best guess

one of the most challenging aspects of parenting 3 year olds is the 'guess what i've drawn' phenomenon. although i never do very well in those hideous lateral thinking challenges i like to think i have a pretty good imagination. despite this it is suprisingly difficult to identify that a pink rectangle is actually a picture of hairy mclarey; or that a brown oval with three green circles inside it is meant to represent a rhino. and i'm not sure but i don't think that continually asking "um, what's that?" is the most supportive way to proceed. and playing 'guess again, guess again' takes up more time than you would ever believe...so here's my advice: the minute the child pics up a pen and even looks like heading towards a piece of paper ASK THEM WHAT THEY ARE GOING TO DRAW.

billy's mum

competition for the most annoying ad on TV is always pretty steep. and telstra's "sixiest" ad is right up there. but just at the moment my least favourite would have to be the one that's advertising some cough syrup or other. this educational masterpiece shows "billy's mum" asleep on her ironing board, "billy's dad" asleep in a board meeting, "billy's sister" asleep on her school bus and billy himself sitting in front of the TV coughing like a chain smoker. according to the (male) voice over the solution to all this, of course, is that "billy's mum should buy some cough medicine so everyone can get a good night sleep". f air enough i suppose. after all she can pick it up while she's getting the dry cleaning, paying the phone bill, replacing the broken car key, providing telephone advice to students thinking of dropping out of uni; picking kids up from soccer, school and work and shopping for her mother-in-law's birthday present. cause she was going to the shops anyway right?

Note to self

It is astonishingly simple to stab oneself with a ball point pen while trying to pop a partially deflated balloon. needless to say the balloon is not the only thing feeling deflated...

Wedding Date

Last night i went to see the Wedding Date. this would surprise just about anyone who knows anything about me--(it is very very difficult for me to escape from the house where the front door is guarded by the three year old twins, and an extended family of 3 teenagers and a 20 something (and a partner) who all seem to need my personal help when it comes to doing complex things like locating the margarine or finding the remote control (it is exceeding ironic that i am the only one who can ever find the remote control given that i almost never get to actually control it))-- but i was given free tickets by a sister-in-law who was grateful for some help i'd given her with an assignment so off went self and the other sister-in-law (who had also helped on said assignment). as a means of filling in 90 minutes it was fairly painless (and i spent at least 45 of those minutes trying to work out who the lead guy reminded me of only to eventually work out he looks a lot like a flashed up- extreme-make-over version of the Captain from Fire fly...). but this movie had absolutely no credibility re plot or character development. woman hires guy to be her date for the wedding of her sister. her ex fiance is naturally going to be there and she wants a partner to show how well she has 'moved on'. so she hires this guy and despite doing nothing at all charming or entertaining in the entire show (except change clothes about 977 times) he falls in love with her and they live happily ever after. about as sophisticated as the average episode of the Teletubbies...and no where near as well acted. but despite that it was still good fun to be out AT NIGHT. Maybe there is life after toddler-hood??

Instant karma

having promised myself that i wouldn't do any blogging until i'd marked 20 assignments i naturally enough tried to write another blog entry after i'd finished about 4. fortunately for me my instant karma kicked in and my home internet access refused to play ball. so basically i've been off line for three days. i'd like to say i spent this time in full on academic mode, but although i've been a pretty good person and HAVE marked heaps and heaps and heaps of things, i've also spent a goodly amount of time doing stuff that is just plain fun. making play dough. watching play school concerts. and playing endless games of thomas the tank engine with the chubbies (3 year old twins). so it feels like a weekend was had and now i can imagine facing even more assignments. and in case there are any s tudents reading this, i promise that i actually DO love marking assignments and i DO enjoy them (yes really) but because it is such an important job it takes a long time and needs to be carefully paced. With lots of breaks for cups of tea, chocolate biscuits and games of Bear Hunt. and the occasional blog entry.