First the Grumbling...

Wombat has been off school all week with a heavy cold, and now I have it and I feel like death warmed up. He is VERY demanding when he is sick, understandably so, but it means that I am spending time defending myself in Pokemon battles when I really want to sleep. I also have a pile of homework to do for Friday - I have done most of it, bar the sticking down and captioning, plus an embroidery piece that will probably be finished by tonight - but i would have prefered to do it in a less fragmented way.

Baby Bear had her parent-teacher interviews on Monday. I couldn;t go because I had to stay at home with the hacking, spluttering Wombat, so George went along. NOT HAPPY, JAN. It turned out that our happy, cheerful child who is having such a wonderful year is indeed having a very happy and cheerful year but at the expense of things like schoolwork and music practice, and is spending most of her time talking and not paying attention. Poor child has the misfortune to be 'gifted' both academically and musically, so of course we expect a certain standard of work from her (not an exaggerated one, and we are always careful to praise what she does, but we do expect her to work to something approaching full capacity, not slacking off like she has been doing). So we have had to take the cruel and heartless parent line and re-establish some very firm ground rules. I think it really hit home when one of the teachers showed George a classroom test that had nine questions on it, which everyone else in the class had completed but she had only done one question. And no, it wasn't particularly hard, and it was in a subject she likes and is capable at. More stress that we could, frankly, have done without.

And to cap it off, it turned out that she had not bothered to tell us about the Victorian Flute Guild Competition which is being held this Saturday, at which she is expected to be all day. She entered it last year and I happily spent the time there, knitting a sock in between sections, and enjoying a very high standard of music. We think she did not tell us because she knew there was a birthday party on that day (of one of the girls who should be in the competition, no less!) I got really annoyed about this because we had already planned out the day for Saturday, because we all had to go in different directions and then go out in the evening. George is doing a working bee at the primary school; she was going to and from this party, quite a longish drive away; and I was going to spend the afternoon slowly chopping and simmering and organising an elaborate dish that I am taking to the dinner party on Saturday night. Now I have to make the thing on Thursday and refrigerate it, which means doing an online shop for tomorrow because Wombat is still sick, which means that they almost certainly won't send something vital because they ALWAYS run out of the most amazing things; I;m always exhausted after school on Friday, and as I am quite sick that will be even worse; and now I have to spend the whole day at the flute thing and then be the sparkling life and soul of the party on Saturday night. If she had told us in advance we could have at least preplanned something to reduce the pressure on us both. Snarl, snarl.

On the up side ... i got my parcel from Morgan today for the Project Spectrum colourswap and I am so thrilled with it! No pics till Sunday, probably. It included some amazing sock wool, stitch markers, some patchwork fabric and an ornamental hook for the wall, all tucked into a bright orange knitting pouch. I felt truly spoilt, and goodness I needed it!