More forte than piano

I guess every parent tries to encourage their children to find interests for themselves, and we are no exception.

B1 is currently very taken with Junior Masterchef, a brazenly commercialised and overstretched TV show that we nevertheless tolerate because we want her to be interested in cooking and nutrition. The other day she helped me make burgers, and I want to keep that going with other recipes.

On Saturday mornings we have started taking the kids to Grasshopper Soccer, a non-competitive football class. B1 finds it a bit of a chore, unfortunately, but B2 has a wild time. We’ll keep it up for this semester, and probably keep it up for longer.

(On the non-competitive thing, I can’t help but be reminded of the Viz strip in which the Modern Parents buy their kids a non-racist, non-classist, non-sexist, non-militaristic chess set: sixteen grey pawns all on the same side.)

Finally, M has prevailed in a minor marital disagreement and we have picked up a cheap piano. I suppose the idea is to suffuse the house with harmony, in every sense. Here’s a video to demonstrate how that’s going so far.

Yes, this post is all an excuse to link to that Father Ted clip again

Was that the most expensive weekend ever?

First, we had a and a Gold Class movie. Legitimate because it was our 11th wedding anniversary, though Contagion was perhaps not the most romantic film ever. Especially that bit where they open up Gwyneth Paltrow’s brain post mortem.



We are in the middle of redecorating our entire house, so we also splashed out on 8 picture frames, 5 light fittings and some fancy new blinds. Mmm, aesthetic.

While M was choosing the blinds, I snuck out to JB Hi-Fi and picked up a PS3 game and 3 CDs (yes, I still buy CDs).



M also decided she needed to upgrade her iPhone so we got a 4S, although she claims that this will save us money.



Finally, and least interestingly, we bought a car.



After this splurge, extravagant by even Mario Balotelli standards, M found time to question my investment of $9 in some healthy snacks for my children.



Perspective is a tricky thing.


http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8vbd3E6tK2U

Scary monsters

Halloween! As usual, our street organised for all of the resident kinder to march around en masse, which makes for a lovely community event.

B1 went for a vampire/zombie mash-up look, and got very excited about the prospect of eating my brain.



B2 is all about dinosaurs these days, and has the threads to prove it.



The mass of children made their way around the close like a swarm of sweet-toothed locusts, distracted only by visitation from this mysterious character (I think I know what neighbour this was, but I'm still not sure).



In the end, they were delighted with their haul.



I noticed a few churlish letters in the SMH this week complaining that halloween is a crass US import, but I did it as a kid in the UK, and what's wrong with taking the best stuff from elsewhere anyway? We always have a great time.