Grateful for boys

I read this blog post tonight over at Diary of a BeautyFull mum and it got my blood boiling enough for me to leave a long comment... and enough that I wanted to share it with you as well.

This was my comment
i totally know where you are coming from. My son was given a note from a girl in his class a few weeks ago. they knew it was wrong because of the surreptitious way with was given .... but still.... the note said.... I love you will you sex me.

I promptly turned around when straight to the school and turned the note into the teacher.
Also knowing the mother I spoke to her the next day and she too didn't understand where it came from.

Fast forward 2 days and the girl came to school with short shorts on so short that you could see the crease of her bum cheeks. Luckily the school took a stand any by the afternoon she was wearing borrowed shorts.

At this point I tell you they are 7. The girls parents are lovely and she has an older brother and sister.

BUT... all I can say is I am so grateful I hav a boy. Everytime I go shopping for a girls present I am confronted with Bratz dolls, the Veronicas range of clothing and slogan tees that a disgusting.

I hate that my friends Girls are being brought up with this where wearing this is normal and apparently ok. . . All i can do is point my son in the right direction but with all this over stimulation they are growing up faster than they can handle.  Somehow we have to grow up ahead of them and stop them from seeing this as normal.... How do we do this when some mothers just don't seem to care.

I just googled sexy 7 year olds and the majority of the results that came up were  stories from newspapers about you children being abused, or celebrity children in their "sexy" clothes. What happened to sweet, pretty, innocent 7 year olds, then I came across this result of a youtube video and many responses to it. Check out this video on YouTube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Hix7Ie-IlYU

I tried to embed it and was given the message that embedding had been turned off by request... why would you put something on Youtube if you didn't want to share it... why? because just look at the comments. Yes I agree they are fantastic dancers but have a look around at some other choreography done by the same dance group. the younger the dancers the more hip and but grinding movements, the more times they grab their non- existant boobs... the older dancers choreography relies on actual jazz moves and not sexualised moves.

All I can say is in this day and age I am glad I have a boy. I can teach him right from wrong. I can shoe him that girls don't have to wear shorts or skirts that show their bums to be sexy.

No wonder our kids are confused.....

This pic of Paris Hilton is actually captioned.. Paris Hilton in Sexy Dress.....when did this become sexy and not slutty or just plain too small!

And when was this considered a cocktail frock... Can you imagine wearing this anywhere outside a strip joint or a dance club???

here

This is my idea of a cocktail frock... they don't  have to cover head to toe, but ... just leave a little bit of a person to the imagination

... I don't need to know what you had for lunch!




How do we teach our girls and boys that its ok to just be kids for while ????

Sydney Children's Festival

This years festival is on now at Carriageworks and is awesome.

The Festival is on over the School holidays so instead of going to the movies today, the LM and I packed up and went with two more kids, another mother and her daughter, and headed in to see what was for the offering.

It was great...
The kids had a blast in the Circus hall with different juggling and little pedal things etc, even skipping and the parents were getting into it too...


This is Miss G having a blast in the Circus area on the balance bike pedal thing

My LM with his fluffy poi... concentrating hard













Next step... lets light these babies up!















My little man with the awesome dragon which was walking around the halls!











Wills craft, a lake, hills, grass and sun

 In the animation area you typed on a old fashoned Typewriter and when you hit return your words turned into bugs  - I like the one that looks like a snitch








In the animation area you put your head in the screen to be filmed and you could more the "man" around to do things

the human size upright scanner... Brilliant






All in all a great day.. if you are around ... check it out! 
Oh and for the $$ conscious, Free entry, most things are free, food is a little pricey and not a lot to choose but bring a packed lunch. All we bought was a couple of drinks so for $10 we had a 3 hours of fun,  but you could stay all day.


What did you get up to today?

Week-a-Boo ~ A peek into your weekEND

Busy weekend With 3 birthdays on my sons side of the family and another friend too so lots of celebrations and lunches,


But not really a lot to report... just a lovely weekend and since today was the first day of School holidays in NSW today was a bit of an extension of the weekend.
Happy holidays all

A sweet bag for my "niece"

Wills footy team get their end of year Trophy's

My LM is very excited

My LM with his Poppy G

My LM with his Cousin and Poppy G

Uncle E (the birthday Boy - Happy 30th) Cousin J (happy7th)  Little Miss Cousin C (happy 3rd) and My LM

Oh and for those of you that know me... I don't do craft at home with My LM but i decided that he has been given so many crafty activities that this year we will do it... today was Sand Art.... Mess Yes but outside.. all good! And i did some too

What have you been up to??

Last swimming Lesson for the year

Took my LM to his last swimming lesson for the year. With my surgery next month, I won't be able to get him to the pool so he will have a term off before he goes back next year.

I am amazed at how well he is doing

The Diving was great I didn't even know he was diving properly and then he just did it!

Then I saw him swimming and I was a wee bit impressed with that too!

Excuse the quality of the videos as they were done surreptitiously on my phone .... and I didn't really want him to see me taking it either, and starting to play up!
I don't usually watch him in his lessons because he seems to do better when I don't watch him....AND its kind of good too because the little differences each week really add up when I am watching them come together at the end of the term.


On a parenting note...... I find it amazing... i watch someone elses kids playing around at the pool today and while they were being a bit noisy and rambunctious I watched with a smile on my face until I saw the mums face which was thunderous because her son wasn't listening to her.....
I thought about it and realised that I would have been just as angry had it been my LM playing up .... so the question I have for you is this....
DO you ever seem your kids doing something and stop them because it looks bad to you.... but do you see other kids doing something and think it looks ok?..
Hmmm

Week-a-Boo ~ A peek into your weekEND

A big weekend was had here.
While the LM was at his dads on Saturday I spent a few hours at a friends kids B'day in the sun and park.. lovely..

I then headed to the school to help with some sorting for the fete before getting home in time for the LM to be dropped off.

Sunday was a little sleep in then up and ready and to the fete by 11... the LM had a great time on the pirate ship

And the climbing wall.... getting a lot higher than previous years..

Proud of my Little Man... I reckon he got higher than I would!

Nice day

Just a quick one today ..

Heard some very sad news tonight about a friend of a friend loosing a 2 year old to cancer so today ... whilst I may not be the best friend, best mother, best exerciser, best eater, etc etc, I hope I can stop beating myself up about it all and do something about it...

I took the high ground last night in an email fuelled argument with my LM's father. I am sick of his need to arrange life around himself and his commitments instead of taking more consideration of what other people may need... but I also realised that he is that way, will always be that way, and nothing I will ever say is going to change it.
He seems to enjoy questioning my parenting and started spouting what he has learnt from books as if it has any real basis on life considering he has as yet not had to implement it.
so I am denoting him to the sand heap (see last post to understand this) and have decided that William is a golf ball, and because of that I decided to stop arguing and to just ask for the basics, to realise that he will always be on the back foot, and be passive aggressive.... but I don't need to be like that with the dad.

I spend hours yesterday formulating a detailed and semi nasty email, when I could have been spending time doing all sorts of nice things...


I then deleted it and send a very straight forward and to the point email which i think was the better thing to send.

What do you do when you have parenting conflicts????

xoxo

Food for thought

I just came across this on another site and while I have read it before it still had a profound effect on me... I am even thinking of doing up some sort of a chart that will remind me of the golf ball/pebble/sand parts of my life

When things in your life seem. Almost too much to handle. When 24 Hours in a day is not enough. Remember the mayonnaise jar and 2 glasses of wine.
A professor stood before his philosophy class and had some items in front of him. When the class began, wordlessly, he picked up a very large and empty mayonnaise jar and proceeded to fill it with golf balls.
He then asked the students, if the jar was full.
They agreed that it was.
The professor then picked up a box of pebbles and poured them into the jar. He shook the jar lightly. The pebbles rolled into the open Areas between the golf balls.
He then asked the students again if the jar was full.
They agreed it was.
The professor next picked up a box of sand and poured it into the jar. Of course, the sand filled up everything else.
He asked once more if the jar was full. The students responded
With an unanimous ‘yes.’
The professor then produced two glasses of wine from under the table and poured the entire contents into the jar, effectively
filling the Empty space between the sand.
The students laughed.
‘Now,’ said the professor,   As the laughter subsided,
‘I want you to recognize that this jar represents your life.
The golf balls are the important things – family, children, health, God, Friends, and Favorite passions – things that if everything else was lost and only they remained, your life would still be full.
The pebbles are the other things that matter like your job, house, and car.
The sand is everything else – the small stuff.
‘If you put the sand into the jar first,’  he continued, ‘there is no room for the pebbles or the golf balls. The same goes for life.
If you spend all your time and energy on the small stuff, you will never have room for the things that are important to you.
So…

Pay attention to the things that are critical to your happiness.
Play With your children.
Take time to get medical checkups.
Take your partner out to dinner.
There will always be time
To clean the house and fix the disposal.
‘Take care of the golf balls first – the things that really matter.
Set your priorities. The rest is just sand.’
One of the students raised her hand and inquired what the wine represented.
The professor smiled.
‘I’m glad you asked’.
It just goes to show you that no matter how full your life may seem, there’s always room for a couple of glasses of wine with  a friend.’
touche! what a great way to explain to our children too…

Quiet Week

Its been a bit of a quiet week here.

I have finally been given a date for my impending surgery so I now can officially count down to it. Also the end of the school term is nigh.. just another week before 2 weeks holiday.

I was thrown for a loop earlier in the week when I was contacted by my past boss. I ended up leaving the job under not such great circumstances after working there just one week shy of 2 years. I hated doing it but at the time that was all I could think to do for my sanity. After chatting for an hour and getting caught up on life (we were pretty go friends at one point), he finally came out and told me that he wanted to know if I would consider coming back to the job so that has been playing on my mind a lot over the past couple of days. I have made some decisions about it but will need to wait out the week to see what comes of it.

On top of that I had a lovely day on Thursday having a Mani/pedi done with a friend as a thank you because I help her out with her tax return. After that it was drama club at the school and swimming lessons for the LM after school and we hung around for a couple of hours afterwards. My son just loves the water and will stay in it for hours. And I know that this summer isn't going to be much fun for him since I will be back in Plaster for the majority of it so I am trying to make it up to him now. Next week will be his last swimming lesson for the year.

Today I chilled out in the sun trying to "burn" the white patches on my back to even it out a but (afer putting sunscreen on the parts that were already burnt but I don't think it worked... I am not looking forward to my sister finding out I have such lovely tan marks to go with the strapless bridesmaids dress I am due to wear in a month. I finished off the second last of the Succubus series and now have to wait until november to get my hands on the last installment - not happy about that at all.

Tried unsuccessfully to make bread ( I have no idea what I did wrong.. lots of things I think and i have ended up with biscuits! and went to the park with the LM to keep trying to teach him to ride his bike and then have a toss of the football. I was a lovely afternoon

What does the weekend have in store for you?

Mojo?

Can't seem to get it together the last couple of days.
Had a wonderful day at Bondi on Sunday and now there are so many things that need to be sorted and organised.

I have a couple of books to finish making for a lovely lady who ordered them, I have one yet to do but just can't find the drive to start it. .... .Also the first of the house inspections/opens is tomorrow so I know I need to organise my craft corner and also the rest of the house, move expensive items (DS and games, computer etc) out of view for my own safety etc, but there is a part of me that just doesn't want to do anything.
I don't want them to view the house and so maybe if I pretend that it isnt' happening it won't???.... LOL yeah the old ostrich thing I know but the world will keep turning even if I don't want it to.

It has started raining here again today too which doesn't help. I am sitting on the lounge with a blanket over my feet and legs.
It was such a lovely day yesterday too I could have had my clothes out on the line but again I spend procrastinating by helping out a friend of mine in the School canteen. I kept saying, oh I will leave after I do this, then after I do recess, oh I might as well help out with lunch etc etc, until I had stayed all day and decided that it was useless to even bother going home after lunch because it was not enough time to do anything.


And today I find myself doing little things like a load of washing, and a quick vacuum, but nothing that "really" needs to be done!

Oh well... off to have lunch, then maybe I will do something productive!

Parenting?

Ok... this one is a bit more of a questions and purge than anythign else.

I realised today that I expect a lot out of my 7 year old, especially since he has been having a few problems with behaviour at school.
Instead of reducing my ideals on his behaviour I seem to be expecting more of him.... Is this normal?

We were out with two other kids today Miss8 and Miss5, sisters. Now Sisters fight and poke and jeer each other, but my LM seemed to want to get involved. Not only in the poking but also in the parenting.... stepping in and telling them to behave.. which I promptly told him not to.

I also found myself holding the other kids by the same rule even thought their mum was with us too. I guess I don't think it' fair if they are able to do things that he isn't ... but at the same time is it really up to me to do that?

I also smacked him in front of the other kids on the beach, unfortunately he didn't have  a shirt on which meant it stung a little more than I meant it too, but he also did the exact thing I had told him not to only minutes before.  Should I have not done that in front of the others, would this have embarrassed him? he didn't cry, though I know it really did hurt but he just walked it off over to the water to wash off the sand. By the time he was back he had sorted himself out.

How do you cope when you are looking after other kids? or when you have other kids with you as well as the parents? What ideals do you hold a single child of 7 up to? what should I expect of him and what is too much?

Week-a-Boo ~ A peek into your weekEND

Oh.. what a weekend!

Saturday was relatively quiet with some basic cleaning needing to be done and then drop off to the school some (a boot load) of things for the white elephant stall they are having at the Fete next weekend.

I can't believe the amount of things they have been donated, so there should be heaps of things available for anyone and everyone next sunday at LPS.

I treated myself to a yummy diner. My KM was at his dads for the night so I went shopping for a couple of necessities, and ended up with feta, olives, etc etc and made a Roast Pumpkin and Rice salad with chicken (stuffed with feta, olive and rocket).

I don't normally cook with such decadence, but because it was just for me and because I knew I didn't have to cook another meal for the kid I knew I could do this just for me.

The left over roast pumpkin and capsicum went into making a pumpkin and chickpea salad for sunday lunch (an easy and simple Gluten Free salad that is a but of a staple around our house in summer.

And that brings us to Sunday. When we were in Bondi last weekend we saw the flyer for the "Festival of the Winds". I have been meaning to go for years and have always been busy or found out it was on too late.
So I immediately send an SMS around to get a group together to head down. In the end I spent most of the day on the beach with Annie and her 2 girls and Will of course. The kites were flying, the sun was shining and in true form Bondi was a multicultural mix of locals, visitors and travelers all revelling in the sun sand and sights of the day!

 I really need to make more of an effort to do these things ... it was a relatively cheap day out, lots of fun, active and the day went so fast!


Oh .. but ops... summer is here... anyone know how to fix this in 4 weeks to wear a strapless dress for my sisters wedding??? Please note the finger prints on my shoulders... yes apparently I did try and put suncream on.

 What did you do this weekend?

Letting go

Over the last couple of days I have realised that I have taken on more that I could handle.

I honestly believed that trying to stand up for my rights as far as the tenancy situation was concerned was a good thing, unfortunately it left me in a more stressful and emotional position. After stressing all last week and spending most of monday morning crying I finally gave in. I have permitted the real estate 2 open houses a week, I will be here when she wanted painters/handymen to fix things and basically agree to anything they want as long as I don't have to move out. I made this decision on monday and felt better about it but still wasn't really letting it go.

Tuesday hit me hard again, thinking I had once again made the wrong decision and that I was letting too much control of the situation go to someone else. so again I spent tuesday morning in tears before straightening myself up to visit a friend and her month old daughter who is so placid and beautiful. It was with her that I realised there was more to life than this crap with the house.
We went on a stroll and came along this beautiful group..... I couldn't believe how this one scene changed my mood... but it as a definate turning point for me .. knowing that the seasons really had changed.

I decided to let it go, but then I started getting calls from the agent organising open times and painters and again i realised I had still not given over control. I was still regreting my decisions and blaming it all on me.

Wednesday was a good friends birthday and I was still feeling very fragile. Had a horrible morning with the LM I think he is definitely reacting to what is happening around us. I was not sure whether I should meet up with her for lunch or not. I didn't want to bring the mood down, but I didn't want to disappoint her  by not showing up either. So I got dressed and got out of the house... which was probably the best thing I could have done. I avoided the situation as long as I could. So dress on, makeup on and with a list of to-do's I got out of the house and started doing some things I had been putting off, because the list seemed insurmountable!

Lunch at Tomodachi sushi train was wonderful, and have a leisurely chat about other things helped too. I gave my dear friend a run down of what had been happening the last couple of weeks and I began to realised its not my fault that the real estate is being difficult, all I can do is try and buy myself some time and hope that whoever buys it doesn't want to live in it, and that I don't have to move any time soon. I lovely Thai massage after dinner got rid of the rest of the stress and tension in my back and butt!

Then I went to my wonderful seamstress friends, laden with some recent purchases that needed some alterations including my bridesmaid's dress for my sisters wedding, and a GF Chocolate cake for dessert (my portion of the dinner ... Yum!), which came after a beautiful home made Shepards pie (crustless).

I don't think the dog, Toby, was very happy about not getting any chocolate cake, so he raided the bun for the packet which got stuck on his head, and then he went back in for the paper that was in the base of the cake tin. Very humorous to watch and I just had to share... I hope this will teach him that bags are not good since he couldn't quite sort out how to get it off!

 After dinner we had an impromptu dancing exhibition from the 2 girls and my son...Some swing dancing and the heal and toe polka also made an appearance though we found it didn't matter how much my LM wanted to dance... if the dog wanted to join in the LM jumped back on the lounge and into the covers of pillows.

It really was a wonderful day and night and I think I can finally say that I have turned the corner on the handing over some control...

Que sera sera!

Week-a-Boo ~ A peek into your weekEND

What a weekend. . . I wanted to share it with you all but how I am too tired to write about it all... then I found this idea on Sunny Mummy's Blog who found it on Paper Scissons Rock.

So take a peak at my WeekEND in pictures ... xoxo

Starting Friday night I picked up my Geelong visitors Jo and Lo from the airport and we stopped in at Newtown for Noodles for dinner and a little window shopping. Then I thought... what the hell lets go for a drive so through newtown to the city, Kings Cross, Paddington and Oxford street and of course the logical progression was BONDI... and of course Bondi never disappoints ... this is what we found at 8pm !

Check out their site on Facebook.. they call themselves the Fire Fairys and apparently get together every now and them to put on a show... the people in the background are from a photography group... would love to see some of their pics these were taken on my phone but still fire on the beach at night is beautiful..... Oh and this is one of the things on my bucket list of life.

NOTE: found the pics  here


Saturday saw my LM head of to his Dads for the day and me heading off to house inspections so the girls hopped on a bus, ferry, and train to Summer Bay (aka Palm beach) for the day what else would avid Home and Away fans do on a day out in Sydney.  Was totally impressed by their happiness and ability to do all this transport on their own (I can't do buses to save myself!)

Saturday afternoon I headed up to Leichhardt Oval to see my LM play with his team in an exhibition game.. was totally impressed with his game, and even more impressed when he was playing again the under 8's (he is in the 7's) and got in a couple of tackles..
I think he was pretty impressed with himself too... especially when he got his trophy for the seasons participation.

After getting him home, showed and packed off to L & T's for the night it was time for the girls to meet back up and get ready for a night out on the time... We scrub up well if I do say so myself...

Dinner at BBQ King, followed by dancing at the Shelbourne Hotel where we met some lovely blokes out on a Bucks night and had a great time dancing... chatting and a few drinks. Then off to Retro Hotel for some more dancing and fun... and to top off the night a look see at Star City Casino... where we tried to learn the rules of Roulette but we were not successful and definitely not confident enough to put any money on the table.

 Oh and then home ..... at 4am!!!!





 
Sunday saw sun instead of rain, a quick trip to pick Will up the T&L's and then drop him to his dad for an afternoon at the Swans match and Us girls were off to the Bondi markets and some Sand and Sun to finish off the weekend of fun..
 

Its amazing how much you see and appreciate when you are being the tour guide...  How beautiful is the Bondi road view of Bondi Surf!!!

I thought I had found some shoes for my sisters wedding and after her approval I tried them on ... But unfortunately they didn't look very nice on frankenfoot so back to the search I go!... But I did buy some georgeous earrings ... I needed some red ones and for $5....... I couldn't go past them!







Some Sushi and a walk along the beach finished up the afternoon

This is the face you get when you are surprised by a wave

Phew... what a wonderful weekend... though I am going to need a month of early nights to get over it!

What did you do?

Down and Out!!!

Am completely out of it today... I am so sick of my life being a constant struggle where the big guys get everything they want and I am just a pawn in their game of life. there has not been many sun-rays in my life the past few days.... in fact the series of pictures shows how this week has been

Two things have escalated to gigantic proportions this week... so much so that i am just about ready to throw my hands in the air, drop every ball, and crawl into bed for the next month! Firstly my mostly well behaved LM has been writing "interesting" notes to one of the kids in his 2nd Grade class (7 and 8 year olds). I have no idea what was in his note but I saw her response which when unfolded halfway had "Will you or won't you" with tick boxes... and on the inside was "Dear (LM) I love you. Will you Sex me. Love (the girl)"

I was devastated when I read it and immediately got out of the car and back into the class room to speak to the teacher and ask her to deal with it.  I asked LM if he had given "the girl" a note at all and he adamantly denied it. The next day "the girl" was questioned and she said LM had written to her. Unfortunately the note couldn't be found so nothing specific could be done but they were both given a warning. THEN while I was in the Canteen at lunchtime the office called me and asked me to see the Principal before I went home. Can I tell you that getting called into the Principals office brought back such emotion and memories none of which were good. So into the office I went after finishing my duties in the canteen, to find my LM sitting there very upset... I thought it was about the letter, but NO! he was in trouble again ..... This time he had dacked himself in the classroom on purpose in front of a female classmate.

UNBELIEVABLE!!! Before you say.. oh he's only a little kid, or he's a boy.... the whole of his class had been spoken to the week before about appropriate behaviour and touching because a few incidents had occurred which needed to be addressed and stopped. ALSO he had shown his privates to some kids on the playground after being asked, a year or so ago and was spoken to severely! SO YES!!! he knew what he did was wrong! inappropriate! and would get him in a whole load of trouble! SO I am trying to figure out what to do with him! Already had a call into the child Psych about some anger issues so just add this one to the list of things we need to discuss. ON another side of life on Monday I was asked by the real estate to reconsider my position of access and inspections leading up to the auction/sale of my current rental home (which I only moved into a 6 weeks ago) I relented and said I would accept every second Wednesday, and every Saturday except for 2 weeks when I will not be home.  I got a phone call this afternoon telling me they still wanted more and that if I didn't give them what they wanted they would take me to the tenancy tribunal. This was a bit of a scare tactic because we all know the cogs of these places run really slowly and we wouldn't get a hearing for a few weeks anyway. I stood my ground and explained my reasons and left it to them to decide. The next thing is an offer to pay my moving costs if I move straight away.... Sure ... except places in this area can be really dodgy and not appropriate for myself and my son. I was looking for almost 12 months to find this house so can't really see anything happening too quickly on that front either. On top of all this I have my sisters wedding in 6 weeks and further surgery on my foot in 7-8 weeks which means plaster for 3 months, and well I am well and truly sick and tired of my life at the moment!

Anyone want to take over for me ... ????????

Pics from   Sunny Skies Here, Lightly cloudy Sky here, Ominously Cloudy Skies here, Thunder sky Here, Tornado sky Here,

Ten on Tuesday

I saw this on another post and thought I would pinch the idea... so here here I go.

10 websites I visit everyday: (and how / why I use them)**

1.  Facebook.... I have my friends, then there are the random people that you loose touch of and get in touch with from this world wide movement!! I also use it to sell my journals via Final Eternity Designs and to check out all the amazing crafty and other talented people across australia 
2. Google Reader- to read all the updates on blogs I am following and to update my Blog with all the happenings of my days.
3. Hotmail - for my private emails and
4. Sunny Mummy  and Sunny Mummy Sisterhood to get my fix of mummy sanity!
5. Yahoo Mail, I use this for competitions so Hotmail isn't completely clogged up, I almost exclusively use it for Freecycle  which is an awesome online recycling group.
6. whereis   for all my getting arounds and sorting out where and how to get places.
7. Google My son has even started telling me constantly when he asks me questions... We'll have to google that... I love it
8. Ebay ... most days... not that I buy much but at the moment but i love to look at whats around and my mum sends me links all the time.
9. Netbank...I use Reliance for my everyday account, and I have a NAB for work and other things
10. Blogger.... for my blog of course!