7 Quick Takes Friday (Vol 193)

1
It often surprises me, in a delighted way of how supportive my husband and children are of my blogging.  As I hadn’t written for a fortnight at first it was my husband lamenting that I, “haven’t written any new posts” then our 14year old son was mournfully saying, “You haven’t written anything new”:( finally when even our 9 year old daughter sighed “Mum you haven’t written anything for ages” I knew it was time to ‘pick up the pen’ again.  Whilst I was languishing in a blogging slump thinking, “I have nothing to say everyone hasn’t heard before and who wants to hear what I have to say anyhow” obviously my family doesn’t agree.  They’re supportive like that, and I ‘luv ’em’.

2
Newly released in America is Moms Night Out which I really, really want to watch.  The trailer just appeals to me, the humour is great, mostly though I relate to the young mum with three little ones, I’ve been there, hey I’m still there.  I also relate to the mum with older children who uses humour to balance the absurdities of life. Yup I want to watch it, and it is going to be released in Australia on May 29. It may be set to play at your local cinema or you may have to be like me and do some promoting to make it happen. I’ve rung my local cinema and they’re going to ‘look into it’, if that falls through I’m going to contact some Churches to gain support to host a one off.  Any readers seen it?  What did you think?

3
I think I need to buy PC one of those ‘Mum’s Taxi’ stickers, lately he seems to be constantly running the children, here, there and everywhere. He picks up Princess from ballet one night a week, drives back into town to pick up Einstein from work 3-4 nights a week, plus all the soccer/refereeing/work runs on the weekend.  It’s kind of crazy some weeks, last Saturday we did five trips in and out of town between us.  On a countdown till Einstein goes for his driver’s license, he’s booked in for three weeks time.

4
Recently a friend was browsing artwork and came across a picture of the Madonna breastfeeding the Christ Child, she shared her surprise with me. We discussed the sexualisation of the female form including breasts and how ‘once upon a time’ breastfeeding was not even commented upon. Chareen recently shared these 25 Historical Images that Normalise Breastfeeding(700-1946), really quite thought provoking to see the openness of breastfeeding in a time that we might have considered to be more ‘prude’.

5
Princess and I were thrilled this week to find a ‘new’ shop in town, one that sells ‘frocks'(isn’t that a delicious word!)  An assignment shop they sell all sorts of goodies, including ‘frocks’, evening gowns, bags, hats and boots!  Very cheap prices too, Princess and I plan to go back and enjoy further and we can’t wait till Anna Maria is home to show her.  I told the shop owner I was excited to discover her and asked how long had she been open for business? Two years.  I felt rather foolish.  She suggested she obviously needed to be doing more advertising.  I assured her that wasn’t the case as to why I was oblivious, I admitted I “needed to get out more”.

6
It’s kerbside pickup for our town at present, we’ve been driving around checking out the potential ‘treasures’, haven’t found anything worthwhile salvaging yet.  Tomorrow we’re placing out our ‘treasures’ for pickup, we’re looking forward to seeing what the neighbours take before the truck arrives.

7
Jessica recently wrote a review about the pros and cons of All About Reading and Primary Arts of Language.  I was keen to read her thoughts on All About Reading as we purchased the program this year and are using it with Jem (5).   I intend on writing my further thoughts once we’ve made our way through the initial level but I just wanted to add a pro that Jessica didn’t mention and that is, the rhyming ‘games’.  For a long time I’ve overlooked the importance and use of rhyming games in learning to read, ie. “I say the word book, what does book end with?”.  My children really struggle with hearing the rhymes and I believe I may finally have discovered why they haven’t been reading and spelling as easily as I imagined they would.  They simply aren’t making the connections easily, they need to be taught this skill.

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