It's too late Mummy ...

For those of you who read my last post about Pixie's career plans, tonight's post is on Buglet's progression of career goals.

When they tiny my favourite bit is that their plans always included being a mum and a Guide leader as well. In my good moments it is massively reassuring that they want to follow in my footsteps; in my bad moments I worried that this was the only way they thought they would see enough of me! These days they are much more articulate about being happy with my parenting/work/life balance.

My first recollection of Buglet's and job plans was when she was in year 1. They did a series of activities on all the different activities, and every day she came home with things: nurses bag, police officers badge, you know the things. Attempting to be a good parent I was telling her she could be anything she wanted when she grew up, and to prove my point I told her that I was going to be a pirate when I grew up. Buglet looked at me very sadly and said "It's too late for you to be a pirate Mummy. You're already grown up, but you can dress up and pretend to be one if you like". Seriously squashed by the child.

A pirate costume is still one of my favourite dress-ups though, and it is what I wore to a friend's 30th party a couple of years ago when the theme was "what you want to be when you grow up". Pirate costumes are much more fun than lawyer costumes.

Being supportive and making Mummy a parrot to go with her pirate costume :)

For ages Buglet's plan was to learn to be a life guard and that was going to be her job while she was going through uni learning to be a vet. On weekends she was going to teach dance. I love that there is not only goals, there are steps in place of what she was going to do when you are getting to those goals. They do say that a goal is a dream with a date, and think that same concept applies to dreams with a plan.

Late last year I had the revelation that these conversations with Buglet were suddenly real. Not just maybe ... one day ... you can do whatever you want conversations, but actual real conversations that are at the point where she is about to make big decisions. I have already blogged about freaking out over her selecting subjects for upper school. Me, not her; she is ok!

Today I met with her teachers at school and freaked out again. Her social studies teacher (now called "society and environment" just to show I am up with the change in terminology) made me feel better when I was stressing about not pushing her into history just because it is my subject. Massively thankful for comment that I had my head screwed on right, and thankful that this teacher could see through the panic to appreciate that my concern is to support them make their own decisions and not to push them in a direction that I think they should be taking. My parents are very good role models for this, so I am thankful for them too.

Recently she has been thinking about teaching (dance and/or primary school and/or English and/or maths), or physiotherapy, or dance therapy ... I guess only time will tell. Now just to calm down, relax, and remind myself that it will all work out and that there are lots of different pathways to get where you want to go. These are all things I tell other people, now I just need to remind myself.

Slothful

And no, this isn't a post about me being lazy, although I could write one of those.

Ironically this post is brought to you by late night blogging and a random sighting on facebook that it is sloth week (No idea if this is true. I probably could have googled it. Googling things pays off as you will read later).

Look Mama! I am a sloth! Quick. Take a picture for Daddy.

 

As I haven't posted today, here is an old story about Tink.

Tink was in about year 1 when this story happened, so it is slightly paraphrased now!

Tink: Your favourite animal is a starfish isn't it Mummy?
Me: Sure. Why not.
Tink produces a family coat of arms.
Tink: I thought it might be. I spent such a long time drawing Daddy's sloth that I thought your favourite animal would be a star fish. I can draw those quickly.

The aforementioned coat of arms took pride of place on our fridge for ages. Now it is a box somewhere and when I see it next I will share a picture with you. It has a painstakingly drawn picture of a three-toed sloth on it which is actually DB's favourite animal. My official favourite animal is now a starfish, because Tink knew it would be.

And while we are on the topic of sloths, Pixie's random day of googling "how to make an origami sloth" paid off at Guides when that was what she was asked to make by chance last year in a random challenge organised by one of the girls. Out of all the things I have ever seen the girls google, that was one thing I never thought would pay off. Funnily, Tink's team was asked to make an elephant which is her favourite animal.

 



So the morals for tonight's story is:

1. Sometimes you just know things about your mother;
2. You never know when random knowledge may come in handy; and
3. If you're going to be up so late, don't expect sensible blog posts.

Sweet dreams everyone xx

Master Chef Minors

Sunday soccer bought an added bonus today. My mother-in-law and step-father-in-law came to watch and bought the girls a cookbook as a present, and ones with lots of vegetarian recipes which is a bonus because I am the world's worst vegetarian mother and I have no imagination.

This meant that Tink spent hours this afternoon picking out recipes and marking them. Buglet was out being a teenager, and Pixie was asleep so some quiet study time for me!

This was great until the Pixie woke up and had a massive tantrum because I had told her that she could make dinner. Oops. Study brain fail!

Peace was restored when Tink agreed that the recipe she had picked out would be a good alternative for Taco Tuesday, and peace reigned again.

Pixie picked home made pizzas for dinner, which to be honest was not in the book, but that is ok.

Super yummy! Tink and Pixie made them together. My vegetarian-baby will not touch meat. Her carnivorous mother does not feel it is really pizza without meat. I know I have said it before, but the fact I ended up with a vegetarian child is really one of life's great mysteries.

Pixie also has a very short attention span ... except when it comes to remembering rules that she likes, when it suits her. Buglet was greeted with a shouted: "You have to do the dishes all by yourself, because we made dinner!!!". Usually this is a major point of contention because Buglet does so much of the cooking, and Pixie does not understand the concept of sharing the workload.

This is especially ironic because we'd had this conversation a very short time beforehand.

Me: Pixie! I told you to pick up that lettuce that you dropped.
Pixie: It wasn't me.
Me: So it just magically appeared after you had salad, but it wasn't you?
Pixie: No. It was Flip-Flop. She dropped when she stole my bowl.
Me: GO AND CLEAN IT UP!
*repeat conversation five minutes later, possibly more than once*
Me: Why are you so much hard work?
Pixie: Are you made at me?
Me: Yes. I shouldn't have to ask you to clean up your own mess so many times.
Pixie: But not very mad. Because you lovells me. I will cuddle you. Then you will not be mad.

Luckily for her the hard work sometimes pays off.

In happy news, I am little bit excited that the little two are deciding to embrace cooking. As super awesome as it is that Buglet loves to cook, I am always worried that the novelty will wear off.

I also am sneakily trying to get them interested in gardening. That will be a good project for them to do with DB when I am not at home. Daddy-daughter time, and I don't have to worry about my garden.

As my final sneaky good parenting moment of the day, I was discussing with my father-in-law how awesome it would be if he could teach the girls how to do stuff on cars. He enjoys working with cars and the girls love helping him do stuff.

The secret of being a good manager is not knowing how to do everything yourself, but knowing how to delegate to the right people. This applies to parenting to right?

May Showers .... June Flowers?!

There is an old saying, admittedly from the Northern hemisphere: "April showers bring May flowers".

I love rain. Call it a hang up from growing up in the middle of the desert, but I really do.

I am less fond of the other interpretation of this saying, when you apply it to being about the hard work and the tears paying off later. I would like to point out that it is June so I want my flowers dammit!!!

Yes, I am still studying can you tell? I banned myself from blogging until after my assignment was handed in. Now I have handed it in I am sneaking in a quick post before my week of on-site assessments this week.

Buglet is also in the middle of her first exams.

I had one of those moments where you turn into your parents. The advice I gave Buglet before her first exam was pretty much exactly what my parents have always told me:

1. Proof read;
2. Answer everything;
3. Time your answers;
4. There are certain marks allocated to each question - see points 2 and 3 above;
5. Show your working out - you can get marks for working out; and
6. Never, ever leave an exam early.

I did just stop short of sharing Dad's ultimate words of exam wisdom which are "some of the greatest rugby players throw up before every match". I am really bad for pre-exam nausea.  Buglet was feeling fine, so probably lucky I didn't complicate the issue. In case anyone is wondering, I have no idea who those rugby players are, how Dad knows this, and no it never stopped me from being sick but it did make me feel a little better.

She survived her first exam, and I am super proud of her. Buglet has much better study habits than I ever have. My darling eldest daughter is one of those people who does her assignments on a Friday night so she isn't leave them for the last minute. Unlike her mother who, after three degrees, has yet to learn this. So much for my observation to DB the other day, that "monkey see, monkey do". Either that or DB and Pixie are most definitely monkeys and Buglet and I are most definitely not monkeys. I may just stick to this theory!

Thursday night this is what I came home to:

Promise I am a competent parent, even if I am not the best student.

Now I seem to somehow have managed to teach my girls to be good students by showing them what not to do, I am crossing my fingers and hoping this works for other parts of their lives too!

One more week and exam stress will be over for a little while .... but life goes on like normal, just in case you missed it on facebook. Here is the Pixie on exams:

Me: Don't stress Buglet out this morning. She has an exam and exams are important.
Pixie *cheerfully*: Ok. I will stress Tink out instead.
Me *glaring*: I would rather you didn't stress anyone out. If you stress Tink out that will stress Buglet out.
PIxie: But I always stress Tink out. That is how it works. I will stress Flip-Flop out instead *runs out* Flip-Flop! Flip-Flop! Come here. I will stressel you out!

They are all very supportive in their own way. Pixie's way is just a bit unique.