It is amazing to see my little boy asserting his independence.   There was a lot of money on the chance that I wouldn’t let that happen.  You see I am the quintessential over protective mother.  Other than the fact that he had a hard start to life I am one of those people who does not believe that you have to teach your child to grow up the moment they land on the delivery bed.  I am all for letting my child be a child for as long as he can be (and longer if it means I get extra time with him).

It turns out that all the over nurturing and all the over protectiveness in me cannot stop him from growing up. I see it happening and I can’t stop it.

It started when he told me that he no longer needs me to write him letters with his recess and lunch at school.  I was mildly horrified but I could cope because, in truth finding a different way to say I love you to your son every single day, twice a day without actually spelling it out, is rather tricky.

Then it was the crossing of the roads.  He didn’t want me to hold his hand, this has been a hard one for me to let go being the very anxious mum that I am.  For a while we settled on me having my arm around him.  He believed momentarily that this made him look more adult.  Now I am allowed only to stand very close to him but make no actual physical contact on public roads.  I am okay with this now as he is very responsible.

The freedom that he feels at being allowed to take his scooter and race down the streets is just amazing, worth letting him go just to see that huge smile take over his face.  He positively beams with delight when I ask him if he wants to go to the shop for me.

The other day he told me that he is now old enough to stay in the house by himself because he can make his own toast.  I’ve got to say I was a little bit taken aback that he considered my main input into being in the house with him was that I had the ability to make toast. Nevertheless I did leave him to walk around the block with the dog, and no bread was harmed (or even touched).  He was so inflated with pride that he had grown about 3 cm by the time I got back 2 and a half minutes later.

But on Saturday all this growing up stuff stepped up a notch.  And it went horribly wrong.

Little Pencil and I were strolling through the shops looking for some jeans.  I bumped into a friend and started to chat and about 2 minutes later Little Pencil appeared at my side with the widest smile and an imploring face.  He was bursting with news and was ridiculously happy.  I followed him to find the source of this happiness and there in front of my eyes were the skinniest pair of jeans you have ever seen.  I checked that we were still in the boy’s section.  We were   I checked that they were not shrunken pants. They weren’t.  I checked to see that Little Pencil was being serious. He was.
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He told me that these are the jeans he wants.

I panicked.

He tried them on.

Now, as a little background let me tell you that Little Pencil weighs 19 kilograms.  He is the thinnest person I have ever met.  He wears size three undies, his waist is that small.  But he is perfectly magnificent and looks particularly good in a pair of jeans that give the illusion of him having a bum and legs rather than twigs.

Skinny jeans are baggy on him, but they do not disguise the shape of his body.  He looks like a stick with a head.  A very happy, gorgeous smiling head.

He fell in love with the jeans, thought he looked “too cool for school”.  I paid for them and he came home and posed the entire afternoon.

I cannot believe that my child is growing up, becoming such an independent and confident child, but mostly I cannot believe that he has such terrible fashion sense.

There’s a lot of things I love about the school holidays. Problem is there’s also I lot of stuff, that I er, am less than partial to . Allow me to explore:

I don’t have to make school lunch and anyone that has ever wrapped a sandwich in greaseproof paper knows the joy of a day off
BUT
I have to make real lunch. Real lunch is far worse than school lunch. Somehow being home makes me feel like I have to make more effort. And invariably he will return his plate of freshly prepared food to the kitchen untouched and ask for a sandwich

I get to take Little Pencil to the movies and that is a real treat. Sitting together and sharing a large popcorn is one of life’s greatest pleasures
BUT
I have to see Marmaduke. Enough said

We don’t have to stress about homework and I admit that homework places a lot of stress on me. I like to get it done, and I like Little Pencil to be the one doing it. This always causes a bit of conflict so when we don’t have homework I feel particularly stress free
BUT
Little Pencil has to beat every level on the x-box game. This does not sound hard for me but you have no idea how seriously Little Pencil takes his gaming. The stress? I would rather do fractions homework

I don’t have to do a hundred lifts to school and extra mural activities and I like to think that means less time in the car and in the traffic
BUT
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We don’t need to have a freshly laundered uniform every day and this pleases me greatly because I iron school clothes
BUT
Little Pencil is likely to change three times in the course of one day. Each change of clothing will need to be washed and I actually iron all clothes

I don’t have to shout about bed time because after all it is holiday time so why should he have to go to bed at a decent hour?
BUT
I have to beg, cajole and scream about bed time because no matter what time he goes to sleep he will wake up at 6:30am and if he went to bed late he will be cranky and er, hideous.

I get to spend more time with Little Pencil. Always a plus.
BUT
He’d rather be with his friends. Actually maybe that is also a plus….

How do you feel about school holidays?

Little Pencil was sick at home for a couple of days.  Awful?  Yes.  I hate it when my child is sick.  I worry, I fret, I panic and I pamper.

The worry I can sort of deal with (hello voice of reason,  Mr Pencil), the fretting I can cope with (rescue drops) and the panic can be tempered by a quick visit to the doctor.  Unfortunately it is the pampering that gets me unstuck.

When Little Pencil does not feel well he seems to get this primal urge to crawl back inside me, to be as close to me as humanly possible.  And when he gets as close as he can – he complains that I am too far away.  So for three days he has sat on my head.

The only hope that I had of regaining use of my limbs and head was engaging him in a game. And many a time, when heavily involved in a game of Little Pencil’s choice , I have honestly wished to lose my limbs because clearly my head was completely surplus to requirements..

These are the rules of playing a game with Little Pencil

• He will make up the rules.  Even if you are playing a game with printed rules that have been around for longer than he has, he will have modified rules.  If you object to the new rules he will make up an entirely plausible reason why his rules are better. If you object further he will rescind externally only.  It wont be long before you notice you are playing by his rules anyway.
• He will spend 25 minutes explaining the rules.  Sometimes this means you only get to hear the rules but you don’t get to play the game.  This only happens when you are very lucky.   You can actually draw the rule explanation out by 10 minutes by asking simple questions like – what happens after that? This question works even after all the rules have been explained.
• If you are playing a game where you can choose a character to “be” he will always choose the better character.  His character will always have better powers than yours.  If you stake the claim that yours is the best in the world, he will proclaim “My guy taught your guy”
• If you are allowed to choose special powers or attributes for your character, his guys will have your traits as well as his own ones.
• His character will be allowed to change mid game.  Your character is not allowed any development at all.  He finishes as he starts.
• You are not allowed to show any signs of boredom or frustration, Little Pencil can walk away when he’s had enough (ie when he thinks of something else he’d rather do)
• You are not allowed to create any mundane or “girly” stuff  – if you choose to build a house out of lego, he will transform it into a wrestling arena, if you build a bridge – it becomes a cannon, if you try to choose to be a girl – it is only on the proviso that you are the mother of a wrestler

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Sounds like fun hey?  Bet you want to borrow Little Pencil for a day of board games and lego building.  Or he could just stay with me and sit on my head.

Do your kids play by the rules?

I am really desperate to find a good book to read.  And so is Little Pencil.

We have had a tradition since the very beginning of his days of reading together in bed before we go to sleep at night.  It started in the Newborn Care Unit when he was too small and fragile to be handled.  The nursing staff suggested that we read to him because he would recognise our voices from his limited time in utero.  As it was really the only thing that we could do that felt at all useful, we grabbed that job with gusto.  In his first two months he had heard the whole series of Winnie the Pooh and all the adventures of the Folk of the Faraway courtesy of me.  He had also heard many many stories from The Sydney Morning Herald and the New York Post courtesy of his father.  Why there were endless copies of The New York post in the Newborn Care Unit is just one of the things that we didn’t understand at the time.

The tradition continued once he left hospital and I can proudly say that 9 years later and we still read with Little Pencil every night.  He is a voracious reader and his reading age is well beyond his years.  (excuse my bragging, I wont be much longer) His comprehension is also quite remarkable as is his depth of analysis. But therein lies the problem.  He reads well, his comprehension is great but he is only 9 years old and he is as mature as, well as a 9 year old boy (that is he’s not very mature at all).

So we have read all the Zac Powers and we have read many, many boy detective stories, we have stumbled upon many great authors and read all their books, we loved The Wimpy Kids Diaries and the stories of the Undy’s family, we have gone through so many Captain Underpants stories that I feel like he is a member of our family, we adored Alex Rider and Harry Potter (although I thought they were a little scary and Mr Pencil did all the honours).  We have read so many records in the Guiness  series that there are times that I worry we will leak fact records if we are shaken.
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The other day we started to read the adventures of Skullduggery Pleasant, Little Pencil was hooked.  And so was I.  It is truly awesome when we find a book that we both can’t wait to read.  The writing was perfect, the descriptions amazing and watching Little Pencil’s face concentrating on the plot was heavenly.  He kept telling me the book was like a movie because he could see every scene in his head.  High praise indeed for a child with a penchant for the screen.  But then it became ridiculously scary.  Like pathetically, unnecessarily violent and just plain sinister and frightening (more so than Harry Potter).  I scare easily, I’m the first to admit that, but this was the stuff of which nightmares are made.  Little Pencil agreed and so we had to stop reading.

What is it with books for boys?  How do we keep their interest without being violent and destructive?

I can put up with the fart jokes and the bum references that crack him up but I want books that keep my child riveted.  I want books that make him think and laugh and learn and wonder. And he wants them too.   The only difference is I would really appreciate the stories that leave out the senseless violence and aggression.  Do they exist?

Today is Little Pencil’s birthday. He is 9 and I think that there is nothing that 9 year old boys like more than their birthdays, so naturally today is a huge day for him.  Huge.  But for me, it is even bigger.

For him it is huge because he gets showered with gifts, he can eat cake for breakfast, lunch and dinner and he gets spoiled more than on any other day (believe me this takes super-human effort on my behalf – particularly hard to spoil the spoiled)

For me it is huge because my baby is 9. Nine.  I can’t believe I made nine years of motherhood and some of the people that I knew before then still speak to me.  Given that I have had MANY episodes of complete and utter meltdown since becoming a parent and I have gone from a reasonably rational corporate girl to a blithering wreck of a neurotic mother, this comes as something of a surprise to me.

Nine years ago today I began my mothering journey as a petrified mess.  Little has changed.  Nine years ago I had reason to be afraid.  I was the size of a baobab tree, filled with water and dangerously high protein levels.  My baby was being delivered by emergency caesarean ten weeks early and in, what would become my typical neurotic fashion, I thought we were both going to die.

I often still think I am going to die.  But, as my baby has grown into a boy these feelings of impending death have changed.

When I did not sleep for a year after Little Pencil’s birth, I thought I was going to die.  I was not being dramatic or anything, it was just that I thought it was humanly impossible to carry on living if you didn’t  sleep at all.  I was happy to prove that this theory is indeed wrong.   I did not sleep but I lived.  Grumpily, but I lived

It is always suggested to learn driving viagra in uk in a used car. Applicants those who are robertrobb.com viagra best price attentive for the teacher vacancies in relevant departments of the organization are advised to go for walking daily. Headaches An article in the Journal of Manipulative and Physiological Therapeutics July / August levitra no prescription my link 2000 edition. It is as useful as the branded medicine. super viagra for sale is a powerful anti-impotency medicine and men below that age should stay away from it. * Women should not take this male enhancement drug to increase their sexual libido as there are many women sexual enhancers if required. * If you take the medicine made of Sildenafil citrate. When Little Pencil had various illnesses and even surgeries I thought I was going to die.  From holding my breath and wishing so hard that it wasn’t happening.  There can be fewer worse feelings in the world than watching your child go under anaesthetic .  Or watching your child have a lumbar puncture, or blood tests or, a barium swallow or even just seeing your child sick with a high temperature.  And vomiting?  When my child vomited I really wanted to die.

When Little Pencil started child care at the age of three I thought I was going to die from heart break.  I was am an over attached mother.  Leaving Little Pencil in the care of other people for the first time was a horrendous experience.  I can still picture his huge, brown eyes following me in amazement as I walked out the door. I can still recall that lump that grew in my throat as I struggled not to cry in front of him.  I can still picture my friend’s shoulder as I sobbed onto it. I can still feel that tight hug we exchanged on my return to pick him up.

Now quite often I get the feeling that I am going to die.  I watch my child and I see the gorgeous, confident, self assured and independent boy he is despite the over-loving neuroses of both his parents and I am filled with pride and love.  Full to the point that I think I may explode.

There is no word for that feeling that fills your heart when you watch your child excel at something.  My child excels at living and my heart is constantly filled.

So, it turns out that maybe those experiences did kill me because having a son like mine is like being in heaven.

You can read more about my baby’s journey on his very own blog at www.thesmallestpencil.blogspot.com

Holidays can be tough on parents.  The 24/7 child on parent time can be fraught with Pokemon battles, squeaky Disney movies, playdates gone wrong, too much x-box time, beach sand in every crack, whingeing and late nights but it can also teach you a lot.  These are the lesson I learned these holidays

Don’t allow your son to choose his own clothes – Little Pencil has no idea of the weather conditions outside his air conditioned home.  It could be raining, it could be snowing or there could be a heat wave that incapacitates the entire Eastern seaboard.  He will wear his jeans with a giant hole in the knee and a particularly hideous t-shirt that his grandmother bought in a rash moment of utter and complete taste loss.

Don’t take other people’s children to the park – I wish I could qualify this one but my last trip to the park resulted in a broken arm (and that arm belonged to a friend whose mother no longer speaks to me.)

Don’t offer to look after 4 boys at once on the day that your cleaning lady comes – speaks for itself really.  I paid the cleaning lady to laugh at my stupidity

Take a tally of all your possessions on the beach before you ascend the 100 stairs to the car. Little Pencil loves 100 stair beach – a little harbour beach with 100 stairs that lead to the parking.  Others may describe the beach using such words as “idyllic”, “magnificent ” and “child friendly” but when you have left something on the beach in 40’ degree heat (twice) and only realise this when you get to the car (twice) , you too would call it the 100 stairs beach. And you would check your boogie board is with you when you leave the beach THE FIRST TIME.

Beach sand is immune to the showers at the beach. It does not matter how well you shower at the beach. It does not matter if you take a loofah and spend an hour under that shower you will still get sand in the car, the house and the washing machine.  There is no solution to this problem – it is just a matter of acceptance.

Megasizing your popcorn and drink at the movies can be hazardous to your health. It seemed like such a good idea to prove to Little Pencil that movies could be fun without dad.  Employing my best mothering technique (commonly referred to as bribery), I bought the biggest popcorn and drink meal deal.  Two weeks later and I am still finding popcorn kernels in my teeth and Little Pencil is still buzzing from the sugar

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But these holidays were not all about Little Pencil.  I learned some pretty good lessons of my own, lessons I should have probably learned long ago.

Don’t put Deep Radiance Gel Oil on just one leg before applying self tan – it affects the tan application.  It also affects the general look of your leg which is not a problem at all. Unless you only put it on one leg

Do not attempt to wash the toothpaste stain off your dress while the dress is on. You get very wet, so wet and foamy that all you can do is wish for a little toothpaste to absorb the moisture

Do not wear a swimming costume that has not been tried on for years (especially if you suspect there may be an elastic problem) Trust me.  You will not be at all comfortable at the beach.  And  when your husband says it is not even noticeable you will know that he is lying (especially when you feel the breeze on your bum)

Enjoy the holidays with your children Soon they will be grown up and you will miss the times you  splashed in the sea all day, sang made up songs in the car, tried your hand at skateboarding to the giggling delight of your 8 year old, ate chocolate on toast for breakfast and laughed all day at nothing at all.

What did YOU learn these school holidays?

I remember just a couple of months ago actively counting down the last days of school, looking forward with glee to the holidays.  As much as I am “enjoying” the holidays I am trying hard to imagine why I was in such a rush to start them.  I cast my mind back and realise there were always certain activities that preceded this thinking

• Making school lunches.  You may recall from reading a previous post, Little Pencil’s school lunch preparation is a nightmare unto itself.  Whilst rummaging in the fridge looking for suitable spreads my mind would often wander to days where lunch is eaten at home and copious amounts of peanut butter can be served with no risk of anyone dying from an anaphylactic reaction.
• Writing love letters.  Every school day I write two notes – one to go with recess and one to go with lunch. When you try to come up with different ways of saying “have a lovely day and I love you”, twice a day, 5 days a week, 7 weeks at a time – you will get where I am coming from.
• Getting to school. Little Pencil loves school.  He has absolutely no issues about spending the day with his friends at all.  But getting him there?  Another story.  There is always something on TV that he has to watch before he can brush his teeth, some paragraph he has to finish before he can put on his clothes, some song he has to sing before he can eat his breakfast, some game he has to finish before he gets in the car, some story he has to tell me before he gets out of the car.  
• Washing uniforms. I often dream of what bodily harm I could inflict on the person that decided a white school shirt was a brilliant idea for a little boy.  I am sure that I would be excused by any court of law when I find that person and tattoo him with texta, stain his body with cranberry juice and then smudge his face so that each freckle obtains a new and more absurd colour.  Little Pencil has a white school shirt.  Bad?  Yes.  But it gets worse.  The white school shirt has the school emblem on the pocket and in the infinite wisdom of the uniform manufactures this emblem cannot be bleached.  Well it can.  But this results in the most hideous cacophony of colours that you have ever had the misfortune of seeing right there on his chest – where the emblem would have been if you had never bleached the shirt.
• Supervising homework. I used to think that I was a patient mum, a tolerant and understanding mother that had the benefit of a background in education and could really help my child with his literacy and learning.  That was before I had to supervise my own child’s homework.  Hello tedium!  Maybe it is the fault of the people who assign the boringly mind-numbing homework, maybe it is because the poor child has already been concentrating for 7 hours at school or maybe I am just an impatient person who would rather scrub moss off rocks in the garden than watch my child write out spelling words ad nauseum while moaning that his wrist hurts.  Oh and did I mention that I hate messy work and that my son is a boy and he is 8 and mostly his work is messy?

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So this year I have decided to try something new in order to really maximise my enjoyment of the school year.

• Lunch will be ordered from the canteen EVERY SINGLE DAY.  The funding for this exercise will come from the monies raised when we sell the love letters from last year for other suckers mothers to use.  (Could be tricky finding a mother that has the same neuroses as me and a child of the same name but we will persevere)
• I am going to scotch guard Little Pencil’s jumpers and make him wear a jumper over his shirt every day, regardless of weather conditions.  I understand scotch guarding clothes is not the norm but I am not sure why.  I will wipe his jumper down once a week (although I suspect that it will walk away be itself at the end of week 2)
• I am going to lock myself in the laundry during homework time.  There is no way anyone in this house is going to enter the laundry so they will never find me.  I will still be there when it is time to get ready for school

Do you have any resolutions for the school year?  Can you share them?  I might just adopt them if I get out of the luandry