Being different, being true

I have spent the last hour reading the blog of a teenage unschooler in Canada, and it's been really great in terms of reconfirming that it really is possible to raise a thoughtful, intelligent, creative and passionate person outside of the school system. Of course my deep inner belief is that it is easier to do this outside the school system, but sometimes it's hard to stay sitting close to your inner truths when they are so rarely shared by those around you. Sometimes the loneliness of seeing the world so differently to those around you can really get to you, and you can start to doubt yourself.

And being a mum, and loving your daughter beyond the ends of the universe, you want to do what's best, that old cliche. There's so much at stake. My child's whole life, her whole future.

And the reactions you get when you talk about homeschooling, or unschooling, can act like waves on a rock, you can feel yourself slowly eroding sometimes, being worn down. People just hold the idea of school so closely, they don't even realise they are holding something, you know? Most people have never, ever, for a second, thought about school as a human construct. They act as though it is as natural for human children to go to school as it is for a butterfly to emerge from a cocoon. But it's not. We invented it. It is possible to not go. This doesn't even occur to people!

So what is my problem with schooling? Many kids love school. I personally had a mixed bag of experiences at school. In many ways I was enriched and exposed to things I never would have been at home. Socially, I had my best and worst experiences at school. Academically I excelled, and gained a lot of pride from being top of the class.

OK, so my issues with school come from a few angles. Firstly, there is the system of heirarchy which forces students to submit to the higher will of the teachers and principals, and basically the way I see it, is in place to train them to be good little worker bees and fit nicely into the capitalist society we live in. After all, if we weren't scared of the principal we wouldn't be scared of the boss, and we might not be as happy to accept our humble place in a world that is out of our control.

Not only are they trained to accept the rule of authority, preferably without question, but they are taken away from themselves, which I suppose is a necessary step in creating an obedient person. Kids are coerced into doing things they don't want to do, at times when they don't want to do them. Yes of course we all have to do things that we wouldn't choose, but I think life throws these things at you anyway, there are plenty of things that we must begrudgingly accept, there is no need to institutionalise it and immerse oneself in a five-day-a-week grind of it. There is little respect for the child/teen and their passions and interests and their in-the-moment feelings. See, to me, that's not on. It's not the way I want to live my life, and therefore it's not the way I want my child to live hers. I want her to feel respected. To feel that if something is important to her, then it is actually important. To feel that if she has a strong feeling about something, that she can truly honour it, and indeed that it is important that she honour it. It has taken me years to learn to listen to my inner voice and then even longer to give myself permission to honour what I hear. I want Indigo to be able to grow up doing these things, because I believe, really believe, that doing these things leads you to happiness and fulfillment.

Also, I don't want her to have to effectively have a full time job. Five days a week, six hours a day, plus homework. It actually seems insane to me. Really nuts. These are children! They should be out playing, climbing trees, digging holes, reading under doonas, staring into space in dreamy wonder, getting obsessed with things and then abandoning them, whatever! And not to mention, spending time with the people they love, and who love them!! It seems crazy to me that the accepted model of how a normal family functions in our society is for the children to be in school five days a week, the parents to be at work five days a week, then for the whole family to quickly rush in dinner, bath, a bit of play perhaps and then bed, all into a few hours at the end of the day when everyone is tired and bleh. Then get two days off to do all the stuff that needs doing. I wholeheartedly reject this model for my life. Completely and utterly. I don't know who decided this was a good way to live, but it doesn't suit me. I like to take my time with things, linger in nice places, and leave space and time for creativity and connection. To allow for last minute decisions to do this or go there. I like to leave room and time and energy to spend growing intimate relationships, and gardens, and ideas. I worked full time for seven months many years ago and hated six and a half of them. I worked part time ever since, and made a conscious choice to do with less money to live the life I wanted.

Then there is the social side of things. About 98% of people, upon first being told of our plans to homeschool, mention socialisation. "But how will she make friends?" Well, my response to this is twofold. Firstly, I make friends and I'm not in school. There are ways to make friends and develop networks outside of school. There are other activities she could engage in, sports, art clubs, homeschooling groups (of which there are many, and who go on camps and have regular excursions etc), via the internet, and many more. With a bit of effort this should not be a problem at all. And secondly, to be honest, the peer influence and pressure that most kids get from school is less than desirable. There is so much bitchyness, so much pressure to fit in and be cool. So much cruelty. In some ways it's very much like a small town mentality. Everyone knows each other, and gossips, and there is a way of being, a social flavour which you must adhere to or be ostracised. Again, the social side of schools seems really unnatural to me. Hundreds of kids all squashed together and kept within the confines of a fence. Kept in line by a few adults with too much power over them. Kinda like a prison.

Also, I've lost count of the number of parents I've spoken to who seem a little sad, a little melancholy, about the way they kinda lost their little ones when school started. So many external influences, so much time away from home. They started doing things and speaking in ways that were really foreign. And to me, five is just way too young for that to start to happen.

Then there is the system of school grading, where my child would be judged according to someone else's schedule, someone elses idea of what is good, what is important, what is necessary or useful. I want Indigo to be her own judge. To really deep down know that her own beliefs about herself are ultimately more important than any assessment she may receive externally. Yeah I got great marks in school, and it made me feel great everytime I saw an A, or A+, or 100%, whatever. Especially that 100%. Only attainable in the maths and sciences of course (and perhaps the reason I felt so comfortable with those subjects). It was as though each time I saw 100% written in red on my work, that little handwritten number assured me I was OK. That all was well. As though it were a reflection of my worth as a person. 98% was OK, but not perfect. And then later in university, when things went not only pear shaped (although I like the shape of pears), I would say banana shaped, and my marks went out the window, so did my self esteem, and now, over a decade later, I am still putting the pieces of myself together again. And yes it is not impossible for a child to have a whole, healthy view of themselves and still go to school. I just think school makes it so much harder. In so many ways.

Ultimately, if Indigo wants to study at school full time, and then later on work full time, that's completely up to her. But while she is young, while I am her parent and entrusted with creating the pond she swims in, that shapes her, it is important, it is imperative, for me to honour my own feelings and give her the life I think is best. It's important I be true to myself as a parent. I'll always respect and honour her, and who knows where our path will lead, but from here, for now, I think we'll be staying away from schools.

PAINTING!

So these last few weeks have been awesome in terms of my creativity. For so many years, since my early twenties really (so about ten years) I have felt my creative self sit inside me curled into a little ball, rocking itself gently as it hid from the world. Why I don't know. Before that, I was so into my art, and my creative side was a huge part of how I defined myself. It was an intrinsic part of my identity, and one that I cherished. In fact, now that I cast my mind back, it was one of the few parts of me I was really proud of.

Then something happened. Many things happened. My life kinda fell apart, slowly but oh so surely. The house of cards within which I had lived for so long finally collapsed under the pressure of a family divorce, a drug addiction, the death of friendships, and the spectacular demise of my academic career as I sunk deeper and deeper into nowhere. And along with it all, my creative side just crumbled. Many people use their creativity to help them deal with hard times in life, to express themselves and process traumatic events, but I think my low self esteem resulted in me being too afraid to produce anything, in case it wasn't perfect. And a crushing perfectionism is a sure way to kill any creative spark that occasionally would rear its head.

So there has been an ache in my heart for years as I listened to the echoes knocking around in the vast empty hall of my creative self, so big and yet so empty, so full of promise and potential and yet dormant, seemingly lifeless.

Until recently! I had an urge a few weeks ago to bring out my old watercolour paints (half of which had dried up and become hard little tubes of brittle colour) and do something. And unlike the times in the past when I would bring out the paints or the pastels or the chalks or the fabric or the beads, and play for a day, then leave them untouched for weeks until I finally packed them away again, this time I have been doing a little bit each day and somehow, SOMEHOW, the urge to paint and keep going has stayed with me! It has filled me with such a feeling of coming home to myself, such a feeling of wholeness and fullness of being ME. I've been having a ball.

So now that Indi is old enough to potter and play on her own, with the cat's water bowl and the wading pool and all her outdoor toys, under our lovely pergola out the back, I sneak five or ten minutes to paint here and there, and it's great! So here are some of the bits and pieces that have come of it.










And my favourite....

Show us yer map o' Tassie!

Well what an awesome way to spend one's 33'rd birthday! How bloody lucky am I? Yay for cheap flights to Tassie, and yay for Mat who reluctantly agreed that even though we couldn't afford it, I really needed and deserved a holiday after what was, in many ways, a tough year.

I chose Launceston since I like to go to new places and hadn't been there before. What a gorgeous town it is! Set so beautifully in a gorgeous valley, with houses clinging up the steep slopes of the surrounding hills, I think it's the prettiest city I've ever seen. Well, apart from Venice and Florence, but that's some stiff competition! Certainly Australia's prettiest city.

On the first day there we went to Cataract Gorge, a beautiful place five minutes from the city centre, with a lake and a huge pool surrounded by gorgeous cliffs. It was hot, so Indi and I got to swim swim swim, and we had a ball splashing and giggling and buddying around. She's a lovely girl that one, we had lots of fun.

We hired a campervan, which is a great way to travel, since you can stop anywhere and you are home. But the down side was that we needed one that could accommodate a car seat for Indigo, which meant a van that was a bit weird layout-wise, and with not one but two very uncomfortable beds for us to sleep in. I must say, despite having a lovely time, it was heaven to sleep on our big, soft, luxurious bed last night when we got home. I kept waking up and being amazed at how much room we had! This was our home for four days (that's Indi asleep on my lap):


So on my birthday morning we woke up from our first night in the van, stretched out our kinks, and drove to an amazing rainforest gorge. It was GORGEous! No, really, it was. Stunning. It involved an hour's walk, down and then up a steep hill, whilst carrying a sleeping baby who weighs ten kilos. We were thoroughly put to shame by an old couple (I'm talking maybe 70's) who RAN the circuit walk three times while we trudged our one lap. Between them they had about a gram and a half of body fat, and they just exuded cardiovascular health. By the time they passed us the third time I felt like a walking chocolate eclair. Anyway, on the way down to the gorge we saw this amazing old tree.



Indigo woke up at some point, which I was really glad about, coz I really wanted her to experience the beauty we were surrounded by. It felt good to be sharing it with her, and I think she really appreciated it. It really was a magical place.








Then we had lunch at a beautiful winery overlooking the Tamar River. It was a true gourmet meal, and was my birthday present from my family. I finally got to sample some of Tasmania's much raved about food, and it certainly didn't disappoint. We were oohing and aahing our way through the whole thing. And this was the view from our table on the verandah.



We kept driving (we were able to time our drives with Indi's naps most of the time) and camped by a beach that night, and since Indi went to sleep early (she actually fell asleep during a beach walk at sunset, and then stayed asleep for the rest of the night) Mat and I got some real one on one time (both the talking and the not-so-talking kind), which was really great.

Indi did so well during the trip, in terms of driving and being happy in unfamiliar surroundings and just generally being a good sport about being carted off to way too many places per day. She's not a happy car traveller generally, but Mat and I were both so impressed with how she coped nonetheless. Here are some pics of my sweetie:



Over the next two days we drove back to Launceston and saw some sights, got caught in a storm and almost got blown off a bridge (well that's what it FELT like!), got a bit of cabin fever during a wet evening, and had a yummy chinese meal. We got to see a cuttlefish (Mat's highlight of the trip; he has a special connection with the cuttlefish. They are pretty amazing creatures.) Also went strawberry picking, and bought a yummy strawberry wine. And then on the last day we went on the most amazing bushwalk through Hollybank forest, which was really brilliant, another magically beautiful place of lush green wonder, and which had a long path called the Walk of Change that led us to the most amazing river and waterfall, totally secluded and brilliant and lovely. We all drank from the waters in a ceremonial gesture of thanks and connection, a libation to commemorate a great walk, and a great way to end a special holiday.

Thank you Mat for making it possible. I love you.

A Happy Birthday it was. Travelling with my beautiful family. I'm a lucky lass!

I like January

It's always been my favourite month. While December was a real cracker of a month, busy but very enjoyable, January has that slow post-festive feel to it, with strings of days with not much on, some extra luxuriating, and maybe even a trip away somewhere. Also it happens to have my birthday in it, late in the month, which automatically takes it up a notch special-wise. Mat's birthday is four days after mine, and each year we really like to indulge ourselves during the period between Christmas and our birthdays, which is a whole month of indulgence! Hmmm, hang on, if we add that on to the indulgence that happened throughout the whole of last December, and which seems set to repeat itself each year, that makes almost two months of indulgence. No wonder my pants are all tight! But hey, life is short, and two months of indulgence out of twelve seems alright to me. Just might mean I have to go pants shopping more often that's all.

So what am I doing for my birthday this year? Going to Tassie!! I am SO excited, seriously, like bopping in my seat excited. We are going for three nights, and hiring a campervan after flying into Launceston, which I chose simply coz last time we flew into Hobart and I'd like to see somewhere new. So three nights to take it easy and drive as we please and stop where we please, and see the north coast of Tassie, and eat yummy expensive food at fancy wineries and restaurants, woo hoo!! So the trip itself is my birthday present from Mat, and my mum and sisters are putting in to pay for some of the fancy eating I wanna do. People always rave about Tassie's food, and last time I didn't get to sample any of it coz we were doing it on the cheap and we just cooked for ourselves, but this time, I'm not going home without a couple of belly-fulls of awesome Tasmanian fare, washed down with some delicious local wines, thankyouverymuch!

And it will be our first time travelling in a plane with the wee little one. Who knows how it will go?? She has been slowly getting better at travelling in the car, which has been such an ordeal over the past year, to the point where she can now travel up to half an hour with few issues, and more if she falls asleep. Hence why the campervan is so good for us, coz we can travel in fits and spurts and not have to make our way back each night, and we can keep going the next day. Not to mention I love camping and caravans and caravan parks and all that stuff. But flying, well, it could be great, coz she will be on our laps and not strapped into a device which keeps her on her own (half the problem of the car), or it could be terrible, coz she might get restless and squirmy and start bleating her little bleat of complaint which she does when we are at a cafe or restaurant or something for too long and she wants to crawl and explore, as she is designed to do. We have bought her some new funky stuff to play with on the trip, so hopefully it will go well. And it's only an hour, at the end of the day, even if she howls the whole way, it won't be too long, for her, for us, and for the other passengers. But regardless of how the plane trip goes, me is excited....

Indigo has just been developing so much these last few weeks, it is such a joy to watch. Mat and I laugh and beam at her so often, it is such a wonderful shared bliss we have. She has learned more words (nose, frittata, banana, and of course her favourite food of all, cheeeeeeese! All said in her own unique babbly style of course, plus a bunch more but my mind is blank) and has also learned how to kiss, which just melts our hearts into little puddles of love. She kisses us on the lips unbidden, and she kisses her toys, and yesterday when she was listening to my mum speak to her on the phone, she kissed the phone! Those tiny little puckered red jubes of lips, oh my lord, does life get any sweeter than when your adorable daughter purses her lips and leans towards you and lifts her little head for a kiss??? If there is I am yet to find it.

So we pass the days in a lazy way, playing in the sandpit or the wading pool or in the outdoor spa, gardening and picking vegies for dinner, and dangling things in front of kittens and laughing as they jump around. We eat yummy organic fruit (I have just discovered the joys of organic stone fruits - WOW!!) as we lay on the trampoline, and go for walks, and hang out with family and friends. It's a damn good life I gotta say. I'm having a good year so far!

Well hello there, possums!

It's been aaaages! Dunno wot happened really, lost the blog bug for some reason. Plus the fact that I've been ridiculously but deliciously busy (ie. busy making lots of food for multiple gatherings of lovely people). December has been quite a month!

And it occurred to me, in amongst the craziness, that pretty much every year December is going to be a wild and crazy month. And I love it! There are so many gatherings in December, and just this year another three have been added to what was already a fairly busy month. We know so many people born in early December, but for our family the festivities begin with my dear mother's birth on the 12th. The family always gets together for a dinner together, either at someone's house or a restaurant. This year it was both! We converged at a very unsuitable location (family unfriendly or what?!), chosen by my sweet but misguided sister, and ordered take away gourmet pizza and took it all back to my sister's place, where we all shared and laughed and the kids jumped off the couches and it was much nicer. Then the next day was Indi's first birthday (YAY!), which I had been cooking for over the previous week, freezing stuff to be baked the day before (good plan, will continue doing this), and for which I have exactly zero photos, since my sisters took all the photos and I have yet to even see them. Will post them when I have them. And it went really really well, despite our park location being rained out and having to have it at home instead. It was crowded, but that just meant more joy per square metre really, and Indi was a star hostess! She didn't get freaked out at all, as I was fearing, but just got more and more excited, and when it came time to sing happy birthday she hunkered down in my arms and looked at every one with wide eyes til they were finished hooraying. As I cut the cake and people started milling, she suddenly clapped her hands and shouted "HRAY!", and everyone cracked up laughing, as did she, and she did it again and again and MANG it was so bloody cute, I think I will remember that for ever!

Oh I have one photo, of the cake I made, taken the night before just before I went to bed, satisfied all was as it should be:


Cute huh? I bought the icing flowers, so disregard any visions you might have conjured of me weilding the piping bag, it didn't happen. Much easier to hand over a few bucks at the cake supplies store nearby and buy some fruit mince pies to munch on at the swiss cake shop next door, yum! They were still warm too... But I digress!

OK, two birthdays down, but no rest for me, I had much cooking to do to prepare for the Christmas feast I was planning. I had to be creative and plan well since Christmas Eve my sister wanted us to gather at her place for the first of what will be our yearly tradition from now on, and on the 23rd it was Pa's 92nd birthday (go Pa!!). So three days in a row of gathering with family and wonderful food and celebrating lovely stuff. Plus a last minute invitation to a boxing day dinner at a friend's parent's place, and then tomorrow the last of the lot, a gathering at Mat's aunty's place, again the first of what she hopes will be a yearly gathering, post Christmas. Phew! Let me count them... seven events! And that's not counting the odd 'getting together with friends just coz we like em' thing too, which we also did. For kinda hermit-like peeps, that's a whole lotta socialising. And I have loved every minute of it. Six of those events will be repeated each year, each December, and I reckon it's awesome.



Here are some photos of us since my last post, just random shots of loveliness.

Me and Mat in a lovely moment.


The WHOLE kitty family, with mama top left, papa bottom right, and five kittens in between, all squished onto one armchair. How cute is that? They love each other so much. I think it was a couple of days before the first two kittens were taken to their new home, so I'm glad I took it when I did.


Kingu is the little ginger lady we will be keeping. Mat chose her, and she is most certainly the most remarkable of the kittens. She has pluck, and she purrs a lot. And her name means Chaos Dragon.
She's a TIGER! Fer-O-cious!


Yesterday I finally got my pool swimmable for the first time this summer, and Indi went into it with me! She had a great time! So much better than public indoor pools with their weird chlorine smells and echoes and freakiness, she was much more relaxed in our pool, which made me so happy. She just might be a water baby after all!

I just WISH this shot wasn't blurry, but you can see her joy through the blurriness, and it shows what a busy bee she's been sprouting all those teeth! She has four fully out, and there are two more sprouted below and another two on top. She makes the cutest teensy little bite marks in her cheese slices!

And here is the wonderful Dr Chops, my spirit cat who has gone through so much change and upheaval this past year, and who I love to bits. He is joined by Moo.

Springtime Abundance City Central

Our garden has been blazing away in mindblowing springtime glory for months now, and I thought I'd better capture it before the heat of summer fades the beauty, as it tends to do somewhat. The flowers have been going nuts for a couple of months now, and have been filling my heart with joy every time I walk out front, which is a LOT, we spend every day out there, Indi and I. I weed, plant and fertilise whilst she tries to slip a sheep poo past her lips without me noticing (which is all too often!! aaarghhh!! no wonder the first word she has learnt to respond to is "spit it out" in Turkish.). Thankfully my lettuces are now big enough to be mulched around, and so the sheep poo is hidden beneath lovely lucerne mulch, away from the fat little cheeky fingers of a certain 11 month old imp.



In the last couple of weeks the roses have been coming out to play, and have been filling the garden with a rich sweet perfume. Since getting the second queen bed in our bedroom and pushing the first one right up into the corner of the room under the huge window, we have been able to lie in bed with the window open and be awash with the scent of roses, which is quite a nice experience I must say, and easily promotes many moments of sheer unadulterated thankfulness for all the wonderful things in one's life. You can see the top of the window frame of our bedroom in the right hand side of this photo with the amazing purple rose archway.

Having ripped up half the front lawn in my quest for more vegies space, and as per my google research used a multitude of various forms of fertiliser (organic blood and bone, organic complete fertiliser, sheep poo, compost, organic Charlie Carp, sulphate of potash), we are now enjoying sitting back and watching as they all "go sick". Tomatoes are bushy and leafy and covered in flower buds, same with the capsicums, and the beans have just discovered the long poles of the pretty frame I put up for them to climb on, and are tendrilling around them nicely. The front of this photo has some shade cast by the huge market umbrella we invested in at the start of spring, when I realised that our precious baby was gonna get too much sun if we were gonna be gardening every day, which we both love to do.

Update re: strawberry patch on wheels - it is working! And wonderfully! It's only a teensy bit dumb coz it's waaaay to heavy to ever push anywhere, but as a novel and cheap (and not very legal) idea for a planter it is great! I had filled it lovingly with all manner of goodies, which, had I been a strawberry plant, I would have ached for - lots and lots of homemade compost, sheep poo, organic potting mix, sulphate of potash - and the results are really awesome. In the past all attempts to grow strawberries resulted in pathetically small and stunted fruit, and sad looking plants. Thanks to google and some lovely friends who had gifted me with the plants in the first place, I learned how voracious these little beauties are in terms of water and feeding, so I truly indulged them, and I have never grown strawberries this big or cheerful before! Indi has been eating them every day for about a week, and it just makes me so happy to see her eating home grown organic fruit. How lovely!! It might be hard to see (bottom photo below) but I have a tomato plant and two nectarine trees which have sprouted from the compost. I'll have to remove the trees I think and donate them to someone worthy, but methinks the tomato can stay, and may be handy in providing not only more tomatoes (I have planted HEAPS but you simply cannot have too many home grown tomatoes!), but when it's bigger will provide shade for the strawbs during the heat of summer.

Here are some more shots of berry-licious wonderment:


We are also looking forward to mounds of zuchinni, cucumbers, pumkins and potatoes. The snails and I have been battling it out for the cucumbers though. They seemed to think I was putting out a midnight snack for them each time I planted out a punnet. On the third punnet I put a cut-up plastic bottle over each plant, and I'm winning! Each plant is safely housed and growing wonderfully. Indi loves to much on cucumbers, so I just can't wait when I can reach into my garden and hand her a super duper fresh one. Yay! I have always always loved gardening, since I was a small child, and have planted a vegie patch and flowers for as long as I can remember, but growing organic food for your child just adds a whole new dimension to it!

Oh, and just a final note about watering. We bought a tiny pump (really a bilge pump that boats have on them to pump out the water that seeps in) which you attach your garden hose to and sit into your bath, and it works beautifully, and means we can save our bath water (only when we have used no shampoo or conditioner, which is fairly often with Indi and most of my showers these days) and water whenever we like. I try to not get the water onto the leaves, since it's technically grey water even though it has no chemicals in it. I have hated the two day a week rule, any true gardener knows it's not enough in summer, not by a long shot, so it's so nice to know I can water my garden without using any extra tap water, and keep my garden growing during the heat of summer. And you can recharge the pump battery by a small solar panel too! Needless to say, we likes the pump.

OMIGOD LOOK! It's a fuzzy ball of KITTEN!

I have always, always wanted to have a litter of something born at my house. Puppies, kittens, ducklings, whatever! It always seemed to be the thing that happened to other people, a magical thing that I could only ever dream of. Until the lovely Sophia arrived at our place just over two months ago. She is a beautiful, slender, pure white cat, who is not much more than a kitten herself actually. She arrived one day, scrawny, hungry, with a flea collar around her neck so tight I couldn't get a finger under it, and with a really dirty head as clearly she had been trying to rub the damn thing off for a long time. She wasn't very happy. She was also quite the randy one. Within minutes of taking the collar off her and giving her a good feed, our other adoptee Crunchie strutted over and began to get to know her better, in the biblical sense. (Yes, we know, we are getting him spayed next week!!) And there were other strange cats hanging around over the next few days, so we were pretty sure she was pregnant. We didn't really want another cat, but there was no way we could turn away the lovely and tiny Sophia, especially since she'd be needing somewhere safe and warm to grow and birth her little babies. So suddenly we had a third cat! (This picture of her was taken the day she arrived. Yes, it didn't take her long to feel at home!) She grew and grew, and grew and grew (I had never seen a pregnant cat before!). She ate and ate, and grew some more. Her ever expanding girth had no effect whatsoever on her cheeky scampy nature however! Her nickname is Scamp. She still pounced playfully on Dr Chops (our O.C - Original Cat) at every given opportunity, and leaped literally a metre high in the air to catch them pesky cabbage moths (I was cheering her on!) But she did become more and more wary of the suddenly scarily mobile Indigo! Much to Indigo's disappointment.

Anyway, we knew it would be soon that little Sophia would be birthing her babies, so I put some blankets in a few spots around the house - under the bed, under the armchair in Indigo's room, behind the recliner in the lounge, and also in the bassinet that came with the pram, which we only used once when Indigo was little (coz of course she is huge now!). This I placed in our bedroom, which is the only room that is heated a little at night when it's cold. And this is where Sophia chose to give birth to her beautiful little family. We had been out all day, building a brick wall in mum's garden and hanging out with the family, and when we arrived home I noticed after a while that Sophia wasn't insistently hanging around for her dinner. I asked Mat if he'd seen her, no he hadn't. I wondered if this was it, if she had given birth while we were out and went to see if I could find her, and sure enough, there she was lying on her side inside the bassinet with a mass of cute tiny fluffy things wriggling beside her, blindly finding her nipples and feeding and then losing them again and finding them.

I couldn't believe it! She had done it! All on her own! I was so proud of her, and still am. She has done an awesome job, really she has, and the kittens are growing so fast! Each day we take a peek inside the bassinet, and are shocked at how big they are! I think we been taking too many peeks coz this morning Mat went to check on them and they were gone! I was scared since they haven't been out of the bassinet since they were born, either remaining feeding or sleeping against mum or in a heap together if she has gone out for a stretch and a feed and a wee, as she has been doing. I was worried that Crunchie had attacked them (tom cats sometimes do this to reduce competition in their territory), but there was no blood anywhere. Then we found them tucked deep into the corner of our room behind some hung up clothes and the washing basket. Phew! Was glad they were still OK.

So for now life continues as normal, since they still can't really walk properly and their eyes are shut. Once they are looking about and are mobile, things are gonna get a teensy bit crazy, methinks!! But boy are five kittens gonna be cute! How the hell are we going to give them away?? I'm trying not to think about it too much. Will cross that bridge when we get to it. For now, enjoy the pics of utter cuteness.

Neighbours

The three of us were sitting out on our front porch today, with Indigo playing with the remnants of our yummy lunch made by Mat (a yummy egg and fetta cheese omelette, mmmm!) when I noticed Mat looking intently just beyond our front fence, a bit I couldn't see due to the bushes threatening to engulf the chair I was sitting on. I asked him what he was looking at, and he said, quietly, "A man, right next to our fence," and kept looking. I leaned forward to catch a glimpse of this man, and heard a wizzing sound, and another, and another, and then all of a sudden a motor catching and buzzing into action. It was a wipper snipper thing. And then we both suddenly realised who it was, and what they were doing. It was dear old Barney, my favourite neighbour who lives a little down the road, and who walks past with his lovely wife Heather every day on their trip to and from the local shops. They usually walk pretty slow, as they are in their late sixties/early seventies, but Barney is still as sharp as a tack, with a cheeky glint in his eye he lets with wisecracks fly before you even realise, and giggles as you finally catch on. He's a funny man, and has a really big heart. We always have a nice chat when we see each other, and always enjoy a laugh or two together. Anyway, he has suggested more than once that I borrow his wipper snipper to trim the buffalo grass that has climbed our front picket fence, about a foot and a half high. It is a huge mass of grass that is impossible to mow, it is so thick, and we just ignore it and mow around it and it gets higher and higher. I think each time Barney walks past it it annoys him. We also have a dodgy section of fence which keeps blowing down each time there's a big wind, and each time Mat puts a few more nails into it, which holds it up until the next big wind. Well lately this big of fence has been down a lot, coz the winds have been massive, and I reckon Barney has been muttering under his breath every time he walks past at how lazy we are not trimming the grass or fixing that fence. So finally, he decided to take matters into his own hands, and so he turned up with a wheelbarrow, his wipper snipper, some nails and hammer and some wood, to bloody trim that bloody grass and fix that bloody fence himself! So he just turns up and starts doing it! Without saying anything! Hilarious! We cracked up laughing, gave him a beer, and Mat took the hammer and took over the mending of the fence, under Barney's firm and precise instruction of course. When the grass was trimmed and the fence fixed, he loaded up his tools back into his wheelbarrow, and after many thanks and laughs from us, he wheeled his stuff back home, declining our offered cup of tea but promising to come back with Heather one day to take us up on it. It was just a lovely thing to do, and both Mat and I were filled with a sense of humorous thankfulness. So thank you Barney, the grass is trimmed, and the fence fixed (ugly, but sturdy), and you can resume your daily walking in peace, not having to be irritated by those lovely but lazy people at number 81.

Big Questions

It occurred to me today, whilst changing Indigo's nappy, that I have had a very productive day, and that most of my days are in fact almost as productive. Today I planted out my whole vegie patch (Hooray! Methinks this topic deserves it's own post...), I walked for an hour with Indi in the Ergo to get her to sleep in the morning, I played with Indigo and Mat over lunch (so much fun, giggly chortles aplenty!), I watered my new garden while holding Indi (all bloody 8.5kg of her!), and for the rest of the evening I planned to chop the cat's meat (three kilo's of it), make a lentil vegie soup for our lunches for the next few days, and prepare dinner. It felt like a decent day's work! And I mentioned to Mat that we are both really quite productive in our own ways. I am used to thinking of him as productive - he is a super prolific artist, musician and writer, and the evidence of his productivity surrounds us and crowds his ever cluttered studio (and the garage!) But I am not so used to thinking of myself as overly productive. I usually think of myself as quite a leisurely sort (or at least I did before I became a mum!), who could spend a day lounging around reading quite blissfully. But these days especially I think I really do achieve quite a lot in a day, and most days, with no break at all.

But something else occured to me, standing there at the change table, as Indigo chewed on her foot. Whilst the products of Mat's creativity are visible, audible, readable, the products of my own productivity more often than not end up either on the compost heap or down the toilet! It's kinda horrifying, and a tad disappointing! Well my two main joys are gardening and cooking. So I'm either growing it, or buying it, or preparing and cooking it, or eating it. What we don't eat ends up on the compost, and what we eat, well.... ends up as poo. It's not really what I would consider a life's work. Compost and poo. I really would probably prefer to be remembered for more noble outcomes or products than compost and poo. I mean, sure, we're all kept in good health by my efforts in the kitchen, and we sure do enjoy our delectables on a daily basis (we are not the kind of household that skimps, let's put it that way!). Aesthetically I get to design and create and handle all kinds of lovely foods, and gardening wise I am kept healthy and spiritually whole by my green thumbs.

But I guess the question that inevitably ended up forming itself in my head, whilst standing there changing Indigo's nappy (which was a pooey nappy too, quite apt!), was whether all this effort, delightful and enjoyable as it is, constitutes a meaningful life. A full life. Whether it is enough?

Enough for whom? A good question. Me? Others? Is this about what I think of myself, or how others will judge me? A bit of both I guess. I wonder whether it is enough for me. But also I find myself thinking of how my child(ren?) will view me when they are teenagers. Whether they will be able to respect me, or whether they will look down on me if all I ever do is garden and cook. And occasionally dabble in something creative. While the cake bakes.

I remember a woman in a novel I read once (dunno which one?), quoting her mother, who once advised her to create something that would not be consumed or messed up each day. To not devote one's entire life to making food that would be eaten or beds that would be slept in (I don't make beds, but still). To make something each day that would last. I find this sentence ringing around in my brain after all these years, even though the names of the author and book from which it came are long gone. Clearly it struck a chord.

I think for so many years of my adult life I have struggled simply to be well and happy. I spent my twenties battling addictions of substance and soul. There was no time, or energy, for grand pursuits over and above trying to be happy and learning how to live well. It has taken me a long time to get where I am now, where I am happy with who I am and where I am at, most of the time at least. At this point in my life I scarcely have time for a shower some days, let alone time to find another meaningful pursuit to add depth to my life. But I think once the hustle and bustle of child-rearing slows a little, enough to create some space, some time to sit and think and breathe slowly (dare I say, time to be contemplative), then I think there will be something else added to this delightful mix of seeds, weeds, cakes and soups. I can feel something forming, taking shape in some way, although it is still way too embryonic and amorphous, too new and fragile just yet, to shed public light on.

But yeah, I think one day there will be more depth, and more meaning, to what I do, in a lasting way. But for now, with a baby, and possibly more on the way, I am happy in my garden and my kitchen, and consider my time spent in both as a rich and wonderful backdrop for my kids' lives. I can see that the things I love to do, as well as providing me with endless joy and satisfaction (anyone who has smelled and bitten into a sun-warmed home grown tomato knows of what I speak), as well as making me happy, I can see how these things provide a lovely environment in which my kids will grow and learn, and one that to be honest I am proud to create and provide.

Name change

Well it was during my pregnancy (yes, back in the days beyond time when my life was my own!) that I mosied on down to the good ol' Births, Deaths and Marriages Office in the city and stood in line to change my name. I changed my surname from Yuksel to Arileo. Why? A lot of people ask this, and really it's a fair enough question. Well, at first glance, as you can see, despite my former surname being pronounced Yook-sel, in written form it has the word Yuk in it. "A minor detail!" one may exclaim. But not so! It displeased me. Immensely. It aggravated my aesthetic sensibilities, in fact. It has always niggled at me. I don't like being niggled at. However, despite my anti-niggling preferences, I was prepared to put up with it, and I did for a long time. I mean, it was my name! It was a part of my identity. I couldn't imagine having anything else. Even when I hated my dad for a while, and wanted to break all ties with him, including my surname, despite racking my brain for a good couple of years I never came up with anything that even came close to being imaginable as replacing my actual NAME.

But one day, after putting up with this less than perfect but really quite serviceable name for 31 years, it just began getting stuck in my throat. I remember being asked for my name over the phone for something official, and when I spoke it, it just sounded wrong. It was like I was spitting out something distasteful. And the same thing happened the next time. Suddenly, I just felt as though it wasn't actually my name any more. It was really weird!

Well, now, everyone needs a surname. Our society would collapse if everyone suddenly decided not to have a surname. "I must have a new surname!" I exclaimed. And so began the search, in earnest, of a name befitting a woman of my station. It was not an easy search, oh no! There were trials and tribulations the likes of which I could scarcely convey. Well, I could convey them by just saying it was hard to think of one I guess. That would do it. Mighty hard! It's a huge thing, choosing your new name. I mean, everything you come up with is gonna sound weird, coz it's so new, and the old one so ingrained, so habitual. It really did perplex me for ages, and in the meantime I was stuck with this name that sounded wrong wrong wrong.

I wanted this new name to mean something. I wanted it to be relevant to who I had become. I wanted my spirituality to be involved. I was fairly sure I wanted Leo to be a part of it, since Lions are a part of my spirituality, one of the creatures I feel a deep affinity with. And then one day, as I was walking to work, I came up with Arileo. Don't know why the Ari, it just sounded nice. It was the only name I had come up with that even had a chance. And I liked the feel of it. So I let it roll around in my head for the day, and when I got home I googled Ari, just to see, and lo and behold (and don't you worry, I beheld!) that Ari, in fact, in both Hebrew and Netherlandish, meant... Lion! So inadvertantly (or maybe totally advertantly, or intuitively) I had chosen Lion Lion as my name. Well, it seemed to be getting the spiritual tick of the century, so I went with it. I gave it a month or two to settle into my brain, and then took the plunge.

It was surprisingly hard down at the office. I felt some reservations, some niggles of a new sort. Did I really want to change my name? Was I really gonna go through with it? I ummed, I ahhed, but in the end, after some administrative issues were sorted out, I did it. And it felt good!

Now I toy with my first name. I am thinking of changing it from Nalan to Nalin, officially. I have been trying Nalin on for size for some time now, and I tell you I like what I hear. And see. Again, aesthetically, I like the 'a' and the 'i' in both names - Nalin Arileo. I like that Nalin actually pronounces my name better the way I use it on a day-to-day basis (NAH-lin; as opposed to the Turkish pronunciation, which is more NAH-LAN, and with which I identify less). There are other reasons also, but in the end, I think Nalin does win. It's not a crowd pleaser with my family, but regardless I am pretty sure I'll be back at the old Births, Deaths and Marriages eventually. And from then on I'm not touching it!

Or...

...maybe I could do with a middle name?