2016

2016

Given the lack of updates over the course of the year and the simple fact that I am on holidays and its raining, I thought I’d take a moment to put together a quick summary of our year. (though I didn’t get too far with it and am finishing it off in January!)

Waaay back in January, our year started with the excitement of a trip to Bali with the Rowlands. It was the 20th wedding anniversary and Jason planned a beach side re-commitment ceremony to surprise Bel. We were lucky enough to tag along. We had an awesome time and the fact that it wasn’t documented in my blog probably comes down to two things: How busy we were and the fact that I managed to spend at least part of the holiday turning myself inside out and couldn’t be bothered sitting down to write. 

The kids had a great time. We went white water rafting, rode bikes down the mountain, saw the monkeys, temples, snorkelled and even ate and drank a bit along the way. Michael took full advantage of the resort’s swim up bar and took on the role of drinking buddy for Bel, going cocktail for cocktail all thanks to my generosity!

The only thing that took the edge off the holiday was spending a couple of days turning my insides into my outsides. That and Cam deciding to get sick to the point of having to go to hospital on the last day and nearly missing the flight home. Alls well that ends well though.

February saw us return to work with no sign of holiday relief on the horizon. So knuckle down it was. 

We all had a good year and the biggest challenge that we collectively faced was probably adjusting to Caroline working full time at the same time that I spent much of the year travelling for work. 

Emily decided to follow in Sam’s footsteps somewhat. With Sam playing what seemed to be almost every sport that was offered, he usually had to be at school either early or late. As he was able to drive, Emily opted to go with him rather than get up almost as early to catch a bus that would get her there just in time for school. So instead she opted for getting involved in more sport herself. She did well at school for the year and all the extra curricular activities earned her her Mercedes Gold colours at the end of the year, something that not a lot of people manage to achieve. She also started playing softball with Sturt Falcons toward the end of the year just so that we don’t get to spend our Saturday afternoons relaxing (not the real reason, but certainly one of the consequences). So far it’s been good with mostly positive results, though she’s going to miss the start of the second half of the season due to other holiday commitments.

Thomas spent the year at a new school, having decided that he’d like to try a different path. He was accepted into the Australian Science and Maths School late in 2015 and so this year has been enjoying a completely different approach to learning. He has certainly revelled in the fact that there isn’t a uniform to wear. His results were pleasing and hopefully have set him up for his next 2 big years as he takes on years 11 and 12. Sport wise, having committed to a school where sport seems to be something of a distraction rather than any sort of priority, he opted to go back to playing club soccer. He went out to Adelaide University and played in their U16 side. The results were challenging, but from a personal perspective it was pleasing to see him improve significantly throughout the season. 

In addition to playing, Thomas continued with his refereeing and spent a lot of his Saturday afternoons assisting at U18 and Premier League reserves games. He enjoyed it enough that he’s planning on only refereeing in 2017 which will no doubt result in us transporting him all over the place (though much of that work load was taken up by Sam.). One more year to go of that as he managed to get his learner’s permit and by the end of 2017 should be onto his P plates. Scary stuff indeed

Sam had a big year with it being his last year of school. He approached it in typical Sam fashion: Organised, dedicated and self-driven. Given some of the horror stories that you hear from some people about how much stress there is around the family when someone is going through year 12, I can only think that we were very blessed indeed. As noted previously, he took on a lot more than just the final hear of IB. He went through the year with a significant sports commitment as well. He did give up his job at KFC so that he could focus on his studies, but other than that, there were few concessions, just a whole of lot of effort. And given that I’m finishing this off in January, I can happily report that the results are in and he has done very well. Sam also turned 18 late in the year, so you can read more about him in the post that I put up for that occasion. 

Michael has spent the year at Uni working towards his double degree (at least when he’s not sleeping or playing a computer game) The biggest change for him was probably taking up hockey. After being prodded and poked to do something physical so that he’d be at least a little bit active he came home from orientation week to announce that he was going to play, much to his mother’s delight. It added another fixture to our winter weekends and we managed to get out to a number of his games. He certainly improved a lot over the course of the season and appeared to enjoy it as well. He’s continued to be employed at Donut King for the year which has resulted in us consuming more donuts than one family really should eat, but I suspect that he’ll be looking for a change sometime soon if for no other reason than the opportunity to earn more money than one shift a week brings in.

Caroline’s biggest challenge for the year was her knees. Having had an arthroscopy during the year before she was torn as to how much involvement she should have in hockey. In the end she opted to coach and play for Uni’s Div 5 team, dropping down in the hope that the demands to run wouldn’t be quite the same and that it might preserve the knee. Sadly it seems that it didn’t pay off quite as much as she hoped and it may prove to be the last year of her career (though there’s talk of filling in occasionally in 2017 just to stay involved). 

Work wise Caroline was made permanent during the year and then later took on a step-up role replacing someone on maternity leave. She continues to enjoy what she’s doing which is always positive. About the only change that she’d really like to make in the work scene is to cut a couple of hours back to see a bit more done around the home front, especially with me travelling as much as I have been.

As for me, it could be said that 2016 was the year that I ran. I decided that if I was going to be away from home I was going to keep fit rather than sit in hotel rooms eating and drinking. I think I’ve resolved not to assault everyone with my running on Facebook this year, I’ll just leave it on Strava for those that are interested 

I decided at the end of the previous soccer season that I’d enjoyed things enough that with the team dropping back to division 3 I’d have another tilt in the reserves. After all, I fully expected that we’d take out the Reserves title and that proved to be true. We even had another run deep into the cup competition, falling in the semi-finals to the eventual winner. I was even asked to play first team a couple of times and only missed being best and fairest by one vote. Not bad for an old fart and so 2017 will see me fronting up again. 

Work has been challenging, but seems to be headed in mostly the right direction. It certainly beats being unemployed and I’ve appreciated having the full 12 months behind me 

That’s about it for us over the last year. We managed most of our traditional camping trips as well, Easter and Port Hughes and October in Mannum and will look forward to them again in 2017. Hopefully the year behind was kind to you and 2017 brings you good things as well. 

14 the second

Today is Sam’s 14^th Birthday. I really needed another one of those annual reminders for me to freak out about just where all the time went. As I left for work this morning Sam came and gave me a hug as I wished him Happy Birthday. The fact that he was looking eye to eye served notice as well. Not long now until he’ll be taller than me.

So, what to say about Sam at 14. Something that he can look back on and be proud of or something for him to look back at and blush? The reality is that the latter would probably be hard to come up with because he’s such a good kid.

Sam marches to the beat of his own drum, taking on what he wants to and pursuing it with diligence and skill. He took up volleyball last year, something none of the others have shown and interest in. He also started playing tennis, but in his own Sammy way, only played non-competitively. I was encouraged to hear him say this year that he was going to play competitively. Saturday just gone was his first ever competitive match and he walked away victor in both his singles and doubles. Yes, I am very proud.

Through the winter Sam played soccer and did well but also took on something else of a non-traditional sport for the Temby tribe – table tennis. Not only did he give it a go, but held down the A4 position and was part of a team that went through their entire season undefeated, an epic achievement.

Outside of his sport he has continued to work hard at the scholastic side of life with rewards to match the effort. He has a nice group of friends and is the person most likely to be asked for when the phone rings on a weekend. Or you could find him setting up a server for minecraft or occasionally doing his own thing in the yard.

I set the kids a challenge earlier this year to see how much they could improve their soccer juggling skills. For each 10 juggles they achieved they’d get a mars bar (only the first time they got a number mind you). Sam was the one that took it most to heart. I don’t know if it was representative of his love of chocolate or just the challenge. I like to think it was the latter. Within a month he’d managed to beat my record and worked up to something in the order of 80 juggles. It was great to see him disappear out in the yard and just go for it over and again.

He still hasn’t come to terms with the fact that wearing long pants isn’t going to see the end of the world hastened and would be happiest if the entire world only wore shorts, but we’re getting through that and he’ll at least wear them when informed there really is no other option.

It should be noted that Sam is still the child ‘most likely to react to his sister’ but I think deep down he really does love her. After all, he makes her lunch (and that of his brothers) every day!

As noted before, I am very proud of Super Sam and particularly enjoy the fact that even at 14 he’s not adverse to giving the old man a hug.

Happy Birthday Sam.

13 and 11

Somewhere back in time I started to write posts for each of the kid’s birthdays. This year I’ve been somewhat slack and for some time haven’t written anything at all. It’s one of those odd things where sometimes things happen and scream at you to be written about and other times, life quite simply takes over and you’re too busy enjoying it to stop and write about it.

So what was once almost a weekly endeavour on my part has slipped to be something less than that. I don’t want to stop, it’s probably more about not writing just for the sake of filling space, but continuing to do so when there’s something I want to write about.

The other influencing factor is a widening audience. When I started this thing up in its original form back in about 2001 or so I had no audience in mind. It was somewhat random, full of whatever happened to appeal to me at the time and it was probably only ready by about 3 people. Hell, I don’t even know how many people still read when I post now. The fact is though, that with the advent of facebook there’s a new avenue for keeping in touch with people. It has supplanted a small piece of what this started out as. Casual observation in short form fits very well in the facebook space even though I find myself doing less of that as well. The fact that I now advise of updates via that medium as well as through the list of ‘subscribers’ that I collated before we left for Canada means that all sorts of people have access to what I write – kids, friends of kids, extended family, work colleagues … the list goes on. Being aware of that audience and quite possibly a more mature approach to what I write certainly has limited me some times when I’ve felt like bashing out an expletive laden rant about something that has riled me.

Anyway, none of that was actually the point of why I put fingers to keys. What I realised was that both Sam and Thomas had birthdays back in October and some sad neglecting parent didn’t even mark the occasion. Well not here at least.

So Sam has turned 13, entering the teenage years whilst Tom turned 11 and begins to navigate those in between times, not yet a teenager, but working through double figures.

Sam continues to be himself, pursuing interests that he chooses and not really being influenced by others as to what he should or should not be interested in. He’s mostly a generous spirit, though he seems to reserve a special little criticism for the little sister that knows just how to push his buttons. He’s popular with his peers and more often than not when the phone rings its someone asking Sam over for a play. Despite dropping money on his ‘own PS3’ after the influx of wealth that followed his birthday, he’s not become obsessed with it to the extent that his older brother has. His personal obsession at this time appears to be mine craft. If you don’t find him in his bedroom with a book, he’s likely behind the computer exploring the world that is mine craft and experimenting with what can be done. He’s continued to play tennis this summer, though again, not on a competitive basis. He enjoys it if the two of us can get around to the park and have a hit, especially if no one else decides to come and he doesn’t have to share the court. I think it’s still something of a not wanting to be seen to fail thing that keeps him from playing competitively and perhaps with some coaching we can get him to a point of competence that will see him participate at another level.

Thomas remains the joker. It’s hard to see that changing as he really does like a good laugh. This year he’s been diagnosed with dyslexia, which whilst disappointing, is at least something that can be worked with. When I consider all the problems that people go through in life, this is one that many people have overcome, lived with, conquered etc and I know that Thomas will do the same. He retains his hard work ethic in that regard which is something I’ll always be proud of him for. It means that he works longer and harder to achieve less of an outcome than perhaps his older brothers, but he retains pride in his accomplishments and we’re certainly very proud of them ourselves. He’s played soccer through the winter and is now the last Temby to be playing cricket this summer. I hope that he continues to do so. He’s not been the star of the team, but he continues to improve. He’s bowling less wides (down to about one an over now) and he’s really taken to fielding which has been great to see. Maintaining enthusiasm for that part of the game can be tough, but he seems to love nothing more than an excuse to sling himself across the ground in a slide to stop the ball. Now we just need to teach him that he doesn’t need to slide every time he gets near it. His batting needs work, but mainly on the run-scoring front. He’s been not out in two innings so far, so it will be interesting to see if he can maintain the trend!

twelve

Two weeks after Thomas has his birthday, Sam has his. Its been that way for the last 10 years and will of course continue ad infinitum. Sam was very excited to have his birthday in Australia this year. He, more than anyone else had expressed this desire whilst we were still in Canada. The thought of having just one more birthday on the wrong side of the ocean was really too much for the poor little bugger to bear.

At twelve, Sam is still possibly the most emotional of the boys. He’s a bright kid and has his own independent streak, choosing his own way. There’s still a bit of his fear to try something that he doesn’t think he’ll be good at, but he has also been happy to tread a different path, choosing volleyball in Canada and now, rather than taking up cricket, he’s going to give tennis a go and is playing indoor soccer with some friends.

Sam is still happy to offer a hug and was taking great delight in standing one side of you and tapping you on the other shoulder so that you’d look the other way. Having realised that people tend to pick up on this, its now evolved to be a tap on the shoulder and a duck down such that it doesn’t matter which shoulder you look over, you’re not going to see him there until you glance down to see him smiling up at you from around your knees.

It has been great to see how happy Sam has been since he’s returned to Oz. He’s reconnected with some friends and has settled nicely into school. He hasn’t been too forthcoming with how he’s going with the whole friends thing with me thus far, but he’s coming home happy and heading off to school each day with a smile on his face, so one doesn’t like to push too far.

Happy 12th Sam!


Learning

On wednesday of this week, we had a holiday for memorial day (the 11th of November and all the import that that implies). That however, is not the purpose of this post. Michael has had a project looming over him for a while that he wanted my help with as it involved constructing a moving vehicle. Having the day at home gave us some time to tackle it.

Whilst getting ready to do that, I came across Sam in his room who was very upset. Enquiries lead to the revelation that it was because he had some school work to do that involved having to draw some pictures. And he couldn’t draw them (must have inherited my lack of artistic ability). He was attempting to draw planes and birds, from scratch, with nothing to reference to help him.

It was a bit later on that this caused me to pause and think about the two different approaches that I was seeing between Michael and Sam.

Michael was very much in the mind set of getting the least amount of work possible done at the latest possible time so that he could devote his time to more enjoyable pursuits.

Sam on the other hand, unprompted was trying to tackle his homework and was upset because he couldn’t live up to his own exacting standards.

I helped them both, showing Sam a few tricks that would help him produce pictures of a quality he’d be happy with that didn’t involve the internet or a computer and he was happily on his way.

I also helped Michael to get his model constructed and working, as well as showing him a good way to document his design. Of course, once the model was built, Michael was happy to put the whole thing aside and move on to those more enjoyable pursuits. Sam plowed away at his homework (admittedly a less demanding task) until it was complete.

Michael needed some prompting to pull out the assessment guidelines to be sure that he was covering all his bases, but once prompted, at least took some time to look over it (well most of it) and make sure that he’d get a good result. It must be said that his chief concern was that the car that we’d made would go fast!

And then, there’s Tom. I feel for Tom, because Sam is usually coming home from school and telling us that he managed to get very high marks for his various tests. Michael doesn’t announce things in the same way, but he usually does very well. Tom doesn’t do badly, but with the legacy of his speech difficulties, things are significantly more challenging for him, so we build him up with his good results, hoping that he can focus on the fact that he’s doing well, rather than the fact that he can’t quite make it up to the extra-high standard of his brothers.

We’re all learning still.

eleven

Yes, it’s one of those posts. On the 16th of this month, Friday, Sam turned 11. I sat down to write about it earlier and managed to get as far as the title before things got in the way, but had to come back and mark the occasion. (I won’t have to stretch my brain on a birthday post until March after this … unless there’s a big call for one call Thirty Nine in February?)

What to say about Sam at 11? Well fortunately there’s nothing negative that I have to say. No running off and joining a gang or the like at this point. Sam is probably the quietest of the four kids. He keeps his head down and quietly plugs away at what ever work he has to do and needs little reminding. He managed honour roll again last year and from what I’ve seen of the start of this year, there’s no reason to suspect that he might not do it again. I have no concerns for him academically.

He’s been devouring my bookshelf this last year. I don’t quite recall which of the books it was that he really started to get into, but it took some convincing to get him onto the next one. He’d reached the end of a series and wanted something to read. I kept throwing Feist’s Magician at him, but it took several attempts. Of course, once he started, there was no putting it down. Between he and Michael, they’ve slowly been identifying the gaps in various series that I have. At first Sam seemed to be on a mission to find the book with the largest number of pages and that anything with less than 600 or so simply wouldn’t be acceptable. He’s come around now and will read almost anything. It might start to hurt me if we have to buy book at Australian prices one day.

Sports wise, Sam is all about minimization. He enjoyed soccer over the summer and played in the under 12 development team with Michael. That proved to be a bit much though when he had to do something soccer related up to four days a week. He was happy to play a bit, not a lot. He didn’t play ice sports last year and although he’s a good skier, isn’t interested in anything particularly organized. He simply doesn’t like having to put a swag of clothes on. He’s been holding out with the shorts as long as possible as the temperature here starts to slide. He’ll be playing indoor soccer this winter and skiing when he feels like it. He’s also playing volleyball again at the moment (school sport is weird here) and I think again that one of the reasons that he likes it is that he gets to take clothes off rather than put additional clothes on in order to participate.

Sam hasn’t quite clicked with the Canadians though has made a couple of friends. There doesn’t seem to be anyone that would fit a best friend category and I think that he’s pretty much put that sort of thing on hold, pending a return to Australia. Of all the kids, Sam is the one that has most explicitly stated that he wants to go home.

Just this morning we were talking over breakfast and he said that what would be really good was if we could be home for his birthday next year (this was his third in Canada) but still get to be here for Halloween. That’s one little holiday I think our kids will miss when we go home (though I suspect its all about the candy!)

Speaking of breakfast, one of the unexpected joys of Sam’s volleyball is that the practice is usually before school, so he has to be there between 7:15 and 7:30am. That means that I get to drive him there. There’s something special about getting to have an early start to the day with Sam. He’s a good morning person generally and when you get him one on one like that, happy to have a chat and tell you things that might otherwise be lost in the noise of a busy family.

So on Volleyball days, we eat breakfast together and take a quick trip to school. It’s got to be one of my favourite times of the week! It’s a time when I’m reminded of his ever growing maturity, his imagination, fragility and the complexity of his evolving personality.


Happy Birthday Sam!

Yellowstone Pt. 4 – The big one.

Invigorated by the previous day’s fishing experience, and completely over the whole geyser thing, by the time that we got back to camp, the kids were extremely keen to try out their own rods and lures in the lake that our camp site backed onto.

Everyone seemed to split off and go their own way for a few moments. We were starting the fire ready to cook our dinner (there is nothing better than damn good steaks over an open fire) Caroline wanted to get the kayak out on the lake, keen to try a spot of fishing and the boys were all off to the lake edge with their rods.

So it was that I found myself alone at the camp, watching the fire, beer in hand and a few moments peace.

That in itself is of course a recipe for something to happen. Because you can’t have four kids and expect a quiet beer around the campfire early in the evening. It just doesn’t work. Thus, as I sat contemplating life’s grand puzzles, like how empty was my beer and should I bother moving my arse to get another just yet, the sound of kids casting lines into the lake and retrieving them almost entirely dismissed from my consciousness, the peace was broken by the sound of Caroline calling me from the kayak. As may can tell from the photos, I didn’t exactly have vision of what was going on either out in the lake or along the shoreline, which dropped about 2-3 metres from the level of where we camped.

Now admittedly, the first thought wasn’t all that complimentary, but the call was persistent enough that I knew that I was going to have to do something other than just screech “What?” back across the lake. The fact that Caroline’s voice was soon added to by a stranger saying something along the lines of “Is Sam’s Dad there?” had me moving a little more quickly.

The fact that the next thing I heard was “Sam’s got a fish hook through his lip!” had me all but sprinting through the brush, leaping felled trees like a frenzied deer (admittedly it was probably more like a deer that’s been half eaten by a wolf and that is getting on in years) as I navigated the tangled shore of the lake.

I made it to where Sam was and sure enough, there he was, a stranger holding his rod for him and on the end of the line … himself with a hook piercing his lip.

He was luck on 2 counts. Firstly, because we were in Yellowstone, the hook was barbless. Secondly, the hook had only gone through the fleshy part of the lip rather than through the entire front of his face so to speak. That of course did very little to lessen his distress. I tried to work the hook out, but barbless doesn’t mean you just slip off the hook with no effort (unless you’re a trout apparently) as there’s a slight flaring below the tip that was just enough to keep Sam on it without me giving it a really hard pull (and he wasn’t up to that to be sure!).

So with more people descending on us to find out what’s going on (after all, ‘Sam’s got a hook through his mouth’ tends to draw attention) I sent Thomas off for the pliers.

As we waited, I kept the tension off the line and tried to cheer him up as best as I could, I told him that we’d get him some ice for it, that it was unlikely to need an stitches or serious medical attention and askiedif he still though the geysers were boring, or whether he’d rather be caught on a fish hook.

Without batting an eyelid (hew as trying to keep still after all) he looked at me and said, “The fish hook is more fun.” Little bugger! The pliers duly arrived and with a quick clip, the flared tip was removed and Sam slipped off like the elusive ‘one that got away’.

No blood and so nice ice was required and Sam was off being his usual self within minutes. Even when I quipped that I might have to start calling him trout he smiled and in fact, I think he’s secretly pleased with the new nickname!

No photos with this one ... for some reason i didn't think to stop and take any!

Honoured

Growing up in Australia, we’re influenced by North American culture in a multitude of ways that you don’t even think about. Now that we’re living over here, some of them occasionally pop up out of the blue and where you’d be surprised if it happened at home, over here, you tend to think, “Oh yeah, I guess they do that here.”

The most recent example of this that I’ve come across popped up at the end of the school year. Michael and Sam were invited to a presentation evening. I didn’t actually wonder too much about it other than to make sure that I got to the school in time to be there for the presentation.

As it turns out, both of the little blighters ‘made honour role.’ Quite impressive really. And one of those things that I remember having heard about randomly through all those American TV Shows and movies that I watched as a kid growing up. I have to say though I never understood the mechanics of it until now.

As far as the school that our boys are at, to make the honour roll, you have to exceed 80% in all of your subjects. Now given that they both skipped half a year of school and moved forward, I have to say that I am very very proud of them

We’ll leave out questions about how good the education system might be, about the fact that it seems to be a very test-orientated, seventies kind of environment and just bask in the fact that they both managed to do it. Hopefully they keep their heads down enough next year to manage it again!

Clunk

With the sun making a reappearance and treating us to a truly beautiful day on Saturday, I cajoled Michael and Sam into getting out into the park that adjoins our house to kick the soccer ball with me. They'd been enjoying the sun most of the day, but I'd just returned from a couple of hours at work and so was keen to get out and have some fun.

All was going well and we were chasing the ball as much as our inaccurate passing required, right up to the point where Sam chased the ball in amongst the play equipment in the park. He was so focussed on the ball that he was chasing that he failed to notice that he was running straight at a steel horizontal bar that was right at head height.

There was a rather loud clang as he managed to smack his forehead into the bar and then he was flat on his back, tears streaming from his eyes, blood in his mouth and just a little bit the worse for wear.

It would have been funny if it hadn't been such a vicious smash. Fortunately he was ok not too long after, though with a sizeable egg on his forehead which is now starting to bruise nicely.

The Great Barbie Massacre

Since we left Australia, there's something that we haven't quite managed to get around to doing. If you've seen some of the photos, there's a small chance that you might have picked it up. Of course there's a good chance that you haven't taken any notice either.

Michael and Sam haven't had a haircut. I attempted to fix that a couple of weeks ago, but with limited time, I gave up after about the third hair place because there was no way we were going to get through it before they had to be at ringette.

Other than having really long hair, it was a pain in the proverbial with Sam if for no other reason than his hair seemed to work its way out from under his helmet and into his eyes (a head band soon fixed that but don't tell him I told you). But it wasn't really that much of an on-going prospect and so it was time for them to get a haircut. And I volunteered to take them.

I had asked Sam if he'd like his short at the back like mine and he was fine with that. Michael was a little more reserved and decided that he'd like to see Sam's hair before he committed.

So Caroline dropped us off and I took Michael and Sam into the hairdressers. There wasn't a whole lot of English being spoken in there, but that was no reason to be concerned. I outlined what I was looking for with Sam's haircut, a number three at the back and some length left on top.

Part of me thought that maybe it would be a good idea to do this in stages, but that number three was ripped straight up the back of his head and there was no going back.

When it was done, Michael decided that he too would go down the same path. And so we have two boys with very short hair. By the time that it was finished, I looked at the floor and it looked like there'd been a Barbie massacre ... all those long golden locks on the floor.

Photos to come

nine

During the past week, our little man Sam turned 9. So I thought that it was only fitting that I sit my butt down and write a little about the number two son. (I actually did this a couple of days ago, but then managed to lose the lot … always a wonderful thing).

Sam is a delight (well most of the time). He’s distinctly different from his brothers and the child most likely to dish out a hug. Sam takes great delight in surprising me with crushing hugs. And I of course, never complain about that.

The other day, one of the other Aussie Mums over here said to us, “You know I can’t quite work Sam out. Every time I think that I’ve got him pegged, he surprises me and I realise that I don’t have it yet.”

I think that’s very true of Sam and in many ways he could have been a Gemini as he switches from what I perceive to be his usual generous and easy going manner to the little guy who’s picking on his younger siblings or berating his mother for a minor infraction of what he perceives as common sense and decency (usually a sure indication that he’s over-tired).

On the day of Sam’s birthday, he received a remote control helicopter. Just a little one, that’s supposed to be indoor friendly. When I was leaving for work, the helicopter was on being charged, so I didn’t think to say “don’t fly it outside.” But when I was almost at work, I realised that I had left my phone home and so turned around to go get it. I’d probably been out of the house for about 40 minutes. Of course as I came in the door I learnt that the helicopter had been taken outside for a maiden flight.

Sam, being generous as he is, had allowed Michael to be the one to try it out for him. It flew. Landing seemed to be the problem. Well, not so much landing as the location for it. Michael managed to land it on the roof, which is of course now a rather tall prospect compared to what I am used to at home. And given that we are new to town, I am yet to have gone down the path of procuring a ladder with sufficient reach to make it to the top of the house.

Now if this had been any other child in the family, a) they wouldn’t have allowed someone else to have the first turn and b) they would have been so distraught and angry that I would have been confronted by a screaming ball of hysteria the moment that I walked in the door. But Sam was calm and philosophical, accepting the fact that he’d said that Michael could have first turn and with that ultimate childhood faith in his father to get it back for him (given that it’s days later now and will be the first chance that I get to borrow a ladder, I really need to try and do that for him today … when I finally get out of the office). It’s one of those ways in which Sam surprises you.

But Sam is also still the little guy who is afraid to give some things ago because he feels that he won’t be good enough for them. Sometimes, he thinks that its better not to go out and look bad rather than give it a go. And so at the first game of Ringette that he went to, he spent most of the first half sitting on the bench, adamantly refusing to take part. It took me back to the day that I had to drag him into the basketball stadium just to have him sit on the bench. Which we then managed a week later to be getting him on the court (not participating, but on the court) to finally a point where he was happy to go on, as long as he participated in his way (which mainly meant taking the free throws from the side lines). But he did eventually go out on the ice and do his thing (which given his skating ability didn’t really involve chasing the ring or other skaters around the ice).

Sam simply isn’t as competitive as his older brother. He’s happy to be a part of a team and happy to play, but he doesn’t really deal all that well with the fact that everyone doesn’t just get a turn at it. I take this from the basketball experience, where he was quite happy until people would attempt to snatch the ball from him. He wasn’t prepared to stick his hand in and take it off them and really just looked like he wished that people would give him some time to dribble the ball rather than try and snatch it off him (he did get good at hanging onto it when they did try that!)

So he’s more than happy to shoot hoops on his own, or with me where there’s no pressure and the only competition that’s introduced is at his instigating. He likes cricket and I think part of it is that even though there’s a team playing against you, there’s the separation in the way it’s played. It’s not a bad thing. Its just hard for a competitive old bastard like me to watch sometimes!

But all in all, as I started with, Sam is a delight. He loves his maths and does well at school and most of the time is a polite little man who’s fun to be with. Happy Birthday Sam.

Back to School

Thursday was the first day of school for the boys. Yes, you read that right, Thursday was the first day of school. Because we’re in Fort Mac.

Why else would you start the school year on a Thursday which, by the way, happens to preceed a long weekend. Oh yes, and Fridays are half days too.

Uh huh. The first week of school consisted of one and a half days. Which in hindsight might actually have been a good thing.

Upon coming home from work, I asked each of the three boys how their days had gone.

Thomas replied that it was good.
Samuel replied that it was ok
Michael replied that it was bad.

Which kind of even’s itself out to ok in a mathematical type sense, but doesn’t really help when reality is put into place.

I’m not quite sure what was so bad for Mikey. The things that I have managed to place together are

1) That they only get 15 mins for recess and 20 mins of time outside for lunch. The rest of lunch is apparently spent eating, sitting at your desk. And you’re not allowed to leave.
2) That he had to do work on his first day. Under later interrogation Mikey declared, “At St Thomas the first day was easy, and even the first week we didn’t have to do much, but here we had to do work on the first day!”

Later that night, whilst Caroline was out, I got to sit down stairs and overhear Mikey in tears as he complained about just how bad school was to Sam. No amount of reasoning from me was ever going to help him get over that. Telling a distressed 10 year old that things would be better in a couple of weeks is as successful as asking a starving lion to please wait 10 minutes before devouring the ripe juicy carcass that has just been made available to it.

I was both saddened and amused when I heard him start plotting the different ways in which he could manage to not end up there on the following day.

I hoped that the fact that the second day of school being a half day would mean that things wouldn’t go too badly. Thomas told me his day was ok again, Sam said it was worse and there were certainly no signs of improvement when I spoke to Michael.

Sam dissolved into tears when he said that he had homework to do. I told him that he’s really good at doing his homework and so that shouldn’t be too much of an issue. The the waterworks really started as he told me that he was going to have to do all his writing in cursive! More futile placating of small child followed.

On the upside for Friday, we did manage to buy a Wii system yesterday. Something of a triumph when you consider that I must have stopped at at least 12 different stores to try and get one between Calgary and Fort Mac (including the entire bloody West Edmonton Mall) only to be told on every occasion … we don’t have any in stock.

This would have been much better in terms of making kids happy if we were ready to plug it in! We did also get our keys to our house on Friday, so that was exciting. Of course, once again, it would be more exciting if we were in a position to live there! But so far, our freight is still locked up in Toronto. If they haven’t released it when I get to talk to them on Tuesday, I might well have to fly Caroline (and kids?) down there to do it for us!

Anyway, on the school front, at least it’s a long weekend and so we can sell the fact that week two becomes really only three and a half days of school.

Just remember, all of this has come on the back of ‘the bombshell’. Life’s a bit tense right now. Lucky I get to come into work on Saturday and relax!?

The Magpie

Its funny when you watch your kids grow and develop their personalities just how varied they become when they draw their genetic make-up from the same place. They have their similarities, but there are idiosyncrasies there as well.

Kids like to collect stuff, that’s a given. Certainly all of our kids do. But Sam is the magpie in the family. He’s the one that will always bring something home. I can live with that, but it’s the things that he decides to bring home that never ceases to amaze me.

I’ve never met someone with such a penchant for collecting crap! We spend two hours at Michael’s cricket after Sam finishes on a Saturday. That’s two hours in which he is able to scour the surrounding area for something fun and interesting.

Like the piece of rusty steel that obviously wasn’t any good for its intended purpose (or for any new purpose either (as far as I could see)) any more. I can’t remember how many times I asked him not to bring it home, but I wasn’t happy when I stepped out the back door and tripped over it!

Last week he found a couple of scraps of a watch band. Well they absolutely had to come home! I mean that wasn’t just junk, it was shiny junk.

It doesn’t matter where we go, Sam finds something to bring home, whether it’s a bottle top, a stick, a rock, or the claw of a crab that’s caught his fancy, its coming with us.

And the really amazing thing is, that once it gets home, he doesn’t necessarily lose interest in it. And the most likely place you’ll find the item at some later date? In his bed! I’ve never seen a child so happy to sleep on a fraction of his bed whilst the rest is full of accumulated childhood treasures.

Sometimes I can see the fascination with an object and I know that I’m just being a stuffy old bugger because I don’t want the crap in my house that is the end result, but seriously, you have to see some of this stuff to see just how crappy it is!

Having said that, I do love the boy dearly!

Musical Journeys

At Christmas, the large guy in the red suit bought each of our children a CD of music. I have to wonder what the musical future of my kids is when I look at what they got and what they're enjoying.

Michael got a compilation of Australian ballads, so does that mean that we're going to see him going all country or worse ... hill billy? Of course, he's been the one most likely to ask to listen to my Rolf Harris CD too ...

Samuel received the latest Beatles compilation which I happen to think is cool. Sam is the one that has shown the most interest in my music of all of the kids every now and then asking what something is or telling me that something that I am playing sounds really cool; especially the bit of Beatles that I have. So at least for him, I have hope that he'll be into a cool and eclectic mix of independent artists.

Thomas received something that appeared at first glance to be suitable for him, a Power Rangers CD Unfortunately the first listen introduced what I can only call a bad mix of Heavy Metal TV themed crap. The big fat guy should have done some more listening before sticking that in a stocking. And of course Thomas likes it simply because its his! When he starts asking for black t-shirts to be added to his wardrobe, I'll be worrying even more.

Emily received a compilation of toddler tunes that can be sung along to, which is most likely to see her down the pop/idol kind of stuff. Given she's a girl, I expect that that will be likely regardless. But we'll see what we can do to help.

So there you have it, a start down their musical journeys. It will be interesting to see where that takes us. Of course, given the breadth of what I have in my collection, I am also aware that where you start has little bearing on where you finish. After all, I own a couple of Ice-T CD's but the most recent things to join my collection were Johnny Cash and a Eurythmics compilation!

As to Caroline, well she just had the gall to tell me that we don't need loud music for New Year's Eve. And I thought she knew me? Apparently having conversation is enough and you don't need anything to dance to. I think I've managed a compromise ... we are going away for New Years, but I've scaled back from my original intent of taking along my old stereo from the shed. I think I'll get Rolf loud enough to maintain tradition!

Anyway, here's wishing you all the best for your own end of year celebrations! I hope that 07 treats you all well and kindly.

And that was Christmas ...

Well, a merry Christmas to all from the Temby Tribe. Its been and gone in its usual whirlwind of fun and chaos.

The big guy in the red suit certainly looked after everyone this year and now we just have to deal with the instant land fill that seems to have accumulated in the living areas of the house.

Its always interesting in the lead up to the big day to hear what it is that the kids are going to be asking for.

Sam either came up with a new strategy this year, or actually was so adamant that he only asked for a single item ... a digital camera. He did manage to get a few other things of course, but the look on his face when he managed to get one was priceless. He's been snapping anything and everything ever since and probably the only thing saving this computer from having its memory filled with pictures of randomness is the limited memory card that he currently has. But that won't last long.

Michael was similarly targeted in his desires, but wanted a little more than Sam. Thomas just wanted surprises and was lucky to be able to enunciate that much with the excitement level pushing him to bursting point. For the last couple of days prior to Christmas, he kept breaking out in random, loud bursts of uncontained excitement. I don't know how else to describe it.



When his head hit the pillow on Christmas Eve, after opening their presents, he was asleep in 5 seconds! What bliss.

And then of course, there was Emily. Every time that she was asked what she wanted for Christmas by someone, there was one consistent response ... "A candy cane." It was beautiful.

And then of course, following a moment of further consideration, she'd add (in random order) "A Pony, a dog and a kitten." Of course, being the first girl in the house, she was spoilt as there were dolls and things to get that couldn't be inherited from the three brothers that preceded you!

All in all, Christmas was wonderful this year, with the only shadow being the uncertainty about Canada. But I even managed to forget about that briefly!