Tree fall

I haven't blogged for many a month as life has been sucking up most of my time and energy but I was inspired by a recent post on the nature of blogging from Irregular Tammie and the blowing over of a tree in our street to make a little post of my own.

I'm also popping in photo of the morning tea I made myself this morning. I saw Nigella Lawson make her wicked french toast on TV once and the idea of it has been lurking in my mind ever since. So....as today was turning out to be "one of those days" and I had no chocolate or nice biccies in the house, I decided to make Nigella's Doughnut French Toast. I thought it needed something on top so added some strawberries. When rummaging in the freezer for icecream, all I could find was a jelly-tip icecream so I broke it into pieces and threw it on top. All desserts taste better with chocolate and icecream if you ask me. (I confess, I feel slightly sick after eating it. There was a lot of butter and sugar involved). Which reminds me, I added cinammon to my sugar for some extra excitement. I think Nigella uses plain sugar. I'm rather fond of Nigella actually. I like her Englishness and her womanly curves and the fact that she seems to really enjoy food.

Now for the tree.....We had very strong winds in our part of Australia on the weekend and I drove around the corner into our cul-de-sac on Tuesday to see a largish tree lying on the footpath and a telephone line dragged down above the road. (I thought it was a power line so I was quite relieved to hear it was just a phone line.) The two houses opposite us have seven children between them, most of whom have the freedom of the street and spend a lot of time riding their bikes on our footpath and climbing the street trees etc. I don't normally let my girls play in the street/footpaths as I am nervous of Greta walking into the path of a car. (She doesn't have much road sense at four), but I took a deep breath and said "Off you go then" and went into the house to get dinner ready, hoping there would not be any broken limbs. I was fairly sure the bigger kids would look after the little ones.

The kids were having such a great time that I thought it would be nice to take some photos. So...here they are. My little girl is in the red dress and my big girl is the one with the ponytails

Bye for now.

A screen free day

It's been good having a little sabbatical from feeling obliged to produce regular posts that are even slightly interesting and not too nauseatingly self indulgent, but I feel like posting tonight so here I am. Scott has ducked out to buy groceries after cooking us a thai chicken curry so I'm quickly grabbing five peaceful minutes on the computer before I tuck in.

We had a successful "no screen day" at our house today. I'm really proud of myself and the girls. I forgot to remind Scott of the plan last night (I'm intending to do it every Wednesday) so when I got up at 7am after a nice little sleep in, the girls were already playing the computer. It soon went off though with a minimum of fuss. My big girl got ready for school and then I set the girls up with watercolours, paper and brushes in the playroom. So far..... so good. I raced around doing morning chores in between admiring their artwork and telling my little girl "No....you can't paint your hands this morning". Soon bored with painting, they decided to play with their "Strawberry Fayre" fairy toys. Multiple fights over who had which fairies soon broke out and I realised that this is why TV makes life easier for parents. The children sit in a peaceful state of zombiness in front of the TV for longish periods. Sigh. This was going to be harder than I thought. I promised the girls I would set up a "post office shop" in the lounge room to ease the pain of no TV/computer.

After dropping the big girl at school and doing a few errands, the little girl and I came home and
started playing shops. This was fun until after lunch when I hit my customary "wall" at 1pm and desperately wanted to lie on the couch and read "The Time Traveller's Wife". This is the time when I normally let my curlywhirl girl watch another batch of TV while she lies on me or at the other end of the couch. But playing shops with Mum was so much fun, there was no way she would let me skive off and read my book while she played in happy solitude. I had to do repeated deals of 5 minutes of shops and 5 minutes of me reading. I really really missed the TV.

After picking up my big girl and her friend who comes to us every Wednesday after school, the three girls happily played post offices for about an hour. Only a couple of mild squabbles over who had the kitchen scales for weighing parcels. Then, after the friend left, I let them have a quick dip in the new paddle pool despite the fact that it was cloudy and cool. Then we had to rush warm baths and dinner and homework and pick up the Dad from a strange railway station as his trains from the city were cancelled. Then came the best part. My big girl would normally be watching some last minute TV or wanting to finish an inane computer game and resisting bedtime but she asked if we could start reading bedtime stories early and would brush her teeth while we read. What a treat! A whole hour of snuggling up with my big girl while the other two ate crackers and cheese and read stories in the other room. It was the most peaceful bedtime we have had for ages. Even Scott, who takes all my obsessing over childhood with a grain of salt and a lot of laissez-faire attitude to parenting, was amazed at the peace.

I was going to take photos of our lovely day and the post-office but Scott took our camera to work, so it's just boring old words tonight.

The girls are extra precious to us at the moment for two reasons. Our little girl has started "big" daycare and truly hates it. Leaving her there two days a week is breaking our hearts but we are going to give her a couple more weeks and see if she settles in before looking at other options including me giving up work which we can't afford to do. So I'm very conscious of enjoying the time she is home with me as much as I can to try and make up for her sadness at going to "kindy". She tells me every night at bedtime that she doesn't want to go.

Also, a 12 year old boy was killed by another student in a tragic incident at a good boys high school just a few suburbs away from us earlier this week. When I heard today that he was an only child, I just wept for his parents. It's made me think so much about the importance of family and the need to love our children every moment we can. There was also an incident of bullying at our school this week in which one little boy was slightly injured and which E witnessed as both boys involved are friends of hers. So childhood and schools are really on my mind. Scott says times have changed so much that our children will never have the innocence and freedom that we had and that makes me sad.

Well....here is my husband...home from hunting and gathering at the supermarket so I'd best be off and eat my dinner.

Fun in the sun

We went and saw the Disney Princess on Ice thingy on the weekend - a spur of the moment decision by the Daddy mostly. The plan was to perhaps just take the big girl, but I said the little girl is old enough to understand missing out on a special treat so she should go too. Just in case she couldn't sit still for a couple of hours watching various princesses skate about, both parents should perhaps go as well. So....off we all trooped. I'm not a huge fan of big moneymaking franchises aimed at children but I vastly prefer the value systems, language, and dress code of Disney princesses over Bratz and Polly Pocket so I consider Barbie and Disney the lesser of many evils. We all enjoyed the show but the best part of the day for me happened when we arrived home. It was a gorgeous sunny winter's day and some of the neighbourhood children in our cul-de-sac were out playing on the footpath. One little boy was riding his scooter in the cul-de-sac while his mum sat on a chair on the footpath watching for the unusual event of a car coming towards our end of the street. The children across the road were having their own little garage sale. E wanted to have one too, so we dragged out some small tables and chairs, some old toys and the children spent the next two hours buying each other's junk for 50c a piece while my neighbour and I sat in the sunshine and ate and chatted. It was just how I want their childhood (and my motherhood) to be. No TV. No Disney princesses. Fresh air. Children entertaining themselves. No messy house to look at. The Daddy inside having a rare moment of peace and quiet to read the paper. And it was all free (except for a few 50c coins).

Australia Day picnic

On Australia Day the four of us set out to get a fix of Mother Nature - the closest thing I have to a religion these days. I have such great childhood memories of jumping around on rocks and playing in waterfalls. I really want my two girls to experience it as well. So...we've discovered a little place not far out of town where we can enjoy a creek and lots of big lovely trees. We packed a picnic morning tea and had a lovely time.

I'm not big on nationalism - it leads to too many wars in my view. I prefer to be a citizen of the world. But I do love Australia - especially for its relative freedom from war and violence and oppressive government. So...Happy Australia Day everyone!

PS My hair doesn't usually look this daggy. It was a bad hair day!

Old fashioned childhoods

As a somewhat perfectionist personality (this doesn't mean my house is tidy - just that I agonise over its untidyness!) I constantly obsess over if I am getting mothering right. Thankfully, I know lots of other mothers are doing the same. I've just read Blue's lovely prose/poem (Sept 18) about parenting and it's good to know we are all in the same boat - just doing the best we can. (I'll try and put in the link but I'm still practising). (http://bluejeuls.blogspot.com/)

So when we have a day without rushing, watching too much tv, eating junk food or playing on the computer I feel like a better mother. My memories of my childhood are so happy (apart from going to new schools, but that's another story). At six, I had the run of the tiny outback town where we lived. We also spent a lot of time on sheep stations, playing in shearing sheds and helping the jackeroos muster on horseback. My parents took us on many many picnics when we would make a fire in a dry creek bed and boil the billy for tea. When I was just a little older, we moved to a slightly bigger town which I was free to explore on my bike as long as I was home before dark. I'm not sure if Mum knew my friends and I were sometimes walking along the railway tracks out of town! Anyway...back to the present moment.

Last week during the school holidays, I swopped children with friends who also work part-time so that our 5 year olds could play with a friend for the day while Mum went to work. It's a great system. So, with my two girls and a young friend, we headed to a seaside town to play on the beach (in brown mud, but that's ok), climb some trees and explore the big playground. We had a great time getting muddy feet, sandy legs and dirty clothes. I tried to take some photographs to capture the children's joy at running free but soon realised that three children running in all directions needed my undivided attention. So....here they are. Three happy children (and one happy mother behind the camera) at the beach.

The farmstay weekend

Thought I'd write a few words about our recent visit to a farmstay for a weekend. Just an excuse to put some of my favourite photos on my new blog, really. I had been promising E. a stay on a farm for months and thought September would be a good time - hopefully a few baby animals to cuddle. We were not disappointed as there were calves, two enchanting black lambs (avid breastfeeders just like G.), and a youngish chicken who became the love of E.'s life while we were there. She even got to name her - Gingernut.

Of course, there were big animals too, including an ex-racehorse, Tess, who galloped past our cabin in a huge panic not long after we arrived. Luckily, E. managed to duck back inside our gate to safety after initially panicking herself (taking a cue from her mother who could see carnage happening) and darting towards the horse who was flinging her legs and mane in all directions. Thankfully, the goats, sheep, ducks, border collie and geese had calmer temperaments.

It was a beautiful place - with views down the mountain to our home town in the distance. The air was decidedly crisp (enough to give G. a mild case of croup at night) but Spring was in the air. We had a cosy cabin and a pot-bellied stove and enough Rocky Road to sink a ship courtesy of Fathers' Day presents from school and family day-care. Having spent several years roaming on friends' farms in my childhood, I was so glad to give a taste of it to my girls. Thankfully they didn't roam off by themselves like we used to do and play in the forbidden grain silos! All in all, it was a really special weekend.