I have been so AWOL………………….Sorry about that.  Holidays, illness in children and myself and a bit of writers block.  Heaven forbid I don’t write that much anyway (how did I get a block).

Sometimes it is just ONE OF THOSE DAYS, where you see things you wouldn’t normally and you question your abilities.

It started with my neighbour witnessing the garbage men dumping blue bins (paper recycling) in with red bins (general waste).  We watched him move down the back lane and he must have felt two pairs of beady eyes staring at him because all of a sudden he started just emptying red bins.  He was none too impressed at having been caught because he threw another neighbours red bin into their fence (the fence is ok but the bin was upside down with the lid broken).  There are two things that I can conclude from this.

1. They contract for both red and blue bin pickups and to save time they empty some blue bins in with the red ones.
2. That the separation of paper and cardboard from our general waste is indeed a waste of time and instead of being recycled ends up in land fill.

I am still deciding whether I will ring council and find out which is the right conclusion.

Earlier this morning I was at the toy shop searching for a plane puzzle for Master.  A lady with her four year old stopped to select a 300 piece puzzle for the child.  I suggested he must be very good at puzzles.  She said that he is and it means that he will be good at mathematics like her husband and that she is in charge of the craft side of things.  This left me thinking what am I in charge of in our house. Most days I manage to feed, clothe and entertain the twins and fall into bed at night shattered.

Given that the preschool teacher just advised us that jigsaws help children to learn how to space their words when learning  to write, I was a bit confused.  While I was at the counter paying the little boy announced that the puzzle he had was for 9 year olds but that it was easy for him.  In my head I could hear my Master twin saying, “smarty pants” in his squeaky little voice and I chuckled.  Not only could this child do 300 piece jigsaws at the age of four but he could read as well!

Did this make me fear that my children were not advanced enough?  Probably, but no more than the people who look down their noses if you let your children watch television or let them eat food outside of mealtimes.  I really can’t keep up and if we were supposed to be perfect at childcare it would have been included in our college educations.  That then provokes the question that if it were, would it be an “arts” or “science” subject.  There certainly is some science to raising children where we can replicate scenarios and expect the same outcomes but generally I think it would be situated in the “arts”.  Now given that the “arts” were not really my thing I am going to forgive myself that my three year old twins only do jigsaws of 48 pieces and certainly cannot write their names.

Quite often I find myself talking to the dog.  George is a great listener.  He moves his head around as if he is really listening and woofs if I crack a joke.  Today I found myself chatting to another member of our household, our friendly spider, Henry the Huntsman.  I haven’t seen him for a while.  But as the weather has been a bit colder he must have come back inside to keep warm.  So my conversation went a little like this.  “Whoa…….there’s a huntsman in the house”, as I climbed the stairs and spied him in a crook of the downstairs ceiling. “How are you Henry?  I haven’t seen you for ages.  I guess it is getting a bit cold outside.  Can you please try not to go in the twins room this winter and I will leave you where you are.  Lucky you are not at my friends house where at this point she would have been screaming, “Spider”, and you would have been sprayed with half a can of fly spray.  Have a nice day and I promise not to squeal every time I climb the stairs today and see you in the corner”.

It certainly has been ONE OF THOSE DAYS.