School, Kids, Daily life

So our feelings about how we are doing seem to revolve largely around the kids -- are they happy? do they have friends? is school going ok? All very stressful, because we want them happy. Casey hates after school care -- and I can't really blame him. Most kids his age don't go, and the few who do, play cricket the whole time. This would be ok, but since he's never played, Casey isn't very good at cricket, and some of the kids have made fun of him. Waah! So hard to hear. I picked him up yesterday, and he was sitting by himself doing nothing. I know he should play to have fun, but it must be hard to play a sport everyone has played since they were 5 years old. And the kids here are SO into sports activities -- EVERY kid in Casey's class but one (hippie parents) plays on a sport team. The school even has kids anounce their team scores at an assembly for the whole school on Mondays and Fridays! So we're not sure where we fit into that.

Casey says he is up for trying to go home himself (Ripley is happy to do crafts at daycare) -- it is a 3 minute bike ride, crossing no roads. As it is, I give him my keys when I get to school, and he goes home himself, and Rip and I follow a few minutes later. He says he is comfortable spending 15-30 minutes alone, so that should give me enough time to get home. We'll see. We are also looking into a babysitter to watch the kids for an hour or two some weekdays. We'll be happy when we have a settled schedule!

That aside, Casey seems to have made a bunch of friends, who are very nice. We've set up an every-other week standing playdate with one friend. Ripley balked on a playdate yesterday -- she only wanted the friend to come over, so we'll see how that goes. Then, she decided another friend is "mean", because she told Ripley she didn't want to go to the bathroom with her, she was playing a game. Ookay. We're working on it.

The week's big activity was Jazz in the Park: a giant fundraiser/party for the kids' school. A very nice band played swing/jazz/oldies, and there were food stands, cakes, etc. to buy. I gave each kid $6 to buy stuff, but then it was $2 donation to get in, and $4 for a ride on a (very teeny) bounce house (or bouncy castle, as they say here). A cookie was $1. So I wound up spending much more -- about $50. Of course, there was wine, and even bottles of champagne (a mere $20!). It was fun, we knew enough people to talk to, but also exhausting meeting people constantly.

Dave goes to Canberra on Sunday, so I'll actually have to drive to pick Casey up at a playdate -- ack! We barely drive -- we tram (or dave bikes) to work, bike to get the kids, I stop at the market on the tram stop. Wow! I suppose once a week we'll drive to the big supermarket...

Funniest comment of the week: Yesterday, when we woke up, it was raining. Ripley asked, "Does this mean school is canceled?"