Red Card

Another red card day when everyone gets a little edgy and reacts in ways they know they shouldn’t and don’t mean to.  Everyone is trying to keep it together despite being exhausted and exasperated with tired children. After a night out watching a Christmas play, we had to back it up with the nativity concert tonight at my daughter’s kinder.

It was the Christmas story we have been taught for generations and luckily our kinder is not too politically correct to destroy this lovely story. There were a glut of sheep and not many angels in this nativity play, which I thought was great. My daughter was leading the pack with her bleating of course.

After a few carols and cuddles the children were presented with a book from their kinder teachers. Each child with a different story to take home and treasure, just like every child has a different story of their own to tell.

My daughter’s book is called Collecting Colours by Kylie Dunstan and was awarded Picture Book of the Year 2009. We’ve already read it tonight, with its beautiful half drawn, half photographic illustrations and learnt all about the Pandanas palms and the things you can make from it.

I like that the child narrator, Rose, tells the story and collects colours for the basket weaving with her friend Olive and her mother and other family members. It’s an informative read about mixing colours, collecting berries, leaves and roots “big mobs yellow colour” from the bush in Arnhem Land and the important ceremonies and customs that the people take part in.

As my daughter lay down to sleep, buzzing with excitement from her acting debut, she asked me what colours we could collect from the garden and so began another 15 minutes of the wonderful art of collecting colours. We were grabbing red from tomatoes, blue from the water and pink from roses.

Casing point – time to smell the roses and collect colours even though it’s busy and nearing the end of the year. Collecting can renew our energy and we can even do it with our eyes closed.