Exactly when parents across the region are attempting to pack tubs of yoghurt into lunch boxes for six-hour stints, our sizzling summer has provided a blast of scorching heat.
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Too bad that you need the kids at home holding the scalding hose on that one patch of garden you are trying to save from melting.
They must slip into something a little less comfortable to stick to the seats in classrooms all day, emerging only to dash through the blistering haze for the nearest air-conditioned space as fast as the handicap of a broiling ten-kilo backpack will allow.
Noting the length of one's teenage daughters' summer school dresses first term is always a nice way to see how much they've grown under the influence of sunshine.
When a dress length has gone from 'a little bit short' to 'absolutely not!', you know you have been doing something right; kids don't display such radiant growth unless you are feeding them well.
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That outrageous hem is also a sign that you'd better pull-out your sewing machine and your readiness for a heated discussion about manners, decorum and ladylike behaviour.
May the force be will you.
I only have two daughters with which a blazing argument is scheduled this week, as my eldest is now enrolled in a Bachelor of Communications at RMIT - which was a pressure cooker experience.
Somehow, I was mug enough to think that the ATAR and first preference university offer were the end game, when suddenly I found myself sweltering under the oppressive atmosphere of the enrollment process.
It was out of the frying pan and into the fire as I had no idea what a Commonwealth Sponsored Place was, how HECS-HELP is achieved or that I'd soon have an invoice in my hot little hand.
Getting my head around the student residential fees has ensured there will be no spare cash burning a hole in my pocket and with course material requirements yet to be discovered, I feel the blow torch being applied to our family budget.
My husband has suddenly found his voice in relation to his second and third daughter's career plans, with his advice now to blaze a trail of success in the Royal Australian Air Force like their father.
My bright sparks.
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