School Boy?

What a week of Medbury news it has been. First Brent read the prayer at the school service & then on Tuesday I got a letter from the Medbury School Trust Board. James has now been accepted into the reception class in Term 3 2006.

Term 3!?

I can't believe it. Term 3 starts on July 18 & finishes on September 15. James doesn't turn 5 until September 18! All this time I had thought that he wouldn't start until the 4th term & now they are happy to accept him into Term 3.

This has made me stop & evaluate how I think James will cope. I do know that he has now hit that horrible 4 1/2 stage. Tantrums get thrown a lot, control is vital & arguing & talking back happens all the time. Plus of course he knows it all & won't listen to anyone. I am coming to the end of my tether with him, but is that a valid reason to send him to school early.

It's not like he will be entering into a big class & he already knows one boy who will be starting at the same time. His antics at kindy & gymbaroo though do make me wonder if he knows what each letter of the alphabet looks like.

I talked to the head teacher at kindy & she thinks he is ready to leave. The other teacher has reservations about his size but I know for a fact he won't be the smallest there.

I have sent in my deposit & my littlest man will be going to school on July 18. As a mother I am so proud but so sad at the same time. As Katrina though I am looking forward to getting some more time to spend exercising & hopefully scrapbooking.

Sunday 19 March

On Sunday Brent read the prayer at the Medbury Junior School service. We didn't take a photo of him actually reading it because we couldn't see his head over the lectern. He did really well & even managed to say all the words correctly.

This is the prayer he had to say

"Thankyou God for giving the people the courage and strength to compete in the Commonwealth Games. Please help them to do their best."

The main word he stumbled over in pratise was the word compete switching it to complete. When it came to reading the prayer in church he said the prayer in a nice clear voice & said the word correctly.

We and Mrs Stokes were thrilled with how he read.

He also had quite a few supporters sitting in the pews, Jo, Amy & mum were there too.

Well done Brent we were all very proud of you! 

No Duathlon!

A lot of you will know by now that I never did get to compete in my duathlon. I had been feeling cruddy for a couple of weeks in the lead up to it. However on the Monday before the duathlon I was feeling a lot better so I went out for a run. I could only run for about 20 minutes non stop & I was feeling awful after only 12 minutes. I put it down to a lack of fitness as I hadn't been training very hard as I had been feeling off colour. I was still all ready to do it until things went down hill.

On Tuesday night Brent got sick & vomitted up all his dinner. We put him to bed at about 9:30pm only to be woken up by James who vomited at 3am. I kept the boys home on Wednesday & then on Thursday I came down with the bug. The boys went back to kindy & school on Friday but I was still not feeling very good. The weather forecast for the Sunday was for cold southerly winds & showers. I was really arguing with myself & Scott as to whether I should really compete. In the end I came to the conclusion that if the race had been on a Saturday I would have have competed as there was at least a day to recover before the week started. With the race being run on a Sunday if I got very sick afterwards I would not have any time to recover.

So I never got to compete in the end & it really was just as well because I was very tired & lethargic all weekend.

On a more positive note I have been keeping up my exercise & have put on my pedometer again to ensure that I do get in my 10,000 steps a day.

Monday 16 January - Skytower

We said goodbye to Robin, Phyllis, Neil, Erin & Danja & then went sightseeing. First stop was really for Scott & the boys. The Auckland City Skytower. I have the most horrible fear of heights but I wasn't going to let that stop me so we all decided to go up the tower to the viewing platform. Well what a ride to the top. I was standing in the elevator & I noticed it had clear doors, that was fine for a while as it just looked out on brick. Then all of a sudden the walls gave way to view, I just about freaked & then I looked down only to realise that the floor was clear as well. In the end I had to turn around & face the back of the elevator until we got to the viewing area.

We got out of the lift & I felt that it was spinning. Scott had the camera so he took the boys over to the edge to take some photos. There is also a section of clear glass in the floor & Scott has taken this photo. Apparently he took a bit of courage & mind control to actually step on the glass & then take the photo looking down. James was a bit hesitant to go on the glass but once he saw Scott standing on it he decided he could do it too. Brent was interesting in that for a long time he hung back with me. Then Scott came & got him & he was fine although he never did stand on the glass. Meantime I was holding on to the wall standing as close to the centre of the room as possible.

I thought I could do with a coffee so we decided to walk down one flight of stairs to the coffee lounge. We walked all around trying to find a place to sit that wasn't out by the windows. There was none because of course people come to see the view not sit with their back to it. I then read some of the more interesting facts about the tower but one thing stood out. Although there are 2 lifts both of them have clear doors & clear bottoms. What a thing to read when I am at the top thinking that I could always go down in the other lift & not have any of the views. So we got in the lift & I had to stand the whole time facing the back of it.

I have never needed a drink like I did after that trip. We decided to sit down & have lunch & a coffee at Rebo while watching other stupid people plunge off the tower.

This is one experience that is going to be marked as been there done that & never doing again. 

Swimming Sports 3 March

Friday 3 March was Brent's swimming sports. We had Robin & Phyllis come up & stay with us so they could go to his sports & then we had Jill, James & Richard as well as Scott & me there. It was quite a turn out to cheer Brent on. He was only in two races. His first race was a length of freestyle. He came third in a heat of 6. His other race was just him & another boy in the length of backstroke. This is the photo of the finish. I can tell you that if the prize went to the boy with the most vocal supporters Brent would have won outright. We never really found out if he came first or second but it was very close. I think Brent was really happy because he had told me after the prelims that the other boy would win becuase he was faster. I had explained to Brent that things can change on the day & I think he was really pleased with the close result. 

New Layout

I am trying to complete at least one layout a week, but sometimes that doesn't happen. This is about the boys playing at Orana Park in 2004. I have found the positive side of losing my old hard drive I am now scrapping some of my old photos rather than all my new didgital ones. Most of my digital ones were backed up on to disc but really it is a bit of a nuisance having to retrieve the pictures off the disc when I have packets & packets of old photos sitting waiting for scrapping.

BTW the layout is called memories because those animals they are sitting on are exactly the same ones Jo & I would sit on when we went to the Northlands Mall as girls. 

Effort Card

Brent brought home his forst effort card of the year on Friday. It is a fantastic card & it looks like he is starting the year off well. Next week we have a parent/teacher interview with Mrs Stokes so we'll be able to get a better grasp of how he is doing then.

It seems that Brent is really enjoying school at the moment. They are studying the sea for science & he is already looking forward to the trip to Taylors Mistake & the aquarium. I am really hoping I'll get to go with him.

In other news, I have had a cold for the last couple of weeks so haven't being doing any training for my duathlon. Hopefully on Sunday I'll try to do a brick just to get myself back into it.

I have had the first kindy committee meeting of the year & as no one else volunteered I am in charge of sending away the applications for the grants. I'm not really 100% sure what it entails but the woman who did it last year is going to go through it all with me next week.

James has been very tired & quite beligerant recently which has been getting on my last nerve. I try to be patient but his endless arguing & not doing what I tell him to do is driving me round the twist. I do think this goes in cycles, because just before the start of the school term Brent was going through the same thing. Somehow he's got better (I wish I knew what made him see the light) & now James is going through it. There seems to never be a time when they are both good at the same time, which is tiring. In efforts to help James I have been putting him in his bed for a rest each day this week & he seems to actually sleep so he must be tired. I would have thought that if he wasn't tired he would just play in his room but he is definitely asleep. Maybe a catch up on sleep will fix his attitude. It's worth a try.

I went to Church Bay on Sunday & took James with me. The tide was about 2 hours out from high tide but that didn't upset James. He was quite happy picking up shells & doing general beachcombing. He found an old alacatel cellphone, a plastic sandel & part of a plastic bottle. He brought home a bag full of shells & stones & took them in to kindy today to show his friends. The access to the beach is rather difficult there now as there is hardly any room for parking down by the wharf. We parked in the old parking spot & tried to get to the beach down the track we used to use. Unfortunately although the steps are operational the path is not & you have to walk through the France's property to get to the beach. I felt a bit uncomfortable doing that so when it came time to leave we walked back up past the wharf & along the road to the car. The reason the path is closed down is because the new owners of our former bach have installed a lift that goes from the road down to the beach. The lift also stops off at the Phillips' so they have easy access now too.

Brent has his swimming sports on Friday & I have a crop on Saturday so it will be an excting weekend.