I don't need THAT much sleep

Good evening loved ones. I hear that spring has finally made its mind up to stay a while in the Midwest at least. Your longing for warmth and blooming life must be even greater than my longing for cold and hibernation. Our days are still very warm but the mornings are very cold! With Jacinta and I sick most of the week, we had to start dressing Jess heavier at night and give her a heater in the mornings. I know how to sleep under the blankets, I suppose this is a “grown up thing.” The moon has been so bright and full in the clear sky, it even lights up our bathroom through the skylight at night. It gets dark by 5:30 so we can watch the moon rise out our windows. We took the girls out after dinner on a few nights to gaze at the fire (we have a new fire pit) and at the moon, Jacinta on Matt’s shoulders and Genevieve in my arms. Yes, it is a rough life here.

We spent more time outside this week than we have lately. The mosquitoes are still abundant, but less vicious and the sun is not so intense. I have been observing the sun’s path for weeks, trying to find the best spot for our two newest trees: a fig tree to honor Genevieve’s birth and a pecan tree to honor Jacinta’s roots here in Australia. We planted a rose bush for Jacinta back in Michigan, but thought we’d better plant her a new tree here. How will we protect the tree from the goat and the cows? How can we maximize sunlight? Where can we put it so that we will take care of it, and have an accessible source of water? Finally, my indecision came to an end and we set out to plant the fig tree right outside our bedroom window. Genevieve lay in her basket gazing at the mosquito net hanging above her head. Jacinta played in the wagon with a pig and a dump truck, played with the clothes line, threw some dirt in and watered the tree. Matt and I dug a huge hole and filled it with compost. By this time Genevieve was no longer content in her basket so I bounced her while Matt built a box for the tree, mulched, then enclosed the tree in heavy duty wire to keep out the goat. The pecan tree will be planted as soon as we are all well again.

We have about twenty fruit trees now: two apples, two plums, two kiwi vines, one mango, two oranges, one blood orange, two limes, two lemons, one nectarine, one pear, one pomegranate, one lillypilly, one coffee tree, a fig tree and a blueberry bush. The aphids just killed the mandarin, I’ve finally accepted the loss. I don’t do much to merit their survival, so I should be thankful that we have only lost a few. But the aphids are on the march and we are about to leave our trees for three months. Matt built boxes for all of them so I convinced my friends Trish and Michelle to help me give our trees “some lovin.” Jess heard me use this phrase a few times and now uses it whenever she does anything for a tree, “I’m givin’ it some lovin”. I prepared a feast for lunch before they arrived in the morning. We took Jess, Genevieve and Rory out for a few hours in the orchard and took turns working hard and appeasing babies and children. We weeded the bases of each tree, wheel-barrowed loads of compost onto each tree and pruned the trees which needed pruning. My friends are good to me, this was a task for which I needed help and they happily joined me. They said the feast and good company was enough. Hopefully though, one day I’ll be giving them huge baskets of fruit.

Although I don’t give it any lovin’, my veggie garden is still providing us with food.

I still find peppers each day, as many green onions as I could ever want, and more pumpkins than I could ever consume. I now understand why pumpkins are such a good winter staple. Pumpkin plants pop out of nowhere. Even if you didn’t mean to plant them, the seeds find their way into your garden. They take over if you let them, and this year I had no other grand plans for the garden. They can be stored for over three months if the rats don’t get them. We have about twenty pumpkins almost ready to eat and it takes us at least a week to eat one pumpkin. It is to our advantage to learn to eat pumpkin, Jacinta and I are learning. Matt doesn’t mind it, he grew up with pumpkin on his plate. Edible plants that come with no effort are the most obvious example that life is a gift. This week’s volunteer was lettuce. I grew lettuce last summer when it was too hot so it all went straight to seed. The seeds found their way into the dirt and came up at a more appropriate time: autumn. So we’ll have a few salads with this and some new spinach plants before we go to the USA.

Matt didn’t get sick until Friday so he accomplished quite a bit this week. He got the urge to clean up the remaining construction mess outside our door and it looks awesome. It’s funny how you can get used to trash outside your door and then one day when it is gone wonder how you got by. I used to wonder how some people in remote Appalachian hollows lived with so much trash surrounding their homes. Now I understand what an effort it is to dig yourself out and then pay to have someone take your garbage. Matt stacked bricks, moved trailer loads of wood and metal sheeting. He built a fire pit and burnt off rubbish for days. He cleared out weeds and unwanted trees and cut a path to the driveway and lined it with logs from cut down trees. He outlined a future garden next to the house with nice big stones. Each day our yard becomes more beautiful and less cluttered. Soon Jacinta will be able to run outside the door and play while we rest assured that she’ll be safe. To unclutter the inside, Matt also built a shoe rack. While he curses himself for its ugliness, I revere the shoe rack for its utility. On top of Matt’s list of accomplishments this week is Genevieve’s American passport. After all of his hard work, it came. We can legally travel to the US in two weeks. A sigh of relief is in order.

My list of accomplishments is shorter, yes, but I am still proud of getting anything done while being sick. Being sick and being a parent don’t blend well. You can’t just say, “Ok children, let me be. I need a nap because my head hurts.” I am lucky in that Matt can relieve me when I need it most. Unfortunately, Jacinta has just as much energy whilst sick with a cold as when she is healthy. Not me! Before we got sick the girls and I spent a morning with our friends at the pool and at the park. Besides that and our tree care day, we hibernated. I played doctor with lots of herbs, teas, soups, and nutritious foods. Jacinta loves taking “medicine” and begs for it at each meal. I make our cough syrup, and although I think it tastes awful, she loves it. Otherwise, we played, read, relaxed, and dug through boxes of clothes sorting out those that were too small and those which would now fit. I successfully packed both girls clothing for our trip. It’s sad how long this took me. I laugh imagining Matt doing the same task in one fifth of the time. Oh well, I am who I am: full of indecision and too much care for which clothes my girls wear.

In lying low, I carried Genevieve less and just sat down and played with her. Obsessed with efficiency I sometimes forget that she may just want to lie down and be entertained. My general tactic is: cook, clean, organize, garden, and play with Jacinta while I lug her around in a carrier. Her entertainment can be watching what we do. Newborns do sleep a lot so for the past few months we have been in a constant state of lulling Evie off to sleep. This week it’s like she was saying, “Mom, I don’t need THAT much sleep!” We had lovely conversations like, “glah,” and “ahh.” She spent hours staring at mobiles given to her by two of her aunties. I don’t think we ever left Jacinta alone long enough to even notice a mobile, but Evie cries when they stop moving. One day she and Jacinta “played” together in the bed for about twenty minutes: Jess playing with the gnome in a mobile and Genevieve watching. It actually brought tears to my eyes. What an exciting future and a lovely present.

Jacinta made us laugh and love even more, yet also infuriated and annoyed us this week. She’s been convinced that, “Daddy’s got the skills.” She’ll say it when prompted by you know who. What kind of skills? Well, many, but noted only when he’s actually proud of his work. For example: doing dishes quickly, keeping track of his belongings, swaddling Genevieve and taking things apart and fixing them: all things at which I do not excel. One humorous moment this week was a tickling game. Matt loves to tickle his big girl and although she plays hard to get, she loves the chase and the tickles. After running away screaming and hiding under the kitchen table, Matt gave up. She then asked him to come and tickle her. He told her that he would only come when she was not ready. So she called out, “I’m not readyyyy! Come and get me now!”

Like her sense of humor, Jacinta’s strong will to do everything on her own (yet also cry and whine to be carried around) grows stronger each day. She tantrums when she is tired and whines for food whenever there is a dull moment. She cannot bring herself to apologize, she can say every word she hears except for “sorry.” WHY is her favorite word and she pronounces it with a strange broad Aussie accent that she perhaps made up, “Woah ay?” I knew this would come, the “why phase.” But I thought it was already here with her looking for reason maybe only once an hour. It has arrived in full now and is as overwhelming as the mosquitoes. It is now time to teach her that we can not answer all of the “Woah ay?” questions she has and that sometimes the answer will be “just because.” There is no silence now. I just keep hoping that both her tantrums and this terrible why repetition will miraculously come to a crashing halt on her third birthday.

We can all have dreams. My short term dream is that Genevieve will go back to sleep and have sweet dreams. Matt just spent almost three hours trying to help her sleep while I wrote this journal, and triumphantly brought her in to sleep twenty minutes ago. She is now bright eyes and bushy tailed. Sweet Dreams to you all.

Peace,

Shana