In Which The Baby Angel Becomes a Registered, Card Carrying Phone Owner

Well, she is a teenager now after all.

Contrary to what some people believe, I have not 'given in to pressure' but rather the Baby Angel has taken control of her own destiny.

For some time now she has exhibited a complete lack of interest or understanding in anything fiscally related. She got pocket money for awhile when she was younger but never asked for it and showed no inclination to save for anything in particular. In truth I guess she had everything she wanted or needed.

When we moved into this house and finances became somewhat tight, the pocket money stopped and she didn't even miss it! Then recently there was a school excursion to the local Subway for lunch (I know, I know, don't start me on the validity of these kind of excursions) and she needed $5.00. I only had $10.00 in my purse and I handed it over reluctantly requesting that she 'bring me the change'. That night after school I asked for the change and was greeted by a sheepish look.

"Well, there's not very much..."
"What do you mean there's not very much? Lunch was supposed to cost $5.00; where's my change?"
"Well, I sort of spent it!"
"You spent it? On what??"
'Well, I bought a sub and a slushy and some cookies for my friends and I to share..."
"COOKIES???? That wasn't part of the deal!" (Mother now starting to steam)
"But I DID share them!!"
"I don't care whether you shared them or not! (Mother now on the boil) How much did they cost?"
"I don't know."
"What do you mean you don't know?" (Mother now evaporating rapidly into the atmosphere)
"I don't know. I just bought them. I'm sorry Mum."
"How could you not KNOW how much they cost? The prices are on the counter right in front of you....."

It was at this point that I realised my 12 year old daughter had no concept of money.

After a great deal of thought and consideration I came up with a plan. Pocket money was reinstated, with a book to keep track of it, and every week the BA would receive $5.00 for her purse and $5.00 for her school bank book. With the purse money she would be expected to buy and treats such as popcorn and drinks at the movies or ice creams at the Mall which, up until this point, I had always funded. The amount we had decided upon was insufficient to expect her to buy clothes and toiletries but it was the beginning of learning that every expenditure has a consequence ie an empty purse.

Of course at Christmas she received some money from overseas and I suggested she bank some of this too, which she did. Before too long she had nearly $100.00 in the bank!!

After her recent trip to Sydney to see her Dad she came up with a plan. If she could save enough money to buy a phone she could also save her pocket money to buy credit! Would I be amenable to this idea?

I was. Firstly, she was about to turn 13 and inevitably her life will start to include trips to town with her friends; movies, that sort of thing. This would entail being out of contact with me or any other responsible adult and therefore a phone would be useful. Prior to this she has always been supervised, transported everywhere by myself or another adult or at someone else's house with access to a landline, thus, I reasoned, a phone was unnecessary. Now there will start to emerge a genuine need.

Secondly, the very fact that she had thought through her 'plan' and committed herself to carrying it out showed a growing maturity and sense of fiscal responsibility. We went to town and gathered literature on contracts and pre-paids, costs and features and she googled sites which reviewed different models.

And so, with the final injection of funds that came about through her birthday money from Grandad......we went to Marion to purchase her new Nokia flip top, 1.3 Mg pixel camera, built in FM radio - mobile phone!!!!!

There's a LOT to be said for delayed gratification. You have never seen such an excited and proud child. I'm pretty proud of her too. Now let's see how she handles the credit thing :-)

Success!

Oh my!! I had a GOOD lesson with Year 10 this morning. This is so rare that I feel compelled to blog about it!!!!!

We went through multiplying by two digit numbers

M: But Miss, I KNOW how to do this, I just don't bother putting the zero there......

Finding fractions of a quantity

L: Eh Miss, so fractions is just like dividing eh?


Subtracting with regrouping


M: But what do you do when there's no tens in the tens column either? (200-147)
L: Stupid, you go to the hundreds column ...now don't waste our time girl...
(spoken in 'hiphop'ese)


*aaaaaaah* (rapturous sigh)


Now THAT's job satisfaction.


Oh and you know, I've been thinking about this business of not posting kids faces without parental consent etc etc. Well they all have their faces plastered all over My Space and You Tube......... what's the difference? I only ask because Himself has given me a blog sized version of The Movie which I could potentially put up...........

More Cat Stuff

I have decided it is very difficult to photograph small kittens. They rarely look at you when you want them to and using the flash on black fur gives a harsh contrast which does not sufficiently show her fluffiness! Here she is making a nuisance of herself. The BA took this one of her asleep on my lap. She had worn herself out with climbing up our legs and falling off the back of armchairs. She is currently in Himself's arms but he is refusing to be photographed! Actually I don't know who is worse, him or the cat! I can't count the number of pictures I have of that man sticking his tongue out at me.

But back to kittens. I think she has grown already. She has well and truly ticked off our big cat who is mostly sitting in the hallway refusing to come into the kitchen and hissing. A lot. Still, he's generally a miserable bugger anyway. His one sole claim to fame as a kitten is having 'wrapped up the house' in wool one day when we were out. We walked in to a tangle of wool which went around all the tables and chairs and in and out of three rooms. It was quite spectacular. Not sure why I didn't take a photo. Still, he hasn't done much worth speaking of since then although he seems to have taken a shine to no 2 Son. Perhaps he senses a kindred disgruntled spirit. It is similarly difficult to get a pleasant word out of either of them.

Get back to work woman! You have still to mark some woeful Y9 percentage tests.
My life is so full of excitement.

Oh My Lord What Have I Done????

Well, it was Mother's Day and I thought I would give myself a little present.

She's 8 weeks old and her name is Morticia.

She is unbearably sweet.

Even Himself is grudgingly captivated when not bellowing
"Get her out from under my feet before I squash her!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

Our other cat (Pippin: The Anti-Pet) is traumatised beyond belief but he only has himself to blame as he won't sit on anyone's lap.

Frantically marking really poor attempts at converting decimals to fractions.......must go.

Happy Birthday BA: Thirteen Years Old

It was a very busy week, hence my extreme quiet.

Thursday dawned, the 63rd anniversary of VE Day and the BA's 13th birthday. Of course there is great debate about this as she was born in the UK so all our Australian friends received news of her birth early on the morning of the 9th of May, also an important date as it's the birthday of the Bestie's beloved Mum. As a result we have a celebration on the 8th but we inform her she has not achieved her new 'age' until the next day :-)

Because of the mega birthday party back in April, her real birthday was a bit of a quiet affair highlighted rather by accident ( I forgot the date when I made the arrangement) by the delightful visit of Chris and Sinead of 'Ravings of a Wandering American Expatriate...' (formerly Chris in Oxford!).

It was quite surreal meeting a 'bloggy mate' in person but every bit as entertaining, informative and amusing as his blog with the additional pleasure of being able to talk to Sinead as well! They graciously helped us sing Happy Birthday and even bravely ate a piece of the alarmingly decorated and shaped birthday cake. Yes, I believe those are marshmellows.

Having been given a Gym Membership as an early birthday present around Easter, she didn't scoop too much on the day but did receive some money from friends and family. She has decided to use this, plus her pocket money savings, to buy a (da-da-DAH) mobile phone!

Yes, the time has come. I can delay it no longer and let's face it, we are getting to a stage where it will be useful.
My beautiful blonde-haired, blue-eyed fairy will soon be catching buses to the city and meeting friends at the Food Court. *sniff*

Mind you, I am really proud that she has taken the initiative to provide for the phone herself. Now when I say 'herself' I am of course using the term loosely. She intends to pay for the credit with her own pocket money. Which of course comes from us. :-) Ah well. At least she's prioritising her use of money, that in itself is quite a skill.

We made our way into the shopping centre in the city to visit a variety of outlets and compare phones, plans and providers. At the first stop I asked the helpful young man to explain the differences between 'plans' and 'prepaid' and to advise us as to which would be more appropriate for our purpose. Half way through his detailed explanation I noticed that the BA had drifted off with her friend to look at the displays.

"Hoi you! You're supposed to be listening to all this and deciding which product would suit you best!" I remonstrated.
"Oh, Mum.....its a all a bit confusing," she sighed.
"Well, if you don't understand the choices perhaps you're not old enough to own a phone!" I snapped, somewhat unreasonably as I was currently struggling to unravel the tangle of call rates, flag falls, free minutes, credit expiry periods, caps and minimum payments. Good grief. I don't even remember what I option I use on my own phone! These companies know what they are doing to prevent you making any direct comparisons!!!!

She did make an effort however and eventually we found we were leaning towards pre-paid as an effective method of controlling expenditure and getting free minutes for calls to named 'friend's' numbers. The phone itself may prove challenging as I am unimpressed with the idea of cameras and bluetooth connectivity for an item which is required mostly to check whether she managed to catch the school bus on time. Unfortunately, even the cheapest of phones
($79.00 AUD) seem to come with all manner of hideous 'extras'. These worry me. For example, the young friends who had stayed over on Friday night and were shopping with us, horrified me by paying through the nose to have their shocking, fuzzy, 1MB phone shots printed out in an automated booth using their phone's connectivity. I think they think a bluetooth download is free!!!!!!

And this doesn't even touch on what the young people are doing with phone shots of each other on 'youtube'!

Anyway, we have all the information to peruse and will make a decision during the week. Suffice to say she is very excited!

My great big thirteen year old girl............

Happy Birthday sweetheart.

All About My Man Meme

Jessie over at Just Jessie (and all her boys) has tagged me for a meme. This one's called

All About My Man....

1. Who is your man? Himself

2. How long have you been together? 2.5 years

3. How long dated? about 5 minutes....

4. How old is your man? Four years older than me.

5. Who eats more? Where does this question come from??????

Oh. Him. Unquestionably.

6. Who said “I love you” first? Him. He makes up his mind fast.

7. Who is taller? Him of course. Everyone's taller than me.

8. Who sings better? HAHAHAHHAHAHA. Me. Himself doesn't sing. Ever.

9. Who is smarter? I am smart enough not to answer this one.

10. Whose temper is worse? His. Although when I lose it I really lose it.

11. Who does the laundry? Me. Why do you want to know? You got some whites you need doing??

12. Who takes out the garbage? Theoretically Him or No2 Son. But really Me.

13. Who sleeps on the right side of the bed? Depends which way you're looking at the bed. Anyway. We both sleep on the right sides. If we swapped it would be wrong.

14. Who pays the bills? Me.

15. Who is better with the computer? Depends on the application. Anything to do with photos and graphics? Him. Anything else? (especially filling in online forms) Me.

16. Who mows the lawn? Him.

17. Who cooks dinner? 80% Him. 20% Me. I hate cooking.

18. Who drives when you are together? Him. He loves to drive. Mind you he got me to teach No 2 Son. Hmmm. How does THAT work?????

19. Who pays when you go out? He likes to.

20. Who is most stubborn? I stubbornly refuse to answer this. OK Him. No Me. No...oh who cares?

21. Who is the first to admit when they are wrong? Why, do you have to do that?

22. Whose parents do you see the most? No-brainer. His are dead.

23. Who kissed who first? Well, some might say Adam and Eve started the whole business but I like to think here was a nice caveman and cavewoman somewhere who were experimenting with the whole 'how can we make this reproducing thing more entertaining..'.

24. Who asked who out? Oh. Are we still talking about Us? I think it was Him.

25. Who proposed? Him. I was on my way to the shop so I said yes quickly cause it's tough getting a car park on Saturdays.

26. Who is more sensitive? Well....he has a lot of allergies.....

27. Who has more friends? That they still talk to.......? Me.

28. Who has more siblings? Snap. Two apiece.

29. Who wears the pants in the family? We both prefer kilts.

.......................................

Is that it?

But you missed the most important question!!!!

30. How did you meet? On the internet! Met and married within 6 months.
Best snap decision I ever made.

So now, to tag some poor unsuspecting types................

How about Christina, Maggie, Katie, Melody and Natalie ?? Oh and feel free to join in if you feel the urge. Leave a comment to let us know!!

School

Mmmm....what's that funny taste? Oh, it's school.
Yawn......and what was that I dreamed about last night? Oh that's right....school.
*inhale* what's that smell????????? Oh yes. School.

Eat
Sleep
Breathe