Remember that ‘snake toy’ made by the people who brought us the Rubik’s cube? Well, Mr10 found his old one when cleaning his bedroom a few weeks ago.
Intrigued by the shapes he was creating, Miss11 grabbed my old black-and-white (1980s vintage) one and had a go herself. As the only leftie in our house, it always gives me great pleasure to watch her figuring out the ‘backwards’ way to do things!
Have a discovery-full week yourself, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
Miss11 returned from a recent school excursion to Chinatown, proud of her ability to use chopsticks.
A few days later while eating Chinese takeaway, Mr10 was also determined to join in the fun with his own meal. It consisted (mostly) of prawn chips though… and he wasn’t about to be defeated by them!
Have an inventive week yourself, dear Reader 🙂
– KRidwyn
It’s been almost a year since Miss11 and I bought ourselves an anklet each, on holiday. I’d never owned one before, and neither had she, so when the idea crossed my mind, we bought some and wore them. “They feel like holidays,” we decided together, and since then every time I’ve wore mine it reminds me of her, and also the incredible Rainbow Beach holiday we’d had.
During the last school holidays, we spent a week on Fraser Island. While there, this caught my eye…
meaning I now have two of them to swap out depending on outfit and mood, and both remind me of holidays with the sand between my toes!
[I also managed to lose Miss11’s anklet (yay for more mummy-guilt, huh?!) so she also has a new one now. It worked out okay – she said she didn’t mind – but now the new one’s a reminder to me of how badly I suck at this whole parenting bit…]
Anyway. Back to the point: photo 42 of the 52 I was going to share this year. My new “bling”! What do you think?
And have a sparkly week yourself, dear Reader!
KRidwyn
I realised the other week that my Library has no puzzles.
Problem now solved.
What did you think of this one I bought for my High School students? (Kindly completed here by Mr10 with my help, so I could take this photo…)
Have a puzzle-solving week yourself, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
I’ve blogged already this year about Ark. I haven’t played it since that post, but Miss14 has – and is ecstatic that she’s now tamed a griffin (several hours worth of work) and it’s in her own game, not one on a multi-player server.
Because the first one she’d tamed (note: seven HOURS of not-completing-homework and not-helping-around-the-house) had been on a multi-player server – and it had been stolen while she slept. The thief flew him around, and killed him. Big drama. Sigh.
But she’s happy now. And she’s started making videos, and that makes her happy too.
And this makes me happy.
[Lucky she’s up-to-date with her homework and the housework isn’t too onerous, is all I can say!]
Have a ‘happy’ week yourself, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
I’ve been wanting to share this for a while now: my mystery portrait.
It hangs in my office at work, along with the two other artworks made by students and given me over the years.
The other two were hand-delivered, so I could thank my student personally.
Not so with this.
It was secretly left on my office desk in the first week back this year. The only clue was the handwritten note ‘Welcome back Mrs Bloxham’ on the back.
Now the content matter is amusing. It’s me, in a monster BookWeek costume from 2016. The only selfie I have on my Instagram profile.
What I find incredible? And so, so, so humbling? That a student would seek out a photo of me, and then spend hours and hours and HOURS of their time, during their holidays, drawing me! Because it is a FANTASTIC drawing!
Such a blessing. And I haven’t been able to find out which student blessed me yet, which adds to the mystery 🙂
So if it’s you, dear Reader, lurking on my blog, THANK YOU! And for my other blog Readers, here’s wishing you a pleasant mystery in your week too 🙂
– KRidwyn
I know, this year I decided to challenge myself on the blog by taking photos and posting them here – in an effort to shame myself into taking better photos. So this post is a bit of a cheat – the photo was taken by a colleague of mine.
It’s my son. 9 years old, on school camp where he was away (by almost 200 kilometres!) from home, for a whole school week.
He has autism, if you have been reading this blog for a while.
So this was hard for me.
His first ever more-than-one-night sleepover away from me.
And here he is, on a giant swing, and having the time of his life!
I’m so incredibly proud of him.
And also teary. It’s a bittersweet thing.
How about you, dear Reader? What made you emotional this week?
– KRidwyn
Kids grow up. So slowly you don’t notice when you’re with them
Minute by minute, hour by hour, day after day. But then you lift your head out of the trenches and realise that years have flown. Suddenly it’s not sleepovers, it’s Youth Group; it’s not The Wiggles, it’s BeyoncĂ©. And you sigh and ask ‘what next’?
I had one of those moments recently. I knew one cherub had switched from Minecraft to Ark, but the change several months ago didn’t impact me until she told me one evening, “What I really want to do is teach you how to play Ark on the (Nintendo) Switch.”
Huh. Hold me back.
This game, from what I could tell, seemed like Minecraft with dinosaurs, with a dash of the breeding from DragonMania thrown in. Not really interested… especially when my Nintendo Switch time had to that moment involved learning Splatoon – badly – and playing Zelda, death of the Wild – also so badly my children loved watching to laugh at me about how slow I was to do anything. (And how many times Leaf died, but that’s another story.)
So I sighed, and said ‘okay’ and watched her face come to life.
And it hit me. THIS was her passion. At the moment, it’s this game. And she wanted to share it with me. Instant transportation back to her younger years when she’d bring me a dandelion flower or a lizard she’d caught. The same light in her eyes, the same grin; the same joy flooding through me because I am so incredibly blessed to have such a wonderful daughter who loves me and wants to do stuff with me.
So Ark? Yeah. Not the biggest fan – but now I want to play it when she asks, so I can play it with her. Because she’s an absolute angel and I love her to pieces.
And that – doing stuff you’re not really interested in because the benefits so clearly outweigh any other objection? – that’s my thought for the week.
Have a blessed week yourself, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
So I finally decided: the iPhone X(R). The first night, I fully charged it before switching to flight mode (with one brother in New York and the other in London, if I don’t use flight mode each night, I sleep with the risk of Viber pings waking me). But I didn’t leave it charging. The following morning, it was on 99%! If I’d left my 6S off charge for that long (6 hours-ish) it’d be as dead as a doornail.
But the new phone is taking a while to get used to. Lucky I have Master9 on my lock screen to keep me cheerful as I navigate this similar-yet-different phone ownership experience…
Have a cheerful week yourself, dear Reader!
– KRidwyn
My middle child graduates from Primary School in a few weeks. I’m not ready for this to happen.
She’s ten. Young for her grade; she was bright enough to be accelerated a couple of years ago, and she’s been blossoming ever since. And I’m immensely proud of her for that.
But I’m also aware of the potential problems. She’s small (and cute! Mummy bias here) and possibly more naive than her peers. And yet, mature, for all that. She continually surprises me, with her reactions to events and the considered approach she takes to life. She’s an amazing kid.
And she’s graduating Primary School. Entering the big bad world of High School. Although not really. She’s entering the Middle School which I’m Head of, so it’s not too bad. And it never will be, as long as I have something to do with it! I’m looking forward to having her in my school, even though it means I personally will have more offspring in secondary than I’ll have in primary school, and I’m not particularly comfortable with what that says about my age! But I’ll need to suck it up, I guess. Cos I can’t stop it, no matter what I do.
Sigh. Carry on, one day at a time. Realise that there’s a milestone here to be celebrated… one that’ll never happen again.
Enjoy, and remember. Be like Mary, the mother of Jesus, who “treasured these things in her heart”.
Amen, LORD.
And have a memorable week yourself, dear Reader!
— KRidwyn