I'll be spending a bit more time over on my other blog in lieu of doing too much on here. I'd be really pleased for you to join in on those posts! Do drop in and visit if you haven't yet, I love to hear people's thoughts and reactions to the posts. They are quite different to this blog.
I will also be returning to the regular Monday Mandala Meditations that I had begun on here. The first one on the Earth Healing blog is up today if you're interested.
There is also a post about Perceptions and Truth, an excerpt from a regular newsletter I receive which I found particularly interesting and thought I'd share. Go check it out if you like.
Today, Lolly and I have a full day of baking ahead of us. She is calling me now from the kitchen and getting out ev-er-y-THING, including marshmallows, patty pans, Lindt chocolates (we're making Christmas cookies for her teachers today and I'm chucking in some of chocolate gold for them in case they need some more..... oh to be a kindy teacher, if only for the end of year scores!).
So, better go before it all ends on the floor. Have a great week, all!
Monday, December 13, 2010
Saturday, December 11, 2010
Island oasis in the midst of the silly season
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...
Tuesday, December 7, 2010
Message in a bottle... on a blog... via a song
Have you ever done or said or believed something at one point in your life and then felt like you couldn't go back on your word or belief without losing face?
Have you ever felt so stuck in that decision, even if it was years ago, that it just became your way of life even if you didn't even feel that way anymore?
I'd love to hear from you if you have ever been this way. How did you resolve it? Have you resolved it?
Michael Franti is one of my all-time favourite artists. The peace and hope oozing out of this guy is inspirational.
I'm going through some pretty tough stuff right now. Indignant thoughts in my head are arguing with the responsible, counsellor part of me which I hope will be able to filter the learning through into something coherent and constructive (which I will post on my Earth Healing blog, once the thought eventuates into something useful to others!).
Mostly, though, I would right now like to send a message via this song to someone who probably won't even know it's for them (if they still stalk me here, perhaps there is hope yet). The messages in this song are undeniable and, given it is my only chance to 'get a message through', I have to settle for passively presenting it here with loads of love and hope for change. The Universe in all its wisdom will do the rest.
Read along, the lyrics are sublime. So simple, it's easy for us mortals to forget we need to remember....
It's NEVER Too Late.
Don't fear your best friends, because a best friend would never try to do you wrong.
And don't fear your worst friends, because a worst friend is just a
best friend that's done you wrong.
And don't fear the night time, because the monsters know you're divine.
And don't fear the sunshine, because everything is better in the summertime.
And it's never too late to start the day over, it's never to late, pick up the phone (pick up the phone and call me)
You know it's never too late to lay your head down on my shoulders,
It's never too late to come on home.
Don't fear the water, because you can swim inside you within your skin.
And don't fear your father, because a father's just a boy without a friend.
And don't fear to walk slow, don't be a horserace, be a marathon.
And don't fear the long road, because on the long road you got a long time to sing a simple song.
And it's never too late to start the day over,
It's never too late, pick up the phone (pick up the phone and call me)
You know it's never too late to lay your head down on my shoulders,
It's never too late to come on home.
Don't fear your teachers, because if you listen you can hear music in a school bell.
And don't fear your preacher, if you can't find heaven in a prison cell.
And don't fear your own self, paying money to justify your worth.
And don't fear your family, because you chose them a long time before your birth (yes you did)
And it's never too late to start the day over, it's never too late, pick up the phone (pick up the phone and call me)
You know it's never too late to lay your head down on my shoulders,
It's never too late to come on home.
Hold to your children, hold to your children, hold to your children, let them know.
Monday, December 6, 2010
Please retract my Mother of the Year nomination
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| I'm so proud! Look at the words sounded out - "SOBH" for sorry, "ADICST" for asked... It's so exciting to see our child's expression in writing!! |
This here is the Sorry Note that I was presented with most forlornly (and not a little manipulatively by my tongue-in-cheek smirking) four year-old daughter yesterday.
The events leading up to Sorrygate were your usual Sunday afternoon home life antics:
Mum and Dad, in kitchen, trying to work out about half a dozen things at once. Also hoping desperately to hear each other over the din of their dear-born, making as much noise as a classroom of roudy children on a Friday afternoon. Mum snaps, says to child, "Oh for heaven's sake, would you PLEASE go and find something to do! Just for ten minutes!" Child walks away, arms by sides, not swinging, shoulders slumped and feet dragging ever so slightly for added effect.
At moments like these, I do not go after my child and placate. I can't. I have to give it a few minutes at least and then, more often than not, I go down to her and sidle in while she's playing. It's rare, for she is usually with me, nagging to be entertained, every minute of the day when she is here. We are still trying fervently to explain that there are days, particularly during the long stretches of weekends, where she needs to learn to amuse herself using her own imagination. That it's important she does this.
Yada-yada. We're still hoping it'll sink in.
So then. The note comes. By way of a morose-looking (but ever so cheeky still) LGBB, presenting it to me and telling me it says:
Mum. Sorry I asked for food. (name). Happy birthday.
Well just plunge a knife in my heart and be done with it, why don't you! (By the way, it's not my birthday, it's just something the LGBB likes to offer, it's her version of "Have a nice day!") Asking me for food, were you? How was I to know, when I was listening to another adult and trying to make a coherent reply and push that little nagging voice to the side for thirty seconds?! How was I to know that you needed food so badly that you had to ask for it while jumping and jiggling and writhing around as though you'd already eaten a bowl full of jellybeans and downed a litre of red cordial?!
Grrrrrr.
The rest of the afternoon passed by relatively peacefully. And I am just quietly ever so proud of our girl. Her first 'letter' to someone! Pity it was to highlight my apparent shortcomings as a parent.....
Sunday, December 5, 2010
Who is this Carol anyway?
Last night was our community's Christmas carol night and it did not disappoint (well, okay, perhaps the deafening volume was a bit of a let down for me, but that's just me showing my age and sensitivity to the champagne I had drunk).
It is always one of those nights where I feel incredibly happy about the community I live in. We feel like the luckiest people in the world - as millions of very lucky people around the world feel, about where they live - when we go to one of these events. Our council is one of the best around, from their initiatives to involve residents in sustainability (the LGBB's kindergarten next year is part of the council's program to create frog bogs, butterfly gardens and more, with its own dedicated nominated Sustainability Officer on the committee!) right through to these turn-outs and festivals.
Anyway, enough of my council. Let's get to the photos!
Lolly was "so, so, SO excited, Mum" all day yesterday and kept asking if it was time to go to the carols. It clearly wasn't. But I liked her determination... At one point in the late afternoon, after the umpteenth query of the time, her face took on a puzzled expression as she looked up at me and asked, "Mahhm... who is Carol?"
My funny girl.
Dorothy the dinosaur was there and that was the part where I was grateful for my waterbottle full of champagne (hey... it might be a great event but, come on, if you have to get there THREE hours before the carols actually begin, just to get a good spot in the 15,000+-strong crowd, then you'd better believe I'm going to partake in a non-glass container of something alcomoholic or other).
Lolly lasted right through to Santa's arrival on stage - which was superbly choreographed (with 'staged Santas' being lit up by the spotlight around the venue.... silly Santa couldn't quite get to the stage without the kids' help) - and then crashed in a grand spread-eagled display in bed. We only got a few hours' sleep before she came into our bed, her head full of "bad dreams" and I was kicked out. No room for the wicked (I had been the one drinking the champagne at the alcohol-free event, after all.... *cough* hey, at least I wasn't being obvious about it, unlike all the parents around me popping corks and necking beers in glass bottles!)
So I took Jazz for an early morning fast-paced walk for forty minutes around the parks and my morning was topped when a woman stopped me and asked if I live here. I replied that yes, I did. And she gushed, "Oh! We're up from Geelong for my son's game and my goodness, I never realised it was so beautiful up here. Do you just love it?"
I had to gush back that yes. Yes I really do. If she read my blog, she'd know that by now! Silly woman.
It is always one of those nights where I feel incredibly happy about the community I live in. We feel like the luckiest people in the world - as millions of very lucky people around the world feel, about where they live - when we go to one of these events. Our council is one of the best around, from their initiatives to involve residents in sustainability (the LGBB's kindergarten next year is part of the council's program to create frog bogs, butterfly gardens and more, with its own dedicated nominated Sustainability Officer on the committee!) right through to these turn-outs and festivals.
Anyway, enough of my council. Let's get to the photos!
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| Unpacking all the friends, waiting for this Carol... whoever she is |
 |
| Officially "Squeeee!"-worthy. AKA Strangling Pa. |
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| Payback from Pa for being strangled. |
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| Strops are on because sweets before dinner have been denied. |
 |
| ....all is forgiven a moment later when Carol's imminent arrival is remembered. |
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| Me and my girl. And her lollypop. AFTER dinner. |
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| Don't let this blinding light fool you. I was having no epiphany at the time, other than the champagne being a bloody brilliant idea. |
 |
| An ethereal moment (LGBB at left) on a jumpy castle |
Lolly was "so, so, SO excited, Mum" all day yesterday and kept asking if it was time to go to the carols. It clearly wasn't. But I liked her determination... At one point in the late afternoon, after the umpteenth query of the time, her face took on a puzzled expression as she looked up at me and asked, "Mahhm... who is Carol?"
My funny girl.
Dorothy the dinosaur was there and that was the part where I was grateful for my waterbottle full of champagne (hey... it might be a great event but, come on, if you have to get there THREE hours before the carols actually begin, just to get a good spot in the 15,000+-strong crowd, then you'd better believe I'm going to partake in a non-glass container of something alcomoholic or other).
Lolly lasted right through to Santa's arrival on stage - which was superbly choreographed (with 'staged Santas' being lit up by the spotlight around the venue.... silly Santa couldn't quite get to the stage without the kids' help) - and then crashed in a grand spread-eagled display in bed. We only got a few hours' sleep before she came into our bed, her head full of "bad dreams" and I was kicked out. No room for the wicked (I had been the one drinking the champagne at the alcohol-free event, after all.... *cough* hey, at least I wasn't being obvious about it, unlike all the parents around me popping corks and necking beers in glass bottles!)
So I took Jazz for an early morning fast-paced walk for forty minutes around the parks and my morning was topped when a woman stopped me and asked if I live here. I replied that yes, I did. And she gushed, "Oh! We're up from Geelong for my son's game and my goodness, I never realised it was so beautiful up here. Do you just love it?"
I had to gush back that yes. Yes I really do. If she read my blog, she'd know that by now! Silly woman.
Thursday, December 2, 2010
Me time
For the past couple of weeks, my posts have been light on. Much of the reason for this has been a combination of workload and personal burnout. But the bigger, more important reason for this lack of www-time has been this...
Good old-fashioned attack of the guilts at some of the obvious things our little Lolly Gobble Bliss-Bomb (aka The LGBB) has been saying - imaginative, innocent and honest insights into her inner world - that have left my Maternal Radar in overdrive.
Exhibit A:
One morning last week, I was hastily patching together a section of my book which I had been working on before the house woke up at 7am. Not wanting to leave the train of thought hanging when Lolly had come up for cuddles and breakfast, I distractedly tended to her and made a dive back to the laptop before I lost my place in the story. She found her way to her Etch-A-Sketch on the rug near my feet and was happily lost in her drawing for a time, before I asked her, "Whatcha drawin', Lollypop?" I only had half an ear out for her reply, as I was still steeped in what I was doing.
"A baby dragon," she replied, not looking up.
"A what?!" I asked, incredulous and not sure I'd heard correctly. Lolly has no interest in dragons and doesn't speak of them. She repeated herself and had, indeed, been drawing a baby dragon.
"What's the baby dragon doing?" I asked, stopping my work and giving full attention this time to my daughter, who had still not looked up.
"She's curled up, reaching out for her mummy," she said, more just out-loud to the room than to me in particular.
"And... what's her mummy doing?" I hardly wanted to know her answer.
"She's working."
It's all I needed to hear. I dropped the lappy like a hot potato and made a casual dash (you know those ones, where you don't want them to know how eager you are to capture a moment?) for the camera, asking if I could take a photo of her baby dragon. She obliged politely by saying I could. The dragon was, indeed, reaching a 'paw' in the direction I had been sitting.
After an intensely trying weekend, in which everything basically piled in on top of me while I was down a pit, I surfaced to face a new week only to find that my daughter was deeply affected by my exhaustion. She has always mirrored me in this way. Even as a young, young baby, the LGBB would preempt me getting run-down or sick by going under herself. As she became older, she had spells that would force her to sleep for a day or two at a time - following the pattern for the past four years (and she has mostly grown out of these 'moments' now), they seemed to coincide with me being called in to be of energetic service to someone, somewhere in the world. Odd. Fascinating. Just The Way We Are. She is a sensitive, deeply intuitive little kid and I always, always seem to forget. I STILL smack the back of my own hand sometimes when, in hindsight, it always seems so clear.
And this time, there is a direct correlation between all this happening and all of my spare energy and time being frittered away on the strain that is sharing the house for this extended time with my parents inlaw. "Fourteen more sleeps," Steve tried to console me tonight. Dear oh dear. And it's not anything necessarily awful, it's just simply that feeling of not being able to completely relax in your own home - I hadn't quite realised how much it got to me, but my little sponge-child has shown me just how deeply it is affecting us all.
As her mother, part of my duty is to guide my child and help her to both embrace her gifts and abilities (as any mother would with her child and his/her own unique strengths and talents), to normalise what it is she feels, at the same time as helping her see herself as a special gift to the world, as much as she is a gift graced to her father and me.
I can't give her my undivided attention all the time - a difficult thing for an only child (for in essence that is how she is being raised) to understand because there is nobody else vying for my attention - but I can see by these utterings lately, as evidenced by her baby dragon drawing, that my balance of work-Lolly-me time is sorely out of whack lately.
On Monday afternoon, after four hours at occasional care (the only day she goes now), I knew exactly what she needed. I had told my mother inlaw in the morning that I would organise dinner. By 4pm pickup time, it was quite clear I was needed as a mummy first. I spent thirty minutes at the park pushing Lol on swings, riding on giant bendy-"necked" animals, applauding at slide dismounts and generally just hung out with my daughter. Then, as we made our way home, I phoned Steve and told him that he and I could grab dinner later and if his parents could please get theirs, as there had been a change of plans. As it stands, I'm still not quite sure they understand why I reneged on the dinner-cooking I had promised (for my mother inlaw had offered but, honestly, I was too tired to even do the "are you sure, it's no problem for me to do it... now, what do you want, where is everything, what does Lolly not eat..." caper that it seemed easier for me to just handle it myself). But I don't really care. My little girl went to bed that night much happier, having been absolutely soaked in an afternoon of my undivided, uncomputerised attention. We read stories, did Christmas jigsaw puzzles, had a bubble bath... reconnected.
It is difficult, I would gather, for all parents to get that balance "right" - and that is a rather dicey word to use here, but for want of another I'll leave it in - between attending to all of their children, if they are blessed with more than one, juggling work commitments, holding extended family at arms' length when needs of any of their children dictate it, and of course spend that all-important alone time together. Let's not even touch on how messy my house is right now, either. I can't do it all, I see that. We went to the library for two hours today and returned to the house exactly as it was at 10am when we left this morning before dropping in on friends prior to getting to the library. I despise a messy, unclean house. BUT...... I'm more concerned with a child who has begun to act out her need to see more of me via her pictures and toys.
This "me time" I keep hearing getting bandied about, I had let it go to my head. A reflection on myself only, which I am doing here "out loud" for the sake of reminding myself down the track if it ever happens again, I see now that I had begun to act out against all these demands placed on me as the family Maypole. Desperately clinging to whatever "me time" I perceived I had to fight for, I was missing the one obvious thing. This very blog, and the collective blogosphere (and ... er, Twitterdom, shall we call it?), this is my "me time" and I have previously been getting scads of it. I have simply allowed myself to incorporate "blog time" in "work time" and it's simply not the case.
Rather like a budget, where Groceries allowance can be separated into household items, nappies, cleaning products and the likes, so that your actual food allowance is much more healthy-looking, I need to make clearer boundaries in the way I am conducting my free time. My "me time". It's not entirely accurate of me to say I get next to none of it. In my own feeble defense, I recognise it's because my entire work life is also spent at the computer - the book and my paid work all cause me to be chained to this thing I'm sitting in front of at this very moment - but it's time I started clock start/stopping so that I can get a more accurate Time Budget going here. And if my computer time has crept into this so-called "me time", then I need to seriously ask myself if I am cutting my nose of to spite my face if I "just quickly check this blog to see if she's updated her comments" or "hop into Echofon to see who's on Twitter" because in my mind, I'm here working already and a brief drop-in on a site won't make much difference at all.....
But it does make a difference. A huge difference. I need to spend time to make time, this distance I have placed between me and other blogs (and my own) this past fortnight has really helped me see that. I'm thinking a whole lot more internet surfing and blogpost writing is going to be happening after a certain little someone's bedtime in future. And then, I will be choosing between sacrificing couple-time (which I will be answerable for to my patient, tolerant - up to a point - partner) in favour of "me time" and I will be forced to see that THIS, what I'm doing right now, counts as that "me time".
Confused? I'm not!
And I'm raring to go with it, for I see that my work life is not about to change anytime soon. So the balance has to be redressed by me and me alone. I have to stop whining about what I don't get and don't have to myself and start looking out for those moments where I can make some more of this happen:
Ultimately, that toothy wide-mouthed, all-over-face grin is the reason I still live and breathe.
This post is also part of Naomi's Mother Heart linky - every Thursday at Seven Cherubs.
Now... let's go flogging on this fine Friday!
Good old-fashioned attack of the guilts at some of the obvious things our little Lolly Gobble Bliss-Bomb (aka The LGBB) has been saying - imaginative, innocent and honest insights into her inner world - that have left my Maternal Radar in overdrive.
Exhibit A:
One morning last week, I was hastily patching together a section of my book which I had been working on before the house woke up at 7am. Not wanting to leave the train of thought hanging when Lolly had come up for cuddles and breakfast, I distractedly tended to her and made a dive back to the laptop before I lost my place in the story. She found her way to her Etch-A-Sketch on the rug near my feet and was happily lost in her drawing for a time, before I asked her, "Whatcha drawin', Lollypop?" I only had half an ear out for her reply, as I was still steeped in what I was doing.
"A baby dragon," she replied, not looking up.
"A what?!" I asked, incredulous and not sure I'd heard correctly. Lolly has no interest in dragons and doesn't speak of them. She repeated herself and had, indeed, been drawing a baby dragon.
"What's the baby dragon doing?" I asked, stopping my work and giving full attention this time to my daughter, who had still not looked up.
"She's curled up, reaching out for her mummy," she said, more just out-loud to the room than to me in particular.
"And... what's her mummy doing?" I hardly wanted to know her answer.
"She's working."
It's all I needed to hear. I dropped the lappy like a hot potato and made a casual dash (you know those ones, where you don't want them to know how eager you are to capture a moment?) for the camera, asking if I could take a photo of her baby dragon. She obliged politely by saying I could. The dragon was, indeed, reaching a 'paw' in the direction I had been sitting.
After an intensely trying weekend, in which everything basically piled in on top of me while I was down a pit, I surfaced to face a new week only to find that my daughter was deeply affected by my exhaustion. She has always mirrored me in this way. Even as a young, young baby, the LGBB would preempt me getting run-down or sick by going under herself. As she became older, she had spells that would force her to sleep for a day or two at a time - following the pattern for the past four years (and she has mostly grown out of these 'moments' now), they seemed to coincide with me being called in to be of energetic service to someone, somewhere in the world. Odd. Fascinating. Just The Way We Are. She is a sensitive, deeply intuitive little kid and I always, always seem to forget. I STILL smack the back of my own hand sometimes when, in hindsight, it always seems so clear.
And this time, there is a direct correlation between all this happening and all of my spare energy and time being frittered away on the strain that is sharing the house for this extended time with my parents inlaw. "Fourteen more sleeps," Steve tried to console me tonight. Dear oh dear. And it's not anything necessarily awful, it's just simply that feeling of not being able to completely relax in your own home - I hadn't quite realised how much it got to me, but my little sponge-child has shown me just how deeply it is affecting us all.
As her mother, part of my duty is to guide my child and help her to both embrace her gifts and abilities (as any mother would with her child and his/her own unique strengths and talents), to normalise what it is she feels, at the same time as helping her see herself as a special gift to the world, as much as she is a gift graced to her father and me.
I can't give her my undivided attention all the time - a difficult thing for an only child (for in essence that is how she is being raised) to understand because there is nobody else vying for my attention - but I can see by these utterings lately, as evidenced by her baby dragon drawing, that my balance of work-Lolly-me time is sorely out of whack lately.
On Monday afternoon, after four hours at occasional care (the only day she goes now), I knew exactly what she needed. I had told my mother inlaw in the morning that I would organise dinner. By 4pm pickup time, it was quite clear I was needed as a mummy first. I spent thirty minutes at the park pushing Lol on swings, riding on giant bendy-"necked" animals, applauding at slide dismounts and generally just hung out with my daughter. Then, as we made our way home, I phoned Steve and told him that he and I could grab dinner later and if his parents could please get theirs, as there had been a change of plans. As it stands, I'm still not quite sure they understand why I reneged on the dinner-cooking I had promised (for my mother inlaw had offered but, honestly, I was too tired to even do the "are you sure, it's no problem for me to do it... now, what do you want, where is everything, what does Lolly not eat..." caper that it seemed easier for me to just handle it myself). But I don't really care. My little girl went to bed that night much happier, having been absolutely soaked in an afternoon of my undivided, uncomputerised attention. We read stories, did Christmas jigsaw puzzles, had a bubble bath... reconnected.
It is difficult, I would gather, for all parents to get that balance "right" - and that is a rather dicey word to use here, but for want of another I'll leave it in - between attending to all of their children, if they are blessed with more than one, juggling work commitments, holding extended family at arms' length when needs of any of their children dictate it, and of course spend that all-important alone time together. Let's not even touch on how messy my house is right now, either. I can't do it all, I see that. We went to the library for two hours today and returned to the house exactly as it was at 10am when we left this morning before dropping in on friends prior to getting to the library. I despise a messy, unclean house. BUT...... I'm more concerned with a child who has begun to act out her need to see more of me via her pictures and toys.
This "me time" I keep hearing getting bandied about, I had let it go to my head. A reflection on myself only, which I am doing here "out loud" for the sake of reminding myself down the track if it ever happens again, I see now that I had begun to act out against all these demands placed on me as the family Maypole. Desperately clinging to whatever "me time" I perceived I had to fight for, I was missing the one obvious thing. This very blog, and the collective blogosphere (and ... er, Twitterdom, shall we call it?), this is my "me time" and I have previously been getting scads of it. I have simply allowed myself to incorporate "blog time" in "work time" and it's simply not the case.
Rather like a budget, where Groceries allowance can be separated into household items, nappies, cleaning products and the likes, so that your actual food allowance is much more healthy-looking, I need to make clearer boundaries in the way I am conducting my free time. My "me time". It's not entirely accurate of me to say I get next to none of it. In my own feeble defense, I recognise it's because my entire work life is also spent at the computer - the book and my paid work all cause me to be chained to this thing I'm sitting in front of at this very moment - but it's time I started clock start/stopping so that I can get a more accurate Time Budget going here. And if my computer time has crept into this so-called "me time", then I need to seriously ask myself if I am cutting my nose of to spite my face if I "just quickly check this blog to see if she's updated her comments" or "hop into Echofon to see who's on Twitter" because in my mind, I'm here working already and a brief drop-in on a site won't make much difference at all.....
But it does make a difference. A huge difference. I need to spend time to make time, this distance I have placed between me and other blogs (and my own) this past fortnight has really helped me see that. I'm thinking a whole lot more internet surfing and blogpost writing is going to be happening after a certain little someone's bedtime in future. And then, I will be choosing between sacrificing couple-time (which I will be answerable for to my patient, tolerant - up to a point - partner) in favour of "me time" and I will be forced to see that THIS, what I'm doing right now, counts as that "me time".
Confused? I'm not!
And I'm raring to go with it, for I see that my work life is not about to change anytime soon. So the balance has to be redressed by me and me alone. I have to stop whining about what I don't get and don't have to myself and start looking out for those moments where I can make some more of this happen:
Ultimately, that toothy wide-mouthed, all-over-face grin is the reason I still live and breathe.
This post is also part of Naomi's Mother Heart linky - every Thursday at Seven Cherubs.
Now... let's go flogging on this fine Friday!
Sunday, November 28, 2010
It's been one of those weekends
I ran away from a class for the first time yesterday. Strangely, it was "just" etheric head/neck/shoulder massage (have you ever had a good head massage? Divine!). But I couldn't handle it. I think it was the close proximity to others, coupled with the deep and vast emotions I was feeling. They swooped in on Friday evening - I am heading into my third week of my parents in-law staying with us (three down, three to go...), so I am feeling quite justifiably like I'm handling a hot potato at the moment anyway - and had fully descended on me by mid morning Saturday.
The crash engulfed me, finally, on my lunch break as I sat and cried floods of tears to match the flooding outside the car (I was over two hours' drive from home, in the thick of an unseasonable band of storms across the middle of the state that have caused road closures and some havoc). And I made the call and left the message that altered the course of the rest of my weekend: "It's me. I'm not coming home."
Yes, I went there. I was lower than I have been in a long while. Desperation calls for desperate phone calls, in my books. But then, after I'd hung up, I realised..... I had nowhere to go! It was bucketing down. I was a few hundred km's from home (not that I was going there, apparently, anyway). There was nobody I wanted to be with, nobody who would want to see me like this. No one who would truly understand.
And then I turned on the car* and did what any self-respecting girl with any of her mettle left would do: I drove towards Dad's house. FINALLY, his living two hours' drive away came in handy for I was now only ten minutes from him. And I sheltered in his home after navigating the precariously flooding driveway, and accepted his particular brand of bear-hug.... noticeably more frail now after all his health issues and scares. He told me he's at considerable risk of heart failure. But not to burden me, mind. It was almost an after-thought, as if he was just running things through his mind, out loud, and I just happened to be there. He only found out last week. I hid my fear amongst the rubble of my already crushed heart and took his tenderly made cup of coffee for me.
Then I went with him to work on his house. He should NOT be doing this work on his own and for a moment, I cursed the person who should be most aware of this fact for allowing him to say he can do it when he obviously can't. I'm like my father in this regard; he will kill himself trying before saying he can't do it.... He carried three empty boxes up a short flight of stairs and couldn't breathe. This, from my capable, unstoppable father. I turned a blind eye to my terror as he admitted his heart rate flips from 30 beats (far too slow) to over double its normal working rate. The solution is not an easy one for his specialists to find.
And I am crushed even more, knowing this.
I used the surety of his love and safety as an opportunity to calm myself before the drive home, by talking things over with my father as I packed boxes and boxes of his journals and publications - his life's work passing from the bookshelves through my hands and into archive boxes - I felt less insignificant again. More heard again. More worthy and vital.
Taking a warm hug goodbye and a parting piece of fatherly advice - that all I must be concerned with is myself first, and then my daughter and Steve and "the rest will pass" (referring to the current melting pot that is sharing the house for this extended time) - I stopped the car on the long driveway. I gazed up at the old house through the trees, trying to feel something familiar. It used to be so welcoming, this house I was leaving for the very final time. It had become cold towards me, long before my father and his partner packed up and moved to much smaller dwellings in a nearby town. I waited until I made sure Dad had backed his ute back safely into the carport where he had insisted I had parked out of the torrential rain. I saw the reverse lights go on and his little beat-up red ute shifted slowly backwards. He was good for now. I sensed a process taking place for him as well, doing this work all by himself in his now empty, once grand home.
All things must pass, I thought, and shifted my own car into gear again.
From here, I drove home and into the arms of my once-familiar man. The boy I married, eleven long, hazy, crazy years ago. No, it's not our anniversary. But when things are strained for an extended period of time, I suppose one gets misty-eyed and melancholy for "the way we were".
This song is for the two men who anchor me in my life and keep accepting me - no matter what. This song is because one of these men absolutely adores Kate Bush and the other... well, the other is the man with the child in his eyes to me.
It can be a rare thing to receive this sort of ever-replenishing love once. At the core of all that is in turmoil, I know I am ultimately supremely lucky to have it two-fold in one lifetime.
*that's not a poetically licenced exaggeration, by the way. I drive a car that you literally only have to hit a big button that says 'Start/Stop'. No keys to turn, it just.... starts. And stops [handy, that].
The crash engulfed me, finally, on my lunch break as I sat and cried floods of tears to match the flooding outside the car (I was over two hours' drive from home, in the thick of an unseasonable band of storms across the middle of the state that have caused road closures and some havoc). And I made the call and left the message that altered the course of the rest of my weekend: "It's me. I'm not coming home."
Yes, I went there. I was lower than I have been in a long while. Desperation calls for desperate phone calls, in my books. But then, after I'd hung up, I realised..... I had nowhere to go! It was bucketing down. I was a few hundred km's from home (not that I was going there, apparently, anyway). There was nobody I wanted to be with, nobody who would want to see me like this. No one who would truly understand.
And then I turned on the car* and did what any self-respecting girl with any of her mettle left would do: I drove towards Dad's house. FINALLY, his living two hours' drive away came in handy for I was now only ten minutes from him. And I sheltered in his home after navigating the precariously flooding driveway, and accepted his particular brand of bear-hug.... noticeably more frail now after all his health issues and scares. He told me he's at considerable risk of heart failure. But not to burden me, mind. It was almost an after-thought, as if he was just running things through his mind, out loud, and I just happened to be there. He only found out last week. I hid my fear amongst the rubble of my already crushed heart and took his tenderly made cup of coffee for me.
Then I went with him to work on his house. He should NOT be doing this work on his own and for a moment, I cursed the person who should be most aware of this fact for allowing him to say he can do it when he obviously can't. I'm like my father in this regard; he will kill himself trying before saying he can't do it.... He carried three empty boxes up a short flight of stairs and couldn't breathe. This, from my capable, unstoppable father. I turned a blind eye to my terror as he admitted his heart rate flips from 30 beats (far too slow) to over double its normal working rate. The solution is not an easy one for his specialists to find.
And I am crushed even more, knowing this.
I used the surety of his love and safety as an opportunity to calm myself before the drive home, by talking things over with my father as I packed boxes and boxes of his journals and publications - his life's work passing from the bookshelves through my hands and into archive boxes - I felt less insignificant again. More heard again. More worthy and vital.
Taking a warm hug goodbye and a parting piece of fatherly advice - that all I must be concerned with is myself first, and then my daughter and Steve and "the rest will pass" (referring to the current melting pot that is sharing the house for this extended time) - I stopped the car on the long driveway. I gazed up at the old house through the trees, trying to feel something familiar. It used to be so welcoming, this house I was leaving for the very final time. It had become cold towards me, long before my father and his partner packed up and moved to much smaller dwellings in a nearby town. I waited until I made sure Dad had backed his ute back safely into the carport where he had insisted I had parked out of the torrential rain. I saw the reverse lights go on and his little beat-up red ute shifted slowly backwards. He was good for now. I sensed a process taking place for him as well, doing this work all by himself in his now empty, once grand home.
All things must pass, I thought, and shifted my own car into gear again.
From here, I drove home and into the arms of my once-familiar man. The boy I married, eleven long, hazy, crazy years ago. No, it's not our anniversary. But when things are strained for an extended period of time, I suppose one gets misty-eyed and melancholy for "the way we were".
This song is for the two men who anchor me in my life and keep accepting me - no matter what. This song is because one of these men absolutely adores Kate Bush and the other... well, the other is the man with the child in his eyes to me.
It can be a rare thing to receive this sort of ever-replenishing love once. At the core of all that is in turmoil, I know I am ultimately supremely lucky to have it two-fold in one lifetime.
*that's not a poetically licenced exaggeration, by the way. I drive a car that you literally only have to hit a big button that says 'Start/Stop'. No keys to turn, it just.... starts. And stops [handy, that].
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