The View From Here

A place. An anchor. Somewhere that feels like somewhere, the kind of somewhere my spirit needs to be.

It smells like gentle wattles in an early Spring.

It feels like liberty to plan and to see out dreams that have steered a short lifetime.

It sounds like magpie song on moonlit nights and soft munching sounds of beasts.

It looks like the green, brown and blue hues of all that is important to support living and breathing. It looks over the solid unchanging of ancient land mass and eternal sea.

It tastes of spicy eucalypt on frosty mornings, or of brackish creek water on a Summer’s day, promised after tasks have been completed and patience tested by small human spirits. It’s the taste they know, the taste that helps them grow.

Trials endured because of hopes that have lured.

A place. An anchor. Somewhere that feels like the kind of somewhere our spirits needs to be.

"Firefighter"

So, what do you conjure in your mind's eye when you read the title of this post? Let me guess:
Buff men posing in half of their turnout gear with ripped abs?
Buff men in full turnout gear on a ladder with a passed out or grateful female or juvenile figures over their shoulders?
Cobbers with black streaks across their faces after putting in some long hours fighting wildfire?

I'd be pleasantly surprised if any of your imagery included a woman, who wasn't draped in overalls with pumped up boobs and a "come and get me" pout on her, who was actually engaged in ANY aspect of firefighting.
Chances are that you didn't have that, though. Even if you're female.
I take it for granted that men just don't figure women as firefighters in all their fantasies about being firefighters. Many of them adjust extraordinarily well to the reality, when it happens, and many don't. It's not just men, though, whose apple-cart is upset by the nerve of some women to cut into the frame of the hunky firefighter.
Why would a woman want to be a firefighter? Like, a real one who trains in fire suppression, even if it's just the mandatory training so that she can help out more 'behind the scenes', where those scenes don't include sandwich making and boosting the morale of the 'troops'. My skin crawls when I hear the old chestnut "they're only joining to prove a point", or commentary along the lines of accepting the women who aren't just joining to prove a point. Umm...think a little further along this trajectory and ask, "what point?". Because I've never heard that 'point' being extrapolated on - it just seems sufficient to accuse a woman of having a 'point' or agenda and writing off her intentions or capabilities.
Do men and boys never join career or volunteer ranks with no point to make? What constitutes a 'good' point to make and an objectionable one? And who interprets what that point is? Who judges the point to be worthy?
One interpretation I make of a 'point' is that the woman somehow wants to prove she can do what men do. Which is probably true, insofar as men do firefighting and many women can, too. What many men AND women do, though, is interpret that contingent on the assumption that firefighting IS a male interest, rather than an activity that has, thus far, been dominated by particular male participation and, hence, its organisation and operations have reflected certain male roles and the male biological experience. There is no natural determination of firefighting being something that men are interested in, can do and sometimes, by some anomaly, women want a cut of, too.
Cos, it's not just women who have that point to prove. There are plenty of shorter, leaner men without the popularly-conceived physique who also want to prove that they can do firefighting without pumping steroids and weights. Or men of any height who carry more weight than is even medically ideal. These men, however much they may have to fight against the grain, still find themselves on the right side of prejudice when it comes to the great divide: biology. There are not many men in the ranks who cross over to be seen and heard in defence of their firefighting sisters. I've known notable examples of such men, and more men who wouldn't step up to protect and defend my right to a level playing field.
There are not many men who are willing to see that 'equality' does not mean 'sameness', and that by wanting equality women mean that the barriers that exist keeping them from fulfilling a firefighting experience are removed, redesigned and accounted for. It's not just women; it's also homosexual firefighters, firefighters from non-culturally dominant backgrounds, and firefighters from more white-collar backgrounds (thinking of the volunteers whose day jobs don't involve dirt, manual labour or any day to day grunt). One challenge at a time, though - I'm just not clever enough to tackle the world's problems in one blog post. So, for now, women.
So, women enter the world of firefighting having to navigate a culture that hasn't developed with them in it, or with their requirements. My own experience is a volunteer one, so I'll borrow heavily from the volunteer world.
Some women enter as volunteers in junior brigades. Lots do, actually. There's just not a lot of translation of junior participation into the senior ranks. No-one knows really why this is. Locally, we have at the local high school a program for kids to learn firefighting and to train with some of our firefighters once a month. We have a good rate of recruitment of these participants to our brigade proper; all boys. All are boys that join, that is - the girls from the school program don't come through to our brigade and I don't know why. No-one's really asking why, and that's a cultural thing. I mean, hey, girls aren't joining and the boys are, so let the girls go and figure out what they want to do. If boys weren't also joining we'd be asking questions about what we're doing wrong that we couldn't recruit kids already learning firefighting. But it's the girls and we don't see much of them in brigades anyway, so it must be something about being a girl and we'll leave it at that, shall we?
Well, no, we shan't, and there are people making it their business (WAFA, for instance) to find out why girls not only don't tend to see firefighting as a career option, but also won't consider pursuing it as a volunteer option where skills can be built on including rapport-building, team work, conflict-resolution, housekeeping, administration...none of these are particularly male-oriented. The physical aspect of firefighting needn't be too onerous to overcome, either. No-one is expected to go above their physical limitations, and whilst it is generally thought that girls and women aren't as strong as male firefighters, I know many women who would be stronger than many of the men I know who are firefighters. I also know that good firefighting isn't about the physical strength you bring to the fireground or incident, it's about how you employ the safest tactics to make the scene safe, efficiently. And brute strength is so often not part of that equation, in most of the jobs I've ever attended. If it is required then even of all the men in the scenario, only a few of them are physically capable of the relevant task unless it is a task where a few hands get the job done. In the firefighting I train for it has always been drilled that you work with a buddy and never alone, so most tasks, between two firefighters are quite achievable. Even holding a branch on the end of a 32mm charged hose for 15 minutes at a house fire, providing asset protection is achievable between two female firefighters or a male and female one of any physique. I know, I've done it. But for longer than 15 minutes, mostly.
So, you see, I get quite peeved when newsreaders insist that the only firefighters worth telling a story about are male ones, hence the ubiquitous "firemen" (never mind that one of those is what feeds the fire of a steam engine). In one fell swoop, all female firefighters cease to exist and the public conjures up the image of the beefy hero come to save the day, instead of the trained tacticians who will employ safety for all involved before any bravado that we see in the movies.
"Firemen", really? I've heard it in news items where I knew for a fact that the crew had at least 3 women on board. It's not like a kick in the guts. It's more like a slap in the face, turning me around and giving me a boot in the back. "We don't want you in our fantasy! Go back to something more palatable to the public and leave our macho image intact!". It's up there with engineering and the trades, in terms of career choices for women. It's there, technically, as a choice, it's just not really made accessible as a choice. Women aren't procedurally prohibited from applying for these vocations, they are mostly culturally prohibited. As far as volunteering goes, firefighting is a choice of mine often met with "You don't actually get on a truck and fight fires, though, do you?". Firefighting is much more than getting on a truck and fighting fires with water and other extinguishing agents, but yes, I've done that, too, because I wanted to and nobody stopped me. If I said I were a veterinarian I wouldn't be asked "You don't actually anaesthetise the animals, cut them open, find the ovaries, cut them out, stitch up the opening and remove the intubation, do you?" (I've volunteered as a vet nurse assistant, too, so this is not unfamiliar territory). Even though being a vet used to be a male pursuit. No-one has a vested interest in keeping the vet image macho and maintaining a fantasy for an adoring public, always hungry for a 'hero'.
Needless to say (or maybe it's not, hence what I'm about to write), I never bought into that 'fireman' fantasy that my peers and other women appear to lap up and perpetuate. I wasn't encouraged whilst growing up to volunteer as a firefighter, (though I wasn't encouraged, either) and neither did I have it in my life experience to consider the firefighter as an untouchable symbol of the masculine ability to save the day. Perhaps this made the idea of volunteering more accessible to me when I noticed the recruitment signs in my area. There is a demand for this imagery. Women demand it and men demand it. But not all of us do. Some of us demand access to be and do what calls us and to have our experiences valued and validated. Some of us want more women in fire stations. Some of us want girls to know that they can aspire to fight fires, as a community service or as a career. Get rid of the outdated limits on our boys and girls and use proper language that reflects equality of gender and equal access to opportunity.
I'm not even going to ask nicely, as 'befits' my female state.

I rode a Grand Prix schoolmaster!

Maybe one day I'll fill you in on the backstory to the interim between last post and now. Meanwhile, something really cool happened to me in June, when I won something very special, and then redeemed my prize this week. The delay occurred because I broke a finger whilst surfing some crappy conditions the Friday of the long weekend in June, and I had to follow doctor's orders for the bone to heal. Read all about it below (not the finger break, that's another post!):

The Carrock Tambo at Ebony Park

A dream of mine was fulfilled on the 29^th of August, 2012. I finally had a ride on a schoolmaster at Ebony Park; The Carrock Tambo is a special horse – doesn’t get too much more educated than Grand Prix level! I had Sarah J with me for emotional support and chief photography, as witness to what was to unfold.

Going from my faithful Stormy Rivers (aka Dante), a cute 15yo QHxTB, to a half-Friesian FEI Grand Prix beastie was going to require extra attention to detail and taking in every bit of expertise Loes could throw my way to help me ride him. By way of background, I found my boy at rising 4yo and due to uni, work, family, more uni and then a big move away from the city, we haven’t managed to get out of HRCAV Level 4 as a result, though we always placed in dressage outings. For this reason, when I work him now I sometimes feel like I’m still training a young horse. His movement, bless his cotton socks, will always ultimately be limited by his breeding, and I also believe that I can get some lovely work out of him despite his disadvantaged lineage, if I work at it to compensate for that. Approaching this lesson I had to really think about what I wanted to take back to my boy, and how it should feel when we’re doing it right. Another day, another time I will come back and work on movements I am only still dreaming about. This day was going to be about more tangible goals to kick.

Loes began by asking me about my work with Dante and what I wanted to do with him that Tambo and she could help me with. I explained the above to her and her brain formulated a lesson plan in zero seconds flat. I swear it was that quick! Loes verbally mirrored my ramblings back to me as I mounted and adjusted my stirrups and warmed Tambo up. For a horse who quietly plodded along beside me to the arena, his walk was swinging and active without much driving work from me. 

It took a few 20m circles for me to find a nice level of contact and I think he was about to give up on me when we hit our stride and he submitted to my hands that were afraid of asking for too much – the last thing I wanted was for an educated horse to roll his eyes at me and wonder how I got through the gates. Loes got me to rotate my pelvis back further than I had really ever done and it felt so much more connected. As she explained, it helped me feel which hind leg was coming up; something I’d never really worked on sensing until then. The other main point worked on in the 20m walk and trot circles was to insist on MY rhythm from us and not settling for Tambo’s decision on what that rhythm should be, and this was done through seat and the timing of my rise in rising trot.

Once we got this pattern of cooperative submission established it was time to transpose that into the trot-canter transition. I can be a bit of a dragon with my transitions on Dante, so I didn’t have to be told twice to pull Tambo back into trot to ask for a more willing canter transition the next time – I DO know what a nice one is supposed to feel like and I tried it again to get it right and, voila! Loes helped me understand that I could ask with my leg for the same rhythm whilst half-halting before the canter aids and if I needed to, to wait an extra stride to make sure I did have his submission in the transition to canter. After a few attempts we got there without him resisting me.

Once in canter I played with Tambo’s lengthening and recollection and that was lovely, because of the ground he covers in one stride and the softness of his stride that my choppy little QH takes heaps of work to achieve a fraction of.

From here Loes helped me get a leg yield and it was a rocky start with me not asking enough with my outside leg for Tambo to push his quarters over. Once I stopped being afraid of that, and when I steadied my inside contact whilst half-halting for softness I was able to sink into a nice position with shoulders back and pushing with the core strength in my abdomen. When leg yield was consistent we moved on.

For the shoulder in Loes gave me a quick revision on what we were aiming for – hind feet on one track moving straight and front feet on another track moving forward with straightness. Once I stopped confusing ‘inside’ and ‘outside’ rein (which I thought was a confusion of the distant past!), scaled back to a walk and I set my focus on the corner at the end of the track I had some good results. How refreshing to be able to achieve a shoulder in with leg, seat and a steady contact, and no whip in sight! I moved up to a trot and repeated on both sides of the arena, and whilst I lost my focus at times I had some gorgeous moments of connection and rhythm.

The last movement for the lesson was the walk to canter transition. This is something I managed to teach my own horse. I loved listening to Loes description of what my pelvis is to do in this transition. Prior to this lesson I had worked it to a point where I would ‘think’ canter from walk and it would happen much more consistently and willingly than our trot to canter transitions and I couldn’t figure out why. Loes explained about lifting my inside hip and ‘popping’ it forward, and this made perfect sense – I do this much more subtly when I think ‘canter’ from a walk, than activate a canter aid from a trot (which just flags another area to work on!). These were the loveliest transitions of the lesson and I was able to maintain a soft contact into the canter most of the time that I asked for the transition. The work for me was in keeping my leg on to ask for impulsion, keep my outside rein steady and half-halt so that we didn’t break into trot.

The things I found challenging were getting a soft enough trot for a nice sitting trot, and my feet kept betraying me. My heel was bunching up, or toes pointing outwards, which, as Loes explained, was unbalancing my top half in those instances and that’s when my shoulders would come forward. Pushing my heels down on every second footfall of the trot in the sit was her advice to me and I will be working on that at home. It didn’t help that, in hindsight (and with the benefit of Sarah’s observations of the same thing), my stirrups were a bit long and it’s a bad habit of mine not to recognise that. In trying to be a ‘proper’ dressage rider I tend to deceive myself into thinking that I can lengthen my leg by riding longer. I just need to accept that I’m a shorter rider and remember to pull up one or two more holes just when I think it’s high enough. It’s that or, next time I have a lesson here I’ll just cross my stirrups over and be really tough on myself! The other take-home lesson that Dante will appreciate is that I didn’t realise how tough I can be with my outside hand and that I need to release a lot sooner than I have been after establishing the contact.

During the lesson Loes asked me at regular intervals if I had any questions. I elected not to think of any and to just take her instruction and direction, knowing I’d come up with something to discuss at the end. I didn’t go out of my way to try anything fancy I’d picked up in my travels and I wanted to make an honest and working connection with Tambo using the same sensitivity for his attention to me as I can with my horse on my better riding days. I was aiming for mindfulness with him, rather than seeing how many of his ‘go’ buttons I could find to bluff my way into a piaffe or one time changes. As much fun as that might have been to try, it wouldn’t have helped me with my horse back home, even if I managed to get anything like that out of Tambo. It sounds age-old, and we concluded with the truism that when all else fails, and even when nothing else is failing, working the basics of rhythm and contact will get me everywhere; it’s all there in ‘the basics’. 

My lesson on Tambo was a dream come true, as I had told all and sundry that I was going to ride a horse at Ebony Park, come hell or high water. In the end it was a simple Facebook competition to promote the Ebony Park page that got me there – not a hard task at all, being that I have loved the EP ethos (and the horseflesh) since I first became a subscriber a few years ago and I only lived a short drive away. I will book myself in for a lesson again when I’ve done some more work with my fella and need to set my sights higher again for us as a combination. One day I’ll have a Friesian cross, or even a full Friesian because I still believe it is the breed for me in terms of work ethic and general temperament. Meanwhile, I’ve got a fun and willing horse who has heaps yet to learn and to teach me and after a very constructive and fun lesson with Loes I’ve got some extra tools in my utility belt.

Thank you so much, Ebony Park, for a wonderful afternoon and sharing some of your magic with me! I don’t plan for it to be the last time.

Surfing Summer

Yes, I realise, it was Winter when I posted last... my bad...I was studying and on the treadmill of life (you know, using the 'hills' program) and the blog just got away from me. You may or may not be comforted to know that I began many a draft in my head, even if none of them ever saw the light of backlit keyboard. Apologies.
On Friday, I partook of a Surfing Victoria initiative called Play it Safe by the Water Surfing for Girls. It has been taking place all over the Victorian coastline and this is the final week, with Friday being the day for the Inverloch Swell Mamas, which I joined in late October (sounds awfully like a time I was stuck in books madly cramming for exams, doesn't it? Everyone needs a study break...at their nearest beach break...) and have been attending the Friday surf sessions ever since, with the kids in tow.
I took up surfing when I was 16, after enjoying surf beaches for most of my childhood and finally taking the plunge. Surfing was something I did for a couple of weeks over Summer on camping holidays with my family, and soon it dropped off my list in favour of clubbing with friends and, later, horse riding. I still wanted to surf, I just had other things to get done, too.
I took it up again when my sister and I were in our early 20s and more mobile, and at this point Brett, guitarist extraordinaire came into our lives. In a semi-complicated twist of fate, Brett became my surfing buddy and, then, my guitarist. We surfed almost into Winter when a work injury cut short my Winter campaign and it took me just over 9 years to dare to fit into my wetsuit again.
Moving to Sth Gippsland meant we were a lot closer to surf beaches than we had been previously and I have been dropping the hint to Big Fella about my intention to get back into surfing all year. I think he didn't believe me, but when I heard about Swell Mamas, quite by accident, I knew I'd hit on the jackpot. A group of mums helping each other surf by looking after the kids on the beach while mums take turns getting water time - how innovative! It's not just for mums of current small people - there are grandmothers and some women who don't have children and are willing to help out with the kids who come with their mamas. It's a girl-fest, really, and such a supportive network of talented and smart women. I wasted no time and joined us up. The gap in time between surfs wasn't too much of a disadvantage, and before I knew it I was back at the point I'd left when my shoulder gave me an enforced break. Borrowing club boards, and now the board of a very generous friend who offered his relatively unused board to me, I'm getting more and more confidence, and working on my backhand, out of necessity in order to avoid collisions, being that I'm a goofy footer and the waves break the other way...there's one in every crowd, I guess.
I've been attending every Friday since, as mentioned, and on Friday the 9th of December I was a participant in the Surfing Victoria initiative that brought a clinic our way, with world ranked #14, Bec Woods.  Due to having the kids with me (I was meant to have divested myself of children-folk, but Plan B worked out well, too) I didn't get as much water time as I would have liked, but ya win some, ya lose some.

Turns out, I won. I won a voucher for 50% off a Global Surf Industries surfboard, in a random draw, so while I save for the other half I can research which board will suit my needs best! As someone who never wins raffles or door prizes, I'm pretty chuffed about this. When the time comes I'll give my new board a write up and show her off. Meanwhile, (while you check out the write up at Surfing Victoria) I'm off to do some window shopping and back to visualising my technique between surfs.

Spring into Winter

Winter is here, friends. There is no mistaking it's calling card. Freezing nights followed by mornings so cold that our feet hurt. The loooooong Spring is over. Hmmm, wonder where Summer got to this whole time...
Anyhow, the last week has seen a brief cessation of rain to allow some mud to dry out. We ordered in some crushed rock for the car parking area so that we wouldn't have to wallow in the bog getting filthy just to get to the cars. I even got to ride Dante! Well, just along the road - no lovely paddock rides, because there are no lovely paddocks...they're ankle deep in water because the hills have taken in all the water they can.
The cold brings with it some very lovely sights, though. Mornings greet us with dense fog that reveal grazing steers, one by one, hour by hour, until the fog lifts over the hills and we have visibility again. Dusk sees the fog descend into our valley and over the creek line, like a fuzzy, white and sleepy dragon.
Yesterday afternoon, during my venture with Dante, I rode out of our road to see a haze over the hilltops that hadn't moved all day. I rode as far as the neighbour's, and by happy coincidence she was home and about to ride her own horse. I took my tired boy onto her arena (having been four weeks since the last riding opportunity), coaxed some nice work out of him before he just ran out of puff and convinced me to take him home. The neighbourly escort half way home was very welcome. One round and elegant Clydie cross, one fine and alert pony with their riders made for pleasant company. As we clipped and clopped softly down our road, after parting ways with my neighbour and her daughter, I could see it closing in on us and creeping back towards the creek bank. Ambling around one corner I peered out to the paddock on the other side of the creek and recognised a ghostly collection of slender eucalypts, as the white mist hovered over the pond those trees oversee; it was quiet all around and I failed to imagine The Brickyard Flats full of life, teams of navvies working on the railway cutting, the boarding house and numerous bark huts that once filled that section of Crown land. I just couldn't, it was far too peaceful.
As I approached the shed, I noticed the fog was encroaching on the road itself and I could barely make out the caravan. I saw a long shape move out to the road's edge, and two shorter shapes calling out "Mum!" following closely. It must have been a magical thing for the kids to see horse and rider materialise from the misty shroud, and I felt a pang for all the words, all the paintbrush strokes, all the shutter priorities that could never capture that moment and do it justice. The memory of the moment will have to suffice.
As the horses have been moved to a more grassy paddock further down the creek line, I continued down the road and around the bends at a trot, with Dante calling out continuously for his beloved Nook, to let him know of his imminent return; "Fret not, friend, I return from the mists of time!".  Sure enough, rounding the bend that comes out to the waterfall, Nook's anxious bellow filled the thick air, and black legs in an elevated trot were all I could see first through the saplings and bushes, as he paced along a flat section, stopping at the fence line and pacing the other way after a neat little turn on the hindquarter. Again, all art would despair to depict the sinewy passage of a black horse through scrub and mist, in sweaty anticipation of the return of his paddock companion and best friend. I do believe only Peter Weir could execute such imagery!
So, my ride at an end, I untacked my beast, brushed him down and let him out with the others, who were glad to have their equilibrium restored, their herd at full number. I packed my riding gear onto the back of the quad bike and rode back down the track to the shed, thinking it was getting very late to be starting on the dinner I had planned. I brought my saddle bag into the shed to unload it later and the aroma of a hearty meal filled my senses...ahhh! Osso Bucco, ready for a set table and some eager consumption by all, accompanied by a soft and creamy potato mash.
A perfect ending to a day, that first one of official Winter; our first Winter in residence at The Farm.

Got her big girl undies on

Girl Face rocks my world. Training undies were annoying the crap out of me, so I had her in no undies for a while there. It took an extra step out of the evacuation procedure. I did this with Boy Child, too, though it attracts more attention and tut-tutting when you let a girl go round undies-less. Anyway, thoughts on that aside, I decided it was time to experiment with undies. Problem: we didn't have any. Undies are one item of clothing I would rather not purchase from an op-shop (one day I will write about my op-shopping, though mine is only the humblest of examples of successful op-shopping!), so I submitted to the greater power of the retail gods. The smallest undies I could find readily available were in Target. Size 2-3. A bit saggy, but she'll grow into them. She LOVES them! They're not pink, nor do they have a splash of pink on them. And when she needs to go, she pulls them down and calls out to me so that I can find her a receptacle or appropriate flora. She turned 19 months old today. Some people call me 'lucky', but we all know there was more than just chance at play with this one. If I'm smug it's because I've earned it. But it's not smugness I feel, just great satisfaction with my instincts and knowing that they're in fine working order.
Whaddya think of the Elimination Communication caper, now?
Some people say I'm like a parent out of the Continuum Concept. Others like to call me an Earth Mama. I don't mind either of those or variations on the theme, they are just not of my own construction. I'm following and trusting my instincts, and backing them up with some research and traditional knowledge. I feel better for it, and it's not intended to cast judgment on how anyone else does their parenting. We're all doing the best we can according to the best information we have at the time, I hope. This feels right for us and anything else now sits at odds with what I have come to know. Just like full-term breastfeeding. Just like how I 'do' childbirth. Just like parenting without rewards and punishments. In the end I only answer to my children, I only apologise to them. We're doing ok, so far - no worse than parents 'doing it' any other way, at the very least. I'm confident that I'm going to unleash upon the world children who trust themselves and have self-belief, and I also know that my work is not done, though the bulk of the foundation has been laid. If that's 'Earth Mama' of me, then I'll wear that, too.
I now understand what Ingrid Bauer means in her book about Natural Infant Hygiene that Elimination Communication is part of a bigger process, and it's not the weeing in a receptacle that counts, but the relationship of trust and communication that facilitates the process of learning to trust oneself. By listening to my baby and trusting her own, innate knowledge of her requirements, and trusting my own ability to be aware of these, I impart a very precious gift to her; on a much deeper level I teach her to listen to the inner voice that will accompany her for the rest of her life, after my time is up and much, much longer than I have any real influence on her and her self-conduct. It's not just because I practice Elimination Communication, it's ALL that I do with my kids in combination. I aim to empower my children and arm them with sense of agency, even when it's not convenient for me, because the effects will outlast my time on earth, and the effects ARE my effect on earth.
The simple action of my girl pulling down her new undies to use the toilet reassures me that the relationship I have with my kids is based on trust. They trust me implicitly while I teach them to trust themselves in return, and I look forward to their teenage years when my chickens will come home to roost, in a manner of speaking. Because adolescence will be the true test of the parenting I've consciously chosen to do with these kids, and then I have to set them free.
Meanwhile, my baby wears big girl undies, and I pause to give myself a quick pat on the back before the next challenge presents itself.

Beach-clean feet

The days are cooling off here, and the layers are getting thicker and longer on all of us. Gumboots are de rigeur and the rain coats have been moved from the back of the wardrobe to any available hanging space in the shed (and they are ever-changing, as walls are dismantled while Tom works on the shed conversion).
Mud follows everywhere, and if it doesn't follow from somewhere else, it's created right where it wants to be after fresh rains. The paddocks are super mucky and the pugging in some sections really makes me impatient to have some spending money for fencing off the streams from springs.
The caravan heats quickly enough with our little ceramic heater and we now have dinners inside the van, ferrying the kids straight inside after a bath on the step of the shed, wrapped tightly in towels.
Our showers are had at night, under the stars or clouds, as the case may be. Some nights are kinder than others. Breezes are no longer welcome. The water comes out hot, which is a reprieve. It's the kind of shower only an Inuit could envy - at least the drops don't freeze upon skin contact. And the shower gives us more shower time than the recommended time for a household on town water - we're having 5 minute showers and still using far less than 55 litres of water, per person, per day. Still, I feel invigorated and glad for the cool night air on my skin when I'm done and walking back into the warmth of the cocoon.
In the mornings I pull on some thick socks and if I'm going out I zip on some nice boots, if I'm staying here it's either my ropers or gumboots. If it hasn't rained the ground is compacted and smooth. If it has the ground is slippery or muddy.
I love it here. It's exactly where I want to be and the caravan is temporary. The shed will be bigger, drier, warmer and fit more things in the one place without having to get muddy to fetch food from the fridge or pantry. I really do love it, and for the first time in years I'm not itching to get away somewhere for a change of scenery.
At the end of the day, after I've had my shower and used some potions and lotions, I look down at my feet. The NZ tan is fading from them, and once again, for a fleeting moment I miss my beach-clean feet. Only for a moment.

This is what I reckon...

Sending in armed forces to deal with international situations violently MAY close down a regime...eventually. Within months, maybe within a generation. And it sustains fractured and disenfranchised views of the aggressor, harbouring resentments and hardened ideologies on the way.
The following is a bit raw and unpolished. It's late and I'm getting this out before it manifests itself another way that I can't control as much. Writing it out soothes my nerves about it.
***
Memories remain, are replicated, passed down, and they ferment.
Children are the victims of war. That sounds twee. Sounds like the name of a song, even. Whatever. It's true. Think about it.
Then they react to what they've seen. They have to. They don't just forget, they're not goldfish. Memories go somewhere. Even if not on a conscious level, then deeper underground where they become unpredictable in the minds of children whose brains are quickly adapting and fragmenting reality for the sake of survival (just like children in our communities who experience trauma). Seeing what they see for what it really is would fry a child's brain into non-functionality. One minute life ticks along at its already maladaptive pace, next minute the only life they know is having the bejesus blasted from it with missiles falling from foreign aircraft, flown by foreign people engaged by foreign governments, who probably have supported the rebels, who are most possibly interested in gaining power for themselves and access to privilege and not in 'liberating' said children and their struggling families from their everyday oppressions and human injustices.
Picture your own child, and if you don't have one, a relative's child, or even yourself as one (yes, you WERE one, or have you forgotten?). Put yourself in the mind of that child, seeing the world from that perspective. You have already been told and had it reinforced a gazillion times that you are not in control of your own life (unless you're a lucky one from a more progressive family) and your older brother has been killed, your father has been detained in custody and come back home with an eye missing, untold bruising and a permanent limp (hey, I'm just jamming here; this is a pretty picture compared to many small people's realities) and you are told to make sure your twelve year old sister stays indoors or she will be raped. And you know what that means. Your family name will be worth nothing if your sister is no longer a virgin.
One day you hear the big people talking in low tones, and an already tense atmosphere becomes positively charged with anticipation. There will be bombs. The intent is for military and strategic targets, but your family knows this means your whole town is in danger. You can't go to school, you must all stay together. Your uncles go out to get what food is left on the shelves in the local traders' stands and come back with a meagre stash and a wound to the head after a brawl to get the last bags of flour. The kids are told to stay inside and stay with the big people. You cry and your mama holds you and tells you she loves you and you pray together.
Everyone goes to bed late after a meal, and as you snuggle in under a blanket with your siblings your ears are shattered by the sound of the neighbour's house being blown apart, men shouting and women screaming. Your neighbours are people who live ten metres away. Well, they were. The kids went to school with you and their mum was the lady who helped you be born. Dead, all of them. That's all you have time to think of, because now you have to choose whatever you can carry in your arms and your whole family is on the move to another neighbourhood. You may not see your home again. Your whole little life wasn't very happy before and now you don't know if you'll see morning.
Years later, you are an adult. Let's say you were picturing a boy-child in the previous exercise. What are the chances that you are a peace-making citizen who never got involved in the local militia as a teenager? How do you view those foreign invaders? Are you grateful that they bombed your life and culture away so that you didn't have the previous bad-guys to deal with anymore? Does your mind have a lot of room for advanced thinking about how to spread peace and acceptance of difference in your town?
And if you were a girl-child, do you think you live a peaceful life now? Did you get away without being raped whilst growing up? Do you think you have a violence-free home life? Are your kids living the kind of life you only dreamed of, free of fear, with happy parents who have the head and heartspace to show lots of affection and warmth and a peaceful parenting approach?
Just say you made it to another country, even. Years of detention. Seeing your brothers and father brutalised, all of you dehumanised, denied visas numerous times (because the 'system' can't have you being accepted first or even fourth time round without a fight, cos the voters in key electoral areas - which are worlds away from your own detention centre and main resettlement areas -  wouldn't like that), all your natural talents and academic learnings meaning very little because you haven't achieved them in English, and your life having turned out very, very differently from what you assumed would be your future before those bombs fell.
If you made it to another country, presumably you even made it out of that detention centre in time to go to school. If you were a girl-child in that exercise, maybe it was even for the first time. AND you didn't have to wear the burqa that was customary to wear according to the culture of your area. Still, no-one talked to you for months because you would do weird things like jump at the sound of a binder having its rings snapped shut.
Or you're a boy and you just ploughed into the boys who eventually just got too much in your face and you showed them how men fought in the town you lived in years before. You get together with other boys who come from towns like yours and you feel safer. Especially because your dad still lays into you at home when he's stressed and can't send your mum out to the shops all bruised (they don't like that here in this country, and you really, really don't want the police coming round to check your visas if someone reports an injury to your small and lovable mama).
My artistic licence might not be up to much, and I'm sorry for that. I didn't grow up with refugees from countries like Afghanistan or Iraq. I grew up with other refugees, though. Damage followed them. I can't imagine what kind of damage follows the kids who have come here in the last decade. Or the kind of damage that kids who stay in those countries normalise and replicate because there is no mitigation of the damage. There is no funding for an intervention program in those places, no counselling and debriefing services.
For the kids who do make it here, they don't just bring it with them. They bring it into our communities. The violence that happens in other countries at the hands of world powers does not occur in a vacuum. It affects YOU. It affects ME. It will affect the kids who go to school with them. These kids will one day be your mechanics, your hairdressers, your caregivers, or they will one day be the burglar, the bag-snatcher, the drunk-driver. Depending on what, if any compassion is offered to them to circumvent the patterns of violence in their short lives.
This isn't an essay about refugees and Australia's ethical and legal obligations to asylum-seekers. It's a reaction to the unquestioned use of violence to bring down regimes that won't negotiate oil pipelines into Iran, to exact revenge on one man, to show a dictator that his brand of leadership isn't wanted and he will be taken out violently (and/or the rest of his family) if he doesn't give over because that is what will make the world a better place.
It's not the wanted man who is hurt when he is killed. It is the lives of millions of children who will grow to be adults (if not killed first) in which this violence will be reflected. War is redundant. War is a cop-out. War destroys more than it achieves.
And I'm sick of having to turn the radio off AFTER the announcer has just read the initial tagline about someone being shot dead by Western forces (or whatever forces), then having to explain to my son that he doesn't have to hear about the horrible things that happen in war while he's a kid, when he's asked me what war is and who the man was that was shot dead. When all I want is the weather forecast, but have to settle for checking on the internet so that I can put the iPod on and save my children's innocence. Because at least I have that luxury.

Ponies and potties

Winter approaches and this week could have fooled me! It was sunny and mild all week - great horse riding weather (apart from some wind earlier, with which the horses were picking up on far away noises, giving rise to some toey behaviour under saddle...) and great for getting things done.
After driving all of Good Friday to Bendigo and Kilmore en route, we've chosen two ponies who are coming to our home very shortly. A beautiful Welsh mare was on offer and we had to pass her over for a cute little Australian Pony - not as beautiful, but more educated and, well, cheaper. I was already reconciled to the idea of breaking in a pony from scratch, but this little pony, Karedon Mia, has already had some time under saddle and passed the Small Boy test. With her comes a 2yo Shetland gelding that will be started from scratch, and that will be fun. My kids are so lucky and they'll never know just how so. They'll learn so much from the horses.
Meanwhile, on the Elimination Communication front, Small Girl is now effectively night-continent. I won't say she's 'sleeping through', because I can't quite figure out what that means. She will go to sleep in the evening, might wake up and need to do a wee and then stir for a breastfeed once or twice in the night. She'll begin wriggling between 6 and 7 and do a long wee. How cool is that? She's 18.5 months old and hasn't worn a nappy in months! We went to NZ for 11 days and nary a nappy was used, though three were packed and served to take up valuable suitcase space. As with her brother when he went nappy-free (at about two years of age, but not night-continent till 6 months after that), it's easier for now to keep her out of undies. So, she's either getting about the farm with no pants on, or I take her out in longer dresses or in pants with no undies. The 'training pants' I bought are just an unwieldy extra step that her little hands can't deal with, and if she's wearing a dress with them, she forgets and will pull up her dress to wee...in the training pants. So, I'll dispense with them for now. She can 'hold on' for an impressive time, too. Those doubters who told me fervently that children can't control their bladders till after 2 years of age need to ditch the conventional wisdom of nappying and broaden their horizons, because Small Girl is following the normal trajectory of EC'd kids (if not a bit later, actually - not sure why, maybe it was the 'just in case' nappies she wore for about 6 months when she could have come out of them and learned sooner - but we didn't have the luxury of living in our own home with our own tolerances to consider). I'm reaping the pay-off, as I only have to leave the house with my normal bag. Except these days the wipes and spare clothes in the car are for her motion sickness...ideas about tackling this are welcome. Thumbs up for Elimination Communication!

Bread matters

We're fine - we're living in a caravan, annex and shed, our dogs roam free, the kids do the same and I buy food from an independent supermarket when there's no farmers market. That's more than fine by me!
My biggest kid started kinder this week and loves it. He'll be fine.
My smallest kid is loved wherever I take her round these parts and that bodes well. She'll be fine.
My big fella is down here with us on leave from work, before heading back to wind up work and metro life. Plenty of work down here. He'll be fine.
I've started Zumba here, I've joined a riding club, I've met some people from my prospective new fire brigade, I already know some great chicks from the local Booby Club, I have a friend in Inverloch who's invited us for a meal (I did the Horse Property Management course with her), and, well, I'm only looking up from here in my new town. I've also learned that cooking in an electric frypan offers a world of possibilities (pasta, french toast, beans and rice).

I'll be fine.
I've already lost some girth from the week I was here with the kids by myself - a couple of walks up and down the road each day (one of those is the evening constitutional, or, "The Wombat Hunt", as Small Boy knows it) and some trips up the hill have seen to that. Nice surprise, actually - I can fit into that little skirt I bought, with much optimism, a couple of months ago...that's always pleasant.
It's the little things. The bakery in town has a daily bread specialty. Mondays is Irish Soda Bread...well, THAT makes me very happy! Of course, I could always ask my dad for his recipe...such memories eating this bread evokes! My dad used to bake this on a Sunday (when he was on shore leave) and we'd have a massive loaf for the whole week. It keeps very well, unsliced, and tastes great when toasted. One sandwich of this bread would be very filling for lunch at school, where two sangas of the supermarket variety always left wanting. This, and Small Boy's new favourite bread, Malti-Oat Bran loaf, make living here just that extra bit better. We have two very good bakeries in town, and Burra Hot Breads is my hands down favourite. Great muffins, great breads and fabulous pies. Love my new life.

'Neigh'-bourhood

Our new neighbourhood and me are gonna get along just fine - I've got loads of people to talk 'horse' with and DO 'horse' with. At the district Christmas party I got to know the locals. One of them is a member of the local club and has offered me a lift to a clinic with Will Enzinger in January...the clinic I thought I couldn't go to because I couldn't get there! So, now I get to go (if there are places left), get to know the clubgrounds and some club members, for when we finally have a float and I can join that club, as well as the neighbouring club, further up the road that I just joined. This particular neighbour just happens to have an older pony her kids have stopped riding that Boy can have rides of, in preparation for when we find him his own pony.
In further horse news, I met Dante's soon-to-be paddock buddy, Nook. A big, black Warmblood/TB, who doesn't like to tie up, but is otherwise quite a nice, fat boy. I put the call out to my new club and one of the members and I have come to a mutually beneficial arrangement. Nook will be on loan to us for as long as we need him, then she can take him back to reintegrate him into her herd. This gives us time to find Tom a suitable horse, Boy a pony and, possibly, my second horse.
On Sunday, I also visited the local artisan, The Gooseneck Pottery. I have been wanting to see the wares since we first bought the farm and I just get ensconced in farm life, forgetting my intentions until we leave again and see the signs. So, I made a special effort and met the American apprentice who lives on site, Jennifer. She took me through the pottery to see the massive, wood-fueled kilns and the workshop. The pottery is just divine, with prices to match the quality and exquisite nature of the work! There IS, however, a bargains and seconds section, for plebs like me who don't see the need to adorn an old caravan and cow shed with fine wares, so take heart.
I'm loving being a farmer, and since 'planting' my Tibetan prayer flags, I feel much more part of it, having offered up my assurances to the elders past that I intent for us to look after the land whilst it is ours to look after.
Now, to get Christmas and New Years over with so that we can get down to the business of MOVING!

Natural Infant Hygiene (Elimination Communication)

This is a photograph of an element of a key parenting tool we have been utilising since Small Girl was 2 weeks of age. It's a chamber pot, to confirm your worst suspicions. A vintage, enamelled child's chamber pot. It's green. It's a bit chipped. It was a bargain at a local recycler.
I found out about such a thing as Natural Infant Hygiene, or Elimination Communication, not too long after Boy-child was born. I thought of it as a wonderful thing to try, just not something for us. But the concept nagged at me. And nagged some more. So I borrowed a book about it from the library, by Ingrid Bauer. It changed my view on a few things, and I decided that I would implement EC into Boy-child's night continence learning. He was out of nappies during the day by 2 years of age and I didn't like the idea of withholding liquids from him overnight, just to keep him dry; believing it was just dehydrating him, rather than learning continence.
The book backed up my thoughts and Bauer's explanations of the human elimination system and cultural conditioning opened up a new world for me. It explained night-wakings to me and I recognised various moments in Boy-child's life when I could have implemented EC. It was time to begin on night times, at almost two and a half years of age.
It took only a couple of weeks of sleeping in the boy's bed with him to wait for his body to stir so that I could prompt him for the potty. There was initial resistance to this new thing - moving from deep sleep to light sleep and then having pants pulled down and taken to the potty was a big adjustment. Soon enough, he knew what was happening and that it was much nicer to just get rid of the wee into the potty, and, eventually, to head to the loo (right near his then-bedroom) and stumble back to bed. I resolved then that the only major change to how I would parent the next child would be to start EC'ing much, much sooner. True night continence meant that Boy-child could still have his breastfeed or two overnight and also at bedtime without fear of having a wet bed, apart from the odd occasion of a missed trip to the loo.
So, in the lead up to our girl being born I bought a chamber pot. Dr Sarah Buckley writes about EC'ing her babies and that was enough inspiration for me to give it a red hot go. It took two weeks, however, for me to move from my comfort-zone into a new reality. The hardest part, it proved, was starting!
It was the week we decided to sell the house, and the day that we had the newborn photos done by Susan D'Arcy. I had been making my observations of Small Girl's body language and took the plunge.
The first time I caught a wee, and I was so excited that it 'worked'! I kept 'catching' wees so that it was no longer 'fluke' and it was a combination of timing and using cues (a 'pssss' sound to encourage letting go of the bladder function). I started catching poos, too, mainly in the mornings, but also through the days in the early weeks.
Soon enough, pooey nappies were becoming a rarity and more a reflection of the time I was spending attached to my baby via sling than luck or coincidence. I was really in tune with this baby and it was really enhancing this newborn caring that I had been resistant to whilst pregnant with her. 'Success' was also reflected in the significantly reduced washing of nappies required each week. Except that I was having to change my pants a couple of times a day when I missed moments during nappy-free times...ah, well!
The way I implemented EC was just one way to do it, and it has so many variations depending on lifestyle and budget. We have been predominantly full-time nappied, part-time EC'ing, sometimes full-time EC'ing and part time nappied, and sometimes full-time EC'ing and nappy-free, sometimes part time both. I have found that when I have to spend more time studying I rely on nappies more, because my attention simply cannot be on both my studies and on being in tune with my girl. I get sad about this, and it's just the way it has to be for a little while longer.
When we're out, we're able to hold Small Girl over a bush or garden bed. She's still mostly breastfed, so she's pretty organic! She hardly ever needs to poo when we're out, because we catch poos in the morning, as most human babies do, and most human adults will if given the chance. I don't carry around receptacles any more, because I've decided that most places we go have loo facilities I can duck off to with her, and if they don't, then there will be some plantlife that will appreciate a drenching.
When Small Girl was about 8 weeks of age we did our first long drive. 3 hours to East Gippsland. She slept until we got to Stratford, did a wee on the grass and then slept till Bairnsdale, wee'd on arrival and voila! Dry car trip! This has been the way travel has been conducted ever since. If she wakes while we're on a drive, we pull over and let her wee and then we have a happy camper thereafter.
EC'ing works best with babywearing and breastfeeding, but these aren't essential ingredients. EC'ing is another way to have a relationship with your child. For me, it makes sense. For us it enhances the way we relate to our children and is the best thing to happen to my parenting toolbox. It imparts empathy and responsiveness that I previously thought only breastfeeding and/or sling-wearing could do. It also connects me to my grandmother and the wisdom she practiced to raise my mum, aunts and uncles. There was no money for nappies (and I'm talking cloth nappies), no polluting water ways with the washing of soiled baby nappies. I love that when my mum first learned of my intentions to EC she thought it was brave and odd. As I continued and normalised to her what I was doing, her own mum's practices became more apparent to her and memories began to surface for her. We both felt more connected to my grandmother.
I'll split this blog post up and write next about how we've gone about EC'ing at night, EC'ing 'on the hop' and the progression towards continence in Small Girl's first year.
I'll leave it on this note. Yesterday, Small Girl was wandering around nappy-free and I lost track of her. I encountered her in the laundry, sitting on the potty:

And in it, was a respectable, definite, self-initiated wee.
Last night she breastfed about twice overnight and I didn't offer her the chamber-pot once until the morning. She remained dry. And I might mention that she was also nappy-free.
Whaddya reckon? Weird? Time consuming? Effective? I reckon it's a lost art that is slowly coming to the consciousness of more and more parents in our society. And it's truly liberating, for all involved!

Head down, bum up

While I wait for a lecture to download I'll pop in a blog entry...
I was about to quit uni this week. After speaking about the logistics, ramifications, implications and risks involved with pulling out with intention to return to the course much later down the track with the postgraduate coordinator, I have decided to soldier on.
This will require doing something I have hitherto avoided - dragging friends into the fray. Expect a phone call, some of you! The next month will be insane. My kids may become temporarily alienated. I may not see much of the farm. I may not see much of humanity outside of Boy-child's activities during the week. I HAVE to do this unit. Then I'll have next semester free before launching right back into it for a final unit...the fun unit of Abnormal Psychology.
Ok, back to it. One day, this being a student caper is gonna get real old. Meanwhile, my lecture is ready to listen to and there is a blanket ban on kids or me getting sick until some time in 2012. OK? OK. I'm going in...

My fella

My fella brings me flowers and gifts, unexpectedly.
He says he loves me throughout the day.
My fella gives me unsolicited hugs and kisses that make me tingle, make me feel luckier than most.
He believes in me, more than I do and wouldn't swap me for another in a heartbeat.
He loves my giving body, unconditionally, and can't wait till I have another baby in my belly.
My fella's face lights up when he comes home from a long day, and he shares with me what he's done.
He asks me how my day was and helps me with my bags.
He hates to see me sad and he knows when something is wrong.
My fella apologises when he upsets me and brings me breakfast in bed.
He loves me in a dress and calls me a princess, believing no others can compare.
He is guilty of ignoring my needs and I often allow him to believe I exist to serve him.
My fella would buy me my dream horse, and ride alongside me.
He likes to photograph me and we laugh at each other's jokes, even the silly ones.
He can be a slob and doesn't always lift the toilet seat, and aren't most fellas?
He forgets my birthdays and can't recall the date we met. Typical fella.
In his eyes I see myself, and after a hard day I am his soft place to fall, and he feels safe falling apart.
Nothing makes me and my fella happier than waking up entwined in arms and legs.
He's a lover, not a hater and charms with his witty, articulate conversation.
I support him in everything he seeks to achieve, encouraging him to trust his instincts.
He brings out the best and the worst in me and he forgives my moods.
I hope I go before he does; life without him would burn my heart to ashes.
Sometimes I am defined by my relationship with my fella, and that's a great honour.
I'm so proud to be my fella's mama.
I held him in arms and slings until he wanted no more.
He watched his sister being born, feeding me water and nuts while I meditated her into water.
He takes from my breast to start his day and will until it's no longer important to him.
We shared sleep for so long and still do from time to time.
My fella and I have a magical understanding, he knows me better than all others.

I love you, boy-child.

Was good...REAL good

Hark ye your minds back to a previous post I made about signing up for eight Zumba classes (via Jump On It). Well, tonight I bit the bullet, told the household I wouldn't be sitting down to dinner with them, for I had need to be elsewhere for an evening of group exercise at Fernwood.
First of all, I have to mention to you how beautiful Fernwood is. What a lovely environment to enter for one's fitness needs! No smell of man sweat, no know-it-all-about-weight-machines people hanging around specifically to have you feeling decidedly inadequate and way out of your league, and if I decide to do the Friday morning class, I could have a shower AND breakfast. I just wish there were a Fernwood in South Gippsland I could join...ach, well, the local gym offering Zumba will have to suffice.
So, back on topic. Zumba is a nice workout, indeed. It felt like the old clubbing days on my body, and like a collection of women assembling for a fun way to maintain general health and wellbeing in my head. It started out with some basic moves for the beginners in the class (hand up!) and progressed into more wiggly moves. I'm up for wiggly moves...it's the wiggling and then the moving sideways in a preordained fashion that I struggle with, and that also spelled the very quick end to my aerobics life, way back when I used to hold gym memberships (and actually used them, too). However, the latin grooves playing provided that little bit of inspiration to get my act together and give the coordination caper a red hot go. And I did. Give it a red hot go, that is. The coordination I will have to report back on, as sometimes I had it, and other times I lost it. Smiling all the way, though. I had to be careful with my foot and leg placement, as a few times I felt the familiar twinge in my pelvis, from my Symphisis Pubis Disfunction, and I had to modify my steps.
Zumba is FUN. Yes, I've only had one class, and if the first one has me feeling fantastic and wanting to find another 45 minutes in an already packed week to get to the Friday class, then it's gotta be a good thing, yeah? Yeah. That's what I thought :)

Babywearing

I love babywearing, and knew I would do it well before Boy-child was born. I don't know just where I got the inspiration from, but I knew babywearing was for me. I had seen pictures of Maya women and children carrying babies on their backs in Guatemalan cloths and wanted that closeness for myself.
Whilst studying Developmental Psychology I happened upon a book by Sharon Heller called 'The Vital Touch', that I found in my local library, and it gave a scientific account of the value of babywearing, of co-sleeping and of touch/massage to babies, and the way it builds vestibular sense as well as neural pathways in the brain that are only stimulated by close holding and touch. Prams put babies outside of normal conversation and human interaction and a heavy reliance on them robs babies of a chance to develop their balance and spatial awareness and, thus, co-ordination. The way a baby sees when in a sling is very multidimensional and they are IN their world, not just spectating it. That really spoke to me and the fact that in a sling, a baby can decide when there's been enough stimulation and visual input by tucking in, turning away and having a kip on mummy's chest. Instinct backed up by evidence, and it was done.
I would ask babywearing parents about their slings. I quickly discounted the more commercial carriers and new that I would be looking outside of major retailers for my carrier, particularly for ease of breastfeeding and also because I didn't like the way babies' spines sat in those. Then I started seeing people wearing Hug-A-Bub carriers and a beautiful friend offered to lend me hers. What a wonderful gift that loan was! I was hooked once I started carrying my firstborn and began investigating the next sling for when he got too big for the soft carrier. A few friends from Booby Club (my local Australian Breastfeeding Association) group were using a carrier called The ErgoBaby Carrier and I decided that its versatility was going to be of great benefit to me. I needed a sturdy carrier that was also soft on my boy's spine, that I could easily breastfeed in, that I could just chuck on in a hurry and safely take him with me to my horse. He was big enough for it at 4.5 months of age without an insert because his head control was pretty well established and he was already crawling - the HAB had reached its end of use. Tom wasn't overly pleased that I'd spent about $140 on a sling, and that's considering that I used my 'first time member' discount voucher at Mothers Direct, the ABA shop...but he got over that soon enough when he realised that he LOVED that Ergo! He could use it easily (he had also been using the HAB, but at that stage we weren't brave enough to try it with a back carry) and carry our boy on his back to get things done. AND, the boy settled so beautifully in it that it quickly became a parenting essential. Forget toys, forget cots, bouncers and all those mummy replacers...the sling was all that would do for our velcro baby, as he eschewed all other measures.
We carried him in New Zealand, we carried him at fire brigade, I carried him in paddocks, I carried him on trains, and, finally, we carried him in Ireland. At about 20 months of age he was well and truly not wanting to be carried anymore. He started walking at 10 months, so we did well to keep him carried for so long. I washed my Ergo, patched it up and put it away...till the next time.
For the next time, our Girl Face, I had made for me a woven cotton sling in lovely stripes. It is a wrap that is firmer for back carries and because it is woven it is a bit cooler in summer. I was given another HAB from a beautiful and kind friend who didn't need hers anymore, so I could interchange my wraps as needed in those first few months.
By the time the Girl was about 3.5 months she was also ready for the Ergo and the other slings went into slow and gradual retirement. By about 4 months, once again, we had an incipient crawler, only this one didn't mind being left to her own devices on the floor...no velcro baby! She's nearly one year old now and spends time in a sling when we're walking to the local shops, at the farm walking up the hills, or near cattle, when I'm with my horse, or unwell. I wear her so much less than I did her brother when we're at home. But babywearing is still an integral part of my parenting and she gets worn by her dad and her grandmother...even her brother has had a go, bless!
Today, Girl Face is fighting a fever and feeling under the weather, so as I type, she is asleep in the beautiful Organic ErgoBaby carrier in seagreen. I have lost track of how much she weighs, but it doesn't matter with the Ergo, because it places her in a way that is evenly distributed and EASY.
Next week is Babywearing Week, where parents and carers everywhere celebrate the merits, the joys and ease of wearing their babies. October 6 - 12 are the dates, so when you wear your baby next week, know that you are part of an ancient and contemporary practice that benefits you and your babies in so many ways, not just the convenience of being handsfree!

Brigade Life

Something about fire brigades. Volunteer ones, I guess I'm writing about. Warning: this could get sentimental.
I've been in one for over eight and a half years. I guess if I didn't love it I wouldn't be there anymore. Sometimes it's a challenge and sometimes I start to believe the little voices that tell me it's too hard to have two little kids, be studying and be a firefighter at the same time. Then I tell those voices to shut the hell up and that I can make it work with a bit of creativity, and buckets of flexibility in attitude from my fellow firefighters.
Anyway, days like today I especially appreciate being in my volunteer fire brigade. Not because sometimes you lose people, but because when you do lose someone you realise what you've got in who's left, and it's the departed member who has left that gift, among other mementos of their time with us on earth.
Some say a funeral is an unfortunate time to reconnect with old mates and I tend to disagree. I tend to think it's a great thing to come away from a funeral and feel glad that, at least, of all that's happened, you were able to press 'pause' in normal activity and get together to celebrate someone's life. Life does just get in the way of catching up with people. And sometimes death has to intervene to trip the circuit. (I don't think I'll mind, when my time comes, if people get together for a great chinwag and reconnect. That would mean that at least two people would have been there to see me off - woo hoo!). Today it was great to catch up with people that, without brigade, I would never have made a connection with and that, because of brigade, my life is richer for having known.
The thing with the vol brigade is that you get who you get and you just have to deal with that menagerie of personalities, skills, talents and experiences. You don't get selected the way you do for paid jobs - if you're healthy, of a clean police record, and willing then there's a place for you if you want it. After that, you see how you fit in. And most people do, in my experience. I've met vols from all over the state and none of them are of the same mould. All we have in common is that we want to put back into our communities.
As a vol, you see the same people, at least once a week, week in and week out for years. You see this side of them that they bring from home or from work whilst leaving a lot of themselves at home or at work. You get to know a few people so well that you become part of their private lives. Sometimes you might even stop being part of their private lives, for various reasons, and find that you can still work and joke together just knowing that there is that connection you have from the jobs you've attended together, the training you've done together, the skills and knowledge that's been shared. That can't be changed by a partner who doesn't get along with you, because that partner isn't a vol and doesn't know what you two know; how the other person would withstand physical pressure beyond their own expectations just to make sure you both exit a smoking building safely, how the other person has taught you to tie knots, how the other person has taken time to show you how a pump works or how to thread those damn laces on turnout boots. I would hope that most vols feel the way I do, in that no matter what the interaction of our private lives, that they seek to bring out the best in their fellow brigade members. Yeah, it's optimistic, and that's what I tend towards.
Often, I'll find myself telling someone about a friend, only to realise that I don't know that much about the person beyond brigade life, and wonder to what extent I can actually use the term 'friend'. And then I'll use it, anyway, because whilst I may not know children's names very well (something I intend to work on), or what music they like, because when you spend at least a couple of hours with someone every week, then see them at all sorts of hours in an emergency environment and debrief with that person, or spend extra hours on fundraising with your brigade peeps, then that counts, too, and is yet another way to know someone and have them be important in your life.
Today we attended a funeral of a fellow vol, and as well as being really sad that he left us so suddenly, I was glad for the opportunity he gave us to bring together former members we hadn't seen for a while, and to be together to appreciate the massive contribution of his life he did make to our brigade in his time served. I didn't know him as well as many of the others did, and I liked him a lot. He was non-confrontational even when he was having a confrontation and he offered whatever he could to the brigade, even when work kept him away from training and callouts. I knew he really wanted to get back into brigade life, like old times, so when I was told of his sudden illness it felt like a sideswipe. I think a lot of us were still processing it today, to make sure it was real. I guess it was, because we watched the casket being lowered into the earth after forming a guard of honour for him.
I wasn't sure, when I first joined, what that action would lead to, in terms of all these new people I had to get to know and work with. I had heard of firefighters refer to one another as family, brothers and the like. Somehow, these people enter your consciousness, then your subconscious and strangers form a very odd 'family' indeed, and a very welcome one. My mum used to complain that I had more time for strangers than I did for my own family, when I'd go to training on Wednesdays and Sundays, then fundraising, and callouts. When I first joined they were strangers. In a very short space of time the term 'stranger' couldn't be further from the truth, even if I didn't know what music they'd like played at their funerals. Those same people didn't know my mum, my sister, my favourite colour, and they accepted me for what I was willing to give and what I could dig deep to find in order to give.
In the foreseeable future we'll be moving to a new area and joining a new brigade and the process will begin again, perhaps with some more theorising and musing on my part. I dread to think that I'll feel about people I don't yet know the way I do about our current bunch of fiends (oops, did I forget the 'r'?), because it doesn't seem possible. Yet I hope that does happen, because I don't want to lose that sense of belonging to something way bigger than myself in the process of moving town. I'm ambivalent about my own situation where my childbearing has meant I have spent more time away from brigade than I thought I would have to, but babysitting for two young children on a Wednesday night is hard to come by when you're asking favours of loved ones, and also trying to maximise study opportunities when uni work is due. I'm told that everyone understands, so it's probably time I ease up on beating myself up over that. And the move doesn't mean we can't retain bonds with our current brigade, it just means we're adding to our brigade experiences.
I think I'm in a lucky situation where I was a vol and then introduced Tom to vol life. He knows what I mean, so I don't live with someone who doesn't understand why I would drop everything for 'strangers', or who struggles with that committment. I'm also lucky that I have friends in a few of the partners, so even if they don't always 'get' it, we still get along, and can be part of one another's lives.
No answers, no great revelations, I just needed to get it out.
So, thank you Steve A, for helping me thresh out these thoughts and bringing to my attention how important you have been, and how important all our members are to our lives, both private and 'just brigade'. You gave what you could until there was nothing left to give.

The Palace Arriveth!

The Farm Project now has a dwelling! Ok, so it's a caravan, and to some this may not suit their sensibilities about how one ought to live with a family of two small children, but it's OURS and it's on OUR farm. We have somewhere to stay comfortably on weekends, and, when I have some clear headspace and time, I will fashion it into something liveable and cosy.
Already I've put in some touches to make it more inviting.

The Sick Bay

The pestilence is visiting our household. The previous weekend it was Small Girl and I who had taken to our bed, and said Girl convalesced through the week while I hacked together my research proposal for my subject at uni.
Then Tom took the boy to the farm on Saturday night and us girls were to join them on Sunday for Fathers Day. I got an sms early on Sunday morning to say the boys were coming back early because it was cold and windy. WELL, Tom came back and brought me home a feverish, sadly looking child...not a successfull Fathers Day outcome. I spent it tending to my sickly child's needs, between his various naps. Yes, MY ELDEST had lots of little naps during the day...he was THAT sick.
He spent the next day in bed watching DVD's on my laptop, then transferred to the couch to watch some kids shows, before retiring to bed again. THAT sick, he was.
On Tuesday he spent the morning in bed and then decided it was too sunny to stay in bed feeling sick. He took himself outside, played hard, came back in, lay on the couch, went outside, played hard again and came back in again.
Yesterday, Wednesday, he felt sick again after a feverish night. Again, it had been a sunny day and he couldn't help himself, he just had to go outside and feel the sun on his skin. This time, he took himself off to bed for two long naps. And he went to bed easily that night again, with no fuss.
Today was a similar story, just without the naps, so he fell asleep on the couch while I was away swimming with the girl and was transferred to my bed.
I haven't actually dosed him up on paracetamol this whole time at all. I decided to let his fever do its work. Sure, he was feeling subdued and unwell and sometimes a bit dizzy, and has had a perpetual eyes-at-half-mast kind of appearance about him, but he's not actually saying he's in pain. Talking to a friend about it last week, in relation to the girl having her fever last week, we concluded that sometimes it's ok to let them have a fever and not give them something to make it go away. The body is trying to do something - it's elevating its temperature to kill off the bug that's giving it the irrits - the body is in combat mode. It occurred to me that we live in a society that is afraid of fever and jumps to quell the symptoms of illness, before gauging just how important it is to do that. Yes, some high temperatures carry risk of meningitis and similar complications. I know that can happen. This fever, though, wasn't seeming to be such a critical deal. Hot body, some sweaty outbreaks, fine by morning before another feverish bout occurred the following night.
I took him to the doctor after the third night of it (I'm not a white-coat hater, I just don't feel the need to clog up waiting rooms for every virus we contract). Turns out he has swollen glands but no sign of infection, and a follow up tomorrow should determine where he's at with it all. So, I've done ok.
The doctor did, however, espouse that I dose the boy up on paracetamol and a decongestant, to 'keep him comfortable and back to himself'. Hmmm, there's keeping him comfy, and then there's having him back to his old self. I decided to just get the decongestant to keep breathing comfortable, and to let him feel a bit sick. I made a calculated decision to avoid dosing him up based heavily on what he, himself, had done during that day; that is, to take himself to bed for a nap.
For a kid who never stops, maybe it's ok to let him really feel what it's like to slow down. Not for my convenience (or for undiagnosed Munchausen Syndrome, which I'm pretty sure I don't have...), but for his own self-awareness. If I dose him up so that he doesn't feel that sick, how is he ever to read his body's signs and listen to what his body is telling him? Masking discomfort isn't the best way forward all of the time. Just because we have paracetamol in the house, doesn't mean we have to use it. I do use my essential oils for their medicinal properties before I resort to manufactured medications. The bedroom smells divine, as well as helping to restore healthy order!
As it is, it makes sense to him when I tell him that his body needs rest. If he's on pain relievers, this connection is much harder to make. When I've asked him over the last few days how he's feeling, he's been able to stop what he's doing, have a think and intuit, and then articulate that he's 'feeling bad' and where he feels bad. He's four. Knowing himself and what he needs is a great tool to have and medicating him every time he's got a virus isn't going to do him any long term favours.
A side effect of this illness of his is that our relationship is back on track. Whatever energy it is that guides our lives and nature could well be at work here (I'm not religious, so if you'd like to think of this energy as a God, god, deity, spirit, go ahead; it would work just as well). One of my recent posts points to the near-exasperation I have felt for the first time in four years of motherhood. None of the other stages of motherhood have tested me as much. Up until recent times, motherhood was pretty dreamy and I loved how I came out of the challenges presented to me. My kid is probably more high-octane than most of the other kids we know. He's irrepressible. That's how I prefer to think of him. Words like 'naughty' and 'bad' just don't enter my vocabulary. They have no constructive value.
Anyhow, this spot of sickness has come at just the time we needed to press 'pause' in the way things were going. It's given us a lot more opportunity for cuddles and "I love you's" than we'd ordinarily have - we usually have a lot, it's just that during the week we get caught up with the various activities we have for him that keep him occupied and engaged, and I'll go to bed thinking we didn't spend a particular day with much tactile communication.
This week we have woken up together, with him being in my bed for comfort. We have snuggled in the middle of the night, we have snuggled in the middle of the day with nowhere to rush off to. It's been very good for our relationship to have him home sick and getting back to basics, I suppose.
Whilst outside today, he saw that I was standing with the girl on my back in the carrier. He insisted on procuring for me a folding chair. "Mum, I will get you a chair so you can sit down and stay outside with me", "Thanks, that's very kind of you", "You're welcome, Mum". This is not what 'bad' kids are made of, and if they are, then I'm willing to bear that cross!
So, boy being sick is not such a terrible thing to befall our household. Not when it's taught us both a bit more about ourselves. Me, to take stock of recent times and just hold my precious, intuitive, reactionary, effervescent, joyful first child in his frailer moments, and him, to learn the value of resting his body and listening to it.
Putting himself into bed rest was an unexpected and mature, independent action. I'm glad I didn't order him to bed when he stepped outside. It would only have ended in frustrated argument, anyway. With freedom comes responsibility. He's not doing too badly, is my boy, with his freedoms.