Last week was a great week with going to see musicians who’ve been around for a long time. Firstly it was AC/DC on Tuesday evening. I had trouble remembering the last stadium type concert I went to, not including things like The Big Day Out and Womadelaide. Maybe it was Madonna in 1993?

Anyway, AC/DC it was. I was extremely lucky to be taken along by a gorgeous man and I enjoyed it thoroughly. My son was worried about the beating my ear drums might take but it wasn’t too loud. Probably something to do with the nearby North Adelaide residents complaining? I don’t know. A colleague who lives in North Adelaide said she could hear a bit of bass and the crowd singing along more than anything.

We had trouble finding what gate to go in as the one that was on our tickets wasn’t signposted at all. Just about everyone else seemed to be lining up for the main gate and that would have taken quite some time to get through. When we did eventually find our entrance we spent the next 15 minutes waiting to buy merchandise because the woman in front of us couldn’t decide what type of tank top to get in what size.

Then we went to go onto oval and found out that you needed a wristband for that but we hadn’t had the option of getting one at the gate we entered by so had to trot over to the main gate to get it.

We were pretty much in the middle of Adelaide oval so I couldn’t see that much on stage and there’s always someone at least a head taller standing in front of me at these things. Thank goodness for the big screens. Angus was just superb. I’ve never seen such guitar playing. Considering their ages they all do a really good job. My only beef was that they didn’t sing Long Way to the Top.

Despite 42,000 people plus leaving the venue afterwards it wasn’t too hard to get home. We’d caught the tram in and after helping a bloke off the side of the road who’d crashed out with half his body on the road, we caught a tram that was full of other concert goers. It was a really good vibe and I’m so glad I went.

A few days after that Tom Jones was on the menu. A friend who was working at the gig organised a bunch of free tickets which I happened to hear about. Another friend organised the bus so about 30 of us hopped on the Tom Jones express for a two hour drive to the Barossa Valley to see Tom Jones.

It poured with rain on the drive down and kudos to our bus driver for getting us there and back on the creaky bus in one piece. Fortunately the rain didn’t persist and it only rained for a short while after we arrived.

There was seating out in a fan shape in front of the stage which meant us general admission people had a small space at the side to view Tom but it wasn’t too crowded and we still got a good view and we were able to boogie, unlike the seated people who were told off by security if they stood up. Why pay extra for a seat I wonder?

All too soon it was over and we had a two hour bus trip going home. After drinking beers on the way there and red wine at the concert, I had a bit of a headache so closed my eyes and rested most of the way home. I wasn’t alone there.

So early the next afternoon we went to pick up my son from his friend’s house. He’d been absolutely wonderful there which is great for me when I want to ask them again to have him. But on the way to the beach to walk us and the dog he was mister grumpy pants and continued to sulk for the whole walk on the beach. I guess coming home to mum after having a fabulous time at his friends was an anti-climax, but still it brought me down off my Tom Jones high that’s for sure.

The photo above is of him walking ahead of us on the beach and you can see the storm clouds in the distance. Those clouds kind of suited his mood.

Tonight he has another sleepover booked – March is a busy time for socialising here – and he was the best behaved JJ I’ve ever seen. He was helpful, thoughtful and just plain lovely. I told him that I much prefer that JJ to the grumpy one I witnessed on Sunday. Not sure that he’ll remember that – I’m sure I’m in for more grumpiness but a girl can live in hope.

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After a particularly late and overindulgent night out at an Elvis party I drove us up to the foothills to see our cousins baby rats. I knew of their existence thanks to Facebook and commented that JJ would love to see them. It was so arranged and off we went. Remember that I was feeling quite tired and a little bit seedy and he was lucky I didn’t cancel and just stay in front of the tv or lie in bed.

Once we got there, however, it was good to see the baby rats. They hadn’t quite opened their eyes yet and all they do is sleep on top of each other and feed.

Their mum and her mate were quite cute too and very inquisitive. This one loved my camera case.

JJ loved observing them and holding them and didn’t hassle me as much as I thought he might to take one or two home. I’ve nothing against pet rats, I just don’t want any more responsibility for living creatures. And I don’t know how Monty would take it.

Once these little ones are old enough they’ll go back to the pet shop. Lots of people must have rats as pets.

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JJ still continues to really enjoy cub scouts and the other night they went on a fishing excursion. I realised a few days beforehand that our $7 fishing rod was broken so with a borrowed fishing rod off we went.

The aim was to have a bit of fun and to earn a badge so with a bit of extra homework JJ has to do hopefully he will have earned his first badge. I’m not a very pushy scout mum when it comes to badge earning.

Fishing doesn’t really do it for me but I must admit it was lovely to spend a warm evening down by the beach. I wish I’d taken my bathers to go in for a dip though – a bit further down from the fishing crowd of course.

Even Scout Larry came along and enjoyed himself despite being tied up.

I even had a bit of a go at casting out myself and all of them were at an angle.

While observing JJ I could see how at peace he was while standing there holding his fishing rod. Looking at him be at peace made me realise what the fishing fascination is with so many people. I’m kind of getting it.

Unfortunately we didn’t catch anything but them’s the breaks.

Even though all he wants is money to buy electronic games for his birthday I reckon a fishing rod would be just the ticket too.

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I keep telling him it’s really unlikely that he ever will be kidnapped but he obviously thinks about it a great deal.

Last night he woke me up by telling me he’d just had a nightmare. He was pretty distressed and even though my sleeping has been abominable over the last few nights due to the heat I asked him what he’d dreamt about. He told me that he’d been kidnapped and that Nana and Pop had been killed. I don’t think the two events were related but he was pretty upset.

He hopped onto my bed (not into because it was too hot to worry about bedclothes last night) and we had a hug while I tried to reassure him. After some reassurance I was able to send him back to his own bed and he was fine for the rest of the night.

Because he’s worried about kidnapping I wondered if other kids fear the same thing, and sure enough, they do.

I found a couple of articles that talk about children’s fears and strategies for dealing with them.

• Dealing with children’s fears
• Children’s fears and phobias

Just as well we’re not Haitians – child kidnapping is rife there at present.

Luckily he’s not too afraid that it’s completely debilitating, but his fear is there just the same. What are your kids afraid of?

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They have a bunch of blocks that are perfect for climbing and jumping on.

JJ climbed up on them easily enough.

But then he needed my help to go from one to the other. I held his hand for a little while as he got more comfortable with the process.

Then he started doing it by himself – hesitating at first.

Then he got quite comfortable and more confident and went on the slightly higher blocks and got much faster going from block to block. As a mum, I put my visions of seeing him fall inbetween the blocks and banging his head and having to accompany him to hospital in the ambulance aside, and let him go for it.

That’s my boy, getting more self-confidence all round. Can’t remember if I mentioned that he got put up a level in his swimming classes this summer. He initially didn’t want to go up a level, and no amount of persuading on my part made a difference. He had to make up his own mind to do it and in his own time. He went up the level and did very well, except for the infection he’s now got in his ear!

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We are in the middle of our holidays and in full holiday mode. We’ve had time to relax, Christmas and New Year are now over and all we really have to worry about is hot weather. As we are now at the beginning of yet another heatwave – we have three days of 41 degrees coming up – I thought we’d better get out and about before this hot weather hits.

So the other day we headed off into town on the tram to have some lunch and browse around the art gallery and the museum to get some cultcha you know, and to drag the child away from his DSi.

As soon as we walked into the first gallery in the art gallery JJ informed me that he was quite bored and asked when we were leaving. The colonial art didn’t really interest me – I’ve discovered I’m more of a modern art girl. Although I did start a bit of a game to try and find the oldest piece of art and we found some from Italy that was about 600 years old which I found interesting too.

I therefore didn’t bother paying to see the John Brack exhibition as it wouldn’t have been worth my while with a whingy guts hanging off me telling me he was bored every minute.

In the museum we had to trek all the way up the stairs to see the top of the giant squid but didn’t spend that long in the museum either.

I managed to get some photos along North Terrace.

After a milkshake I was allowed to go to an op-shop to get my fix while closing my ears to every other complaint that he managed to come up with.

On the tram on the way home he somehow managed to work into a conversation with two German woman about how old I am. One of them told him that her mum is 95. After we got off the tram I explained that it’s not the done thing to just blurt out how old your mum is. He couldn’t work out why it was okay to say someone’s mum is 95, but not talk about my age. I tried to explain that if you make it to 95 then you deserve bragging rights but if you’re only in the middle of your life then there’s not too much to say about it really.

To get some piece and quiet from all the questions I flaked in front of the tv and let him play his DSi for a while when we got home.

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Yesterday JJ had a friend over after swimming in the morning. They were glued to the Nintendo DS’s for too long until I made them turn them off, and put a box of Lego in the back room so they could make something.

They occupied themselves for at least an hour and would have continued but JJ’s mate’s mum came to pick him up. The Lego is still out there ready to be added to or whatever.

Not sure that the tree person at the top of the castle is part of Lego but he was in the box so he features. He looks like he’s the king of the castle.

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JJ got a cook book for Christmas and today we tried a recipe for cupcakes from it. I got him to read out the ingredients to me and he got them out of the cupboard. Again, I made him look for the labels of the ingredients as it’s really easy to get someone else to do it for you.

With only a mishap of spilling the sugar all over the floor, the sugar that I’d forgotten to put into the mixture the cakes were cooked.

I’ve only got blue and red food colouring so JJ said I could make purple if I wanted as that’s my favourite colour. Bless him. It wasn’t quite enough to cover all the cakes but I don’t mind if I give those ones a miss and let JJ eat them.

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He’d been falling into all his old patterns of naughtiness and detentions at school and it was really driving me and his teachers mad. On the first day of the last term JJ told me he’d been to the principal’s office after a kid’s parents had been to see her about JJ. He also told me that he was going back to see her on the Friday.

I rang the principal the next day to introduce myself and to talk about his behaviour. Even though I’d had numerous chats with his teacher and made it clear that I want to work with the school in regards to JJ this mustn’t have been relayed to the principal because she said she was glad that we’d had our chat and happy that I wanted to work with them to help JJ.

The upshot of the phone call was a meeting with a behaviour management person from the Department of Education, the pastoral care worker from school, a special ed teacher and JJ’s teacher. We sorted out a student development plan for JJ where we came up with three really simple goals that he could achieve quite easily and he would be rated by himself and his teacher three times per day with 1 being not very good and 5 being very good.

The goals (and aims) were: 1. Put up your hand for help (to allow yourself and others to work without distraction), 2. Stay in your seat and on task until you have finished your work (to get more learning done), and 3. Start work when the teacher asks (to get a good start with your learning).

If he got good ‘marks’ then he was able to have a reward and JJ and his teacher came up with a list of rewards like taking his DSi in, extra time on the computer – that sort of thing.

Looking back over the charts he hardly got any 1’s but mainly got 4’s annd 5’s. I bore the brunt of his being good at school because he was tired of that when he got home and we had some doozies of tantrums. I’d been kind of prepared for it though and was willing to go with it if it meant good behaviour at school. I was also pretty sure that it was just an adjustment phase for him and that things would settle down at home too.

During the term we had two or three follow up meetings with Department and the school, and JJ was involved this time too. He admitted that it was a long time to be good for not much time getting rewards, but as we told him the rewards were much more than just a bit of time playing his DSi at school.

And they were. The rewards for him were a boost in self-esteem and no detentions at all in the last term. I spoke to his teacher on the last day of term and she couldn’t say enough great stuff about him. Things like he’d become a role model for the other kids. He’d be first in line or first sitting down when asked to. She said she was going to tell his teacher for next year to not judge JJ on his previous record, but that the slate should be wiped clean and this was a brand new kid going to start grade 3.

Because JJ goes to out of school hours care we had to start something similar there too. At the beginning of the student development plan JJ had had a really good day at school and then at after school care was really really naughty. He’d even said to them that he’d been really good at school and didn’t need to be good afterwards. Needless to say once we started an after school care plan he was absolutely fine!

We’re going to continue the plan at the beginning of the next school year just to reinforce the good work that was done in the last term and fingers crossed it works.

Anyway, back to my Christmas card from JJ.

It says, Dear mum. I love you. You are the best (not beast). It would be cool if we could fly ad look at the rainbow closer – silly. And have a happy Christmas.

Bless him. I’m sure that ‘you are the beast’ is not a Freudian slip!

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After a few hectic weeks we’ve finally got a week off. We’re half packed and when we finish we’ll be heading off to the beach for a couple of days then a friend’s for a couple of days. I can’t wait. This is just what we all need to regroup before another school term starts.

Monty is JJ’s best friend when he feels that nobody else loves him, ie when he’s having an argument with me and ‘I’m in the wrong’. We love Monty. Do you think Monty’s expression is a look of love or a get me out of here look?

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