Winners and losers

The last thing I needed in my Monday was guilt, but I got a giant bucketload of the stuff.

It followed me opening an email announcing that the eldest had won their division of the local art prize.

That should have been exciting news, but I was so disappointed. Not that my child had won – that was great – but that we hadn’t gone to the ceremony,

The prizes were handed out by the Mayor on Sunday afternoon and there were nibbles and everything. It would have been bulk fun. But we were too gloomy to go. The eldest was mooching in bed for whatever reason 15-year-olds mooch in bed. And I was feeling sorry for myself in front of the computer.

I entered one of the eldest’s creations in the art competition a week ago. The theme was recycling, so I took last year’s Christmas present off the wall and delivered it to the gallery. I don’t know if you remember, but the eldest found a painting of a Vietnamese river scene lying on the side of the road during a council throw out. He took it home and painting a ghost dinosaur into it.

I saw it and was totally jazzed and asked if I could have it as my aforementioned Chrissie gift.

I wasn’t sure if it would qualify as a winning artwork up against stuff created from scratch, but I thought it was so clever I couldn’t resist giving it a red hot go.

I mean how awesome is it that something that was destined for landfill is now a treasured painting on my lounge room wall?

But as the days passed, I lost the confidence to drag the eldest along to the ceremony.

Why didn’t I keep the faith?

Damn. Damn. Damn.

I feel like such a heel that they announced the eldest’s name and we weren’t there for the big moment .

The organisers deserve better than us in their winners. I am going to slouch into the gallery tonight before picking the youngest up from skipping and apologise profusely.

On the upside, how cool is it that the eldest won something? Very! The prize will come in handy for spending money in New York.

Song of the day: Hot Chocolate “Everyone’s a winner”