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After being given tickets by one of my favorite clients (thank you Clive!), yesterday I took Miss M and her friend Alex to see the Guggenheim Collection at the National Gallery. I’d toyed with the idea of just taking one eight year old, but it seemed like a foolhardy idea. So we set off on a tram after picking Alex up, had something to eat, and went to Fed Square to find the exhibition, which was of course down the road at the “real” gallery.

After spending a lot of time with their hands pressed on the fascinating water wall (and saturating me with as much of the water as they could) we headed inside to get some culture.

Clive had suggested getting an audio tour, or going with one of the guides to get the most out of the exhibition. I have to say my two young companions were probably far more insightful than any guide the gallery could’ve provided. I was fascinated by what they were drawn to - a Jackson Pollock was one of the first things they liked (even I liked it, and I’m not a fan of Pollock), then Alex commented on a huge abstract painting “that must have taken ages to do”. To me it looked as though the artist had banged it out in moments, but when I looked more closely, I realised Alex was right.

We looked at everything (although I skirted around the Mapelthorpe photos - I wasn’t sure if they were PG rated), the kids were intelligent, considered and incredibly well behaved. I asked them questions about everything (the classic “what do you think that is?” served us well for the whole tour), but they volunteered a lot of great comments. We’d decided before going in we’d vote for our favorite, then buy postcards of them afterwards.

Miss M liked the huge Lichtenstein the most (sadly so did everyone else - the postcards were sold out), but Alex and I favoured a giant Jeff Koons painting of sandwich fillings. Seeing the Klaes Oldenbergs in the flesh was also cool, since I’d studied a lot of his work at Art School.

At the end of the exhibition, there was a huge pile of something shiny and black in the corner. Miss M said “that looks like a huge pile of liquorice”. Which was ironic, as that’s exactly what it was. The security guard came over and commented that he’d never seen two children standing in front of a giant pile of lollies and not taking them - then told the kids to take some. So we headed off crunching our interactive art work, and my well behaved art critics spent the next hour running around madly outside.

Today I’m loving: showing Miss M the classic boiled egg gag I used to do when I was a child. She liked it just as much as I did.

So yesterday I had one of those days where you get a piece of really, really bad news. At any other time, it would have been a pain, but not chronic. Thanks to the timing, it was really, REALLY bad. It was also one of those things where you personally have no control whatsoever, and no real entity to blame. How I hate those moments!

So after freaking out, then having to work and pretend not to be freaking out, I went to a food court and bought potato wedges. No sour cream, or anything else to get in the way of their fluffy goodness - just pure, hardcore potato.

I found a newspaper lying on one of the tables, so I sat down there, and read about protests against George Bush while eating. After the third wedge, I could actually feel the effect the carbohydrates were having on me - namely calming. It was really quite bizarre - but hey, it’s another good reason to eat sweet, sweet carbs.

So I say to anyone who’s on a low carb diet and feeling depressed - get some damn potato into your body and feel the sweet serotonin skyrocket - and other such alliterative phrases.

As a side note, the hideous situation seems to have, beyond all possible hope, been resolved. Still skeptical, but it seems like it might be okay.

Today I’m loving: my holiday, booked, paid for, in less than eight weeks. Oh how I need it!

On Saturday, Miss M and I attended another working bee at her school. Although a large part of me thinks “I don’t want to go to the damn working bee”, another part of me loves the digging, wheelbarrowing, and various other demented things you get to do at a working bee. Also, I can’t help feeling proud as my pink cheeked child works industriously out in the fresh air. Plus this week there was cake!

As I was chatting to one of the other parents over a piece of the aforementioned cake, it suddenly dawned on me I couldn’t see Miss M anywhere. I knew she’d been demolishing sandwiches moments beforehand, but she’d totally disappeared. I tamped down the terror rising in my chest and asked a few people if they’d seen her. After the chorus of “no’s”, I hop, stepped and jumped into full blown panic. An announcement went out over the PA for her to come to the staffroom door, but still nothing.

I started to wonder what the hell I should do. What’s the protocol when your child goes missing from their own school, surrounded by people who know them? Do you call 000, the local police … and what do you tell the other parent? I was quite proud of myself because I’d managed not to burst into tears (something I’m not in control of most of the time), but I was almost unable to speak to anyone properly because my throat had closed over with a freaky lump of hideous emotion.

Finally, I walked through the gate to the neighbourhood house next door to the school. I could see some small children in the playground, and as I got closer, I saw Miss M climbing up a slide meant for toddlers. The freaky lump of emotion was suddenly replaced with murderous rage, but I managed to keep my temper in check as I walked over to the safety fence. I calmly told her that I’d thought she’d been stolen or kidnapped, and next time she was going to go somewhere out of my sight, she needed to tell me. Just in case she didn’t get it, I also mentioned I’d been extremely upset. Then I put my sunglasses back on and wept a few quiet tears of relief.

This incident brought back many memories of my parents at various stages of my life being furious at me for disappearing without telling them where I’d gone. From six to sixteen, I think these were the only times they got really, really angry with me. Boy, did I get an insight into why. I suppose this perspective can only change with time. When you’re young, this kind of thing seems like no big deal - and why would it?

Afterwards, I expended my energy by digging huge wheelbarrows full of wonderful loamy soil until my brother rang from outside our house where he was waiting to take us to inspect yet another property. Which was good.

Today I’m loving: Michael, who dug beside me and probably did way more work than I did. And he’s only seven.