School Holidays…

have begun. YAY!

I suggest that you all go to see Hairspray. I just loved it. I am going to see it again, but you might not want to go to the same session. I intend to sing along next time. I won’t be able to help myself! I love a good sing along musical.

A Plus

About ten years ago this three year old said to me, “Mummy, when I grow up I’m going to have a shed. Inside my shed I’m going to put a boat, a tractor and a sewing machine.”

What could be better? His Grandy had a boat in his shed, he was obsessed with any kind of tractor (“Hey look a tractor.” “Actually Mummy that one is a grader. You can tell because it has a long metal scraper on the bottom.” “Oh, sorry.”), and I was always using my sewing machine. He loved to sit and watch me sew. He loved that the fly wheel turned one full revolution every time the needle went up and down. He loved that there was a secret compartment for the bobbin. He loved the metal teeth of the feed dogs. My uncle bought him an old sewing machine and we let him pull it apart with a screw driver to see how it worked. He still loves gears and levers and all mechanical moving parts.

This semester he is doing home economics at school. He was really looking forward to it and had discussed the possibility of continuing with it when he selected his optional subjects for next year. He told me that he was making a bag. He discussed his fabric and his colour selections with me. He thought it was OK to have red with green and brown, what did I think about that?

Yesterday I asked how his bag was going and was told that it was finished and probably in his room. Naturally I wanted to see it right away.

“How did you go with it?” I asked, hoping that he would tell me about his sewing, using the machine and how he had worked on it.

“I only got a C-. “, came the reply. This is not what I had meant, but this is what the bag now means to him.

This really annoys me. Why do we take something that is fun and creative and turn it into a possibility for failure? Why is there not value in just letting him make and create? Why does it have to be for assessment?

Here is his bag:

“What is the design?” I asked.

“What do you think it is?” he responded. I thought it might be a World of Warcraft symbol. My Pete thought it could be a paint brush. It could also be a flower bud. He was happy with all of these interpretations – he wanted us to create our own meaning from his work. That is a true artist!

I don’t understand why we slowly squeeze creativity out of our children until they become those adults who proclaim themselves to be unable to create. Surely our creativity as a species is the very reason we currently hold this position in the world. Surely the creative thinkers have been pivotal in our development. Surely we should encourage and nurture the creativity of every child. Allow them to think, imagine and problem solve. Making a bag may not solve our current crisis of fossil fuel consumption, but it will allow one boy to fire up his brain to solve problems before him and feel successful about doing so. It will give one boy the confidence to be a thinker and a creator.

Why did he get a C-? His applique stitch is neat:

His seams are evenly done:

The only ‘flaw’ I can find is a small pinch on the back.

 

He said that he tried to unpick it, but it stiched like this again. This was the moment for him to learn something important. We don’t learn when things work out just fine. We learn when they are not working and we have to consider a new approach, or a different way to do it. The only reason that I go on to make the next quilt is because while I’m making the current one I think of a different / better / more interesting way to do it next time. That thought process is exciting. It wouldn’t be if I was told that my first one was not good enough.

Is he doing home economics next year? Of course not, why would he?

Good, Bad and Ugly Weekend

I mean that title quite literally!

the good

I have been quilting feathers. For those non-quilty types, feathers are the holy grail of quilting. They are the ultimate quilting design and highly treasured when they are done well. This is my first go on a client quilt. I am VERY happy with the result. (I hope you call by crab-shack dweller, because this is your quilt!)

I plan to quilt lots of feathers everywhere now!

We went to our son’s soccer break up and he was awarded the most improved player trophy.

He looks too cool, doesn’t he? He needs a whole new wardrobe. Even shirts just four months old are now too small for him. Do you notice the way he is holding the big trophy? Do you see that one finger is sticking out? That is not just etiquette … it brings us to

the bad

While at the soccer break up he jarred his finger. He was very quiet after he did this and quite whingy. This is not unlike him when he is hurt. He has a very low pain threshold (he is a sook!) I was sympathetic and got him ice, but I didn’t really look at it until later in the afternoon. This brings us to

the ugly

That is actually a small fracture in his finger. Nothing major, he just needs to strap it to the next finger for the next four weeks and avoid sport. His finger is sticking out to the side at an angle because he over stretched it in that direction and it is now very swollen and bruised in there. He can’t bring that finger any closer to his middle finger at the moment. Luckily for him he is left handed and this injury is on his right hand, so he doesn’t need to miss any school.

So…how did he do it? On a jumping castle shaped like Superman. It had cylinder shapes inside that made an obstacle course and one of them hit his hand and bent is finger the wrong way.

My son’s comment? “Well, superman is the man of steel, you know.”

If only the trophy had been made of kryptonite!

EDIT: for some reason the comments are not showing here. I can see them on my site, but not on my blog. I will try to work it out. Sorry.

Looking for me?

I suggest you try a web search for : tight wedgie. Failing that try: boob cake.

 Apparently these two searches have found my blog in the past two days. When did I become the centre for all that is purile??? Good grief!

If I’m not there I’m in my studio, quilting with my music turned up loud. I am the only one at home. I hate to be alone, so loud music fills the house. Quiet is lonely too. So I am filling it with this.

Do you like the quiet?

Bits and Pieces

My Pete dug a hole.

 

It wasn’t easy. Every time he took some dirt out of the hole, someone swept it back in. He is a very patient man. He said nothing, he just continued trying to dig his hole. The little ones love it when he is here because he is always doing interesting stuff. Then after everyone has gone home he mumbles under his breath about having a very good reason for only having two kids.

 I bought some fabric.

The pink and orange paisley piece inspired me. I just want to eat it, it is so delicious! It will be a quilt very soon.

Worry

On Wednesday we have a GP appointment to ask for a referral to a specialist to check if our son should have a surgery to correct the shape of his chest. My Pete and I think it highly likely that it will be recommended. At times like this my brain always gets a hundred miles ahead of itself. I begin to think and imagine a million different scenarios. I wish that you could just go for testing and have any treatment done on the same day, so that there is no time to think.

Thinking is often MUCH worse than reality!

Under the Big Top

Tonight my daughter is at a friend’s place, so the boys and I went to the night markets.

My son was playing that man’s name game. (The one that NEVER gets old!) You know it… What do you call a man with a shovel? Doug. What do you call a man nailed to the wall? Art. etc etc etc

It went on and on until my Pete said, “What do you call a man with no legs?”

Perplexed silence followed.

My Pete said, “Shark bait.”

“That’s not a name!”, shouted my indignant son.

“No”, said my Pete. “It’s his nickname.”

My son could not even walk from laughter.

It’s a circus and I am surrounded by fools!

How many ways to be a proud mother

From the time my son was born he has had disproportionately large feet. They are seemed to grow at a pace not matched by the rest of his body.

 

We would hear him walking down the hallway – ‘slap, slap, slap’. It was the sound that I would expect a duck to make with its webbed feeet. He still has a tendency to walk like that.

He runs with his full foot hitting the ground at once. My Pete says that he should run on his toes, or heel down first as a shock absorber, but he doesn’t. He hits the ground – ‘thud, thud, thud’ and lets the shock spread up his legs.

Today he was involved in a data collecting exercise for statistical information about children at the age of 13 in Australian schools. He is 160cm tall, a full 15cm (6 inches) shorter than the tallest boy in his class. AND YET….

He has the biggest feet in his class.

It makes a mother proud!

Out of Season

Our mulberry tree is exploding. Just a few weeks ago my Pete was going to cut it back because it was all stalky, but the weather has warmed and it has now has a nice coverage of green leaves. It also has lots and lots of potential berries.

In amongst all of these green, furry, immature berries I found one completely ripe mulberry. It is bizarrely out of synch with its fellow berries, prematurely ripe. Perhaps a pioneer berry.

So I ate it! It was delicious and incredibly juicy.

Now I can’t wait for the rest of them to ripen!

Day of Dad

Today was Fathers’ Day. My Pete and I can live without organised days of appreciation, but the kids still love the early morning wake up and the exchange of gifts in our bed.

We went off to the local university open day because one of our heroes was giving a lecture.

Dr Karl Kruszelnicki is a very clever man. He has ultimate faith in the intelligence of the human race to use science and engineering to solve our problems and make the world a better place. He left me feeling very positive about humanity. He is able to link ideas together in a way that is extremely funny. We all really enjoyed his lecture. Although it wasn’t easy to get a photo because he is quite hyperactive and seems to move, think and talk at great speed.

A fathers’ day conversation:

Me to my Pete, “Are you growing your sideburns? They seem to be longer each time I look at you.”

My Pete, “Yep.” (He is a man of a few words.)

Me to my Pete, “There are a lot of grey hairs showing through your sideburns.”

My Pete, “Every hair is a good hair.”

Spoken like a bald, beautiful man. He had a good day!

A song that I’m loving.