"to decide forever to have your heart go walking outside your body"

Justin went to bed with a headache, which isn't unusual. It is now 12:42 and it got so bad it woke him up. He is now awake and crying. And there's not a lot we can do for him.

It would be so much easier if there were some way of transferring headaches from Justin to me.

I ♥♥♥ our community centre

We've been coming here for OMG five or six years, I think, for home school swimming on Friday afternoons. This term we're also spending quite a bit more time here because the boys have a science class two blocks away in the morning, and it doesn't make sense to go home in between.

There's always stuff going on here. There's ballet classes for tiny tiny tiny little girls, summer and March Break camps, pottery classes, swimming, after school care, special events - we booked our kids' birthday party here a couple of years ago - and all sorts of other cool stuff. One stairwell is decorated with portraits by a local photographer, with pictures she's taken of the same local families over many years, so you get to see the kids grow from babies to teenagers. And there's one set that includes three little girls photographed individually as elementary-age kids, then photographed together as teenage Dovercourt staff.

Right now the staff are wandering about in costume, putting up decorations for the Halloween festivities. There's a mime, Sam the Builder, Minnie Mouse, a bumblebee, and they're all so patient with the hordes of kids running around, and so cheerful and bubbly, that they kinda wear me out just watching them.

Justin would make a great swimming instructor some day.

A perfect stranger walked up to me a few minutes ago and said, "You look like you're home schooling your kids." I was helping Justin with his math and Daniel with his French, so, yeah, no point denying it. She started to talk to me about the proposed closure of the local alternative school, Churchill Elementary. Pointed out that it's similar in philosophy to what a lot of home schooling parents believe. Asked if I would mind spreading the word among home schoolers, to see if maybe some of them might want to send letters or sign petitions or whatever.

Yeah, sure, no problem! There's bunch of home schoolers coming in in about ten minutes from now. I'll spread the word.

I ♥♥♥ our community centre :) :)

Friday night tea ceremony

So, this week's history chapter is on Japan. Our art for the week was a Japanese tea ceremony - which could very well make any real Japanese folks pop a blood vessel with its lack of Japaneseness.

For one thing, the hosts (the kids) were supposed to not eat with us. They were supposed to snack in the kitchen while preparing our food. Yeah, no :)

( Big pictures behind cut )