wedding

we went to a wedding on the weekend. it was a bit backwards and untraditional but lots of fun. first of all, the entire wedding (including the ceremony) took place in a pub-- the pub where the bride and groom and a few of us do monday nite triva (not even in a function room at a pub but they rented out the place). when we arrived the bride and groom were just mingling among the guests (the bride just wearing an evening dress) and appitizers were being served. about an hour or so later the bride went off to change into her wedding dress (which was red because she thought white or cream would make her look too pale) with her 3 bidesmaids (all wearing black). the ceremony was quite simple (but entertaining) with the 3 bridesmaids, the bride and groom and the best man (no groommen beside him) all standing in a corner of the pub, the parents and grandparents sitting infront of them and all the rest of the guests just standing wherever they could get a good view. after the ceremony everyone just hung out at ate entree (appitizer) size servings of dinner foods (except zac who got a large bowl of asian noodles because that was the one dinner food that was vegan so the groom had arranged for him to have a large serve). there were a few quick speeches later on, a bit of dancing (mostly just the “old” people) and a few overly-drunk people. it was definately the most casual wedding i’ve been to but it made it a good opportunity for everyone to spend lots of time with the bride and groom and see lots of people that we don’t see too often.

what are they thinking?

working in childcare i see a lot of stuff (both from kids and staff) that just makes me wonder what's going through their heads at the time. this past week i had a few of those incedents. i've been mostly working with kinder(garden) kids (preschool in north america) this week. most of the week i was at a school near my house working with kids who come into the stuctured program 2 days a week. one afternoon we were sitting at the picnic tables outside having afternoon tea (no, we don't serve the kids tea-- its what snack time is called here). most of the kids had finished and gone off to play so i got up to move closer to the last couple of boys who were fooling around more than they were eating. i looked up to find that one boy had taken apart the quarter of his vegemite (dark brown "concentrated yeast extract spread" that every australian child eats)sandwhich and he was holding one piece of thick vegemite covered bread in each hand. he then raised his hands up to his eyes and started twisting the bread (vegemite side towards his face) over his eyes. i didn't even know what to say to him. all i could think was "why?". when i later told the director about it she just replied "yes, there is a bit of a maturity age gap between some of the children."
two days later i was working in a kinder room at a child care centre. i dread working in this room every 4th friday just because they have some difficult behaviours in the room and its really draining working with them. i came into the room that morning to find the temporary qualified staff person (the permanent person had quit 2 weeks earlier and the temp. was working there until a permanent person was hired) explaining the routine for the day. it was going to be a big day because one of the children was celebrating her birthday and that afternoon the former qualified woman was getting married and had invited the kinder kids to the ceremony. the birthday girl had brought in cake and the plan was to give everyone cake for morning tea (!?) because if they had it after lunch they would be wired on sugar at the wedding which wouldn't be good. so we were going to give them cake and then have them try to run it off in the tiny play yard they have. then we were going to have an early-ish lunch and try to get all of them to sleep (some usually just rest but we were told to try to get them to sleep too) so that they would be happy and sugar-free for the wedding. it was weird cuz when i was told about this plan i could tell it wasn't a spur of the moment thought that the temp. had come up with but that this had been discussed and approved by(and maybe even suggested by)the director. fortunately it didn't turn out as too much of a mess but the idea of giving them cake instead of toast or fruit has got to be against some policy.