also having to memorize what the pink rod or the blue rod was worth. But these are cool.

We ordered a Phonics Pack , which was about $20 including a folder with a tiny whiteboard and a cheapo whiteboard marker which I soon discovered to be a permanent marker but not before we had scribbled everywhere and couldn’t erase it. Also some cheap and nasty workbooks and a crayon. But that’s not why I bought them. I wanted them for the Reading Rods, which are awesome. There are single letters and phonograms (vowels and consonants are color coded as are groups of vowels) which should allow you to build just about any word you choose.

They snap together, like building toys. Even The Wictor has grasped that you can make words with them, and if his “words” are a little long and fanciful and quite frankly rubbish, we can build on that (geddit? geddit?). Baby Sister got as far as making her own name by herself, which is also a start.

We have incorporated Reading Rods into our daily spelling now, and while I can’t say they have made the whole ordeal easier, they have made it more fun. And it’s something we can do when the younger kids are home too.

Here’s a little exercise we did last week, when Baby Sister and the Wictor were home and wanted to have some fun too:

1. Everybody gets an ending and has to find additional blocks to make words.

2. Once we have made a word we write it on a piece of paper.

3. Then draw a picture to go with the word!

4. It was so much fun, the T-Bot wanted to do it again by himself the next day. This time I gave him the camera to take a photo of each word.

Then I printed out each photo and he drew a picture next to it on the paper.

Why yes, we are using the same words, because he didn’t remember how to spell them from the day before. *Sigh*.

Still - Reading Rods. Colorful. Cute. More fun than rote learning.

*(and it is at these times that I wish we spoke Spanish so that phonics rules would make sense all of the time. Who invented English anyway? Don’t answer that.)

Here is a little word to the wise:

Let’s just say you move into a new (to you) house and you love it except that the paint colors are all wrong (and half the major appliances old and about to stop working but let’s skip that part for now).

Now let’s imagine that you can’t wait to start repainting so you indulge in a little DIY. If you do this, DO NOT, whatever you do, decide to paint the dining room a bright, cheery yellow. Especially don’t do this if the dining room is open to every other room in the house.

Because if you do, when the time comes to repaint the rest of your open plan house, you will find that you have to match EVERY OTHER PAINT COLOR downstairs to BRIGHT YELLOW.

I promise, you will. And puh-please do not try and tell me that yellow matches everything, because it doesn’t. At least, it might do if you have a modern house, where anything you slap up on the walls will look highly funky and probably end up (sob sob) in the pages of Dwell. But those of us with mock-georgian piles complete with crown moldings and details everywhere have to pay a little more attention, especially if we chose the house partially for those details in the first place.

Next, when your husband, who you love very much, tells you he wants ALL BRIGHT COLORS, do not spend two precious days trying to oblige him. You will - I repeat - WILL find yourself rocking and babbling over the fan deck while holding great fistfuls of your own hair.

(Just believe me when I say that our chosen bright colors put next to each other make the whole house look like a nursery. Which, in effect, it is, but let us pretend a little, OK?)

Another thing: do NOT, under any circumstances, hold a last minute group consultation with your friends who all live in beautifully curated houses that look like they stole them out of a Pottery Barn catalog. Unless, of course, you are willing to paint over your bright yellow, forgo your bright green, and settle for living in a Pottery Barn Catalog.

A look, which, by the way, I LOVE. It’s just not us.

Another NOT GOOD IDEA: In a fit of pique caused by said friends agreeing that there is no solution but to paint your double-height entrance way CREAM (the color of a decades worth of rental houses - a color you swore you would never grace your walls again), you should not waste an afternoon trying to find exactly the right shade of GRAY. Because at this point your significant other will arrive home, shrug and say “you mean all gray like the inside of a dungeon?”. And you will suddenly realize that he is right.

Oh, and another word to the wise : do all this color research BEFORE you call in the painters and agree on a starting date IN FOUR DAYS TIME.

I am sure nobody noticed that I was away. But that is where I have been. Oh, and my final color scheme?

Some bright colors. And CREAM.

Job done. The painters arrive tomorrow. I am off to pack for the asylum.