August Ending

We are slowly inching closer and closer to setting our move date; we are held up waiting to hear back from Michael's company, but hopefully everything will progress soon. Even though we are kind of in limbo, we are making tentative plans for when we get home, to attend baby showers and family Thanksgiving, and that kind of thing.

Otherwise, Sydney is lovely this time of year. It's still cool in the evenings, and most days it warms up into the 60's. We will be celebrating Fathers' Day this weekend, because they like to have it on a different day in the Southern Hemisphere, for some reason. 

I was just watching some videos of Penelope from a few months ago, and it's crazy to think that just in March she couldn't walk on her own. Now she can already do "complex" things with far less effort, like run, climb, use stairs,  go down slides independently, and ride her ladybug. Same with language - at the one year mark, she could say a few words. Now her vocabulary is easily over 60 words, and she can mimic a short word (or approximate, anyway) after hearing it once. She can communicate where she hurts if she falls down, and other actual useful information. She enjoys being helpful and putting things in the laundry hamper when asked, and following other simple instructions. Of course, she just as often chooses to not do what we say, and then run and "hide" because she thinks it's hilarious. She's really developing a sense of humor, an understanding of emotions, and even the beginning of empathy (although it's really hard for toddlers to still understand that other people's point of view and feelings are different than their own). 

I will be working at the same school for the rest of the term, which is good. I have known some of the kids and teachers for about four years now. It's nice to finish out my time working here with familiar faces.

Time to go because Michael and Penelope will be home soon. Happy Wednesday!

Glow revisits Tragedy

I just started watching season three of Glow. In the first episode, the characters live through the national tragedy that was the Challenger explosion. It just made me think, how small of a tragedy that seems now, in the general scheme of the tragedies the world has been facing in the last few weeks. I was alive in 1986, but not old enough to have watched or heard what happened, so I have no personal memories about how people reacted at the time. It's not to say that the Challenger wasn't a tragedy - it was a huge tragedy, and at the time, it was a unique occurrence. There is a reason it still gets referenced. 

I had a longer post that contrasted all that with reference some of the more recent tragedies that I just erased because it was a bummer. Thank you, Glow, for reminding me of a different era. In some ways, it was simpler. In some ways, it wasn't - people still had to grapple with tragedy and find a way to move on. And that idea, oddly enough, made me feel better.

Day In and Day Out

For the rest of this school term, I will be working all of my teaching days at the same school, which is always kind of nice. Seeing the same faces and getting into a groove is nice, but there's enough variety that it's never monotonous.

We are still waiting for Michael's work contract to go ahead with more planning for our international move. 

Penelope seems to be enjoying her regular schedule, which hasn't changed since February. Some days she is with me, some days she goes to Sally, her daycare, where she plays with one other boy. We still do swimming once a week, and we go babysit/play with Ed on Fridays. Michael has his night of the week he goes to frisbee, occasionally also goes climbing or works out another night, and I either go to trivia or frisbee on Wednesdays. 

Pen continues to love spending as much time outside as possible at a few different local playgrounds, she loves imaginative play with dolls and stuffed animals, and she loves to color (crayons, markers, watercolor, bath soap crayons, etc.). And, of course, she loves her busy box that Michael made - it's even been updated lately with some good music selections. We've introduced building toys, cars, and some other toys, but she just isn't as into them. She still gets into a lot of stuff and tries to climb a lot, but I think she's been making more reasonable decisions lately and isn't always trying things that are too risky. Usually. She has started asking questions by changing her inflection and putting her hands in the air in a confused gesture. Like, when she's watching Sesame Street, and there's a skit where Ernie hides, Pen holds up her hands and says, "Ernie?? Ernie?!", with increasing concern.  

We have no big plans for the upcoming weekend, but I'm sure we will get up to something.

Return of the Little Plastic Things

Both Coles and Woolworths have promotions for little collectible items right now, so we find ourselves collecting little useless things again. They aren't entirely useless, since we have a kid who can play with them, so at least there's that. There are some people that are trying to boycott these deals, because they want to discourage the unnecessary use of plastic. I agree with these people in principle, despite the fact that I find myself collecting. This is partly because if all the chains near you have some kind of collectibles, you can't boycott, you need to buy food. And, a novel free toy for our collection seems like it's fine, considering that they have already been made at this point. I know, I'm part of the problem. I can't be perfect in every way. 

So, every few days, we acquire new "Lion King" Ooshies or more Little Shop Items. I suppose the key in the future would be for them to revert to trading cards, or other items that are made of different materials (as long as they aren't terrible quality, like the cardboard Christmas items that Woolies gave out).

While it might seem ridiculous that we collect these, as a biproduct of just going to the store to buy the things we need anyway, there are people who are selling and buying them online to complete their collections for big bucks. If we find a rare one, I would have no qualms with making some money off of it.

Anyway, happy collecting, folks!

Throwback Tuesday

Yesterday I taught third grade. There was a girl that looked incredibly familiar, and it took me half the day to figure out why. 

When I first moved here, and I was working at a long daycare/preschool, there were these half-Chinese/half-Caucasian twins that had two dads. When I checked the class roll again, I realized it was the girl twin I hadn't seen in about five years. 

I have been teaching in Australia long enough that the preschoolers I had are now showing up in my primary classrooms. The girl didn't remember me, which didn't surprise me, but it was weird to feel like I knew so much about her that she had no idea I knew. I also texted my friend who also taught her, and she was super happy and excited to hear an update. It's funny, the girl was exactly the, same temperamentally and personality-wise, just with more language and writing ability. She was still kind of quiet, yet social, and she was a copy-cat. Back in preschool it had been copying every activity her brother did. In third grade, she was copying the other kids at her table, writing her own zombie comic book after they had already started making their own. It's funny how some personality traits don't change, and it makes me realize that in five years, Penelope is going to be so much bigger and cognitively developed, and yet, still the same. 

Second Thoughts and Converging Timelines

Michael and I both had a moment this week where we questioned whether we really want to move back to the US. Despite the constant shootings that don't happen in any other developed countries (because all of them passed reasonable gun control laws after they had shootings), the government continues to do nothing to make people safer. Because of this, everyone is on edge. Michael's company's head office had an armed intruder reported, and the office was evacuated. It ended up being a false alarm, but since there have been so many other shootings in the country this year, anything could become a situation at a moment's notice. A car backfired in New York City, and that sent a crowd of people running, panicked, through Times Square. Is that the kind of paranoia that we want to bring our daughter into? Do we want to leave our lovely free healthcare? Do we want to go through all the effort of moving our cats overseas? 

The thing that gets me about all these people that are against gun control laws, is their argument is that they won't work. Well, first, the research in countries and states that have different forms of gun control shows that they do work - they do have fewer deaths caused by guns. Second, if someone is so sure that the laws won't work, they should be open to having them, if only to prove that they don't work. It's like saying, "I'm so confident that I'm right, that I won't allow you to prove me right". 

Moving on...

Are we just focusing on the negatives because we just read too much negative news coverage? Maybe. I can't help the fact that I want to be informed, but I can read and watch less of it while staying in the know.   

The plan is still to move. The whole point to move is to be able to spend more time with family and friends after almost six years of being away, and that hasn't changed. There are also lots of aspects of living in the US that we miss. Nothing will ever change the fact that it's our home, no matter much it seems to have changed since we left. 

But preparing to move back, we can't help but feel less American than we used to, and more Australian. That's probably because we literally are more Australian, but hopefully we aren't any less American. Not that that's actually a thing. Having a different views and culture in our background is the essence of being American, or it used to be anyway. At least we can always move back down under, if we miss the way of life. 

I guess one way to look at it is that the US started unraveling after we left. Maybe when we go back, the universe will right itself. Like, maybe we were never supposed to move to Australia, so us moving caused some dark timeline to start. Now that we go back, the timelines will converge back.

Mini Milestones

Today was the first time at swim lessons where Penelope was actually able to blow bubbles in the water. It might seem like a small thing, but it's a concept that takes little ones a really hard time to get, even if they see an adult do it fifty times. They literally have never had to blow air out of their mouths for a specific purpose, just like they don't know how to spit or blow their nose yet, so it is actually a skill to be mastered. Up until this point, the would just dip her open mouth into the water. She got really excited when she saw that there were bubbles and that she was actually making them, and then it was all she wanted to do for the rest of the class. 

Penny is the only one that hasn't missed a class yet this term, so she has actually been practicing all the skills regularly, and therefore seems to be more comfortable than a lot of the other kids doing the most of the activities. Although, she also is over-confident, so she thinks she can do whatever she wants and not listen some of the time. I wonder where she gets that, haha. A double-edged sword, it is.

My Favourite Cover Lately...

Let me tell you about the one person I knew who shouldn't have had a gun...

We had a nice weekend, getting to catch up with friends. 

Sadly, we heard about the news of more recent domestic terror attacks in the US. It's really disappointing that gun control legislation that passed in the house is actually physically sitting on Mitch McConnell's desk, and he will not bring it up for a vote in the House. 

I know a few gun owners. Most of them are law-abiding people. I say most because only one of them was not - he was paranoid and should have never owned a gun. He had never been caught for a crime before, so he passed whatever background check there was in the state of Virginia at the time. Literally, he thought the government was tracking his toll smartpass, kept the handgun in the glove compartment of his car, and occasionally talked about what he would do if someone made him angry on the road one day. He called it, "The power of God in your hand". Also, he was hooked on pharmaceutical drugs that probably affected his decision-making at times. I was not his friend, but knew him as an acquaintance through others. Believe me, I wish I had not known him or any of this. Anyway, I have not heard what became of him in the last 10+years. I hope he got help for his mental issues, and I hope he no longer has a gun, or access to drugs, but I have no idea. There is literally nothing I can do about it. That is a problem. I know I am not the only American that knows about some random unhinged person that has access a gun. And so, we wait. 

Sorry to be a downer, but current events are a downer, and we should be unhappy about them and make something change. Even those that don't believe gun access is the answer should fighting for access to better mental health care, doing research, helping strengthen their communities, and/or combatting hate. Too many people have thrown up their hands in the air too many times; they are now part of the problem.