staying at the parents house

I love my family. They also can exasperate me with their little foibles. Why does the guest bed require 6 pillows, including 2 over sized european pillows, and multiple cushions as decoration? Sleeping in it requires deconstruction. And the wardrobe and six foot high chest of drawers are crammed with stuff which can't be given away which means I don't have anywhere to put my clean clothes. Plus my Mum locked me into the house today.

Minor complaints aside, I am enjoying the visit, though bemused that I have achieved "good daughter" status, as the sensible mature wise one that has out stripped (for now) her older sister. Some kind of mental revision of opinions against observed behaviour has taken place, and I am reaping the rewards with lots of verbal encouragement, affirmations, and admiration. Like any sibling, of course I am lapping it up, basking in it (sorry sister). It's quite deserved.

Speaking of siblings, I was part of a conversation between my nephews on Sunday about swimming. Older brother (8) was explaining to younger brother (6) that he wasn't going to get promoted to the "sharks" swimming group if he kept swimming with a straight arm stroke.

"You can't swim with those straight arms!" he explained. "You'll never go up to the Sharks and do dives and breast stroke!"

Little brother insisted he was perfectly happy with the Dolphin swimming group, "and I KNOW how to do breast stroke and dives!"
"No, but you actually get to DO them in Sharks. You just need to change your stroke and you can be in sharks!!"

Give it time and I predict little brother will be adapting his stroke and getting promoted.

Big brother is in a composite class of Grade 3-7 kids; a large number of kids (but none of the girls) are part of a "secret" computer playing group with a secret code name that his Mum isn't allowed to know about. What's even funnier (disturbing) is that one class mate plays not as himself but as the "conscience" of another classmate. Growing up fast...

mo

Meanwhile little brother gave his Mum a highly misdirected Mothers Day card. Printed out using desktop publishing, from one of those customised templates, it is an ode to love with referneces to moonlight kisses and concludes "oh what a romance this is!". It's addressed to his Mum and big brother (but not little brother, or Dad) and is such a classic example of him trying so hard and almost getting it right.. he's going to look back on it in a year or two and be so embarrassed that he got it so wrong. He was showing me the Mothers Day card he made when he was four, in which he wrote "I LEVO you" and he's embarrassed by that now-it's touching and also cautionary how much emotion and effort he puts into caring for other people, expressing his feelings towards them; it's what makes him lovable and what you want him to help keep, albeit in a sustainable way.