Grace and Joy

G’day loved ones! Snicker snicker, I haven’t really taken on true Aussie language yet, nor do they all use this phrase. I just thought I’d vary my opening. We spent a few days obtaining Genevieve’s passport, just in time to leave for America in less than a month. Matt and Jess spent a few days with colds. But overall it has been an excellent week, especially for house organizing. As we prepare to leave this awesome house Matt has built, we’re finally getting around to putting it in order.

Matt built huge bookshelves for the living room and both bedrooms. They are beautiful and already filled with our beloved books. He had left space for built in bookshelves, but needed a building break. He had a good rest, and dove back into building this week. Putting things on shelves after having them strewn about and in boxes for a long while is such a lovely relief, creating order. Ahhhh....my whole being is honestly more at peace now, just from a few bookshelves. Matt has never had all of his books in one place, and now we have so many shelves that we can easily divide them into sections: cooking, gardening, French literature, poetry, theology, mysticism, music, Harry Potter, etc. Looking back at what we chose to ship overseas, it was mainly books, baby clothes and toys. It shows what we love I suppose, but clothing?? That’s me I suppose. As a baby, everything Jacinta wore or played with was a gift. Each gift makes me think of the giver and also of a certain time in Jacinta’s babyhood, thus I could not leave these behind. Luckily we had a girl to justify shipping all of these girly clothes! Funny enough though, contrary to my dislike of pink, I now look through the boxes for girly newborn clothes and can’t find many. It’s because you all heeded my words in avoiding pink and went neutral. Jacinta loves pink and wears as much as she can, not to be contrary but because she is a normal girl.

As of today, Jacinta is also at peace thanks to order. This morning as we cleaned up her boxes and baskets of toys from the floor and found them all homes on the new shelves, she rediscovered so many loved toys. “This is what I was looking for! My little bunny case! Where was it?” In the mess, that’s where. This is mainly the reason I despise toy boxes, because they get filled with unnecessary crap that sinks to the bottom and is never used. They exemplify our culture of accumulating useless junk and storing it out of sight until one day, there is so much that we have to find a new place to store it, although we may never use it again. This is not to say that she needs all of the toys she has. We don’t stray too far out of the norm, we just have shelves to display the overabundance of toys and books. Jacinta as an innately orderly little girl is for the first time able to find each and every toy and book she has.

She often has near break-downs when she can not force us all to obey the rules of normality. Keith might be cutting a banana for her, “but Mommy doesn’t cut it that way!” She can’t quite give him all of the right directions, but she knows that he is wrong, “umm..umm…she cuts it into bigga bits!” You can hear the nearness of the tears, all over a banana, or perhaps if you are helping her make animals with play dough. It’s a tricky balance avoiding these unnecessary stresses by either compromising or holding our ground in the fact that we all do things differently. One mantra that I have been using a lot this week is, “Jacinta, your job is to be a little girl and to play, not to worry about being in charge. That’s our job.” It’s funny because she used to get more worked up hearing that she wasn’t in charge. Sometimes she’ll proudly reply when I ask her to help out that, “I’m playing,” as if she’s throwing it back at me. I love it though, as it reminds me that she needs to play and can’t always be efficient like I try to be.

Jacinta is quite good at asking permission to do certain things, especially if it is concerning her little sister. She generally asks for things politely if she’s in a good mood saying Please and Thank you. The other day we were playing on our bed and she sweetly inquired, “Can I come up there and be sisters with Genevieve?” Genevieve was lying on a pillow, wide awake with her big blue eyes fixed on the curtains (her favorite thing to gaze upon). Immediately I thought to myself, “How much have I warned Jess about being careful around her sister, so much that she feels she needs permission to be her sister?” I went on about how they would always be sisters and that she never need ask permission. Lately I’ve been getting all sappy about how lucky she and Genevieve are to have each other and how much fun they’ll have when Evie gets a little older. I often think about my sister and how awesome growing up with her was, projecting that they too will get along as well as Lecia and I did. I can only hope that our girls will enjoy each other as much as Lecia and I do.

While we wait for Genevieve to grow up enough to play, Jacinta’s socializing revolves around which mothers I want to hang out with. I’ve found enough mums who value environmental and cultural awareness, good music, growing, cooking and eating good food to keep us busy until Jacinta has the freedom to choose her own friends. Then I guess I’ll have to schedule my own play days while Jacinta is at school, or maybe I’ll have to get a job by then! This week Michelle and Rory came over for a visit one day. The next day we left Matt home sick to go to my friend Jacky’s house so she could fix all of the errors I made in the few months as playgroup treasurer. For over a year Jess and Jack have gone to playgroup together and never once played together. Stuck in the same house for about 4 hours, they had a blast running around playing hide and seek, bowling, doing tricks on the furniture, and playing with the picnic set. All the while, Genevieve sat with me sleeping, pooping, feeding and smiling while I sat there feeling sheepish for never having tried to figure out my simple job as playgroup treasurer. By the end, we finally made it outside to have a look around the garden and let the children play. Jess was in heaven, a sandpit the size of our chicken pen and a swing set in your own back yard??? When I told her it was time to go, without whining she honestly told me that she wanted to stay and play, “just a little bit longer.” I repeated myself and she quickly brushed off and accepted her fate saying, “back to the mozzies (mosquitoes).”

That night we all went out to our friends’ house for dinner and a movie. The plan was that we’d have dinner, then Lily and Jess would try and sleep together in the same bed while we watched the movie. We knew it was highly unlikely, but thought it’d be fun trying and worth it to be able to go out after 6pm, Jacinta’s new bedtime. Her first sleepover was great fun. She and Lily had plenty of extra songs, stories and cuddles. Then Lily decided they would play dress up so they came out to show us a hat parade. It was cute until I made the mistake of threatening that if they didn’t go back to bed I’d take Jess home. Oooops! “I wanna go home!” she repeated for the next hour as I cuddled her to sleep in a different bed. She must have had fun trying because all day today she has been asking for another sleepover. Friday we played at another friends’ house way out in the country in a town with no shops within a 30 minute drive. I mention this because I went out assuming there would have to be a gas station. “How could people get along so far out with no gas station?” I thought. They think ahead, this is something I failed to do and later necessitated siphoning gas out of a water pump to get me home. Jess and I had a great time with our friends, enjoying good company, good food and a mosquito free, shady, flat backyard with roaming ducks, soft grass, and beautiful trees laden with citrus fruit which will soon be ripe.

All the while Matt was home working on Jacinta’s impressive bookshelves, happily though. This was a labor of love, even better than building the house, with the end in sight all the way from the beginning. There is a familiar pattern: today I took the girls out to the markets while Matt stayed home working all day on a surprise. Jacinta has not yet seen the surprise because he finished it after her bed time, but I just saw it. This is Matt’s finest piece of work yet, he will even admit it. It is a desk for the girls, with a backboard on it carved with the words, “Grace Joy” and with a picture of a bunny and a turtle. Matt used to call Jacinta Grace, “bunny bum,” and we now call Genevieve Joy a turtle. He is shocked that it took him all day to create this desk. Not I, it is a marvel and will make Jacinta smile tomorrow morning and for a long time to come. Matt had quite a productive week with all of this building, and even had some time to clear brush outside our window. He cut off one massive stump and is now burning it out slowly each day.

With all of my socializing and Matt’s building, I had no time in the garden but we had time to rush to Sydney for Genevieve’s passport. The girls were amazing travelers, Genevieve sleeping and Jacinta entertaining herself more than ever. After Matt’s hard work in preparation, the passport is secure and we have no worries. We got lucky and happened to make it in time to celebrate our good friends’ son’s first birthday party. We were lucky to be able to turn a stupid bureaucratic trip into a party and a chance to catch up with friends. Given all that good luck, we had to take our turn with bad luck also. Matt received a ticket in the mail saying that he owed $308 for “Negligent driving,” because he hit a kangaroo. The only reason the police were involved was because Matt responsibly called Wildlife Services to report the injured kangaroo. They called the police to come out and shoot the kangaroo. Voila, the $308 ticket to repay him for his troubles. As if he was aiming for the kangaroo, hoping to nearly total our car right before we were about to have a baby. He is contesting the fine, but isn’t that crazy?

I guess we need balance: it wouldn’t be fair if we were lucky all the time. It wouldn’t be good for any of us if we didn’t give and take, and mostly, Matt and I accept quite a few blessings. Right now Genevieve and Jacinta are sleeping and we are enjoying our time alone. Genevieve’s mouth is wide open from fatigue and she is happy and healthy. She makes lots of cute little baby sounds now, smiles, kicks and tries to crawl on her belly. Jacinta is growing into herself and is beautifully healthy. Here’s to you all accepting more good luck than bad luck.

Peace,

Shana

Check the website this week for some new pictures, pictures of shelves and the beloved desk!