Grandparents Day

How remiss of me not to mention Graqndparents Day. On the 6th May Donald dropped in with three of his children. Maddison who turned eight in March. Connor who will be seven in July and Sammuel who was five in March.

Maddy had a questionaire from school. It asked ten questions of grandparents. Like What did you do for entertainment as a child? What games did you play? What was school like? etc. So I sat down at the computer and printed out some of the material from my non fiction project for her. The only trouble was Donald had only left me half an hour to answer these questions as he had to get the kids back to their mother by 6 p.m.

It took me an hour. He said that a sentence was enough per question and was cross I had used all the space. If I had been that slip shod with his work at school I don't think he would have been happy.

Then Maddy handed me an invite to Grandparents Day at her school. It was for Tuesday 8th May. Lucky Meg was away as Tuesday is one of the days we usually go to lunch.

It ran fom 9 a.m. till 1 p.m.

I turned up at 11 a.m. I thought I'd be out of there by midday.

I had never been to that school before. I assumed there would be some sort of signs to show where to go, but there weren't. I began to walk in the playground. It turned out it was break time. I hadn't taken more than three steps when I see a sand pit. Playing in it was a little girl, who from the back looked like Maddy. I walked up to her and said "Are you building castles?" She looked up and it was Maddy. She jumped up and gave me a big hug and said "I didn't think you were coming and I was about to cry." She hadn't looked like she was on the verge of tears to me.
Kids still know how to manipulate adults.

I said "I said I was coming and if I say that then I will."

She showed me her classroom. She said they were overcrowed as they had 27 children in the class. When I was in Year 2 we had 70 boys and girls in our class. Of course the nuns kept discipline by the use of the cane. I think one of the reasons why they need smaller classes is because there is no discipline or corporal punishment.

Then she took me to her art class in the art room.

On the way we saw two of my great grand children. Corey who is six and is in Year 1 with his twin brother. Then Jarred who is eleven and in Year 5. Corey asked me if I was coming to his room to see him and I had to say no. I asked Maddy why Corey would think I was there for him and she explained that it was gradparent's day for Preps to Year 3. So I told Corey that I was usre his grandmother would be coming soon. (That is my ex step-daughter Kim.)

Then up runs Connor and wants to know if I'm coming to see him, cause he needed me. Maddy said I could go after her art class. I asked her what about Sammuel? and she said he hadn't started school this year and I asked why not and she floored me with her answer. Sammuel is mum's baby. When he goes to school as a sinle parent his mother is required by Centerlink to go out and look for work and she doesn't want to work!! So I said oh well she'll have to next year and Maddy said No "Mum is only going to send him to Kinder" (2008). So he won't start school before 2009 when he is seven years old!!

Maddy and I made a scarecrow in her art class.

Then off I went to Connor's room, which Maddy had pointed out to me.

Turns out that Connor too had a questionaire for me to fill in but as dad had carried on about Maddy's one he had't asked me to fill his in.

He also had an invite, which he had left in his bag and thus no-one knew he wanted me to come to his class till he approached me in the playground.

He was learning the ABC sounds. Now this was something I had to do as a child. Make weird sounds with the letters. It never made sense to me and I couldn't see the point and always had trouble pronouncing these strange noises. Then Connor's teacher explained to the grandparents there that words are prnounced diffrently according to the vowel sound in them. This sound might be soft or hard or even silent and thus the vowels had a number of sounds. This also happened with other letters such as 'h.' Ah! now all those weird sounds made sense at last, but I still have no 'ear' for the differnce.

Just before lunch all classes involved in Grandparents' Day had sport. So I watched both Maddy and Connor.

Finally got away at 12.55 p.m. The children's lunch break does not start till 1 p.m. I was glad I had not come at 9 a.m. I don't think I could have endured another two hours. It was so full on.

As it turned out Kim did not go. She did not even know about it. Her eldest daughter, Melissa, is 'not talking to her'. They had a tiff over something. Now you would think that even though the 'adults' are not talking Melissa could have sent a message via her sisters who are still living at home to ask mum to go to see the kids on grandparents' day, so the kids didn't miss out, but apparently this was too simple.

Sometimes I am baffled by the weird behaviour of so called matute people.

Anyway I had a great day and I hope that Maddy and Connor did too.