The Parks and retro Adelaide

I took this photo over 5 years ago, back when I was still a 20 something. How much wisdom and life experience I have gained since then! Anyway, it's a mural of the community health centre at The Parks, which unfortunately is slated for closure to assist with State Budget cuts/revenue raising. I am praying this decision gets overturned-it is so apparent that the eastern suburbs are well serviced with parks and recreational centres/pools (albeit council ones) and the western suburbs have less recreational spaces. Plus the Parks is kind of daggy but cool, it has a social/cultural heritage that is worth keeping, 70s era murals and all.

My friends do roller derby training there; a work colleague said her twin sister met her husband there at the swimming pool; it has a community health centre providing outreach to community members, many of whom are the CALD clients that health policy makers otherwise find difficult to engage with (because they don't voluntarily attend doctors/screening programmes/hospitals). Engaging with the community or getting people to participate in grassroots sports/recreational events in the future is so difficult when you lose a resource currently utilised so widely.

The arts and craft centre, murals and building design are desperately 70s, screenprint Dunstan era culture. But it's quaint, it reminds me of the Gillian Armstrong documentary she did with the teen girls, it reminds me of the 70s photography in the recent Art Gallery SA photography exhibition, it reminds me of early career photographs of Robyn Archer with a mullet (or think of any other SA export in the arts/entertainment world).

I didn't make the rally yesterday (feebly being caught up in my own maternity leave arrangements including prepping my work replacement), but watched the TV coverage and saw my friend Nick in the front row, standing next to someone I recognised from the 90s. How Adelaide.

And back to the present: have 3.5 weeks until Lu Fang's due date, and am hoping baby does not arrive early. AJ is down to the wire with being in Adelaide for the due date-his worksite is closing operations so he's busy trying to negotiate a post baby income, time off for the baby's arrival as well as pack up all our country house belongings. I probably should be making an appointment with the bank, completing tax and making sure finances are organised at least until Christmas. My oldest nephew turns 11 next Tuesday and I haven't even bought him a card, let alone a present. Did try and tell him that due to the absence of present requests, I had assumed he didn't want a present, but he said that was because he wanted a surprise (both he and his 9 year old brother don't get that relatives need present HINTS). I was thinking of getting him the John Marsden book but am not sure if he's old enough for that genre, don't want to rush him through his remaining childhood years. And I refuse to get anything that is computer game related, much as he would want it.

Spent Monday with him and his brothers, which was interesting. All 3 boys were happy to spend the morning (admittedly a rainy morning) playing Nintendo. Asher watching over the shoulder. There were interludes of playing monsters with empty cardboard boxes, eating peanut butter sandwiches (made by me-cut into rectangles on advisement, welcomed with aggressive crocodile tears by Asher which made me suspect he would have preferred triangles, but fortunately his tears were for other trivial reasons) and scooter races in the driveway. The boys also went on the trampoline, went around the block, and later on Asher completed a scooter ride to the beach and back. But there were certainly hours of computer games and no clear instructions about what quantity of game time was acceptable in the school holidays. So I was possibly a bad auntie for not trying harder to get them to have a break.

When they were on the trampoline, Lu Fang finally kicked hard enough to warrant telling Asher. I asked him if he'd like to feel, but because he was too absorbed with trampolining, he was only willing to feel with his foot-an admission he later made to Bec, which resulted in him receiving a big lecture about how he'll have to be more gentle after the baby is born. He also discussed games he'd like to play with the baby when it's born, said that the baby can play trains with him but only when he visits, because the trains are HIS and are staying at HIS HOUSE.

In typical almost 4 year old style we had a talk about kindergarten which went like this;
Me: Are you looking forward to kindy and doing craft?
Him: NO, I don't like craft!
Me: Do you know what craft is?
Him: NO!
Me: It's making things, like sticking cardboard boxes together
Him: Oh, I want to do craft!

No is a very popular word with him, and he likes making jokes, mostly of the slapstick variety: putting underpants on his head, claiming that he'll wear his tshirt as trousers, informing his brothers that he'd been swimming at the beach. He has his moments of being terribly stubborn and demanding and other moments when it's all worthwhile, such as when he displayed his correct knowledge about how babies are positioned in the belly. However I don't envy my sister having to shape and manage that behaviour all the time. His older brother provided interesting "parenting" tips, explaining to me it wasn't possible to get Asher to back down from an argument but you can warn him of consequences. He asked me to work with him on his attempt to get Asher to make his bed, which went like this:

Me: Come and help me make your bed
Him: No, I don't know how!
Me: I'll teach you how to put your sheets on
Him: I don't want to learn!
Gus: Well, then you'll have to go to sleep without sheets-that's the CONSEQUENCES.
Him: No!
Gus to me: He knows the consequences-don't make his bed for him.

Later on:
Bec: Have you made your bed!
Him: No! I don't know how!
Gus: Georgie offered to teach him
Him: No she didn't!
Me: I''ll get the sheets out now and teach you. Do you want the wiggles doona?
Him: No! Not the wiggles. I need the stars!
Me: Are you ready to put the doona cover on?
Him: No!

And later on again:
Him: I'm a monster! (rolling around inside the doona cover)