This is how Lucy described a painting she had finished.
Not 'a tree' or 'an ocean' but 'strangely distracting, and beautiful'.
Not 'strangely distracting, and oddly beautiful. Not 'strangely distracting, but beautiful'. I think she got it just right.
I love the elegance of my daughter's phrase.
***
Three days ago Nell told me a story of swimming in the ocean, fighting off a shark which had bitten her hand, and traveling to the doctor on the bus (we don't let the girls watch the news - they're both crazy for sharks and drama).
I love that two months ago Nell had only a very few words and now she uses them to invite me into a world that I will only ever see through a glass darkly.
***
I love that Al and I have offered the girls words and now those words are all their own.
Showing posts with label Nell. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Nell. Show all posts
Sunday, February 15, 2009
Tuesday, January 27, 2009
Orange rocks
This island is littered with the things ...
We spent Sunday up in a far away corner of the state. Mt William is deep in the backwoods: roadkill territory, spotted with old mining towns slowly, slowly emptying out. We had lunch under the trees by the beach, sheltered from the waves and the horizon, which terrify Lucy. She is afraid her parents will be swept out to sea, and afraid of that point where the two blues meet and people drop off the world.
It's a long drive from our place, and the journey was punctuated with the 'are we there yet?'s our own parents suffered. We did some mammoth drives when I was a kid: bundled into the Nissan Urvan before dawn, and driven from rural Victoria to Brisbane in one long, straight line, Dad driving through the night as we slept in the folded down seats in the back. The trips were in summer and I remember the blazing light and the heat in outback New South Wales, my parents stopping at small towns to buy us a can of fizzy drink. Oh, the delicious anticipation and the quandary: Passiona or green lime? The drinks came in a size that's long been phased out, much smaller than the standard 375 mls, and the cans were uncrushable.
I remember too, the car lulling me into my inner world, the place where kids fantasize when there's nothing else to do. Bored, bored, boring: Lucy uses these words all the time, now, to get my goat. I used to worry about my kids being bored - am I not enriching their lives enough?; am I cheating them of necessary experiences? But after some fidgeting Nell picked up her Barbie and told stories to herself (a two year old with a Barbie and a feminist mother - yes, there's something to be written on that) and Lu pulled over some books and then drifted off in an un-focused stare. Both were heading places where I can't, I don't want to, follow.
We take our girls to some beautiful places. They won't remember the heart stopping blue of the water on this particular Sunday, but when we strap them in their car seats, I think we are giving them a chance to explore something more than this particular island.
We spent Sunday up in a far away corner of the state. Mt William is deep in the backwoods: roadkill territory, spotted with old mining towns slowly, slowly emptying out. We had lunch under the trees by the beach, sheltered from the waves and the horizon, which terrify Lucy. She is afraid her parents will be swept out to sea, and afraid of that point where the two blues meet and people drop off the world.
It's a long drive from our place, and the journey was punctuated with the 'are we there yet?'s our own parents suffered. We did some mammoth drives when I was a kid: bundled into the Nissan Urvan before dawn, and driven from rural Victoria to Brisbane in one long, straight line, Dad driving through the night as we slept in the folded down seats in the back. The trips were in summer and I remember the blazing light and the heat in outback New South Wales, my parents stopping at small towns to buy us a can of fizzy drink. Oh, the delicious anticipation and the quandary: Passiona or green lime? The drinks came in a size that's long been phased out, much smaller than the standard 375 mls, and the cans were uncrushable.
I remember too, the car lulling me into my inner world, the place where kids fantasize when there's nothing else to do. Bored, bored, boring: Lucy uses these words all the time, now, to get my goat. I used to worry about my kids being bored - am I not enriching their lives enough?; am I cheating them of necessary experiences? But after some fidgeting Nell picked up her Barbie and told stories to herself (a two year old with a Barbie and a feminist mother - yes, there's something to be written on that) and Lu pulled over some books and then drifted off in an un-focused stare. Both were heading places where I can't, I don't want to, follow.
We take our girls to some beautiful places. They won't remember the heart stopping blue of the water on this particular Sunday, but when we strap them in their car seats, I think we are giving them a chance to explore something more than this particular island.
Thursday, January 8, 2009
Wednesday, November 19, 2008
Another trip around the sun
Young Eleanor Veatrice-with-a-V is two today. Two years ago she was born, on the night of the season return of The West Wing. I spent the evening standing behind the couch, with pains coming fast, sure that I was not in labour because the book said they were the wrong kind of pains, and I am all about the book learning. And then, when I was hurting every three minutes for about two minutes at a time, Al convinced me to call the labour ward instead of watching a couple of episodes of Scrubs. The midwives thought sooner, rather than later, would be a good idea. Ninety minutes after I got into the car Nell was born in a tub, to the music of Paul Kelly, with Al dozing on a stool, almost out of his mind from fatigue after a day spent chopping trees. And so Al's great fear of delivering his own child in an elevator was avoided. And so Nell-Nell was born. And so it began.
***
Nell-belle, Belly-belle, Best Belle, Sweet Nell, Baby, Little Bird, Dear Love - what a delight you are, what a joy, what a challenge, what a gift.
When you were in my womb I couldn't see you in my mind's eye. You came to us fresh, with nothing expected, and it's been a wonder to watch you grow into the person you are. How could we have made it up before you did? You are a dancer, a singer, a twirler. You drawl. You say 'no' with hurricane force. You love babies and Dora the Explorer (Dodo), Lola (Lolo) and puppies who lick you. You like pink. When we role-play Skippy you choose to be Mark, the ineffectual older brother, and you spend the game riding on horses. You love snakes - every picture you draw is a snake, and one with eyes - you are very clear about the eyes. You eat beaked beans for breakfast and peas for dinner, you can't get enough yoghurt but you're not keen on salami or pickles. You like the yoga balance poses: vriksha-asana and a modified utthita hasta padanghustasana. You cuddle and kiss and push your sister.
We treasure all your details, boring to anyone else, because together they make you our baby/girl Nell. At the end of each day we sit on the couch and share out our memories of you and your sister, and wonder at the delight and hilarity of having you in our lives.
Happy birthday, sweet little one.
Friday, November 14, 2008
I am walking through life and not really thinking about it - I'm not in my head at the moment. So I don't blog, which is fine, but there are things that will slip by, forgotten, when they shouldn't be.
Yesterday we went to the playgroup attached to Lucy's probable school. For the visit, Lucy chose to wear trousers, a long dress, a baby's bonnet in the shape of those old-style pilot helmets, and a white cape. And black patent Mary Janes. Not because she was dressing up, but because she thought this was a look that worked. And it did, because of course, it's not what you wear, it's how you wear it, and Lu brings such a taken for granted confidence and insouciance to her wardrobe choices. Spots, stripes, fluro, a mass of 70's paisley ribbons in her hair - it all looks good.
And now that Nell can open drawers and deal with armholes, she's strolling the same sartorial backroads as her sister: Tuesday's ensemble was a shirt printed with angry fruit from the Mission store ("Buy, buy, buy" - Nell) and a pair of Dora undies worn over tights, like some cracked super-hero.
When I see my girls stroll down the street looking, well, odd, I am so proud. Proud of their confidence, and proud that I can wear the eyebrow raises and smirks of strangers. Doubly, triply proud now that the cool mean girls have started to emerge at Lucy's kinder: all in pink, with curls and those super-cute mini-converse shoes, hanging out down the back near the swings, and missing only a ciggie and detention to complete the look of disaffected youth. Four years old - not even four - and they tell other kids they are disgusting, they don't like their clothes, they won't play with them. I love, love that my kids don't think to judge on the basis of what people are wearing (even as I am horrified that this is even an issue - four years old, for heaven's sake), that they don't judge at all, indeed, and don't care what people think about them. I love they have a confidence I have only recently achieved - tenuously - in my mid-thirties. Of the myriad of things I want for kids, this confidence and delight in themselves is perhaps the one thing I want most.
Last night I told someone I was a little disappointed that my girls refuse point blank to wear the pretty things I see around me, but that's not quite true, because really, I can't imagine having kids who matched their shirts and shorts, who didn't wear togas to Coles, and who pulled on what I chose for them.
And tomorrow, when we go to a fairy fair and I have to explain to the organisers that a lime green cape from a late 1960s bridesmaid ensemble and netting tied around the eyes in the manner of Themis is, in fact, very fairy like, so that my kids get the free ice cream that's promised to all comers who dress like fairies, well, I'll be proud then, too.
Yesterday we went to the playgroup attached to Lucy's probable school. For the visit, Lucy chose to wear trousers, a long dress, a baby's bonnet in the shape of those old-style pilot helmets, and a white cape. And black patent Mary Janes. Not because she was dressing up, but because she thought this was a look that worked. And it did, because of course, it's not what you wear, it's how you wear it, and Lu brings such a taken for granted confidence and insouciance to her wardrobe choices. Spots, stripes, fluro, a mass of 70's paisley ribbons in her hair - it all looks good.
And now that Nell can open drawers and deal with armholes, she's strolling the same sartorial backroads as her sister: Tuesday's ensemble was a shirt printed with angry fruit from the Mission store ("Buy, buy, buy" - Nell) and a pair of Dora undies worn over tights, like some cracked super-hero.
When I see my girls stroll down the street looking, well, odd, I am so proud. Proud of their confidence, and proud that I can wear the eyebrow raises and smirks of strangers. Doubly, triply proud now that the cool mean girls have started to emerge at Lucy's kinder: all in pink, with curls and those super-cute mini-converse shoes, hanging out down the back near the swings, and missing only a ciggie and detention to complete the look of disaffected youth. Four years old - not even four - and they tell other kids they are disgusting, they don't like their clothes, they won't play with them. I love, love that my kids don't think to judge on the basis of what people are wearing (even as I am horrified that this is even an issue - four years old, for heaven's sake), that they don't judge at all, indeed, and don't care what people think about them. I love they have a confidence I have only recently achieved - tenuously - in my mid-thirties. Of the myriad of things I want for kids, this confidence and delight in themselves is perhaps the one thing I want most.
Last night I told someone I was a little disappointed that my girls refuse point blank to wear the pretty things I see around me, but that's not quite true, because really, I can't imagine having kids who matched their shirts and shorts, who didn't wear togas to Coles, and who pulled on what I chose for them.
And tomorrow, when we go to a fairy fair and I have to explain to the organisers that a lime green cape from a late 1960s bridesmaid ensemble and netting tied around the eyes in the manner of Themis is, in fact, very fairy like, so that my kids get the free ice cream that's promised to all comers who dress like fairies, well, I'll be proud then, too.
Wednesday, October 15, 2008
Sky high
I live with this reality almost every day:
Lu is a climber. She will climb trees, rocks, indoor climbing walls, chain link boundary fences, the top shelf in the linen cupboard, ladders and anything else that offers itself. We are often discussing at just what age she will be allowed on the roof (fourteen and that is final, even if Daddy is up there with her). And Nell, being the younger sister and a big fan of Ucy, climbs too, pulling herself up the same trees, rocks and fences - not as high as Lulu but with just as much skill and determination. They are proud, rightfully so, of their climbing. And so am I.
But I am not a climber. I've never been brave and since my second pregnancy I suffer severe vertigo. The thought of being on a ladder makes me want to topple over backwards. When the girls want to run amok in the library, they pitter patter to the second floor in the gleeful knowledge that I can't follow and will be reduced to standing five steps up from the ground floor, calling at them to Come. Down. Now. (I find this to be not at all effective.) So I stand and watch with a tremor in my heart and oftentimes, my body.
It's not the climbing, it's the falling. And it's not that I won't catch them, it's trying to stand by, not hover with my hands just behind their backs and under their bottoms. It's the letting go.
Talk about a metaphor for motherhood ...
Lu is a climber. She will climb trees, rocks, indoor climbing walls, chain link boundary fences, the top shelf in the linen cupboard, ladders and anything else that offers itself. We are often discussing at just what age she will be allowed on the roof (fourteen and that is final, even if Daddy is up there with her). And Nell, being the younger sister and a big fan of Ucy, climbs too, pulling herself up the same trees, rocks and fences - not as high as Lulu but with just as much skill and determination. They are proud, rightfully so, of their climbing. And so am I.
But I am not a climber. I've never been brave and since my second pregnancy I suffer severe vertigo. The thought of being on a ladder makes me want to topple over backwards. When the girls want to run amok in the library, they pitter patter to the second floor in the gleeful knowledge that I can't follow and will be reduced to standing five steps up from the ground floor, calling at them to Come. Down. Now. (I find this to be not at all effective.) So I stand and watch with a tremor in my heart and oftentimes, my body.
It's not the climbing, it's the falling. And it's not that I won't catch them, it's trying to stand by, not hover with my hands just behind their backs and under their bottoms. It's the letting go.
Talk about a metaphor for motherhood ...
Monday, October 13, 2008
Pop Quiz
What is Eleanor, aged 1 year and 11 months, saying?
a) Why yes, Mummy, I am happy to do as you request. I love you and respect you.
b) While I acknowledge the legitimacy of your point of view and the wisdom you have gained from many years of experience, I have a different perspective on this particular issue. I hope we can keep the dialogue open and work together to find a mutually acceptable solution.
c) No.
d) NNNNNNNNNNNNNNNNO!
Tuesday, October 7, 2008
Friday, October 3, 2008
Alternate realities
Things I thought I would never say #20067:
"Keep you toes out of the biscuit mix, please" [requested while the mixmaster was beating]
****
Lucy constantly demands I play Speed Racer with her. She is Speed, I am a baddie and I do things like throw her out of her bed, beat her up and put her in jail so that she won't be able to compete in the trans-desert/ trans-jungle/ trans-arctic race. Three weeks ago she demanded constant Cinderella role playing; as wicked step-mother I would yell at her and make her do the housework.
Generally speaking I hate role plays but I find these to be cathartic.
Now, a return to an old favourite: Skippy. But whereas in the past I was Skippy to Lu's Sonny (very relaxing - I just clicked my tongue every now and then), now I am Ranger Matt Hammond. This is proving to have great possibilities for psychic space. I am currently graphing wombat migration patterns as Sonny and Flight Ranger Jerry (Nell) save a possum in the backyard.
Al is Mark, the awkward and ineffectual older brother, played by a young man who over-acts and is never quite sure how to hold his body in moments of dramatic tension. This makes me smirk - even when casting decisions are made by a three year old, it's nice to win the lead.
"Keep you toes out of the biscuit mix, please" [requested while the mixmaster was beating]
****
Lucy constantly demands I play Speed Racer with her. She is Speed, I am a baddie and I do things like throw her out of her bed, beat her up and put her in jail so that she won't be able to compete in the trans-desert/ trans-jungle/ trans-arctic race. Three weeks ago she demanded constant Cinderella role playing; as wicked step-mother I would yell at her and make her do the housework.
Generally speaking I hate role plays but I find these to be cathartic.
Now, a return to an old favourite: Skippy. But whereas in the past I was Skippy to Lu's Sonny (very relaxing - I just clicked my tongue every now and then), now I am Ranger Matt Hammond. This is proving to have great possibilities for psychic space. I am currently graphing wombat migration patterns as Sonny and Flight Ranger Jerry (Nell) save a possum in the backyard.
Al is Mark, the awkward and ineffectual older brother, played by a young man who over-acts and is never quite sure how to hold his body in moments of dramatic tension. This makes me smirk - even when casting decisions are made by a three year old, it's nice to win the lead.
Sunday, August 10, 2008
Yesterday it was raining, and cold. I remember a Sunday like that some years ago, spent sitting in front of the fire and drinking tea; now I have two kids who are mad for splashing in puddles and twirling their umbrellas. We kit up and set off, walking the block in the rain.
Once the thrill of the wet starts to fade, the adventures begin. Yesterday it was Snow White but Cinderella is also in vogue at our house. I once wrote that living with a real princess is as testing as sharing space with the Disney kind. Now I have some experience in both and I'm starting to reconsider. And I wonder, where does this come from, and what to do to chase the wenches away?
We live in a sea of pink but we've never actually invited a pop culture princess into our home. That is, until recently when allowing Lucy to chose her yoghurt for kindergarten lead to a six pack of princess themed Nestle vanilla and strawberry milk-based product. We could have - should have? - said no but like parents everywhere we were keen to avoid a meltdown in the dairy aisle and so we forked out for some indoctrination. But I think it must have started earlier - why did she chose that particular option? - possibly around the communal kinder table, or outside in the playground when the pirate boys said girls can only be mermaids. I always assumed that I could through vigilance and firmness protect my kid from inappropriate gendered messages; turns out - yet again - I can't.
I'm tinkering around the edges of some of those messages. Snow White is a girl who is hated for her kindness, not her attractiveness and blah, blah, blah, she lives with the dwarves and plants a garden and manages their financial interests, acting as an agent and selling on the mined jewels and gold. Her post-poisoning salvation comes in the form of a prince but one who is also a doctor, so that at least some motivation comes from medical expertise rather than general heroic maleness. In the end, the doctor-prince, S.W. and the dwarves all live together, with S.W. continuing her role as financial administrator for the guys.
This is okay as far as it goes but the things about kids is, they act as a mirror to our own cracks and inconsistencies. In my story the guy still saves the girl and the day - why not a witch with traditional knowledge, for example? - the girl is still poisoned by a crone (thereby perpetuating all those nasty constructions of older women; and S.W. doesn't just politely say thanks and walk away at the end - she ends up working as an employee in the men's businesses. I bet she does the housework too. And then there's the whole issue of abusive female family members who are demonised and absent and neglectful fathers who don't get judged for failing their kids.
I am caught up in the structures and practices I critique; they shape my thinking about what's possible even as I so carefully try to create new narratives for my girls, in the stories I tell "in [my] head and [my] hands" (Lucy's words) and in their lives. I can de-construct a fairy tale, but as soon after Al moved down to live with me I stopped remembering to pay bills, lost my pin number on any number of occasions and - shamefully - I can't name our bank or our insurers; nor do I know when the rates are due. I make the money in this house but I focus a lot more on the muffins. I pretend this isn't true but of course I have my own fairy tales, and they have nothing to do with poisoned apples and tiaras.
I don't hate myself for this - I've never met a feminist whose walk always matches her talk; try as we do, our possibilities and improbabilities are shaped - sometimes obviously, sometimes secretly - by our gender. My feminist motherhood, probably like all kinds of motherhood, leads me to think carefully about myself as a person and a role model, and this can be confronting and sometimes liberating. And as part of my motherhood, I try to show my kids some of the many different ways they can be women; perhaps these examples come as much in my own failures and oddities as in my strengths.
In the meantime, I have kids who chase after the evil queen and throw a giant apple at her. They beat at monsters with 'ferocious sticks'; they describe themselves as strong and brave; they can't wait to grow up to go to work, have babies, drink beer and chop firewood with a BIG axe. Lucy told me today, "I protect little kids and herbivores. I am a really good girl." And Nell agreed in her flat Aussie drawl: "Yeah."
I have faith that those bloody Disney princesses will never have much resonance beyond the yoghurt lids. I don't really have a strong view on what women should be but if my kids turn out the way they plan, I'll be a very happy mother and a very happy feminist indeed.
Once the thrill of the wet starts to fade, the adventures begin. Yesterday it was Snow White but Cinderella is also in vogue at our house. I once wrote that living with a real princess is as testing as sharing space with the Disney kind. Now I have some experience in both and I'm starting to reconsider. And I wonder, where does this come from, and what to do to chase the wenches away?
We live in a sea of pink but we've never actually invited a pop culture princess into our home. That is, until recently when allowing Lucy to chose her yoghurt for kindergarten lead to a six pack of princess themed Nestle vanilla and strawberry milk-based product. We could have - should have? - said no but like parents everywhere we were keen to avoid a meltdown in the dairy aisle and so we forked out for some indoctrination. But I think it must have started earlier - why did she chose that particular option? - possibly around the communal kinder table, or outside in the playground when the pirate boys said girls can only be mermaids. I always assumed that I could through vigilance and firmness protect my kid from inappropriate gendered messages; turns out - yet again - I can't.
I'm tinkering around the edges of some of those messages. Snow White is a girl who is hated for her kindness, not her attractiveness and blah, blah, blah, she lives with the dwarves and plants a garden and manages their financial interests, acting as an agent and selling on the mined jewels and gold. Her post-poisoning salvation comes in the form of a prince but one who is also a doctor, so that at least some motivation comes from medical expertise rather than general heroic maleness. In the end, the doctor-prince, S.W. and the dwarves all live together, with S.W. continuing her role as financial administrator for the guys.
This is okay as far as it goes but the things about kids is, they act as a mirror to our own cracks and inconsistencies. In my story the guy still saves the girl and the day - why not a witch with traditional knowledge, for example? - the girl is still poisoned by a crone (thereby perpetuating all those nasty constructions of older women; and S.W. doesn't just politely say thanks and walk away at the end - she ends up working as an employee in the men's businesses. I bet she does the housework too. And then there's the whole issue of abusive female family members who are demonised and absent and neglectful fathers who don't get judged for failing their kids.
I am caught up in the structures and practices I critique; they shape my thinking about what's possible even as I so carefully try to create new narratives for my girls, in the stories I tell "in [my] head and [my] hands" (Lucy's words) and in their lives. I can de-construct a fairy tale, but as soon after Al moved down to live with me I stopped remembering to pay bills, lost my pin number on any number of occasions and - shamefully - I can't name our bank or our insurers; nor do I know when the rates are due. I make the money in this house but I focus a lot more on the muffins. I pretend this isn't true but of course I have my own fairy tales, and they have nothing to do with poisoned apples and tiaras.
I don't hate myself for this - I've never met a feminist whose walk always matches her talk; try as we do, our possibilities and improbabilities are shaped - sometimes obviously, sometimes secretly - by our gender. My feminist motherhood, probably like all kinds of motherhood, leads me to think carefully about myself as a person and a role model, and this can be confronting and sometimes liberating. And as part of my motherhood, I try to show my kids some of the many different ways they can be women; perhaps these examples come as much in my own failures and oddities as in my strengths.
In the meantime, I have kids who chase after the evil queen and throw a giant apple at her. They beat at monsters with 'ferocious sticks'; they describe themselves as strong and brave; they can't wait to grow up to go to work, have babies, drink beer and chop firewood with a BIG axe. Lucy told me today, "I protect little kids and herbivores. I am a really good girl." And Nell agreed in her flat Aussie drawl: "Yeah."
I have faith that those bloody Disney princesses will never have much resonance beyond the yoghurt lids. I don't really have a strong view on what women should be but if my kids turn out the way they plan, I'll be a very happy mother and a very happy feminist indeed.
Friday, June 20, 2008
Picnic
We ate alfresco in the area yesterday. I can take or leave pink milk (banana and raspberry smoothie) and left over pannacotta consumed on a damp log in a thicket but I can't get enough of the seeing my girls turn into sisters, with a world and a love all their own.
Thursday, June 12, 2008
Speechless
All day long there are words, words, words. My girls talk, and so Tuesday, Thursday and Friday it's chat, chat, chat, mainly about babies, horses, dinosaurs, dragons, kittens and dogs. At work I have the same conversation about the same issues three times a week, I meet people, I write-edit-write-edit-write-edit, and send off a million emails; all my words get used up on things I am paid to say. By the end of each day there are almost no words left; I look for some silence, sitting on the couch and staring at the fire, maybe reading a book. I have all these thoughts swirling but no words to catch them. Sometimes I feel trapped in the quiet but mostly it's okay: some things don't need any words at all.
Saturday, March 1, 2008
I think today was the final blackberry session of the season. Last week, there was more than enough for all, even with a greedy labradoodle. Today, there were more pink and ungiving fruits than luscious black ones. Many looked delicious on the side that faced the sun but on the shadow side they were unripe. And the best picks have retreated beyond arms' reach, deep in the copses, available only to the birds.
I picked madly, but couldn't keep up with Nell's demands for more as she waddled behind me, mouth open and chirping like an insatiable baby bird. In the end she was most content on my hip, pointing out the particular berries she wanted. (I had a vision of the future and she was standing in an Italian market telling the stall holder 'Not that one, that one, that one at the back'.) Last year Lu was crazy for the fruit but this year she'll only accept the most perfect 'blackberry dazzlers' - the rest are licked, rejected as too furry/ spiky/ pink/ yuk and passed on to her sister. For Lu, the cemetary is now more delightful for the possibility of adventure to be found underneath the oak trees or through the head high grass.
The last blackberries and now a long wait over the year. But not so long as I thought - how is it that February has already passed and autumn visits us in th mornings now?
I picked madly, but couldn't keep up with Nell's demands for more as she waddled behind me, mouth open and chirping like an insatiable baby bird. In the end she was most content on my hip, pointing out the particular berries she wanted. (I had a vision of the future and she was standing in an Italian market telling the stall holder 'Not that one, that one, that one at the back'.) Last year Lu was crazy for the fruit but this year she'll only accept the most perfect 'blackberry dazzlers' - the rest are licked, rejected as too furry/ spiky/ pink/ yuk and passed on to her sister. For Lu, the cemetary is now more delightful for the possibility of adventure to be found underneath the oak trees or through the head high grass.
The last blackberries and now a long wait over the year. But not so long as I thought - how is it that February has already passed and autumn visits us in th mornings now?
Saturday, February 16, 2008
Market day
I love markets. At work, I spend all day under artificial lighting, staring at a screen and unaware of the light and weather of the day. I don't want to do much the same in Coles on the weekends. Looking at lettuce and grapes under trees, in the sun, with people milling and chatting, is my idea of how our food should be got. There's a sense of possibility, of perhaps stumbling across something lovely and unexpected, in the markets, and that's something absent from the trudge through the aisles at Coles (and only imperfectly experienced at our lovely Olde Greengrocer who gives us stuff for free).
Nell and I went to the West End markets today. They are down by the river, under old Moreton Bay fig trees. There's lots of produce (though not, of course, all very local or organic), a few stores selling old clothes and some Indian tat, and the hippy coffee sellers, who provided me with some cardamon coffee (which I almost liked, I think the cardamon was a little too strong) and a baby latte and scone for Nell.
While Nell stumbled and gobbled and won hearts and minds, I got to watch the people go by: urban hipsters in their distressed and ironic retro Ts; toned middle class mammas who like their family's eating to be authentic; neo-hippies in tie-dye and fisherman's pants; retirees in navy hats. But the one thing these groups had in common (and this shocked me to the core) was their use of those once super-daggy vinyl bins on wheels, to cart home all that right-on produce. These are the wheelie baskets once favoured by old ladies in shopping centres. No more Oxfam baskets or the free green bags from supermarkets; it's bowling lady chic all the way. And I don't even think their use was post-modern or tongue-in-cheek or self-referential or ironic or any of the other stances that have allowed us all the embrace the un-embracable.
I fear I am losing my touch with style.
Nell and I went to the West End markets today. They are down by the river, under old Moreton Bay fig trees. There's lots of produce (though not, of course, all very local or organic), a few stores selling old clothes and some Indian tat, and the hippy coffee sellers, who provided me with some cardamon coffee (which I almost liked, I think the cardamon was a little too strong) and a baby latte and scone for Nell.
While Nell stumbled and gobbled and won hearts and minds, I got to watch the people go by: urban hipsters in their distressed and ironic retro Ts; toned middle class mammas who like their family's eating to be authentic; neo-hippies in tie-dye and fisherman's pants; retirees in navy hats. But the one thing these groups had in common (and this shocked me to the core) was their use of those once super-daggy vinyl bins on wheels, to cart home all that right-on produce. These are the wheelie baskets once favoured by old ladies in shopping centres. No more Oxfam baskets or the free green bags from supermarkets; it's bowling lady chic all the way. And I don't even think their use was post-modern or tongue-in-cheek or self-referential or ironic or any of the other stances that have allowed us all the embrace the un-embracable.
I fear I am losing my touch with style.
Sunday, December 16, 2007
Sweet Nell
One (of the admittedly many) things I find challenging in mothering two kids is the competing demands on my attention. Neither Nell nor Lu want to share me with the other and so any interaction with one almost always gets cut short by the other. I'm sympathetic to both: before Nell, Lu was the sole recipient of our almost continual regard and adoration; with Lu on the scene, Nell has to work hard to make herself heard, to get what she desires. We're doing our best to make sure both get equal airtime and special time with each of us, but it's a challenge. I find it particularly hard because I'm away all day - there's an hour in the morning and about two in the evening and even that time is broken up by getting ready for work and cooking dinner. I hear people say it's about quality not quantity but the amount of time is important too, especially for my little kids for whom quality only means 'being with Mum'.
This weekend's been really nice because Al and Lu are in Melbourne, taking in the sights and meeting up with old friends and their kids. I miss them - I'm not a fan of breaking up the unit for even a short period of time - but it's been delightful to spend quality and quantity time with Nellie, doing the things we both enjoy: eating as many raspberries and peaches as we can possibly fit in our bellies; strolling into town to buy books for presents and chutney from the markets for Xmas day; playing with the dog; and lolling about the house.
I love my kids because they are my kids - that chemical connection started when I held them the very first time - but the more precious bond, to me, is the one that grows as we come to know and appreciate each other. Usually, the only Nell-MumMum specific time is the first ten minutes of every morning, when Nell wakes up and we snuggle in bed together. This is very intimate and smoochy but too short to really get to know each other. What's been great these last two days is learning or more deeply appreciating some Nell specific things. To wit:
* Nell can pack away five peaches before breakfast;
* Nell has a modest outie belly-button which pops up like a pompom on a beanie when she eats her fill;
* When she's finished a task to her satisfaction, Nell slaps her belly and then rests her hands there, sitting like one of those fat happy buddha statues;
* Nell practices things - she went up and down the stairs today for half and hour, getting faster and faster and more and more pleased with herself;
* She loves her Jasper-dog;
* She really enjoys picking clothes off the floor and stacking them up on a bed (I know, I'm so lucky!);
* She's a really bossy kid, even with only about ten words and most of them starting with 'b'.
In short, she's quite the perfect Nell for me.
This weekend's been really nice because Al and Lu are in Melbourne, taking in the sights and meeting up with old friends and their kids. I miss them - I'm not a fan of breaking up the unit for even a short period of time - but it's been delightful to spend quality and quantity time with Nellie, doing the things we both enjoy: eating as many raspberries and peaches as we can possibly fit in our bellies; strolling into town to buy books for presents and chutney from the markets for Xmas day; playing with the dog; and lolling about the house.
I love my kids because they are my kids - that chemical connection started when I held them the very first time - but the more precious bond, to me, is the one that grows as we come to know and appreciate each other. Usually, the only Nell-MumMum specific time is the first ten minutes of every morning, when Nell wakes up and we snuggle in bed together. This is very intimate and smoochy but too short to really get to know each other. What's been great these last two days is learning or more deeply appreciating some Nell specific things. To wit:
* Nell can pack away five peaches before breakfast;
* Nell has a modest outie belly-button which pops up like a pompom on a beanie when she eats her fill;
* When she's finished a task to her satisfaction, Nell slaps her belly and then rests her hands there, sitting like one of those fat happy buddha statues;
* Nell practices things - she went up and down the stairs today for half and hour, getting faster and faster and more and more pleased with herself;
* She loves her Jasper-dog;
* She really enjoys picking clothes off the floor and stacking them up on a bed (I know, I'm so lucky!);
* She's a really bossy kid, even with only about ten words and most of them starting with 'b'.
In short, she's quite the perfect Nell for me.
Tuesday, November 20, 2007
Surprising things:: my baby turned one yesterday
We celebrated by watching the heavy machinery at work in town and eating chocolate eclairs, apple turnovers, snowballs and jelly slice from perhaps the only remaining old style bakery in the country. A good time was had by all.
Sunday, October 14, 2007
Protecting the environment, one forgotten scrap at a time
I am always struck, when reading any social history of fruit and veggies, by the decline of biodiversity in our food world. All those thousands of apple varieties, culled to a few dozen, the tomatoes lost to history, the potatoes never to be dug and eaten with butter and chives again. Where do they go? I understand the structures that lead to their loss: the corporatisation of the production and selling of food, transportation, subsidies and governance, and our expectation that food bills should be as small as possible, regardless of the larger costs. But where do the plants go when they're not wanted anymore?
I guess the orchards are bulldozed and the old backyard gardens paved over. But surely some hardy specimens remain in the cracks in the fence or down the back paddock, left to endure by chance or laziness or a lack of money to sub-divide. It's the dream of every gardener, isn't it, to stumble across a lost variety, just as those who love art hopes to find an old John Glover shoved in behind the beer fridge in a tumble down garage, and those who thrift believe one day they will discover a Clarice Clift teapot going for $2 at the Salvos down the road. Once plant hunters traveled the globe for the new, now we peer over back fences in search of the old.
Or at least, I do. There're things in my neighbourhood I don't see elsewhere, the remnants of gardens destroyed. Apple trees are dotted about the place and on the verges freesias and sparaxis grow in great drifts.
Many grow at the bottom of slopes, I suspect pushed down from the higher places by the landslips and deluges that wiped out the houses to which they once belonged. Some of these freesias I've not seen in the catalogues. They're not the sweet scented albas, and bear no resemblance to the large and bold varieties offered at 40 cents a bulb. Some have particularly caught my attention: mauve and gold, brushed in sepia tones, they are the flowers of a grandmother's wedding bouquet. Hardy and humble and not at all common (in all meanings of the word).
These plants bear a strange relationship to their environment: they're introduced and now naturalised; they're a product of suburbanization and now in threat from it as the council seeks ways to stablise the land for new sub-divisions, and 'cleans out' the growth in the name of neatness and hygiene. So I've started to collect some bulbs, scrambling down the slopes with Jasper the dog following enthusiastically (there could be a ball down there!).
I'm planting them in the garden as a token of things past, as an acknowledgment of what my environment contains within it now, and as protection against the loss of diversity and difference that will no doubt follow in the future.
I don't think this is helping the Amazonian rainforests or the loss of Australia's river systems. I'm not stopping a pulp mill (but then no one else is either). It's just a few flowers next to the road and in the traces of backyards. I doubt they're a lost flower, even though I can't place them, but even the commonplace becomes rare, as our agricultural past reminds us. Maybe one of my scraps will become The Flower That Saved Our World. Or maybe they'll stand as a reminder to the few who remember that there was a time when there was space for surprise and overgrowth and delight.
There are, of course, other very good reasons for keeping things just the way they are. You don't get this in 'townhouse alternative' living:
I guess the orchards are bulldozed and the old backyard gardens paved over. But surely some hardy specimens remain in the cracks in the fence or down the back paddock, left to endure by chance or laziness or a lack of money to sub-divide. It's the dream of every gardener, isn't it, to stumble across a lost variety, just as those who love art hopes to find an old John Glover shoved in behind the beer fridge in a tumble down garage, and those who thrift believe one day they will discover a Clarice Clift teapot going for $2 at the Salvos down the road. Once plant hunters traveled the globe for the new, now we peer over back fences in search of the old.
Or at least, I do. There're things in my neighbourhood I don't see elsewhere, the remnants of gardens destroyed. Apple trees are dotted about the place and on the verges freesias and sparaxis grow in great drifts.
Many grow at the bottom of slopes, I suspect pushed down from the higher places by the landslips and deluges that wiped out the houses to which they once belonged. Some of these freesias I've not seen in the catalogues. They're not the sweet scented albas, and bear no resemblance to the large and bold varieties offered at 40 cents a bulb. Some have particularly caught my attention: mauve and gold, brushed in sepia tones, they are the flowers of a grandmother's wedding bouquet. Hardy and humble and not at all common (in all meanings of the word).
These plants bear a strange relationship to their environment: they're introduced and now naturalised; they're a product of suburbanization and now in threat from it as the council seeks ways to stablise the land for new sub-divisions, and 'cleans out' the growth in the name of neatness and hygiene. So I've started to collect some bulbs, scrambling down the slopes with Jasper the dog following enthusiastically (there could be a ball down there!).
I'm planting them in the garden as a token of things past, as an acknowledgment of what my environment contains within it now, and as protection against the loss of diversity and difference that will no doubt follow in the future.
I don't think this is helping the Amazonian rainforests or the loss of Australia's river systems. I'm not stopping a pulp mill (but then no one else is either). It's just a few flowers next to the road and in the traces of backyards. I doubt they're a lost flower, even though I can't place them, but even the commonplace becomes rare, as our agricultural past reminds us. Maybe one of my scraps will become The Flower That Saved Our World. Or maybe they'll stand as a reminder to the few who remember that there was a time when there was space for surprise and overgrowth and delight.
There are, of course, other very good reasons for keeping things just the way they are. You don't get this in 'townhouse alternative' living:
Friday, August 3, 2007
Forces of nature
When people ask, I tell them I have two girls. This is a partial truth, it oils the wheels of social interaction. I've given birth to females with all the relevant physical bits and pieces but to claim they are girls - a social category, a shaky edifice built on their biology - glosses over their distinct and idiosyncratic selves.
Heaven knows there are days we seem to live in a girl world. We separate the washing into three piles: darks, lights and pinks. The girls' room is a rosy symphony and at the end of each day we trudge around collecting dolls, babies, kittens and other soft toys. (How did this happen? We were committed to providing gender neutral colours; life was was going to be yellow and green and white. Instead, la vie en rose.) Nell, a baby herself, is happiest with her own baby Amalie, and Lu's conversation is peppered with 'so cute', 'sweet' and demands for jewellery, creams and ungents, perfumes and fairy wings. Some times, on some days, we have girls of the most girly kind.
But each of those times on each of those days is countered with not-so-girly things. Lucy claims to be a cow with chocolate milk in her udders and a koala in her belly. (Appropriate response: "That's handy".) She is aggressive and as rough as guts. She is confident in her body. She yells a lot. She cannot sit still. She loves trains and heavy machinery. These are stereotypically 'boy' characteristics. Lu's stated career aim is to grow up to be a 'lady digger [earth mover] driver' so that she can dig big holes, scoop up lambies and send up blankets to the rock a bye baby on the tree top (a nicely gender-bending aim). She's dressing the part already.
Nell's own self is just emerging as she learns to negotiate and control her body and her world. But all signs point to the same movement and noise that Lucy uses so effectively in our lives.
I think about my uncategorisable kids as I hear another mother say 'I always wanted a daughter, someone to go shopping with', and remember an article on determining the sex of babies, where parents talked about balancing out the family or wanting a daughter to go horse riding with while the five boys rode their BMX bikes. I'm not saying anyone is a bad person for wanting these things but it strikes me, looking at my Lulu and Nell, that it's a set up for disappointment. In the end we get kids, individuals who are both familiar and strange to us, who choose their paths in response to and in spite of our own preferences and expectations.
All of those 'traditionally feminine' pursuits and atittudes are productive and skilled and create beauty and joy; I'd not be disappointed if Lucy chose to sew and spin. But my kids have reminded me we're each of us made up of snips and snails and puppy dog tails and sugar and spice and all things nice (which for me would include Stone's green ginger wine, duck and greens from The Vietnamese in Fortitude Valley in Brisbane, bush walking in snake free terrain, and chocolate meringues). I know this anyway - I spent years reading sociology and gender studies - but now we're living it, seeing the ways in which Nell and Lu come into the world hard-wired, and our social practices and expectations let us tinker around the edges a bit - and maybe make people feel bad for not doing and being the 'right' things - but aren't the overwhelming force I used to argue they were. On good days, child raising seems to be more about offering suggestions than forging a being in the fires of 'No'.
Seeing my girls reminds me that while we designate behaviours 'masculine' and feminine' for ease of categorisation and argument, it's hard to argue they exist in meaningful ways in young children's lives. As Lu and Nell grow older cultural expectations will become more pressing, throwing acceptable differences between boys and girls into sharp and disappointing relief, but I love that at the moment they are simply themselves with no thought of what they 'should' be. It's only in my thirties I'm able to even recognise this as a possible way of being, let alone live in that freedom; my heart hopes my two forces of nature carry that knowledge with them right through their lives.
Heaven knows there are days we seem to live in a girl world. We separate the washing into three piles: darks, lights and pinks. The girls' room is a rosy symphony and at the end of each day we trudge around collecting dolls, babies, kittens and other soft toys. (How did this happen? We were committed to providing gender neutral colours; life was was going to be yellow and green and white. Instead, la vie en rose.) Nell, a baby herself, is happiest with her own baby Amalie, and Lu's conversation is peppered with 'so cute', 'sweet' and demands for jewellery, creams and ungents, perfumes and fairy wings. Some times, on some days, we have girls of the most girly kind.
But each of those times on each of those days is countered with not-so-girly things. Lucy claims to be a cow with chocolate milk in her udders and a koala in her belly. (Appropriate response: "That's handy".) She is aggressive and as rough as guts. She is confident in her body. She yells a lot. She cannot sit still. She loves trains and heavy machinery. These are stereotypically 'boy' characteristics. Lu's stated career aim is to grow up to be a 'lady digger [earth mover] driver' so that she can dig big holes, scoop up lambies and send up blankets to the rock a bye baby on the tree top (a nicely gender-bending aim). She's dressing the part already.
Nell's own self is just emerging as she learns to negotiate and control her body and her world. But all signs point to the same movement and noise that Lucy uses so effectively in our lives.
I think about my uncategorisable kids as I hear another mother say 'I always wanted a daughter, someone to go shopping with', and remember an article on determining the sex of babies, where parents talked about balancing out the family or wanting a daughter to go horse riding with while the five boys rode their BMX bikes. I'm not saying anyone is a bad person for wanting these things but it strikes me, looking at my Lulu and Nell, that it's a set up for disappointment. In the end we get kids, individuals who are both familiar and strange to us, who choose their paths in response to and in spite of our own preferences and expectations.
All of those 'traditionally feminine' pursuits and atittudes are productive and skilled and create beauty and joy; I'd not be disappointed if Lucy chose to sew and spin. But my kids have reminded me we're each of us made up of snips and snails and puppy dog tails and sugar and spice and all things nice (which for me would include Stone's green ginger wine, duck and greens from The Vietnamese in Fortitude Valley in Brisbane, bush walking in snake free terrain, and chocolate meringues). I know this anyway - I spent years reading sociology and gender studies - but now we're living it, seeing the ways in which Nell and Lu come into the world hard-wired, and our social practices and expectations let us tinker around the edges a bit - and maybe make people feel bad for not doing and being the 'right' things - but aren't the overwhelming force I used to argue they were. On good days, child raising seems to be more about offering suggestions than forging a being in the fires of 'No'.
Seeing my girls reminds me that while we designate behaviours 'masculine' and feminine' for ease of categorisation and argument, it's hard to argue they exist in meaningful ways in young children's lives. As Lu and Nell grow older cultural expectations will become more pressing, throwing acceptable differences between boys and girls into sharp and disappointing relief, but I love that at the moment they are simply themselves with no thought of what they 'should' be. It's only in my thirties I'm able to even recognise this as a possible way of being, let alone live in that freedom; my heart hopes my two forces of nature carry that knowledge with them right through their lives.
Sunday, July 15, 2007
Mucking about
Three good garden ideas converged today. The first was our new wheelbarrow, the perfect wheelbarrow, exactly the type and size and weight we have been searching for for months, and bought yesterday at a garage sale for $3; we love it the more for its price.
The second was going out to the stables for more manure. I read all the gardening books that advise finding a good source of manure but it seemed such a hassle, and we could always buy it at the garden store. But one day in the Sunday classifieds we saw an ad asking people to take away the stuff and we've been going back ever since. Now we have as much as we could ever wish for - horses defecate a lot and the horsey people spend all day riding and grooming and servicing the beasts; they don't have time for gardening and have no use for the stuff so we're doing them a favour - and Lucy gets to spend time making friendly overtures to the horses. This lot went on the raspberry canes, a fig tree, a grape vine, the asparagus bed, and on top of an imperfectly dug in green manure crop in preparation for asian greens as soon as the weather is a little friendlier. The rest has been piled at the back to settle down before we spread it around the fruit trees which are currently ringed with jonquils and daffs.
The third and best idea was my using the baby backpack around the garden. Nell's a difficult baby to garden with. She wants to be held all the time and she needs to be on the move. So while Lucy and I find it easy to bumble about together, Nell is often left back in the house with Al. I'm aware that she's left out but as Head Gardener have found it difficult to involve her while actually doing some work. Today she loved being up the back, and I found it was easy enough to dig and spread the muck with her riding shotgun. Plus, unlike Lucy who's independent and does her own thing, Nell is a captive audience for my singing and philosophising. We foresee many more hours of garden fun for all the family.
The good feelings have been slightly diluted by Al cutting his hand on the saw; he's now at the hospital getting jabbed and stitched, my poor love. I hope he's back soon with all his fingers still attached - he's no good to me otherwise.
The second was going out to the stables for more manure. I read all the gardening books that advise finding a good source of manure but it seemed such a hassle, and we could always buy it at the garden store. But one day in the Sunday classifieds we saw an ad asking people to take away the stuff and we've been going back ever since. Now we have as much as we could ever wish for - horses defecate a lot and the horsey people spend all day riding and grooming and servicing the beasts; they don't have time for gardening and have no use for the stuff so we're doing them a favour - and Lucy gets to spend time making friendly overtures to the horses. This lot went on the raspberry canes, a fig tree, a grape vine, the asparagus bed, and on top of an imperfectly dug in green manure crop in preparation for asian greens as soon as the weather is a little friendlier. The rest has been piled at the back to settle down before we spread it around the fruit trees which are currently ringed with jonquils and daffs.
The third and best idea was my using the baby backpack around the garden. Nell's a difficult baby to garden with. She wants to be held all the time and she needs to be on the move. So while Lucy and I find it easy to bumble about together, Nell is often left back in the house with Al. I'm aware that she's left out but as Head Gardener have found it difficult to involve her while actually doing some work. Today she loved being up the back, and I found it was easy enough to dig and spread the muck with her riding shotgun. Plus, unlike Lucy who's independent and does her own thing, Nell is a captive audience for my singing and philosophising. We foresee many more hours of garden fun for all the family.
The good feelings have been slightly diluted by Al cutting his hand on the saw; he's now at the hospital getting jabbed and stitched, my poor love. I hope he's back soon with all his fingers still attached - he's no good to me otherwise.
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