As any parent knows, parenting is hard – really hard sometimes.

There’s moments when you can’t say anything right and your child goes off at you for not understanding him. And this is a pre-adolescent. God help me when he’s actually an adolescent.

You just want to laugh at how ridiculous they’re being but you can’t because that sets them off even more. So you just take in deep breaths and try to act calmly because you know that if you get hysterical like they’re being, then things really will spiral out of control.

He comes to talk to you in a little moment of calmness and you say the wrong thing again. Out he storms, bangs the door and things are back to yuck.

You just remind yourself that parenting is bloody hard, continue on with getting dinner ready and reward yourself with some alcohol while preparing dinner. And you know that they will eventually go to bed although because it’s so damn hot it will take a while for them to actually go to sleep and you hope like hell that this doesn’t make them even grumpier the next evening.

It’s like treading a very fine line. You wonder if that class you started on a Tuesday night is pushing things when you realise that he starts back at school next week and he’ll have his Wednesday evening commitments as well. That’s two nights out of the week gone and this doesn’t even include sport and social stuff.

Oh well. You brush that aside and decide to deal with that when and if the shit hits the fan.

But then there’s moments like this and you realise that there might be some light at the end of the tunnel after all.

You’re at the beach and you’ve had a swim and you’re lying on the towel relaxing. You watch your offspring in the water having a great time and your friend calls him a dolphin because he loves the water so much.

Then he decides to get out of the water  and gets you to help him spread out his towel next to you. He lies down next to you and says that this is the first time ever that he’s come out of the water and just relaxed on his towel instead of running around like a moron (his word).

You realise that he is gradually growing up and observing his own behaviour and that all that work you’ve done as a parent is maybe working after all.

You enjoy this moment while you can because you know it might be fleeting. And sure enough it is. You’re soon being annoyed by the previously calm child as he hops around on your towel with sandy feet and dripping wet body and ignoring your requests for him to move.

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JJ brought home his group’s plan the night before and a list of things he had to take.

It included food colouring and sand monsters (aka plastic dinosaurs).

I knew as I handed over the blue food colouring that something would happen but as a parent, I thought, I’ve got to trust him don’t I? I can’t even remember what the food colouring was supposed to be used for and as I had to work I couldn’t witness the sandcastle creations.

I arrived at after school care to pick him up and this is what I saw!

I ‘calmly’ asked what had happened and didn’t outwardly didn’t over-react while inside I was thinking ‘what the hell’. Apparently another kid had taken a bottle of blue food colouring as well and the lids had gotten mixed up. JJ put his bottle with the loose lid into his board shorts and it leaked all over his shorts and his leg.

Something like this would only happen to him.

He was more worried about my reaction to losing all the food colouring. He obviously didn’t realise that I might be more worried about removing blue from everything.

Trying to think of the positives, Iwas glad he didn’t put it in his school bag.

He didn’t argue with me when I asked him to have a shower that evening, and luckily I was able to wash  the blue out of everything.

Oh, and his group won the sandcastle competition. It wasn’t the blue food colouring that gave them the edge either, it was the ‘sand monsters’.

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JJ’s been learning to play piano for half a year now and his teacher organised the obligatory end of year concert for her students.

I’ve been to primary school aged piano concerts before and they’re usually as boring as all get-out until your child plays in one, then you’re all excited to go.

Well I was.

He’s always been very self-conscious about being required to perform in public even though he’s taken part in various school concerts and events. I thought he might like to join the choir but he was too embarrassed.

So when he told me about the piano concert he said he didn’t want to play because he thought it was going to be in front of the whole school. However, he found out it was only going to be for the piano students and their families so he ummed and aaahed over it for a while.

It wasn’t until the day before the concert that I got a text from his teacher saying that he would perform. I was really excited because I knew this was a big step for him.

A friend (shown above) was somehow allowed to come which was only annoying because they kept talking to each other despite me telling them to be quiet more than once, twice etc!

His teacher accompanied him and he did stuff up at the beginning and do a bit of a giggle but he pulled himself together and played his one short piece.

He won’t let me publish the video I took. I will keep it and show it to him in a year or so to show him the difference. And it will be good fodder to drag out for anyone who cares when he’s a well-known musician.

I was really proud of him, and of all the other kids who got up and had a go, two of whom played original pieces.

© Jen for Semantically driven, 2011. | Permalink | 6 comments

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Friday, 7 October 2011, Day 318/365.

I had a great time in Melbourne a month ago previewing a new game (Skylanders) but this new game doesn’t have a playstation 2 version which is the console we have so I bit the bullet and bought an XBOX360.

I found it hard to buy without the Kinect bit as this is bundled with the console in many shops and we just don’t have the room to play Kinect so it’s not worth it. I could have bought the console by itself but thought I may as well get some games with it but the two games that it came with were both rated MA15+, therefore no good for my ten year old son.

Luckily we were able to choose two other more suitable games from the two for $40 section, so nothing too fabulous but JJ picked a couple of games he will play.

I had a look around at the other XBOX games and they seem to cater for the older male, ie older than JJ. Where are the games for women? Am I missing something? Not that I will play on it heaps but if there’s something good then I will have a crack. I will play the new Skylanders game, and already have as we received it yesterday.

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Remember doing one of these at school? I kind of vaguely do.

There’s probably a proper name for it. I’ve no idea what it is, but I like the effect that the straight lines make.

It was my son’s homework one night and I think he enjoyed doing it.

© Jen for Semantically driven, 2011. | Permalink | One comment

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Tuesday, 20 September 2011, Day 301/365.

I have to admit that when I take JJ out to an adult thing he’s usually pretty good. I mostly let him take his DS just incase he needs to entertain himself but he doesn’t always use it.

I do get the “I’m bored”, “I want to go home” whines sometimes but usually he’s excellent.

Last Tuesday we went to a friend’s going away and as it was an evening thing I only planned to stay for a little while so I could get him home to bed at a reasonable hour. If I didn’t take him it would mean not going, or organising childcare for a few hours which is probably more disruptive sometimes.

He knew most of my friends who were there so was able to chat to them. There was a piano at this place and as I’ve shared before, he’s been learning piano.

After we’d been there for about an hour he asked me if he could play the piano. I said to ask the owner and she said it was fine so off he went. The piano was upstairs and most of us were downstairs.

As I said he’s only been learning the piano for a few weeks but he’s got a couple of tunes he’s memorised and a friend showed him an easy one which he’s since played every day.

It was great to see him do this of his own accord and get off the hand-held game. And he enjoyed himself.

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Saturday, 10 September 2011, Day 291/365.

This photo will be used one day to show my son that he used to volunteer to wash up. This wasn’t one of those times but he’s still at the stage where he likes to wash up.

No doubt, one day, he won’t.

Sunday, 11 September 2011, Day 292/365.

We went to see a friend’s dad’s band – a jazz band. JJ asked my friend (and his) to dance and she did. I knew she would when I suggested it.

However, I was a little bit surprised he did it because he’s a bit shy when it comes to stuff like that. He won’t join the school choir because he feels so self-conscious about singing in front of people yet he constantly sings in front of me.

I know it’s just over a week since the 10 year anniversity of ’9/11′ but I remember where I was when I first heard about it.

JJ was only three months old and he was still having night feeds so I’d got up a bit after midnight to feed him and as usual, turned on the tv. Instead of my late night tv diet of Star Trek I watched planes crash into the two towers over and over and over again.

Like everyone, I was horrified and couldn’t believe it.

Finally after sitting there for two hours, long after I’d put JJ back to bed, my new mother’s need of having her sleep took over. Plus nothing new was being reported so I was watching the same footage and commentary again and again.

As soon as I got up in the morning I turned on the tv again almost expecting a full-scale world war to have broken out. Luckily it didn’t go that far.

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Tuesday, 23 August 2011, Day 273/365.

I don’t remember having that much homework to do in primary school. Have I just blotted it from my memory? I know we had some bits and pieces to do but I don’t remember having to do that much.

My son just about always has something to do and the end of the day after we get home is the worst time for him to have work to do.

I wish they’d make him do it after school care but it’s probably good that it stays a fun place to be rather than a place that he has to do his work.

He’s tired by the time we get home from after school care and work and of course I have a multitude of things to do. And these are the nights when we don’t have other commitments like cub scouts or something else.

Somehow it mostly ends up being done but I don’t stress about it. Hopefully it’s teaching him some good habits for when he really will have to knuckle down and do some study later on in his schooling life.

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Sunday, 21 August 2011, Day 271/365.

We’ve been having some lovely weather here considering it’s the tail end of winter. I remember August as still being fairly cold but it’s been more like spring weather.

This has meant good walking weather along the beach and it’s meant I’ve dug out my thongs (flip-flops) to wear instead of shoes.

However, JJ decided to wear boardshorts and get into the water last weekend. I couldn’t believe that he immersed himself and went swimming. He didn’t even have a towel to dry off but then because the sun was shining and because he was constantly moving he didn’t really need a towel.

Near where The Surfer lives, the Onkaparinga River goes out into the sea and when the tide is going out it means there’s a great current in the river so the water moves you along – a bit like the lazy river in Waterbom Park in Kuta. JJ did this at least twice and he stated more than once that the water was warm. Rubbish.

I enjoyed watching him splash about and have a great time though.

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Thursday, 18 August 2011, Day 268/365.

My mates playing in their band. Yes, the lead singer is wearing flanellette pajamas. They’ve been slightly altered to be a bit of a groovy jumpsuit.

This was a Thursday night as the date above suggests which is a rare night for me to be out and about childfree but very liberating.

Although after dropping him off beforehand, then picking him up in the morning, dropping him off at school then heading off to work I was quite tired. This takes mighty organisation skills.

And I did it all again the next night. Stay posted.

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