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Toot Toot: I think I can, I think I can.

As I sit drinking my coffee with my back to the sun, I can feel it warming the back of my neck. Warming it almost to the point that I’m forced to rethink my decision to forgo the sunscreen (rookie error), and the cool breeze billows through my hair, talking to me, soothing me, almost as though its enticing me into a better mood. The day has a very summery feel to it, a promise of freedom, happy adventures and a slower, easy life. It has a feel that I can’t quite put my finger on, a typical summer’s day feel. An element of je ne sais quoi. And yet I can’t seem to bring myself out of the dull, drab, murky cloud that has been looming over me since I woke up this morning.

I want to be out enjoying the weather at the beach or at the park. I’m instead confronting the piles of uni work that I’ve conveniently stashed aside in the too-hard basket for the last few ~~days~~ weeks!

I do have to admit; it’s not all bad. I am loading up on coffee care of my favourite café, something of what the business types like to call “a working lunch”. So yes, it could be worse.

My most important and pressing pile of papers sees me reading about the importance for teachers to engage students. Of the need to provide students with a sense of motivation, a major factor when achieving the desired learning outcomes. My text talks of the differences between intrinsic and extrinsic motivating factors and the influence of the children’s social surrounds that signal the perception towards self-efficacy. Self-efficacy being the notion that one can only learn and do that to which they believe they can. In simple, having a positive attitude and an “I think I can” approach.

Now, I can’t help but notice the irony at play here.

Because you see, on a beautiful, summery mid-week day I find myself motivated and committed to my studies. I should congratulate myself on that. I really should. I’ve at least got the motivation part down. If I can be so bold as to apply to references made in my text, I’m well on the way to improving and achieving my desired learning outcomes. But there’s a crucial flaw here that could in turn prove to be debilitating if left unresolved. The major factor being that the primary motivation to knuckle down and study is purely of extrinsic ideals – the fear of punishment (or in my case, failure to complete my degree). This fear seems to be the only thing keeping me from tossing the books aside and letting loose at the beach.

But I also know that the combination of being overly tired (and therefore just a tad grumpy) and kind of feeling the overwhelming need to have a good cry, is going to take on and challenge this so-called extrinsic motivation. And yep, newsflash, I think it might just be in with a good chance of winning.

So yes, whilst I believe that I CAN do this. I can sit down and focus and open up my mind to new ideas and engage in reflective thought. This is of course because I understand and know the importance of equipping myself with the appropriate learning tools necessary to keep up-to-date with my studies. I also believe that I CAN crack this bad mood with a little self-prescribed RNR. And naturally, that involves a some much-needed beach-activity.

Therefore, taking all of this into account, I also know that some days,

“it just ain’t gonna happen!”

Which, to be perfectly honest, I actually think is a valuable lesson to learn as a teacher. Some days the classroom dynamic is simply not going to work. Don’t fight it. Work with it. Use it to your advantage. Make the most of it. Help the kids to get the most out of a situation that’s just a little touch and go.

Now where’s that beach towel…catch you later uni, I shan’t be missing you.

Ciao. xx

Trending: kids with vampire fangs

An open letter to Miss Charlie:

Miss Charlie, you are an amazing girl with such a vivid imagination. You are bursting with creativity and clever ideas. When everyone else is thinking logically, you’re thinking in the abstract. At just six years of age you’ve already progressed to development stages well beyond your youthful years, a feat that not even Piaget could have accounted for. You should be so incredibly proud of this. I know I am proud on your behalf. Your level of maturity and sage perspective makes it an absolute pleasure to spend time with you. Everyday you make me smile and laugh and ensure that I rethink my viewpoint on most things. I look forward to listening to all of your interesting stories from your adventures at school. Also, don’t tell anyone, but I especially love the 3pm school pick up because it rationalises my longing for ice cream. I mean if you’re eating ice cream then I figure I can too right?

My only wish, and I say this out of the kindness of my heart,

is that you stop trying to turn me into a vampire.

I of course more than willingly do Santa Claus, The Tooth Fairy, The Easter Bunny and all of your imaginary friends. Sometimes I convince myself that there is a Sock Fairy that has a thing for creating odd socks, and I often wish for a Cleaning Fairy that would magically sweep her wand and make everything sparkle. Come to think of it, I even have a resounding belief that Fairies really are out there flitting about in the magical woods. Despite this, I simply won’t do ‘vampires’. Yes Twilight is a pretty cool story. Yes Dracula is a classic and puts forth a solid argument (not that you’re old enough to have read the rather imposing tome). But I simply can’t possibly believe that vampires exist. I know this because if they did, Edward Cullen would already have been mine. I would be enjoying an ever-lasting lifetime of sheer angelic beauty, unparalleled senses and a love story like no other. I am sure of my convictions.

So please, and I cannot stress this enough, please stop trying to bite me and turn me into a vampire with your razor-sharp vampire fangs. It’s kind of weird to have you show your teeth and hiss at me. My blood does not taste sweet, it tastes metallic and I’m sure would be rather unpleasant to drink. Please stop refusing to eat all food except that which resembles blood, you’re doing my head in and making meal times even more difficult to plan than they already are. Furthermore, please stop trying to bite yourself! Your precious skin will thank you for it when you’re older. Most of all, regardless of the benefit of hindsight, it’s just simply not worth the pain and heartache.

Keep in mind my requests, give it some thought and see what you think. You should find that I’m not really asking too much of you.

Yours truly,

Nanny SheCanDo.

Home alone and unsupervised.

I don’t think so. No really, it’s not true. Despite the assumptions made by most people on the other end of the phone.

No wonder I’m often apprehensive towards answering the phone. There’s nothing worse than having the person on the other end say,

“Is your mummy or daddy there sweetie?”

Um no. Matter of fact, they’re not. I’m twenty-two. I just have a sweet sounding voice. Got a problem with that?! Yeah that’s right. What you gonna say now, huh?

… I had another brilliant experience this afternoon. Really brings together the argument to get rid of the fixed line altogether and just stick with mobiles. At least then you (I) can screen calls. And by screen calls, I mean not answer any calls. Yep, guilty as charged. I’ve been known to not answer calls whilst having my phone right in the palm of my hand.

“I’ll simply call them back later!”

I say to myself, trying to rationalise my somewhat strange phone etiquette. Though can you really blame me after having routinely gone through the above mentioned seriously awkward conversation.

Any one else had a similar experience?

Under house arrest on a rainy day

Putting a kink in my plans…

It’s a rainy miserable day here today. Ordinarily I’d kind of like it, an excuse to stay inside the house and do nothing much at all, an opportunity to do a little more uni work than “nanny” work. But I’m not feeling it today. My alarm went off at 6am this morning, complete with a reminder to get out of bed and go for a run. I’d deliberately put my phone on the other side of the room so that I had to get out of bed to turn it off. I’d succeeded in achieving the first part, the getting out bed part. Except for the fact that I promptly got back into bed. And there went my plans for an early morning run. Awesome.

‘Never mind’ I thought as I raced to work with only a few minutes to spare (naturally I had not thought to set another alarm as I sleepily jumped back into bed), I’d go for a run later and take Bubba along with me. It made sense in theory, an attainable goal. Except for the fact that the rain decided to return after weeks of sunny, hot days that made us all think summer had come really early this year. This was the first hiccup to my newly formed plans and not long after came the second. Before I knew it I had found myself stuck inside under what seemed like house arrest.

One of The Twins had decided she was going to be “sick” today. Ordinarily I’d be caring and full of concern and waiting on her hand and food, if it weren’t for the fact that this was not an out of the ordinary type occurrence. It seems that Immy has developed a trend of suddenly falling sick right before she’s supposed to leave for school in the morning. Like literally, she’s jumping up and down and bubbly and chatting my ear off and then 10 minutes before she needs to get the bus she’s suddenly on the couch clutching her stomach in pain and begging to stay home.

So I’m just going to call it, FAKER!

Putting my reservations towards the validity of her ailments aside, it’s started to make me think. Is she facing some tough times at school? Is she fighting with friends or in the process of changing groups? Is she being subjected to bullying? Is she experiencing some kind of anxiety that is making her feel sick in the stomach and giving her stress headaches? Are The Twins separated at school, do they share different interests? This would be a surprise seeing as they’re practically inseparable at home but nonetheless a valid prospect. Is there a particular teacher giving her a tough time? If she were a few years older then maybe her desire to stay home would be much more realistic. She’d no doubt have copious amounts of homework and assignments and be facing the torment of boys and girls getting all mushy, the bitchy girls and the popular girls and all of the other horrible stuff that goes on in high school.

So instead of getting all worked up that she threw a spanner in the works for my plans today, I decided to spend some quality girl time with her. It seems maybe she could use a friend and someone to talk to that’s not Mum and Dad. Because let’s face it. No girl wants to talk to their Mum and Dad about these kinds of things. Whatever it is, I hope we get to the bottom of it now before she hits high school and things get a lot trickier to deal with.

What are your thoughts? Is it normal for 11-year-old girls whom are star students to want to skip school?

Daily Rant: Grocery shop woes

Shopping road rules: stick to the left lane and follow the flow of the traffic at all times. Simple, easy, of course that’s a no brainer – you would think. Sadly, it is not to be.

High up on my to-do list today was the grocery shop. With so many mouths to feed in this house, the grocery shop is majorly important. It’s essential to ensuring that the household runs smoothly. It’s neither a weekly shop nor a set day shop. It’s done whenever possible, as regularly as required and by anyone who can fit it in. It just so happened that today the task came across my desk.. Lucky. Me.

Bubba and I had a busy morning out and about running errands. Yes we may have squeezed in just enough time to indulge in a little coffee break from time to time and yes we had a meander through the park, taking the time to enjoy a lovely sunny morning. But that’s not to say we weren’t busy. As the morning drew to a close, I started to check my watch just a little more frequently. One of the most crucial factors to my day is that I must always follow the clock. If one thing goes wrong, the entire day could snow ball and then suddenly kids don’t get picked up (anyone who’s had to endure the disapproving looks from judgemental teachers stuck on pick up duty will understand this predicament), dinner doesn’t get made, homework gets forgotten about etc etc and suddenly you’re feeling like the worst nanny ever. Added to my increasing sense of urgency was that Bubba had wanted an early mid morning feed, something I hadn’t planned for considering she’d only been fed not too much earlier.

Well that was mistake #1 for the day – failing to prepare for the unexpected.

From that point on, all bets were off. It was a ‘hit the ground running and hope for the best’ mode of attack. As Bubba and I entered the grocery store I calculated that we had roughly 25 minutes to dash around the aisles, meticulously crossing the items from the list and desperately filling the insides of a very wonky, wobbly trolley. I figured that this was a very realistic goal. Bubba usually loves being carried around strapped to my chest in the baby bjorn. She gets to see the world and be warm at the same time. Who wouldn’t be happy with that!

Except for today it seems. Today it wasn’t to be. I could tell by the little grizzles coming out of her and the ever escalating levels of sighs that I was going to lose a good chunk of my time, my 25 minutes was going to be cut short. I re-calculated and estimated that I probably had 10 minutes less than I would have liked to race around the shops before she turned into a crying, screaming baby complete with balled up fists of rage. Yep, that’s what hunger does to you it seems. Although I should be used to it, from my experience it seems as though that behaviour pretty much remains the same over all the ages from little kids to big kids (adults).

I upped the anti and turned my shopping trolley into a personal body guard, pushing my way through the throngs of lycra clad ladies strolling absentmindedly down the toiletries aisle, weaving in and out of the old men dutifully following behind their counter parts along the frozen food section and selfishly pushing other trolleys slightly to the side so that I could jump up and grab the giant bottle of juice that of course just had to be up on the top shelf and slightly out of reach.

What I didn’t factor into my time limit allocation was the delay we would incur as Every. Single. Woman. (no matter the age) felt the absolute need to stop and glance and coo and gahh over little bubba.

“Yes, she is just adorable isn’t she.”

“Yes, that pink little jump suit is perfect for her, so cute.”

“Ohhh, ahhh, yes she is so very little, such an angel. I do love her yes.”

“Yes, I am very young”…. thank you so much for pointing out even though I clearly don’t need your judgement.

“Yes, she is a little bit grizzly isn’t she.”

(Gee I wonder why that is. It couldn’t possibly be because she’s hungry and I can’t seem to make my way through the shops without being stopped by every nosy so-and-so, regardless of the fact that I clearly am conducting my errands with a sense of urgency!!!)

Whilst it really is lovely to see the joy in the other people’s faces when they sneak a peak at cute little babies, there really is a time and a place. Out in the park whilst we’re having a leisurely stroll, sure. Be my guest. Let’s make small talk and pass the time away. At the local coffee shop as we’re waiting in line for our coffees, sure thing. Fire away, go all gooey eyed until your heart’s content.

But at the supermarket. When I’m in a hurry. When I have a shopping list the size of the 7th Harry Potter book. When I have a baby who’s becoming increasingly vocal and can’t seem to soothe despite the very fact that the connection from my body warmth should be doing just that. When I’m losing the fight with a trolley who has a mind of it’s own and seems insistent upon rolling off the left as though it needs a new wheel alignment. When my phone is ringing and I can’t find it in my handbag, not to mention my keys and my purse to pay for all of the goods and as the cashier glares at me for holding up the queue. No. It is not ok. Not ok to stop and chat. Smile and offer a glimmer of knowing and understanding, sure. Keep to the left and control your own trolley, sure. Jump in front of me at the queue when you’ve only got two items, sure. I won’t mind.

But be warned: the next time I find myself boxed in on all sides by shopping trolleys and people absentmindedly staring off into space as I politely say “excusez-moi”, you all better watch out! This trolley most certainly can and will be used as a weapon and I sure know how to use it. Your ankles will get a good beating and your toes will get run over. You will be rammed out of the way as though we’re playing dodgem cars.

Don’t even think that I won’t, you just try me!

Secondly, if I’m late for the 3pm pick-up – it’s on you.