I never thought I’d be counting the days and the hours for my daughter to come home from camp. It’s the NOT KNOWING! If she gets off that ferry smiling I’ll be happy and angry that’s she’s had me feeling soooooooooooo bad all week.
She didn’t want to go. I thought: it will be a bonding experience, she will make friends, all the other kids are going, its a bit late to tell me, it’s all paid for! So I said she had to go.
Standing at the ferry terminal she was the personification of morose. I drove off with my heart aching for her. It felt so bad and I wondered why I had said she must go. People said she would cheer up and have a good time. People said it would be a lifetime experience. But there is always one kid who hates school camp.
I came home and walked the dog and I had a thought. I thought for some women this is what it feels like every time their daughter goes to their dad. We are lucky that’s not the case.
Had a vegan dinner party for 13 year olds last night. Tonight Miss 8 explains she’s semi-vege – but won’t eat beans, courgettes, or onion that is combined with stuff. I explained there was food in the fridge and she could make herself a salad, but I was cooking lamb chops and mint sauce. I think I was 18 when I became vegetarian and from memory I left home shortly afterwards. Miss 8 might not need to leave home because she has a knack for getting things to work her way.
For instance I am watching something on telly (rerun of Flight of the Choncords) and bing! Ella Enchanted comes on. She has programmed it to come on. The dinger on the cooker sound and she emerges ready to watch.
Other instance: Recently she asked how old you need to be to orgnise where you live. Then she was thumbing through the white pages for the justice department to ask them when I elusively said I dind’t know. Fortunately it was Saturday.
Happy new year 
A child who watches the Disney channel reruns over and over or a child who watches Fashion TV? Thank goodness the sun came out and she went off swimming.
This morning Ive had a great girly time with my daughter watching the Nickolodean Kids awards. Best TV reality show was Australian Top Chef. We watched this during our boiled eggs and toast and I was thinking what a homey moment we were having. Last night another food oriented bonding moment we sat hand in hand at the movies watching Cloudy With a Chance of Meatballs – an unexpectantly good movie.
Kids obviously have better taste than I’ve given them credit for – all those awful reality dating shows to marry supposed millionaires, all that voting off the island and the nasty put downs of shows like idol. They bypassed those hyped up shows and voted for one where people are trying to do someting useful like make dinner!
Oh I thought this was cute food related news: http://www.stuff.co.nz/national/3105062/Hansells-the-very-essence-of-a-Kiwi-family-firm
I’ve never been a big joiner. Mum enrolled me in the brownies and I turned up and got my badges but when the blue uniformed girl guides came around I rebelled and went my own way. Secondary school I did have a sport but I doggedly didn’t join things as much as I could. Being a member has never been my thing.
So its odd to suddenly realise I’ve become a bit of a joiner. In the space of a few months Ive joined the carol singing group (I just like singing carols!) Ive joined the ceroc dancing group (its free and they can cope with me coming every second week!) and a writing group.
I’m now a person who has more extra curricular activities than my kids. I I have to squeeze things into my childfree week. The thing I haven’t joined is anything that’s particularly active – like a gym. Gym. It sounds a bit like dungeon to me. Dungym. But I might need to join one. Hmm I doubt it’s like brownies.
I just listened to a podcast exploring ‘frenemies’ – friends who are also enemies, or friends who aren’t really that great friends. It’s on This American Lifewhich I think is one of the best podcasts around.
http://www.thisamericanlife.org/
Early on it asks the question: why do we keep friendships we don’t actually like? There are two cases I was thinking about in my life while they explored this one. The first was a friend who I basically grew out of and she never grew up and actually she fired me. The cheek! and in the usual way – just faded away so that I wouldn’t have even known if my brother-in-law hadn’t mentioned he was going to her wedding and I didn’t even know about it.
The second was a person I was really there for. Over and over and over again I listened for hours to her problems. But I was never invited to her good times. After years of this I was exhausted and more than a little pissed off – I faded away.
I thought – as I learned that people have incredible stamina and staying power for lousy friends – I thought what good training for husbands. Because if women (and women are the principal owners of frenemies it turns out) if women learnt to be more disposable and consumer oriented with their friends they wouldn’t last as long with their mates.
The kids were brainstorming the top six cities. my littlest suggested that city they built at night.
?
The big one figured it out first. Oh you mean Rome! Which wasn’t built in a day…..
Monday night now. I had 4 meetings at work today and a ton of work to stuff in around the edges of them. The rest of the week looks like more of the same. The great thing about my job is the day goes faster than a king sized bar of almond chocolate on girls night. My youngest daughter scooted down to my work from her school and we forewent the usual trip to the library after work and nipped to the supermarket instead.
Getting home I opened the back door of the car and found the five dollar note I’d give older daughter to get home that night on the bus. Arghhhhh! I navigate the welcome homing dogs and make for the phone book and catch her before her French lesson finishes. The administrator lends her bus money and then safe in the knowledge she is not a temporary street kid I make dinner, pay some bills, eat with the family, walk the dog, retrieve youngest from trampoline valley, comb the knots from Miss 7s hair, listen to her read then lie down and read her chapter book till she falls asleep. Time to blog – which usually means the phone will ring but so far so good tonight!
Blogging is a wickedly self absorbing and self indulgent thing to do. I know it must seem deranged to spend half my day at a computer and come home and do more of the same but really it’s not – there’s nobody trying to reframe, rescope, descope or nit pick the living daylights out of my thoughts. I don’t even feel compelled to finish them or end up where I wanted to go.
Ok, I’m off to fix the ingrown toe nail of my eldest, write a speech for my toastmasters group on Wednesday, empty the dishwasher then read a report I brought home in bed. Night night.
For years I have had a recurring dream – not sure what it means. In the dream I find new rooms. It always makes me really happy. Wow a whole new room! Sometimes a series of rooms. Sometimes a whole house next door thats better that I could move into.