How the birds planted our sunflowers

Good evening friends! Continuing from last week’s mention of dreams, I must report that the mosquitoes stayed away for three days. We had a lovely time outside for those few days. I should just be grateful for the time we had, but somehow, I am more miserable now knowing how good it could be, without our blood-sucking friends. Another dream come true is that Jacinta is switching preschool days to join her friend Lily in the younger class and is truly excited. Although Jacinta will tell you that preschool was great last Monday, she has tuned out half of the three hours she was there crying for me. Hmmm…I wonder where she could have learned this habit, forgetting the negative. It couldn’t be her mother, could it?

It’s scary to think how many of your habits your children pick up, the good and the bad. One nice habit Jacinta is picking up is music, trying to replicate songs with different instruments. Last week I showed her a few notes on the piano that would play her favourite song, “Olélé,” a rowing song from the Congo. Since then she taps out the first two lines of the song a few times a day, and tries to play along with the cd. After a few days of practice she played the first line of the song on a different part of the piano, a fifth above the notes I taught her. She exclaimed, “Listen Mommy! I found a new way to play Olélé!” Today she actually asked for a piano lesson so I happily obliged.

Typically I don’t have much alone time with Jacinta because of Genevieve’s sleep habits. But this week I found that Evie sleeps longer in the afternoons if I let her play herself to sleep in her crib. (I always think I’m unlocking Genevieve’s secret to sleep, I can only hope). Jacinta doesn’t seem bitter, but she really loves having Matt or I all to herself. She also likes having Genevieve all to herself. Jacinta really likes using superlatives and often says things like, “Do you know who loves Genevieve the most?” “Who?” we ask. “I do!” she happily replies. She also asks questions like, “Do you know who has the fattest legs?” or “Do you know who has the skinniest arms?” Then I cringe more than smile wondering, “Who is teaching her these fat and skinny comparisons?” having known a few too many girls with eating disorders. It seems a bit extreme that I would leave out certain adjectives from the English language but I don’t use those words with her, given the impact they have on many girls in the Western world. We don’t use the word stupid or dumb either, but of course she is picking them up. One good thing about pre-school is that I am officially offering her to the world outside of my control, “releasing her to the wild.” Of course I don’t want the word stupid to be used in the house, but I won’t waste my energy blaming any one person for teaching her undesired words or behaviours.

On that note, having yet another uncompromising position on something that seems so trivial, I had a thought today regarding my motherhood. It was a harsh thought, but something to ponder. Much of what I do for my children is out of love and duty. But some of it comes from a sort of obligation after working with children for so many years before having my own. I have been in charge of other people’s children since I was eleven through babysitting, day care, nannying, camp counselling, and teaching. I loved it, but it also gave me time to evaluate and judge, “I won’t do that when I have children,” or “My child’s not going to be like that little brat.” Pre-motherhood I built up grand expectations of my own motherhood, as if all I had done before was training to help me win “the mommy competition.” Well, now I am a mom and have no other job. This is not a complaint, I like my job. I am merely remarking that at times because this is my sole occupation I rule with an uncompromising fist without asking myself, “Is it really that big of a deal?” I might do all I can to be a great mom, but if it’s in the name of proving that I can bring up healthy, polite, respectful, earthy, and loving children in this harsh, consumption –obsessed, technological, environmentally faltering world, then it is not for love. It seems more like a scientific trial. I do believe in its goodness as a goal, but it might not happen and I don’t want to be disappointed in my girls. I had the thought today that I’d really rather Jacinta and Genevieve say to their college friends someday that “I love my mom so much,” than, “Wow, my mom did a really good job on me.” When I think of my mother I think of love only. I have no idea if she did a “good job” or not.

Genevieve seems to really enjoy life with us right now, no discipline, no rules, leaving us with no need to think too hard. She may keep me going all day long, wondering when this girl will ever tire, but she does it all in good humour. The other day while “looking at the world upside-down” she fell flat on her little face. After a few tears, Evie moved on to complete her kitchen circuit. She starts at the cupboards, testing them to see if we’ve locked them shut with rubber bands. She then roams around the island pulling down her box of lids, a few plastic cups, puts a basket on her head, and searches for food. After this she chases my ankles, and tries to get a lift up to see what I am doing. She then moves on to the saucepan lids and baking tray shelves and pulls them all down. Having successfully trashed the kitchen floor, by now she’s usually had her fill and given her insistence, I must stop doing the dishes.

This week Genevieve actually took a few significant afternoon naps, after playing herself to sleep in her crib. Her sleep habits are improving, by day and night. The funniest thing she does to tire herself out is play with her tongue, in and out, waiting for Matt or I to respond and do funny tongue tricks too. Climbing is another good trick she has. It seems that some children are born climbers, obviously Jacinta was not because I had a hard time believing other mother’s stories about babies escaping seatbelts. Genevieve will often slide out of her high chair. She can almost get into the bathtub with no assistance (face first and dangerous). If given a few seconds of freedom on the playground she will climb halfway up the slide by herself. Soon, she will be able to escape her crib. None of these things make life easy, but they sure make us marvel and laugh at how amazingly different children can be.

Our two girls in the garden are like night and day. Genevieve, in great need of a nap, will see the garden and come alive. Jacinta wakes up full of energy, then acts as if she can’t walk another step on our way to the garden. “Carry me,” whines the sluggish Jacinta. To keep her energized down there I have to constantly seek out new exciting creatures or tasty treats. Evie crawls excitedly across the garden to pull a pepper or a cucumber off the vine, sloshing in the mud and weeds on her way. She pulls off any low edible vegetable and munches, usually just one bite though. This week I discovered that she takes a small bite and then leaves the green tomatoes on the vine to ripen. She must enjoy the thrill of the squish, and then move on. I found a bunch of Evie marked tomatoes on the vine today and was disappointed at how empty they were. Jacinta prefers to leave things on plants and see how big they grow rather than harvest them, “No Mommy! Don’t pick a sunflower, leave them all there!” She also now wears gloves so she won’t get dirty and wants to sit on a stool rather than in the dirt. Where did this child come from? It’s not like she’s seeping in princess crap dreaming of being Cinderella. She doesn’t even know the princess stories. Is this princess phase something that most girls go through? I thought these kinds of things had to be nurture rather than nature and I’ve done what I can to avoid it. This might mean it’s nature or that Disney’s gotten into her dreams somehow.

One night instead of dreaming I went out for some night gardening to celebrate our break from the mosquitoes. It was lovely to be alone and be able to complete numerous five minute jobs that would have taken an hour with children. The girls and I did have some fun gardening this week though, low key gardening with my only goal to get down there and have some fun. We reclaimed a portion of the garden shed from it’s eventual fate of becoming another trashy storage shed. I sorted through seeds while Evie tried to invade the drawers with her quick little grabby fingers. Jacinta scattered a few carrot and lettuce seeds here and there. Together we planted some calendula seeds and strawberry runners. Genevieve helped in her own way, she serves as comic relief. In French class this week we counted the blooms on that sunflower, 46 flowers from one root! Each day Jacinta and I marvel at the plant. Today Jacinta told me a story of “How the birds planted our sunflower…one night…while we were sleeping a bird came and planted five seeds there. The next day….we woke up and came down to the garden…and…there it was…beautiful!”

As Jacinta learns how to tell stories in English, I am branching out and starting to tell her stories in French. I’ve told a few stories that she liked enough to ask for a repeat. Given a repeat request, I’ll tell the story again in French. She actually listens, nodding and enjoying herself. Of course she doesn’t understand all of the words, but she knows where we are in the story. I am also starting to read some of her English storybooks in French. I am trying to speak French to her anytime when she and Genevieve and I are alone, and she is taking it in. She mostly responds in English, but seems to understand what I am saying most of the time. A few times she has let her guard down and said a few words in French. She actually counted past ten in French unconsciously the other day but I never taught her “onze, douze, treize.” She had a funny look on her face as these strange words emerged from her mouth. We catch her singing to herself a lot lately in no language we know. I think it’s just an awesome symbol of her brain/soul starting to open up to a whole new world of sounds, purgatory somewhere between England and France.

Matt finds himself in purgatory from time to time also. Enjoying his book work, yet feeling housebound and yearning for paid employment. The rain isn’t very helpful. He gets out of the house to do manual labour: cleaning up piles of rocks, tin, wood, clearing out the old chook pen, mulching, and chopping up piles of cut down trees. But then the mosquitoes become so infuriating he comes inside to scheme on how to get rid of the dreadful creatures. His best idea yet is Napalm, just kidding. He and Keith moved the fence which is supposed to keep the cows out. So far so good.
Watching tennis, cricket and making coffee ice cream also kept him content and busy at night. One major highlight was the healthy birth of his sister Louise’s second son, Nicholas Peter. Matt’s an uncle once again and Jacinta and Genevieve have another boy cousin.

They will have another cousin in a few months when my sister has her second baby. Jacinta commented the other day, “mommy, there sure are a lot of people having babies right now!” No doubt this is why I’m feeling frustrated in my desire to knit but unable to make the time. I did find the time to have a long chat with my Senegalese friend Khady the other day and found that she is doing quite well. It turns out that her negative spin last week had something to do with the time of day I called her, 2am! Of course she didn’t tell me what time it was because she is Senegalese and was happy to hear my voice, but this week I called her at a more reasonable hour. I remarked on how happy she sounded. She then explained. Matt was keen to have Khady take part in his book and she has agreed, even with newborn Aboubacar.

Yep, there is new life everywhere, there always seems to be if we make the time to take notice. There are so many new opportunities for growth within, I like these. Humility seems to be one of those things I can’t get enough of, but I need more! It makes life so much easier when you stop expecting perfection of yourself.

Have a lovely week y’all. May you grow in whatever ways you most desire.
Peace,
Shana

116 looking at the world upside down

Good evening friends. I just got hit by a flying pink doll and a giraffe. Genevieve is learning to play herself to sleep as I sit on the floor next to her crib. Ahh! A bunny just came down too! Eventually she grows tired of the dropsy game, of babbling, of tugging on the red ball on her mobile, of standing up and sitting back down, of watching me and rolls onto her pillow and gives in to sleep. Ouch! A dog and another doll have just landed on my head. Now she’s talking to the candle, marvelling in delight, sticking her hands and legs through the slats, ouch! A gnome! I’d always heard of babies being able to play themselves to sleep, it actually works. This is quite a revelation after doing it the hard way for so long. Better late than never I suppose.

I guess this is what I should say about Genevieve’s sleep habits. It shocks me that our eleven month old sleeps less than our three year old. I think she might enjoy sleep, but she just can’t turn off if there are any other options. She might be two seconds from nodding off to sleep. Then she’ll hear Keith whistling outside the window or Jacinta ask me a question and wake up as if she’s just had an hour long nap. She just heard Matt and Mary talking about tennis through the window. She stood up as close to their voices as she could and started talking to them and waving, as if she could somehow fly out of her crib and join the party, once again. She slept well last Monday in the silence while Jess was at pre-school. Even I fell asleep with a book in my hands.

Unfortunately when I picked Jacinta up from preschool, she was in my friend Michelle’s arms with a red tear-streaked face. She had a rough day, missing her family as soon as she realized we were gone. I had pictured her playing and painting, instead she was being held through her tears by the teachers. Needless to say, we’ll be having a much shorter pre-school day this week. To add to the sadness, some Sydney friends of ours with two little girls were meant to spend the night and had to cancel due to not one, but two deaths in the family. Jacinta had been counting down the hours to their arrival. She can not understand why a death might keep her little friends away and keeps asking how much longer it will be until they arrive. To cheer her up, I packed up quickly and we went out to a friend’s house for lunch. You’d think we’d just go outside and play but the constant rain and dreadful mosquitoes are a bit of a deterrent. In any case, she sang the whole car ride out and had a lovely time.

Matt could then do his phone interview with Riane Eisler on her book Sacred Pleasure without the sounds of a loud wife, a tired baby and a little girl with all of her anxious visitor energy stuck in the house. The interview went well. His book, Originally Blessed is giving him the opportunity to talk with many interesting and inspiring people. Matt is reading new authors and getting to know artists of all kinds while trying to fill all of the slots in his book. The amount of communication he must do from afar would be almost impossible without the internet. In transcribing the interviews and editing people’s written work, they can send drafts back and forth with comments very quickly. His goal is to print the book by July this year, so time is of the essence. It still leaves a little time for cricket and tennis watching, some time for hot, sweaty manual labour and a lot of time for the girlies.

Jacinta and Genevieve love having Matt out in the TV room watching cricket while he works because it enlarges the area they can roam. I often keep the door closed to keep Genevieve within my sight and Jacinta from relying on Keith’s entertainment all day long. Of course we go out once in a while for playtime and visits, but mainly I like them in our quaint little space. Although Matt is actually getting work done on the computer, the girls see him out there and think, “Ooh, maybe this adult will pay more attention to me! Watch my tricks!” Evie’s latest trick is standing up, bending down to stick her head between her legs and look at the world upside down. Jess’s tricks got her into trouble today though. In her excitement to see Pop she jumped off the step without giving him any warning and he missed, as you would. She whacked her head very hard on the step and got a huge bump on the back of her head. The bump didn’t take away her energy though. She was still keen to swim in the spa, paddling around looking like an insect with her goggles: a daily activity now. She still had energy to paint with the new watercolours, another daily activity. The question is...what shall we do with all of this precious artwork? Perhaps keep a few, recycle a lot (in secret) and just enjoy the act of creating.

We’re trying to garden daily but the energy it takes to get out there in the rain and mosquitoes is hard to muster some days. Although she’ll try to find every reason in the world to stay inside, Jacinta enjoys watering the plants and trees. She is especially proud now that she can turn the tap on and off. The trouble is that there is no need to water right now. It’s a small sacrifice I suppose, letting her overwater the plants using the overfull dam water so that I can weed for a few minutes. The weeds are so high that Matt had to mow them down and discovered a watermelon! Jess loves spraying the aphids off the citrus trees. I suppose I should thank the aphids for entertainment. I try so hard to make it a short trip down and back, but sitting amongst so many opportunities for work makes it hard to pull myself away. The storytelling still works for a while. Genevieve makes it a very short trip but enjoys herself for a few minutes, picking and eating green and now red tomatoes and crawling over to the strawberry patch. The other day she actually spotted a hidden red strawberry three feet away. She excitedly crawled around the tree box, dug her hands through the leaves and held it up to me as if to ask, “Can I eat this?” I smiled. She then picked and ate the lovely berry.

We don’t get much else done in the garden, but I’m at peace. I figure the mosquitoes will calm down again someday. They were never this bad before we moved here, the locals say. We live in rugged garden territory. When the girls get bigger it won’t seem so intimidating and difficult. My friends live on flatter land but no matter, it’s hard to have a baby in any garden. It’s worth using it as a playground though, just to enjoy its beauty and fruits. The difficult part is having the time to tend it. All things in time. Perhaps they’ll be happy to linger down there with me someday. If not, I’ll still enjoy it on my own as my grandma and my step-mom always did. For the moment, we have a few beans, tomatoes, cucumbers, peppers and herbs to eat and one amazing sunflower plant with over thirty flowers on it. Our corn looks nice from the outside but tastes terrible. My friends have been stocking us up with lovely veggies from their gardens, lucky aye? It has been very wet, so some crops are having troubles but most things are growing like crazy.

I am looking forward to winter, and hoping the mosquitoes will go away with the wet heat. Perhaps by then we may have a chook pen and some eggs. Our neighbour Angela called and told Matt to look out the window, “The fox is coming over to your place.” There she was, scrawny and hungry looking in broad day light. After seeing big scary Matt, she didn’t bother returning that day. We still have our three chicks in a cage and three chickens sleeping in the trees. It’s strange for me to want something so badly. I spend most of my days right next to the defunct chicken pen, yet I don’t have the time or ability to do much about it. I used to think of myself as very capable of anything I set my mind to. I guess it’s another case of reality and growing up. We all want to do so much here on earth, but we have to prioritize in our short little days.

The other day Matt (without talking to me) suggested to Jacinta that we might have a “French day, and mommy can speak to you and Genevieve in French all day long!” Since it was Matt’s idea, she really liked it and we did it. It was a nice twist on daily life. By the middle of the day Jess was repeating what I was saying a little bit, counting, singing and repeating in French. We gardened in the rain, then went to the beach and swam and sang in French, in the rain. Later on we made bread in French and Jacinta actually wanted to help. Genevieve was helping and made it look messy and fun, and it was! I am much more playful in French than I am in English, I’m sure she senses this because she wanted to help me cook dinner too. We’ll try to do it more often. It brings back my gentleness with her and brings back her sense of awe, being set back linguistically a few years. This can only be a good thing, especially now that she has a good grasp on English. So thanks to Matt, I might not lose my French as it is deteriorating being so far from all French culture. I just needed someone else to remind me that I should.

Another thing I’ve been wanting to do is make ice cream, and I finally did! My friend Trish said she had an ice cream maker and would bring it over. I jokingly asked Keith if he had one in the shed, and he did! So Jacinta and I have made our first batch, carob ice cream without a machine, and now we have two machines sitting on the table. Needless to say, we’ll be eating some ice cream this week. The rain has stopped for a few days, and the sun is hot. So we hope the dampness will disappear and deter the mosquitoes. I can do laundry again, and actually enjoy the hot sun.

The girls and I spent a few days at Michelle and Rory’s house, in preparation for his birthday party. Matt went to Sydney for one night for some friends’ anniversary celebration so we even had a sleepover there. We cooked party food, played guitar, harvested Michelle’s nice veggies, enjoyed the lack of rain and mosquitoes, and relaxed. Jacinta particularly enjoys the trampoline, as does Genevieve  The party was good fun, lovely people, great food and good games for the children. I wrote Rory a song and got up the nerve to sing it at the party. Rory’s like a big brother to Jacinta in many ways. He is fun, kind and condescending all at the same time, as an older sibling must be. They are very different, yet they enjoy some of the same things and know how to laugh together. Jacinta slept in Rory’s room without me and loved it, and actually slept. Genevieve had a rough night (thus, so did I) with a teething fever but Michelle and I stayed up late playing guitar and chatting about everything but children. To finish off our little “holiday” at Michelle’s we visited the large market garden she started up with a friend. In addition to an amazingly neat and productive organic garden, we saw baby turkeys and piglets just born that morning.

Now we are all home again ready for the week ahead. Genevieve has been asleep for a long while now. Jacinta is sweetly sleeping in her own bed. Matt is doing the dishes, what more could I ask? The winds came today and blew so hard the mosquitoes have been thrown off the path to our door! To top it off my sister bought airline tickets to come out and see us, it’s final now. Dreams can come true. Now all I need is Jacinta to enjoy herself in preschool and the garden gnome to get off his bum and weed my gardens. I guess while we’re dreaming here, I might also request a halt to all wars and injustice. We can all dream. Have a lofty dreamy week friends.

Love,
Shana

Abundance or Scarcity?

Good evening folks. The house is silent, I am alone and it is only 9pm. The holidays are over and I’m back on track to my favourite Saturday night entertainment, writing. Matt has gone to bed early in order to wake at 3am for a conference call. The day has rambled on like a long, slow hiking trail opening up to beautiful little meadows and creeks at unexpected moments. In learning to let go of my great need for control, life is getting better by the day. Matt asked me today what my plan was for the afternoon. I didn’t have much of a plan, only goal was to fold and put away two large baskets of laundry. Mockingly he told me I was ambitious. But honestly I seem to get more done and emit a much more pleasant vibe this way. I won’t deny that the dirty floor (thanks to Genevieve’s eating habits, gardening and our living so close to dirt) doesn’t scratch away at my sanity when I step on another squishy grain of rice after having swept four times in one day. Letting go of my crazy food dictatorship is an emerging freedom for the whole family.

Speaking of food, I am dissecting how in my great love for food I have managed to put such a negative face on it for Jess. Of course it is my distaste for lifeless, environmentally unsound, highly processed food, thus my love for good, local, whole foods. But it is also in my desire to re-create scarcity. I limit everything, only two of these, one of those, one glass of watered down juice a day. It’s rare that I don’t comment, “Jacinta, I think that’s enough.” Why feign scarcity? I want to avoid gluttony in a world where gluttonous societies gorge themselves in a world full of hunger. Of course I don’t shove starving children in her face like people used to do, but I silently rule and prepare with those children in mind. But in strong-arming the limits for so long, I haven’t allowed Jacinta to learn her own limits.

I was brought up believing in the scarcity of everything. It taught me not to waste and to take responsibility for my things. What a question! Shall we bring up our children in the mindset of the lush abundance of the earth or limited resources that are fast disappearing like petroleum or the number of ice cream bars left in the freezer? Obviously there is a balance to be found and I am searching for it. Examples of life’s abundance are strewn about us, it’s hard to miss. Pondering how one tiny tomato seed you spit out can grow a whole vine of tomatoes, that’s pure goodness. (Although I must say it’s not that simple, it’s very hard to manage one tomato vine and beat the bugs and birds to the fruit). If we ponder only the surface here, everything is rosy and abundant. I suppose for children, that’s all they are prepared to see or understand, the surface. I wanted to bring my children up with the weight of the world in their hands from day one. That sounds rough, I know, but I wanted to make up for my own ignorance and the ignorance of many Americans of the true state of the world and the ripple effect our overconsumption habits play out on the world stage. It’s a strange set of hopes I am mixing: to live locally, pour my love and energy into one place, making the smallest footprint on the earth that I possibly can, keeping the sadness and suffering of the rest of the world in mind, yet doing nothing directly about it. With that said, I am much happier calming down about food and allowing the occasional preservative and sugary treat into Jacinta’s diet. In fact, releasing control feels really good. The air is much lighter in our house. I’ve decided that my girls needn’t carry the world on their shoulders just yet, I’ll give them time 

For the time being, we’re celebrating the goodness of the bees our friends Craig and Anissa depend upon for honey. Friday we went for a day of honey harvesting. Without the scary part of collecting the hives, we came after the boxes were already safely collected and inside the house. After a feast (meat balls and spaghetti sauce prepared by Matt!), Craig went about scraping the waxy comb off each frame with a machete-like knife. The kids ran in and out the room from playing to come and lick the honey off of the comb. The babies crawled around happily in awe of the big kids, hoping for a tiny lick of honey (a forbidden baby treat). Anissa and her mum prepared the buckets and got the kids organized. After the wax was removed from each frame they were placed in the honey extractor which looks like a huge metal pot with a hand crank on top and a tap at the bottom. Matt and Craig took turns stabilizing the extractor and turning the crank to spin the frames around so fast the honey fell to the bottom of the extractor. Then they opened the tap and strained the honey straight into buckets to be consumed. Mostly I just played with Genevieve and watched in awe but I did try out cutting off the wax. Being right in the middle of the bees handy work (without the bees), the smell was heavenly. I understand the term “robbing” the hive now, seriously taking away all of their hard work. It doesn’t change my enjoyment of honey, but I am surely more appreciative now. It was another lovely day spent with friends, watching our children bounce around with their peers, and diving into the awesome world of beekeeping. Perhaps someday we’ll build some boxes and start a hive. For now, we have enough going on.

I must mention that the laundry soap I made last week works! It was actually very simple: water, soap shavings, vinegar, tea tree oil and sodium carbonate. It made a large quantity which will last awhile. I love learning how to make things that seem so impossible to recreate, who ever thought you could make laundry soap? I’m sure people fifty years ago knew this, but somehow that information was not passed on. I’m sure I wouldn’t have listened anyway, could that be the reason? It’s also probably that people look for ways to simplify tasks, not add more work. I do realize that in my efforts to do things myself, I willingly add more labour to my plate. Thus I should never complain for lack of time. It’s just that I find joy in kneading dough, in learning chemistry through soap making, in toying with seeds and dirt, perhaps more joy in these things than having time to relax.

Of course we all like to relax, but I have to be in a certain mood. Friday night I went out to Thai food with all of the playgroup moms, I was surely in the mood for that! Matt put the girls to bed and I drove away towards the ocean feeling the freedom of a seagull. Genevieve made Matt’s job a little hard, but I didn’t hear about this until after 11pm when I returned. Matt’s pretty good at relaxing, he can sit without being productive if in good conversation or watching a good movie. He likes to relax with the newspaper or playing chess on the computer. I often cook or do the dishes when my friends are here. I might fold clothes or knit if I watch a movie. I guess it says something for Matt’s attention. Thich Nat Hanh (a Vietnamese Buddhist Monk) says “Cut Carrots,” meaning if you are going to do something, do it with all your heart and mind, concentrate. When Matt does dishes, digs pathways, works on his website, he is like a machine. When he relaxes, he really does let go of productivity. It could be that my tendency to do a few things at once and take a long while to finish a task is my nature, or that I’m the one the children most often call upon to fulfil their needs. It’s been relaxing in the evenings to catch up with Matt on all of the day’s news from his book and readings. We’ve been “wine tasting” different red wines. We buy two bottles of say, merlot, and compare them. It’s pretty funny, non-connaisseurs who will probably never spend more than 10$ a bottle trying to educate ourselves on the different varieties. It’s especially funny that our original inspiration to buy two bottles at once was the gift of four wine corks for Christmas, as if we have to use them. It still takes us a week to finish the two bottles. Good Macksville entertainment I suppose.

Matt is the shopper in the family. I find a day in the big stores in Coffs Harbour to be a day in hell, whereas Matt sees it as a good chance to get pricey items for less, a chance to be alone, and sometimes a chance to eat junk food. We need to buy things besides food, but I don’t have to do it! It’s a good system really. Our camera broke just a few days before its warrantee was up, so Matt drove out quickly to return it. Just this week, it was replaced by a whole new camera! In the same successful shopping excursion Matt rediscovered an awesome resale shop called Eco House and bought a bunch of canning jars and some other treasures. I suppose I better get canning. Cucumbers would be the only abundant vegetable right now. Pickles are on the agenda. Speaking of food storage, Matt went back to work on the cellar this week, (the cellar which is now covered up by the veranda). He covered up the “big hole” with a tin roof and began working on diverting the runoff water elsewhere. He also dug out a nice path and laid brick up to our front door in extreme heat. Now that the spa is in use again, we all feel justified working through the heat with a cool reward in sight. Keith worked dutifully on this spa these past few weeks, and it has paid off. The girls and I have enjoyed playing around in the water also, even though we haven’t toiled in the hot sun as much beforehand.

The girls and I spend the warm days working and playing inside and hanging out in the shade near their swing set. One silly thing we did this week was to make “baby bickies” with Genevieve. Yes, I mean letting her stick her hands in the dough and help, licking her hands and arms all throughout. We all had a great time. The next day I made bread and by the last few minutes of kneading she whined so much that I let her help. Jacinta isn’t interested in bread kneading these days, good for Evie I guess. She’s much more interested in drawing with her new markers (a messy Christmas present I wish hadn’t happened). She still loves arts and crafts, it might be her best bet for enjoying alone time. But even more, she loves her sister. One morning she woke and said, “Do you know who loves Evie the most?” I asked her who did and she replied, “ME!” They have been playing so well together this week, often giggling uncontrollably and rough housing. Jacinta is learning that rough play is alright if both parties are content and if it’s relatively safe. She used to call out to me while playing with her friends, “Mommy, they’re playing rough games!” Rather than being a whiner, I’ve decided to teach her to toughen up. She’d better because Genevieve is tough and getting ready to take on her big sister.

Sweet Evie is now walking, it’s hard to believe. They say the second one learns quicker as they have a little person inspiring them to get up. It’s just a miracle, just as beautiful as seeing a first child take her first steps. The pride, the joy, the concentration, the motivation, the instinctive will, it’s all amazing. She’ll stand there and stick her belly out testing out her balance, and sometimes fall over backwards. Other times she’ll stop after she takes a few steps and just celebrate with her hands over head, bobbing together up and down with the truest smile.

To add to the celebration, Jacinta has begun life outside of our little world. We left her at a table painting all alone last Monday, in the care of people we trusted but didn’t really know. A few tears dropped out of my eyes, not in sadness, but just wrenched out of me by the significance of the moment. While she soaked up this new world through arts and crafts, play dough, the playground, eating meals with other children, Matt, Genevieve and I lived life at home as usual. It was quieter, less frenetic, and nice for just one day a week. Any more, I would miss knowing what she was doing every moment of the day, seeing her shine and wither in the wind. But on this day I did get some work done on the chick pen. It’s a stretch getting anything done outside with Evie, as she wants to hold onto my legs and if she doesn’t, I have to watch her like a hawk for dangerous creatures like mosquitoes and snakes! Back to pre-school, Jacinta was in good hands, enjoyed herself and almost made it to pick up time without crying for mom. I was actually shocked that she had cried, but touched of course.

We had another loss this week in the animal world, the peacock. Much to our dismay, something got him. Jacinta again, did not cry but over the next few days came up with theories on the cause of death. Right after we found out, she said, “maybe he died from poisonous berries.” Out of nowhere a few days later she said guiltily, “Mommy, I left some berries for the peacock, maybe they were bad.” Poor girl, her wandering mind leading her to think she killed him! Then she blamed Matt, “maybe Daddy did it when he chased him the other day.” Then she decided it must have been hunters. My efforts to explain that it was probably a dog or a fox only made her think harder to contradict me and be right. He fanned his tail so much for us, perhaps as a thank you to Keith for the seed. We do miss him enchanting our veranda. One thing we agree upon is that “at least he had a good life!”

One slightly troubling joy is that my good friend Khady Gueye gave birth to her second little boy in Paris, France. How could Aboubacar Gueye’s arrival on earth be anything but joy? Khady is a friend of mine from Senegal whose physical body lives in France, but whose heart and soul resides in Senegal. She lives in France to make enough money to send back to her family to pay for her aging parents’ medical bills. Last year she lost a sister my age to cancer. Khady was stuck in France working to pay her for sister’s treatments, making it back to Senegal only in time for the funeral. Her husband can not get a visa to come out for the birth or a visit, because he is a young, male, African and a potential opportunist. So Khady gave birth alone, with no family anywhere and had a hard birth. Little Lamine is just four years old. So now Khady has two little boys to be her family in a place that sees her as a burden but pays her to labour, in a place for which she feels no love or connection. So I guess I bring this out to you all and just ask for prayers/good energy for Khady, Lamine and little Aboubacar Gueye. They represent an unfortunately large percent of the world, economical refugees in uncomfortable situations.

Oh, to end in such sadness, I apologize. It is late and this is where my mind has travelled. Geographically, I live in such a peaceful place. Life is not fair. I suppose we can only live with true peace in this injustice thinking that we’re doing our best not to contribute to the injustice. Or we just go on living in this pseudo peace in our little towns and try not to think about hell on earth too much. I don’t often allow my mind to wander to the incredible weight of the world on my shoulders these days, but it sneaks out sometimes. My friend Sara says that we should never act out of guilt, but only out of a truly positive desire to do something. There is no doubt that I want to do something because I yearn for a world where my good Senegalese friend can live in a place she loves, as I do. The question is WHAT CAN WE DO?

For lack of any idea, I’ll close my eyes and go to sleep and dream of such a world.
Peace,
Shana

One more sleep

Good evening y’all. The cicadas would like to say hello to you also, maybe…by chance do you know why they actually call out so much? Are they really mating all the time? Or must they make noise in order to breathe? They aren’t that bad, it’s just the absence of my girls’ voices that gives them centerstage. The spiders seem to enjoy eating cicadas, it takes them quite a while to devour a single cicada. Matt watches them at night outside our kitchen windows, their webs are spectacular as are their rapid hunting skills. The last few days it has been pouring down rain so hard that you can’t even talk on the phone, but today was lovely and dry. We had a chance to play outside without having to strip down, bath and put on more clothes each time we came inside. There are many towns which are flooded in, but we are usually alright here on Coronation Road. It’s a pity for all of the tourists up here on holiday, waiting for good beach weather. Life could be much worse, couldn’t it?

Well, Jacinta has been riding on cloud nine for a few days in anticipation of her first day of pre-school. Every morning she wakes up the first word spoken is how many “sleeps” are left until she begins. Three more sleeps Daddy! Two more sleeps! Today we heard all day, “One more sleep!” We might normally say how many days are left, but Jacinta doesn’t yet have the full concept of what a “day” actually is. Aussies sometimes say, “I’m going to have a sleep,” or “have a swim” or “have a go (try this out).” Dear Jacinta is having a sleep, her last sleep before the big day. She chuckled as we wrote her name on her water bottle, her clothes, her backpack and even her pillow. Giddy with joy, as we were reading we stories, she said, “I’m gonna say “yay” in my sleep all night.” I’m so excited and hopeful for her that it will be as unbelievably exciting as she anticipates.

What will I do for six hours with only one child again? It’s only one day a week so I’ve tried not to plan too much, but just enjoy the silence and some time with Genevieve. I’ll probably tarry on as usual making bread, gardening, cleaning, listening to music, but just a little more meditatively. I won’t need to feign interest every other minute at a trick on the couch or weigh up exactly how much attention I am paying to each girl so neither suffers. Jacinta actually spends more time making sure I don’t look away even for one second than she spends doing her trick. She keeps her head awkwardly cocked throughout the whole gymnastics stunt. You’d think I never paid her any attention. Her jealousy isn’t too grand at the moment. It could be more of a developmental stage, this need to be watched and praised every moment of the day. She is more interested in Genevieve every day. She holds her hands now and helps her walk, celebrating the number of steps her little sister takes. Jacinta proudly retold the story that she held Evie in the wagon on the way down to the garden this evening. Oh this quaint little world I live in. To think I used to spend my days thinking I could save the world, I can’t even fully satisfy two girls. Growing older seems to be a good way to learn humility. I have a good laugh now thinking of how older, wiser folk must have perceived me a few years ago, ablaze with haughty life philosophies that everyone needed to believe. Perhaps given too many days with room for meditation I might think I can save the world again (:

Yesterday from the other room I heard Jacinta yell at the top of her lungs, “But I NEED the world!” The world to her is a large inflatable ball, a globe to throw around. She can find Australia and always asks us to show her America, sometimes France or Senegal. The other day we were reading a book about food around the world. Trying to simplify, I told her that Mexico was in America. She curiously asked, “Is that in North or South America?” It blew me away, she has no concept of North or South but a child’s ear for imitation and repetition. When I tell her little things about my travels or say a word that is obviously not English, she asks, “Was that in France or Senegal?” It makes me so happy to hear her make up stories and set them in Africa or in America. I may not be able to hold the whole world and all of the oppressed in my consciousness as I used to try, but I try to bring the world into my little girls’ imaginations.

Evie’s imagination might wander to queries on where her favourite objects are hiding. The straw wreath is high on the list right now. When spotted, she races to it and instantly puts it over her head. It slips down around her neck and she pushes her right arm through the hoop as if she is wearing a purse. Once she is appropriately adorned she’s off again to find a toy. She does the same thing with the large tambourine. Today Genevieve crawled under the couch to get a rubber starfish bath toy and went so far back that Jacinta had to guide her out. She knows what she wants and she WILL get it. Adult legs are among her favourite things. Sometimes she hangs on and just walks, using us as a walker. Sometimes she’ll just cling on and bounce with this awesome grin on her face. If we don’t pick her up (usually she wants to get up to see someone else or touch something up high), she’ll start to climb us. She wants to climb everything now. She can take three or four steps and is very firm on her feet now. She doesn’t say much, Jacinta says it all. But she does now say Da Da Da and Ma Ma Ma. Jacinta asked Matt why Evie only says our names. She had a good laugh coming up with a simpler name for Evie to call her. We’ll see how that goes.

The rain this week kept us inside a bit, but we still made it out to town, to garden, to visit some friends and go to the beach. Genevieve was just at the end of her mild little case of conjunctivitis so we waited for the rain to stop and headed for the salt water. Salt water is good for so many things, what a lucky place we live in being so close to this big purification pool, the ocean. It’s quite a fun form of medicine too! I feel so good when I can treat the girls’ at home without doctors and pharmacies, although I know there will be things that are out of my league down the track. I must give all the credit to a book, the best book for treating simple illnesses at home. My friend Kirsten recommended this book to me back when Jacinta had colic. It is called Smart Medicine for a Healthier Child: a Practical A-to-Z Reference to Natural and Conventional Treatments for Infants and Children. It is written by Janet Zand and a few others. We mistakenly bought the adult version first, Smart Medicine for Healthier Living by the same author, but really enjoy it also. Not only does it explain the reason for each illness, but lays out all options to help heal you using nutritional supplements, herbs, homeopathy, acupressure, diet and conventional medicine. I usually stick with diet and herbs, but I like seeing all of my options. Eyebright tea, breast milk, carrots, squash, cantaloupe (vitamin A), oranges and rosehip tea (vitamin C), washing hands and time got Genevieve through her first case of pink eye. Wonders never cease, none of us caught conjunctivitis in the process!

Matt took it easy on his knee and spent a lot of his time working, in front of a cricket test on television. Really, you don’t need to dedicate too much energy to cricket as it lasts for eight hours a day and goes for five days. He had his computer and his headphones out there and worked on his book, Originally Blessed. He is still contacting artists, theologians of all faiths, poets, cosmologists, musicians, and so forth to attract a wider audience. Every other day he is bubbling with joy in celebration of one more awesome person who has agreed to participate. He has already received a few pieces and is just beginning the editing work. He continues to read other books in preparation for telephone interviews, all the while Genevieve is crawling in and out of the room, tugging at his knees and Jacinta is popping in to monkey around on the couch and say, “Look at Me!”

We all need a bit of recognition. We need someone to be impressed with our work. Although I’m pretty excited to have learned how to make a shelter out of sheet metal this week, I need someone else to be impressed too. Maybe the chickens will suffice. There’s so much work I would like to do on the chicken pen, I honestly don’t know how to go about it. Cutting down trees, tearing apart metal, lashing it back together, roofing a chicken run, it’s all very complicated. Gathering the tools might be the hardest part. Thus, I must ask for help each and every time I want to work on the chicken pen. This is hard for me to do. Keith kindly worked with me one morning and showed me basically how to sew the sheet metal together with wire. Hopefully I’ll find time to get out there and do some more before I forget. I finally found the time to make laundry soap. It was easy enough. I’ll tell you next week if it actually cleans the clothes!

This morning Matt took the girls on a walk into town, to celebrate the sunshine, exercise his knee and give me some time on my own. Two hours in the garden on my own is a dream. Now that I’ve learned not to make goals in these rare moments, I potter around and enjoy wandering from garden to garden doing little things. Today I found aphids on the citrus trees and had the time to spray them with soapy, oily water and rub them away. I was delighted to see the ladybugs were already at work eating the aphids. I found some wire fencing and a few stakes and made a little bean climbing fence. I had time to dig it in next to the seven little bean plants in search of something to climb. The other day I picked up a massive stack of newspapers to use as weed killer/mulch so I laid half of them down over weeds and created a few paths through the jungle. I glanced at bunches of cucumbers, pretending not to see them, so I didn’t have to pick them and feel bad that no one will eat them because we have too many. I picked some more green and purple beans, a few red cherry tomatoes (wishing there were more), a bunch of green tomatoes (knowing birds would get them if they turned red on the vine), some corn, a few strawberries and a very large pumpkin. I tied up a few tomato and cucumber vines and even planted some spinach and lettuce. Lastly, I found that the terrace we planted last week with kidney beans was alive with 42 new kidney bean plants after all of the rain! What a lucky morning.

Even luckier, I spoke to my sister this week about her plans to visit Australia! She hasn’t bought the tickets yet, but we’re discussing dates and lodging. This means that after over two years of living abroad, my sister and her family will be the first of my family to visit. I knew in moving so far away that it was going to be hard for everyone to come and find me, financially and just the difficulty of travelling so far. I had to come here for many reasons and they understand, but it doesn’t make the travel any easier. That said, Lecia, Ben, Kai and their new little baby will probably come out this June. This made my week.

To finish off the week, we were somehow inspired to clean the windows after a year of living here with massive dirty windows. It was good family fun being outside on the veranda, Jacinta with her own squirty bottle of soapy water, Genevieve hunting down all of the forbidden cleaning tools, and Matt and I excitedly scrubbing. I’ll admit, Matt has the touch, he’s a better window cleaner than I. He had to redo most of mine. How ‘bout I blame the kids? In any case, we can now see really well out of the windows. It’s shocking we could go for so long with dirty windows, but I suppose you can get used to anything after a while. It’s a whole new world out there.

Tomorrow we’ll wake up and there will be no more sleeps left, preschool will begin, another new world. We’ll be able to see out the windows, but there may be an angry spider shaking his finger at us for ruining all of his hard labour. Genevieve might get to play with the “world” all by herself. Soon my sister will come and visit our little part of the world. Life’s pretty good here. I hope your part of the world is just as peaceful as ours.

Peace,
Shana

The peacock chase

Good evening y’all. I hope you’re enjoying the sounds of winter as much as I am enjoying the sounds of summer, well, most of them. The sprinkler is clicking away down in the garden, the frogs are singing and the pressure cooker is bubbling away finishing off the beans I am canning. The cicadas are actually so loud they hurt my ears, I sometimes feed them to the chickens as revenge. The sound of mosquitoes buzzing in my ears is something I would happily sacrifice, if there were a way. I can imagine winter is much quieter. With my earache and sore throat, I might prefer being stuck in side with the windows closed next to a fire crackling. Strangely enough, I find that living on the other side of the world, I still get sick when my sister in Wisconsin is sick. That’s true sisterly love, don’t you think?

Some days I wonder what my parents did to help my sister and I get along so well. We probably fought for center stage as children as well, perhaps I forgot that part of growing up on purpose. Jacinta and Genevieve enjoy each other’s company, but Jacinta really feels the need to show up Evie’s new tricks, as if we don’t notice her enough. It’s understandable, as Genevieve is learning a lot of new “tricks” right now. She can now wave goodbye, clap, click, and is getting her sixth tooth! We marvel at her and blow raspberries on her cute belly. I think Jacinta senses our joy in watching Evie. Although she’ll tell you she doesn’t want her belly kissed like Evie does, she yearns for the soft tone, the awe. So she shows us her tricks on the couch, over and over, insisting that we watch. She then notices that we umm and ahh a bit less excitedly, and feels as if Genevieve has won. She doesn’t seem to realize that we’re marvelling at her interest and efforts in reading and drawing letters, the way she retells stories in books to herself when she thinks no one is listening, and the way she plays hide and seek with her friends. Maybe she’ll get it some day.

Over the past few weeks Jacinta has turned over a few new leaves. She has ripped off my mask as the lovely mummy she lives to please. I am a rule enforcer, one she loves when I play games and needs when she gets hurt but one she needs to contradict and escape when I’m doing necessary housework. She makes grand decisions just for the sake of having an opinion like, “I don’t like green.” She won’t draw with green or wear it. She was given a new green umbrella and refuses to hold it. She takes Genevieve’s yellow umbrella out on the swing set though and keeps the sun off her on the see saw!!!??? She said that green went on vacation and is never coming back. This is strange. If she asks for comment on her art work, I always say the wrong thing. If I marvel at her tricks, she corrects even my praise. After she grows tired of my company, she’ll ask with frustration, “Where’s Daddy? Where’s Pop?” Today she said to me very seriously, “OK, I’ve had some time with you. Now I’m going to Daddy.” Thanks for doing me the honor dear child.

On the food front, things have changed drastically. Since we all eat so differently in this house, it’s hard to make Jacinta eat what I think is best. She realized that there were options for everyone else. Although she is only three years old, I am giving her options. I held on so hard to the Steiner philosophy that giving very young children too many options just burdens them with unnecessary worry. It turned out that that hard line gave me unnecessary worry, thinking that I was failing because I couldn’t conquer my daughter’s will. She now chooses her clothes and has a few more choices in eating. She had ham bits in the Chinese food over Christmas and liked them. So I offered her ham on the pizza I made the other night. She excitedly accepted, exclaiming, “Oh Yes! I’ll pick the ham bits off and eat them!” (We used to pick them off and put them aside, not because eating ham was evil but merely because we didn’t eat pig.) One thing I am proud of is that in our vegetarianism she never learned judgement, just that we all eat different things. Now she can choose to eat some meat with no guilt. I was actually very of proud of myself for even offering the ham, it wasn’t even organic or nitrate-free. I have stopped trying to make her eat cooked veggies, but give her a pittance of raw veggies on her plate. I’m trying to believe her more when she says she’s hungry, but it is so hard because she says it so often and her belly is so round!

Jacinta’s less interested in cooking, but will jump in if it looks like she might get something out of it. Cooking is becoming more of an activity that prevents me from playing with her than an exciting thing we can do together. The other night I made a meat spaghetti sauce and I couldn’t help myself. I grated up a few veggies from the garden and put them in the sauce. She removed every bit of grated carrot and zucchini, leaving them on the side and finishing the rest of her plate. At the end she gave me a snotty look and said, “I eat everything when you give me things I like.” I didn’t reply. In the past few weeks Jacinta has stopped eating fish, avocado, carrot, egg yolk, quiche, banana, and a bunch of other good foods she claimed to love. Cooking used to be such a joyful thing. I enjoy cooking for people who enjoy and appreciate my food, but not this. Rather than showing my unbelievable frustration, I try to ask kindly what the reason is that no longer likes each food. She doesn’t know. But for a few days there she was telling me that she needed a “lolly,” (candy) because she was really hungry and couldn’t wait for anything else. Who is this child? A daughter that I love who is growing up and asserting herself. Oh my. So what’s the answer? I have no idea, but I’m trying to enjoy putting simple, starchy food on the table for Jacinta and hoping that this won’t last too long. I cook quick and lovely zucchini dishes for Genevieve and myself to cheer me up and revive my palette. Jacinta got a Candy Land game for Christmas. I play this with her and remember the joy of candy canes and gumdrops from childhood, and try to enter her world. This is good fun therapy for me, certainly it is I who needs the help, not my child. She learned to say “sorry,” after a year of agony. She says it willingly now. Stubborn souls do eventually learn, Jacinta and I can live to tell.

I am a second child, lucky me. I guess that means my parents had worked out some of the kinks by the time I came along. Perhaps that’s the price we pay for never having had them all to ourselves. Genevieve may not notice how we’ve improved, but maybe she’ll contemplate it when she’s 30. For the time being, she is very busy doing other things without much time for contemplation. Although she does think, I have seen her. A few nights ago, she was sitting on the floor happily playing with a cow. She looked in the bathroom, saw something and power crawled straight in to get the rubber frog. Seconds later she crawled straight to the couch with the frog in her mouth to get a shiny red container. She put that in her hand and crawled back to the original spot on the floor. She then proceeded to drop the frog into the container and pour him out over and over. This was the first time she placed an object into something, rather than taking things out of containers. Genevieve has also learned that we chase her if she goes out our door into Pop and Grandma’s lounge room. She really likes to be chased so now when she crosses the threshold she turns around with a coy little smile. She waits to be pursued, then picks up the pace and power crawls. Often she has one thing in each hand and another in her mouth, never empty-handed this girl. Evie has grown tall enough to reach the desk in her bedroom, a wonderland full of paper, scissors, glue, beads, etc. Once she makes it there, she grabs as much as her little hands can hold and turns around to see what you’re going to do about it. Other than being a chance to marvel in awe at creation, parenting also seems to be one big test. It’s the one of the world’s most direct way of testing us, forcing us to act, and continually asking, “what are you going to do about it?” Worse than getting an F for failure, on this test you get to live with the effects of your decisions forever through their behavior. On the other hand, you get to celebrate the good decisions and your children’s innate beauty and gifts knowing that you had nothing to do with a lot of their personality. Right now, it’s hard not to blame myself for Jacinta’s stubbornness regarding food and that’s okay. It’ll make us both grow.

Speaking of growth, the garden is crazy. The weeds are bountiful, as are the beans and cucumbers. I actually put a box of them out on the road to give away, not many takers though. Inspired by my step-mom I decided not to weed but just throw newspapers on top of them all. The decision was made, no action yet though. I’ll need a massive quantity of newspapers now. We did get down to the garden this week, mostly to play though. We played basketball with a beach ball, ate lots of cucumbers and a few strawberries, told stories and played in the sprinkler. One evening I went down and spent a luscious hour alone digging out the last potatoes, weeding and preparing a terrace for its next planting, kidney beans. The next day after Evie fell asleep in the pram, I bought compost and mulch from Jacinta’s “shop,” worked it into the soil and we then planted the beans. I’ve decided beans might be a better goal to grow than a bunch of vegetables that no one likes. The next day Jacinta and I took down the new clippers and her little scissors and gave the terrace garden a hair cut. We trimmed the mint and hung it up to dry. She happily harvested purple beans and snipped random herbs. Another day I got the inspiration to work on the chicken pen so we had morning tea with the chicks while I patched up holes in the chicken wire for a fox/snake/dog proof roost. We spent an hour in there, Jess and I with pliers and fruit. Evie was on the ground exploring, but amazingly enough, not grabbing at the chicks.

In addition to the gardening we had a very social week, having friends come to us or going to them almost every day. These are holidays. I’m actually amazed we got anything done this week. The house suffered though. By today I lost it and had to clean up the piles accumulated in every corner. I even canned six jars of purple beans and we went to the beach. One day some friends came for morning tea, Jacinta missed her friends after being away in Canberra and needed them to help her break in her swing set. While the children were having a great time outside, the adults and babies were enjoying the peace inside. Then came the peacock that Lily feared, so she wouldn’t play outside. I had a great idea, “Matt, will you go chase away the peacock so Lily will play outside (and let us have a child-free conversation)?” So off he went, to slip half way down the hill injuring his right knee on the way down. Laughing at himself, he hobbled up to find Jacinta crying because she wanted the peacock to stay. Matt ended up healing his poor knee, wincing in pain for the next few days with comfrey leaves wrapped round to speed the healing. It has been five days and he’s just now getting the strength in his knee to do physical labor again. Bloody peacock (bloody in the British sense, we didn’t hurt it, really. It’s too pretty!). Matt actually loves the peacock, even did a bit of research on them this week.

With a messed up knee Matt accomplished a lot inside: website work, a new scanner for his Too Many Photos business, reading, watching cricket, and playing with the girls. Watching cricket one can do while working as it doesn’t take much attention to follow. It’s a wonder: Genevieve can crawl and play for long periods without taking any notice of me, but when Matt, Keith or Mary walk in the room, she chases them down and crawls up their legs. This little display of affection is always a nice break from computer work for Matt when he comes out for coffee, as is Jacinta’s plea to “Please read me a story.” She would listen to tens of stories a day if we would read them to her. Matt is racing to finish a 400 page book before he interviews the author, Riane Eisler for his book in a few weeks. Unfortunately Riane’s book Sacred Pleasure probably wouldn’t entertain Jacinta and Genevieve would tear it to pieces. Besides that, Matt and Keith worked on the spa one last time, filled it up, discovered another leak and decided to get rid of the spa. But until it loses all of its water, it is our pool. The days have been hot so Matt has been playing with Jess and cooling off in it. Genevieve joined in once, but now she has pink eye. She doesn’t seem unhappy, but it’s not a way to start the New Year.

Last night we rung in the New Year at our friends’ house and stayed up past midnight for the first time in years. This is one holiday that I knew in winter and really love in the summer. The children didn’t really know or care about the whole concept, but played and ate their hearts out. Chicken chasing, hide and seek, sparklers, trampoline wrestling and jumping, exploring the yard with flashlights, even jumping on the trampoline with flashlights in the dark (you’d think the adults had drank too much but we hadn’t, just thought it would somehow be okay and it was)! They ended the evening at about 10:30 on mattresses watching a movie. Henry and Genevieve crawled around, played with toys, munched, sat on laps, watched the big kids, finally crashing by 8pm. Henry likes pulling Evie’s hair and perhaps enjoys her reaction: the saddest weepy little cry every time he does it. As for the adults, we ate, drank, played with the kids, walked in the garden, but mostly just sat and enjoyed adult conversation, marvelling at the children’s newfound ability to play contentedly on their own. Right at midnight, it started raining, a good way to mark the New Year.

So, here we are in 2008, wow. What will this New Year bring? What will we bring to this New Year? I haven’t sat down and thought of any resolutions, but writing this journal always brings me to new understandings by the end. I felt that turning thirty somehow granted me some more humility and human understanding. I can only hope that this journey continues and that I can open myself up to more wisdom from my children, friends, family and Mother earth. I hope you are enjoying the first few hours of 2008 and that you find some time to dream and chase your dreams in the New Year.
Happy New Year!

Peace,
Shana

P.S. Excuse the increasing length of this weekly letter, it has become a spiritual practice, the only time in the week I take to meditate on life. I will not be hurt if you’d like me to take you off my mailing list. Four pages is a lot to read, yes. I have to compete for airspace with my daughter by day, so by night, I have a lot to say 