Being out with the Braithwaites has taken on a whole new school related dimension of late. One of the many challenges of not having a job is that it makes me dangerously available to participate in activities when I want to be enjoying having the little ones out of sight and out of mind.
Here we see Dominic's class out for a visit to the local War Memorial. Really when I asked his teacher if I could be one of the volunteers she had asked for to chum them on the walk, I was pretty confident that when I said I would have to bring Maddie too she would give me the bum's rush. Not so.
Still if I hadn't gone I wouldn't have had the pleasure of seeing all the little six year olds being chatted to by a man who was visiting the memorial because his father's name was on it. His talk went something like this:
"Ah yes, that's my father's name over there. I was born in 1940 and he was sent to war only two weeks before I was born. He only saw me four times before he was killed. He died in 1944."
- up to this point I thought it was all quite relevant and worthwhile. But he wasn't finished...
"...He was blown up by a bomb. But he didn't die quickly. It took him two days to die. His leg was off. An arm was off. And it blew out his right eye..."
- and that's the point that I moved away in case I a) started laughing or b) felt obliged to ask him to stop giving my child nightmares.
And then the next day..... I went to the fruit shop (sans Maddie) with Max holding on to one hand and Rory gripped by the other. We bought grapes for their fruit salad and they shared carrying them back, swapping the bag carrying role at every road crossing. As this exchange involved them dropping the bag on the ground EVERY time, I'm glad I didn't have to stay to eat the fruit salad.
Still - this has not been enough for Max. Yesterday I went into his class, at his request, to read all 29 of them a story: Max's choice, The Sneeches. Apart from the sweat trickling down my brow in the hothouse, sorry classroom, the pressure of making sure that all of them could see the pictures and one of the boys putting his hand up so he could tell me about how he was going to another boy's house for tea one night this week in the middle of it, I think it went okay.
It has occurred to me that by the time Maddie is in school I could probably find myself there every other day. Suddenly I wondering if going back to work wouldn't have an up-side after all.....
