I’ve been talking to a few parents at Siena’s school in regards to extra-curricular activities. It seems that nearly every week, there’s a flyer in Siena’s school bag advertising some new, fabulous activity that will help make my child smarter, stronger, wiser, better behaved perhaps??!! This new thing is going to give her the ‘edge’ she needs at 6 years old to get way ahead in life.

Tennis, soccer, keyboard lessons, gymnastics, nippers, swimming… the list goes on and on. The way I’ve managed it, is I’ve allowed for three activities. One of them, swimming, is not negotiable. We live by the beach and it’s a prerequisite to life as far as I’m concerned.

Siena chose gymnastics early on this year and really enjoys it, so we are continuing with that. It’s also really convenient because it’s right next to her school and the very accommodating after- school care staff walk all the kids over at 4pm for their class. Awesome!

Nippers enrolment was a few weeks ago and amid much excitement and fanfare Siena, with her good mate Sian, are now proud members of the Coogee Minnows, the largest group of Nippers in Australia. I didn’t know they were the largest…

So that’s two after school activities and a Sunday morning activity, which is also a great way for parents to meet other like-minded people in their community. You’ve gotta make this stuff fun for the parents too!  That keeps us relatively busy, with a little down time to just hang out together and go for a scooter ride, which brings me to my next point.

I thought, instead of enrolling Siena in yet another activity that she does without my interaction, (although Nippers encourages parent involvement) I’d buy myself a scooter, which I did do, last week. I thought it would be a great way for us to have some fun together, create some memories, go on adventures… you know, like the Famous Five except it’s the Terrific Two…too much fun!

So, leaving my Iphone behind, dedicated to spending some quality time with my babe, I began to ‘scoot’ down the driveway for the first time since I was, maybe 11 years old. I was carefully explaining to Siena, in all my wisdom, the safety aspects of riding our scooters, speed versus skill, looking out for reversing cars in driveways and the like.

As I got to the end of the driveway, I promptly hit an uneven piece of ground. My scooter flipped and so did I, bottom over breast, across the asphalt. I have gravel rash over both palms and a sore knee, not to mention a major loss of kudos with my daughter. It felt like flying…

As I lay there, kind of laughing and then tentatively looking around to see if any of my neighbours had witnessed my embarrassment, Siena kissed my knee and palms. How sweet. Then, to add insult to injury, she promptly piped up with “That wasn’t very cool Mum”. Hmmm, well, I suppose it wasn’t…

See you next month,