May 23, 2006
May 14, 2006
February 25, 2006
Mothering dilemma: am I being a food Nazi?
I usually make DD’s school lunch. A couple of sandwiches, a piece of fresh fruit and something else – some cheese, dried fruit, a muffin, maybe some chocolate covered whatevers. Preferably something healthy but it doesn’t have to be macrobiotic Pritikin-inspired vegan goodness. It doesn’t even have to be vegetarian even though I am a vegetarian myself. DD had a run of liverwurst sandwiches because I felt it was something she should at least try.
DD has been dying to buy something at the canteen. Its a big thing for a not quite 5 year old Transition girl and last week I gave her enough change that she could buy a treat on top of whatever else was in her lunchbox. She bought noodles and an icy cup and still ate her sandwich and fruit so all was well.
So on Friday when I realised that I was not as organised as I had hoped and there wasn’t much that was interesting in the fridge AND it was the day after Payday, I though I would let Hanna buy her lunch. I have the list of canteen goodies here so we went through it. I did the great “You need to have a sandwich or roll and a piece of fruit” and we discussed the different fillings. So Hanna wanted an egg sandwich and fruit and cake. I was happy for her to spend up to $5 so she could add to that if she wished.
So I found an envelope, wrote her name on it, and wrote on it what we had decided on and put the money in. Before I kissed her goodbye I reminded her she needed to have a sandwich and a piece of fruit. You can’t do too much brainwashing about these things.
At school, she bowled up to the teacher [a different one than usual] and showed her the envelope as the teachers collect the lunch money. Now I made the assumption that there was some kind of order system. I should learn not to do that.
So fast forward to afterschool care and Hanna shows me a sticker she got out of a packet of Kettle chips. OK, she bought chips for the treat part of her lunch. I’m not going to fault that especially as I did exactly the same thing that day. First time in months but when the urge comes on for salt and vinegar chips, it needs to be followed.
So I ask her if she liked her sandwich and what kind of fruit she had. She didn’t have any.
Excuse me?
Yep, she didn’t have the carefully planned sandwich, the piece of fruit and everything else as extras. She bought a bag of chips and JUST a packet of chips.
Bloody hell. And it was the one day that the kids were not given their communication books back and I really, really wanted to ask about how the lunch system operates as obviously I’ve got it all wrong. So Hanna won’t be allowed to have bought lunches because she is too young to be responsible [and that's not her fault, she is just a kid] and I can’t trust what she orders. But I won’t have her eating crap food and running out of steam in the afternoons. That’s what happened to her Dad because his Mum thought that he was big enough to make his own breakfast and could be trusted with buying his lunch. The reality is that he rarely ate breakfast, used to buy lollies with his lunch money and run out of steam by mid-morning and couldn’t think because his brain did not have the right nutrients passing through it.
So I’ll be asking how the system works in great detail.
To top it off when I asked Hanna where her change was, knowing she should have had about $3.70, she went rushing over to the table and then came back all upset because her money had disappeared. My sweet naive young miss found out the hard way that you can’t leave money lying around. So she copped a mini-lecture on putting money away in her schoolbag.
January 14, 2006
Someone else’s blog…
I have to take an interest in this woman. I freaked out a mutual American friend because the handwriting on my Christmas card is apparently very similar to hers. Enough to wonder whether her British friend was playing a joke on her.
And I like the way she writes too.
January 13, 2006
January 8, 2006
Oh, the guilt, the guilt…
Secrets of organized families: Insider strategies for getting your house in order
I still think the best thing in the organization/GTD world is Flylady but this one is worth reading. It has some good ideas.
December 27, 2005
Fighting the war against…Barbie
I have a 4 year old daughter that I have tried to raise in a reasonably gender-neutral kind of way. I’ve read the feminist tomes and I own more than a few dealing with the chestnuts of body image. I have made sure that the little bit of TV she does watch is good old Aunty [Australian Broadcasting Corporation] because there are no ads and they make an effort to have good children’s TV programming.
As a result she still has no idea what the McDonalds arches represent. I’m actually quite proud of that. Her idea of fast food is “fish and chips” and pizza which comes from the locally owned Chinese takeaway in the next suburb.
She also has a mother who has refused to buy any US owned products unless absolutely desperate ever since President Bush started building up momentum towards an invasion of Iraq. And given that her mother has some mighty obsessional traits, that has meant a huge boost to the Australian owned economy.
So when Hanna suddenly started coming home from childcare with “I love Barbie” scrawled over her delightful drawings…well, what do you do? Apart from fervently hope that it is a stage she will outgrow sooner not later.
And the hot fashion trend amongst the 4 year old set is…Barbie pink. What is really funny is that Hanna actually suits that colour. She looks fantastic in pink. Pity there is so much of it around.
Well, she isn’t going to ever get a Barbie from me. She’s not going to get any Mattel products from me. Family were warned years ago not to do the Barbie thing. The rank commercialism of a product that tells you how to play, promotes consumerism [Barbie and her credit card], fails to recognise ethnic diversity [ever seen an Asian Barbie?] and reinforces the white dominant culture and the priviledge that goes with it If one does slip past I will be getting her a Feral Cheryl doll and the Barbie will be banished to Dad’s place although the wheelie bin would be preferred. What is it with little girl’s fascination with blonde haired plastic with big tits and unrealistically long legs? It’s not as though Barbie looks like my olive skinned part Polynesian girl with her muscular athletic frame. Barbie doesn’t even look like her best friend Shirlee who is of Indian descent and even darker than Hanna. She also looks great in pink and is also Barbie obsessed.
I did get her a somewhat Barbie-ish doll for Christmas. Yes, it has blonde hair. Yes it comes complete with cool boat and dolphin rescue sling for the wonderfully talented vet on board. The body shape is much more realistic. Good enough to satisfy Hanna. It also has some of the profit going towards the RSPCA. Suits me.
I have given in with the Barbie videos. They are not too bad if you go for saccharin-sweet pink fantasy adventure . As long as they are hire only from the video shop. If she wants a DVD then she can have Mulan instead when she actually wants me to buy one.
December 22, 2005
Marking time
Its 2:27 am and I’m attempting to write in the important dates for 2006 on my new calendar. It’s rather nice transferring those dates that can be transferred and putting reminder notes in to watch out for various local events. And the kid in me has an opportunity to come out because this calendar has stickers. Lots of glorious stickers. Particularly since I got wise and bought extras AND there were a few left over from 2005.
These stickers are relevant to our life. I have over 60 “Sports” stickers but I need every one. Even with preschoolers. Even if we don’t do the kindergym thing next year there will be something to replace it. I will be sailing again so I need to be able to mark in those Topper Challenges. I need to add the ex-DH because I need him to babysit. We may not live together anymore but I’m dreaming if I think I don’t need to know his yoga and sea kayaking timetable. Then there are the “Dr”, “Dentist”, “Vet” and “Car Maintenance” stickers. The scary ones that cost money. Did I mention “Birthday”?
And there is a batch of new ones too: “Meeting”, “Service/Delivery”, “Hair Appointment”.
The school related ones.
And there is “volunteer”. At last a calendar with a sense of community mindedness.
“Dad’s Time” gets added to “Mom’s Time”.
And it puts a month over two pages. I love those big squares. I don’t need pretty pictures, I need organisation.
So what is this Wonder Calendar?
It is the More Times Moms Family Organizer Calendar from More Time Moms.
Yes, its Canadian. Yes, I ordered it from Canada because I couldn’t find a decent Australasian calendar with the features I love. I initially got this as a Flylady [www.flylady.net] package. She moved onto her own calendar.I love this one. I use this one. We all use this one – the stars on the last one were great motivation for a dry bed from a certain 4 year old.
It has pride of place in the one spot where everyone is guaranteed to read it. No, not the fridge. The toilet.
Anyway, time to end this post. I can hear a rather loud “MAAAA-MAAAA” coming closer and closer. Patrick is awake and out of bed again and I can hear him say “Juice”. The cold he has is a real bugger. Time to make sure that the Meister is not creating havoc in the kitchen and that the fridge door stays closed. He can open that fridge and look at its contents for hours…
But that’s fodder for another post…
