Lego

The inevidable introduction of Lego to our family. Such memories I have of a huge bucket of peices, the continual search for the right piece to complete a wall or roof of a house.

It seems however that nowdays, you get sets to build and it only makes that particular thing. its all got to be stored in seperate boxes - for fear of it mingling and losing a key piece...still - Morgan and Age had a great time putting it together.. I hope Santa brings some generic peices at Christmas.

The struggle continues.

I am off to a meeting with Morgans school tomorrow. It seems like the entire school will be in the room with me. Both Morgans teachers, the support person ( teachers aid) and a behaviorist /pych type person. All there with me.. I am feeling a little threatened – I cannot imagine what a ‘normal person’ would feel.

Morgan has been having a few issues at school. The notes coming home do not match the lad I have in front of me every day. I believe there are body snatchers who whisk my son away and replace him during the day. The reports I need to have a meeting over is his unsociability – both one on one and in groups. HUH? I am just about over the crushing news that because he can’t skip or hang on the monkey bars, he will be sports retarded forever….. I go the “OH – he didn’t go tot Kindy”… that explains it…. And I didn’t shove him in daycare 5 days a week either – nor press gang him to an unsupportive playgroup…. What? Are we meant to be institutionalizing our children from birth?

So, apparently he is displaying unsociable behaviours inconsistent with the classrooms expectations. I will have a run down from this behaviourist on strategies they will be instigating and that he will have whoever this person is – tagging along behind him in his classroom for who knows how long peering at him and willing him to put a step wrong….maybe I am being a bit cruel and emotional.. damn it – I am…

I have also discovered that I have a teenager living in my home.. yes that’s right – Morgan has stinky feet and answers in monotonal one syllable words….. How was school? “Good”, why did you pull Georgas hair? “Dunno” what were you thinking when you hit that child with your hat? “nuthin” come here and give your mother a kiss.. “urrr get away, yuk” at least his room is perfectly straight and tidy… at the moment.

So, today I have been going through the whole spectrum of emotions. Beating myself up that I have sent Morgan to school too early. Apparently no – he is displaying above competencies in academia. Yeah – I sent him too early…. Should I just pull him out of school and keep him home for a year… oh boy that’s a big one… should I investigate the whole home schooling deal again?

I know he is far from being an angel – but Morgan is a good kid. Smart, very emotional and very loving. He loves to learn and is so excited about writing and numbers. I know there is something wrong when every day he cries and doesn’t want to go to school. Its ripping my heart out. He was so keen in the first few weeks.

He used to be very sociable in groups – at the park etc and go and introduce himself to new kids. I have noticed now, in the last few weeks, he will hide behind me or just not go where there are other kids. This again is a total flip of character for him.

Sigh… well best get prepared I guess.

An Old Dog

There is a saying that you can’t teach on old new tricks. Well, although I would hate to be termed an old dog – I am far from a spring chicken. I remember the days without computers and the internet. GOD bless they people who brought us the internet! I can’t imagine life without it – researching things- making people and places so far away – be at the tips of our fingers. I digress….

I first learnt about computers in ’95 when I enrolled in a local TAFE course to upgrade my skills. Teachers were in over supply and there was no work out there for me – so I thought I might change careers and be in admin. I remember the frustration of learning to use a mouse. I remember learning the codes for word perfect.( how archaic is that?) and how about this – I remember learning to use a really old database program that was still in DOS – I think it was called DB3??

Spring forward a few years to 98 when I worked at Portsmouth Tech Uni as a tutor– I remember going to a training day on the world wide web. We whispered it that is awed tones and staring eyes. We sat amazed at the demonstration of going to a website. Eyes glazed over and mouths drooling – we went to Cadburys site. The IT person knew his audience well.

Fast forward to now. My mum thinks I am so clever ( well – what can I say.. modesty forbids…) Jamie, has built ( well – Mum and Nev actually have done all the hard negotiations and work involved here) huge amounts of storage sheds and they need some advertising. Apart from media press and ads in the local shops, they have approached the real estate agents – who really can’t be arsed to do much. One would not take on the listing as they already had one companys sheds ( the only other storage sheds within 60 kms) SO – I have been asked – as I have a computer and obviously know all about it – to build a website to advertise it.

SO – last week I got online and did some tutorials. I did a bunch of searches for free webs building sites. I was fine with getting a domain name and getting it hosted – done that a few times before. I started to build a website a few times – but came unstuck when they started to ask for money to host it etc. sigh, back to the drawing board. I lifted a few things from the sites I had started and as I had seen HTML before – on my blogspot – I was happy to play with these. I found a cheat sheet on HTML code and set about playing and getting frustrated and crying about how stupid I was and why on earth couldn’t I ‘get it’. Its an eternal question for me. Why can’t I do things easily – why must I ensure I choose the hardest, most frustrating, soul destroying path?

I began to understand some of the IT guys – how obsessive it must be. I would be in the middle of making dinner and then leap over to the computer typing in some extra code, testing it and whooping with joy to see it had worked.. oh god… I am a geek. I asked Age if that’s what it was like- being a coder – and he just shook his head. His words were that he just wanted his fluffy Annie back – the non geek who didn’t understand technology.

After nearly 3 days, I have produced a three page website that links to each page – whoopee.. but I can’t seem to get the graphics to load up. They are all there on the dummy site – but once I load the whole thing up and the images separately – nope – not there… I have thrown my hands in the air and am leaving it stew for a while…. And to ponder up on why everything I set out to achieve I must make an arduous task….