Friday 13th January 2017

I think the word that bests describes me these school holidays is ‘curmudgeonly’. The kids are driving me batty.

Well, not all the time. I took Soren to the park this morning and he and I had a lovely time. But right now they are all watching Troy play on the Wii and being very silly…can’t I send them to bed yet?

I’m not sure about having these guinea pigs inside constantly. I can smell them. It’s not a horrible smell exactly, just a guinea pig and woodshavings smell, but I’m not sure that I want to live with it in my living room. They’re really cute to watch though – the way they curl up in the shavings to have a nap is adorable.

And thinking about pets, Winky the chicken is making a grand recovery. Even the eye that we thought would never open again is half open now. I also got five eggs this morning, so her near death experience hasn’t even put her off laying. I am truly surprised by this chicken’s resilience.

We are definitely going through a stage here where I am grinding my teeth in frustration with the way Nicholai’s attitude is stopping him from fulfilling his potential. I mean, there was that whole nearly failing science thing, and although his report had some good marks, there was also a lot of questionable efforts in there too. His motivation just isn’t really there at the moment – I think we are going to be a little harder on him next year and see if we can prompt a greater effort from him.

Because he really has an amazing mind! I mean today (and this is what prompted me writing about this) he was in the kitchen doing something in his sketchbook and when I asked how he was going he told me he was fine, and he was just making a fractal map of the Australian Open results. Like…this is what your brain comes up with to amuse itself with on the holidays, and yet you still only got SIXTY-SIX PERCENT ON YOUR MATHS HOMEWORK?!?!?!?!?! You are smarter than everyone else I know, why are you wasting this phenomenal gift you have?!?!?

I don’t know. He’s not exactly wasting his talents. He’s making fractal maps of the Australian Open results! He does a lot of writing for his blog and a lot of statistic collecting and analysis. He reads a lot of books full of facts of varying levels of interest and obscurity and makes everyone else listen to the ones he finds most fascinating. His mind is always working. I suppose I just worry that he doesn’t focus his ability on anything that doesn’t interest him, which is unfortunately a great deal of the rest of the world. Still, he is fourteen and about to go into year 9 so it will probably be at its worst this year – year 9s are always horrible. Hopefully it will improve after that!