Working Hard (well, some of us are!)

We sometimes go through periods when Molly has quite a significant level of homework (for a 6 year old, anyway) to fit into a regular week. This term we're having one of those periods.

Once you factor in a couple of after school activities and some rest time, plus allow a bit of time for playdates, it starts to become a real challenge to fit in all the spelling, writing, reading and news preparation each week.

(Especially when you have an attention-demanding 4 year old in the house whose main goal in life is to distract his sister).

Last week's news topic was to perform a song or a dance for the class and Molly spent roughly 3 or 4 hours - at least! - practising in total. 

This was mainly due to the fact that she kept changing her mind about what to do. After starting off the week by learning the dance to "Hoedown Showdown" from Hannah Montana she decided it was too fast and after a lot of frustration on her (and my) part she then changed the plan to choreographing and rehearsing a dance to "Everybody Walk The Dinosaur". 

Then, at the eleventh hour when she realised how hard it was to keep in time to the music for that one, she broke down in tears and eventually decided to sing "Count on Me" by Bruno Mars instead. Which involved a lot of time learning all the words. 

Thank goodness this week's news topic is simply to talk about your two favourite places in Wellington - although currently Molly has a list of eight places to talk about so I'm expecting more dramas over the next few days. 

(For the record, these are: Makara Beach, Nairnville Park, scootering on the waterfront, the Sunday food markets, The Beehive, Frank Kitts Underground Market, Te Papa Museum and Raumati Beach). 

Meanwhile I am loving the fact that we’ve now got WiFi in the house so I can finally move my workspace out of our small, dark, cold, uninspiring study and mix it up around the house instead. I work so much better when I have natural light, warmth and big windows near me. I have some lovely clients at the moment and I’m sure they’re benefiting from my moves!

But when it comes to mixing up your working environment Jake definitely wins the family prize. His job frequently seems to involve hardly any time sitting behind a desk in the office and plenty of time outdoors instead doing the kind of stuff the rest of us can only dream of. 

His last few months at work have included helicoptering around the mountains in the South Island, hiking three of the famous "Great Walks", a total immersion week on a Marae learning the Maori language and protocol, attending team meetings at the Monkey House in Wellington Zoo .... and more. I won't go on, except to say that the rest of the family are insanely jealous!