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Tuesday, December 13, 2005

Not quite so much bah humbug

I have recovered a little Christmas spirit due to an unexpectedly nice night last night.

It was shaping up to be the night from hell. Baby Bear had a concert (called at a week's notice, natch!) at school. Christmas Carols were happening at Wombat's school at the same time. Wombat does not do singing, group activities, etc, including listening to same. Last year was so horrendous that I still feel sick when I think about it. As George wanted to attend, being President of the School Council and needing to press the flesh, we agreed that I would just stay at home and he would go on his own. Then we got this notification that Baby Bear was doing this Christmas Soiree, and couldn;t work it out.

Finally we decided that George would drive us to her school in time for the concert, return for the Carols with a medicated Wombat who would hopefully at least behave for his daddy, if not exactly enjoy himself, and that when the concert was over I would phone George and he would leave with Wombat and come and get us. I approached this with much trepidation, Wombat having thrown a small wobbly when told that he would have to go to the Carols after all.

To all our surprise, he actually behaved beautifully, enjoyed himself, and even ended up singing with the rest of his grade. I almost cried when I saw this happening! Baby Bear's concert was wonderful, and when I phoned George he raced over to pick us up, leaving Wombat at the school, and we got back in time to see him singing with his grade. Accompanied by the slice of pizza and the 'lemonade' thrust at me by my thoughtful friend B, it topped off a lovely evening.

Baby Bear's concert was rather hot and sweaty (we were waiting for the cool change) and I could see that the parents in the audience with water bottles had done it before! There was the usual mixture of awfulness and considerable talent that you find in any school musical performance, even at a school like Blackburn High were a lot of really serious musicians go. Needless to say Baby Bear is definitely one of the best! (And I am not just saying that - honestly, I am a truly proud mummy, but her teachers say it too).

She had told me she had a surprise performance, and I read through the programme and assumed she meant her solo on the flute - playing Santa Claus is Coming to Town, which she did extremely well and got a much better tone out of her flute than almost anyone else there. But I realised what she really meant when she and her friend A got up to do the final small group piece, and only A was holding an instrument. Baby Bear sang Deck the Halls and I thought I was probably swelling with pride visibly. She has the most fabulous voice and we are hoping to get her some voice training next year. There was much applause - she was the only person to sing a solo, or in fact to sing at all except for the choir at the end - and I think a lot of people were thoroughly impressed.

So it was a far nicer evening than I had expected and I am feeling far happier about the time of year!

Today Wombat had an EEG so George and I spent the morning at Monash Medical Centre with him. Unlike this time last year, he cooperated fully, so I will be more included to accept the results than I did last year. We shall wait and see.

George dropped us off at Chadstone Shopping Centre afterwards, and he went to work while we did a little shopping. I got some calendars that I had wanted to round out the Christmas presents and he got to spend his pocket money on some dance game for the Gamecube featuring Super Mario. Anything that combines computer games with actual exercise has to be a good thing! He is busy playing it now and seems to be jumping around all over the place!!

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