Last week we had a 3-way debate (because I wanted to be in on it too. I used to love debates when I was younger.) I argued, "It is better to be a kid than an adult or a baby." Logan argued, "It is better to be an adult than a kid or a baby". And Emma argued, "It is better to be a baby than an adult or a kid". We recorded it on our VCR and had two rounds. Round 1 was to present our sides and Round 2 was refute the arguments of others. It was a "lesson" I didn't have to cajole them to complete and turned out to be a lot of fun.

Another thing we've started as an "Art Appreciation sort of lesson is to carefully study one work of a famous artist, then turn it over and write how many things we remember about it. I think this is a good tool for adult's memories to be sharpened so I had a go along with the kids. I also asked them to try sketch a famous piece of art from memory. The first one they tried was part of the Sistine Chapel fresco by Michelangelo where God breathes life into Adam. That proved to be quite good fun too. I read out a bit of a biography about Michelangelo. I don't know if the kids cared for it all that much, but I thought it was interesting. I love the story about how Michelangelo took it upon himself to carve the statue of David out of a flawed block of marble that nobody else would touch. Then, when his masterpiece was unveiled, they asked him how on earth he managed and he replied, "It was easy, I simply carved away everything that wasn't David."

My husband is now a few weeks into his course. He catches a bus to the city before the crack of dawn to link up with another bus in the city to arrive at his college by 8.00am. He's not the only one who has to get up early. I have to drop him off at the bus stop in the dark, but am already familiar with the routine. Most times, the kids are still asleep when I get back after five minutes, but once, Blake was already up sitting in the loungeroom with Logan, and as soon as Logan saw that I was back, he went back to bed. Blake is real earlybird by choice and not by circumstance.