the treasure of home

Sunday was Waitangi Day and I stood at the window at the end of the day and watched the sun go down. It was fiery golden right up until the moment it dipped below the horizon. The girls were in bed and most of the cleaning up from the BBQ lunch we'd had was done. I stood looking out the window at the glowing horizon, the brick house over the road and the trees, green green all the way up to the top of the ridge. I thought about how good it was to belong to New Zealand.

I was born in Spain, but Mum was a kiwi, and Dad immigrated to New Zealand from England as a child. We lived together in Madrid for a few months and then headed to New Zealand via England. I arrived at customs, Auckland airport, still all new at only four months old. There is a photo of my parents walking through the arrivals gate pushing a trundler of suitcases with a woven bassinet perched on top. I was home.

I was home, yet I didn't fully realise it for another thirty-six years. Home is a funny thing. Some people are at home wherever they are. Others can spend years living somewhere and never feel at home. My Grandmother was like that. My Grandfather dragged her to New Zealand when she was thirty-seven, two children in tow. She's about to turn ninety-nine, and she still calls England home. I've never questioned the fact that I am a New Zealander. I have the citizenship papers to prove it. And yet I haven't always known what being "home" really meant. When I was younger I spent a lot of time either travelling or wishing I was travelling. I wanted to go everywhere. I still do.

Then soon after Isobella was born a story was conceived. I don't talk about this story much, but if I'm lucky, you'll get to read it one day. The story was breathed out of the very dust and soil of my mother's home town Raglan. It's an earthy story, with roots that go back farther than I can see. The story made me fall in love with Raglan. It opened my eyes to see that I actually belonged to this place. It was in me.

The Maori have a concept "Turangawaewae" that is sorely lacking in western culture. Turangawaewae means "standing place." Te Ara, New Zealand's online Encyclopedia describes Turangawaewae like this;

"Tūrangawaewae is one of the most well-known and powerful Māori concepts. Literally tūranga (standing place), waewae (feet), it is often translated as ‘a place to stand’. Tūrangawaewae are places where we feel especially empowered and connected. They are our foundation, our place in the world, our home... In the concept of tūrangawaewae, the external world is a reflection of an inner sense of security and foundation. The mountains, rivers and waterways to which one can claim a relationship also express this internal sense of foundation."

I wrote about this a year ago. We had spent a week on Great Barrier Island, and being there I felt the same feeling I'd felt falling in love with Raglan. That same incredible feeling of belonging. The group we were with had gathered to learn and talk about New Zealand History, The Treaty of Waitangi, and the role of the church in all of that. During the week we had a spontaneous powhiri - the welcoming ceremony used when visitors arrive on a marae. Those who were immigrants to New Zealand and those who had never felt like they truly belonged here were invited to be the "manuhiri" or visitors, and the rest of the group were the "tangata whenua" - the welcomers or literally, "people of the land" who would welcome them to New Zealand. I knew straight away I needed to be manuhiri. It wasn't that I was conscious of not belonging, it was that intellectually I have always known I was a visitor. Not just because I was a literal visitor at the age of four months, but because I was pakeha. Deep down I saw myself as an outsider.

The powhiri was the real deal. I joined the group of manuhiri and we stood shoulder to shoulder as the call came out.

"Haere Mai! Haere Mai! Haere Mai!
Haere Mai ra e te manuhiri tuarangi e
Haere Mai! Haere Mai! Haere Mai!"

We moved slowly towards the voice that was calling us and the people waiting for us on the other side of the room. As we walked, I suddenly found that tears were rolling down my face. I hadn't realised I needed to be welcomed. I could have easily chosen to stand with the tangata whenua. The decision to be manuhiri was purely intellectual. But my heart was telling me otherwise. My heart was telling me I needed to belong.

So this Waitangi Day was special. For the first time I actually felt like celebrating. We kiwis are funny about Waitangi Day. Historically it has been a focus for Maori protest. Most non-Maori New Zealanders see Waitangi Day as a holiday and not much else. We turn on the TV news at night expecting to see images of Maori waving placards. A red-necked minority resent Maori and their grievances. Some Maori resent pakeha, understandably. It's a complicated situation, with a history full of tragic injustices and misunderstandings. Not unlike the history of so many other colonised nations.

But there's a difference. We have a treaty. In 1840 Britain was being urged to do something about the growing number of English and other immigrants in New Zealand, and the ensuing lawlessness and land-grabbing. The urgency was being voiced by Christian men - the same group that with William Wilberforce saw slavery abolished. Britain was reluctant, not wanting to repeat the past.  However in the end there seemed to be no other path, and she agreed on the grounds that the transfer of power be just.

So the treaty was born. A well-meaning but hastily drawn-up and poorly translated document. We have a complicated relationship with this treaty of ours. We can go through years of treaty history in public schooling and still not understand either its vitality or its uniqueness.  Waitangi Days come and go, protesters come and go, and we remain ambivalent. Yet it is ours.

The Sunday Star editorial yesterday was entitled "Waitangi Day's evolution cause for cautious pride." The editor noted that treaty settlements are now "treated as normal events" and that they have "restored a small portion of lost taonga and considerable mana."  This is good, and the atmosphere of celebration that is slowly coming to Waitangi Day is entirely appropriate.  But it's hard to celebrate something that's not entirely yours. Belonging to New Zealand means sharing ownership with the others who belong here. Ownership comes with responsibility, but it also comes with the many benefits and priveleges of belonging.

The conversation about the treaty belongs to all of us here in Aotearoa New Zealand. If we leave it to those at either extreme of the political debate then the conversation is not complete. More than that, our absence in the conversation is a form of filial laziness. We are the absent adult children, out of reach just when the family needs us most.

Where are you at home? Whose table do you eat from? How often do you stop to appreciate the feast that is laid out for you? What contribution do you bring?

Dorothy says it, Dave Dobbyn sings about it, we all know it, but there's no place like home. To have a home, and to feel at home, is one of the greatest treasures any human can have.

We got a dog just after Christmas. Silas was a rescue puppy, straight from the pound. He's a sweet and easy-going five month old lab-cross and it hasn't taken long for him to settle in. Two months ago he was wandering the streets, abandoned, but now as I write he's sprawled across our doorway on his back, legs splayed. He's at home.

I've got three daughters and they're at home too. They love their country. They get excited about our beaches and bush and birds, and they sing the National Anthem like a prayer without anyone even suggesting to them that it is one. I've been here since I was four months old, but in a way I'm just as new as my girls or the dog. So I'm taking my cues from them and making myself at home. I'm stretching out and speaking up. I'm home.

Thanks to Cindy Ruakere and friends for making this incredible version of our National Anthem. I've been listening to it as I write, and I challenge you to listen and not feel your spine tingle.

second thoughts

It's windy again today. I love the rushing sound of the wind through the trees. Reflected in the screen of my laptop I can see a large bush on the neighbour's side behind me, shiny green leaves moving. Behind the layers of trees at the end of our garden, far off into the distance, a huge tree is swaying against the sky, its branches tossed and troubled.

I'm thinking about the last post I wrote, and how I assured you so confidently of my position on computers and children. I asserted without question that "computers... are not play" and that as far as encouraging children to develop their skills with new technologies goes, that I think they "don't need much help." Then the very night after I wrote that post I talked to a good friend who happened to tell me that her daughter is going into a new "mobile class" at school, where the children have been given laptops, have an intranet they can post updates and video blogs to, and will be taught how to use computer programmes such as PowerPoint and animation programmes so that they can use the computer in various ways to present their assignments to the class. Now there's some irony for you.

My friend's daughter is a treasure. She is a delight to converse with, has an incredible imagination, and is intensely creative. She once told me that she had a pencil in her head which was constantly writing songs. She thinks in animation. She's already video blogging and updating away on her laptop, and she's seven. Did I celebrate with my friend on hearing the news about the class she will be in this year? Oh yes! She'll thrive, there's no doubt. And who knows what she'll go on to create in the years to come because of it.

I got off the phone feeling a bit sheepish. I knew straight away I would have to tell you. And since then I've spent the week thinking about what I think about computers and kids, what I think about computers and learning, and what I think about what I think! It was a week of second thoughts.

If I could re-write that post again, it would be a lot less emphatic. I'd explore the opposite view with a bit more depth and respect. I'd talk about the reality that computers have become in our lives, how they open up the world to us, offer us new and multiple ways of expressing ourselves, and make much of the world's knowledge accessible to the world. I'd also tell you how the internet has opened my eyes to other ways of seeing, how I've learnt so much, and gained so much, from viewing the lives of "others" through the medium of blogging. I'd probably finish the post up by noting the irony that at the same time as I was expounding the value of discouraging my children from too much computer use, I myself was in the middle of a two-hour stint on the computer!

I value open-mindedness. I've spent enough of my life being dogmatic and self-righteous. I want my girls to grow up confident in their own beliefs and in who they are, but with an ability to see and appreciate other points of view. That's not to say I have no absolutes. There are truths that are as real and as dear to me as my own life. It's just that I've come to see truth like a diamond. Unchanging, solid, beautiful and multi-faceted. My faith and my ideas about the world come from this.

If you read that last post and disagreed with it, speak up. If you see computers as an important part of your children's lives, tell us how you make it work. It's an important conversation, and "just turn them off" is not necessarily helpful or realistic advice.

I still whole-heartedly believe in play, and you can see from the comments on that post that there are other mothers out there who feel the same way. It seems that "go and play or I'll give you something to clean" is an oldie but a goodie. But the world we parent in is more complex than the world our mothers parented us in. Our children are going to grow up faced with an increasing plethora of technologies, ideas, and options. Change will be as impossible to resist and as constant as the wind in the trees. We need to navigate this new world alongside them. Roots will be invaluable, flexibility imperative.

play

I'm sitting on my bed with my lap-top on my knees. The girls are playing in the lounge. It's "rest time."  I can't believe I've actually managed to pull this off, but since the beginning of the year I've been getting the girls to play quietly in the lounge or outside while Abigail sleeps. Almost every day since then I've been coming here to to my bed to write, pray and read. I almost can't believe it. I'm pinching myself! But I'm so glad that I did, as I've been sick since last Thursday.  Not really sick, but sick enough to need a lie-down to get through the day, and I'm only just getting over it now. I've really needed the rest.

Right now I can see clearly through the doorway of this bedroom into the lounge, where the girls are playing.  They've taken on multiple roles in some kind of family game. They are wearing the top half of the flannelette pyjamas we were just handed-down from our neighbour and are playing with a random assortment of toys they brought out of the bedroom before Abigail went to sleep. They've been playing for at least an hour. They've gotten so used to rest time now that they anticipate it, and slip into playing mode as soon as lunch is over. This is something I've dreamed about, and tried to instigate many times without any success. Somehow this time it has worked. To say I'm grateful is a huge understatement!

It's been interesting to watch how easily they've adapted to playing in a small space for a set time-period, with limited toys. (They share a room with Abigail and most of their toys are in there.) I've been thinking a lot about playing these last few weeks, especially since the Sunday Star Times ran an article from the Sunday Times last weekend about "mobile kids" - the first generation of children to grow up with iPads and iPhones. According to this article pre-schoolers all over the world are becoming adept at handling the kid-friendly technology, so much so that for some it is “the new dummy,” with one parent describing her five year old as “addicted.”

Amongst the experts, opinion is divided. Professor Rose Luckin, a cognitive scientist at the University of London’s Institute of Education argues that smart devices can provide "powerful multisensory interations in a family context, any time, any where” with the added advantage of being mobile, so “you can be integrated more easily.” However Dr Eric Sigman recently told childcare specialists that “computers should be banned from schools until kids reach the age of nine.” He says “We risk infantilising the child’s mind by spoon-feeding it with strong audiovisual sensations… and subverting the development of children’s cognitive skills.”

I couldn’t agree more. Although computers, iPads and iPhones do not create the passivity that television does, they are still, on the whole, easy brain fodder that makes no demands on the imagination. They are a solitary activity, with no social benefits, and, as Educational Psychologist Kairen Cullen notes, they “tend… to displace other, more labour intensive activities such as outdoor play.”

About ten minutes ago, while I was still writing this post, Isobella came in to see me from the lounge, desperate to have “her turn” on the Leap Frog writing pad we were given at the weekend. I hesitated, knowing that it would cause friction. But she was right, she was due a turn, and I knew it would be easier for her to play with it now while the baby was still asleep. (Addicted? You should see the baby with that thing!) Once Isobella had the Leap Frog pad Greer was distracted and jealous. The easiest thing to do was to give Greer my iPhone and let her play on it. For the last ten minutes they’ve both been playing on the bed beside me. Educational? Well, yes. Peaceful? For me, no. And a long way from the imaginative play they were absorbed in twenty minutes ago. I know which I’d rather they were doing.

None of this is new, but I think it’s important to keep in mind. It’s understandable that for many parents, bringing children up to be familiar with new technologies is an important goal. Personally, I don’t think most kids need much help in that department. They learn so quickly that when the need arises, they'll catch on. I’m happy for the girls to play on my iPhone occasionally, and use the computer for learning once or twice a week, but I don’t go out of my way to provide them with these opportunities, and actually, I’d much rather they were playing.

You see, the thing that struck me most of all about this article was one small throwaway line near the end of it. Educational Psychologist Kairen Cullen says “Parents need the confidence, and time, to push more traditional activities.” "Traditional activities?" How sad! Firstly, how sad that what was once called “play” has become “traditional activities” and, secondly, how sad that parents need “confidence” to push it. No educational expert will disagree with the fact that play is the bedrock of all learning. But computers, iPhones, and iPads are not play. Play is what every child does naturally given some space, some free time, and access to a few basic toys and safe household items. And from what I’ve seen with my girls at rest time, the less they have, the better the play. It seems that given a few restrictions, the imagination goes wild. Far wilder than when presented with an overwhelming array of every toy and technology under the sun.

I do think that playing takes practise, though. Those two girls of mine have gotten better and better at it since we've been doing rest time. If I decided that they could watch movies or play on the computer during rest time, I know those playing skills would get rusty. I want them to play well - for their own enjoyment, for the development of their imaginations, but also for my own sanity! I want to be able to say "go and play" and know that they can and will, happily. After all, who doesn't want children who are independent and able to entertain themselves? New technologies have the appearance of being an easy and educational way to keep our children amused, but they do so at a cost.  In the end, nothing beats ordinary, old-fashioned play.

What do you think? What play do your children do best? What  are the best memories you have of playing as a child?

wind and sorrows

It's windy today. I'm sitting on my bed looking out through the french doors to the garden where Isobella and Greer are playing with Silas. Everything is moving. The big pine trees towering above us are swaying and the leaves of the jacaranda tree in the middle of the garden are wind-blown and dishevelled. Inside I can hear the click clack clack of the blinds as the wind blasts through the windows.  The air is thick and humid. Everything is rattled.

I'm sitting here thinking about Tucson and this clip from last week I've finally got round to watching;



I'm thinking about the seventy-two year old husband who fell on his wife as soon as he heard the shots and died to save her. I'm thinking of the little girl whose beginning and ending are so much about the complicated and volatile politics of her beloved country. I'm thinking of Gabrielle Giffords; what will she do when (if?) she recovers?

And I'm thinking about floods. Mud, water, landslides. I'm thinking of Australia, my neighbour, and Brazil, that country too full of vulnerable people.

And I can't help but think of these words;

Now as He sat on the Mount of Olives, the disciples came to Him privately, saying, “Tell us, when will these things be? And what will be the sign of Your coming, and of the end of the age?”
 And Jesus answered and said to them: “Take heed that no one deceives you.  For many will come in My name, saying, ‘I am the Christ,’ and will deceive many.  And you will hear of wars and rumors of wars. See that you are not troubled; for all these things must come to pass, but the end is not yet.  For nation will rise against nation, and kingdom against kingdom. And there will be famines, pestilences, and earthquakes in various places.  All these are the beginning of sorrows.  Matthew 24:3-8

Conflict just errupted outside. The girls were screaming at each other and I called them in. The culprit was Isobella and she yelled like a banshee all the way to time out. I put my hand over her mouth so she didn't wake the baby and she bit my hand. My baby, my dear kind daughter.

I'll blame it on the wind.

a word for 2011

Have you got a word for this year yet? I didn't really have one last year, although I had some ideas that were right for me, they just never evolved into one word. The year before that my word was hope. That word was spot on, and it served me well.

This year, my word has found me, rather than me finding it. It came to me one day just before the end of last year, and it hasn't left since. It's not a word I would have thought up on my own. Actually, this word doesn't come to me naturally at all. But I've discovered over the last two weeks that it has many rewards.

My word for 2011 is order.

When I last wrote I told you about my intentions for this year. To write and exercise every day, to watch a movie with Paddy once a week, to spend a day alone once a month. These things aren't huge or impossible goals, but they will take commitment, and will involve some good time-management. This is where order comes in. You see, I have a feeling that a bit of order is going to be my friend this year.

If you know me, particularly if you are family, you're probably having a good chuckle to yourself about now. You wouldn't call me an ordered person. I wouldn't call myself an ordered person. Order and it's family of words; routine, schedule and timetable don't normally do it for me. I'm definitely an unstructured person. I'm relaxed, spontaneous, fairly messy, often disorganised, and I lose things. Some of this is because I'm a dreamer at heart, and very absent-minded, but some if it us just because I fit with that unstructured personality type.

I've tried to instigate various routines for myself over the years. I've started routines for housework, babies' sleeps, mornings, writing, and exercise. None of them have stuck. It's not that I give up easily, or that I don't value routine at all, it's that I find it very difficult to do the same thing, at the same time, every day. There is something innate in me that resists it. I am not a creature of habit.

That's not to say I haven't appreciated a bit of routine. Ironically, I always feel good when I have some routines, for as long as I can manage to keep them up. Someone once pointed out to me that it's important for unstructured people to have some structure in their lives. I guess that conversely that means that structured people need to also have some spontaneity in their lives somewhere.

But when I say "order" I don't mean strict schedule. I'm not about to write a timetable for our homeschooling, or decide that at 6:30am every morning I will be in the shower. Rather, I've identified some priorities in our day, and I've decided to make sure that those things get done first. For example, it seems to me that it will be a good thing if the girls and I are all dressed for breakfast with beds already made. It's easier to get on with the rest of the morning that way. We practise violin straight after we've finished eating, while Abigail is still in her highchair. That's the only time it works, so it's a priority. Then after that the girls empty the dishwasher. If that chore happens straight after breakfast then I don't have to battle with them to do it at another time when they are busy doing something else. Once that's done, it's teeth and hair and the rest of our day. And that's it. Simple and probably blindingly obvious to most of you. It's not a timetable. It's just a bit of order.

Order has worked well for me in the last two weeks. It frees up my time. It has inspired and enabled me to create some "quiet time" while Abigail is alseep where I write and the girls read, do puzzles, or play quietly. Which has in turn given me time to work on some projects I never thought I'd get onto this quickly. Order has enabled me to start something new - something very exciting which you will be hearing about soon!

I'm aware that things will change when the term starts and we have kindy and homeschooling activities to go to. Things won't be so simple then. But I've figured out something important. Order is easier to achieve when there is less to be ordered. You might think of this as keeping it simple, or less is more. However you describe it, it's obvious, and it's not rocket science. The simpler things are, the easier it is to order them. So I'll be choosing our commitments this year wisely. I'm not giving away my order!

Are you a structured or unstructured person? How does this influence your days? Do have a word for 2011? Tell me...

me and the new year, part two

I am too tired. It is partly my own fault for staying up late all of last week. It is also just simply because I need a holiday, and this summer, well, for now anyway, we are not going to get one.

I’ve told you about bad days with the kids. I’ve told you about feeling grumpy and fed-up. I realised last month that I could see it like this. That’s why I called the other night, when I last wrote, a "fat caterpillar night”.

But there’s only so much eating a caterpillar can do. At some point that caterpillar has to take a break, go exploring, or hide under leaf.

Right now I feel hiding under a leaf. I just wish everyone would go away. This week Paddy has some days off, and I know exactly how I’d love to spend them. But just around the corner is the harsh reality that I could be looking for a job this year. So to the office he needs to go. There is work to be done on the new business we started last year, and on some ventures we are exploring. This isn’t just a hobby for him, this is about bread and butter. He lost some work about a year ago, and since then we haven’t quite managed to make ends meet. The thing that has been holding us together is a little silver card, and he just came into the room now and cut it up in front of me.

No more little silver safety net. Real world of real money here we come.

So why am I sitting here writing this sob-story for you? I’m writing because I’ve decided to. Those questions I told you about have given me a way to crystallise what I want for this year.

On New Year’s Eve I had a great chat with my friend Mels, and I found myself asking this question:

What two things would I like to do every day this year?

I knew almost instantly what my answer was; writing and exercise.

I can't survive if I don't write. It untangles my mind, translates my twisted thoughts and brings me peace, deep on the inside, like almost nothing else can. If I don’t do it, eventually the cracks start showing. When I prioritise writing, the rest of the day seems to fall into place and I feel like I am living my life from the inside out. This is how I described it in my journal at the beginning of last year;

“And if I really want to write…, then I will have to make some changes myself. This is a commitment I am making to myself… with my time, with my energy, with my head space... with the physical space in this house. It must all work together to enable me to stay committed to this one goal; to write. Is that like being single-minded? Is that the outworking of my longing to live my life from within, primarily, and then to live that inner-life outwards? For if I have nothing within, if there is no heart-life, then I have nothing to live out. I am all superficiality and no substance, all striving and no rest, all appearances and nothing real. In that, I am not being true to myself, and I am sabotaging the very thing I long for most – to write.”

It's not difficult for me to find the desire to write. Of all the things I could do with my time, after enjoying my family, writing is my all-time favourite. If I didn't have family commitments and could earn a living from it, I would write full-time. You've probably already figured this out. It's the reason I'm looking forward to getting old. But for now, my time is not entirely my own. Most of my time is taken up with mothering. I don't resent that at all but it means I have to fight for time to write. I have to make a conscious choice to do it. It doesn't happen otherwise.

I chose exercise for the second every day thing, because since Abigail was born I haven't done it at all. I find it very difficult to make time to get out for a walk. Silas is our family gym membership, not that he knows that. But I’ve made the intention to exercise do-able. Gardening counts, as does housework, as does Pilates on the floor of the bedroom!

After I’d asked myself that question, the next question seemed obvious.
“What would I like to do once a week?”

The answer to that one took a bit longer to think over, but something which almost never happens came to mind. I’m going to spend every Tuesday night watching a movie with Paddy. You could call it a date night if you wanted to but for some reason neither of us can handle the thought of doing a “date night”. Maybe it’s because we are non-conformists at heart, or maybe it’s because we both, nearly ten years later, see our marriage as the intersection of the lives of two individuals rather than a complete merger. So we won’t be calling it date night. But TV night sounds good. And it will be very good for us. It’s a shame I had to make an intention of it to do it, but TV is not my favourite thing, and I always feel like I’ve got a million and one things to be doing rather than sitting down doing nothing.

After that question, another one popped up.
“What would I love to do once a month?”

I wasn’t sure about that at first. But I found a dream rising from my heart. I don’t know if this is possible but I’d like to spend a day a month alone. It could be going to the library to research, going to the beach or the bush, or even going to the Franciscan Friary near-by for a retreat. Wherever I am my dream is to do as little talking as possible, to daydream, read, write and pray.

So that’s enough about me, what about you? If you asked yourself the same questions what would your answers be?

1. What two things would you like to do every day?

2. What would you like to do every week?

3. What would you love to do once a month?

Think about it...

insert title here

This post was going to be about New Year's Eve, and how Mum, my friend Mels, the girls and I went to the beach and had a picnic tea. I had photos and everything. But tonight was another eat lots get fat caterpillar night. Paddy has been doing the shift I dread the most. He leaves home at 4pm and finishes at midnight. I'm not complaining, because that would be boring for you and a waste of my energy, but let's just say I'm over it.

So to tell you all about how we went to the beach on New Year's Eve and ate takeaway chicken and mum's potato salad and a green salad from our garden, and then played at the edge of the water and talked about 2011 would be facile and insincere.

The soft-boiled eggs were way too close to hard-boiled eggs for any one's liking. Isobella had the wrong kind of toast on her plate and she was sour about it. It was hot and humid. Every window in the house was open but it made no difference. Greer yelled through the bathroom door from time-out "I'm thinking I'm going to change houses again! I'm thinking I'm going to change houses again!"  Abigail went around hitting us all in turn to see what kind of reaction she would get, and after that she tried to climb out the window.

The dog was happy. He got fed. I hung out a load of washing as dusk settled and the air suddenly cooled. The sky was blue with wispy pink stripes at the horizon. Up on the ridge a big house had all its lights blazing. It's windows were bright eyes shining out. I looked up and thought about living there one day. Up high. Looking over the city and across to the harbour. Maybe both harbours.

And then I turned back inside past the cat eating and across the door mat getting dust between my toes and then back in here, to this dimly lit small room. Where I sit, writing. Behind me the island bench waits, covered in dishes. Outside is black now, other than the streetlights, glowing asterisks in the night. The headlights of a car moving up the hill.

There were words, but they had no substance. I pressed down on them to see if they would hold and they collapsed under my weight. I can't write about potato salad. I can't even write about the Whiskey and Raisin Cake which we ate later as the clock moved us steadily towards the end of 2010. I wanted you to ask me for the recipe. I would have got it off Mels and made it for you, taken photos from every angle. But my words need to hold more than cake. I am heavier than that.

I can't write for you. You all want something different and, in the end, none of you will be pleased. You will sit at my table and your lips will curl up when I serve you over-cooked eggs on the wrong toast. You will love me one day, and loathe me the next. And when I'm not looking you will climb up my walls and out the window. You'll be gone.

Don't try and tell me otherwise. I've seen it before. My words won't be yours. They can only be mine. I write for an audience of one.

Meet Silas

We've been talking on and off about getting a dog for months. Every time we've talked about it we always end up talking ourselves out of it. Until now. The day before Christmas Eve I saw an ad in our local paper for a dog up for adoption at the pound. For some reason I was quite taken with her. I cut the ad out of the paper and rang the pound from the bedroom so the girls wouldn't hear me.

The advertised dog had already been adopted, but I persuaded Paddy to take the girls for a visit anyway. They saw a sweet black lab-cross puppy and, unbeknownst to the girls, Paddy put our names down as interested in him.

Many long and complicated conversations later, we decided we would take him. On Monday we all went to the pound to pick up our "new member of the family" as Isobella calls him.  He sat quietly in the front passenger seat between my legs on the way home, and only threw up once! The girls were completely overjoyed. Isobella, who has wanted a dog for as long as she can remember, kept saying "I can't believe my dreams are coming true today!"

I've never owned a dog before, but Paddy had a family dog as a child.  We were concerned that it might not be the right time for us to become dog owners, with Abigail only nineteen months old, but it turns out that our Silas is a very mellow puppy. He has barely barked since we got him, and is not as boisterous as I feared. I don't let Abigail outside without me, as his friendly licks are a bit too much for her, but she's not too scared of him. Even the cat seems to be putting up with him.

To be honest I think part of the reason I was so taken with the idea of a dog is that I'm actually very clucky at the moment. I'd love another baby. But I've had three caesareans and I was under the impression that I would be advised not to have any more, so I had my tubes tied during Abgail's birth. Since then I've met and heard of plenty of women who have more than three caesareans, and I feel a bit cheated. I've also done a lot of reading and thinking about contraception in the last few months and I now have a completely new perspective. As well as that I've found three children is not much more complicated that two, in fact in many ways it's easier. And then there's Abigail. She walks around the house singing in baby talk. She's adorable, and I'm smitten.

Actually, we're all smitten!

So will Silas fulfill my baby longings? Probably not. But he's lovely. He really feels like part of the family. We'll get out more and do more exercise, and that's a good thing. We'll also acquire some new skills as we train him, and maybe even learn a thing or two about parenting in the process!

Any dog stories to share? Or hints for handling a puppy and a toddler?

me, heels and the new year

So here we are looking at 2011, all shiny in its newness and barely unwrapped. How does it feel to you? In our corner of the world it is hot and dry and the sky is clear blue. Perfect for dreaming under. I’ve been thinking about the year, flicking ahead through the pages of days in my mind. Wondering what shape those days will take. Just like I did last year.

I’ve got a few ideas, as I always do. But this time they feel more concrete, more practical. I’ve got a word too, and again, it’s very practical. I didn’t have to go searching for this word. It was waiting for me. But before all that, a story.

I was a bridesmaid for my good friend Allie at the beginning of December. It was a wonderful wedding. Allie looked gorgeous, and she and Glen were completely chuffed with each other. Isobella and Greer were very lucky to be flower girls. They were the first of the bridal party, and they scattered rose petals on the ground in front of us. I was worried that Greer would freak out at the last minute. After all, she's only four. But I needn't have worried. Greer was fine. It was me I should have been worried about.

You see, I'm not a heels girl. When it comes to fashion, comfort is a high priority for me. I've long passed the stage where I would sacrifice comfort for fashion (and that stage never lasted long for me anyway!) I like my feet to feel good in the shoes I wear. They do an excellent job of carrying me around and I respect them for that. I've also got scoliosis, so my back is crooked enough without the rest of me being thrown forwards by the effect of high heels. When it came to choose the bridesmaid’s shoes I was hoping we’d find some nice flats, but in the end, heels were what we ended up with. The silver ones you see above, next to my obliging feet. Cute.

The wedding was outdoors, on a beautiful early summer’s day. As the bridal party we had to make our way from the function centre down across sloping grass to where the guests were seated, then down the aisle at the centre of the seats almost to the edge of the point, overlooking black sand and faraway surf. It was magical.

Back to the shoes. Cute? On someone else's feet they were. On my feet they were a recipe for disaster. Those shoes had to carry me, wobbling, all the way down the slope, on grass, with eighty pairs of eyes watching. This is where you sigh and say “come on, you were only a bridesmaid. Everyone was just waiting for the bride.” But you don’t understand. I cried during the wedding practice. I did! Hidden behind my sunglasses were tears of pure distress. Distress at the very real possibility that I could stumble on my way down, and distress at my inability to be the kind of girl who sashays around with ease on heels. That afternoon, the afternoon before the wedding, I had to decide whether I was going to crumble or fight back.

You know which it was. I’m a fighter, no question. I got Paddy to buy me some heel-grip inserts, got some tips from the girls, and told myself I could do it. And that was my mantra for the next twenty-four hours. It was my mantra as I practised alone during the morning as we were getting ready. It was my mantra as I stood waiting for the cue to begin my descent. It was my mantra as I walked the long walk down the slope to the front of the guests. And I did it. I didn’t enjoy it, but I did it.

I won’t be signing up for any more heel-wearing opportunities in the near future. I think I’ve done my dash with those for now. But if the necessity ever arises again, I know what I’ll do. I’ll grit my teeth and I’ll do it, because I know that I can.

And it’s with that same raw determination that I’m looking 2011 in the eye. I’m very aware of my short-comings. I can see exactly where 2010 did not measure up to the dreamy ideals I envisioned last January. 2010 definitely had its moments. I could put it simply by saying I’ve got plenty of growth potential! But I’m ok with growth. I’d rather suffer a bit of discomfort than let status quo reign.

What about you? When you face your equivalent of wearing heels in front of a crowd, what will you do? What will you tell yourself this year when things get difficult? Will you be satisfied with the status quo to save yourself a bit of pain, or will you grit your teeth and fight back?

Think about it. And then come back in a few days. I’ve got some questions for you. Questions I think you are going to like. Questions that you might just find you have answers to already, somewhere inside you. And there’s that word too...

the gift of a story

The year I turned eight was a complicated year. There were conflicts and ructions and strange goings-on in my family, and underneath the surface I wasn't a happy girl. There's a photo of me on my birthday, kneeling beside the coffee table laid out with my birthday presents. I was wearing one of them, a new flannelet nightie, but the best present of all was a small, burgundy book, a collection of Grimm's Fairy Tales.

In a year of complications and unhappiness, that book was one of the best gifts I could have been given. I read those stories over and over. My favourite was "The Twelve Dancing Princesses," and in reading that story I dreamt I was one of them. I dreamt of escaping to another world, a world where I was beautiful and free. I still love that story. It speaks to me of a world beyond what I know, of possibilities yet-to-be-imagined. It satisfies the longing still in me to be beautiful and free.

Stories have been doing that very thing since the beginning. Stories teach us, comfort us, prepare us for the future, explain the past, and hold the threads of family and society together. Stories leave a legacy long after government policy has been phased out and scientific research is disproved. Stories live lives of their own, far beyond the lives of the story-tellers. A good story can comfort grief, facilitate healing, and soften tragedy. Every culture and age has its own stories. Every family and community has them. We live off stories.

And yet when it comes to the Christmas Story, we say "oh it's just a story." Somehow the insistence from Christians that we read this story as gospel makes us recoil in distaste. We reject the facts, and in doing so, reject the story. I'm a Christian who reads this story as more truth than fable, yet I read it with an open mind. In my reading I'm aware that some of the details may have been lost or changed in its two thousand years of re-telling, but for me, this story is not in the details.

I hate the commercialism of Christmas. I tried really hard this month to keep the Christmas Story at the forefront of our minds. For us, celebrating Advent was the perfect way to take our focus off presents and shopping and stuff and keep our hearts turned towards the baby at the centre of it all. I've written a fair bit about Advent in the last few weeks, and if you didn't get it then, now you know why. Advent was our panacea for greed and consumption. It saved me from despairing over plastic and shopping malls.

Advent gave us our most special moment of all, on Christmas Eve, when Mary and Joseph finally reached the end of their long journey and arrived at the stable. Baby Jesus was brought out of his hiding place and the Holy Family was united. We lit five candles. We danced and sang to"O Come all ye Faithful". Our hearts were bursting. The Christmas Story was a gift to us this Christmas, far better than all the gifts, as lovely as they were, that came on Christmas Day.

You don't have to be a card-carrying Christian to enjoy the gift of the Christmas Story.  You might be uncomfortable with a literal reading but that doesn't mean you need to reject any reading at all. This is a story that has been celebrated, remembered, and re-told for two thousand years. It's a story that gives us hope, inspires us to give, and connects us with the divine. In this age where the gap between the haves and the have-nots is only widening, and when we face news of tragedy and disaster on a daily basis, we need all the hope we can get.

In light of this, Santa just doesn't cut it. I'm not anti-Santa, and Santa is not banished from our house, but if our narrative-diet at Christmas was Santa and only Santa, we would be desperately lacking. Santa is the sweets and chocolate of Christmas. Treats taste good and are lots of fun, and for children who are fortunate enough to receive them they are anticipated with excitement. But they don't last. The same goes for many of the presents unwrapped on Christmas Day.

I'm sitting here writing this on the day after Boxing Day and by now the excitement of Christmas and new things has waned. Adults everywhere are regretting their over-indulgences and avoiding their bank statements, and children are in that tired, irritable post-Christmas funk, disappointed with broken toys and whining for more chocolate. That one anticipated day went all too quickly.

But the story remains. The story doesn't get boring and it can't be broken. It doesn't plunder our bank accounts, require weeks of late-night shopping, or cause stress and traffic jams. It doesn't trigger family bickering, engender competition, or result in inevitable disappointment.

I had one other special moment this Christmas. It was last week as I was madly trying to get our Christmas shopping done. As a result of a seemingly random series of events I ended up in the middle of a busy mall, standing outside The Warehouse, face to face with a ChildFund table laid out with packs advertising children who needed sponsoring.

It was such a contrast to the crazy bustle of the store I'd come out of, and took me so completely by surprise, that I started crying! The girl managing the table was surprised and concerned. I tried to wipe back the tears, embarrassed, but really I just wanted to cry. I wanted to cry for all the people so busy in their Christmas shopping that they walked past this stand without even seeing it. I wanted to cry for all the children whose faces were in front of me, desperate to be noticed. I wanted to cry for myself, that I so often let overwhelming need paralyse me from doing anything.

Then my dear sister turned up unexpectedly beside me, again by a seemingly random series of events. I was so relieved to see her that I wrapped my arms around her.  I explained myself tearfully, and we laughed. Then between the two of us we sponsored three children. Three girls who live so far from the greed and excess I've witnessed in the last few weeks, and for whom life from now on will be just that little bit easier.

Santa has got nothing for those girls. Those girls and millions of other children like them are outsiders to the world of Santa. But the Christmas Story is different. The Christmas Story is about a baby who grew up to be a man who noticed the needy and made friends with outsiders. The Christmas Story, however you read it, inspires compassion and charity. It celebrates the wonder of life and the hope of redemption. This is what we need, more than new things and over-full stomachs. We need a gift that satisfies our inner longings, a gift that won't wear out or be easily forgotten. We need a story.

Butterflies and Caterpillars

We met some homeschooling friends at West Lynn Gardens this morning. This is a large and beautiful community Garden with a Butterfly House. Today the Butterfly house was full of Monarch Butterflies. They were feasting on the nectar in the flowers of the bush in the photos above. They swayed gently on their delicate legs as they drank. We haven't been to this garden since we had Isobella's fifth birthday there last year, so the girls were delighted to finally go again.  They got to watch one of the volunteers water the plants and talk about the butterflies, and they had a great time hunting chrysalises. It was lovely.

What those photos don't show you though is that the rest of the day went from bad to worse. By the time I finally got the girls into bed (at ten to ten this evening!) it had well and truly become "one of those days." It was hot and humid, which always makes me grumpy. The heat saps my energy and makes everything seem like hard work.  Paddy had to go to work tonight, and even though he did as much as he could to help me get dinner ready and clean up the kitchen before he left, I was not looking forward to feeding the kids and putting them to bed on my own. Sure, I do it often, but something about today made me feel a bit sorry for myself.

I tried really hard to start the evening off well. I lit the advent candles and put on our youtube Christmas playlist. We were all singing and the girls were dancing around the lounge to one of our new favourite carols; "In the Bleak Mid-Winter". (Thanks Melanie!) Greer especially loves it, and she was dancing with a blissful look on her face when she said to me "Oh I wish we could go to a church like this and then I could sing with a book like I was at a recital!" Priceless! (Follow the link and you'll see what I mean - the girls are fascinated with choir boys at the moment!)

Then I was outside bringing in the washing when Abigail flashed past me carrying something. I only registered enough to think "she's got something" and "I should know what that something is." But I had nearly finished bringing in the washing so I kept going. Next thing I heard a loud clatter and an almighty wail. I ran inside to find her standing in front of the open door of the freezer, a cereal bowl broken at her feet, and her big toe covered in blood. She was well and truly yelling.

Suffice to say that that was the point at which things seriously started to go down hill. And things proceeded to go down hill for the next two hours. The lowest point (or highest, depending on which way you look at it) was when Greer was in time out for the umpteenth time and yelling at the top of her voice "nobody loves me. Nobody loves me. Nobody loves me. That's it then. I'm moving out!"

By that time I'd got to the point where all I could do was laugh. Abigail, toe finally forgotten, was riding around on her trike, grinning and oblivious to the chaos, and Isobella, in true form, was taking half an hour to brush her hair. I had used that tone of voice which is the closest thing to yelling without actually yelling so many times that I was starting to get sick of the sound of it. And by then it was well after nine in the evening.

And then I remembered something the volunteer at the Butterfly House had said in passing this morning. "Big caterpillars make big and strong butterflies." I'd had that comment in the back of my mind all day. You see, I could say that today was about the heat, or about the busy-ness of Christmas, or about my general tiredness, but actually today was all about the season of life I am in. I could wish Paddy could move up to a shift where he didn't have to work strange hours, I could wish we had a flash new house with air-conditioning. I could wish my kids were older and put themselves to bed, or that Abigail wasn't at that age where I feel like my main role in life is to keep her alive. I could wish the house was tidier, that Greer was more compliant, or that the girls slept in separate bedrooms so that I could send them off for a quiet wind-down time alone in the evenings.

I could have spent all day and all evening wishing for a million things to be different, but that would have been wishing away the season of life I am in. Really, I'm just like one of those caterpillars at the Butterfly House. I'm itching to fly with every fibre of my being. I can't wait to start weaving that cocoon. I can hang upside down like I was born to do it... but I want to be a big strong butterfly, so I need to keep eating. We saw some fat caterpillars today. I mean, fat really is the word for it. They were gorgeous, and so enormous in comparison with the teeny tiny newly-hatched ones, that they looked completely different.

Today was average. I cried. I got fed-up. I was very ordinary. But I did a lot of eating. In fact, I'm sure I'm fatter now than I was when I woke up this morning. I'm becoming one fat caterpillar.

Fourth Sunday in Advent

The girls dressed up as angels this morning, getting ready for our church Christmas Service.

All of the children sang two Christmas songs as part of the service.

There was party food and fun for them afterwards!

Paddy's mum Mary gave up Mass to be with us - lovely.

I conquered one of my fears this afternoon and tried a recipe from one of those blogs that leaves me feeling wide-eyed and inadequate. This is Peppermint Bark, just before I cut it. I'd call mine the slightly deconstructed/lazy version ;)  It is very yummy, although as you might notice when I took the photo it was sweating already - today was so humid. I'm too scared to take this out of the fridge now, not sure how I'm going to get it to Paddy's sisters' place an hour away on Christmas Day! Mmm... maybe this is a better gift for a winter Christmas?!!

This is where the Christmas Tree would be if I could be bothered getting it down. So far, no one has complained about its absence. The girls have set up their own manger scene complete with attending animals and three presents labelled appropriately. We were given a paper tree which is on top of the fire and is getting decorated randomly. Our kids' bible is open at the Christmas Story on the music stand. This is all their own doing, and better than a tree, if you ask me. (Mostly because the tree is going to require a lot of baby-training to stop Abigail pulling it down on top of herself!!) 

The girls read Christmas stories listening to Melanie's favourite Christmas songs.

We lit candles and talked about the special day which is so near.

And now I'm going to do the dishes.

Remembering Don

Four years ago today my step-dad Don passed away. It's been a while since I thought of him with a stab of grief, but I've realised there is one thing I am really sad about. I'm sad that he never got to see this blog. I know he would have been chuffed about it, and very happy that I was writing. But more than that, I'm sad that I don't get to write about him here, in the present tense.

I would have loved writing about him here.

Don was not a stand-out character. He was the kind of person you could easily miss in a crowd of people. He was quiet and unassuming. He was happy to be in the background. He loved to help, he was a willing dishwasher and an able cook, and for most of his marriage to Mum he took his fair share of the house-cleaning load. In his last few months of life he lost much of his strength, but I remember going around to their place a week or so before he died, and he'd just cleaned the windows. He was tired from the effort, but it was important for him to do it, he wanted to help.

He was an auto-electrician by trade, so he was a tinkerer and a fixer. He always had some sort of workshop set up at home. He loved to read. He loved cats. When he and Mum got married he was fifty, and had lived with his mother for most of his life. He took a while to adjust to having a family, and I remember in those first couple of years he would often talk to the cat, even when he couldn't talk to any of us.

Don didn't find it easy to understand my sister and I, the selfish and at times surly teenagers that we were. But he slowly and steadily won our hearts. He was reliable, generous, kind, gentle and often thoughtful. And those were the qualities that remained as he grew older, despite the stroke he suffered in his late sixties. Those were the qualities that made him the loveliest Grandad, a role which brought him so much joy. He wasn't the kind of Grandad that could run around or play rough and tumble, but he was his happiest with a baby on his lap, and always ready to give a cuddle or read a story.

At seventy-four, he died young. It was clear, just before he died, that he would have given anything to live just that bit longer. He would have been thrilled to see his eldest granddaughter start school, and he would have been over the moon to be adding two new grandchildren to his brood. He was a devoted husband, right to the end. But his heart had been through a lot. Three heart attacks, two quadruple heart by-passes and a stroke. We used to joke about how much he got out of the public health system, but the fact was that he got a lot out of his life. He lived out every last ounce of life in him.

I'd give anything for him to walk in the door now, to sit down next to me on the couch and talk. I'd be so happy to hear about the latest book he was reading, what the cat had been up to, or the plans he had for the coming week. I know he'd ask me how I was, genuinely, and then listen. I'd give anything to hear him laugh.

You've probably got someone like Don in your life. He might be your own dad or step-dad, an old friend or neighbour. Don't miss the treasure that he is. Listen to him, take care of him, but more than anything, enjoy him.  Make sure he knows how precious he is to you. In fact, today, even if only to humour me, enjoy all the people you love. Make sure they know how much they mean to you. I'll be doing just that, because it seems to me to be the best way I know of remembering Don.

trees, advent, and rain

Seven in the morning and it's raining right now, for the first time in weeks. I just went out onto the deck in my dressing gown and moved the girls' bikes under the eaves. I'd be quite happy to be out walking in this rain. It has been so humid. The garden is very dry. Our friends who have a farm are worried about drought. I hope this rain stays with us for a while, and I hope it's raining other places too, not just here on this suburban street with the cars driving up and down the road on the way to work. I love watching the rain.

I especially love watching the rain coming down over all the green I see from here. I've been thinking about trees lately, because a week or so ago our neighbours had several trees majorly trimmed and a couple cut down. We were sad and happy at the same time. We lost a beautiful Pohutukawa that was just outside our kitchen window. We loved watching the birds come to suck the nectar out of the gorgeous red blooms, and we loved how it hid the neighbours' roof from view. Now we can see their roof clearly. We like our neighbours a lot, but a roof just a roof, if you know what I mean, it's certainly not a tree.

But the view from here at our dining table is so much better now. The trees on the boundary between them and us were pretty overgrown, and they blocked out a fair bit of our outlook. Now sitting here I can see all the way around. A wide view over our street and up to the houses and bush on the ridge above us. We have more view out the back too. Whereas before there was a thick flank of leaves blocking the sky, now there are open spaces, openness we can see through past the High School next door out to far off into the distance.

This is something I love. I love views from high places. I love seeing forever. I love looking out over layers, seeing past our neighbours to the houses and trees beyond. It does my soul good. I'm not entirely sure why, but I think it's something about perspective. And right now perspective is exactly what I need.  It's amazing what we humans can withstand if we have some perspective. It might be simply knowing that the season we are in has an end date, or it might be knowing that what we are doing is a job that will be finished... eventually. Or it might be knowing that there are other, more serious things going on beyond our own small world, and that we are not alone. Or it might be an other-worldly perspective we need, a somehow knowing that what we are going through will one day be a blink, not even a blink, when viewed from that unimaginable eternity. I don't know which of those perspectives I need most, but I'll take any of them. And right now, looking out at the grey rain drizzling down over green trees is good for my soul.

Actually, now I think about it, Advent is all about perspective. Advent is a reminder, if we let it be, that there is something, or someone, at the end of all our waiting. For all our longing for something better than we have, for that feeling we just can't shake that there must be more, for all our dissatisfactions and frustrations, all our cynicism and disbelief, Advent tells us there is something we are waiting for, something worth hoping for.

At church on Sunday I had the privelege of sharing some thoughts about Advent, and these were my words:

"Advent didn’t mean much to me until a year ago. And even then, my understanding was limited. This year somehow I’m starting to get it. Advent as the season, the five precious Sundays, the time of waiting expectantly, of preparing our homes and preparing our hearts. And Advent as a mirror into the future. Showing us that the waiting and preparing we do now, in this one tiny moment of now, is a reflection of the waiting and preparing we will do all our lives, in waiting for the greatest, most holy, most unimaginable Advent to come. The Advent we are all yearning for, groaning for even, as Romans 8 reminds us.

That's why I don't think there's any comparison between the present hard times and the coming good times. The created world itself can hardly wait for what's coming next. Everything in creation is being more or less held back. God reins it in until both creation and all the creatures are ready and can be released at the same moment into the glorious times ahead. Meanwhile, the joyful anticipation deepens.
All around us we observe a pregnant creation. The difficult times of pain throughout the world are simply birth pangs. But it's not only around us; it's within us. The Spirit of God is arousing us within. We're also feeling the birth pangs. These sterile and barren bodies of ours are yearning for full deliverance. That is why waiting does not diminish us, any more than waiting diminishes a pregnant mother. We are enlarged in the waiting. We, of course, don't see what is enlarging us. But the longer we wait, the larger we become, and the more joyful our expectancy. (Romans 8:18-25 The Message)

And so the obvious question now is simple. What are we waiting for? Last week we were given an image, a glimpse of what we are waiting for in the sense of the great Advent to come. But we don’t always know what we are waiting for in the now either. Are waiting for the craziness to be over? Are we waiting to eat turkey and open presents? Are we waiting for our summer holiday? And yet we know that is not what Christmas means to us. We know that it’s Jesus we are waiting for. We are waiting to celebrate his arrival. God’s arrival. That mind-blowing moment when our very creator and sustainer bursts onto the stage of our world and into our homes and hearts, as a baby. We are waiting for a baby!

This is how Catholic author and blogger Amy Welborn describes it.

“How can you prepare for that?

...The only way we can - the way that we’ve been given, the way that we live in a finite world aching for the infinite.
…Prepare to hold a baby.
Not in a closed room but in one with the windows and doors flung wide open so the mystery of God and His rising collapsing binding loosening transformed and transforming creation courses through and becomes the place you live with the One who made it all and made you to live there.
…Prepare to hold a baby.”

Most of us know about preparing for a baby. If we haven’t done it ourselves we’ve seen others around us planning, purchasing, gathering together all the paraphanalia that seems to go with a newborn. And we’ve caught their expectation, we’ve witnessed their growing excitement. And when that baby is due, when it’s “any day now” we don’t need to hear words to know how that pregnant woman is feeling. We can see it in her tired eyes, and in the unbelieveable hugeness of her aching, stretched belly. We think, she can’t possibly get any bigger, that baby has to come!

And even if you haven’t held a newborn of your own in your arms, you’ve seen one, you’ve held one awkwardly not sure if you might break it, you’ve held it in wonder, looking down at the tiniest nose and darkest eyes and been amazed that there in this bundle of warm skin, is an entire person.

And so it was with Jesus. Mary held her baby. And in her baby, in that tiny, fragile bundle of skin, was God.

What are we waiting for?

We are waiting for a baby."

And today I remind myself that. I give myself that perspective. There is so much more to my life than what I can see with my own eyes. This one moment I am in will pass. There is something coming that is better, more perfect, more beautiful than anything I can imagine... something worth waiting for, worth hoping in. I watch the rain still persisting down, softening the hard and cracked ground, and I feel it raining inside me, softening my heart, turning all my dry despondency into hope.

advent update

Things are pretty busy around here. We had a wedding last weekend, the girls were flower girls and I was a bridesmaid, and it was wonderful (more about that to come.) This weekend we have friends coming over for a BBQ, and so in between the two events I'm trying to get the house in order, finish all the big jobs we started when we thought we might be putting the house on the market (like putting mulch on the garden and cleaning the windows!) and do a bit of Christmas shopping. I don't want the rest of this month too feel so busy, and yet it is all good and important.

And then, in the midst of all that, it's Advent, and we are trying not to lose sight of it. Our Advent calendar gets opened pretty much every other day, and the girls are loving that. We've got the nativity scene Paddy's mum gave us on the piano. Mary and Joseph are making their long journey up and down the piles of books on top of the piano towards the stable. The figures get moved around every now and then by little fingers, but we're trying to stick to a "only on Advent Sundays" rule for re-arranging the scene owing to their break-ability. It kind of works. The stable has already been decorated with pink ribbon, as you can see, which when you are a six-year old girl, is entirely appropriate. We have a stocking "for Jesus" which holds the notes of gratitude we are writing and which will be opened and read sometime on Christmas Eve or Christmas Day. (I can't remember where I got that idea from.) We've got a small pile of Christmas story books in the lounge and we've been reading them at bedtime.

I'd thought we might light candles at dinner time. I read about a family who have a candle-lit dinner every evening during Advent, which I thought was a lovely idea, until I remembered that we are in day-light savings here, and it doesn't get dark until 9pm! So we've had candles at dinner times on Advent Sundays,  but that's all.  I really understand Christmas in winter now. It's nothing to do with snow! It's the fact that you can have candle-light dinners. Light means so much more when it is dark all around. I've been wondering why we love light. Candles, Christmas lights, Christmas light displays.... we love them. Is it because they sparkle and glitter? Or is it because there is something inherently satisfying about seeing light in the midst of darkness? I have to admit that for the first time I've been a bit jealous of those of you who get Christmas in winter. It's so easy to celebrate light when it's winter. Light in winter is warm, hopeful and a longed-for refuge from the cold darkness all around.

Then yesterday I was sitting on our bed working on some thoughts for the Advent talk at church on Sunday. I looked from our bed out over the deck and onto the garden. It was late afternoon and the deck was half in shade. The other half, the half the drying rack filled with washing was on, was in full sunlight. Out in the garden the trees were swishing and swaying in the wind, lit up, glowing in their new green. At the end of the garden, underneath the huge pine tree that hangs over our back fence, were the spidery lines and patches of shade and dappled light where the sunlight hit the trees and spread itself out. Everywhere I looked I saw a story of light and dark, of dark and light. And I realised that light in the midst of darkness isn't the only story to celebrate. Christmas in summer is another story completely, and just as special. We get the sun at its best. We get to see trees glowing green, and intense blue skies. This is the light we celebrate. Blinding, glorious. The light of the world.

to read with your cup of tea

Here are a few interesting tid-bits I've read and enjoyed over the last couple of weeks. I thought you might like something to read with your Saturday morning cup of tea!

"A Life Beyond Reason" is a very moving story of a father's experience caring for his highly disabled son August.

"Right Intention vs Simple Intention" is a simple but meaningful take on doing the "right thing."

This is Betty Duffy's beautifully written account of an interesting experience she witnessed during Eucharist - a story in its own right.

Here is Erica Jong's editorial "Mother Madness" and her daughter's response "Growing up with Ma Jong"  I know I've linked these already in those posts about mothering I wrote, but they are interesting.... so if you haven't read them already, go on.

Enjoy your day!

we went to the ballet

We went to the ballet and two girls came home dreaming of dancers and dresses. Just like I remember doing at their age.

The ballet was The Nutcracker. A wonderful first experience of the ballet for those two lucky girls. They sat enthralled through the entire performance, mostly still and mostly quiet, (which I thought was good enough!) They loved Clara, and loved to hate her naughty brother. They were captivated by seeing children their age dancing on stage. It's a beautiful ballet, perfect for children. And the cast from the Royal New Zealand Ballet did a very good job of entertaining the grown-ups too, oh yes. The three patients in dressing gowns and dancing on crutches were genuinely hilarious, and Sir Jon Trimmer stole the show as the hurrumphy large-bossomed Matron. I laughed and laughed!

It was also a lovely escape, a treat to be able to suspend our disbelief and enter a world where tiny snow flakes fall on ballerinas in perfect tutus, and hospital beds float suspended above swathes of blue. We need as much of this as we can get, us grown-ups. We don't dream as easily as our children, tied to our calendars and cell-phones and self-importance as we are. And we aren't so easily mistaken about what is real and what is not. Four-year-old Greer kept asking if the dancers were "real people," yet at the final curtain she was one of the first people to start clapping.  She knew, instinctively, that the story had come to an end.

So we bundled ourselves out into the city at night. Surrounded by people walking and talking and going places. I remember how this feels to a child. Like realising that another world exists, outside, after bedtime. This is the world where anything can happen. Where shop lights and street lights shine against the dark sky. Where cold water and cakes quench thirst and fill tired, hungry tummies. They are dreaming it all right now in their beds, in the heavy sleep of exhaustion. Living it all again, this time with themselves as protaganist and star - dancing, floating, applauded.

mothering by guilt?

The post I wrote a couple of weeks ago "mothering by ear" has struck a chord with many of you. I wrote it after reading Erica Jong’s piece "Mother Madness" in the Wall St Journal. Reading that piece got me thinking about my own parenting, and how I’ve ended up parenting more by instinct than by any one philosophy. As I read I found myself realising how easy it is for us to judge other mothers who are parenting differently from us. Yet the only true judges of our mothering, as I went on to write, are our children. I’m so glad you were encouraged by reading that post. Encouragement does a lot to allay the encroaching “mother guilt” we all feel from time to time. But it doesn’t answer the obvious question; why are we feeling guilty in the first place?

Guilt seems to come to mothers all too easily. A friend of mine who works with families tells me that most of the mothers she's worked with have identified themselves as feeling guilty about their parenting at least some of the time. Guilt was a clear theme running through the comments made on last week's post. One mum was told by a friend that when you become a mother "guilt becomes your best friend." Another mother wrote about the "periodic mother's guilt and doubt I feel on a daily basis."

In the past, mothers didn't have time to feel guilty. Monday was for washing, Tuesday for ironing, Wednesday sewing, Thursday was market day, Friday was cleaning day, Saturday baking, and Sunday for rest. When you've spent all day up to your elbows in scalding hot water, navel-gazing is a luxury. Mothers back then spent far more energy on preparing food for their large families than on self-doubt. They didn't need a role description or a how-to-guide. The voice of necessity rang loud and clear, and her demands were simple. Food on the table, clean clothes, clean house, and orderly children.

Today most modern mothers would go faint at the thought of washing an entire household's laundry by hand. We can't imagine life without a vacuum cleaner. Presented with the challenge of cooking a full meal without electricity, we'd probably all fail miserably. The thought of spending every waking moment engaged in the physical labour that keeping house back then entailed, fills most of us with dread. Yet for many of those mothers, life was physically exhausting but actually far simpler than it is for us in the modern, western world.

We have something in abundance that they had very little of, and that something is choice. Once upon a time, a woman's role was carved in stone. She was expected to marry, have children, and then provide for the needs of her family. If she didn't marry she would serve her elderly parents, perhaps find employment as a governess or as a servant, depending on her social status, or, less likely, join a religious order. There, summed up in a few sentences, are the choices available to women in times gone by. Look back even further into the past and the options were narrower still. Today? I couldn't come close to describing all the choices the modern western woman can make. Not in one post. A book might just do it, but a few paragraphs would barely scrape the surface. And then there's the myriad of choices specifically related to parenting. In short, so many options that the choice is overwhelming and can be doubt-inducing.

It's no wonder that some women have a hankering for the olden days. You don't have to look very far on the internet to find women who revel in bread making and consider homemaking an art. Many mothers are finding that going back to the simple old-fashioned ways of preparing food and keeping house meaningful and comforting. Taking this idea to an extreme are the religious groups such as the Quiverfull Movement who see women's roles exactly as and no more than what they were in the past.

Personally, I consider my choices to be a privilege, and I relish in them. To choose to be educated, to have had a teaching career, to be pursuing my dream to write, and also to be the main care-giver and educator of my children are all choices I have been privileged to make. These choices have formed me as a person and given me a huge amount of freedom. I watch other women around me taking advantage of the same and similar freedoms, and I celebrate with them.

Yet with all of these options it is easy to get lost. Many of us come to the decision regarding working or staying at home and don't have a clear sense of which we really want. We look one way and see a huge expectation on women to have a career and to keep our families living at a certain standard of material comfort. We look the other way and imagine crowds of stay at home mums, all blissfully happy, judging us as "bad mothers" if we work outside the home. It's the same with every other aspect of parenting. One week we might read an article advising us to parent one way, and the next week we can read one espousing exactly the opposite principles.

I read in the Sunday Star this weekend about a survey that revealed that mothers feel “pressure to compete with other mothers.” The survey asked 398 mothers of all ages if they had ever lied to “talk up how well their children were going.” Apparently, these mothers had done plenty of lying. They had lied about a whole range of topics, including whether their babies were sleeping through the night, how their children were doing at school, and their children’s behaviour. Clinical Psychologist Rebecca Daly-Peoples was quoted in the article as saying that mothers feel extreme pressure to live up to celebrities, their parents and their peers, and are also under a huge “information overload” from all the books available, many of which “completely oppose each other.”

But for all the pressure and expectations we are under, at some point we have to make the necessary decisions and get on with our lives. If you’ve decided to stay at home, result being that you can't afford to send your kids to swimming lessons, then why feel guilty about it? If you work because it's your sanity and you love it, yet have a nagging worry that you are failing your children, then take a good look at your children. Are they content and healthy? Then why feel guilty? If you are at home because you believe it's the right thing for you and your family, yet you struggle with boredom and isolation, then do something to make being at home work for you. It could be as simple as joining a playgroup, or as wild as working from home on that business idea you've had in the back of your mind and never done anything about. Why feel guilty because you’re not enjoying yourself?

Sometimes, though, underneath the clumsy and condemning roar of guilt lies the whisper of our conscience. If we stop long enough to listen, we may just hear it telling us that our children need more time with us, or that they need us to be more present in the time we are with them. We may hear our conscience telling us that we are listening too intently to the opinions of others, and not to the children who matter most. We may hear it telling us we need to do something to look after ourselves so that we can do more than just survive, and so that our children can benefit from a healthy and fulfilled mother. We may even hear our conscience telling us to question some of our assumptions, to reflect on the way we ourselves were parented, and find some new ideas about mothering. Sometimes we need a clean break from the past to do the present justice.

Mothering is so much about listening. Our children need us to listen to them. A child's need to be heard and understood is enormous, and nobody knows our kids like we do. We are their chief interpreters, their filter on the world. We protect them, speak up for them, explain to them, and support them in their growing independence.

This week we went on a bush walk with Isobella's Scouts group. The walk went up and down steep hills and stairways and I noticed one of the younger girls going slowly, her eyes wide. I held back and talked to her, and then I offered her my hand. She took it, and then after a while she let go. We re-grouped and stopped for instructions, and then walked on. Suddenly I felt a hand grab mine. She had searched me out in the group. It was a privilege to walk with her. I was a safe place for her in her vulnerability. All children need this, and most importantly they need it from us.

Mothering is a hard job. It requires long hours, sleepless nights, and years of self-sacrifice. Self-sacrifice is the bread and butter of mothering, and we do it, most of the time, without even thinking. But self-sacrifice isn’t everything. Our children need to be mothered by us, not a hollow, worn-out version of us. What is it that makes you feel like you are doing what you were born to do? When do you absolutely, unreservedly love being you? The person on those moments is you – and that’s who your children deserve to be mothered by.

I know that feeling on the good days at home. I feel it when I’m watching the girls play the violin, and I felt it the other day when Greer looked up at me with the sweetest smile and said, completely out of the blue, “I want to be a home mama like you one day!” But I’m also feeling it right now, in this empty, quiet house. I’m feeling it because I’m writing. If I subjugated every one of my personal needs for the endless needs of my children, what would I be teaching them about being a person? What would I be teaching them about how to know themselves, how to find their dreams, or how to discover what they love to do? I live my life in full view of them. I live it with them, and I live it for them. And in amongst the craziness it so often is, and despite the daily struggle to balance my needs with theirs, I’m fulfilled, and happier than I’ve ever been. Why would I feel guilty about that?