Wednesday, August 26, 2009

Exhausting week

This week has and is absolute mayhem. It was always going to be chaotic but then a devastating event happened on the weekend. My auntie passed away. She has been battling cancer for many years, I think at least 7. It started with breast cancer and then finally moved into her brain this year. She was a wonderful lady and my mum's only sister. I haven 't seen her in quite a while and feel guilty for not going to see her more regularly but in a lot of ways I kind of prefer to remember her as she was the last time I did see her which was when she was still reasonably well and still had her bubbly personality. I got the task of telling my mum who recently moved into a nursing home. I stressed about it majorly but amazingly she took it quite well and said "I have been expecting it for quite a while", which is true but I really thought she would fall apart on me. The funeral is on Friday so we will have to keep a close eye on her!!

Other than that my kids have a really full on week at school.
Monday Mr12 had a choir performance at the Magic Millions race at the Morphettville Race Track so he had to be at school by 7.50am to go to that.
Tuesday Mr12, Mr9 and Mr7 had a play put on at school called Jungle Bungle.
Wednesday Mr9 is going on an excursion to the recycling centre and going to look at a landfill site (I have been conned into tagging along lol,,,,,wasn't the best excursion I have ever been on but it was okay I suppose!!)
Thursday I have to go in and do spelling testing for Mr9's class and Mr12 is performing in JRock Eisteddford Thursday night at the entertainment centre. We are all going to that which I am really excited about but of course it goes from 6.30pm through to 10.30pm and then by the time we pick Mr12 back up from school we won't get home till after 11pm.
Therefore Friday I had arranged for all the kids to have a day off as I know they will be exhausted,,,,,but Mr12 also has a SAPSASA Soccer Carnival on this Friday lol, so he doesn't get to sleep in and has to be at school by 8.15 and of course he volunteered me to help drive the kids to the carnival. This would have been great except now I have 3 other kids who all want to sleep in and a funeral to be at at 10am!!!
So the plan is for my Mr14 to stay home with Mr9 and Mr7 while I take a car load of kids to the soccer and then go to the funeral and then rush back to them and take them up to the soccer carnival in time to pick up a carload of kids yet again....(the joys of having a Tarago is you always seemed to get volunteered to be a chauffeur!!!!! (One good thing is that I have very responsible Mr14 and Mr9 and even Mr7 is pretty good and they know that they can go next door if there are any problems).
I am at Wednesday and am exhausted already lol. I actually can't wait for the weekend, although I have my stepkids as well and a birthday cake to bake and decorate for Mr14's friends birthday on Saturday.
I say "Roll on next week!!!" lol

Tuesday, August 18, 2009

Blog This Challenge 12 - Meet the Parents


This is a photo of my hubby and I with my Mum on our wedding day in October 2007. Mum was so excited about our wedding but unfortunately was feeling a bit off on the day. She was a trooper though and made it through the day with happy chats with everyone.

I always remember growing up when so many people thought my parents were actually my grandparents. My mum was 40 and my dad was 55 when I was born. Life was a little different for me I guess as my Dad had emphysema and that really limited him greatly throughout my childhood. Sadly he passed away when I was 17 and never got to see me get married or meet my children. I am glad that at least my Mum has had that opportunity.

Mum has recently gone into a nursing home as she has now developed mild dementia and it just wasn't safe for her to live in her unit alone any more. She also almost totally blind due to problems caused by her Diabetes.
Mum has always done her best throughout my life to give me a happy childhood and has always been there in some way for my children too.

I will never forget when I was in about Grade 2, the school had a halloween party (this was before Australia really even acknowledged Halloween lol). Anyway Mum made up a whole stack of toffees for the school party and came dressed all in black complete with a black witches hat. I have a photo of her somewhere on this computer but I can't lay my hands on it.

My parents have always been an inspiration to me. The went against the tide so to speak having me at an older age. I have 4 older brothers and the age gap between me and the youngest brother is 13 years. These days older mothers are common, 30-40 years ago they were a rarity lol. I am now 39 and still yearn for more children, but unfortunately my Hubby and I can't have any more. We will just get to spoil the grandchildren to bits when the kids have children lol!!

Wednesday, August 12, 2009

Mr9 gets his new pet tonight...

Mr9 (my difficult child lol) will be picking up his new pet cockatiel after school today. He is so excited. He has paid for it out of his own money (well we paid half in order to get him a hand reared one).
I picked up a cage off the side of the road a few months ago in the hope of getting a couple of budgies. A man had a few things out the front for free and one of the items was quite a large cage in need of a really good clean up. Well it has cleaned up really well and now we are all set to go for our new family friend.
I am hoping his enthusiasm remains strong lol. We have been thinking about breeding cockatiels for a while so this will be the tester for a much bigger goal! When I was little my mum and dad used to breed finches and budgies. I still love budgies but have always wanted a cockatiel. Mr9 researched for ages trying to decide what kind of bird he would like. Originally it was a cocky but then he saw the cockatiels and fell in love with them. Fingers crossed the little one we have found will come to be a great little mate for him!!
Mr9 also has karate tonight. He got his ghee last week and the change in his enthusiasm is remarkable. He is now looking forward to his karate lesson and is remembering his stances and his japanese counting so much better. I am so thrilled for him, it has taken many years to get him to give something a go. It may not be interaction on a talking/playing level with other children but at least he is out there mixing with others in some form!
........now we just have to continue to work on his enthusiasm for school lol........I am still doing research into homeschooling but will persevere with school for a bit longer at least.

Monday, August 3, 2009

I JUST DON'T KNOW WHAT TO DO WITH HIM!!!

Mr9 is being soooooo difficult I just don't know what to do.

We have had problems at school since his best friend (read that as only real friend) left in Week 4 of the first term. He had a couple of classmates picking on him for a while, I got that sorted, then an older boy started bullying him,,,,I got that sorted. Now he just refuses to go to class of a morning.

The thing is though,,,,he comes out of school perfectly fine, says he has had a "so-so" day and doesn't complain to me about anything when I ask if there was anything wrong with the day. At home on weekends he is fine. On school mornings I might have one morning a week where he is very difficult to get up and ready but generally he gets up and gets dressed and has breakfast fine.

When it is time to go to school he is quite happy and it is only when I go to say goodbye to him when the first bell goes that the problem starts. He says to me "will you come up to my class?" and my normal response is "as long as you don't cry and carry on". Well 9 times out of 10 by the time I take Mr7 into his class and get him settled Mr9 is waiting for me outside of the classroom and I have no choice but to walk him back to his class. I get him upstairs and then the "I don't want to go to school" and tears start. His teacher has had to appoint a door guard at the classroom door many times so that he wouldn't come back out again. He clutches at me, grabbing on to my jumper or handbag or anything really. If I get angry with him and say "just get into class!" he will just follow me back out. His teacher has had enough and has more or less given up helping me,,,,I don't blame her, she has 22 other kids to worry about. I end up having to walk back to the school office and get the school counsellor to take him back up to class because he just will not stay there. I can't move classes as there is only one other Year 3 class there and they do alot of work together anyway.

I just don't know what to do. The school doesn't really have any suggestions for me either, they say that he seems happy enough once he has settled down after I have gone. I have never had this problem with him in the previous 3 years of school.

I would take him out of school and give homeschooling a go but then I would have Mr7 demanding the same and I know that socially he wouldn't advance at all because I can't get either of these two for that matter to join any sporting clubs or anything where they have to go and mix with new kids. Mr9 has just started karate, that has been okay because there are 2 other kids from his school that have just started too. Even for karate he went the first week and loved it, then the following week he refused to go. I managed to talk him into giving it another go and he of course loved it again. The following week he once again said he didn't want to go so Hubby made a deal with him that he would go and give it a shot at least until Christmas. If he really doesn't like it by Christmas time he can quit.......I would have said he do it for a whole year as we just had to pay out $60 for the annual membership and $90 for his Ghee, but I suppose even Christmas will do. Fingers crossed he learns to love it by then lol.

I don't know I just sit here and wonder what I have done so wrong with the younger two boys. I never had these issues with the older two. I can't even get either of them to have a birthday party. How many kids don't like birthday parties??????? Mr9 hasn't even been invited to any as he has no friends and won't have one of his own because he has no one to invite. Mr7 just refuses even though he does have friends at school, he doesn't like any type of out of the ordinary occurrence. The other mums at school are all beginning to look at me like I am strange and I don't know how to handle my children.

Aaaaghhhhh I want to cry today!!!