Gun control

At the start of this year my husband, a high school teacher, had one student stab another in one of his classes.  This would be hands down the worse thing that has ever happened in his years as a teacher.  It certainly shocked me and many other people.  The student used a chisel, they were in a wood work class, so it was a tool/weapon that was close to hand.  He snapped after many many years of being bullied by the other kid, and while I don't condone his actions I do understand them.  We have all gotten to that point at some time in our lives where we have just had too much.  We might throw something, we might scream, we might say things that we later regret; I am sure that the student regretted his actions later.  When my husband saw the boy grab the chisel and run out of class after the other kid he chased them, I am forever grateful that he didn't catch them.  It might be selfish of me but I love my husband and hate to think what might have happened if he had caught up with the student who did the stabbing.  The child that was stabbed was OK, he needed surgery and the chisel went very close to his spine but he is fine now.  There is no way to stop everyone, everywhere, all the time from reaching this point.  In a perfect world someone would have stepped in long before and helped both these boys out and everything would have been wonderful.  But it is truth that we learn all too soon now days, that we don't live in a perfect world, we live in a very imperfect world and people will snap, what ever their reasons, what ever their provocations it, will keep happening, there is just no way to avoid it.  So now thinking about this incident and events in the U.S. this week I am so very glad that I live in a country where we don't all have guns, where we don't feel that we have "the right to bare arms" in order to protect ourselves.  I have never felt the need to have a weapon of any kind in my home in order to protect myself or my family.  We lock our doors and have a phone to call the police and feel that this is all the protection we will ever need.  I am so very grateful that this is our reality here in Australia because it means that people, like that student at the start of the year, when they do snap and grab what is close to hand to vent their rage can only grab a knife or a chisel and not a gun.  Thank goodness for our gun control laws in Australia where we don't have to live in fear!

Housework and kids

Cleaning your house while your kids are still growing is like shoveling the walk before it stops snowing.  —Phyllis Diller

How true is that?  It doesn't mean you can not do it, unfortunately.  There are just some things we have to do, clean the kitchen so we don't get food poisoning or attract vermin, clean the bathrooms and toilets so the mold doesn't make us sick, dust so us asthmatics don't keel over, vacuum to try and keep the carpets maintained.  But there has to be a limit.  When I was a kid I thought my mum loved cleaning, because that is all she did all weekend.  My mum worked full time and therefore the weekend was her only time.  But how do you balance this with actually spending some time with your children.  I am afraid my husband and I are not very tidy people and therefore neither are our kids.  We tend to let things go and then have to get stuck in and work hard at it to get it sorted again.  This tendency has resisted all my attempts at changing it, chore rosters, both paper and electronic, routines, reminders, you name it I have tried it.  So I need to ask myself if we can just keep going the way we have been or do I need to change it?  I am trying to think laterally about how I could use the leave it - work at it hard tendency to my advantage.  I have yet to come up with anything but I am trying in the hope that I can find some way of keeping our home livable and be able to spend some time with our children...

Work again and pets

Yes I am at work again.  Today it has lost a bit of its polish.  I would have quiet happily stayed at home.  But at least I get tomorrow off before starting a very very busy week.  And it is going to be a short day.  I am leaving soon to go and pick my daughter up and take her to look at some kittens.  It is her birthday in a week and she has been asking for a kitten for a while.  We are pet people, I can't imagine not having animals around and I am a firm believer that children need pets.  They teach children about empathy; they don't grit their teeth and bare it if the child is hurting them they let them know; about mortality, the first important person in my life to die was my childhood dog and responsibility, you can't ignore your responsibilities to your pets.  So we are off to get a kitten to add to our two dogs, our elderly cat (I am not sure he will be impressed) and our hermit crabs.  The trick will be steering her to the cat that suits our family rather than the cutest one :-)

Mel

At work on the weekend

Yes I have had to come into work on a weekend to get some work finished.  It sounds like I should be really bummed out about this but actually I am feeling really good.  My husband has been working ridiculously long hours the past 6 weeks and I have essentially been a single parent in his absence.  This has meant a great deal of stress for me trying to juggle the demands of my job with the time constraints of picking children up, getting them fed, getting to the shops/activities/appointments etc.  I don't think I realised how stressful this has made work until today when I don't have that stress and can concentrate on what I am doing without trying to think of a dozen other things at the same time.  It is also very peaceful in here.  Not only do I not have kids climbing on me, yelling for me or asking me for things but being a weekend I don't have the phone ringing, colleagues asking me questions or any distractions.  I am playing my music on speakers rather than having to wear headphones AND I am singing along!  I didn't have to wait for anyone else so I could use the sandwich toaster and no one is hanging over my shoulder to see what I am eating today and make some comment about my diet/weight/lifestyle/caffeine addiction.  There wasn't even anyone to laugh at me as I danced to my music in the kitchen while I waited for my sandwich to cook. It is very relaxing and liberating being at work on the weekend on my own and I wonder if I should do it more often.  I am certainly getting a lot of work done.  :-)
Mel