Don't be this dude.

My oil light flicked on and off the other day so this conversation happened with Wolf...

Sounds pretty easy, right?

I popped by an auto shop to grab some oil. I had just spent the morning sitting on a non-waterproof picnic blanket on the wet ground so my pants were wet... I was looking forward to getting home, not to this.  I had Wolf's assurance that it was as simple as walking in and grabbing some oil. What could go wrong? (Other than that my pants looked like I had wet myself... and I had a sense of impending doom rising in the pit of my stomach... Auto shops and I don't get along, I've never had particular success in finding what I need without running into some kind of issue.)

Well this is what could go wrong.

Apparently it's not as simple as all that. It seems there is a choice of 37493 different oils and when you use their handy dandy little oil selector iPads strapped to the shelves they only tell you the 35 options for your car from that one brand... they don't consider that you have 639 different brands to pick from.

So I sent Wolf another text...

Stupid phones cutting down the image for a preview

made it look like there was only 375 choices.

Thankfully a kind assistant came to help me hurry up so I could get my 4 kids who were touching their stock out of the store. The assistant dude helped me pick some and said I needed to put some in immediately if it's so low that the light is coming on. So out to the carpark, kids safely in the car, I pop the bonnet and start trying to get the oil cap off. I can get it to move a tiny bit, but it's pretty much stuck. I wrestle with it, move around to get a better grip, battle it as best I am able but it won't move. The benefit of this is that my shorts have dried now while doing oil cap battle in the sun. Short of climbing up in the engine cavity to get a better handle on it there is nothing left that I can do, nothing other than to use my finely tuned mother skills on it. I stand back and stare at it hoping to frighten it into submission with my displeased gaze... I hear laughing. Surely the cap is not laughing at me. There's nearly 12 years of practice in that displeased gaze... I can break a child's will with that gaze. A ute a few cars down has two blokes in it, one about my age, one in his 60s, I soon realise it's them laughing, and they are clearly laughing at me. Not even trying to hide it. 

Their arrogance makes me more determined. I grab a tissue to try and clean the cap to maybe get a better grip... It continues for what seems like a very long time out in the Townsville sun.

Eventually, defeated, I gather my stuff and load it in the car with one last displeased stare at the now closed bonnet. Out of the corner of my eye I notice one of the guys, the younger one, walking over. "Do you need a hand at all? I saw you struggling." I resist the urge to vent my frustrations about his arrogant laughter and accept his help.

He goes to twist the cap... It doesn't budge.

He uses a little more force... It stays stuck.

He makes a lame joke about how it's been put on really tight... I am not feeling like joking.

He tries to not grunt as he uses all his effort to finally make it loosen.

It's off.

Old mate in the ute cheers for him.

I thank him, he gets in his ute, and they drive off (making it appear they were hanging around for the show and nothing else, though I'm giving them the benefit of the doubt and assuming there is more to their story). I stay and fill my engine oil then take my kids home with yet another undesirable auto shop experience under my belt.

An artists cynical impression of the events unfolding

The moral of this story, for those who desire a point to blog posts, is that kindness is free, and laughing at someone who is doing their best at a task and still failing, instead of offering to help, is not only unkind, but a waste of their time and yours.

The corollary is that if you are going to laugh at someone struggling to do a task, you'd better make darn sure that you are confident in your ability to do it effortlessly!

I am honestly thankful that he offered his help when he didn't have to. I also appreciated the chance to share with my kids how it made me feel to be laughed at and that I expect great things of them, kindness even when it's not expected or necessarily your responsibility is the least of these.

The Speed of Life

Life is busy.

Very busy.

With four kids there's actually no way to stop it being busy. You can cut every extra curricular activity from your schedule and still find that just having kids around makes you busy.

Recently though our life has slowed right down. Riiiiiiight down.

August 11th 2014... that's the day we started homeschooling.

We had considered it since before Lion was to start school. We just couldn't wrap our head around it, it just wasn't the right time for us, I guess. Now, with so many changes going on it became evident that this was the right time. This was when we were to do it. Mid-primary school, mid-year, mid-term, mid-toddlerhood (yeah, that's a fun learning curve), mid-aspergers-diagnosis (there's another post there), right in the middle of everything that would be used to tell us that "maybe you should wait a little longer". Nope. Waiting for my kids every afternoon and feeling my stomach knot up as I wondered how their day went, if they were picked on, did they have friends today, how much further behind did they fall in that subject they are just struggling with... YIKES. I was stressed, as I watched their faces round that corner each afternoon and tried to judge from 20m away how their day was, I was seeing that THEY were stressed. The playground was a rough place at their school. We had to report one school kid to the principal for simulating sex acts... unfortunately not before the damage had been done in our house and ill-gotten knowledge was passed on to younger siblings. Though that was a bigger than average situation, when you have kids who take disobedience quite seriously and are constantly surrounded by kids who are disobedient and don't care at all if they are caught and punished for it... it's both exhausting for them and slowly, slowly, slowly it eats away at their own behaviour and you find them copying what they have seen, you hear them mimicking the words they have heard other kids use to those in authority when they get in trouble, it breaks your heart.

Then, you have a holiday. Two weeks off for the mid-year holiday and by the end of it I was starting to catch glimpses of the kids I used to have... The relaxed and calm 9 year old who just wants to invent stuff, the 7 year old who is so kind and gentle. Hey, that's right, these are my kids! Where did these kids go?

For years every time I've brought up homeschooling, even just to chat and "do you think we'll ever..." with Wolf the response has been resoundingly full of reasons why we shouldn't. Although we could both see the reasons why it would be good, he was my level head, the reminder that I had a newborn and was already struggling emotionally, the reminder that we still weren't finished having kids and how would I handle falling pregnant and homeschooling. It's not to say that if we had started sooner we couldn't have dealt with those things, or even that now we were excuse free, but at the time they were our reasons for not homeschooling. This time though his first answer was "Yeah, how soon do you think we could start". I think I might have started crying... I don't remember... We decided that it was best to send them back to school to start the new term, we really didn't know how long it took to get this homeschooling thing happening.  At first we thought we'd see out the year... then maybe just the next term... then we started to look at it in terms of days... we needed to get them out of there.

Towards the end of term 2 they ASKED me to start homeschooling them. Their friends had just announced they were starting and it seemed appealing. I assumed it was the fact that they had heard that the school day is a lot shorter for homeschoolers so I suggested that Wolf and I would consider their request and they should go away, discuss why they want to be homeschooled and come back to us. They came back with a well thought through argument for homeschooling, not a single mention of finishing school before lunch.

Lion was stressed. Lion was seeing a psychologist for anxiety. Lion was not coping in the classroom. Lion had recently been diagnosed "Aspergers with severe anxiety". School just wasn't fitting him well. It had become heavy on the testing and "scores" and if a kid fell behind there was no room to catch them up. I was hearing what a great student he was and how he was doing really well with a couple of areas that were causing him struggles, but the reality of it was that there was becoming a bigger and bigger gap between his "good" areas and his "struggling" areas. 

His teacher was fantastic, the psychologist was giving him ideas to help cope with his anxiety in class, he just didn't fit the system and the system didn't have room for much flexibility.

So we started, we met with the principal, with each teacher, with the psychologist, we met with everyone, we made sure everyone knew that we loved the school, we loved the teachers, we just needed to get out of this system that wasn't working. We cried. We found as many of their past teachers as we could to say goodbye to. The biggest tears were for the teacher aide that they both had for prep... I couldn't bring myself to go see her until the very last day.

Two weeks after we started, Lion has another psychologist appointment. She had a quick chat before taking him in, then after a very short time they were back out. She asked me to come in to her office... then she told me she didn't want to see us again. She confirmed over and over that homeschooling is right for him, he didn't have anything that was making him worried or nervous or anxious in any way. I got some more ideas for how to help him with his non-school related anxieties and then we left.

It's not been all smooth sailing, we go through a Christian distance education school and they are great at helping us figure out where we are going with things and what needs to be tweaked and what we are doing right. I read an article after our first couple of weeks saying that some families find it takes 1-2 years to find their groove, at which point I ran to Wolf and burst into tears saying "I need to find my groove and it can't take 2 years!" I think we are settling into that groove, I am finding that for the first time in my life I am enjoying and embracing routines and predictability. It's kind of frightening. This year we started Monkey doing Prep, that's brought along some new challenges now that I have two kids doing roughly the same work and one doing the very basics, but we have a lot of flexibility so we are getting through. We are still busily filling the gaps that have been left from when they were trying to keep up with the school curriculum, but we are also learning new and exciting things all the time.

So now we are at home a lot. We are also out a lot, but it doesn't feel anywhere near as crazy busy as it did before. We have joined the local homeschool group, we have youth groups and church and sunday school and cousins and playgroup and catch ups with friends... I'm feeling like it's the right kind of busy now.

So things keep moving at the speed of life, which I am pretty sure is faster than the speed of light, because my toddler seems to be growing up right before my eyes!

I didn't take many first day of homeschooling photos... but this one was one of the few I did get.

Sacrifice

Over the years, many people have tried to teach me about sacrifice.  Sacrifice in my Christian walk, sacrifice for my work, sacrifice for others, it's an endless list really.  But none have taught me quite so much about all these areas as my kids.  Mothers sacrifice so much, then we go and feel guilty that we haven't quite sacrificed enough, we would do anything for our kids.  Sometimes we need to make a call... is this sacrifice worth it?

I have put my body on the line, because lets face it, although plenty of people do it, giving birth isn't exactly safe... least of all for your figure. My abs resemble more "rolling hills" than "washboard".  My hips are kinda clicky and gumby, my feet are getting a little wider with each baby... and kinda hairier, I'll be a hobbit soon.  Don't even get me started on what three C-sections will do to a girl!  Sacrifice.

I have given up the chance for a bigger house, nicer clothes, more chocolate, all the things that a job providing more money could buy. Some women have to work so they can just keep the food on the table.  Sacrifice.

There are so many sacrifices that I make every day, little ones.  Four biscuits left in the packet so I go without, not getting that nice pair of pants I saw for me so that I can get a pair of jeans for Lion, giving up time out with a friend so that the kids can stay home and nap, sitting up at night with a child who can't sleep so that he doesn't have to be alone in the dark, being the last to sit down at the table and the first to get up again so that everyone can have a nice dinner, cooking dinner instead of watching the news, watching that kids movie that I can't stand over and over and over again because someone wants to sit and snuggle while they watch it again, missing out on time alone in the day so that a small child can feel like he's had some one on one time with me.

Then, one day, you are called to make a sacrifice that stops you.  It stops you in your tracks and you just don't know what to do, where do you go for advice? Who has been down this path before?  Who can help you make this decision?  The answer, if I'm honest, is that no one can.  You need to do what is right for your family, for your child.  Maybe it is time to let them grow up that bit more, spread their wings, assert their independence... maybe it's not.  If you let them do this one thing, your relationship may never be the same again, you may never be the same again.  Can your heart handle it?  Can you face that sacrifice so large that it will change who you are as a person?  Your fear realised and come to life?

For me, that time has come.  Far sooner than I thought.  I tried to talk him out of it.  He tried to talk me into it.  I tried to convince him that "maybe later" was a better option.  He did his best to convince me that he was ready.  I tried to tell him that it's just not what we do in our family.  He told me that maybe our family needs to change.  He presented some good arguments.  He didn't nag.  He accepted that I was not going to give in but he persisted in his pursuit.  I started to question myself a little more.  My motives.  My strength.  My sacrifice... was this one that I had to give in?  Where I had to go against my better judgement and make this sacrifice for my child?  This was something that I held to with everything in me, it was never going to happen... so how had it come to the point where I was actually considering the sacrifice?  Then, he did it... "It's okay mum, I know you don't like it so that's okay."  He was giving up his dream, for me.

So, I made the sacrifice for him.

I went ahead and let him buy a remote control Tarantula.

Sacrifice.

This hideous creature is sitting in my cupboard waiting for Dragon to earn the money for it.  He's been the tough one to teach to save.  I've been trying to get him to set goals to save for but he never makes it, he quits and settles for something else before he reaches his goal.  He's been wanting one of these for ages, he has not given in.  I've not been pleased with his determination.  They aren't often in the shops so when I decided he could have one I said I'd buy it and keep it aside until he earned the money for it... and he's getting there... a little too fast.  He is the one that takes the here and now over the sit and wait.  Something small in his hand RIGHT NOW will always win out over waiting for the small things to turn into something bigger.  He's changed.  For a spider.  Turning down the offer to purchase of a new matchbox car for the chance to add $2 more to his total savings.  Offering to help with cleaning for another 50c marked off his chart.  Suggesting jobs that I have never had any success in getting him to help with... not even for money... just so he can get his spider sooner.  Responsibility... Determination... Forward planning... not things that I would associate with my Dragon... until now.

I'm still regularly regretting my sacrifice... like every time I walk past his earning chart and see that he's almost half way there... but I can see what this has taught him.  The lessons he is learning from this are ones that he'll need to remember.  Lessons that will keep him in the future... like if you pull at Mum's heart strings hard enough she'll break like a twig.

Sacrifice.

Quick Wit

Scene: TV dinner -The KFC "the pigeons called" ad comes on...

Lion turns to Dragon and announces "Dragon, the pigeons called, they want their dinner back".  Dragon doesn't skip a beat..."Lion, the pigs called, they want their head back".  I just about snorted my dinner out my nose.  That kid is developing a quick wit which is getting him into a lot of trouble.  It's hard to explain to a 4 year old when it is "quick wit" and when it is "smart mouthing".  For instance, if you are getting in trouble and you give one of your jibes to your mother... that'll get you in a whole lot of trouble.  If you are mucking around with your brother exchanging good natured barbs... all's fair.

Now for a little "Out & About with Clan Mctavish"

It comforts me that we are not the only family that does this with cheerios...

He had a whole row, this was the only one he didn't find to pull back off

Although having the ladies sitting in front of us at church giggling at my kids as I whisper sharply to them "DON'T lick'n'stick, just eat them" was not one of our finer family moments.

Don't be fooled.  He's not really this civilised.

While we were out he decided to be like all the trendies and sit and read his book at the cafe with his snacks, babycino and his water.  He fitted right in, he was just with his uncool parents, a major flaw in his social image.

"oof, oof"

Lion found a puddle of water on one of the seats outside his classroom and started blowing it towards the end of the seat to watch it drain off... Monkey misunderstood what was going on and started woofing and slurping the water up.  I am running with the theory that the seats were really clean from all the rain that we've had lately... right?

Hugging the dinosaurs at the "Zoo"

We took a little trip to the Zoo, otherwise known as the Museum of Tropical Queensland (MTQ) with our friends.  The kids love it, it's all very hands on and although some of the exhibits have been there since forever, the kids see it all as new every time.

This was the ONLY was Monkey would get close to this dino.

It's "the zoo with the dinosaurs in it" to my kids and that is always a thrill.  There is also a fantastic display of the HMS Pandora and general North Queensland displays of wildlife and stuff.

We HAVE to take this photo every time.

Dragon & Monkey with the fantastic introduction to the A is for Animals exhibition

The current attraction is A is for Animals, showcasing animals involvement in wars (past and present).  I loved it!  I particularly loved the artworks and the photography on display but the kids liked the more interactive bits with the cockatoo that talked to you and the puzzles and games where they could get hands-on.

Monkey tried very hard to dress himself, he seemed satisfied with this result.

Lion with his sculpture of a man wearing a kilt.

Sunday School had an art gallery exhibition on Sunday. They had been learning about Creation and we went to see the creations that they had made.

Lion with his painting of... I'll have to check with him again, I can't remember.

Dragon (standing on a chair) with his painting of a desert with a red squiggly road and a sunset and a tree.

Dragon's sculpture of Monkey

Extreme Lounge Room Sports

Lion has often said he wants to be a monster truck driver but I'm getting worried when the monster truck is part of the line up and a TRAIN is doing the jumping.  I don't think there was a proper risk assessment for this jump.

My plan is to be back blogging more often (than even BEFORE I was sick) so I don't have to do massive catch ups on our life like this... but I think it's going to take me a while to get back into any sort of pattern.  I am setting aside some time each day to write the Yasi story but because I'm not writing it in order it's making it hard to post the next bit but I'll get there... I promise!