Lucky in Oz

First / Last

Well, almost anyway. Next Friday is actually the last day of school and I took the photo on the right yesterday ... I can't imagine she'll age dramatically in the next week. So, here we go:

Day 1, grade 1 on the left. Day nearly-last, grade 1 on the right. February 09; December 09. We got new summer uniforms at our school. And she lost some teeth (oh my god, I sooo love the 7-y-o smile!). She also looks, somehow, more confident? Something? Anyway. Wow, she's officially entering big kid territory. Sniff.

For reference, here is Kindergarten's First / Last post. (That would be Kindergarten in Seattle, not to be confused with Prep in Melbourne - of which she did just one term last year when we arrived - or with Kinder here, which is equiv to pre-k there. Ok, gotta go. My head is exploding.)
 

"I need a bigger cauldron."

Aussies don't do full-on American-style trick-or-treating, for the most part. You get the one-offs here and there, apparently ... but if you really want to get a decent return, you need to organise your neighborhood. Which is what friends did in Carnegie - they do a letterbox drop of a flier and balloon ahead of time and anyone that wants to participate and hand out candy puts the balloon out on their front gate. So we headed over there. It was bright and sunny at 5 PM and about 80 degrees. It was grand - it is a pretty neighborhood (nice early deco houses and lots of trees) and a LOT of houses had balloons up! Kid was a very classic wicked witch (having watched the Wizard of Oz for the first time a few weeks ago). She told me I was trying to kill her when I told her she needed a bath - then cracked up at her own joke: "get it! witched melt when they get wet! get it! hahaha!" She picked the medium size cauldron when we got her outfit and accessories at Spotlight ... and was rethinking her decision about an hour into the gig. My FB status update was: "you know you're trick-or-treating in Australia when you get eucalyptus candy ..."

 

Some people eat it ...

So, in the spirit of relying less on FB, due to the, ah, current situation ...

Here's a cute story ... the sort of thing I would normally post as a status update to share with my +/- 200 FB friends (who probably think I've blocked them ... ack ... ). Since I HAVE NOT BEEN ABLE TO ACCESS FB FOR 8 FREAKING DAYS I'll instead share it here, for both of my blog readers to enjoy.

Kid loves hearing the part of the story of her being born when we realized she was a girl and how over the moon we all were. Yesterday as I was fixing dinner, appropos of nothing, she said: "When I was born? And I had just come out? And I was still all slimy and covered with polenta ... "

(HAHAHAHA! I was just laughing here all by myself as I typed it!)

My back was turned to her when she was asking and I was rummaging in the fridge, so I just kind of silently exploded while she went on to ask if I cried from happiness when we realized she was a girl. (I said yes. Just in case she does any fact checking.) Polenta. Good god.

Frustrating Reality Check

I am one of thousands that has been facing this:  
for the past week when I try to log on to FB. Yes, an entire frigging week. Lesson 1: FB has no business continuity plan, proactive customer service or complaints management process - judging by my own experience in emailing their "help" (hahahaha) desk and by the chatter in other parts of the internets. For the first few days the message said it would be fixed "in a few hours" ...

Now, I am not someone who depends on FB for advertising a business or anything critical like that. But, as an expat living half a world away from many friends and all family, it is a bit of a web 2.0 lifeline. Pathetic? Maybe. But there you have it. Actually, FB had largely filled the space that this blog was meant for - and yes the blog was suffering inattention *hanging head in shame*. But everyone who ever came here to see which teeth Kid was losing or what I was making for dinner or where we had been camping could see it on FB so I was just putting shit there instead. Makes me now realize that perhaps I should come back here, to good ole Typepad with the more crucial newsy bits instead ... I mean, who really gives a rats ass if it rained after I hung out the wash (a typical FB status update) ... but when I have a gem like this: 
I think I need to put it here, which has proven over the years to be virtually unaffected by service disruptions, etc. (That would be Lesson 2.)

NSW Trip

Ok, this is purely for documentation and mostly just a placeholder - I'll add links and photos and such later (probably). We left on Friday a.m. (the dawn patrol, as my dad would have said) to fly to Newcastle, NSW (north of Sydney). From there:

• Snack in a cafe in Cessnock
• Hunter Valley Zoo - petted roos, wallabies, and saw various other marsupials and other native fauna
• Lunch and playground at Hunter Valley Gardens
• (Sadly, no wine tasting in perhaps the preeminent wine region in the country. Alas.)
• Horse riding at Hunter Valley Horse Riding & Adventures - Kid rode her own HORSE (not pony), with no lead rope and we trotted a lot. And we saw roos.
• Headed to Terry and Irene's [sheepless] rural sheep station. Whilst there we saw more roos, tons of kookaburras, a couple of dragon / lizard thingies and the practically tame possum that comes to the veranda for snacks, who let Kid pet it.
• Oh, at Kid's suggestion, we also had lunch floating about on a raft in their pond - it was about 22 and sunny. Nice!
• Checked out Tea Gardens and Hawksbury and the [gorgeous] beach.
• Had a nice lunch at Nichole's in Tea Gardens. (Aussies do great salads. I had roasted sweet potato, rocket, feta and pine nuts.)
• They dropped me off at the train station and I got on the train down to Sydney. Parts of the ride were truly spectacular (like, I really didn't know that there were parts of Oz that were THAT beautiful) - i.e. around Woy Woy.

And now, I am here in the Travelodge on a work / consulting gig in North Ryde Sydney and Kid and Guy are back home in Melbourne.

Wishlist Time Capsule

I was perusing my Amazon wishlist ... come to realize that I have stuff on there from literally YEARS ago, such as:

• "The Lobster Kids' Guide to Exploring Seattle" by Shelley Arenas

• "Where Is Baby's Belly Button?" by Karen Katz

• "More More More, Said the Baby" by Vera B. Williams

... also, a bunch of CDs for the preschool set, including a Barney compilation. Kid was a HUGE Barney fan. If you'd have told me 8 years ago that I was going to get pregnant and give birth to a future Barney Fan Club president I'd have crossed my legs against the eventuality. But once I put my bias aside and realized that Barney is all about make believe ... and could keep said baby happy and entertained for multiple 30-minute episodes, I embraced the big purple lug.

Who knew that getting online to buy "Value Stream Mapping for the Office" would turn out to be so sentimental!

Quotes from School Interviews Today

Here we call parent / teacher conferences "interviews" and having just finished half of grade one, we had ours today with Kid's teacher (and her Japanese teacher). Some memorable quotes:

• Delightful child

• Very conscientious

• Almost a goody-goody

• Has a great time with her friends

• REALLY pays attention to stories

• A great reader

• Very good pronunciation - that's why I gave her such a big part in the production [about a giant turnip ... performed last term in the library during Friday assembly]

• I'm not supposed to compare the children, but she is one of the best ...

Apparently, she now knows enough Japanese characters that she is onto reading. The take-home books that they use in Prep for learning to read English? They have a set of the same books (same stories & illustrations) in Japanese. How cool is that?!

Bracing Myself

I keep a Word document of some of the comments I make on other blogs - for posting fodder here. Here's one I wrote on the subject of sleepovers / when they start:

In our circle, sleepover parties started in Kindergarten. Most kids invited stayed over, a few went home. No biggie. At my daughter's 6th birthday, only one of the boys that was invited decided to sleep over, with 6 girls. (I emailed his parents the photo of him crashed out on the basement playroom floor surrounded by his lady friends in their Hello Kitty Barbie Princess sleeping bags. That'll come in handy at some point.) IMO, this is the easiest age for sleepovers because they are too little to think of much nefarious mischief plus they are still young enough that they actually SLEEP.

So ... ask me on Sunday if I want to eat those words ...

So grown up ... and still so credulous.

We hinted to Kid that she might make out better in the birthday gift department if she cleared out her stuff a bit. (This sounds mean, now that I'm typing it. But the reality is that she has a lot of crap that doesn't even quality as toys (detritus she collects like receipts, string, origami paper, conference tchotchkes – padfolios, lanyards, etc. ... ) and if we're going to buy her stuff for her birthday, she needs to toss some of the crap to make room for the good stuff! ) Well, she has embraced this activity with a fervor - I'm guessing that she assumes there is a ratio of stuff tossed : potential new stuff to take its place. She came in an announced she is getting rid of her shopping cart. I pushed back – she plays with it every day! She said it is babyish. I reminded her how often she plays with it. I said maybe to hold off for a few months and see how she feels then – like, until Christmas. And she nodded and said ok ... and she added "maybe Santa can give it to someone else." She's too old to play with it, but still little enough to think Santa can pass it on. My heart breaks a little at times like this – realizing that she is on the precipice of little / big kid. (This happens a lot when I am clothes shopping for her lately – she is between departments! Little kids clothes are up to size 6. Size 7 and up looks way too teenager-ish for her.) Then she said maybe he can give it to someone who can't afford nice toys. Bless! So sweet sometimes. I must remember these moments when she is sassing me in her [frankly, more common] 6-going-on-16 state.

Groove

Here's a little somthin somethin to entertain you whilst I finish uploading photos from the Boston trip / wedding. I had just finished loading an iPod for her to take on the trip. Before you get all "who gives a 6-year-old-an-iPod?!" on me ... Note: it was my 1G Shuffle and I had decided it SUCKED for listening to audiobooks - which is pretty much all I use an MP3 player for. So, I got myself a Creative Zen (LOVE it) and gave her the sucky iPod ... which has proven to be at least as entertaining to us as it is to her. To wit: