Waltzing Patilda

Good evening y’all! Happy St. Patrick’s Day, if you care. I suppose I didn’t know it was a holiday until lunch time, and didn’t even wear green. Oh well. Summer is officially over. I can probably predict tomorrow’s weather, it will be hot again and the psycho mosquitoes will still be waiting in great number on each screen to follow the scent of our blood into the house. My friends are shocked at our mosquito situation because they have so few at their houses, this is comforting. Anissa lent us her mosquito net for Genevieve and Keith dug one out of his shed for Jacinta. It is not very conducive to lazing outside with a newborn and a two year old, nor for doing laundry or taking strolls for fresh air. If ever I have felt trapped inside, it was this week. Give me winter anytime, but swarms of mosquitoes are not my thing. It does not help that our car was still in the shop, one month to fix the kangaroo damage! Matt was at the end of his rope, and lo and behold, they finished the repairs today. He has an even greater need to leave the house than I so this phone call, after a month of frustration, was more than welcome. Promptly after picking up our long lost car, we packed the girls up and went out for the whole day. Ahhhhh…..freedom.

I have learned a few good lessons about parenting this week. I won’t say I learned how to do it well, just how hard certain aspects of it are. I have never before admitted to myself that there are situations to which I have no answer. Although Jacinta is over the novelty of Genevieve, she still loves and wants to be with her as much as she is allowed. She is coming to understand that she is not the center of the universe, and is testing our love. She sees pictures of Genevieve and asks hopefully, “Is that me?” One morning she commented on how “beautiful” her pants were and how, “they are mine, not Genevieve’s.” She wants to see what she can get for sharing our attention, perhaps if we’ll ease up on discipline because we are busier now. Although she is getting even more attention and effort now than before Genevieve, she still feels sadness in sharing her parents. One day in preparation for Jacinta’s naptime, she got sassy and tried to hit me and throw her books. I dealt the best I could, and when I lay down with her I just started crying. Why did I lose it? I could not answer her question, “Why are you crying mommy?” but just reply that, “I am just sad, baby.” I had no quick response or underlying understanding on how to deal with her behavior. I thought our love would be so magnanimous that she’d never have to doubt our love for her. I ignored the necessity of this stage, it is something she has to work through. Perhaps my tears were the recognition of how hard the road of parenting can be and will continue to be, how much love can hurt, and that I don’t have all of the answers.

Somehow, without too much said, after this sad nap Jacinta woke up and spent the rest of the week feeling more loved and getting over her few days of jealousy. I’m pretty sure we were all feeling trapped inside our little house thanks to the mosquitoes and the car. We were also feeling the newness of leaving Mary and Keith’s space and creating different boundaries. This change was certainly welcome by the adults, but for a young girl who spent almost half of her life running between four adults to get what she needed most at the moment, this change has been harder. It has taken a few weeks to come to a new balance, but I think we are almost there. It feels good.

Jacinta is back to her old happy self, and is even more chatty. Today I felt that the “why?” questions might never end. The funny thing about her lists of questions is her pronunciation of the word, “whah?” We find it hilarious and accidentally imitate her anytime she says “whah,” telling her it’s another little bit of our friend Thomas from South Carolina peeping out of her. She’ll then get embarrassed and correct herself saying, “whyee?” In addition to asking questions, she also loves telling stories now. One day we pulled out some stools in the shade of the garden, and sat down. Jacinta said, “I’m gonna chat to ya,” and proceeded to recount exactly what we did last Easter in the garden. She told a few more stories of things that actually happened. It’s so awesome to listen to your children learn to tell stories, Matt and I share the happiest glances if we are both within earshot. It’s hard not to laugh when she starts each one by saying, “Once upon a time…” She is still singing us songs at bedtime, but also in the daytime. My favorite song this week went like this: “Mommy birdie in the tree. Baby birdie in the tree. Take me up in the sky. That’s the end.” We sing a blessing before meals in French and just this week she joined in for the first time, with perfect imitation pronunciation, “Merci merci pour le pain d’aujourd’hui. She has also started singing, “Waltzing Matilda,” a classic Aussie folk song but the entertaining part is that she sings about “Waltzing Patilda.” Given her perceptive ear and quick tongue, she will repeat words like orangutan, rhinoceros, chimpanzee and Congarinni after hearing them once with perfect pronunciation. It’s funny to hear her walking around the house singing “Waltzing Patilda.” She enjoys making up silly words and cracking herself up laughing playing word games. She must like her own mispronunciation of certain words. Also she is stubborn, like me, and will hold strong to her own ideas, just because they are hers.

Genevieve is just starting to show us herself, each day we see a little more personality. She can stay awake for over two hours now and can almost sleep for four hours at a time. She is pumping up her little neck muscles so she can watch everything around her. She is drinking lots of milk, and growing like a weed. Her eyes get brighter, more intense and observant each day. She kicks like crazy when getting her nappy changed, and for that matter can not bear to have any wetness close to her skin. Jess never seemed to care about wet diapers, but not this little chick! Genevieve has had a cold this week, snotty noses in newborns are no fun. She is also showing slight signs of colic, but we are hoping it will not fully manifest itself. Perhaps we are just scared since Jacinta had it and cried for two months. Preemptively, I have decided to give up dairy and hope to avoid the whole ordeal. We shall see.

Food, food, glorious food…I have reacquired the cooking energy that had been lost for a few months. The garden gave me a bit to work with: corn, peppers, cherry tomatoes, pumpkin, cucumbers, and carrots. Cutting out dairy for a pseudo vegetarian is difficult though, no pizza, no quiche, no milk with cereal, no quesadillas, no CHEESE! I’ve been lost, and I must admit: hungry. We had red lentil soup one evening, fish and veggies, another, veggie burgers another, and an African sweet potato and peanut sauce rice dish. After much contemplation, I decided that it was time for me to try eating beef again, as I am needing more sustenance without dairy and more time to be with the girls. Vegetarian food takes longer to prepare in order to get great flavor, and sometimes ends up being more processed than the local grass-fed cattle are. My main goal right now is eating local and with the least bit of processing. My red lentils come from Turkey and soy products are highly processed. So, I’m giving beef another try, and will try to use it in a meal once a week. Our first meal with it was spaghetti and went alright. I feel good about it, I am at peace looking at the cows around me, loving their presence, but also knowing that I am eating them as nourishment. Jacinta tried the meat too, she knows she ate cow. We’ll see if she’ll try it again.

I love eating as a family of four, cooking is so much more fun in this lovely kitchen Matt has built. He is still adding to it, we have a new wooden pot and pan rack hanging above the stove. It looks like a ladder, and has hooks (made out of thick bent wire) to hold pots, pans and some utensils. He has also begun an enormous shelving unit to cover an entire kitchen wall, again out of floorboards, each sanded, stained and routed. We will certainly post a picture of this once it is finished.

Matt is finding a nice balance in working both inside in his head and outside in his shed building furniture. He’ll study and write for a few hours in the mornings, then trek outside in the mosquito filled air down to the shed covered in bug spray to cut, sand, and stain floorboards for the furniture. He’ll break for lunch with us, for a cuddle with Genevieve, or for a game with Jacinta. In the afternoon he may do more brainwork or building, depending on the weather and his energy. He feels good about this schedule and isn’t worn out by the pressure of “hurry up and build us a house!” because it’s already inhabitable. Each piece of furniture just makes it comfier. He has more energy and seems quite content, especially to share his energy with the three ladies of the house.

As I mentioned, I have been shockingly unproductive this week. Matt reminds me that I am doing a lot in bringing up our girls, and of course I know that. But somehow, I didn’t realize how long it would take to do simple things like laundry with a newborn and a two year old. I’ll get through a day and actually feel accomplished that I did laundry AND cooked meals all day long. If I manage to sweep, I feel even better. I sewed “skirts” for the base of our sink and bathtub. This was a simple task, but took two days! I also sewed sleeping bags for Jacinta’s cows with her, but my gosh! Two days? It took me all week to go through my drawers and remove maternity clothes and return my old clothes to the drawers. Genevieve likes to be carried so my shoulders are sore, and in constant need of massage. Matt carries her even more often, but he didn’t spend nine months losing muscle in his arms for lack of lifting.

So another week of settling into life as a family of four has come and gone. We received packages from friends and family in America and Australia almost every day, Jacinta always remembered as the big sister and lucking out with gifts in each box. Friends came to visit almost every day, bringing us joy, distraction and food just when we needed it most. Today, we got our car back and regained complete freedom. Matt went out shopping for things in Coffs Harbour that we have needed for weeks, ate fast food for lunch and had a donut. He dropped Jess, Genevieve and I at my friend Michelle’s house who lives on the river and we played and relaxed outside all day. Gazing at the river today, not worried about mosquitoes munching us to pieces, I saw it with the eyes I had about a year ago. Wide open eyes, ready to see the goodness, beauty and truth out there, rather than worrying about what I lacked and needed to be truly happy again. Life feels good for us now. I feel free, unencumbered and able to enjoy everything, even the goat, but not the mosquitoes.

I’ll close with a story about our little girls. While lying in Jacinta’s bed before a nap she asked, “Where is little Genevieve looking?” I went on to explain that sometimes babies see things we don’t notice, or that sometimes we can not see. I told her that perhaps Genevieve was watching fairies that big people can’t see. Jacinta then pointed in the air to where Genevieve was staring and informed me that, “Genevieve is looking at that fairy, right there.”

Here’s hoping that you will notice a few things this week that “big people” don’t see.

Peace,

Shana

Ps check the website for more pictures in a couple of days (Matt’s too lazy tonight) - Matt