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?

Advent 101

Before you read any further you need to understand two things. One is that I don't take myself too seriously, and the other is that I sometimes think I know what I'm talking about, sound like I know what I'm talking about, but actually have no clue!

That important point out of the way, let's talk about Advent. Last year for the first time I realised that I wanted to make Christmas a more meaningful season, rather than one special day preceded by a month of crazy busy-ness and stressful shopping experiences.  Advent wasn't part of our family Christmas tradition, other than the advent calendar we always had, and it wasn't really talked about in the church I grew up in. I remember loving our Advent calendars though, the thrill of opening each tiny door and the uncontainable excitement that grew and grew as we got closer to Christmas Day.  A couple of years ago I started reading quite a few lovely Catholic blogs (like this one, this one, and this one.) and found that for these families Advent was really important and very special. I liked what I was reading, and last year I decided to try and incorporate some of these ideas into our own celebration of the Christmas season. But I didn't know much about Advent really, and with the busy-ness of the lead-up to Christmas my good intentions faded almost to nothing.

This year, somehow, I feel like I know a bit more. I managed to realise ahead of time that there are four Sundays in Advent (that was a good start!), today being the first, and I've been thinking all week about Advent and how we could celebrate it. I've been looking on a church supplies website at Advent wreaths, and talking to Paddy (who grew up catholic) about Advent. I found a really nice, plain circular wreath online, and showed it to him. I liked that particular one because it had an inscription around the base about light. I love the Advent idea about Christ being the light, and anticipating the coming light. That really means a lot to me. We looked through the other wreaths together, there were more simple ones I liked, but they had "hope, peace, love and joy" as the inscription around the base. "That's just not very advent-y" I said.

Well, my husband looked at me and roared with laughter. "You have no idea about Advent!" he said laughing, and then he laughed some more. I tried not to look silly. "But I thought Advent was about the Christ being the light" I said in my defence. More laughter. And then he (who was once an altar boy) proceeded to educate me.

So that is why I need Advent 101. I have no clue. At least I've figured out what the each of the Sundays in Advent are about now (today is Hope, then Peace, Love and the last Sunday is Joy, funny that...) and I think we'll do something together as a family around dinner time on each of the four Sundays. What we'll actually do I'm not too sure, I've got a few ideas, but I'm kind of making it up as we go along. Here are a few links if you're interested:

First up is Karen Edmisten's No-Panic Advent series
This post has plenty of ideas about Advent Calendars and Wreaths
This is a really lovely piece about Welcoming Baby Jesus
there are some beautifully simple ideas here
and this link is to a selection of basic kids colour-in pages relating to Advent. I'm going to print some of them out and make them into Advent colouring in books for the girls.

I think it's fair to say that we'll definitely be doing a low-church version of Advent, and I think that's quite appropriate given my complete ignorance! But I'm really looking forward to celebrating Jesus now, not just on Christmas day. In fact, I can feel it in my stomach as I write, a happy butterfly expectation, a bubbling waiting to burst. You might have noticed I don't write about my faith all the time here, but in truth I am a religious nutter... in the best possible sense. You have been warned!

sadness

We have just found out that there is no longer any hope for the twenty-nine miners in the Pike River Coal Mine disaster. Their families, friends and loved ones were informed today that there has been another, larger, explosion. It would not have been survivable. We cry for the children who will not see their fathers, the wives who have lost their husbands, the fathers who will never again embrace their sons, siblings that have lost brothers, mates that have lost mates. There are no words for this, but to say nothing would be unthinkable. There are so many questions, and right now, few answers. I offer this passage for the comfort of those who grieve, and for myself. I do not offer it out of presumption,  or because there is any way to lighten their darkness, but in sincere faith. This is my unshakable belief.

Behold, I tell you a mystery: We shall not all sleep, but we shall all be changed - in a moment, in the twinkling of an eye, at the last trumpet. For the trumpet will sound, and the dead will be raised incorruptible, and we shall be changed.
1 Corinthians 15:51-52

My thoughts and prayers are with all who are mourning.

mothering by ear

The girls and I had our violin lesson this afternoon. I realised sitting there watching them play that the lesson has become the highlight of my week. It's one of those treasured few moments when I feel unreservedly good about my girls and about being a mother. Greer is a reluctant player, her face screws up in disgust at the scratchy sounds she makes, yet in front of her teacher she comes alive, she makes a genuine effort. Isobella plays like the free spirit she is. She adds in her own flourishes and hates to stand still. But she starts at the beginning and she doesn't stop until the end. I sit there amazed, and I can't help smiling.

Earlier this week I read the editorial on mothering that Erica Jong wrote in the Wall St Journal. Her criticism of the attachment parenting philosophy seems to have got a few people talking. Here in New Zealand that term isn't common, but the principles of that philosophy are adhered to by many parents, particularly those who reject the "routine" type of baby care advice dished out by authority figures such as Plunket Nurses. Attachment parenting is a child-centred philosophy. Mothers who follow it usually sleep with their babies, breastfeed as long as possible, "wear" their babies in slings, and devote themselves to full-time child caring.

As I was driving home from the violin lesson I found myself thinking back over the article, and over my own parenting. When I was pregnant with our first daughter I was full of lofty ideals and strong opinions. I was going to have a natural childbirth and "breathe" the baby out, once she was born I would not force her into an artificial eating and sleeping pattern, I would breastfeed as long as she wanted, never leave her to cry herself to sleep, and had a sling ready to use so I could carry her close to me when we were out. I didn't know much about the term "attachment parenting" but if you'd described it to me, I would have agreed wholeheartedly. Then came the umpteen hours of labour, an emergency caesarean, and well, you can imagine, reality.

Reality was the body that was too sore to do much baby-in-sling wearing. Reality was walking around in shock for the first few weeks just wishing I could go back to being pregnant again. Reality was a baby (and subsequent babies) who were so noisy and active in their sleep that I could never get a good night's sleep in the same bed as them. Reality was breastfeeding that was difficult, and certainly not the easy take-anywhere business I'd expected it to be.

I read plenty of books over those first few months as a new mother. I could tell you about all sorts of parenting philosophies and why I agreed or disagreed with them. But in the end what gave me confidence and helped me find my way as a mother was not following a particular parenting philosophy, but rather listening to my own intuition, making it up as I went along. In other words, playing it by ear.

Erica Jong's editorial has sparked some pretty strong responses. Mothers have decried her rejection of what they see as the most nurturing and child-friendly way to parent. Some have been horrified at the lack of repentance for her absence as a working parent who "hired nannies, left my daughter at home, and felt guilty for my own imperfect attachment." Interestingly, Jong's daughter writes her own response to her mother's essay, where she describes her mother as "always working" and yet "as good a mother as she could possibly be."

Mothering is a complicated thing. We earnestly strive to do our best, and yet we can never quite shake off the knowledge that one day we will look back and regret something. Something we did or didn't do, said or didn't say. And so we carry on, stabbing in the dark, fingers crossed. If we find a book that promises perfect parenting, then it's not surprising we pay attention. If we watch other mothers, envious at their seeming confidence and ease, it's no wonder we try to emulate them. And when we find that to our immense relief what we are doing actually works, then of course we buy the t-shirt, get the season pass, join the club.

We need to stick up for each other, us mothers, because for all the washing machines and dishwashers, televisions and babysitters, mothering is not getting easier. Your club might work for you, and it might work so well you'd stake your life on it, but it isn't going to work for every mother. And that mother over the road, or standing next to you outside your child's classroom, or beside you at the supermarket checkout, deserves your support. Whatever she's doing, and in whatever style she is doing it, she is probably doing her best.

In the short time I've been a parent I've met and known and loved mothers who work, mothers who stay at home, and mothers who do both. I know mums who do cloth nappies and organic food, and mums whose sanity is a pantry full of pre-packaged snacks. I know mothers who are incredibly grateful for their televisions, and mothers who won't have one in the house. I know mothers for whom the exquisite joy of parenting was stolen from them by depression. I know mothers who were bored at home, who craved adult company, and found their best parent liberated when they returned to full-time work. I know homeschoolers and schoolers, child workers, teachers, lawyers and writers. I know mothers who swear by their routines, who have children that fall asleep and wake-up on schedule, and I know mothers who have slept with their children well into toddler hood. I've learnt so much from these women. They have helped me see different perspectives, given me fresh ideas, challenged my assumptions, and confirmed some of my privately held opinions. But that isn't even the point. The point is their kids. I like them all. They are interesting, full of life, and will grow up, I'm sure, to make a valuable and unique contribution to the world.

Mothering is personal. We are the mothers we are because of our personality, our family history, our current circumstances, our deepest beliefs, and the children we are raising. No other mother has the same set of factors as you or I do. Therefore no other mother will ever parent quite like you or I do, and there's no point expecting them to.

I am full of contradictions. I have three daughters, I home school, and I love nothing better than spending a day at home with them. But give me some time to myself, my laptop and a library and I'm in heaven. I know I'll look back on this period of life as one of my most fulfilling, yet I often find myself daydreaming about how life will look once my girls have all left home. I look forward to being old, to having a quiet house, and to being visited by family who go home afterwards. Am I doing a good job as a mother? There are only three women who are entitled to make this judgment. Right now they are asleep down the hall from where I sit, warm and safe. They'll let me know what they think.

hello from the madness

We are on the last leg of our mad dash to finally get our renovations finished. We had already booked in some time off for us to get started on the painting, but we were launched into action when we saw a property out west that we fell in love with. The possibility of putting this place on the market got us moving like I've never seen us move before! We painted, got the floors sanded and polished, had carpet laid in the bedrooms, and finally got the tiling finished in the kitchen. And, just as we were almost finished, we missed out on that house we loved.

It was a disappointment and a relief at the same time. If you'd seen this place yesterday (I tried to take a photo but I couldn't find my camera, ofcourse) you would agree with me that the vague plan we'd had of putting the house on the market yesterday, the same day the carpet was laid, was completely ridiculous. Which brings me to facebook and the myers-briggs personality profile application I signed up for. Every couple of weeks it sends me a pithy little tip based on my personality profile. This is what I found waiting for me yesterday:
"You may create overly optimistic plans without considering all the details. Realistically estimate how long a task will take."

I think my dad would have a good chuckle over that one. He single-handedly saved the day yesterday when he turned up at 7:15am to finish the job he was doing for us. He got Paddy out of bed (no mean feat) and then helped him move the last of the big pieces of furniture that needed shifting before the carpet layers turned up at 8am! And when I say the last of the big pieces of furniture, you should probably read all the big pieces of furniture.

I am very happy that we managed to get it all done. The house is looking lovely already, even with boxes and piles of stuff all over the place. We were crazy to attempt to do it in such a short space of time, and at such short notice, and we did need a lot of help to do it. The girls and I turned up at my mum's on Sunday night at 7pm because our place was too chaotic and dusty for the girls to stay there. My dad, as I've said, came up trumps. Other family members and friends helped out not only because they love us but also because our ridiculous plan left them with little choice! We were on a mission, and there was no stopping us.

Now that we're almost finished I'm so exhausted I can't believe I actually know what day it is! We've shifted almost the entire contents of our house at least once, if not twice, so it kind of feels like we've moved house, minus the truck drive. But I guess if we were hankering for something new we've certainly done it the easy way. Sure, our little back yard is nothing like the 2 acres of bush we were looking at in that property we missed out on, but we do like our little backyard, and our little house with it's shiny new floors and white tiles. After all, it's home.

happening around here

full circle

This photo won't look anything special to you. It could be any family, sitting down to any meal, any where. You've got photos like this. That's Greer eye-balling the camera, eating a sausage. Abigail's in the high chair, and the other two kids are the birthday boys. Paddy is sitting next to my dad, then there's my step-mum, with my brother-in-law next to her. Sounds pretty ordinary, yes. Then there are the people just outside the frame. My sister and my mum are in the kitchen, and there are more kids in the lounge behind me as I stand taking the photo.

I guess that kind of makes me right in the middle. Which is exactly how I've grown up feeling. I'm the only child of my parents, who split before I was two. My dad re-married soon after, and I have two half-sisters on his side. My mum had my sister when I was three (I've already told you a bit of this days of our lives saga here) and we grew up together, so although she was technically my half-sister, our half-ness was never really an issue.

How that played out for me, though, was that I lived my life in two worlds. One world, the safe, ordered, controlled and loving world of home with Mum, and the other the completely different but exciting, fun, and slightly wild world of my dad's place.

When I was sixteen I went on a school trip to a french film. It was "Romauld et Juliet," a modern revision of Romeo and Juliet. In the movie a high-powered executive falls in love with his office cleaner, and is so smitten that he leaves his wife for her. By the end the wife has found herself a new man, and the final scene is of a picnic in a rambling garden, where the entire family re-unites, along with the new partners on either side. It's a loving, warm and very happy scene. The executive is blissfully happy with his new love, his ex is happy with hers also, and their children play and laugh and eat happily between them. I'm not going to edit out all those "happy's"... because happy was exactly the word for it, and the thing I remember vividly, twenty years later. I knew right then that that was my dream of dreams. I dreamt that one day all the parts of my crazy family would come together, happily. I kept it to myself, but I never forgot.

Fast forward twenty years to this weekend, and that scene at the top of this post. We were at my sisters' house, celebrating the birthdays of her sons, with my mum, plenty of friends, as well as one of my half-sisters, my Dad and step-mum. At one point I was sitting at the table with Mum on one side, and Dad on the other. And we were all happy.

Could I, at sixteen, ever have imagined that scene exactly? No, I couldn't have imagined it at all. It was a wild dream, the stuff of movies and happy endings. But it happened. I got my happy ending.

I wasn't the most important person in that room, not by a long shot. I sat in the background for much of it, enjoying the good company. But it was a special day for me. I've spent most of my life living in two parts. One side the part of me that fits with my mother, and the other side the part of me that fits with my father. I haven't always seen it quite like this, but it's taken me a long time to figure myself out, and this is partly why. It's also the back story to that chaos I told you about when I last wrote. This chaos I've had to come to terms with has partly come from living as if I've still got two worlds inside of me.

A couple of days after I wrote that post I went to spiritual direction. Wouldn't you know it, but we got talking about my crazy life, housework, and chaos. We also got talking about what my parents' respective houses were like. To say they were different is an understatement. I realised then that I have never fully acknowledged that my values and opinions about life and keeping house come from two completely different sources. If I've ever felt confused and slightly split-personality about these things it's understandable. And the fact is, I'm not a chip off either block. I'm my own random version, as we all are in some way. But I really am my own version. And during spiritual direction I realised that I need to start living like it. I need to integrate my two inner-worlds into a new one, uniquely mine, and get on with my life.

Funnily enough, within two days of that realisation, that chaos I wrote about was all but gone. The vacuum cleaner got put away after three weeks of waiting. I found the camera charger! The corners of chaos in the study and master bedroom are dealt to. The house is mostly tidy, and mostly clean, which is pretty much how I like it. I know Mum will always see something that needs doing, and that Dad may sometimes turn up and find it too tidy for his liking, but I'm ok with that. It's my house.

And as far as special family gatherings go, I'm thinking I'll be getting plenty more of them. It might even get so that they don't feel so special any more. For our girls those gatherings are already normal. They think nothing of having three sets of grandparents, they don't think it's strange that I have a step-mother, or sisters that are not sisters to each other. They love and feel at home in every part of our extended family. In fact, they are richer for it. And so am I.

my chaos

I would have started this post with a photo. If the camera was charged up. The camera hasn't been charged for nearly a month. Finally today I thought, "that's it, I can't bear it any longer"and I went to find the charger. Problem is, I couldn't find it. I looked in several obvious places, but no joy. It does have a home. It usually lives there. But somehow, sometime since the camera was last charged, it has got seriously lost.

I don't like losing things. It makes me feel like my grip on reality is not as tight as I'd like it to be. It seems to be happening more and more often. I could blame it on my age (which most of you would scoff at) or I could blame it on chaos. To be honest with you, I think it's the chaos.

Chaos is entirely, exactly the right word for the state of mind and state of life I repeatedly find myself in. Chaos is the tiredness that threatens to overtake me at the moment, the result of two weeks of living in the land of sickness. Chaos is the washing piled up on the couch waiting to be folded. It's the baskets of folded washing in the hall, waiting to be put away. (First there was one basket, then there was two, "that's got to be a good thing, hasn't it?" I said to Paddy. "One basket of clean folded washing is a good thing, therefore two baskets of clean folded washing is even better?" He didn't laugh.)

I've just put Abigail up on the dining table bench that sits under the window. I knew she'd like to look out, and I thought it might buy me a few more minutes here. I pulled up the blinds for a better view and noticed that the window is covered with patches of that lovely combination of  dirt and mould that happens over winter. That's chaos. So is the filing waiting to be done in the study. Ditto the bills waiting to be paid. Our tax return, quite rightly, should come in about here, but it's not even on my radar. That's chaos.

Chaos was reigning this morning in the girls' bedroom while I was sitting on the couch reading because I was just too tired to do anything else. I could hear Abigail pulling down the boxes of toys off the shelf and tipping out their contents over the floor. A sickening sound of hundreds of blocks cascading like a waterfall onto the floor. Meanwhile, at the same time as Abigail was busy tipping, Isobella and Greer were busy playing with everything else in the bedroom not already tipped out by Abigail. By the time they ventured out (believe me, I was not going in there!) Abigail had been dressed in Isobella's skirt and t-shirt, and she looked just like a walking doll.

That was the moment you would have seen a photo of, if I hadn't lost the camera charger. You would have seen Abigail, all sixteen months of herself, toddling around in an over-sized t-shirt and skirt looking hilarious. I wouldn't have taken a picture of the floor of their bedroom, which was literally covered, because the floor was not the point. Yes, I did get a bit grumpy in the tidying up process, and yes it was a team effort, which I could have done without, but it got done eventually, and we were none the worse off for it. Well actually, to the contrary, we were better off because of it. That half hour of chaos in the bedroom gave me a blissful few moments alone, and the end product was a sixteen month old in six year old's clothing, which had us laughing all day.

You see, I've come to a few conclusions about this chaos of mine. One is that it is fairly inevitable. It seems to come in regular cycles, no matter how hard I try to stave it off. Maybe it's the stage of life I am in, or the kind of person I am. Whatever the reason, it comes, and I don't seem to be able to do anything about it. But more than that, I've realised that this chaos of mine is not all bad. Crazy, unexpected and wild things come out of chaos. Think of Genesis, our most important beginning story. Chaos was that formless yet pregnant state, just before the most incredible act of creation.

Right now the girls are playing with string behind me in the lounge. At first they had it tied up and were doing the limbo. Then they turned it into a washing line and got the pegs and dolls clothes and strung them up. So now the dolls' clothes (which we laboured over in the bedroom this morning,) are strewn across the lounge. There is string from one side of the room to the other, stretched over the two bar stools and held down with precarious-looking piles of books. But those two girls are happy, satisfied with their playing, and I'm happy too. I'm sitting writing.

The thing about chaos is that it is often made up of millions of "should do's." I should have clean windows. I should put the washing away. I should have done that filing by now. I should be doing the tax return. I should be able to keep the house cleaner. But "should do's" are the biggest time wasters. Not only do they rarely get done, but all the energy they take up in "not getting done" is energy robbed from the things that really matter.

So I'm doing my best to kick out the "should do's". I haven't got time for them anymore. I'm going to try and get on with my "want to's" and "can do's." Regardless of the chaos. Of course there will always be "must do's", but they seem to get done, eventually. No, it's the "want to's" and "can do's" I'm giving my heart to.

So I'm following my own advice. I'm sitting here writing at quarter to five, ignoring the mess and the dishes and barely sparing a thought for dinner. Those three girls are back in the bedroom, door shut, with a bowl of frozen peas. And I'm smiling, the happiest I've been all week. True story!

words and angels: thinking of christchurch

It's been a week since the earthquake. A week ago yesterday morning Paddy came home from work and woke me with the news. "Earthquake In Christchurch!" he said "Ring Your Sister!" So I did, and my Auntie too, to check on my cousin. Just as the rest of New Zealand was doing. Picking up the phone. The news brought relief - they were ok.

Now after a week of hearing and reading about little other than the earthquake, our world has returned to normal. For us, nothing has changed. But for Christchurch, everything has changed. Hundreds are living in shelters, many are injured, thousands have suffered damage to their homes, hundreds have seen their homes and businesses destroyed. I think of the supermarket owner I saw on the news this week who has lost everything. A building that was just in the process of being upgraded and a thriving business. All gone. I think of the people living in shelters. I think of the family who let the news cameras into their home on the day of the quake, their home in chaos. I think of the people who no longer have jobs to go to. People who are waiting to hear if their homes will be salvageable. Others returning to clean up the mess. People for whom what was once their refuge is now a place of fear.

Yet we are all so lucky. How we survived a 7.1 earthquake with no loss of life is a miracle. I don't know if you "do" angels, but last Saturday a picture came into my mind of thousands of angels in the sky above Christchurch moments before the earthquake, a horde of angels descending as the quake was about to hit. Was that just my imagination, or could it be true? Did Christchurch get a little bit of other-worldly help in that terrible moment? Maybe.

And then there's all the ordinary yet just as angelic help. The ambulance staff who went to work last Saturday even though their own homes had been severely damaged. The emergency services who worked non-stop. The businesses that donated food. The concerned Kiwis who have offered a free bed to those without homes or in need of a break. The experts that were flown in from other parts of the country. This is all as it should be. We wouldn't have it any other way. In times like this, we realise how much we need each other, how inter-connected we are.

An earthquake is one of our most violent reminders that there are forces at play in the world that are completely beyond our control. Our treasured poet Lauris Edmond wrote vividly about her childhood experience of the 1931 Hawke's Bay earthquake.

 "The morning of the earthquake was hot, and muggy as well – strange, thundery weather. The sun didn’t shine but it was all the hotter for that. It was Lindsay’s first day at school; when the bell rang for playtime I waited at the door of her room and hand in hand we went outside to play. Within moments the world began to blow itself apart in the most extraordinary way – the roof of the school flew off in a cloud of red brick dust, the walls subsided and the roof landed again with a roar on the heap they made. The ground rolled and surged as though it had become water, waves passing over and through the asphalt playground as we sat, or rolled about, on the grass by the fence. We’d clambered through the wire and were gazing in astonishment at that red cloud. Once the school had vanished before our eyes, turning itself into a heap of red rubble and dust, it was hard to know what to do. " (Here is the complete piece:"The Day the Quake Came" )

Words are important now. Words take the frighteningly incomprehensible and put it into a form we can control, manipulate, digest. Words enable us to put boundaries onto our experiences. To give harrowing memories an outlet. To put our horrors, literally, "on the shelf." Everyone who was in Christchurch at 4:35 am last Saturday morning has a story to tell. Talking is good. Being heard is so important. And more than all of that, writing gives the psyche the permission to begin to forget, to let go. The written word is safe, almost permanent. We can let the written word be guardian over our memories, and we can rest.

And what then of the internal earthquakes we all suffer from time to time? The medical diagnoses that leave us reeling, the ruptures in relationships, the conflicts and misunderstandings that crush us, the best laid plans that fail miserably? Do we help each other through these unseen quakes, allow each other the space needed to process the inevitable anger and grief? Do angels attend these?

Christchurch has a lot to teach us. Important lessons abound, if we take notice. I know what I've learnt. Two things I wouldn't be without. Words and angels.

good news!

 

When Isobella was four she was diagnosed with absence epilepsy (also known as petit mal epilepsy) which meant that she was having blank spells of ten seconds or so, many times a day. It took about six months to get this diagnosis, so although it was a big shock, there was some relief that we knew what was going on. When the time came to enrol her in school the epilepsy was not being controlled by the medication she was on, and we decided, completely unexpectedly to us, to homeschool her. Eventually we tried a new medication and it worked. We were very very grateful, even more so because the side-effects were mild. Since then the medication has continued to be successful, and Isobella has had no seizures for over a year.

Two weeks ago Isobella and I went to a specialist appointment and got some very good news. She has been seizure free for long enough that we can now wean her off her medication and presume that she has grown out of the epilepsy! We are thrilled. Ella doesn't really understand, but she is happy not to have to take her medicine anymore, and I am over the moon.

When we were in the process of diagnosing her epilepsy, my biggest fear was that somehow, either as a side-effect of the medication, or because the epilepsy itself ended up presenting as part of a more complicated scenario, my shining, bubbly girl would be some how lost. The thought broke my heart. I'm so grateful that my fear was only ever a fear. But it has made me appreciate even more than ever what an incredible thing the brain is. It holds within it the makings of our personality, our likes and dislikes, our plans and dreams... the things that form the essence of who we are. When the brain is damaged or compromised in some way, it changes us.

Or does it?  A person who suffers brain injury as a result of an accident may function differently, may be less able in some respects, may speak differently and seem so different to the person they were before the accident, but they are still the same person. Back in the days before we had Ella's seizures under control, I had to accept that whatever happened to her, whatever the side-effects of the medication were, she was still the same Isobella I held in my arms as a newborn, still the same girl who we loved and who loved us back.  This is something that many families know all to well. The families and partners of stroke and brain injury victims learn this lesson the hardest way, day in and day out.

Isobella is none the worse for her epilepsy. There's a chance that the epilepsy could return at a later stage, but that chance is so random that there's no point in even thinking about it. She is bright, articulate, curious and full of life. She's also a bit different. (I'm her Mum - I'm allowed to say these things!) Her brain is wired in such a way that everything is interesting, everything is exciting, everything warrants investigating and exploring. As you can imagine, this makes task completion a challenge! Do you know how long it takes this girl to brush her hair?! Sometimes it drives me almost mad, but most of the time I marvel at the wonder her brain is, and wish I could peek in one day and see what is actually going on in there.

Case in point, this morning. Isobella and I were in the bathroom together and I said "Did you have sweet dreams?" She looked up at me beaming, "Yes!" she said with a smile as wide as her face. "I was walking with Jesus in heaven and it was so so beautiful!" I took a breath and gathered myself together, and then asked her all about it. The paragraph that follows is all her words. I didn't prompt or suggest anything, I simply asked questions like "and then what happened?" By the end of the story, I was so overwhelmed that I almost disbelieved her, and asked her if she was making it up. But as you will see, this is not the kind of thing a kid can make up. You need to know that while Paddy and I are very much believers, there is no brain-washing going on at our place. We have talked about heaven in the past, but we've never ever talked about it in detail, we've never discussed whether it is an actual place, and we've never ever got close to talking about what it could look like. Scout's honour!

Isobella's dream:
“First I saw Jesus’ cross at the start of heaven, and God was crying, and all the angels were crying, everyone in heaven was crying. His servants came and took him off the cross and lay him on a special bed. Then he came back alive again. Then I saw Jesus on his throne with a rainbow over it and rainbow stairs going up to it, and then I went walking with Jesus down the rainbow path. His angels were on either side. It was very, very sparkly, sparklier than you have ever seen, sparklier than a star. Then I came home to number 66 in Jesus’ special carriage with angel horses. It was very very very sparkly.The carriage had ten angel horses. They had wings and things like a unicorn has. They shine and shine and have golden things all over them.  I came home straight back through the wall into the lounge and there was a big jar of gold in the middle of the floor, it was a present from Jesus. I took it to bed with me and looked at the gold and at the bottom of the gold was my Gideon bible. It was very early in the morning and it was very dark and quiet and all I could hear were the bells on the horses. Then I went to sleep and had a very big sleep in."

If you ask her, Isobella will tell you that she actually went to heaven last night.   If you ask her, she'll show you the exact place on the lounge wall that she came home through. She's six, right, and she has a lot to learn, but there are some things she knows much better than me.

what's in a name?

I was born in Madrid in 1974, to kiwi parents who were "doing their hippy thing" and travelling around Europe in a combi. My father had moved with his family to New Zealand from England at the age of 12, and my mother was born in the Waikato, to an English nurse and an Australian retired soldier.

My parents had met in Raglan, where my mum grew up, and got married at the Unitarian Church in Auckland just before they went overseas. Mum wore a green velvet cape over a long tunic, and my father a cream shirt with pirate sleeves and a pink scarf for a neck tie. They split up when I was two.You could say they probably should never have married, that they weren't really in love, but then they wouldn't have had me, and that would have been a shame. So my mother, on marrying my pink-scarfed father, morphed in an instant from Miss Bath to Mrs Munn, and I, on that moment I burst out of her in that lonely delivery ward in Madrid, became a Munn.

And a Munn I remained. My mother didn't change her name back to her maiden name after her divorce, and my dear half-sister who came along a few years later simply joined in, becoming a Munn as well. Our tight threesome had the ease and respectability that came with bearing one name, and from memory Mum was addressed as "Mrs Munn." I never lived with my father, and didn't always see him regularly, but he was my Dad, and I knew that was what made me a Munn.

When I was thirteen my mother re-married. She happily took the name of her love, a man who wrapped her in his arms and completely changed our world. For a while we talked about him adopting my sister and I, something that at that age I couldn't really comprehend, except that I knew it would make Mum happy. When the legal process slowed down and then ground to a halt, I was quietly relieved. As much as I loved my step-dad, I liked my name, and I was my name. So a Munn I stayed.

When I had my first stories published my name became even more important. My identity as a person and as a writer was sealed by seeing my name in print. When I met Paddy and we got engaged I was so thrilled to be in love, and so caught up in the romance of creating a life together, that I didn't hesitate to change my name and become a "Mrs." I was sure of one thing though, that I would always remain a Munn for my writing career.

And so for the last nine years I've had two names, and in a sense, two identities. One, the family me, a respectable Mrs in a comfortable family unit of just over 2.4 children. The other a phantom identity more from my past than my present, of a wannabe writer, struggling to marry the dreams I had as a young writer with my very ordinary reality.

Then earlier this year I applied for a writer-in-residence, and had to send in a proposal and CV as Idoya Munn. It felt strange, and at first almost like I was denying my identity as a wife and mother. However I found that it actually made me happy to see that name come to life again, and it didn't feel like putting on another identity, or using a pseudonym. It wasn't just a name, it was me.

When our eldest daughter was born six years ago, I had intended on giving her "Munn" as one of her names. I liked the Spanish tradition of passing on the mother's maiden name to the children, and I've always been a bit of a feminist at heart.  When it came to making the final decision I changed my mind, for the silly prejudice of not wanting to give her a really long name. But earlier this year, as "Idoya Munn" became more and more real, I realised I'd made a mistake. I wanted the girls to be part of my life as a writer, and I wanted their names to reflect both their father's heritage and my own. So we decided we would change their names by deedpoll, and give them Munn as a third christian name. It felt right. They loved the idea.

In the months that have come and gone since then, I have become more and more confident and secure in this identity I have as Idoya Munn. To the point where I now feel more like Idoya Munn than the "Mrs" I became. And so it seems logical that I make the call.  Who am I?  Am I the respectable Mrs who has a shadow life as a writer, or am I a writer who happens to have a wonderful, supportive family?

I have come to the conclusion that I am Idoya Munn. I've been using Munn more and more over the last few weeks, and the more I use it, the more I like it. I think the time is coming when I will use Munn more than my married name, and I expect that one day, when I get around to it, I'll change my name with the bank and various other official places. It's a big change, in some ways, and yet in other ways it is no change at all.

Library Stories - Palmerston North City Library

You might have noticed I gave you a wee hint in that post I wrote about coming home from holiday. I found a treasure when we were in Palmerston North, and it gave me the perfect opportunity to indulge in a little fantasy I've been nurturing.  I've had this idea that you might like to hear about random libraries.  An idea that whenever I travel, I can post a story or two about the libraries I find.  I know, libraries.  Mmmm... not everyone loves libraries the way I do.  But I figure, if you are reading this blog then you either love me enough to humour me, or you love words enough that you must appreciate a good library.  And anyway, it's got to have some novelty value, if nothing else. 

So on that note I have the pleasure of introducing to you my very first library story: Palmerston North City Library.  I couldn't have asked for the a better kick-off to this tradition.  See for yourself the wonder that is Palmy's City Library.

I happened to read last week that John Cleese once said about a visit to Palmerston North "If you ever do want to kill yourself, but lack the courage, I think a visit to Palmerston North will do the trick." !! Palmy does not have a reputation as a must-visit destination, and gets plenty of stick from New Zealanders for being a very ordinary, small and land-locked city. However, I've found a reason better than any to live in Palmerston North: the City Library.

We had a few hours left in Palmerston North before we drove to Napier, and my friend Mels who we were staying with happened to mention that the library was pretty special. So we went to see it - and I'm so glad. It was a revelation. As you can see, the library is big, open, light, and full of interesting and innovative architectural and functional details. Each area was spacious and well-laid out, with very clear and useful signage.  The kids section was tidy, the readers (something I always notice) were organised and stored in easy-to-access bins (rather than being in one messy pile, as they usually are.) There was a toddler's slide, and a playstation!  Now that's how you get the kids to go to the library!

Every where we went there was comfortable furniture to sit and read on.  There were rows of comfy arm chairs on every floor, set up by big windows that looked over the square, and beside them were listening posts for music, so you could read and listen to your choice of music.  One woman had made herself so comfortable that she had taken her shoes off.  If there was ever a good advertisement for a library, that's it!

I think that in another life, I would be quite happy to move to Palmerston North. I would be quite happy to make that library my second home, visit it every day, find myself a quiet corner and sit and write and research to my heart's content.    I can't agree with John Cleese about Palmerston North in the slightest. In fact, I would go so far as to say that in my version of heaven (the theology of which will not be discussed here) there is a library just like this one. Lucky Palmerston North.

holiday pics

home

We have just got back from holiday.  Not just any old holiday... a trip down to Wellington and back in a campervan!!   We started up in Mangawai a week and a half ago, and then made our way south stopping at Huntly, Ohakune, Wellington and then back up through Palmerston North and Napier.   It was a whistle-stop tour.  If we could do it all again we would definitely take more time, but in saying that by the last night we were ready to come home.  Travelling with kids is tiring, but then who would want to stay in one place all their lives?  Not me!

Some of the highlights were taking the kids to Te Papa, Wellington in general, and Napier.  I also made a gem of a discovery (thanks Mels) in Palmerston North.  Surprised? Well just wait till you read the special post I have in the works!

So I'm home.  Surrounded by things to be put away and washing to be folded.  In a house that is badly in need of a good clean. I'm torn between jumping right back into normal life again, and running back to that lovely wee campervan.  But of course I don't actually have a choice.  At least Paddy still has a week off work.  We can have one of those "staycations" or whatever they call them over in that crazy country.  Yes, one of those holidays where I finally get to weed the garden and clean the blinds... and maybe even start our tax return, if I'm lucky. Yipee!!

today

Everybody is sick, except me.  Since Greer's birthday everyone has succumbed to a wretched virus, one by one.  I'm the last woman standing, hoping like heck that God's birthday present to me tomorrow will be that I DON'T get sick.  So far, so good.  Just tired, exhausted, bored and slightly grumpy.  The first few days I did ok.  If I can say it humbly, I think I was doing a fairly reasonable impression of Florence Nightingale.  But I didn't realise, all those two days ago, that I actually had it easy.  Kids when they are really sick, like glazed-eye, refusing to eat sick, are actually quite easy to look after. They just lie around watching TV or listening to books or music and they don't do much else.   They also have the lovely effect of drumming up all available maternal affection.  Yes, I loved my kids on Tuesday.  I also loved them on Wednesday, and possibly Thursday too. 

But today?  Today Florence Nightengale was called off to another assignment and her ugly step-sister moved in.  I guess it was to be expected.  She couldn't stick around forever.  Anyway, the baby got the bug and refused to be put down.  And I challenge any saint to stay saintly when you've got a permanent appendage weighing 10kg on your hip.  Moreover, this permanent appendage prefered her carrying person to either be moving, or sitting in front of the television.   Force me to sit infront of the TV, when loud and boring kids shows are on?  I'm in prison!   This 10kg appendage was not interested in sitting in front of the computer, not at all.  Not a blog reader, my one year old. 

Then, just as Florence Nightengale was heading out the door, my poor husband gets sick.   Really sick.  Shame, he missed out on Florence completely.  He was lucky to get a cursory glance from the ugly sep-sister as she walked briskly down the ward.  At one point he was heard asking me, in a feeble voice; "How am I going to be able to get hold of you?" as if I was heading off on a weekend trip, not just deserting him for another room!

But what really sent Florence heading straight for the train station was that the kids started getting better.  Yes, they did.  The little blighters actually got well enough to have opinions, refuse requests, to annoy each other, and to generally to a great job of getting on my nerves.   They could have tried the patience of a saint, if she'd stuck around long enough.   Greer was using all the energy she'd saved up being meek on the couch by having one melt-down after another.  And Isobella made it her day's mission to cough incessantly without covering her mouth, and to leave half-used tissues strewn from here to Antarctica.  Truly. 

How did I survive?  I'll tell you.  I got a call from my Dad to wish me happy birthday for tomorrow.  And that made me smile.  I bought some clothes online with birthday money (thanks :-})  Then I lit a prayer candle, for myself. I put Abigail in the high chair (finally, detached!) and set her up where she could touch the buttons on the dishwasher without even trying.  I then ignored the other two and cooked dinner.  And I cooked it for myself.  Not caring who would eat it or refuse it.  I stood and looked out my favourite window, just above the kitchen bench, and realised it had been a really beautiful day. 

There are many, many things I could wish I had been doing today.  Like being outside, like being alone.  Like being efficient around the house and getting "stuff done".  I could get really imaginative and wish I had been at the library, or in here writing, or in bed reading...  And if I wanted to, I could now transpose all those wishes onto tomorrow, my birthday.  I could fill myself with countless "if only's" and think up the most perfect birthday.  But none of it would be possible.  Tomorrow I get the privilege of being nurse-mother-wife again, hopefully this time more Florence than ugly step-sister.  It will be another ordinary day.

While I was looking around blog-land tonight I found this quote.

"Normal day, let me be aware of the treasure you are. Let me learn from you, love you, savour you, bless you before you depart. Let me not pass you by in quest of some rare and perfect tomorrow. Let me hold you while I may, for it will not always be so. One day I shall dig my nails into the earth, or bury my face in the pillow, or stretch myself taut, or raise my hands to the sky, and want, more than all the world, your return."  - Mary Jean Irion

It was a nice moment, reading that.  It reminded me of what I always know, but often forget.  It saved me from wasting my thoughts on tomorrow.  It sent me here, writing this post, rather than into the kitchen to do dishes. And writing this post has re-fuelled me and left me peaceful and content.  I'm grateful.

guess what this is!

So you knew the idea was still hanging around somewhere... I told you about that here.   You knew it was part of a dream I wasn't sure of the form of, or the taste of, but longed for anyway.  You knew I was confused about how and why we'd done it in the past, and didn't have any idea whether we'd ever do it again in the future. Remember?

Well. Since those formative wonderings, the idea of homeschooling has come back to life.  You could say the dream has gradually taken a form I can see and describe.   It all started with that post, and those tears of joy I told you about watching the girls sitting doing "school" work up at the table.   It was followed soon after by a week at home for Isobella where she was too sick to go to school, but not sick enough to be on the couch all day.   I told her if she stayed home she'd need to "do some school" so I found a maths website on the internet for her, and it all started there.  From the hours she spent loving that maths website, she went on, mostly self-directed, to writing stories and typing them out, to reading old readers, to pulling out her old maths text book and doing some of the pages, to more reading... and more writing... and more internet maths. This went on for four days, and every day she became more content, happier within herself, and more proud of her work.  It got to the point where I said to her "you know this is what homeschooling looks like," and she replied, in so many words, "let's do homeschooling again Mum."

You need to understand that the week wasn't perfect.  I spent the first morning she was at home wondering constantly what was happening at school and what she was missing out on.  I got over that.  The second morning I lay in bed and thought about the prospect of being at home all day with three kids, no kindy, no activities, and had a moment of panic.  Where had my peaceful house gone? I got over that one too.   Then there was Thursday, my "writing" day. My treasured day, the gift that school had given  me, the day to myself (shared with Abigail) that was going to enable me to write the book.   Well Thursday turned out to be lovely, and I still got a bit of writing done.  By Friday I was in heaven.  I couldn't take the smile off my face.   I felt incredibly, deeply peaceful.   It was a peace that came from being free from the tyranny of getting to school in the mornings and being tied to pick-up time in the afternoons, a peace that came from spending the week doing something I now realise I love, a peace that told me my dream of a different life for our family was alive and well, and it took the unexpected form of homeschooling.

So that envelope in the photo above is our application to homeschool Isobella.  It spells out, in tidy-looking tables and concise paragraphs, how and why we want to homeschool.  It will be in the post today!

Four

She's four and the world is her oyster.   Amazing things are almost within her grasp, like words, like numbers.   "What is one plus three?" is an incredible question.  Her eyes light up and her fingers start counting each other.   The smile of satisfaction says "I know things!" She was given two colouring in books by her cousin, one a girl's one, so "girlish" and one a boy's one, so "boylish." Ofcourse. She is figuring out about the world.  She has discovered that her sister is her friend, her ally, that things are better when they're done together.  (Like going to to the toilet!)  She says "I don't feel four, I feel three!" but everything about her says four.  Everything about the way she walks and talks says "watch this space."

The night before last I was up until 2am making soup and the birthday cake.   It was a ridiculous chain of events, a comedy of errors, one of those nights where you have to laugh or you'll cry.   Isobella was sick, and up six or seven times in the night, and I had a one year old friend for about two hours from 11pm while the soup was cooking and I hadn't even made the icing yet!  When Paddy came home from work he got Abigail to sleep, but no sooner had he done that than I woke her up turning the beater on to make butter icing!  But it had to be done, the cake must go on...

Her birthday was lovely.  No actual party, but lots of fun and family...  I asked her at the end of it what her favourite thing about the day was, and she replied "my cake!" without hesitation.  This is exactly the kind of thing a mother knows instinctively, even at 2am.  

Happy birthday Greer-bear.   We love being your family.

ps.  It really helps to have an auntie who can make balloon dogs!!
pps. It also really really helps to have a husband who can rescue the decoration of said cake when it's 2am and the eyes are blurring...  all props go to him :)

happening around here