6,624,546,350 AND COUNTING…

Our kitchen was a hive of unusual activity this evening. All three children were attempting to do their homework downstairs. On closer inspection however, it turned out that my daughter was busily choosing Christmas presents for the cats instead of doing her Mandarin homework. She had chosen a bee suit for a Chiwahwa (sp?) that she thought our ginger cat would look good in and a pair of stripey leggings and a spotty jumper for the other cat.

My teenage son was doing his geography homework. He is looking at world populations. I didn’t know there are now 8 countries in the world with a population of over 50 million. He showed me a website called “Death Clock” and even though I asked him not to, he promptly informed me that I was going to die on Monday April 6th 2037 – however, now that I’m a non-smoker I might, if I’m lucky, die on Saturday January 23rd 2044.

He then showed me another website called “World Clocks” which registers births and deaths worldwide – as I wrote down the number of people on the earth, I couldn’t keep up with the increase, it rose every second…there are approximately 6,624,546,350 people on the planet at this moment in time. At the same time the amount of productive land available was dropping alarmingly fast. Within the last 50 years China’s population has risen by 720,455,000 and that is with a one child per couple policy! Unbelievable. They are definately on course for taking over the planet.

He told me that tomorrow he is doing sex education. Apparently they are going to be asked to put a condom on to a test tube in the dark. Quite a good idea. Test tube though? Bit small I’d have thought.

My 7 year old spent the whole time drawing pictures of Homer Simpson to stick on his wall – he was quite interested in the sex education conversation, adding again that he knew all about it and asking whether any of us had noticed that his sisters’ vagina (pronounced bajima) looked like a credit card slot only hairier.

At lunchtime today I did a stretching and strengthening class for my son’s rugby team. They have all improved so much already. It is really very satisfying because it does seem to be making a difference. They won their game 39-0 and the rugby coach specifically told me that he thought they played a lot better after a session with me. The Head of Sport was there and he mentioned that if it all worked out maybe I could help out with a few of the other year groups as well. I’d love to do that – making a difference is what it’s all about.

Ex husband’s girlfriend was in the playground again this morning, but I’ve calmed down now. We all need a little while to get used to new things. Actually I felt a bit sorry for her, my son hardly acknowledged her and she looked uncomfortable…I’m sure she’s a lovely person really…it’s just an odd situation.