First: the four of us are all healthy and things are generally going well. I wanted to get that in there because it seems like quite often family news is a subhead people use before they announce they are separating or moving to Canada or both.
I looked back over emails and so on, to get a rough idea of what to put in the Christmas Thing. I was struck by how much time we spent earlier in the year at the vet, phoning the vet, emailing the vet, and generally agonising over what was best for our animals. Hattie passed away in July, and already the miserable times of her decline are telescoping down in my memory to be just a small bump in her long, happy life. At the time we really agonised over what was best to do, and then taking her to the vet for the last time and watching her end was very hard for me. This is a song I'll always associate with saying goodbye to Hat – it won't make logical sense to anyone but it belongs here for me.
Around the same time Winston went through a bad patch where he seemed to injure his shoulders very easily. He was struggling with the stairs. We had to confine him to home, and try everything we could to make his life ergonomically better. We shelled out for scans and tests that didn't reveal any damage. And we were told that he's in terrific general health for a dog of his age and size; and they said we should have another three years at least with him. I can't bear to imagine a time without him – so I have allowed that advice to go in one ear and out the other. He now has arthritis medicine every morning and seems a lot more resilient.
Michael is approaching the end of Grade 10. His big achievement this year was a three-week school trip to China, which included an eleven-day trek around Minya Gongga in Western Sichuan. They also spent time in Chengdu, Xian and Beijing. Their timing was very lucky; thanks to celebrations of the 70th anniversary of the revolution, the crowds were all elsewhere when they visited both the Great Wall and the Terracotta Warriors.
Michael is back into the humdrum routine of high school now, and looking forward to moving on, much as Marcus did towards the end of Grade 10. We have suggested he treat Grade 11 at Hobart College as a chance to just study subjects that sound interesting. It would be revolutionary for him (and us) to have him really engaged at school and loving what's he learning there. He is a person who loves to learn, and the depth and breadth of his knowledge is extraordinary – but he has never found school to be a place where he learns more.
He has a resume now and Elf took him on a circuit of likely employers to drop it off. While we were fine-tuning it I was really delighted that he was happy to include "intending to study Linguistics at university" because, even though I assumed that was where he was heading, he has never been prepared to say so in so many words.
We are regularly minding an 8-year old neighbour for one evening each month, and Michael has shown a really great ability to be patient, caring and even stern (when required) with Finton. Now that I work full time, Michael is our chief dog walker, and he has just assimilated this and other responsibilities as they have come along. He's a wonderful boy.
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| Marcus (right) competing in some kind of Art Battle at Youth Arc |
Marcus has had an amazing year. To recap, he was in Grade 11 at Hobart College last year but studying Maths at University of Tasmania through the college High Achievers Program. Then the Uni swooped with an offer for him to study full-time at uni this year, without waiting to complete his TCE or get an ATAR score. We discussed it and felt that he was academically ready and mature enough to make the step, and it has been very successful.
Years ago when we were first navigating the ‘gifted children’ world (both boys have been categorised this way) we were told that a gifted child will not just cope when they are pushed up a grade, they will thrive. And we have found that all along with Marcus. (Michael unfortunately has never loved school but we haven't ever got the feeling that he'd be happier if he was one grade back, in his age cohort. He's just a very different specimen).
Marcus has navigated the challenges of his work and social life really well. He’s surrounded by uni students, 99% of whom are over 18. And now his own friends have almost all turned 18 too, so everyone is going to pub quiz nights and just casually ordering wine at the cafe while he can't. But he seems to be coping with that with maturity and good sense, and he is blessed with a group of really switched-on friends. He is tutoring a Grade 12 student in maths, and as well as income this has given him a huge sense of achievement; as she has progressed from a D student to a solid B. He has a lovely girlfriend who is also a real bright spark. I hope we will have him at home with us for some time yet but he is applying for scholarships all over the place.
This is something I will have to face one day: what is the natural end point for a blog about Dadness - can it continue when the subjects of the Dadness have moved out?
Elf now works four days a week, and Wednesday is the day when she gets a small bit of 'me time' but a long list of errands to run and jobs to do. Elf is our long-term thinker, and it’s safe to say everything that needs to happen over a timeframe further out than next Tuesday, falls to Elf. I am more of an take-out-the-bins and catch-the-spiders kind of guy. Elf has been at her workplace for long enough now that she is properly appreciated, but also important and complex things are saved for her to do because she “does them properly”.
I have been working full time at Red Jelly for the last few months. I felt like freelancing was running out of puff, so I had looked around for a while for jobs elsewhere but none materialised. So I decided it was time to go see the boss at Red Jelly and say "if you want me here I am ready to go full time". They were in the throes of putting together a team to do client events (Woolworths conferences and so on) and so they tapped me for that.
It has been pretty hectic. The events are massive; my first one was a gathering of every Woolworths deli manager in Australia, about 2200 of them. The work hours leading up to an event blow out to 12, 14, 16 hours a day. And during rehearsal and the event itself it's a 20+ hour workday. Yes, I know, it's insane.
Time will tell if this a job I can do long term. I hope that I'll be able to influence how we do these events, so we'll take a larger team, work shifts, and put the whole thing on a sustainable footing which in my opinion it currently isn't.
*When I started this job I bought my first smartphone and now I am fully apped up. I was fine with having a dumb old button phone except it was no good, I actually couldn't hear people who called me. I am certainly enjoying having a decent camera in my pocket at all times.
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