New Adventures

Today I played my first game of basketball - ever. I have never even played back in the olden days at school. I was a netball girl. I have, more recently, watched an awful lot of basketball and a lot of awful basketball. But today it was me putting on a show.

I was so nervous - like never before. I only knew one person in the team and where I should be. I also basically knew what to wear. I bought myself some black basketball shorts from kmart. They only set me back $5, but are extra large mens.... so a pair of spanx stepped in for skins or bike shorts just in case they fell down. I borrowed a pair of the kids socks and shaved my pits and knees - to look respectable.

Then I found myslef scrounging on the floor in the oldests room to find some contact lenses that I could steel  as mine are majorly out of date. I was of course running out of precious pre game prep time. Whacked in one contact, but the nerves were getting the better of me, so much so that I couldn't get my hand still enough to get the other one in. Whoops - lost the car keys- now in a dead set panic. Grab keys and jacket and make like the wind to the stadium. Driving in a permanent wink as still only one contact in. The other is drying out on my finger waiting for a red light.

I got there in the nick of time, popped that wicked lense in and was off. And man were we off. There was non stop running. After the first three minutes I was red faced and exhausted - but it was exhillerating too. Exercising without the thought is so much easier. Basketball however is not as easy as it has looked. I will have to rethink all those things I yell out to the boys and I now personallly understand why the boys seem so tired in that final quarter. They are not looking at the score, they are counting down how much longer they have to run for - as least that is what I was doing. We lost, but not by a lot. 29:21 and I actually scored a goal. I also did a few travels - bouncing and running are a bit new to me - but we are off on a great adventure. I will learn these chicks names who were all so welcoming and fun and look forward to next week. Maybe I'll also do a sneaky bit of training.

$10 is a good motivator

Its the first of March, the first day of Autumn and with all these firsts it is the perfect time to make some changes.

We have all been in a bit of a rut and after 4 weeks back at school, I decided that if I wanted things to be different I had to feel and act differently about them. And here it is.

I have created a bit of a competition around 'looking after yourself' as competition seems to be a motivating force around here. We are always busy, and the boys are tired, but we need to increase the focus on doing the right things first, and the 'fun' things second.

The new plan is that the boys will each make their bed every morning, they'll get dressed in their school uniform, pack thier bag for school and sort out any other things that they need for the day. They are also responsible for their sports bags and making sure they have a drink bottle etc for these activities.

The twins are now in grade 3 and have started getting homework. They have 2 weeks to do it and already in the first cycle, they forgot about it and left it too long and then got really anxious about it. I have made them create a schedule so they know when they have time to do it and obviously I will help them to get it done.

The final implementation is a diary. I have bought the boys each an A4 diary with a day to a page. The instructions I have given them is to write about their day, what they have been doing and try to get them to reflect a little on what they have been doing. What I ultimately want them to do is simply get in the habbit of writing and be able to write more, and quickly. Even Xandy in Grade 6 struggles to fill a page, so hopefully this new habbit will improve that.

Each of these categories will receive a score out of ten each day and the child with the highest score at the end of the week gets $10. (we dont do pocket money as we figure we pay enough for all of their  extra curricular activities) So there it is - all written on the fridge so no one can say they didn't see it. We'll see how we go but from where we are the only way is up!