Geocaching

We had such a fun day yesterday, geocaching with our very good friends in the New Forest. Geocaching, for the uninitiated, is a bit like a treasure hunt using the technology of a GPS. It was a brisk day but lovely in the sunshine. We found two and planted our own cache for others to find. We called it Bag End Booty.

Hiding the cache

The area we went to had a lovely river running through it and I loved to see the children jumping, climbing and exploring.

After walking for about 3 hours we made our way home and had tea all together - what a great day - fresh air, fun, friends and laughter.

It's Mothering Sunday

As my children grow I am ever conscious of aspects of my and my husband's personality and physical make up that we have passed on to our children.

Both of them, for instance, have been 'blessed' with the long neck and short legs that their parents have been living with all their lives. Modelling, I think, will remain an elusive career choice.

I am sad to say that two of my traits have been passed on to my daughter that I wish had stopped with me. The joy of the bushy eyebrow and the propensity to worry about everything. These two collided this weekend - she is worried about her bushy eyebrows, or more accurately her eye-eye-eye brow as she puts it. Yes, if you look closely, there isn't much of a gap between her brows but why is she worrying about it now? I didn't even look in a mirror till I was about 15 and didn't notice the monobrow till approx 21 when I started the agony of plucking. They say children are growing up faster - too true.

So for a few weeks she has been mentioning 'the brow' and I have been assuring her of her beauty (she really is impossibly beautiful) and how no-one could possibly notice and how you always see your own 'imperfections' far more than anyone else does. But then she told me that other girls at school have pointed it out to her and now, of course, I realise that all the mum reassurance in the world will not do a bit of good in the face of that. So I resist the urge to advise her to ask the vile school girls "Who knitted you, woolly head?" (a well tried and tested family method for dealing with unpleasant children) and tell her that we'll head to Boots the Chemist where they hold the solution to this problem.

A small purchase later I apply a tiny wax strip to the bridge of my daughter's nose, pull off quickly and a life time of 'hair management' begins. She is over the moon at her new look which assuages the slight guilt I feel. Should I have left her au naturel? She is not allowed to wear makeup at the school disco even though lots of her friends do. One of her friends, at age 11, shaves her legs!!! I don't want her to become preoccupied with her looks too early. I am trying not to be sad at her (premature, in my opinion) introduction to a woman's world although her obvious relief at having her 'problem' sorted out makes me feel better.

So that's what she gets from me - eyebrows and worrying. From the OH she gets her stunning singing voice, blond hair and an unnatural gift for using gadgets.

And what about me? Did I get my mother's ability to walk in high-heeled shoes, decorate cakes, sew, knit, cook, do woodwork and an innate sense of style? No - she kept that for herself. I got the very small boobs and the inability to go anywhere, even for a short time, without 3 suitcases stuffed full of clothes to cater for every eventuality and weather condition!

Happy Mother's Day!

Feeling pleased

I painted this from a photo that was taken in Australia over the Christmas holidays.  I'm really pleased with it - but don't look too closely!   I am really enjoying painting at the moment.  I get frustrated with my lack of technique but I'm sure that the more I practise the better I'll get.

I have a dream....

It was SEAL day at school on Tuesday. Social and Emotional Aspects of Learning. In year 6 the theme was dreams, goals and aspirations and to get the children to think about short term, medium term and long term goals to achieve on the way to their ultimate goal. Not sure of the wisdom of asking 11 year olds to think about their future job - seems a bit premature to me.

Anyway, the intro to the whole thing was to read Martin Luther King Jnr's "I have a dream" speech. It went something like this:

Me: Who started a very well known speech with the words "I have a dream."?
[hands up]
Child: Bob Marley?
Me: No
Child: Isaac Newton?
Me: No
Child: The Queen?
Child: Moses?
Child: Tony Blair?
Me: No!
Child: Nelson Mandela?
Me: [starting to lose all hope] Good idea but.....no.
Child: That girl off Mamma Mia?
Me: [Speechless]

I eventually told them. They had never heard of Martin Luther King Jnr nor what he stood for and campaigned for. They listened in total silence as I told them about slavery, segregation, the campaign for racial equality and why the election of Barak Obama was such a landmark for the USA. They were so interested and it made me realise that in our school culture of levels and results and curriculum to be adhered to, there is little opportunity to talk to children about the world and historical (or indeed current) affairs. I'm sure we'll end up with a whole society of people who don't have any 'general' knowledge.

Perhaps I'm being pessimistic. I am nearly 40 after all.

Mum versus teacher

It's a funny old thing being a teacher in the same school that your own children attend. It's even funnier when you teach them for some lessons.

Good points

*I know what is going on even if my children forget to give me letters/information.
*I can usually find lost homework sheets and obtain them by stealth so my children don't have to go to their teachers and confess they've lost the one they were given.
*I see them everyday, which is lovely and I can 'spy' on them in the playground and see them in a situation not many parents get to. They've never let me down. I wouldn't like to see them in the playground bullying or behaving badly! (I'll point out that I don't actually spy on them, just occasionally have a little peep!)
*I can plead their case if things have not been done on time.
*I always get convenient appointments for parent/teacher interviews.
*I always know 'the method' for maths.
*I can ruffle their hair when I pass them in corridors. They like this at the moment, they are not embarassed yet.

Bad points

*I hate having children home for tea and for sleepovers. It's like being back at work.
*It can be awkward talking to parents of their friends, especially if they moan about teachers or another aspect of school.
*I sometimes step in for them if they've not done homework etc. It's good that they don't get punished but bad because they're not taking responibility for their actions (or lack of action).
*When I get home all I want to do is hear silence, not children bickering or whining. My fuse is shorter than it should be.
*Living in catchment means that lots of the children in my school know where I live. Has never been a problem up to now but you never know.

For me, the good points outweigh the bad points. I love, love, love seeing them every day and I make a point to seek their faces in the crowd during assembly. They seem to cope really well but I wonder what they would write if they noted good and bad points about having their mum teach at their school.......

A bonus day

Can there be anything nicer than being given an unexpected day off work? At the moment I can't think of anything that could have given our family the joyful boost that a 'snow day' on Monday did. So rare is a decent carpet of snow in the south that everything ground to a halt and it was deemed too risky for teachers and pupils to attempt the journey to school. We live within a 5 minute walk from school and so could easily have made it in but that seemed only to give us the impression that we'd been given an even bigger gift.

We made the most of our family day. We ate cake, had a snowball fight, made a snow penguin, enjoyed a roast chicken dinner together and watched Prince Caspian by the log fire. It really seemed as if it was Christmas Day.

As the children get older I savour these days when they are happy and able to spend a day with us. I am becoming ever more aware of the passing of time and the fast track into 'teenagedom' which, although I am looking forward to seeing them blossom into adults, I slightly dread as it will mean the end of an era that I have loved.