3 x 3 x 3 = 27

When updating you on Jasper, Sela and Carys it seems right that a mathematical equation be the title, because I seem to spend a great deal of time doing maths with these three.

maths + mum = cranky

Im still getting over the fact that subtraction and multiplication and addition and division are taught differently to kids these days. How am I ever going to get the time to take lessons so I can work a MAC if I have to relearn the basics?

So Jasper. He's pretty much as you left him two years ago. Possibly taller but not a lot heavier. There is not a lot of weight on the boy. Has a little habit of flicking his hair, picked up from boy bands. Really enjoys the computer and playing on the computer with friends. Of the four, he is the only one left paying rugby. He has also started really concentrating on this piano in the past couple of months and has made good progress.

And Carys. Where to start with this one. She is playing tennis and recently was the goalie in a soccer tournament. She is having a great year in school. She still struggles with English but her maths has really come on in the past months. She has a great teacher this year who has a lot of faith in her abilities. Ella and Celeste are her BFF's and it does my heart good to see Carys with such firm friends. There is no uncertainty in those friendships, she has great security. She has a new haircut.

Sela loves her books and often would rather read than have a friend over. Then there are those incidences when she does have a playdate and alas, I find the friend playing with Carys and Sela up on her bunk reading. She has her preferred genres - fiction thank you very much, and her teacher requested that she read more non fiction. Sela's response to this? "Non fiction doesn't pull me in like fiction does." Her waist is beginning to nip in as is Carys, but as always, the girls have very different body types.

On the topic of puberty, the girls are very pragmatic. Over the summer we bought sports bras for them. More for me because I didn't NOT want to have them on hand when the girls needed them! So we bought them and they have pretty much been in the closet since our return to Hong Kong. Swimming is the first sports unit the girls have and neither of them wanted to be seen changing into a bra top, which is fine with me as you understand, this is not a needed item. "Regardless, the girls were very excited.

i was okay with the whole bra top concept, mainly because the girls have nothing to put into the bra top. they are still very young at heart. they are still girls who take their baby alives to the swimming pool and tuck them up with towels. they still play nursery and put a doll in the closet for misbehaving.

The girls decided they would start wearing bra tops on Fridays. I told them that was a very great way of gradually getting used to wearing a bra top. To this, Sela gave me a look and said, "No, we have PE on Friday and that's when you need a bra." I guess she told me.

So yesterday I asked the girls if they had worn their bra tops the previous day. They looked and me and said, "No, there was no need, we were doing stretching and yoga stuff and there is no need for a bra with that.'

So apparently, bra tops aren't necessarily cool because a bunch of girls "in year one, mummy. that is so silly" have started wearing them. so my girls are going to boycott them for a while.

this pleases me.

This bra stage is a big one and will come soon enough, so for now I am very happy for the bra tops to remain in the closet with the misbehaving Baby Alive.