I'm surviving on cold tablets, spirulina pills and hot lemon toddies. I slept half of last night in Matthew's bed and half in our bed. Matthew did the same. Just at opposite times to me!
I think I'm on the way to recovery though.
Matthew talking to his teletubby Lala, "My precious baby angel ..."
Last week, on less than a day's notice, I had to give two 45 minutes talks to groups of 11 and 12 year olds on bulding websites. Twenty in total, they were on a project to build a website for their school in a week, although I didn't know that until after the first presentation - I thought it was just a random group of schoolkids on a day out seeing what people do for a job!
I really didn't know what to do, so I gave them a few websites with tutorials and help for kids as a reference, showed them websitesthatsuck.com(they loved that name!) and projectcool.com, and gave them a handout on the stages involved in building a site - planning, designing, building, post-launch. Where I work is an extremely well set-up website agency - the computer I had to show them stuff on had the sum total of a browser installed and Notepad installed - so I showed them HTML code in Notepad and demonstrated just how easy it is to make changes that appear in your browser. And then I gave them the run of the computer to surf where they wanted to!
You can see in an instant when you're losing their attention.
As opposed to writing stuff for an online journal and having no idea that you're boring people silly and that they've already clicked off this page before even getting down this far in a particular entry.
They yawn. They talk to their neighbour. They make paper darts of the paper you've carefully prepared for them. All entirely unselfconsiously, and all entirely right before your eyes.
It was fun though. And I hope they learned something. And getting 20 teacher-ordered, mass-produced, but still, I'm sure, sincerely meant, letters like the one above did make my day last week.
Yesterday I took Matthew to a birthday party for one of his friends. There was one of those moments you just want to freeze-frame forever, so poignant and full of life's possibilities. They were riding on a merry-go-round, Matthew and Casey and Madison and a couple of others. Sitting on tractors and horses and aeroplanes as we stood around, watching and waving at each turn. I wondered whether the people they would grow up to be was manifest in them now - some smiling, some a little nervous, some carefree and others clutching tight. Who knows what will become of them? I hope they always have memories of days like that and arms to lift them off their ride and hold them tight.
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Journals and blogs that I read regularly
Raising Hell
Feral Living
Hippycritical
Udder
My Life in 12 Point Font
Journal of a Writing Man
Some Jingle Jangle Morning
The Last Girl Scout
Potatoe.com
Journallife.com
Window to my Soul
Chickybabe
Sorabji.com
Yesterday's Makeup
Fifteen Milliliters
Fly Away
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Photo of tunnel copyright Bernd Klumpp, available from istockphoto.com