Category: Diary Page 41 of 47

After yesterday’s sofa nap I decide getting the extra sleep is more important than getting up for my morning shift. Thus begins what will end up being an almost two-week writing drought.

The Elderbeast resists going to school once again, but relents eventually. Perhaps he’s too tired to battle as well.

No morning shift means I haven’t had my first coffee of the day. I remedy this by having two coffees at work. The day is nice and breezy–the first day, in fact, that I haven’t sweated half to death on the coffee run. Clearly the perfect day to get bonus coffee.

Later that evening I hear the Kinderbeast crying in his sleep. I go in and find him kneeling up in his bed, completely distraught. At first I think he’s thrown up, but the lack of a telltale pool of vomit lining his sheets puts paid to that theory. Then I think he’s had a nightmare, and hasn’t quite woken up from it. He’s crying, but unable to tell me what’s wrong. Then I finally realise he’s wet the bed. In five years, it’s the first time he’s ever done it.

I hand him over to Rach for much-needed cuddles while I strip the bed, make a futile bicarb-based attempt to soak up the gallon of blissfully odourless toddler pee that has soaked into his mattress, then decide to flip the mattress instead. Meanwhile the Kinderbeast is demanding to return to bed. We hurriedly get fresh sheets on there and he goes straight back to sleep.

Not the adventure we were expecting for the evening.

I get up for my morning shift but find myself unnaturally tired. After a few moments of holding my head up above the keyboard, with my eyes closed, I admit defeat and retreat to the sofa for a 15 minute nap. This is unprecedented in the history of morning shifts. But the nap helps. Briefly.

There must be something in the air. The Elderbeast,  fully transformed from yesterday, is now a pure hell beast. He makes me fight for every step needed to get him ready for school. The morning uses every last bit of energy and patience I already don’t have. Finally, at the last moment, as we’re getting in the car, he declares “No!” and claims he’s not well enough to go to school. I grab his bag out of the car and leave him behind. It’s really not worth the chance of getting a call from the school an hour later asking for him to be picked up.

(It’s ok, by the way, I didn’t leave him at home on his own!)

I then have to take the Elderbeast to his skating lesson. Again, even up to the last minute, he claims that he doesn’t want to do it. Finally he gets out there. On the way home we have to do the week’s shopping. I’m too damn tired to cook anything, and too damn lazy to drive to get takeout so I end up getting frozen pizzas for dinner. The results are … underwhelming.

An entirely appropriate finale to the day.

The Elderbeast gets out of bed and, as promised, completes his writing for PEAC. I’ve been very careful to place his previous night’s work, including the printouts, into his folder. Before we leave the house, I ask him to place his morning’s work into the folder as well.

We head to PEAC and guess where his folder is? Not in his bag, that’s where.

I’m absolutely gutted that the Elderbeast doesn’t get to show the results of his sterling efforts from the previous night. I wait around long enough to explain to his teacher what’s happened. She calls the Elderbeast out of the class room and commends him on his hard work, without even seeing it. It’s great to see some unquestioning trust and positivity. Once again, I have high hopes that PEAC is going to do wonder for the beast.

It’s Fucken Monday!

After almost a week of being pure demon spawn, the Elderbeast abruptly decides to adopt a new, much improved, work ethic to tackle his languishing handwriting and the potential impact to his PEAC work. There’s an outside possibility that the promise of a Nintendo Switch if he works hard might have been an influencing factor. There’s also an outside chance that we’re planning to buy a Nintendo Switch anyway, but we’re not above a bit of creative bribery here and there.

I spent the evening working with the Elderbeast on his PEAC homework (remember? write out ten facts about three great people). I get him to type it out first, and then handwrite it out. He chooses Tesla, King Richard 1 and Winston Churchill–and, whaddya know, I learn some interesting facts in the process myself. It takes the Elderbeast all evening, but he sticks with it. I’m hugely impressed by his efforts. In the end he has to retreat to bed, and promises to complete the last few bits of writing in the morning.

It’s an amazing turnaround. I go to bed exhausted, but bursting with pride.

It’s another game day, which presents us with eternal conundrum of starting early enough that we get enough game play in, but also late enough that we’re not still eating breakfast when people start to arrive.

Suffice to say we’re still eating breakfast when people arrive. In fact, I’m pretty much still cooking breakfast when people arrive because I don’t believe in half-assed failures of time management. Go full-ass or not at all.

Kid’s birthday parties. There is no purer form of hell on this earth. Today the Kinderbeast has failed us once again by getting himself invited to yet another birthday party.

On the upside it’s in a park just down the road from us, and the morning weather is perfect for chilling in the park for an hour or two. After having to determine which of the three parties happening in the park is the correct one, we settle down and let the kids do their thing. We’re pleased to discover that a cafe has been added to the park since the last time we were there, so we stock up on coffee and croissants. Meanwhile the Kinderbeast somehow manages to win himself two party prizes.

I randomly decide that we should adjourn to the shops afterwards and hunt down a copy of Just Dance: the Elderbeast stumbled across a demo of it some months back and seemed to really enjoy it–I figure it’s a good way to get him some free exercise and get him playing something a bit different for a change.

The quest proves surprisingly complex. There are four shops that sell games in our local shopping centre. There are several different editions of the game (one for each of the last few years). Many of those editions are available across multiple platforms. Most of the available options were, well, more than we were willing to pay. In the end we find a cheap copy of Just Dance 2014 for the Wii U, which has a much funner selection of songs than the later editions anyway.

And, guess what? We also picked up Arrival.

The kids have a blast trying out their dance moves after dinner, and I have a blast watching them (I do NOT dance). It’s money well spent.

Afterwards, because we like to keep the universe guessing, we do not watch Arrival. Instead we watch Doctor Strange, which we have failed to catch up with so far. It’s a good choice.

Friday. I pick the kids up from the in-laws, along with Rach. We have a birthday party tomorrow, and I decide we’re better off stopping at the shops on the way home to buy a present, than rushing it before the party tomorrow. We reckon we might pick up Arrival too, but in the ongoing conspiracy to prevent us from ever owning a copy of Arrival we find that JB Hifi closes earlier than almost literally any other shop in the centre. Slight exaggeration there: most of the other shops are also closing. But the slight still burns!

Luckily Big W is still open. We grab some suitable presentage from Big W before heading home for another relaxing Fridate.

The sky is still grumbling when I get up. I’m told there was some particularly violent thunder at around 4am, which failed to wake me up. I enjoy a good storm, but last night’s was pretty intense. I get to work and find out there’s been at least once instance of a house losing its roof. I feel less ridiculous for worrying about ours. And also a little bit more nervous …

We say goodbye to one of our colleagues today, who’s heading off to an entirely different country. Parting, as they say, is such sweet sorrow. I’ll miss him, but I’m incredibly excited about the adventure he has ahead of him.

Emotions are clearly high today. I go to another meeting later on, during which another colleague leaves in floods of tears. I feel slightly bad for not having mentioned anything, having noticed what were clearly a few signs of stress earlier on.

For dinner we enjoy Rach’s famous lasagne, which comes with a twist tonight. As Rach is now vegetarian, she tries making it with Quorn. The results are impressive – possibly even better than a meat lasagne. Possibly.

Obviously the most exciting thing about today is the release of the new trailer for Alien: Covenant. I feel that the return of Ridley Scott to an honest-to-God Alien movie would be a lot more exciting if Prometheus had never happened, but the trailer gives me plenty to get excited about. I even have a nerd moment and screen-cap the final shot (the money shot of the xenomorph) so I can geek out over it for a bit.

Later in the evening, almost fittingly, we’re hit by a series of thunderstorms. The thunder is so loud I start to wonder if the roof can withstand the deep, seismic rumbles. I turn my lights out, ready for sleep, but then spend a few moments looking out of the window. I don’t see any actual lightning, but the sky is alive and flickering with light in a way that I’ve never seen before.

(Note to self: keep an eye out for martian war machines in the morning).

Carter leaves PEAC with homework: his writing is once again holding him back, and he hasn’t finished the assignment they were working on in class (which is to choose three ‘great’ people and write out ten facts about each).

We’ve set out a program of daily writing exercises for him. All good in theory. Getting him to sit down and focus on them? Another matter entirely …