I just spent two days without internet. Forcibly removed from my one outlet in this home-mum life, I was sure it spelled certain insanity. The first day didn't bode well. The LGBB had obviously got up on the wrong side of the bed, at 5am, and found her way into ours so that was the time my day started. When she woke again at 7am as Steve got ready for work, she started with her... ah, "four year-oldness". It was going to be a whingey day. And I had already discovered, at 5am, that our internet was down and out for the count.
By 7.30am, Steve was ready to leave, I had had Dame Whinge-a-Lot in my ear for a solid half hour and felt like I wanted to just go back to bed to reclaim even an hour of the two hours' sleep I had lost. As Steve stood at the front door lacing his shoes, I came towards him with a demanding, belligerent and determined miss following me at the top of her voice, and I murmured over and over under my breath so only he could hear, "Don't leave me alone with her today, Don't leave me alone with her today, Don't leave me alone with her today..." It's a running joke we have with each other, whereby we turn into the kids who need our mummy or daddy to rescue us if we think it's going to be too 'scary' to handle.
Let me tell you, with not enough sleep under my hat and no internet, it was indeed a scary start to my day. But I had no choice. I couldn't run home to mother. I just had to suck it up and see what a day with no contact with my cyberworld was like. And...
IT WAS SPECTACULAR!
Away from the distraction of "just checking this blog" or "just going to hit refresh on my Ebay listings", unable to upload the latest finished site for a client (okay, so that part was a bit more painful as I despise letting people down, especially if they're paying me!) and not even able to receive emails from dear friends, I actually spent the past couple of days chillin' with my daughter.
We went to Spotlight (OH my very goodness, they are practically giving away Christmas decorations and crafting things down there!! Have you been?) and came home laden with wire-edged ribbon and wooden letters that spelled the word "MERRY", we had glitter and baubles and holly. We made a mantelpiece hanging together.
We went to Spotlight (OH my very goodness, they are practically giving away Christmas decorations and crafting things down there!! Have you been?) and came home laden with wire-edged ribbon and wooden letters that spelled the word "MERRY", we had glitter and baubles and holly. We made a mantelpiece hanging together.
We hand made twenty-six kindy class cards, each one hand signed by the LGBB and some with very special messages that I helped her to write, like the one to her kindy teacher that read "I love you and I will miss you so so so so so so [I had to abbreviate and could only put in about five of the dozen or more "so's"] much. Love heart, kiss and cuddle..." which makes me tear up every time I look at it. And one to the teacher's assistant, "To Lisa, Merry Christmas. I put my tree up already. I will miss you." And the one she wrote to herself... using her actual name, of course (not Lolly):
"To Lolly, Love Lolly. I love Lolly so much. Merry Christmas." And then she's signed that one with her name as well.
We decorated the tree and shared turns to climb a chair and hang the higher decorations (a very favourite of the LGBB's, she thought this was an incredibly grown-up thing of her to do). We went to the local community centre's Christmas party, an annual lunch time invitation that is open to the community. As you can imagine, there are plenty of elderly folk with nothing much to do who wander in. The staff at the centre, which is impeccably run, put on a brilliant spread, as good as any lovingly made food. What's more, only four of the kindy kids (Lolly has been with their brilliant early learning program for children which is like a pre-four-year-old kindy program with lots of structure and adorable staff and wooden toys and teacher-led songs and stories, since she was two) turned up and their teachers were there so she got to spend some really gorgeous one on one time in this casual, family atmosphere setting. It just filled my heart to overflowing hearing her teacher tell me she was "really going to miss this one" as she squeezed my daughter. Deb has been an incredibly warm and caring teacher to the LGBB and her kindy mates and we are going to sorely miss her next year.
But, ahhhh! I feel like I have been on a mini-vacation, in my mind.
So I have received a casual invitation to come over and make some of my own with them in their work shed. The girls can play in their beautiful huge back yard and we can let the guys do the jigsawing (I'm sure champagne was mentioned as part of the deal, so probably best not to drink and drive a piece of machinery, lest my hand take on the shape of Rudolph's antlers.. or something).
And today, they have Lolly again - who I think would love to move in to their house and just drop us a wave from their front porch (we can see door to door) every now and then... - and are walking to a local kids' Christmas activity day. Steve and I are spending time together alone at home. A rarity so bleedin' rare that, actually, there hasn't been a time in the past 4 1/2 years that I can recall. What a change that has been, from the days of old when we wished so fervently that we didn't have to spend another season in our big empty house alone without any children to fill it. Wow. Big moment, recalling that one.
No rushing about at the shops, Lolly and I are making Christmas baked treats for everyone (ok.... we all know it'll end up being me doing the lion's share, if not all of it). We have no desire and no need to enter into the materialism that has taken over. The kids will get toys, of course, but none of this gnashing teeth over what to get him and her and wonder if it will be received well. Ugh! Thankfully, we did away with that, oh, about six years ago - wholly and solely thanks to our very own guiding angel, Ellanor, who taught her Dad and me there is much more to life.
It's beginning to really feel a lot like Christmas. Real, genuine, people caring and looking out for their neighbours and fellow men and women, Christmas. Like I felt it as a kid. This feeling has eluded me for nigh on two decades, maybe even three. And it is seeping in to my soul in a very fulfilling way this season. Enjoyment of others, providing a home spilling over with excited kids, spending time chatting with neighbours. Now that I have allowed myself the time to step out of the life I had created, with its walls (which I hadn't really noticed were there) and distractions (which I absolutely know are there!), I'm feeling happier. Lolly is happier.
I wonder how long I can keep this going. This wave I appear to riding the crest of.
How about you? What are you feeling leading up to Christmas?
This post is loving it up with all the others this weekend over at Maxabella's place...
