Curriculum

Literacy

Exhausted, I look across at my middle daughter and dutifully answer, ‘I see your point sweetheart but being the middle child is special! You see, you are the only sister who is both the younger and older sister so you have the best of both worlds’.  However, she wasn’t buying into my wisdom as to why life was fair being the ‘middle child’ in a family of three girls. Life according to Rach (at least in this latest mood swing as we turn thirteen), is that the youngest gets everything because she’s the spoilt, cute one and the eldest gets everything before her just because she’s a bit older, which apparently, isn’t just unfair, but an absolute outrage! Now, the situation is being fuelled by my eldest smirking and rather proud of getting in first!

Once again, I find myself in the ‘toasted sandwich’ (officially called the ‘Mum Can’t Win’) scenario. You know the one parents – squashed in the middle, being stretched every which way like melted cheese and you cannot possibly win (you’re officially toasted) whichever side you take!

On this occasion the girls had been bickering! We were on the way to THE GAME (yes Hawks versus Port) in Melbourne. We’d just got on our bus (Ollie) and once the girls got over squealing (ok, you’ve got me, I admit some of the squeals may have been coming from me and the grown man across from us) that they were on Ollie’s bus (yes the buses were named after favourite players); they soon realised that there were only three of us but four seats reserved for me. Eldest (never backward in coming forward) clicked like she always does a split second before my middle child and flung herself onto the double seat, feet up, declaring it to be ‘all hers’. TOASTED SANDWICH TIME!

 Rachel rages up and begins her latest exposition as to why it was not fair that eldest gets everything (yes parents, it made sense that I get the double seat as the true elder – mmm, but would you put two arguing girls together for a twelve hour trip to Melbourne?). After failed attempts at negotiating a variety of ‘fair options’, I decide to sell middle girl the ‘window seat’ and provide a sneaky peak into my ‘secret stash’ of snacks (yes, I know that’s bribery but twelve hours on a bus calls for desperate measures). Furthermore, I point out that the snacks are not ‘within arms’ reach’ of my eldest and Rachel quickly realises that the best seat on the bus may be next to mum after all! The chant went up for Port Adelaide and well… what happens on the bus, stays on the bus!

Port Adelaide was remarkable and in one of the greatest comebacks ever, we nearly stole the match! However, we went down by an agonising three points (stop smiling Crows fans)! As we march back to the bus we decide to step over the low fence (a short cut) to the car park. Remember, my eldest is very quick and it’s dark! She didn’t wait for me to get completely over the fence before lifting her own foot up to go over. We clipped heals and I was flipped over the fence like a pancake, landing sideways and rolling down part of the hill. I bounced up like Chad Wingard after a ‘specky’ mark to the laughter of my two amused daughters who had safely 

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