School Holidays....

We are 4 days into the school holidays and aren't doing too badly. On Monday we headed to Playcentre for the morning - it was a holiday session. I was feeling pretty seedy but figured I may as well feel seedy in the company of others as at home by myself. The boys had a blast and their filthy, sandy, paint bespattered selves had to be dragged to the car :). After playcentre ended we hurtled home for lunch before I whisked Cameron off to Kindy. Once home Kieran asked to play on the IPAD while I finished reading one of my course books - North and South. On Tuesday I cleaned the house and took the boys to Parrs Park for the morning. We ran, and galloped and cavorted in the freezing sunny day. We all had enough by 11am and we came home and watched the Fox and the Hound before Kindy. I stayed at Kindy for the 3 hour session doing jobs as part of the term clean up. Kieran loved it and wants to do it again - me clean, him play haha. No. On Wednesday I dropped Cameron off at kindy then Kieran and I bought milk and flour and collected our library books. I dropped Kieran to McCahon's for a playdate then headed home to read a course book (so unfair I have 14 texts!!) - Sylvia Plath's the Bell Jar. I feel it's overrated. Then I mopped the floors and reluctantly washed the poxy blinds. I loathe the blinds - cheap, horrible plastic things that don't keep in the warmth and don't keep out the sun!!! I only managed 3 blinds, and still have 5 to go (sigh). Then I dashed out to collect my love who had had a fall at kindy- so had scraped chin and forehead. Upon his pleading I made cheese scones for the boys lunch, peach muffins and bagels. Cameron helped me with all the baking - we sang the Doctor Who theme music to each other as we shaped the bagels. He loves Dr Who, but "his" doctor is 10. Kieran's is 11. Kieran was dropped off at 1:20 having had a lovely time with his friend. I made him a Snakes and Ladders board on cardboard that he can drive cars on (obviously a special request haha). This is now our first full week of Cameron having no afternoon sleeps. I would love to report that our nights are now restful and undisturbed but we usually have a visitor around 2am. Last night however was pretty special. Kieran popped in at 11, 12, 1 and 2 before finally going to sleep. Then Cameron took up the baton and roused Chris at 2, 3, 4 and 4:45 (I slept through these visits). As I result I slept in till 8 with K snuggled up against me (I have no idea when he joined me) and Bandit firmly snuggled up between my and K's head. Cameron only roused himself at 8:30, the lazy thing. As a result the day is proceeding rather sluggishly. Instead of a sunny rainbowy day like the rest of the week the day is grey and cool. I had been planning on taking the boys to the Henderson skate park but feel terribly uninspired.Still I got my last grade (B+) and a book that I have been waiting for (7 weeks!!) which cheers me up. Now to clean the children and wash the poxy blinds!

My how time flies!!

Gosh - it HAS been a while since my last post hasn't it. Let's see, what has happened recently. I had the first lot of contact courses for the 20th century literature and Speaking papers. That went well apart from Kieran getting cellulitis and being admitted overnight to Wellington hospital. Oh, that was a fun time for everyone. I was stuck in Palmerston and Chris, Cameron and Kieran were in Wellington. It was a really long drive back home as I was only able to leave the contact course at 3:30. 

Since then we have had Kieran reading in leaps and bounds. He has gone from level 1 to level 10 in 15 weeks of school, and his maths is fabulous. Cameron is doing very well too. He can count to 100, count in 2's up to 20 and has begun to understand fractions. I had my last contact course a week ago. I caught the Naked Bus to Palmerston North. We got a good deal for the fare and it only cost $30. The course went well and I flew back so I got home at 7:30 Wednesday night.... for some reason Chris wasn't keen for me to take 10 hours to get home haha. Apparently the boys were little devils while I was away. We have had some lovely weather recently - lots of rainbow days. 

I have enrolled for my last 2 papers and will complete my degree in November this year. I am really looking forward to finishing haha. I managed to maintain a B average for the 4 papers which I am pleased about haha. I am struggling with how I will manage to do full time study next year as I don't have enough kindy hours to allow me to get into town, attend lectures and get back for kindy pickup. I will talk to Auckland Uni about this and then hit up the kindy for a few 9-3 sessions as I need them as otherwise we will have to do PORSE etc. I have decided on Auckland over Massey as Auckland has an option to do the qual in 18 months. This would mean I did the academic part of the course in 2014 and the practicum in the first part of 2015. I would finish just as Cam entered school, which is awesome as I want to work after Cam has been in school for about 6 months as otherwise he will be shoved into before school care, school, and after school care - which will be a long day for a little boy. I am now back to helping out kindy, am doing reading assistance at Oratia, am doing mainly music and of course I have the occasional minuting job to fill up my free time. I have also decided to take up the Goodreads challenge of reading 200 books this year. I think I am at 50 books so far haha. 

The boys have been doing so well in their swimming lessons. We had Cameron on Tuesday and Kieran on Saturday but had them moved together as petrol was getting a little expensive. It is now school holidays for 2 weeks and I am trying to organise playdates for Kieran. We will be taking advantage of any dry sunny days to head out to various playgrounds, particularly ones with skate ramp facilities. Thankfully Cameron's kindy runs through the school holidays - yay!!!