Lizzie McNuggets

As in, little 'nuggets' of Lizzie's week so far...

We had an exhausting day yesterday. We cleaned, dropped a child off at a birthday party, called in at the supermarket and chemist (drugstore), picked up child, fed the kids lunch, finished getting ready for a work barbecue Hubs and I were to attend that afternoon, had our respite worker (specialised, qualified babysitter we get because of Master J) arrive, left for the work thing, had a couple of ~cough!~ drinks, got home late afternoon, procrastinated about starting dinner, finally started dinner and then ate at 8:30. Long day! (By the way, lest you all think I'm a raging alcoholic, I only ever have two drinks at things like this, spread out over several hours, and we might only go to one function every few months - the rest of the time I don't drink at all).

Hubs had his 'big deal' training at work Thursday and Friday. Those days included lots of physical stuff and he stayed overnight at the training facility. He came home Friday afternoon both mentally and physically EXHAUSTED but with this gleam in his eye. The kids left us alone long enough for he and I to have a good discussion about what he'd done and you could tell that despite the tiring nature, he absolutely loved it. He now moves into a lecture phase of sorts. So proud of him. He finishes up right before Christmas.

Those same days, boy, was I a pocketful of energy! I threw my course books in a bag and hit the shopping centre. I know, it sounds counter-productive, LOL. I'll explain. Sometimes when I'm home, even if I'm alone, I get so distracted by the 'homey' things that need to be done that I'm often up and down all day long, a very stop-and-start study approach that means my 'flow' gets interrupted and I don't generally get as much down on paper. So I'll often jump on the bus and head to the shopping centre. I'll find a cafe (I have a couple of favourites) or I'll hit the food court, and find myself a secluded table. I'll order a cup of tea and something small to eat. And I'll zone out completely. Usually the iPod gets fired up and it's amazing how much you can get done in a short period of time. Thursday alone, I was amazed. I handwrote (takes longer!) 2 full assignments and made a start on a third. These are supposed to take a week (part time) for each one. Then Friday I finished that third one up (wasn't able to sustain same level of concentration for some reason). Three assignments in two days is awesome. They still need to be transcribed, but I'm confident I hit the mark. Today I hope to have another done and pretty much one per day till Thursday, my last day to post things in. Eeek.

Miss Moo got into big trouble at school on Thursday. Apparently she and her best friend play a game that includes (mutual!) rough-housing and calling of names. Hmmm. Miss Moo's indiscretion was to hit her friend over the head with her water bottle, causing the poor child to cry. She spent lunchtime sitting on the blue spot in the playground (they have painted red and blue spots dotted sporadically through the school, near the perimetre of buildings, about the size of a dinner plate). The idea is, when a child misbehaves, they have to sit still (torture for small children) on the nearest spot. It actually works pretty well. Anyway, Miss Moo spent the entire lunch play period sitting still as her punishment. I didn't hear about this until I went to pick her up, and the teacher cornered me. In my head I was saying to myself, "I don't want to be THAT mother whose child has no friends and doesn't get invited to birthday parties because she forgets school is not home and other kids are not her brothers!" Not that we let her hit her brothers, LOL, but growing up with two rough-housing brothers gives her a share of a 'tad more physical' nature. She loves to wrestle with Daddy, same as the boys do :)

I had a very stern talk to her that night and made her sit down and write an apology letter to her friend (okay, so she dictated and I wrote, but...) and draw her a picture. We gave this to the little girl in the morning and I also made her re-apologize in person. We also erased three ticks from her Values Chart (scroll down a bit for chart example). I think she got the message. She wasn't being malicious when she socked her friend, she just thought she was playing a game, but totally wrong either way. The game? Banned, with severe consequences if we hear they've been playing it again. The names they were calling each other? "Frog." Yeah, frog. It's hard core when you're five, LOL.

Busy week, lots of dramas, but productive. I'm off to throw on some laundry (three more weeks of the regular school year left...phew) and to what else? Study.

Cheers,
Lizzie