(In lieu of a proper update)
Jack drew a picture the other day. He is really starting to be able to control the pencil well and his drawings are starting to be able to be understood by everyone.
So when I asked him about his bunny's special feet, he simply said, no mumma they are wheels its a car bunny.
Well of course it was, who was I to argue.
No matter how I dress Hamish he gets mistaken for a girl. It could be because of his long hair, or because he is often dressed in purple and sometimes even in pink.
Today he is dressed in blue and green but still today someone at preschool thought he was a girl. The kids sometimes mistake him for a girl because of his long hair and when I mentioned he was a boy they had a little giggle and said why does he have long hair then. Its interesting to me that in an area that is as progressive and open minded as the Inner west long hair on a boy can still cause confusion.
He found a clip on the road yesterday and wanted it in his hair, and even I thought he looked like a girl.
Maybe people think he's a girl just because he is so pretty :)
Recently I mentioned to Trish that I thought that the world was split into 2 types of people; Beatles lovers and Elvis lovers. Of course you can be a Beatles lover and still like Elvis and vice versa but in the end your allegiance lay with one or the other. Trish looked at me like I was mad and then said 'or neither'. WHAT ??? It had never occurred to me that you wouldn't either be a Beatles lover or an Elvis lover what else was there. I started talking about how I thought that people were generally raised listening to the Beatles, Dylan, Marley etc or listening to Elvis, Buddy Holly, Roy Orbison etc and she commented that she was raised listening to Ravi Shankar.
It got me thinking, are our music loves influenced by the music we are raised listening to?
I was raised listening to the Beatles, Dylan, Marley, Jethro Tull and other folk, blues or rock bands. This is still the type of music I enjoy mostly, although I like a bit of everything. Trish was raised listening to Ravi Shankar and Barbara Streisand and other global, folk type music and this is still the main type of music she enjoys.
Andrew and I were talking about how the music that hits the top 40 these days is unlikely to last the way someone like Cat Stevens music has lasted.
So then I started thinking about the music kids are listening to these days, Brittany Spears, the Spice Girls, Robbie Williams (ok maybe I'm a bit out of the loop these are all a bit old, but you get my idea). What happened to kids to make this they type of music they love? I wonder if this is what has happened because parents aren't playing their own music to their kids as much instead kids are listening to the Wiggles, Hi5, in other words, simple pop type music.
I guess there are many influences to the sort of music we all listen to, but I will certainly be thinking more about the music I introduce my kids to and watching with interest the sort of music they choose as adults to listen to, will my kids be Beatles, Elvis, Ravi Shankar or god forbid Brittany people, where will their allegiance lay?
Once again my iPod has proved that it has a mind and personality of its own. Today as drove out to Camden it introduced me to two very weird songs and reminded me of one other. Why it picked these three songs at the same time out of the 1000's of songs I have, I don't know. But they were all 2 or 3 songs apart and each made me laugh. (the film clips really add to the weird little song feel as well) Tonight I am pondering families. My mum had 2 sisters and a brother and between them they had 6 children, me included. This was the family I knew growing up, we enjoyed each others company but we didn't keep in touch on our own. It took our parents to bring us together at times like Christmas and Birthdays.
Mums youngest sister moved to the USA when she was young and raised her family there and in the last 8 years my mum has died, her brothers wife passed away and her other sister is in a nursing home with terminal cancer.
Without our parents, the ties that bind us together as cousins are fraying. I don't mean that as a critisim, it is the way of families. Dynamics change, we all have our own babes and partners and separate lives and these have become our primary family.
With Christmas on its way it has left me feeling rather somber. My dad migrated to Australia from England and we have no family from his side over here. Suddenly I am keenly aware that Andrew and I are only children. What do our small and/or fraying families mean for our children?
It is important these days that I remember family comes in all sorts of shapes sizes and relationships. We have each other, we have our parents, and we have our wonderful friends. All of whom are our family.
This has never been more obvious than with Catrionas family. For the last 4 years we have been joining them for their christmas dinner, we eat and drink and laugh feeling welcome and wanted. For me Christmas is about celebrating joyously with family. With that criteria in mind, Christmas dinner is the most enjoyable part of christmas for me.
Maybe its because I have known Catrionas parents almost as long as I have known my own, or that Catriona is so much a part of my childhood (and life) or maybe it is being with a small tight knit family who include you as one of their own, maybe its the amount we eat, drink and laugh. I don't know, whatever it is it is the driving force in reminding me that family comes in many forms.
People move away, families on average getting smaller, and my perceptions of what family means is changing. The tie of blood is becoming less important than the space made in our hearts and lives for each other.
When you eat your first cherries for the season and you see you first christmas beetle on the same day, you know that Christmas is coming.
I have been teaching Jack and Hamish the words to 'Santa Clause is Coming to Town' its so cute listening to them sing it.
A little bit more everyday, I'm getting excited about christmas. I just can't wait to watch my boys experience christmas together, to watch and listen with wonder about Santa, learning about giving gifts, making decorations and as a family we will start to make our own traditions.
Hmmm better go and eat these cherries before the kids eat them all .......
Me
Jack
Hamish
Andrew thinks that the first one looks posed, just so you know its not, he was looking at a dude playing the banjo and was about to run off on me :)
Not as scared as he might look
Laughing as Jack jumped over him
About to start doing tumbles down the tree parade in hyde park
This morning as we headed to the shops Jack said 'mummy can we pleeeease go on a train today'. So after making a deal that we would go after we got what we needed from the shop and he had a rest, off on a train we went.
We hopped on the train at Stanmore station and got off at St James. Had a wander through Hyde park and looked at this years David Jones Christmas windows. Then Andrew met us and we came home.
There is really something to be said about living this close to the city. All in all the trip took 1/2 an hour and 15 minutes of that was trying to find parking near the station.
It was a pretty groovy afternoon, sultry weather and good moods topped it all off. And after playing by the christmas tree and reading the story of christmas to the kids watching the animated puppets in the window I'm feeling very ho ho ho.
It comes to me that I am
The hardest part of mothering
To give of myself
My patience and love
My time and body
To learn, to forget and relearn again
To find paths down hard roads
See goodness as it is
To believe that I am enough
And to forgive my own mistakes
And so I learn slowly
To give and take with myself
To mother me as I a mother them
Maybe I will raise myself as well
I'm fortunate to have a lot of women that I call friend. Some I rarely speak to but are dearly beloved, others are women I speak to regularly but am still getting to know.
At this time in our lives I guess we are all thinking about babies; its got me thinking about the way that our children come into our lives.
One woman I know has just fallen pregnant with her second child, totally unplanned she is working through the idea that she WILL be having another babe.
Another friend who has been trying to conceive for a long time, just fell pregnant and then days later she miscarried the much wanted babe
Another friend is trying to have a baby as a single mother through artificial insemination. Her first try didn't take and so sadly is having to start the process again
Another woman I know has just found out her 20+ week gestation babe has no heart of his own and so will die when he is born.
And yet another is happily wondering down the road towards her second babe and wondering about the choices she will make for the birth and beyond
This motherhood road is as diverse and unpredictable as all of lifes roads. There are so many ways conceiving and growing our children can go, mostly it is unexpected and even when things do not go to plan it is beautiful and life changing.
What do you do, when you know your partner is going to be home late? Make ice creams of course, out of strawberries banana and vanilla yogurt. They seem to be a hit and so far thing are peachy. Thank goodness for bright ideas at midday that save you at 6pm
This weekend I spent all of my time studying, sitting exams, reading and filling out submissions for my course. I have now completed 80% of the doula and 40% of the CBE course.
I finished all of my exams. I got 100% for 5 of them and the other 3 I got above 80%, one of which was a total stuff up. I got 2 question legitimately wrong (no worries about that) but one of the questions worth 5 marks asked you to enter all the correct answers and I put in all the wrong answers accidentally.
I was kicking myself, it was the first exam I had entered online and I totally lost my confidence. I had been quiet nervous about entering these bits of work, especially the exams they were some of the only bits you could really fail and I hadn't taken and exam since my HSC.
Alls well that ends well I guess, I have only one thing left to submit and although it will be a long work in progress I can almost call myself a doula.
*end blatant self promotion*
Both boys are being very cute with the words they are using today. (See my previous post)
Today Hamish, Jack and I were sharing a bran muffin. I wasn't sharing graciously seeing that they had already had their treat and were now guzzling all of mine. Time after time they came back asking for more, finally I have said enough, the rest is mine and I'm not sharing anymore.
Jack looks disappointed and wanders off, Hamish stands his ground saying nothing but looking at the bag. Finally he speaks and says "mumma (pause) tiny bit (pause) pleeeease" its amazing how finding a new descriptive word can get mummy to do almost anything. Tiny bit ...... It was so cute hearing this little boy whom I still think of as a baby say "tiny bit". He's growing so fast.
Tonight I tried a new going to sleep arrangement. Wall, Jack, Hamish then me, holding Jacks hand and giving Hamish the cuddles he still needs to go to sleep.
It was really nice actually, Jack was happy just to have my hand and Hamish seemed pleased with the new sleep arrangement. As they both fell asleep I went to get up and saw Jack looking at me.
Me - Honey, I'm going to go downstairs ok? I love you very much, I'll be up soon
Jack - Ok mumma, love u to, I'll look after my brother.
Gosh, be still my heart !!!
Posts
All Comments
