Treasures in your shoes
Good evening dear family and friends. The sun went down three hours ago, and it is only 8pm. Matt and the girls are sleeping as I enjoy the rare solitude of the evening. What a treat to act instantly based on nothing but my own needs and desires. I can eat when I am hungry, drink when I am thirsty, change my clothes when I am cold, listen to silence or music that I have chosen and think of no one but myself. I am in the mood to reflect, so I have come to you. For the first time I actually went back and read my journal exactly one year ago, to see what the girls were doing last year at this time. It turns out we had just arrived in America for the summer. But just before that, I had written a lot about Jacinta’s friend Nickolas and how excited she was for his birthday party. Times have changed.
One year in the life of a child seems a lot longer than one year passing in the life of an adult. Genevieve was stuck on her belly trying to crawl. She spent time in her crib gurgling, happily looking at mobiles. Apparently she had already communicated to me that she didn’t need much sleep. Now she climbs ladders, trees, talks and dives out of her crib head first if she is not ready to sleep. One year ago, Jacinta could go to a toy store and think of people besides herself. She loved her friend Nickolas and anticipated his birthday party for weeks, not worrying much about her own. Now she and Nickolas don’t take much notice of each other, each in search of a better playmate, someone of the same gender. Last year they hugged goodbye so hard they fell over and hurt themselves. This year, Jacinta was just sad to leave the party before Lilly did. Every creation made in her cubby house kitchen is a birthday cake, for herself, of course. Every balloon blown up is for her birthday. We count down the weeks saying how many dance classes or preschool days are left before she is four. Only one more dance class left now! Everything will happen when she turns four, she predicts. She says she will wipe her own bum when she turns four. Most of the time she does anyway, she’s just holding on to our attention. As she is very strong willed, I know she will stick to it, as will we. Only 9 days left of wiping her bum, yippee!
On wiping bums, Genevieve is now aware of when she is pooping and usually tells us right after she has done it. “Poo!” Jacinta loves to help change her, only when it is a poo though. Is this strange? She loves to see it so she can loudly comment, “ICK!” When she is feeling especially kind, she will fetch a nappy for me. She also loves to pick out clothes for Evie. The other day, Evie and I got very wet and cold in the rain. Jacinta fetched us both new dry clothes and picked out very interesting combinations in all of her favourite colors. She likes to pick out her own clothes sometimes, but doesn’t mind me doing it. Actually she’d prefer we dress her like a baby, going all limp and helpless. It’s terribly frustrating for Matt and I, especially at bedtime, sometimes ending in an earlier bedtime. When we can get her into bed before any breakdowns occur, we congratulate ourselves for starting early enough for everyone’s sanity. Tonight just before bed, Matt took her out to see the stars. After gazing out into the dark night for a while and chatting about the stars, Jacinta said, “Daddy, I thought the stars were inside us.” I don’t know exactly what she meant by that, but no matter, it is a really nice thought.
Right now both daddy and daughters are sleeping. It was a very busy week for all of us. The girls still have colds so they get worn out more easily, yet they don’t nap. I never stop moving, but this is nothing new. Matt’s job seems to get busier every day as he gets better at what he is doing. The clients are pouring in, and their situations seem to get more complicated as time goes by. Matt is happy being busy, but he comes home a little tired. I suppose the honeymoon of new employment will wear off soon. It may also be the deadline of his book weighing on his shoulders saying, “Work on me! You only have about a month left!” Hurry up!” His shoulders and back are very sore too. Perhaps the weight of the book will take away that pain in a month or so when he sends it to the printer. That would be good, but I imagine it has something to do with carrying bricks and fireplaces. Today he started the day on a two and a half hour conference call, bricked in the base and one side of the fireplace, worked on his book, watched a Swans (football) game, had dinner, and just crashed cuddling Jacinta. It will just be a short nap, as he needs to get up and work on his book and participate on another conference call at some ungodly hour tonight while we are all sleeping. One boost this week was to find out that an essay he wrote last year will be published in Matt Fox’s next book. When it rains it pours.
It didn’t rain too much this week, but it happened to rain on the one day the girls and I strolled into town. I decided to brave Jacinta biking (triking) to town while I pushed Evie in the pram. I mounted the tricycle on top of the stroller on the hills, but otherwise Jacinta rode. She was so happy, so proud, thrilled to pedal herself across the bridges we had crossed so many other times walking, strolling or driving. She could hop off at any random moment to pick flowers, raspberries, pretty leaves. Once she hoped off in someone’s front lawn and said, “Can you give me a boost? I want to climb this tree?” I deterred her without having to use the, “It’s not our property” line. I’m not ready to talk about that one, it’s one of those unfortunate societal rules that we need to claim ownership over the earth. I know there are some good reasons, I’m just not ready to explain yet. We eventually made it to playgroup, albeit 90 minutes later. By the end of playgroup, it was raining pretty hard so Jacinta got a ride home with a friend while I ran home with Genevieve in the stroller. I tried so hard to keep Genevieve hidden from the rain, but she just wanted to see it all and feel the rain on her face. This is also why her cold has gotten worse. This and the beach on Wednesday, a bit careless of me, yes.
Genevieve, like most children when they have colds, doesn’t want to slow down at all. As adults, we need to slow down, and think children should too. Sleep is one of the best medicines, but you can’t force it. All you can do is try to cover their mouths when they cough (or make sure they do) and wipe their noses before they wipe it all over someone else and get them sick too. Genevieve played hard this week, out on the playground, feeding chickens and turkeys and Keith, playing hide and seek, climbing up and down chairs, even up to the guava tree. She even says guava now, it’s so sweet, as are the yellow soft fruits with pink inside. She and Jess both joined me up on the plank on top of the old chook pen this week while I picked guavas, they feasted. She is starting to recognize some French words now too. I speak to her in French more now, and she heard me say the word, “Tete” (head). She connected it to a song I sing in French class, and pointed at her head and went on pointing at other body parts. It made me smile almost as much as hearing her clearly say “Au revoir” to the ducks one afternoon as they flew away.
Today Jacinta needed some time out from Genevieve and chose to play with a ball in her room alone. Evie, instantly felt shut out and needed some consolation. So I came up with a hiding game, hiding a ball in the boots so she could search for it. She was quite happy, until Jacinta came back out, sensing she was missing out on the action. Jacinta joined in, but was not satisfied playing our way and tried to take over. Genevieve didn’t like the new regime and tried to continue on her way. I won’t go into too much detail, but just say this ended in a tantrum, Jacinta. Tantrums are sometimes her way of dealing with not getting her way, since she does not often deliberately disobey. When Evie does not get what she wants, she climbs higher or goes back when you are not looking and does what she wants. When she does not get the attention or the spot she wants, she picks at Jacinta (pulls her hair or steps on her) looking for a reaction. Jacinta will surely give her the expected reaction, loud, terrible screams and indignant cries of injustice. Genevieve is then quite pleased with herself. It’s good that I can look at this right now, in the peace of the evening and laugh, because as it’s happening I get close to losing it.
There are always ups and downs. Imagine if there weren’t, life would be dull. I thought I might scream if I had to clean up one more spilled drink or food mess this week. Somehow Keith or Mary happened to pop in and take the kids at the moments needed this week. Once I dragged the girls both down to the garden for a broader outlook, or perhaps to dull the pitch of Jacinta’s obnoxious screams. It made Evie happy, me too, but Jacinta was just continually miserable. She got over it though, and I didn’t go crazy. The laundry takes up so much time, although I do enjoy putting it on the line because it is outside in the breeze, in the sunshine where it is warm and the girls can play nearby. Of course I’d rather spend time in the garden, but gardening just makes more dirty clothes, it doesn’t clean them. After another tear-free preschool day Jess came home and went straight out to the park to play. I came out a few minutes later and she had already taken down half of the dry clothes and put them in the laundry basket, feeling proud and smiling. This was an “up,” my big girl and I finished together while my baby stole all the clothes pins and hid them in trunk of her truck.
There’s something to be said for escapism. Getting out of the house is good in so many ways. The children can’t make the same messes that you tire so easily from cleaning up each day. We visited some new friends from dance class at their house in Nambucca. They are Russian and speak it in the house. Hearing a foreign language was so refreshing, and seeing how another family lives is always interesting. This was the most orderly, pristine, closed up, yet sunlit, and pleasant to sit inside house that I have seen since I left the suburbs of Detroit. There were beautiful classical paintings everywhere, I later found out that it was my friend Olga who had painted them all. The girls all enjoyed themselves, playing giddily from start to finish. Yet those messes that aren’t made at your house are made at someone else’s house. Cleaning up at someone else’s house feels like volunteer work, it makes you feel good, not annoyed. The girls and I then went to the beach/park nearby. Evie napped while Jacinta played, we picnicked and eventually went out for a dip in the water while the sun was hot. Although I should have made them stay dry with their colds, I love watching the girls in the water. This is children’s meditation: no questions, no toys or games necessary, just pure enjoyment of the earth’s elements. Remarkably, there is no mess either, just a bunch of wet clothes and a mess to clean up when you get home. This mess, I suppose is well worth it.
I don’t talk too much about my growing dislike of cleaning, as Jacinta already has a thing about not wanting to get dirty. The other day she started to papier-mache with Keith. They needed to do a second layer and she didn’t want to get dirty again. If I had chided her for dirtying clothes, I’d understand but I encourage her to get dirty. Maybe that’s the problem! Perhaps I should recommend that she stay clean, then she might want to get dirtier.
My friend Sara popped in the other day bearing gifts! She brought a huge box of oranges freshly picked from her tree and a bouquet of flowers. This shocked me to see my friend carrying her two week old baby down the hill with this box in her arms. What had I done to deserve this? Just for being a good friend, she said. Matt gets published in a book for his boost, this was my boost. She also brought me five kilos of fresh whole blackfish and mullet. This was an up, until I realized the fish had guts in them. Keith helped me though and made it fun. I had never gutted or filleted fish before. Just touching a fish makes me think of my grandpa though. My mom said she used to gut fish as a job in Seattle, I’m sure my dad did his share too. So although it was rather disgusting and made a huge stinky mess (which I had to later sterilize and burn out the smell so Matt wouldn’t come home and vomit), I ended up enjoying the process, not to mention the tasty fish.
So it has been a full week of cooking, cleaning, breaking up fights, spreading cheer, changing nappies, wiping noses and bums, laughing, playing and watching the girls grow. I spent a few nights writing some thoughts on war, terrorism and rebellion in French for my friend Khady, in response to her request for our thoughts on these three words. She is about to earn her doctorate in philosophy in France, but first needs to complete her thesis which is a philosophical response to the major problems of the 21st century. This felt good to put my mind on something so academic. I also found out that my stepdad George had his second surgery on his carotid artery and that all is well. He came out of surgery to find out that his son and his wife are pregnant for the first time. Can’t ask for much more!
Although I do tire of housework and seemingly trivial girly squabbles, I can’t ask for much more either. I just went to put on my Ugg boots and found the two objects that Evie and I had been hiding in Jacinta’s boots. When the game so spontaneously started ended abruptly in a Jacinta tantrum, Genevieve went on playing alone. The funny thing is that she left the three pairs of boots we were playing with in the lounge room, sought my big boots in the corner of my room, and left them there. The apple and the ball sat in my Ugg boots waiting for hours to give me a fright and make me giggle.
Have a lovely week. I hope you find some treasures in your shoes too!
Peace,
Shana
One year in the life of a child seems a lot longer than one year passing in the life of an adult. Genevieve was stuck on her belly trying to crawl. She spent time in her crib gurgling, happily looking at mobiles. Apparently she had already communicated to me that she didn’t need much sleep. Now she climbs ladders, trees, talks and dives out of her crib head first if she is not ready to sleep. One year ago, Jacinta could go to a toy store and think of people besides herself. She loved her friend Nickolas and anticipated his birthday party for weeks, not worrying much about her own. Now she and Nickolas don’t take much notice of each other, each in search of a better playmate, someone of the same gender. Last year they hugged goodbye so hard they fell over and hurt themselves. This year, Jacinta was just sad to leave the party before Lilly did. Every creation made in her cubby house kitchen is a birthday cake, for herself, of course. Every balloon blown up is for her birthday. We count down the weeks saying how many dance classes or preschool days are left before she is four. Only one more dance class left now! Everything will happen when she turns four, she predicts. She says she will wipe her own bum when she turns four. Most of the time she does anyway, she’s just holding on to our attention. As she is very strong willed, I know she will stick to it, as will we. Only 9 days left of wiping her bum, yippee!
On wiping bums, Genevieve is now aware of when she is pooping and usually tells us right after she has done it. “Poo!” Jacinta loves to help change her, only when it is a poo though. Is this strange? She loves to see it so she can loudly comment, “ICK!” When she is feeling especially kind, she will fetch a nappy for me. She also loves to pick out clothes for Evie. The other day, Evie and I got very wet and cold in the rain. Jacinta fetched us both new dry clothes and picked out very interesting combinations in all of her favourite colors. She likes to pick out her own clothes sometimes, but doesn’t mind me doing it. Actually she’d prefer we dress her like a baby, going all limp and helpless. It’s terribly frustrating for Matt and I, especially at bedtime, sometimes ending in an earlier bedtime. When we can get her into bed before any breakdowns occur, we congratulate ourselves for starting early enough for everyone’s sanity. Tonight just before bed, Matt took her out to see the stars. After gazing out into the dark night for a while and chatting about the stars, Jacinta said, “Daddy, I thought the stars were inside us.” I don’t know exactly what she meant by that, but no matter, it is a really nice thought.
Right now both daddy and daughters are sleeping. It was a very busy week for all of us. The girls still have colds so they get worn out more easily, yet they don’t nap. I never stop moving, but this is nothing new. Matt’s job seems to get busier every day as he gets better at what he is doing. The clients are pouring in, and their situations seem to get more complicated as time goes by. Matt is happy being busy, but he comes home a little tired. I suppose the honeymoon of new employment will wear off soon. It may also be the deadline of his book weighing on his shoulders saying, “Work on me! You only have about a month left!” Hurry up!” His shoulders and back are very sore too. Perhaps the weight of the book will take away that pain in a month or so when he sends it to the printer. That would be good, but I imagine it has something to do with carrying bricks and fireplaces. Today he started the day on a two and a half hour conference call, bricked in the base and one side of the fireplace, worked on his book, watched a Swans (football) game, had dinner, and just crashed cuddling Jacinta. It will just be a short nap, as he needs to get up and work on his book and participate on another conference call at some ungodly hour tonight while we are all sleeping. One boost this week was to find out that an essay he wrote last year will be published in Matt Fox’s next book. When it rains it pours.
It didn’t rain too much this week, but it happened to rain on the one day the girls and I strolled into town. I decided to brave Jacinta biking (triking) to town while I pushed Evie in the pram. I mounted the tricycle on top of the stroller on the hills, but otherwise Jacinta rode. She was so happy, so proud, thrilled to pedal herself across the bridges we had crossed so many other times walking, strolling or driving. She could hop off at any random moment to pick flowers, raspberries, pretty leaves. Once she hoped off in someone’s front lawn and said, “Can you give me a boost? I want to climb this tree?” I deterred her without having to use the, “It’s not our property” line. I’m not ready to talk about that one, it’s one of those unfortunate societal rules that we need to claim ownership over the earth. I know there are some good reasons, I’m just not ready to explain yet. We eventually made it to playgroup, albeit 90 minutes later. By the end of playgroup, it was raining pretty hard so Jacinta got a ride home with a friend while I ran home with Genevieve in the stroller. I tried so hard to keep Genevieve hidden from the rain, but she just wanted to see it all and feel the rain on her face. This is also why her cold has gotten worse. This and the beach on Wednesday, a bit careless of me, yes.
Genevieve, like most children when they have colds, doesn’t want to slow down at all. As adults, we need to slow down, and think children should too. Sleep is one of the best medicines, but you can’t force it. All you can do is try to cover their mouths when they cough (or make sure they do) and wipe their noses before they wipe it all over someone else and get them sick too. Genevieve played hard this week, out on the playground, feeding chickens and turkeys and Keith, playing hide and seek, climbing up and down chairs, even up to the guava tree. She even says guava now, it’s so sweet, as are the yellow soft fruits with pink inside. She and Jess both joined me up on the plank on top of the old chook pen this week while I picked guavas, they feasted. She is starting to recognize some French words now too. I speak to her in French more now, and she heard me say the word, “Tete” (head). She connected it to a song I sing in French class, and pointed at her head and went on pointing at other body parts. It made me smile almost as much as hearing her clearly say “Au revoir” to the ducks one afternoon as they flew away.
Today Jacinta needed some time out from Genevieve and chose to play with a ball in her room alone. Evie, instantly felt shut out and needed some consolation. So I came up with a hiding game, hiding a ball in the boots so she could search for it. She was quite happy, until Jacinta came back out, sensing she was missing out on the action. Jacinta joined in, but was not satisfied playing our way and tried to take over. Genevieve didn’t like the new regime and tried to continue on her way. I won’t go into too much detail, but just say this ended in a tantrum, Jacinta. Tantrums are sometimes her way of dealing with not getting her way, since she does not often deliberately disobey. When Evie does not get what she wants, she climbs higher or goes back when you are not looking and does what she wants. When she does not get the attention or the spot she wants, she picks at Jacinta (pulls her hair or steps on her) looking for a reaction. Jacinta will surely give her the expected reaction, loud, terrible screams and indignant cries of injustice. Genevieve is then quite pleased with herself. It’s good that I can look at this right now, in the peace of the evening and laugh, because as it’s happening I get close to losing it.
There are always ups and downs. Imagine if there weren’t, life would be dull. I thought I might scream if I had to clean up one more spilled drink or food mess this week. Somehow Keith or Mary happened to pop in and take the kids at the moments needed this week. Once I dragged the girls both down to the garden for a broader outlook, or perhaps to dull the pitch of Jacinta’s obnoxious screams. It made Evie happy, me too, but Jacinta was just continually miserable. She got over it though, and I didn’t go crazy. The laundry takes up so much time, although I do enjoy putting it on the line because it is outside in the breeze, in the sunshine where it is warm and the girls can play nearby. Of course I’d rather spend time in the garden, but gardening just makes more dirty clothes, it doesn’t clean them. After another tear-free preschool day Jess came home and went straight out to the park to play. I came out a few minutes later and she had already taken down half of the dry clothes and put them in the laundry basket, feeling proud and smiling. This was an “up,” my big girl and I finished together while my baby stole all the clothes pins and hid them in trunk of her truck.
There’s something to be said for escapism. Getting out of the house is good in so many ways. The children can’t make the same messes that you tire so easily from cleaning up each day. We visited some new friends from dance class at their house in Nambucca. They are Russian and speak it in the house. Hearing a foreign language was so refreshing, and seeing how another family lives is always interesting. This was the most orderly, pristine, closed up, yet sunlit, and pleasant to sit inside house that I have seen since I left the suburbs of Detroit. There were beautiful classical paintings everywhere, I later found out that it was my friend Olga who had painted them all. The girls all enjoyed themselves, playing giddily from start to finish. Yet those messes that aren’t made at your house are made at someone else’s house. Cleaning up at someone else’s house feels like volunteer work, it makes you feel good, not annoyed. The girls and I then went to the beach/park nearby. Evie napped while Jacinta played, we picnicked and eventually went out for a dip in the water while the sun was hot. Although I should have made them stay dry with their colds, I love watching the girls in the water. This is children’s meditation: no questions, no toys or games necessary, just pure enjoyment of the earth’s elements. Remarkably, there is no mess either, just a bunch of wet clothes and a mess to clean up when you get home. This mess, I suppose is well worth it.
I don’t talk too much about my growing dislike of cleaning, as Jacinta already has a thing about not wanting to get dirty. The other day she started to papier-mache with Keith. They needed to do a second layer and she didn’t want to get dirty again. If I had chided her for dirtying clothes, I’d understand but I encourage her to get dirty. Maybe that’s the problem! Perhaps I should recommend that she stay clean, then she might want to get dirtier.
My friend Sara popped in the other day bearing gifts! She brought a huge box of oranges freshly picked from her tree and a bouquet of flowers. This shocked me to see my friend carrying her two week old baby down the hill with this box in her arms. What had I done to deserve this? Just for being a good friend, she said. Matt gets published in a book for his boost, this was my boost. She also brought me five kilos of fresh whole blackfish and mullet. This was an up, until I realized the fish had guts in them. Keith helped me though and made it fun. I had never gutted or filleted fish before. Just touching a fish makes me think of my grandpa though. My mom said she used to gut fish as a job in Seattle, I’m sure my dad did his share too. So although it was rather disgusting and made a huge stinky mess (which I had to later sterilize and burn out the smell so Matt wouldn’t come home and vomit), I ended up enjoying the process, not to mention the tasty fish.
So it has been a full week of cooking, cleaning, breaking up fights, spreading cheer, changing nappies, wiping noses and bums, laughing, playing and watching the girls grow. I spent a few nights writing some thoughts on war, terrorism and rebellion in French for my friend Khady, in response to her request for our thoughts on these three words. She is about to earn her doctorate in philosophy in France, but first needs to complete her thesis which is a philosophical response to the major problems of the 21st century. This felt good to put my mind on something so academic. I also found out that my stepdad George had his second surgery on his carotid artery and that all is well. He came out of surgery to find out that his son and his wife are pregnant for the first time. Can’t ask for much more!
Although I do tire of housework and seemingly trivial girly squabbles, I can’t ask for much more either. I just went to put on my Ugg boots and found the two objects that Evie and I had been hiding in Jacinta’s boots. When the game so spontaneously started ended abruptly in a Jacinta tantrum, Genevieve went on playing alone. The funny thing is that she left the three pairs of boots we were playing with in the lounge room, sought my big boots in the corner of my room, and left them there. The apple and the ball sat in my Ugg boots waiting for hours to give me a fright and make me giggle.
Have a lovely week. I hope you find some treasures in your shoes too!
Peace,
Shana
posted by Matt & Shana & Jacinta & Genevieve Henry at
11:13 PM
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