Watching the flowers grow

Good evening folks. A new week has begun and I’ve finally found time to sit and relax and contemplate the week just past. It’s hard to know where to begin. Well, Saturday night was the national election and we elected a new Prime Minister (head of State). His name is Kevin Rudd and he represents the Labor Party. Matt and I, many of our friends and especially Matt’s sister Allison are all very happy for the change. The “Liberal” Party had been in power for over ten years, with the same man at the top for eleven years. It was time for a change. Allison is now assistant to the Minister of Health of the party in power, whereas on Friday she was assistant to the “Shadow” Minister of Health. I’ve never known anyone in a national government, wow. I feel special now, really. I’m slowly coming to understand their system, very slowly. Jacinta had a T-shirt sent from Allison, saying “KEVIN ’07.” I learned after the fact that it would not be wise to wear it out on the town. We got it out one last time to visit our friends Sunday morning. Having just learned that the “new rulemaker of Australia” was Aunty Allison’s boss, Jess began chanting “Kevin ‘07” over and over. We really didn’t mean to politically brand our three year old, just that simple explanation brought out the chant. Oh well. Hopefully this new leader will sign Kyoto and really work for green energy like he promised.

Matt had a very busy week with two days of work at the school and sending out a mailing advertising his new business to a few thousand addresses locally. He has prepped me to be the receptionist for TooManyPhotos.com, perhaps as well as you can train a dog to sing. Other than the fear that Evie will outscream the customers on the phone, I’m excited for our first call. Now it’s just a waiting game that Matt will feel more anxiously than I. Luckily he has plenty of other things to think about. Since he’s been working so much, his desire to finish the deck is much stronger. He was finally ready to order the decking lumber on Wednesday. On one of his random trips to town he saw a large truck filled with his decking drive by. So he quickly jumped back in the car and raced the truck home. That’s how small our town is. Right now he is outside in the dark stretching on our newly built deck. So yes, he finished the floor. It is simply awesome, beautiful, spacious and covers up all of the uneven ground we’ve been tripping over for the last few years. There are no rails yet, so it’s still off limits for children. The few chickens left are already crapping on it, much to my hopes of making it chicken-free. It’s not going to happen.

Dear chickens, what a saga. Cheep cheep and Baby (chicks named by Jacinta) were still sleeping in the tree this week. Cheep cheep was the only rooster left so all the hens tried to follow him and his “sister” up the tree. The clucky hens had finally gotten off the nest and continued life as normal with the new, smaller flock. Chicken law somehow makes hens feel safer with a man. Roosters, although their mating ritual leaves something to be desired, are loud, protective of the hens and make sure the ladies eat first. They scare off other food competitors. Our rooster chick quickly grew up when the other chickens were all killed. He proudly stepped up to the plate, so the hens tried to get up the tree to sleep near him and his “sister.” We thought it strange that his sister was starting to crow like him. The other hens have been coddled in the chook pen for a long time, so they make pathetic attempts to get up the tree. Dangerously, they settle on the bottom branches, only to be picked up and locked up in the chicks’ cage once asleep. Much to our surprise, it was our only rooster who had his neck broken while we were at the neighbor’s Christmas (???) party, in broad daylight! So today, Baby, his “sister” has taken over rooster position number one and is crowing like a champ. Looks like she’s not a sister, but a real rooster with less of a comb on her head. One more chicken down, but the flock still has a man. Jacinta is guessing that one of the three chicks that sleep inside is a rooster. When we leave the chickens we say good luck to them now.

Our plan is to build a luxurious fortress of a chicken pen, with a door to the orchard that can be opened and closed at my will. Until we have the time to knock down about ten more massive trees and close up the wall, the chickens are living an uneasy life. The garden is living the high life though, after all of the rain. What a divine sight: corn taller than me, terraces full of lettuce and spinach, purple bean vines climbing up the corn and tepee poles, edible plums on the trees, pumpkin, cucumber and melon vines sprawling everywhere, male and female kiwi vines climbing rapidly towards each other, towards embrace. There are even some small green tomatoes on the vines, a few small zucchini to eat, and patches of basil and carrots wherever Jacinta happened to scatter their seeds. Because we fed the strawberries compost and manure, they are giving us a second season! My garlic has become crowded by lettuce. But no matter, now it is garlic harvest time. Braiding garlic is good fun, and it is nice to see it hanging down in the shed again. The oats have all of the sudden sprung from grasses to seed bearing plants.

I’m sure we all feel at certain points in life that “Aha” moment, “Now I understand! This is it!” We wonder how we could have gotten by without this bit of knowledge or experience. It wasn’t the soap that I made this week, but the oats growing in the orchard that have done it for me. Have you ever wondered about how a grass like wheat or oats just sprouts seeds out of its head? I hadn’t wondered, but now I see it with my own eyes. Was that all in the seed? Where does it come from? My God, it is just amazing, watching this evolution. Honestly, I feel like I understand life now, development, patience, divinity, pre-destiny. There are lessons in every aspect of creation, but I’m just tapping the surface and feeling so privileged to be here to watch things grow. Jacinta, Genevieve and I walked into town the other day. I sware, we walked slow enough to see the flowers grow. Growing up surrounded by them, Jacinta’s eyes are open to the nuances of each plant. Excitedly she collected one of everything she saw and shoved it in the bottom of the stroller. We even found bamboo growing alongside the river and picked a flower, they are white. Artichoke flowers are just brilliant, bright purple. Upon catching a glimpse of this magnificent thistle plant at my friends’ house, I had the idea of taking photos of all of the amazing vegetables growing for you all. Being a city girl I am shocked by their beauty, having had no idea where or how they grew. We all know how corn, tomatoes, pumpkin and wheat grow, but have you ever seen asparagus, kiwis or artichokes? Let me know if anyone would be interested in such photos and I’ll get to work.

My only hour of “work” besides momming this week was called off due to Jacinta falling ill on Wednesday. My “no-nap” big girl actually walked into her bedroom to have a nap in the hopes that she would sleep off her fever and bellyache before French class. She slept for two hours and woke up well. Bigger bodies take illnesses better. Genevieve caught whatever Jacinta had and took three days to kick it, rather than five hours. She had just taken a turn toward better sleeping and less neediness for mom, when bam! Illness sets it all back a few steps. I shouldn’t complain, because obviously she suffered quite a bit to be so needy, but I am anyway. Being needed every second of the day and night is not so nice. I wish I could just enjoy the few moments of life when I am the only person in the world that this little being wants and needs. But when I can’t get off my bum to clean up anything because my baby wants to be on me permanently, I start to go insane. The physical mess surrounding me starts to cloud my mind and all I can focus on is when I will be able to put away the three baskets of laundry filling up the couch, do the dishes and sweep the floor. You’d think I was a neat freak, but I’m really not. I just don’t like clutter. Poor Evie doesn’t mind clutter, she just wanted to be cuddled back to health, and that she was. After a lot of herbal tea, water, milk, lukewarm baths, cuddles and sleep, Evie is well again, well enough to try her first spinach pie! We are so grateful to see her smile, laugh, reach, crawl and stand again. A weak baby is a very sad sight, and what joy it is to be around a happy baby.

Jacinta did well throughout Evie’s neediness, thanks to Matt, Mary, Keith and friends. One big highlight was getting ready for Christmas with Grandma. They went to town to buy a few things, went out for morning tea, voted, and came home to decorate and play in the tinsel all day long. Another was playgroup and friends coming over to play and celebrate Thanksgiving. Matt took both girls to the circus last Sunday so I had five hours on my own!!! This was before the girls got sick, just had to put it in as a highlight. From what I heard, they enjoyed themselves with the elephants, tigers and acrobats almost as much as I did gardening, mulching and resting in the hammock. Jacinta still tells us before bed each night that the following day will be yet another, “trick day.”

Thanksgiving was also a trick day. I can never remember which tricks she has showed me, but I know we dug up some early potatoes to roast. I thought that was a good trick. Another Thanksgiving gone by and all of our free-loading brush turkeys are still alive. My friend Sara came over and cooked all day with me, listening to me tell stories about my family and all the things I’d loved on Thanksgivings over the years. We took turns holding a hot, weak little Evie while Jacinta and Nickolas played games all over the house and outside. At one point they went outside in the rain and instead of playing in the playhouse, poked sticks in cow manure, nice. We didn’t really figure it out until Jacinta got splashed with it and continued to yell at the top of her lungs, “MOM!” until Sara came out and cleaned her up. All the while Nickolas is trying to outdo her yelling, “I SAID SORRY!” wondering why she wouldn’t stop yelling. It was pretty funny. They eventually came in and had a nice long play in the bath.

We roasted potatoes, made pumpkin pie and stew, cranberry walnut rice, cranberry sauce (out of dried cranberries, honey and spices), and bread. Sara wondered how I would have done it alone and I explained that usually families cook together on Thanksgiving. Good thing! I’ll have to continue having friends over because Matt’s not about to jump in the kitchen and enjoy the work, it’s just not his thing. With luck, Jacinta and Genevieve will rejoice in food with me for a long time to come. My friend Lauren in Michigan told me that she cooked for three days in preparation, happily. She managed to acquire every bit of their Thanksgiving feast at the local farmers market. We all take in food differently. Some people love the process, some love the product, and some just eat it because it’s put in front of them. No matter how you take it in, gratitude has to be part of the meal: recognition of how food is one of earth’s most divine gifts.

This Thanksgiving Jacinta said she was grateful for fruit. In her own way, Evie said she was just grateful to be held. Don’t we all just need to be held some days? Matt is thankful for employment. I am thankful for a full rain water tank, a beautiful garden, good friends close by, good friends far away, and close family relationships maintained across great distances and in the next room. I was able to chat with my family and pretend I was with them, lucky. I know the roots of Thanksgiving are a bit lofty, the Native Americans and the white settlers setting down peacefully together to share a meal given the general European mistreatment of the natives. But I love Thanksgiving: stopping the fast pace of life for a few days to gather with family and think about food and gratitude sounds great to me. Hope you all had a lovely Thanksgiving weekend too.

Peace,
Shana

Sit and be graceful

Good evening y’all. The sun has not yet set, yet I am sitting here childless at the computer enjoying the crickets and my “time” with you all. Matt is in the lounge room pushing Evie back and forth in the stroller to further our attempt to disconnect her need for proximity to the boob from sleep. She is silent…this is a good sign. Jacinta is sweetly sleeping in her bedroom and has been since 6:45.

Today has been a lovely day for all. The girls and I started out on a quick jaunt in the garden: watering plants, searching for anything edible, (preferably red), checking for caterpillars, pushing Evie around in the pram. Then all four of us drove out to Mary’s aged care center for their annual fete. Fete, pronounced fett is a French word for celebration. Fete, pronounced fate, is an annual fundraising event that many schools and non-profit organization host. They usually include rummage sale items, plants for sale, a bake sale, a “sausage sizzle,” music, and various forms of entertainment like jumping castles or face painting. Jacinta had her face painted to be a koala, and enjoyed her first milkshake at Mary’s fete. She and Genevieve surely charmed the residents, being Mary’s grand daughters. One nice old man, Col, had been waiting “all” of Genevieve’s life to meet her because his wife, named Genevieve, died just before this little one was born. He spoke so gently and sweetly to our little baby, overwhelmed with gratitude for the chance to finally meet her after badgering Mary for so long.

Energized by the milkshake and sausage sizzle so early in the day, Matt came home and worked in the blazing heat on the deck. He is regularly getting a few weekdays at the school now and spending the rest of his workday preparing a huge mailing to advertise his TooManyPhotos service locally. He is also undertaking a whole new project concerning Creation Spirituality. He plans to edit a compilation of essays to celebrate the 25th anniversary of Matthew Fox’s book Original Blessing. He has already gotten approval and is now working on gathering the essayists. All of this has made the veranda a weekend project, which is great for Matt. The peacock also approves as he has made the half-built deck his favourite perch in the evening. As many dishes as I create cooking the way I do, it is quite a treat to watch the peacock out the window as I do the dishes. Although I must admit, Matt does more dishes than I do.

Lately in the evening I have been spending all of my time trying to get Genevieve to sleep. She has become so attached to feeding that she wakes hourly, at least. In my weekly journals I usually try to write about things I have done, outside of my motherly life. This week I can’t think of any because I fell asleep each night after the third or fourth time restless Evie woke up needing a cuddle. This is why we are trying new methods of sleep for I would soon go insane without any solitude. The stroller is our latest attempt, during the hours when we still have the energy to push her back and forth. It works quite well until she wakes up past midnight. This is when I haven’t the energy to get up, so I pull her in bed with me and let her feed whenever she gets restless. We will work up the energy to convince her there is no need to wake in the wee hours of the morning, little by little. The girl is such a light sleeper. If you sit and watch her sleep, she’ll kick out her feet once in a while, make fists with her hands, roll over and snort. Children can be so different, more testimony that they come to earth with a lot of baggage.

Jacinta, our professional sleeper, sleeps through all of this. If she wakes up in the middle of the night, it is not due to Evie crying. Sometimes she might bellow, “DAD! I NEED CUDDLES!” It’s pretty funny, for me at least. What a sweet favour to ask, but her tone does not resemble that of a child in need. Coming out of a deep sleep, she calls out at the top of her lungs, “DAD! CAN YOU HELP ME FIND MY BEAR?” Matt rolls out of bed quickly so she doesn’t wake Evie and helps her find the bear. He asks her if she needs to go to the toilet, and the answer is always yes. After she pees a river, he cuddles her back to sleep. She only calls out for Matt in the night, as she has learned that I am taken. I belong to Genevieve in the night. Hopefully this will change shortly, but I hope to keep up the façade.

Jacinta definitely knows what she wants. These days it seems to be attention, approval, independence, and the knowledge that she has gone as far as she can, boundary-wise. The line we have drawn for her on behaviour, well, she is starting to realize that it is invisible and can be crossed. She watches closely how I deal with having six children in French class, and sees holes. After she sees me ignore the misbehaviour of one or two children, she promptly imitates them. It’s a tricky endeavour, teaching your friends’ children and also your children’s friends. I hadn’t fully thought it through. As we tell Jacinta, we are all learning each day. She is still very iffy on the word “sorry.” If ever, she will only whisper the word, but will sometimes choose to be stuck in her bedroom instead of uttering remorse.

No matter how infuriating our big girl’s stubbornness is, the sweet moments we have far outweigh the battles. Jacinta is quite taken with flowers right now, and will pick bouquets wherever we go, either for herself, her swimming teacher, the librarian, the family. While walking or driving she calls out every colour of flower she sees, even the type of flower if she knows it. She particularly loves the purple butterfly bush Keith and Mary have on the walkway and picks one big flower each week. She excitedly brings it into the house to be put in a little vase, leaving it on the kitchen table. The other night Matt moved it to the windowsill while we were eating. Halfway through the meal, she stood up on her chair, turned around and took a big whiff, sighing in appreciation of its beautiful scent. She sat down again, and asked why the flowers had been moved. We were having fish and chips and didn’t want to knock them over. Good enough reason. They were shortly moved back to the table and she got up again, stuck her face in to inhale and sat down content. “I love these flowers.”

Today we were packing up to go to the fete and she asked if she needed to pack any toys. I told her that there were some in the car. She decided that she didn’t want any toys anyhow. Continuing the thought once buckled in the car by Matt, waiting on me, (as usual), she said to Matt, “Genevieve and I are just going to sit and be graceful.” Last week while dancing I used the word graceful. She wondered what it meant. I differentiated between the flight of a chicken and that of a dove. She has been trying to work out how to be graceful ever since, more so how to use the word. Perhaps she meant calm or patient. Whatever Jacinta meant, it was a beautiful intention for a three year old and strangely confident for her to speak on behalf of Genevieve.

Genevieve gracefully slept and indeed, did not need any toys on the forty minute drive. She has been working hard, tugging on my pants wherever I go and practicing her new standing skills. She is well aware that standing out in the middle of the floor with no support is a big step. You can see the concentration on her face as her little feet grow into this new sensation. Evie is a practiced little crawler and will follow us from room to room if left on her own. She doesn’t whine, she just follows the sounds.
On food, she is moving on from the mush and has started eating little finger foods, but of course still enjoys the mush after a few minutes of chewing. She’ll munch any finger in her path, even her poor little baby friend’s finger. Henry doesn’t cry when she pulls his hair, he gets her back, but her teeth sure made him cry. Poor guy.

I may complain about Evie’s sleep habits, but really I’ve had a great week. I didn’t do much gardening but went out instead. The girls and I spent a lot of time in town and out with friends. We spent a whole day out at Stuart’s Point at the beach and having lunch at a friends’ house. The only bad thing about that day was the psycho rooster that attacked Jacinta’s leg. Spending time with friends is the best thing to do when you have a small baby, as people love to pass around a baby. On Wednesday a few of our friends joined us for a workday on the chicken pen. Matt and Keith cut down tall trees while we drug away the debris and tore down the precarious parts of the old chook pen. Jacinta’s friends Rory and Nickolas were excited to work and be around all of the action. We had a grand feast for lunch and accomplished quite a bit. My friends took turns with Evie so I actually got to do some manual labour, demolition even! The chicken pen has a long way to go, but we’ll eventually close it up and get new laying chickens. The sooner the better because egg prices are increasing: the price of grain is increasing because of the drought in grain-producing areas. Our chicks still sleep inside at night, Mrs. Red sleeps under the house, the clucky ones are locked up in the chick pen and the two “adolescents” sleep up in a tree. Although they’re all just free-loaders, they keep us company.

Well, Thanksgiving is almost here. Lucky for you all in America, what a great reason to stop working and rest: to give thanks for all we have. We’ll stop and give thanks, and miss my family as we always do. I just found out my sister will be having a girl and we only have to wait until April to meet her. It’s a special time, hard to be so far away. We’ll just have to celebrate together from far apart, and perhaps just sit and be graceful. Stay warm and have a love-filled happy Thanksgiving!

Peace,
Shana

Lonely Mrs Red

Good evening folks. This evening I am standing up in the kitchen writing with Genevieve hanging on my back, still awake. The last few nights I have accomplished nothing after dinner for want of coaxing Evie into sleep, that is, for more than a little nap. Matt and I chuckle as we sit down on the floor with her, after each failed attempt at sleep and get out the baby toy basket, again. It’s partly humorous and partly fatiguing, as you’d expect. Her head has just dropped though, so I may get to sit down and write. I suppose I should be grateful that she is falling asleep after 8pm, for anything before would surely be a pre-bed time nap. Last week, I gave her chamomile tea in a bottle to calm her down. She loved it, well, at least the novelty. She took a few two-hour naps, it was a dream. It didn’t take long for me to connect the dots between those long lovely naps and the sleepless nights. Don’t get me wrong, I should not complain. Here I stand in this beautiful, albeit messy, kitchen with the windows wide open listening the crickets screaming, swaying to Putomayo’s Music from the Wine Lands while my chirpy baby loses her will to be awake with every sway of my hips. Her midnight restlessness can put me in an irrationally bad mood, but really, it’s not such a hard life.

Unfortunately, it has been a bit rough for other members of our family this week. Monday night some animal dug its way into our chick pen. It took the hen who was sitting on her three tiny chicks, leaving no remains but the chicks cold and frightened.
Keith patched up the loose ends in that pen. We took the chicks inside and hoped the predator had been satiated, but it hadn’t. Thursday morning we were sitting at the breakfast table and saw a sad and lost looking Keith walk by in the pouring rain carrying a dead Old Mother by the feet over to the compost heap. Innocently we thought, “Poor old hen, she’s lived here over ten years.” “She’s had a good life here,” we assured Jacinta. Then we saw Keith carrying another dead chicken to the compost. Watching Keith out in the pouring rain devoid of his usual self assured glow from our big window we knew something was horribly wrong. The pieces took a while to put together, but it was a chicken slaughter.

All of the chickens who had been safely sleeping on the roost the night before had been dragged out the front door of the chicken pen. Perhaps fourteen chickens were killed by some animal strong enough to push open the gate. Some may have been eaten, but many were just killed, their bodies strewn about the property. The lone survivors were the two clucky hens (this means they are in the mood to be real mother hens and insanely sit on an empty nest because instinct tells them they should be sitting on fertilized eggs) who were in another part of the pen. One hen from the original flock (Keith and Mary bought when they moved here in 1996) happened to take up residence under the house the day before the attack. She is one of the last given a name. Mrs. Red survived, but is going crazy. There are two chicks who sleep in the trees, one of whom is a rooster. They survived. There is one yellow hen who sleeps in the car port who we think is sitting on eggs. She survived. Then we have the three chicks in the cage who now sleep inside at night. None of these lovely survivors lay eggs. There are feathers spread throughout the chicken pen, but no chickens now. It is vacant, with the exception of the two stupid clucky hens who think they are sitting on eggs.

Jacinta did not cry or appear very sad, perhaps more bewildered. She is more focused on the survivors, than the loss. She did say rather too soon, “But Mommy, we need eggs.” What a good non-sentimental little farmer. She is very curious about determining the animal that killed our chickens. (A side note: it is now 9:30pm and Evie is back in my arms nursing, once again, after numerous attempts to put her in her crib. She was just bouncing in Matt’s arms after an energy-filled yogurt feeding.) The best part of the deal for Jess is that she gets to care for the motherless chicks, holding, feeding and bringing them outside every morning and inside every evening in a little cage.

No matter how much we focus on the lucky survivors, it is quite a loss. Keith trumps us all in sadness and guilt, as animals are equals to humans in his book. These chickens were friends, some old and some new, that his chook pen failed to protect. We miss them gathering to dig through compost, or crowd around freshly scattered seed. Matt misses their company while building outside. It is strangely silent in the mornings and afternoons when they used to crow and scratch around outside our door. There is no one to shoo out of my garden. The lonely Mrs. Red was looking for a place to sleep tonight. She watched in envy as the little chicks flew up in the tree, circling round and round but never flapping her wings hard enough to join them. Since the killing, she has never once entered the chicken pen. This makes me think she may actually have slept in the pen that dreadful night and escaped under the house during the slaughter. This would explain her sense in never returning to a place she slept every night for so many years. She came to our door hours after she would have been sleeping last week, just searching. Imagine waking up one morning and every one you knew was gone. I know she is a chicken, but all of the sudden, she is alone when she used to be amongst friends. I think all creatures can experience loneliness.

Although we are always in need of rain, we actually grew tired of it last week. It fills the tank and makes the land sprout with growth, but doesn’t do much for cheering up sad people and chickens. To add to the pain for Keith, his eldest sister had a stroke. It rained so much it actually kept him from driving out to see her right away. Rain also means no playgroup, so instead we celebrated my friend Michelle’s birthday here. Good food and company cheered up our dour mood following the chicken slaughter. Matt missed out because he was teaching. He didn’t mind though, paid work for three days was a good enough reason to be happy. He couldn’t do much work on the veranda in the rain, but managed to secure all of the joists and begin laying down floorboards. So far he has only used leftover recycled lumber from the old church we used for our house. Soon there will be no more, and we’ll actually have to purchase the floorboards. Our cellar is now filled with...rain water, not abundant garden produce. It would be a good swimming hole. This is good to know just in case we never grow much worth preserving.

Regardless of the rain, the girls and I spent some time in the garden. We picked off caterpillars, even researched them in the library, made caterpillar soup, removed strange potato bugs, squashed slugs and anything eating the plants, and even sprayed some homemade concoctions on the plants. Given the information that one must avoid planting tomatoes in the same spot from year to year here (the ground never freezes), I tore out almost every lovely tomato plant I had staked. This one somewhat painful given all of the green tomatoes I was sacrificing, but also a great relief. Imagine handpicking little caterpillars off of over twenty huge tomato plants each day…impossible at this stage in life. The garden looks neater, but there are no sweet cherry tomatoes to eat. I also tore out every borage plant as they were infested with tiny black caterpillars. Matt helped me make big wire tomato cages for the few remaining plants. Today I put them around the young little tomato plants, and there are no caterpillars! It could be the rain, the spray, the handpicking, or just the day. Whatever the reason, I am happy.

Today Jacinta, Genevieve and I ate the first two plums and seven huge strawberries. The corn is taller then Jacinta and kidney beans are growing amidst the beautiful green corn stalks. I have never seen a kidney bean outside of a plastic package. They are just like normal green beans when they are young. I can’t wait to see them in a few months. Pumpkin vines, watermelon vines, zucchini plants, everything has shot up and out from this rain. Little carrot patches that Jacinta planted on her own have shot up out of the weeds. I finally had a chance to pull out the weeds and really discover the brilliance of handing Jacinta a pile of seed and giving her the freedom to do whatever she wanted with them.

Jacinta is learning how to entertain herself better. In the garden she likes to dig and weed, but has a hard time digging in the spot I have approved. She’d rather dig right next to me, disregarding the baby carrot plants underneath her bum. She’ll play hide and seek with Evie and I, but still hasn’t figured out subtle kidding tactics. Genevieve won’t crawl very far to find her. She’ll cross the garden for me, panting like a dog, but I have milk, the trump card. Jacinta also takes pride in entertaining Evie. She plays peek-a-boo with blankets, runs away with items that Evie fancies and makes Evie “chase” her, tries to hold Evie up while she practices standing, and tries to “cuddle” her making sure not to squish her too much. The big sister has learned the art of protecting her castles of blocks from the destructive baby monster and also how to knock her creations down just before Evie has the pleasure of knocking them down.

Although she can do some things in her own, Jacinta desires a playmate at all times. She’ll take whoever she can get and settle with herself if that’s all there is. French days she’s in heaven with all of her friends here and a mom who drops everything to play games with she and her five friends. (This is not the norm!) This week French class was inside. It was difficult to contain their energy inside, but we did it. Keith let us run up and down his hallways acting like birds, fish, and kangaroos. The games we play have been “approved” by young school children and go over pretty well. It’s funny to hear Jacinta tell Matt in English about what we did, “Look! This is mommy’s basket of surprises.” Not only do I get to hear first-hand how she translates my words and what she likes, but it puts me in the place of the parents of the school children I taught.

Genevieve is now standing in the shoes of her big sister about three years ago, literally. She is pulling up on everything, desperate to cling on and walk somewhere. So I thought it might be time for her first real pair of shoes, the old red shoes Jacinta wore. She is also sporting some new shoes from her aunt Lecia, so she can no longer chew on them. Sometimes she is so desperate to stand up that she’ll grasp onto my baggy clothing, end up losing her balance and depantsing me all at once. Genevieve is still bonking her head quite a bit, but gets over it quickly. She crawls very excitedly, sometimes carrying toys in her mouth if she needs to take them along. She has four teeth now, two on top and two on the bottom. Watching Evie munch on an apple is pretty funny as she bites off little bits, sucks the juice out and spits out the bit after she has finished. Her tray is quickly covered in tiny little rejected apple bits.

This weekend we travelled four hours south to visit Matt’s dad and his wife Carolyn in Port Stephens. Evie kept busy for a while with an apple but submitted to sleep out of sheer boredom. Jacinta is a super traveller, content with treats, music, her basket of toys and art supplies. We played an add-on game with her drawing book, but mainly I got to knit. What a treat. Genevieve finds her big sister to be quite god entertainment in the car, thankfully because she is not a normal baby who might sleep a lot in the car.
Visiting Pete and Carolyn is always good fun, but this trip was especially pleasant. They live on the bay, so Pete and I took the girls on a walk along the water’s edge as we always do. Jacinta picks flowers and paperbark, runs in the sand and through the neighbour’s grass. She and Genevieve played around in the wet sand and streams of water left behind at low tide. Evie had showed major signs of fatigue but couldn’t stand to miss out. She wriggled and kicked until I let her out of the carrier. When it was time to get going, she screamed until she was dry and back in the carrier and fell asleep straight away.

Highlights of the trip were many: one was having dinner at their golf club with both girls behaving like angels. Everyone else had Chinese food, and I grabbed the rare opportunity to have Thai food. Matt wanted to scan a bunch of old family photos so we all sat around digging through the past. Another highlight was hearing old family stories; I actually enjoy this, yes. The girls had a great time with all of the extra attention and the thrill of a new place. Genevieve stood up for three seconds and sat right back down, all on her own will. This was surely a first. Lastly, we went on a big dolphin watching boat and it was amazing. Of course, Jacinta was incredibly excited to explore all of the decks on the boat and spot several pods of dolphins in the wild. I had never done anything like it, and I am thirty so I think I was even more thrilled. Evie was so thrilled she slept through most of it. Matt thought it was pretty amazing but was hoping the dolphins might do some tricks for us. Lazy dolphins, they were too busy mating. Oh well.

So life goes on, up and down. Most of our chickens are still gone, but we have a few babies left and a few stunned ones left to tell the tale. We can buy nice eggs at the fruit shop, but there’s none to hope for each morning. Genevieve finally went to sleep at 10:30pm. She may wake up in a few minutes, but I have the satisfaction of having had 90 minutes to myself. I made it to the end of my journal and it’s midnight. I bid you a good night’s sleep and a lovely day filled with hills and valleys, ups and downs, and life, good life.

Peace,
Shana

My baby can say...

Hello there. Daylight savings has come along and heightened the season. As you are probably feeling true autumn, I am feeling true summer. Technically, it is still spring, but not for me. It is hot, sticky, and tiring. These are days that you either have to go for a swim or jump in a cool bathtub by midday to make it sanely through the afternoon. Yesterday, I had a big cooking day. We were out of bread, granola, and dinner had to be made. When Matt returned home after a day of substitute teaching, he questioned my sanity, rightly so given the hot weather. By the end of it all, I too wondered if I should have changed plans.

I am a stubborn woman, yes. My hard-headedness has taken me all over the world, travelling to places that took some explaining to loved ones. It also paved the way to making me the French teacher, choir director and cook at a small school, not an obvious mix of skills. This job was surely the most life changing I’ve had in my short life. I was taught by many amazing adults and children, and in turn had a chance to touch a few lives. This week I called an old student of mine on the telephone to thank her for gifts she had sent. She excitedly told me that she had decided to work towards a culinary arts degree when she finishes high school. She gave me credit for inspiring her, wow. Although she is only a freshmen, and her parents have been cooking with her for her whole life, it gave me a little boost. What a different life I lead now, touching the lives of just two sweet children in such a different way. Matt and I worked with hundreds of children at a time in our past lives, pre-parenthood. Now we spend our time shaping two little girls who will someday credit their teachers with whom they spent just a few hours as their inspiration. I suppose we’ll take some credit regardless of whether it is given to us.

Matt got some work teaching at the Catholic high school in Kempsey this week. Usually he hasn’t much to say about the day, just that babysitting is pretty easy and not worth a mention. On Friday he had one period of “Agriculture,” eighth graders. Given a class with no plan, he was most impressed with the students’ knowledge of how to busy themselves for an hour on the school’s farm, which wasn’t even an acre.
Straight away the kids fired up lawn mowers, clipped the grass, fed animals, transplanted seedlings, picked ticks off of the two cows, removed rats from the chicken feed, and so on and so forth. This was a nice alternative to sitting in a quiet classroom. He was a little worried that they’d ask him questions for which he didn’t have a reply, but they all knew exactly what to do. Apparently Kempsey schools have little farms within them for learning purposes, for “city kids” who aren’t growing up in agriculture. Of course I like this idea!

In addition to the teaching this week, Matt kept working on the website, the veranda and his upcoming court case. Court case? Remember the kangaroo that Matt hit en route to a funeral? The one for whom the police were charging Matt for negligent driving? Well, after all of the angst and worry, six days before the supposed trial, lo and behold, the police dropped the charges and called off the court case. Of course Matt is relieved but also annoyed that it took them nine months to figure out what a dumb case it was. Anyhow, one less anxiety can only be a good thing.

Being a homemaker (feels funny using that non PC word, but that is what I do and love), I haven’t too many worries in life, mainly getting food ready before the girls lose “it.” This week, there was trouble on the land, on the leaves really. The pests figured out how lovely my garden was looking. There are flies everywhere, laying eggs on everything green or red. These eggs quickly turn into ravenous caterpillars that get fatter and fatter and eat more every day. Until one day, they metamorphose into another bloody winged creature that will lay a lot more eggs. So I’ve spent hours researching the problem, out with flashlights and inside reading books. We have fruit fly already, on our few remaining stone fruits on the trees and on the tomatoes. Grasshoppers, snails, and beetles are munching potatoes, beans, arugula, cabbage, and beets. Caterpillars are on the corn and tomatoes. Even the herbs are being destroyed. They haven’t noticed the lettuce, garlic, pumpkins, melons, carrots, cucumbers or the broad beans, so I suppose I should be thankful. In the mean time, Jacinta, Keith and I have been picking off heaps of caterpillars. I squish some, others I toss in a bucket with the affected tomatoes to be destroyed later on. Jacinta plays guardian of the pests: knocking them back down if they try to crawl out. They crawl all over each other, creating fluorescent green caterpillar towers. It hurts to pick off the affected fruit leaving only one or two fruits on a tree, but it’s obligatory. You are required by law to destroy any fruit fly affected fruit because it spreads so quickly to your neighbour’s crops. Trying to live off the bounty of the land is surely showing me that we humans must tromp on other life forms to survive, no matter how vegetarian one thinks they are. To grow vegetables, you must kill their predators whether you do it by squishing or spraying. You can use companion planting and crop rotation, but there will be bugs that are competing for your food.

There was a massive black snake in the terrace garden the other day. He didn’t want us or any of our veggies, but a mate. Although he was just passing through, the girls and I vacated that garden very quickly, moving over to the orchard for morning tea. We had just been entertaining ourselves by plucking caterpillars off tomato bushes, so I was sad to be interrupted. Jacinta commented that the tomato bush looked like a Christmas tree, filled with red and green ornaments. She knows I went Christmas shopping the other day and in her curiosity for what I bought, is quite conscious of Christmas coming.

Halloween just happened, what’s this talk of Christmas? Halloween isn’t even a real holiday here, nor is Thanksgiving. We celebrate them both anyway, because we are also American. We planned a Halloween party for Jacinta’s friends. The dress up theme was sea creatures, Jacinta’s idea. Because she chose a very hard animal to create, I dragged my feet until this week to begin the costume making. The dolphin came to life after a few late nights with Matt, Keith and Mary’s help. Jacinta and I made popcorn balls and pumpkin cake. Matt helped Jacinta carve the pumpkin and wrap the popcorn balls. Eventually the popcorn balls were hidden in a heap of straw to be found, as a game. We repeated the game over and over hiding bits of junk from the shed where we had the party. We bobbed for apples and the dads took the kids on “hayrides” in the big red wagon. Perhaps the neatest thing about children’s parties so far is that parents all come and have just as much fun as the children.

We finished the party off by trick or treating at a neighbour friend’s house and then at four different locations on our property. Matt and Keith gave out treats from different ends of the house. Michelle, thinking that the trick or treat question needed to be taken more seriously, gave out chicken seed as a “trick.” Craig waited down in the shed and juggled for the kids, as a “trick,” and then also gave them a treat. Our neighbour Melissa wanted the children to each do a trick for their treat. It was funny watching the Aussie’s try to interpret this strange custom of ours, “trick or treating.”
Genevieve didn’t dress up as anything from the sea, she played the part of a sweet baby, a wakeful one, in an orange pumpkin T-shirt. Matt and I marvel that she can be so pleasant while awake, given her lack of sleep. Other people might talk about a good nap, meaning two hours for a baby this age. Evie’s good nap might be thirty minutes. Often it’s twenty minutes in the morning, and perhaps thirty minutes in the afternoon. She’ll then stay up past Jacinta by an hour or two to play. She won’t fall asleep until she bonks her head on something, and in her tears, the milk will put her to sleep. Then she wakes every thirty minutes, or so it seems. Of course I am exaggerating a bit, but not much. A good image of Genevieve right now is one of those pulley dolls. You pull the string between their legs and their arms and legs do jumping jacks over and over. Evie will crawl around and play with any old thing for a long while, but eventually she crawls up your leg to be picked up. Once in your arms, she rejoices. Her arms go up and down together, her legs kicking in and out together, especially if someone else walks in the room and pays her attention. She is one chirpy little babe. I’m curious what she’ll grow into, having this much energy.

Here is an example of her curious happy spirit. It will make you want to throw up, as I wanted to. Today we were away for a few hours. Upon return, Evie rejoiced in her freedom to explore the floor, under the table as she usually does. I had swept earlier so I wasn’t worried about what she’d find. Luckily I glanced down and noticed a strange shape she had just put in her mouth. I pulled it out and quickly realized it was a dead baby frog!!! A FROG!!! DEAD! In my daughter’s mouth! I screamed. Jacinta and her friend wanted to know what the problem was. They were more interested in seeing what the dead frog looked like and where I had thrown it in the garden. Evie was just happy to be picked up and have a chance to play in the water at the sink while I washed her mouth out over and over. I guess the frog had come in and dried out while we were gone. How terribly disgusting. I’ll check the floor now, even more often than before.

Today was a great day for all of us. Three friends and I went to a soap making workshop and learned not only how to make body soap and shampoo bars, but laundry and dishwashing detergent. It was outdoors, lovely, and free of children. This was the longest I have had away from the girls, it was such a treat. Mary and Keith took care of the girls while Matt had a conference call. Then Matt took the girls over to our friends’ house to play and have a day with the daddies in charge. Matt and Craig had not only our five combined children, but also Michelle’s son Rory. They seemed to have a good time, the babies fared rather well also. They said the only stressful moment was just as they were about to drive the kids out to meet the mums at the soap workshop. Aidan hosed the girls down just as the babies were getting tired and starting to whine. Quickly the daddies dressed the girls up in pretty dresses with no undies. Aidan (5) dressed himself, and got in the backseat, forgetting his shorts. It wasn’t bad for two daddies taking charge of six kids. After all that, Matt and Craig went to a movie while Anissa and I took the kids home.

Jacinta and Lilly wanted to play a little longer, so Lilly came home with us. On the drive home they were chatting about “their babies.” “My baby can say mamamama,” Jacinta said. “My baby can say dadadadada,” replied Lilly. “My baby can’t say dadadadada, just mamamama,” said Jacinta. On and on they went, competing for the prize of “whose baby” could say the most. I think Lilly won. Or perhaps I did, because I got to be the fly on the wall and witness their lovely three year old conversation.

Here’s to a lovely autumn week for you all. Hope you had a nice Halloween, and stayed warm in the chilly air. I hope you too can be a fly on the wall and witness something beautiful, but not one of those flies that lays eggs on my tomatoes. That wouldn’t be very nice.

Peace,
Shana