Musical Children.

You can learn many things from children. How much patience you have, for instance. Franklin P. Jones Today Queensland State Schools go back. Ditz does not. Ditz is still up at her ma's ~ & there she will stay for at least another week & a half. Yes, we have had a really, really long break ~ but I think we needed it. I'm actually not sure when we are officially supposed to start again but no matter. Eventually we will. A little more maturity on Ditz's part for year 10 would be nice but as that seems unlikely I guess we work with what we have.

Meanwhile we have been playing *musical children* ~ a bit like musical chairs except we don't normally sit on the children. Exceptions have been known. Theo came ~ & Theo went. Liddy & Ditz went. Dino arrived. Dino's girl friend arrived. Girlfriend left; Liddy arrived; Dino goes today; Liddy & I leave tomorrow. The cat's having a breakdown.

The girlfriend necessitated a bed. Ditz's room was the best option. Wonderful! An excuse to actually clean it. Visual/spatials are just messy. They spread horizontally. It's not that there's no order. They usually know perfectly well where everything is. It's just it's not tidy & becomes impossible to clean. I had asked all hols to wails & protests that I wasn't to touch but there reaches a point, you know. My point had been well & truly reached & I do try not to meddle because I really do understand personal space & the need for privacy but think if Child Welfare ever walked into Ditz's room ~ or the health & safety inspectors! At least now I can see the floor.

And the bed gets made once a year. Yeah, Ditz lives in her bed. I think it's a teenage thing. The funny thing is Lid complains bitterly about Ditz's mess but she is as bad, if not worse; just different mess. Ditz at least puts her clothes away & her shoes on the rack. Her clutter tends to be several piles of books: what she's reading, what she's read, what needs to go back to the library; 4 A4 notebooks, the thickest ones we can get for her writing [plus 2 dictionaries & both thesaurus because the first 2 got buried & rather than look for them Ditz just got another 2!]; several different sized art pads for her art; the water colour pencils, the colouring pencils, the drawing pencils, the coloured pens & inks, 6 different rubbers & as many sharpeners [No wonder I can never find either!]; 7 sorts of scissors [don't ask!]; the sticky tape [wondered where that had got to] & one of 3 staplers because I can never find one of those either & all the pots of glue. She's the creative sort, my Ditz.

Liddy on the other hand ~ well it would never occur to her to make that much mess in an artistic endeavour but she is a busy little beaver & always has something on [she walked up Mt Warning for Australia Day!] so she walks in her room, discards one outfit [on the floor] puts on another, spreads the tent & the picnic stuff, the rucksack & the drink bottles that are in constant use because what is the point of putting them away when you will need them again so soon? And so we go until I go rank & demand she sort out the mess so I can put what needs to go through the wash through the wash & everything else where it belongs. You know it's bad if I'm going rank because I'm a Ditz. I spread horizontally, books & papers , school stuff & artwork & whatever I put down on top of it when I got distracted: coffee cups, plates, the cat's worming tablets.

I am not talking dirt here, people. UGH! No we're not filthy pigs rootling about in a sty but tidiness does not come naturally & none of us like a *work~in progress* to be disturbed. If we're painting the easels & canvases, turps & thinners, paints & brushes stay put until we're done. Ditto what we're reading ~ or writing. You just never know when inspiration might strike & you need that stay bit of paper NOW! Which reminds me: Dino leaves today & there is a pile of rods, tackle, rope [3 different sorts], buckets, crab pots & nets strewn over my veranda & I need to go hustle somebody to sort it before he goes. Hey~ho, hey~ho, it's off to hustle I go...