Balance

So my day started out like this.  (This post comes with a foul language warning. If offended by the 'f' word please don't read on.) 

At about 4.30am, Sophie was in our bed. That is not unusual.  But this time her chesty-coughing drove me out of the marital bed and into her flower-clad, second hand from the op-shop single mattress that supports her little frame a lot better than mine. Two thoughts passed through my head as I stumbled passed the clock. The first was "Good, still a couple of hours before I have to get up" and the second was a hopeful question sent out into the ether "Soph will be alright for school tomorrow, won't she?"

Out of bed at 7ish and the getting-ready-for school shenanigans went fairly smoothly. Except when the Luthier pulled Sacha's lunchbox out of his bag and realised that, once again, he hadn't eaten any of it. A fairly ugly scene of frustration and denial ensued.   Threats were made and notes written in diaries to bring the issue to the teacher's attention. Bloody kids.

Right. Breakfast had and boys dressed, but where's Sophie? Dad went in to persuade her out of bed. A pale and coughing small person appeared. "Mum, I don't wanna go to school."

"She'll be alright, won't she?" I whisper to the ether again. And continue in internal monologue, "I wonder if I have any leave left? Jesus, work already thinks I'm a dodgy option from all the time I've had off with illness, the kids and my own. And Phil can't lose any more work time. His jobs are piling up and we are going to go broke if he doesn't get some work finished soon. But the poor little mite, she's only just five and she shouldn't have to go to school when she's sick.  I hate it when other parents send their kids to school coughing and snotty. She looks ok. She's just tired."

Sophie:"Mummy, I have a sore tummy."

Luthier: "No, you haven't."

Me, using the approach my father always used with me and I always loathed:"You'll be right once you get to school."


We are all in the car. Dressed in uniform. Bags packed with lunches and homework. I've remembered to put makeup and lipstick on and make my lunch. Yay!

We arrive. Fuck.
It's Grandparents day, I forgot to organise that with Mum and I bet she wanted to go.
Shit. Fuck. Shit.

Oh, well.
Me:"Out you get you lot, have a good day."
To myself, "She'll be fine."

Sophie in tears: "Mum, my tummy is really sore."

Shit. Alright then, she'll have to go and sit at the shop with Phil.  I drop her off and head to work.

I walk into work, feeling pleased that I had made it and hating it for making me compromise my family at the same time.

The phone rings and its the Junior School,
"Hey George, Josh has split his pants and is mortified. Its Grandparents' Day. What's Phil's mobile? We'll call him to come and sort him out."
 "Oh bugger." I say, keeping myself nice. "No, I'll have to come because I have the car and Phil has the motorbike and he has Sophie at the shop with him and she's sick. I'll be there in 15 minutes."

Shit. Shit. Shit.

My apologies are made at work and off I rush. Its always chaos in the morning, my job. Morning is my busiest time and they hate having to cover it when I am not there. What else can I do? Push that thought to one side and head to the Junior School. Pick up J, take him home for a quick pants change and back to school.

J: "Sorry, Mum. Sorry you had to leave work. Thanks Mum, you are the best Mum ever!"
Me: "That's alright, J. It's my job."

As I get back in the car I get a phone call from a friend, a mother, who is in tears as she has been offered full-time work and has little ones and doesn't know what to do. I want to scream into the phone "Don't fucking do it. Working any more than a couple of days a week in a very flexible job when you have small kids has big fat hairy knobs on it."  But I refrain.  I try and be reasonable. I hope I was reasonable.

Call from Phil. Sophie has toilet issues.

As said by Hugh Grant in the first line of one of my favourite movies, 'Four Weddings and A Funeral'

"Fuck. Fuck. Fuckity-Fuck."

I give up. I send the text to work that I won't be in after all, to which I get a very kind response but suspect I will pay for later. I really don't think I have any leave left.

Shitcakes.

I collect my daughter from her father who has a tiny shop full of 5 people and is trying to juggle the questions and the sick offspring.

"Come on Soph. " I say and hug her, bring her home and give her a bath.

Now that she is set up in front of ABC Kids, I am desperately racking my brains to magic up a more flexible way of earning money that does not involve sending sick smalls to school and being such an unreliable employee.  All offers or ideas will be most gratefully received.

And I am one of the lucky ones. I get most of the school holidays off work.

Work/life balance, my arse.

Home work

Speaking to someone recently about having a job and kids etc and they said "It's good for your kids to see you working now. "

This is what I wish I had said in response, looking them straight in the eye, cool, calm and clear:

'My kids have been watching me work all their lives.'


What the fuck do people think being at home looking after children, a home and managing a family is, if not work? Isn't it the most important work? Just because it does not attract a salary, does not mean its not good, hard work. Its a pity that it is not held higher in our cultural esteem. All of us would benefit in health, happiness and community if it was.

End of rant.

Well Howdy!

Yessiree, Bob! It's a big 'howdy'to y'all and to my new life with a mid-week weekend and a rowdy 'See you later' to hump day. That's right y'all, I now have Wednesdays off. A rockin' free day for me and my li'l cowgirl to hang out and do stuff. Yeeeehaw!


This mid-week breather is making me an extremely happy camper. I get to hang out with Sophie. (She was getting a bit worn out from going to school five days a week. As was I. She is only little. I don't have an excuse.) And now we can have a day, go shopping, see friends and go hang with my Mum and see my ol' Dane.

Dane is my Dad. Since my oldest nephew was born my parents lost the titles of 'Mum' and 'Dad' and became known as 'Granny' and 'Dane'. My nephew, Noah started it but it stuck with the rest of us cheeky buggers because being called 'Granny' gave her the irrits. And calling Dad, Dane, made it sound like he was her saucy boyfriend, rather than her husband of now 50 odd years. We celebrated Granny and Dane's birthday on Saturday with one heck of an arvo tea. Dad turned 82 and Gran 75, 7 kids and 10 grand kiddies later and they are still kicking.

Anyhoo, these little holidays are welcome time to spend with the important people in my world.

Also welcome are my new bargain boots.

No mo' bitchin

Holidays are on and I am as happy as a lark, hanging with the kids in this amazing late Autumn sunshine. There have been card games, movie nights, carpet picnics, trips to our very special City Park and this evening I even cooked up a storm - lamb souvlaki with home made tzatziki and apple pie for dinner. There is roast vegetable soup in the slow cooker for tomorrow.

Maybe you need the work days to make these holidays so sweet?

Next term I'm only working four days a week - happy days, my friends, happy days.

And the kids' first ever dentist trip today saw them all with a gold star clean bill of dental health.

Today, we are loving ourselves sick. Wishing your days to be this sunny.

Colour and Happiness

I had a black and brightly coloured crocheted 'ruggy' when I was a small. It was my security blanket and I loved it. It inspired the colour scheme for this craft project and I am truly loving it. Completing one of the three-coloured circles in red, orange and yellow, or purple, red and pink. It makes me very happy. The pattern is great because you weave in the ends and attach the hexagons as you go. None of that awful sewing in of the ends which can sometimes be a job too big and too tedious to tackle.

The intention is for this hexagonal patchwork bliss to grow to single bed size when it can become a throw for the bed of my number one son. He is an amazing kid but plagued by anxiety (I have no idea where he might get that from, ahem...). I hope it works for him as a security blanket. A confidence blanket. He just scooted off to town on his own for the first time - to visit the luthier's shop. Maybe it is working already?

Number two son has declared it a pyjama day and was last seen eating Nutri-Grain out of the box. He turned 6 last week and celebrated with a lego party. He had fun AND he even invited girls! We made a Lego cake ( inspired by the Donna Hay version without any of her stylist, perfectionist finesse) and he received so many of the precious little blocks on the day, we thought he might like to build an extension to the back of our house with it. If James May can do it, I am sure Sacha could give it a crack.

Speaking of crack, turning 6 was a big day in the Smith household for Number two son as he has been promising for a long time that on the day he turned six he would take over the enviable job of wiping his own ass. I know, you can imagine how sorry I was to see that job deleted from my task list. How I loved to hear the inevitable call each day "Muuuuu-uuum, its Bum Wiping time!" Everyone's favourite time of the day! The lad has been true to his word and so far, so good on the solo bum-wiping performance.

How my boys are growing up!

Child number 3 is taking the art of arguing and negotiation to new heights. Bleurgh! She is too young for the Argument sketch, but she never wants the 5 minute argument, its always definitely the 10 minute argument for her. Important subjects to debate include, putting your jacket on, shutting the car door, eating your dinner, and of course, everybody's favourite, getting into bed. Granny kindly took her out and bought a delightful pair of pink, plastic high heels with matching accessories at the two dollar shop. I am guessing that the next topic for argument will be "Why you can't wear tractionless plastic high heels (and no cardigan)into town" and will end with me irrationally yelling, "Alright well, break your bloody neck then!" or similar effective parenting statements.

A few more days left of the holidays and then a whole new world opens up before me. Next week is my first official week as a stage mother! J makes his debut as ' an orphan' in the Launceston Musical Society production of 'Oliver'! " Teeth and eyes, kid, teeth and eyes!"

Chookas!

Hols

Gardening and bubbling with garden dreams.

A few games of cards.

Visiting friends, a market, two new skirts.

Hexagonal crochet.

A tantrum that lasted three city blocks and the whole drive home.

Oliver rehearsals for J.

The smalls playing kings and queens going to France.

The luthier carving up a cello back.

And the ever-present question - what's for dinner?

Still here

So, we made it to the princess party. It had a jumping castle and was extremely excellent.

As for every single other item on my simple weekend plan, well I'd rather not talk about it. Let's just say we are still here and its raining.

Hope your weekend has been as excellent as a dress-up party with a jumping castle.

Simple Weekend Plan

Right, then. So, I've made a plan.

What I am going to do today is get up, go out, attend compulsory Disney princess-themed kid's party (shudder), buy lotto ticket, come home, clean up while kids wallow in screen world for far longer than is good for them. This evening we will head to the Junc room to listen to 'da hip hop' and shake our communal Smith groove thang and after that I will return chez nous to discover we have indeed won an obnoxious amount of filthy lucre in the lotto.

Tomorrow we will pack up and by the afternoon we will be in a warm tropical place, in a resort replete with kid's club, morning yoga and every nutritious and delicious meal and whim catered for, planning our move to France.

Ok? Great.

P.S I told you I wasn't very good at this contentment business.

Yes

I saw a preview for a movie with a radical plot last week. It was a fictional movie, about a Dad who says' Yes' to his children and the movie demonstrates all the joys and adventures that saying 'yes 'to kiddies and their whims and fancies can bring. So, even though this idea goes against every fibre of being that is my parenting instinct, I was inspired. I thought, "Hey, I'll give it a go".

So I said 'yes' to another biscuit, 'yes' to climbing into the car through the boot, 'yes' to everyone's song selections in the car and so on. The result was, for a little while everyone felt like they were getting what they wanted. It was a good idea, right up until the questions got to 'Can I stay home from school?' and 'Can we buy a guinea pig?".

On Mondays, I take Sophie to her ballet class. It would be better described as her bliss class. The little princess get's herself ' all pinked' and frocked and skips happily with pig tails flying into the hall to adore her ballet teacher and frolic in her bliss. This Monday, Sophie asked a very simple question, "Mummy, I want you to watch me. For the WHOLE class." So I said "Yes". And for one whole half hour I gave my daughter my full attention through a little window into the ballet hall. I didn't play Words with Friends, or check the nothing that people have to say on Facebook, or text the luthier or anything. One whole half hour of undivided watching.

About 5 minutes into the class I caught myself with the widest, most unselfconscious grin I have had in years. There they were, a group of little girls all dressed up in tutus and fairy costumes, and full ballet rig (though they are only three) soaking up the presence of their teacher, the dream ballerina, chins held aloft skipping, pointing and flexing and being a mermaid. The happiness and spirit was palpable and it had infected my face. I couldn't stop smiling.

After about 10 minutes I became aware of 3 mothers behind me. They were watching too, as their daughters took their turns at sideways skipping with scarves held before them in front of a mirror. And their commentary began,

' Oh, look at Lila, she doesn't concentrate.'

'Well look at Ruby, she is totally uncoordinated."

'What about Lucy, she isn't even going in the right direction."

The criticism was delivered with giggles and in the spirit of humurous self- deprecation, I guess.

And then they moved on to a systematic dissection of themselves. In the few minutes they stood there, while there daughters danced joyfully, they compared each other's faults. They weren't losing weight fast enough, they drank too much, they were overwhelmed with busy-ness and, of course, they were shit parents. All in a casual, couple-of-minute conversation.

And before us, in that room through the window frolicked the girls, blissfully dancing, blissfully in love, blissfully unaware of the social conventions ahead of them.

I turned the grown up voices off after that, tuned into the girls and said "Yes".

The grin returned in an instant.

Sitting Still, where you are

Man! I struggle with this. The sitting still, just where I am.

I just filled out the census and realised we have 'usually lived' at the same address for well over five years, almost 9 years, in fact. And almost every Thursday, for at least the last five or six years, I have scoured the real estate guide for a bigger and better option.

Before family life and home mortgage ownership I had moved every 12 months, at least, since I was 18. When I was a kid my mum liked to change houses about every 5 years - a new interior design project, or drops in the numbers of children living at home from 7 to 3 to 1, etc.

The luthier and me, we watch 'Escape to the Country' and 'Grand Designs' religiously. We even go to open houses and view properties in town and in the country regularly.

Something in me craves change constantly. It manifests itself in craving change in real estate. And also in the endless cycling through the questions " Should I get a job?", "Should I go back to uni?", " Volunteer?", " Take more on?" and on and on it goes.

Now, there are two things I suspect about this restlessness:

1. The longer I sit in this house, life and mother/wife space that I have and concentrate on it and on the people inside it, the better off we all are. And so the less energy I focus on this elusive, fantastical and probably non-existent 'better offer' of a life, house, job, plan the better our real lives get.

2. This craving of change is just a manifestation of my own sense of inadequacy. The niggling background noise of 'I am not enough'. My life is not enough. Or in the words that the luthier and I often (probably) misquote, as said via the magic that is beat poetry in Dead Poets Society "you gotta do more, you gotta be more!"

The truth is that I am now old and ugly enough to consider that number two is a lie. Me and my life could be enough. I am a mother and wife. It is my passion.

The truth is that I know what I want. I basically want what I have. To allow a sense of inadequacy to undermine my appreciation of it, is to degrade all of us connected with it. Why do I criticise it and so sell short myself and my family? I should be boasting about how bloody great it is and how great they are. I fear I have succumbed to the fashion for self-deprecation, for "I am not good enough", which seems quite the mode de jour for mothers this season.

So perhaps I could aspire to relinquish the restlessness.

To aspire to control my distractable nature and direct my attention to the mostly smiling and sometimes whining faces and hearts of the loves of my life, unmarred by the discomfort of feeling inadequate.

To aspire to sing out loud the love for the life that I have right now.

To sit still in it. Where I am.

It is enough.

In fact, its a beauty.

2011

In 2011, I will have been a parent for ten years and a stay at home mother (almost exclusively) for 5 years. In 2011, my youngest will be in pre-school for 3 days per week and my two lads in full time school.

2011 is my year.

For three whole school days each week I intend to do, pretty much, whatever I wish. I am not getting a job. I am not taking on extra things that are mostly done for others and don't really work for me. This year I have three whole school days to invest in just one person. Moi!

This is a luxury I don't intend to squander. I have plans, dreams, fantasies and ideals about how that time will be used. But when that inevitable question is posed, at least for the next 12 months, "So with the kids at school, you'll be getting a job now, right?"

I will gleefully answer "Wrong!"

Everyone keeps saying " You won't know yourself!" But I am hoping it will have the opposite result. This precious time is to regard and further reacquaint me with myself.

Four more weeks of school holiday and then halleluia! let the 'me time' festivus commence.

Better than Prozac

Photo from australiantraveller.com

Two weeks of school holidays made me very depressed. Really sad, to the bone.

School holidays always sneak up on me, and catch me with no plans or means for lovely family trips to the beach and the like. The Luthier's one-man, small business means not much in the way of Smith family holidays.On our big adventure, he had about 10 days off work in seven weeks, leaving the kid-wrangling to moi. Anyhoo, one mustn't whine about an overseas adventure because it was unreal, child-challenges and all.

The fact is I don't cope well with prolonged periods with no time to myself. No time to do any old thing that takes my fancy does not work for me.

So on Saturday, the Luthier took the kids and I took a long walk in the sunshine. Just me and my iPod going GaGa. Destination fancy caf by the river, a glass of Jansz, some truly sublime lime cheesecake with a blood orange gel on the top and a good old chatfest with a lovely friend. No kids talk, no housework talk, we did not even slag off our husbands. We talked big, fanciful, outlandish ideas and she made me laugh so hard that I spat. On her cake. Terrible form.

Two hours did the trick.

I gotta remember that the it is, sometimes, that easy. Sunshine. A little time. A little walk. A little laugh. A little being nice to myself and now I feel more like being nice to everyone else.

Just one more thing ...

"How can it be a large career
to tell other people's children about arithmetic

and a small career to tell one's own children about the universe?

How can it be broad to be the same thing to everyone
and narrow to be everything to someone?

No, a woman's function is laborious
because it is gigantic,

not because it is minute."



G. K. Chesterton

(Thanks Lulu, a perfect note to end upon...)

Be Brave

The responses to my last post have got me thinking. I love them all but this one in particular I want to share. Thanks Lulu.

"Docile?! She's got to be kidding! It was once the norm to look after your own kids. Nowadays, it's only for the brave. Women's Lib was all about giving women equal status, but in real terms all they did was give them more work to do. Jobs AND parenting. And social security for women post childraising disappeared, which means when the kids are grown and the husband dies or leaves, the women are forced to scrounge a living somehow. I admire women who raise their own children. To do it properly takes a lot of time and effort. And hats off to the men who make it possible for them."

The real subject of my last post has been on my mind a lot since becoming a mother:

the struggle of women in motherhood - the struggle to find your spot as a mother and sit comfortably in it.

The comments in my last post, I believe, emanate from a pervading and intense dissatisfaction with motherhood that worries and saddens me often.

In response, I considered writing an ' In Defence of Motherhood' essay stating the pros and cons of stay-at-home motherhood and the pros and cons of being a working mother, in order to encourage women to make a choice and be happy in it. But a more superfluous document I could not conceive of, in the end.

But this is what I want to say.

After hundreds, maybe thousands of conversations with and observations of mothers in all situations, this is what I have found. This is the truth as I see it:

If mama ain't happy, nobody's happy.

I think that finding your own comfortable spot as a mother, what ever that may be, is not only your right but is actually your obligation. If you are wallowing in dissatisfaction, if you are not actively working towards your own satisfaction, it impacts enormously on those you love the most.

Perhaps your responsibility is to find a choice and make it. The right choice for you, for now. Because if what you need is to stay-at-home with your kids then do it, accepting that you will struggle with all the difficulties and demands that go along with it and you will celebrate the joys. Or if you need to work to receive affirmation, adult company, achievement, career, contribute to the working world, then do it, do it, do it. Or if you want to do a bit of both - sista, go straight ahead. I am not saying that the odd whinge isn't well warranted either way, but, couldn't you celebrate the privilege of your choice and position rather than disparage and despise it.

Feminism has given us choice. Wealth has given us choice. Let' s not fool ourselves, this is a wealthy and middle class dilemma. Most women are without choice.

And then there are the mums who don't stop to consider their choices. I see them roll along the path of 'how they think it has to be' when, in reality, choices and opportunities abound and I watch the dissatisfaction creeping in.

Follow your instincts. You do know what the right choice is for you.

Time passes. Your choices will change. Your circumstances will change. The children will grow and you will wonder why you spent their early years locked in battle with guilt, boredom or absence. Your children may not remember that you went to work every day or that you spent every day 'being there' with them, engaging them in educational and developmental activities and feeding them wholesome organic food, but they will remember how you were.

Motherhood requires 'presence' and dissatisfaction robs you of presence. Physical presence is not the issue here. Its about sitting present and comfortable in the moments you are with your children and partner, not wishing you were somewhere and someone else.

Motherhood is a struggle. Couldn't we consider loving the struggle? Celebrating it in all its forms and styles? Supporting our own choice and encouraging our partners and families to support it too, purely on the basis that it is the right choice for us and us alone. Couldn't we acknowledge what a great job it is? What a hard-ass, 24/7, domestic-tasks-nightmare, glorious, nurturing, family and community building, challenging, endless, awesome job it is and how bloody good we all are at it most of the time, working mothers or stayers-at-home!

And Lulu is so right, hats off to those partners who give support to a mother's choices. Their support is essential.

So Mama get happy. Get intellectual, get docile, get working, get out, what ever, but get happy. Because you can. Your choice is the right one for you and for your family. Enjoy the struggle while it lasts. One day it will be only a faded memory.

Stay-at-home Mum

A friend , a mother herself, declared to me the other day that it was obviously only 'docile' women who were not 'intellectual' who could handle being stay-at-home mums.

No bloody respect, people.

Heart and Home

My daughter turns two today.



Happy birthday to you, Soph!



You have made my good life even better.



And for your birthday, my gift to you, is a happy home.

First Day of School

Well. My little guy started childcare today at the tender age of 1 and a half. It was not a heart wrenching moment in which child was torn from his mother's anguished breast. We took him in said "We'll be back soon" and he continued to play without giving us a second glance.

Very clingy and dependent my sons. NOT.

So here I sit with some time to myself. Free time. I am using it wisely by sitting in the luthier's shop listening to him scrape wood, blogging and wondering whether I want a bagel with my english breakfast tea this morning. This activity very successfully puts off all the awful jobs I have to do like go home and wash up or go and get my blood test done. EEEEEEYEEEW!

So from now on I will have two mornings of GG time. Time all to myself. I will have to get a life of some description in order to fill up these precious 7 hours with fabulous GG fun.
Or just go home and do the washing up.

Morning Off

Joshie is at school. Sacha is at Granny's.
I am showered, wearing clean clothes and about to go off into town to look at girlie stuff and drink coffee by myself.

I really love to be with my kids and I really love my morning off.

Uncle Rohan has been here this week, visiting from Japan. A very jolly visit. J turned on his magic charm and then convinced us all to go off to the pub for dinner. I think the pub is J's spiritual home. We played a gmae around the table at the pub where J yell's out "who loves me?" and the quickest to respond with " me" wins. I had visions of him playing a similar game in about 13 years time.

Little Sacha turns one very soon and I am quite excited about it. Ther was a moment where we didn't think he would make it this far which makes the day's imminence even sweeter. He is so well.

Our other visitor this week was Brownie, J's class puppy. It was J's turn to bring him home. He was rapt. J was quite excited too.

well, of course

Well, of course the evening was grouse. A little 'rustic' but quite fun. I was fabulous, of course.

Sacha came out and cruised the ladies for a while.
Joshie moved his bed so he could see what was going on through his bedroom the doorway.

One lady complimented my spread ( ....yes the food) was in her top three. Noice one.


Socialising at home is fun.

What no cabana ...!

I am hosting book group tonight.
I have entertaining anxiety.

Is it because the house is a pit and still has the faint waft of 'rodent' from our recently discovered and baited little friend behind the fridge? Or is it becuase my husband will not be here to avert either possibility of J bursting in and wanting to give us a few bars of the latest tune by "The Veronicas", or little S cruising the snack table for hours becasue he doesn't want to go to sleep? Or perhaps its because every time anyone comes anywhere near her house my mother goes into anxiety overdrive, cleans the whole house to within an inch of its life and then produces out of thin air platters of delicious nibbles and fashionable wine.
Pressure.

Maybe I just needed a full nights sleep.

Hope the ladies feel good about the $10 bottle of white, a bit of supermarket cheese and bickies, lollies and, the ubiquitous bookgroup treat- the TimTam.
My problem is actually better titled 'catering anxiety'.

(I think this falls into the category of crap you get caught up in that doesn't really matter. I hope the ladies have a nice time but I guess I don't have to add perfect '50's-style hostess to my list of achievements. )

What no kebabs of cabana and cubed cheese inserted, decoratively, into a grapefruit. What no freshly baked savoury scrolls for your nibbling pleasure! No martinis, sherry or indeed, any offensively-titled cocktails on offer either.

And I don't have a clean frock.