Yesterday evening was out of the ordinary. Which was lovely for a change. The kids went to bed somewhere between 8 and 9pm (all of them) as did I with T!
T had a swim carnival at Holland Park State School. He raced in the under 7 races, which is the youngest age group. He did the 25m butterfly, freestyle and the relay 4 X 25m medley and the relay 4 X 25m freestyle. He didn't do breaststroke or backstroke as our team shared the events around rather than just choosing the fastest team member. T (and I!) were disappointed as they are two very good strokes for T and he would have likely won or placed. I am such a competitive soul ... and yes of course it is passed on.
However I contrast this team approach with some of my friends' experiences with ballet/dancing. At the local dance school which wonderful (if I had girls ..... aaahggh!), the good dancers apparently always get the troupe roles and the front of stage roles. There is no sharing around. This is tough on the girls who work hard but simply, I guess, are not meant to be dancers either physically or other. Tough on the mothers too who like me might want their daughters to have a share of the spotlight sometimes....
Anyway here is my T with his first place in the individual 25 m freestyle, 2nd in the butterfly and 3rd in the freestyle relay.
All the boys wanted to be in the photo, so here they are 'sharing' the ribbons.
We were at the swim carnival from 3pm until about 6.30pm. So a long day for the little ones. E was asleep and so was I when D took W and T to catch the start of the event. When I arrived an hour later, I was very impressed with my husband! He had packed afternoon tea snack, toys and colouring in for William and all T's swim gear. As well he had remembered the stroller so that W had a sleep for about an hour. I was impressed!
Anyway we left before the end but after T's last race. T wanted to stay and watch the last of the relays and the trophy presentation. I spoke firmly but calmly to T about how the whole family had spent the afternoon watching him and doing something for him. I said he should be saying thank you to us and his brothers for devoting this time to him rather than complaining about not being able to stay. This is such an important lesson for children in a larger family (or in fact any size family) as the kids can so often think the world revolves around them (yes I know it actually does right now but the sooner they realise this is a short lived privilege the better!)
We got home and D cooked a quick pasta for the boys (gluten free for T of course) which they polished off pretty quickly. D and I had wine and cheese and bread. The house is an absolute tornado. This morning during cricket the littlies played with just about every toy in the house - happily, so I was not complaining. I am too incapcitated to pick up after them, or even help them pick up, that it has all just remained as such. We will clean up this morning! I ALMOST felt like taking a few photos of the house to show you how bad I can let it get without it worrying me unduly! But even I could not capture for posterity the state of my house right now!
Here are the boys in the Thomas ride this morning. I would be impoverished if I put the $2 in every ride they like to sit on. So now they are used to just playing without the rides moving. As I am a cheap skate, if another child is on a ride which has more than one seat, I do pop them on to free load. How bad is that?!
A trip to the local mall/shopping centre was in order this morning whilst cricket was on, in order to get the iPad screen replaced at a wicked cost of $199 (see how painful this amount of money is in prior post on frugality). My wonderful W had a fit of iPad rage when it ran out of batteries on Friday night and he slammed it repeatedly into the carpet. I saw it happening but not quickly enough. The glass smashed such that it was unable to be used without cutting your fingers on the tiniest shards of glass! Luckily I found 'Fix My Mobile' which is located at the mall, and it is an easy quick, if not cheap fix. So at least we don't need to buy a new iPad. But I only get it returned to me on Tuesday, so my papers are not accessible until them (sigh! no Sunday Age!!! What will I do? I might need to go the newsagent?!) and nor is my kindle reading - so a delay in the next book review I am afraid.
I had searched on Friday night through the shoe tub that contains all the shoes of T's and the boys for all ages. W has outgrown his sandals as has E. Unfortunately the next size up that made it through (shoes get pretty roughed up by the boys and often need to go in the rubbish bin rather than than the to-be-reused tub) is just too big for W. I made him wear those too-big shoes to the mall and they kept falling off. Yes, too big. So I dropped into Payless Shoes (rather than my normal Clarks store) and found a pair of sandals for $19.99. And of course E was devestated that he didn't get to try on a pair, so I bought him the same pair in his size half price! Love Payless Shoes! Are they fabulous quality that will be good for their feet? Absolutely not, but my kids spend most of their days barefoot anyway so these are really a throw on solution for going to shops, to the park etc. I have a friend who said she may have some proper sandals for W so I will chase her up on that!
Look at their chubby legs! So cute!
The proud new shoe wearers!
After the shoe parade for D and T, it evolved to dress up time! T never got into dress ups when he was E or W's age, but W and E love it and so of course now does T!
Here are W and E in Tom's old Gummy Bear dancing costume. W looks like an angel below and E looks like the rascal he is above!
Here is pirate E. Gosh he would make a gorgeous looking girl! In fact both T and E are too beautiful to be boys. W is beautiful but definitely going to be a man - rugby player I bet.
Here is W as a super hero, and T "dressed for Melbourne Cup" complete with one of my high heel shoes and a myriad of scarves, Hawaiian leis'.
They had so much fun, and we all watched the big storm roll across us last night. W is rather frightened of the storms and the thunder, but grew braver throughout the evening. E learnt a new word 'storm' and walked around saying it every time he heard us talk about it. He was also fascinated with the continual lightening flashes and saying 'light'. He reminded me of the last scene in the Muppet Show surgical skit, where there is the overhead voice talking and all the muppets look around to see where the voice is coming from (still cracks me up). He just couldn't work out where this light was coming from!
So we had a magical family night together, and this morning, even though the littlies went to bed so late, they were both up at 5.30am as per clockwork! The house is a shambles, the dinner still on the counter to be cleaned up. But a cup of coffee, some breakfast and I have a lot more energy to tackle it this morning than I did last night.
Another swim carnival this afternoon for T at Morningside, I think a bit of grocery shopping in order this morning as well as a load or three of washing .... just normal stuff you know!
Labels: Dress Ups, Family Traditions, Large Family, Swimming
