When it’s time to refocus.

Sometimes when you’re a stay at home parent, you can feel so busy. I have been feeling a little overwhelmed with trying to get everything done of late and certainly my interactions with Miss Mimi aren’t as pure as they should be because of the rushing and the busyness. The TV is on way longer than I would like some days and spending quality time together has become a treat, where it should just be the norm.

I haven’t spent a lot of time on me in positive ways either and I think that makes for a busy brain, one that gets in the way of actually seeing what’s around you and from taking the time to look at situations with a quiet mind. There’s so much to see that I keep missing because of the mind Chatter. Or the Static as one dear friend calls it. How do we put a stop to it? How do we quiet our minds?

I think we all have a certain thing that revives us, that’s strictly ours. Mine is writing. It’s free, though I do love a good massage too. Not so free. However whatever that thing is that rejuvenates us, shouldn’t we make the time for it? Shouldn’t we take the time to have these consistent moments so that we can be quiet and listen to what we really need to hear? Without the Static.

I recently peeled away layers in my life that were having negative effects on myself as a parent and as ‘Jade’ and though it’s tough to break a habit, especially delicious ones, you reach a place where it becomes necessary to break free if you want to evolve. Too much social networking. Time on the phone. Playing games. Eating junk. These things are not helping me reach my goals nor helping me be the devoted parent of my only child. I don’t want to miss a thing of what Miss Mimi does, from the first time she writes her name to the tantrum she has in the supermarket. I want to spend more time with her, around the commitments I already have. I need to, quite painfully, cut back on things that produce static.

So you make a plan to make it impossible to go back and you press ‘Go’. You spend your free time on yourself. Your friends will either understand that chai’s and chatting is limited for awhile while you put steps in place to make your goals a reality or they don’t. They are either angry at you, or they get it. Whichever way it goes, it’s out of your hands.

So after resetting my life, we got back to what Miss Mimi loves to do. Craft. We made a Vet Cage where Seal could rest and recover after a “boating accident.” And in pure Miss Mimi form, she didn’t want to leave the cage locked so that Seal could come and go as he pleased. She is eating less and less meat these days and I wonder what kind of thoughts go through her mind about that decision. Complicated little Miss she is. Here is what we did:

We cut the flaps off a cardboard box. Stuck four cut out rectangles together to make the door. Stuck on some hinges, coloured it a little…

We stuck ribbon with sticky tape on the inside of our door. Popped the door on, threw in some shredded newspaper and wha la! A Vet’s Cage for Seal to rest and recuperate. Miss Mimi then spent a lot of time with her doctors kit, making sure he was well on the road to recovery, checking and fussing, feeding and changing the newspaper. And we smiled, my mind free of Static.

When you love to colour.

Remember in the ‘Sex and the City’ movie, the girls were sitting around at breakfast and had to replace the word ‘sex’ with ‘colour’ because Charlotte’s 3 year old was sitting at the table with them? She is quietly colouring (as all good child stars should) and the girl’s are having the most inappropriate chatter. It’s not total reality but it’s funny and maybe one or two of us can relate to a topic or two discussed, or maybe not. If you forget what happened, have a giggle here.

I remember watching this scene and wondering when my daughter would fall in love with colouring. I had hoped that I too could sit around with the girls at breakfast with a quiet child, contently colouring. Sadly, I don’t live in a Hollywood movie and I had almost given up hope that this would be something that would occupy my daughter’s time, even for just short bursts…until a few weeks ago. All of a sudden Miss Mimi’s colouring in went to scribbling all over the page to careful, try-really-hard-to-stay-within-the-lines, colouring. My little girl is growing up and now we can restaurant as a family in gorgeous bliss. My husband and I can order, talk and wait for our food to arrive with a peaceful girl who colours and joins in on our conversation. It’s a new stage of her development and we are enjoying every moment.

All this makes me remember a time in my childhood. I was around 7 or 8 and I vividly recall my mum taking me to the local shopping centre. She ran some errands, we had lunch and an ice-cream and we laughed and enjoyed each other’s company, all without me complaining or whinging. There was no rushing and it was just us. She listened to me, she laughed with me. At the end of that magical few hours she thanked me, she told me she had loved every moment and was excited at the thought that we could do more grown up girly things together. I had reached my new stage in life. I will never forget that moment. I felt so proud that I was being treated like a grown up. A few years after that however, she took me to a hamburger joint to tell me all about the ‘birds and the bees’ and it was the worst hour of my life. I couldn’t eat my burger and I wished the ground could have opened up and swallowed me whole, I desperately wanted to be 4 again. Take the good with the bad I guess. At least she didn’t confuse me by replacing the keywords with something kindergarten-ish or coming up with some sort of analogy such as colouring in the lines…

PS: Love you Mum. xx

Friendship.

There are so many corny lines about friendship. I have heard friendship described as a plant of slow growth, that must undergo and withstand the shocks of adversity before it is entitled to the appellation. How when divided with friends, adversity is halved. How you can tell the nature of a person just by looking at his/her friends. I don’t know about all that, but what I do know is that only good giggles come from really good friends. I think friendship is when you are genuinely rapt when your buddy succeeds, you celebrate with them when they find true love, you giggle out loud when they slip-over while crossing the road blind drunk. (You actually love them even more because it wasn’t you that fell.)  To me, true friendship is about laughter. Side splitting laughter that makes you appreciate how ridiculous life can be. True friends will tell you to your face that you’re ridiculous and then they’ll hug you while laughing at you. But you won’t ever be offended because it’s just how it is. It’s comfortable and it’s easy and it’s funny. True friends take your secrets to the grave and they take your side just because it’s ingrained. Those friends are the ones that if you happen to not see or speak to for months on end, you just picked up where you left off when you do see them again, nothing’s awkward. Nothing’s taboo. You talk so much your throat hurts and you go off on tangents that take your conversations in crazy directions. You laugh and you smile and you never want it to end. 

I have been watching my daughter start to make her first friendships over the last year. Granted they are the early stages in the friendship stakes. You like playdough? Ace, you can be my buddy. You don’t like pink playdough? Hmmm, I’ll need to rethink this.

One particular friend, Lil M, has laughed her way into Miss Mimi’s heart. An added bonus here is that both of the Mummy’s laugh together too and we have developed a truly wonderful friendship. Score! I watch Miss Mimi and Lil M as they worry over kinder, talk about pretend things, establish ground rules for games and whisper secrets, but what I always smile at is how much they laugh and giggle. Belly laughs…it’s an awesome sound. Miss Mimi seems to know that true friendship, though laced with fights about who will be the mummy cat in their pretend play, is all about the giggles. And if I could teach her just one thing – it would be how invaluable these friendships will become over time. How every girl should hang onto those friendships and nurture them and keep them strong because they will become one of the most sacred treasures of her life.

Oh happy day.

Today was one of those days where life was cruisy, things went right and everyone was happy. Maybe it the sudden burst of sunshine Melbourne was bathed in today that had us in a skipping mood, maybe it was because Mummy and Miss Mimi slept rather well last night. Whatever the reason, I am grateful it was a glorious day.

In the middle of the day, after kinder and a nap, we took to making packing foam sculptures. I tried my hand at a piece of Stonehenge and Miss Mimi put together a Z, then a T, then a variety of different “letters” that I couldn’t quite work out but hey, it’s all in the name of fun.

ps: Happy birthday to a very special little almost all grown up guy who turned 7 today! xo

 

A New Phase

So Miss Mimi started 4 Year old Kinder last week. We thought we should do a repeat of 3 Year old this year though as she struggled so much last year, but turns out that her class mates of last year’s class finally rubbed some of their confident social skills off on her by late last year. So after a small stint in 3 year old, I decided that 4 year old would be more beneficial for her and up she went. I have one extremely happy girl on my hands now, who enjoys kinder almost as much as her gelato.

It’s not only losing my little buddy to kinder and her best friends for 12 hours a week that makes me realise how quick she is growing up, but also the way her drawing and play is progressing these days. Add to that the fact that she graduated to a big girl bed (which she has only fallen out of three times so far), has a best friend and turned 4! It’s been a busy year.

Miss Mimi has also started to put her drawings into the right parts of the page. Sky at the top, grass at the bottom and sometimes some lightning shooting from the big black clouds. After few obsessive days of flat out drawing, she asked for something different to do. Out came our Wizard of Oz felt set, Miss Mimi thought that doing it on the rug would be a great idea so that she could use a much bigger space to narrate her story. I loved listening to her about what Dorothy and the Lion were up to as I pottered about home this afternoon.

My little girl is growing up and I’m excited to see her forming friendships and becoming more independent. What a fun age!

How reading aloud saved my day.

I’ve spoken about this before. How falling down flat on my face with a Crohn’s flare makes parenting a difficult task. The biggest annoyance is my life stopping still, with me bedridden. The next annoyance is me on medication that makes me not only forgetful and clumsy, but has given rise to some anger issues that seemed mostly repressed in my everyday life. The medication under scrutiny is Prednisolone, it’s a steroid. It’s what’s given to those of us who suffer from many debilitating ailments such as Crohn’s, Ulcerative Colitis, Rheumatoid Arthritis, Asthma, allergies, Lupus and more, as a bit of a quick fix. This medication stops those (usually helpful) substances that induce inflammation. Think of the above mentioned autoimmune diseases as having gone slightly crazy, your immune system’s gone a little trigger happy, attacking parts of itself in a paranoid state. Your immune system thinks it’s helping, but it ain’t. The steroids just hi-5 it to the face.

Although I love how Pred gets me back on my feet quickly and it’s powers to reduce nausea is nothing short of miraculous, it really does leave me with some unwanted side effects. The anger, the anxiety. I’m not a stranger to it, I just forgot how much it affected me. My husband, apparently, was ready for it. He was waiting for it.

My ears are more sensitive to noise, which is a shame because it’s not exactly a health spa around here. My patience is on the blurry side…well yeah alright, let’s just go with I have none. My loved ones words are misconstrued in my head. I can’t sleep properly and I’m easily teary. Sounds like being pregnant doesn’t it? All this head case stuff to right a wrong in my guts. It’s like walking an emotional tightrope. Hold it together, fall off, fix it, breathe, do it all again.

I hate it when I yell at Miss Mimi for silly things, but I have certainly spent most of my day doing just that. Exasperated by the squealing and the energy that only a young child can muster, everything got to me. I yelled. She cried. I felt small.

Tonight I stomped around my child’s room, packing things away and picking up clothes. I stopped near Miss Mimi’s book shelf and stood up straight. I looked at her books. All those stories that make her happy and scared, excited and brave, just waiting for her. Dropping the pile of dirty clothes I asked her if she would like to hop into my bed with me and we could read as many stories as she liked. I almost burst into tears when she ran around the room, with wide eyes filled with excitement shouting “Yay! Yay! Yay!” Anything for a bit of attention from her beast of a mother. We snuggled in bed under the covers, her head on my shoulder and we read Sing a Song of Bottoms and Koala Lou, Tough Boris and Night Noises. Diehard fans of Mem Fox. We spoke about how Koala Lou was so brave entering the Bush Olympics and Miss Mimi made me say over and over again “Miss Mimi Moo, I DO love you!” just like Koala Lou’s Mummy said to her. We spoke about what she would do with her day tomorrow and what we enjoyed about our day today. She fell asleep in my arms and I smiled. I sighed with relief that at the end of our day, especially at the end of a day that has been far from perfect, our ‘thing’ that pulls us back together is a something I love more than anything else. Reading to my baby girl. Those adventures and that magic that pours off each page, is a another page closer to the welcomed warmth and comfort that we missed over the long struggles of our day.

After carrying my sleeping child to her bed and kissing her softly, I closed the door quietly and snuck back up to my bed where I read a few chapters of my book. All these years later, my childhood love of reading still provides me with a safe haven, an escape from reality for awhile. It’s a comfort that I am so proud to pass down to my child. It’s a luxury I can afford to give freely.

 

Craft for Gran!

To say that Miss Mimi has developed an obsession with a certain DK book, about how to plan your own party, might just be a bit of an understatement. Mim has excitedly been waiting for the 18th of January, for Gran’s birthday. Even counting down the sleeps!

This particular book has been a hot favourite for weeks now. Mimi has been scanning pages and making all kinds of fabulous plans and birthday craft for Gran. Is it because Gran said “After my birthday, then comes your birthday.”? Maybe she is trying to rush Gran’s to get to her’s? Whatever the reason, we now have more invitations, decorations and masks than this little house can handle.

“My First Party Activity Book” gives all kind of ideas for the planning of a party. From biscuit and cake recipes, to dips and hats and decorations. The invitations that you can see above is Miss Mimi’s favourite part. Christmas and Easter parties might see your child making the appropriate card to correlate with those times, but if your child is anything like mine they will want to make every card that the book gave an idea for! I helped my little lady cut out different shapes and off she went to work decorating them.

We have made masquerade masks and glittery spiders, all waiting eagerly for when Gran comes this Thursday. Apparently we also need to make snacks and a cake and decorate the house for Gran’s big surprise. Geez! I hope this much fuss is lavished over me next month for my birthday!

The only downfall to all this creativity is the mess my lounge room endures. Oh well, it’s all for the good of Gran’s Birthday Surprise! Not much of a surprise now though, considering Mum is the biggest fan of my blog….

 

Come over to play at the Childhood 101 We Play link up.

Miss Mimi and The Floods

Miss Mimi and I spent two nights at my parents house this week in Creswick. The news on tele was all about the Queensland flood, we were all wishing that we could help, feeling grateful that it wasn’t here – then the rain got heavier outside. I was working when my Mum called me to say that the Creswick Creek had broken it’s banks again (the last flood Creswick had was only a short few months ago) and that I had best not dilly-dally and get out of town! She was with Miss Mimi, my sister and nephew looking down the road at the rising waters and I wondered if Mimi was frightened. She had been asking questions about the flood, had in fact, been asking to watch the news about the flood. I tried to answer her questions reassuringly and emphasise that the flood we were watching on TV wasn’t anywhere near us, but that had changed just slightly, of course nowhere near as dire as QLD.

I imagine that watching water rushing through the creek and spilling out onto the road, forming giant puddles that are too big to splash in, must surely be a scary sight for any child. Then for them to link that vision with what they have seen on the news, would it be a recipe for nightmares?

We left yesterday afternoon thankfully, as now all roads in and out of Creswick are flooded and we would have been stuck for a few days. Sand bags were brought in early this time, so I hope the town of Creswick didn’t wake up to too much damage to their homes like last time.

I wasn’t sure where to go from there, to be sure that Miss Mimi didn’t fear too much, wasn’t sure what to say or do. Luckily, as always, my dear friend Cath wrote what I needed to hear right now. I share this because you might need it too.

Check out her educated post on Precocious Lotus, here.

School Holidays on a Budget.

Maybe you’re on a year long budget because you are saving for something wonderful. Perhaps you have no choice but to budget right now because you have 4 children sucking the funds from your account and you’re already broke these school holidays. You’re dreaming of the kids going back to school for your quiet time, but there’s still how many weeks left of the school holidays?!

You might appreciate someone throwing you a bone and giving you some cheap ideas to do these school holidays, especially when it’s boiling hot outside and the children are crying because you won’t let them out in the frying sun. Or you might just like to hear what other mums are doing to keep their children entertained at the moment. I warn you though, if you like expensive, grand activities to do with your children (sailing through the Whitsundays, holidaying in Madrid, scootering around Rome, museums in NY) then don’t bother reading on, it’s not what I’m about in 2011. I’m all about sharing any tips I find that are useful to me and Miss Mimi that save us cash and reduce our carbon footprint. Here are some ideas that we have done lately or that we are intending to do. Low on cost but high on fun and giggles.

1.) Take a trip to your nearest State Park, wander around in there and enjoy the beauty. Feel the absolute embarrassment of watching your child outrun you on a 4 km walk while you struggle up hills, crying that you’re dying. Bring a picnic or check out if there is a BBQ area and take something tasty to BBQ. Note: Take extra water and be sure to go to the bathroom before you leave if you hate looking into a hole-in-the-ground type loo.

2.) Go to the library and borrow heaps of new books, get the children to choose a theme they are interested in right now and learn all about something new. For older kids you could come up with a fun project to capture all that exploration.

3.) Borrow DVDs from the library, pop your own popcorn and have a movie marathon.

4.) Go on night walks around your neighbourhood, your neighbours will probably still have their Christmas lights up till March anyway. If you live in my area, you’re sure to see some illegal fireworks all through January.

5.) Clean out that sandpit but first give your children cups of water mixed with food dye so they can change the colour of the sand, it’s probably due for new sand anyway right?

6.) Rip out some of those toys your kids haven’t seen in months. I pulled out building blocks that Miss Mimi hadn’t played with for awhile and they have been played with lovingly for days now. Note: I also leave these blocks next to my bed so Miss Mimi gets distracted by them when she wakes, plays with them and gives me an extra half hour to sleep in. Score!

7.) Take a drive to the beach. Take your lunch or grab some fish and chips. We went kayaking in Anglesea which only cost our little family $20 for a half hour paddle up and down the river. Miss Mimi got her very own mini paddle to help, we loved it. Note: Half an hour is plenty of time to give those arm muscles a very good workout, especially if The Daddy is useless at steering and you are paddling against the wind.

7a) Build sandcastles at the beach, explore the rock pools, run around in the sand and rest easy knowing that when your children run around like crazy people and stack – it won’t hurt…much.

8.) Take a walk around your area, the park, the local river and collect leaves and rocks and other interesting things. Then do this.

What number am I up to? Oh yeah….

9.) Blow bubbles. Come on, it fascinates me for ages.

10.) Freeze some juice into ice block containers and enjoy the fruity ice in your water.

11.) Have a water fight. You only need a $1 spray gun from a cheap shop but if Santa brought your children those massive Super Soaker guns, take your best shot at them…first!

12.) Bring out those board games. I know you all have a Learning Ladder game there somewhere and if you don’t, well, you know who to call.

13.) Do some puzzles.

14.) Bake muffins, bikkies and cakes together. The kids are eating you out of house and home anyway right? Might as well spend an afternoon making some food, it’ll save you heaps! Wrap them in individual foil and freeze them for later. A great site for gluten free, casein free snacks is http://glutenfreegoddess.blogspot.com/ if you have a child with allergies like me.

15.) Visit that friend who has a pool, in fact – just move in with them in January.

16.) Visit those friends who have a better backyard than you, bring some of your homemade muffins so you don’t look like a tightarse.

17.) Buy the kids some cheap art supplies, new textas, recycled paper – keep the paintings for wrapping paper later on when you need it. Use those boxes that the Christmas presents came in, make doll beds, cubbies, paint scenes into them, make pretend cars…ideas are endless here.

17a) Get out those colouring books and have a colouring competition. Be sure you have enough prizes for everyone (a homemade bikkie will suffice..surely, yeah maybe not). One winner for colouring in the lines the best, one winner for the best use of colours etc. Sweet silence and them being occupied will surely ensue! Note: You probably need a better prize; you’ll take the winners to the park?

18.) Clean out the fishtank? No, that’s just a note for me so I don’t forget…

19.) Go and watch a local game of cricket, if you’re into that.

20.) Use that Zoo pass if you have it, use it alot.

21.) Check out online what’s free in your area in the holidays.

22.) Do some sort of water play any way that you can like here and here and here. Do we like water play? Hmmm, a tad.

23.) Leave the children with their father, grandparents or the dog and take some time out for yourself. Go to a friends house and catch up for a drink or 7 and remember that having time to yourself will make you a better parent. Perhaps not if you’re hungover or have friends that always seem to get you into trouble on those girls nights, but you get my drift.

24.) Go out for a Vietnamese dinner, so cheap and tasty!

25.) Go camping, even if it’s in the back yard. I hear it’s great.

26.) And if you are being begged to go and see the latest movie at the cinemas, go on Cheap Tuesdays, movies are a massive rip off these days, you might as well go on a day that they offer it up cheap. Note: If you have a 4 year old girl, don’t bother taking her to see Megamind, you’ll spend the whole time trying to get her to sit down.

There’s more but if you’ve read this far you’re doing well! Are you hiding in a cupboard somewhere and that’s how you got your 10 minutes of peace?

I would love you to give me your ideas on some cheap activities that you and your family are doing these holidays. Please leave a comment so other mums can benefit too as we’re all in the same Parenting Boat. I bet that when we all share our good ideas we will have some pretty excited kids on our hands!

And here are more great ideas to keep you on your toes! Check out the We Play link up.

Paint, Mimi, Paint!

It’s that time of year when we run around in circles, half completing this, never completing that. We have big dreams and lots of ideas but when it comes to getting it done with kids around? Well, you have to stay focused to make it happen…and a little bit of quiet time doesn’t hurt either.

I have taken to protecting my floor with an old sheet and letting Miss Mimi go for her life, painting till her little heart is content. She has painted Christmas cards, wrapping paper and presents for people and the floor has survived and my ambitious goals for this time of year are slowly getting ticked off my list(s).

Good luck with the Christmas countdown..only 2 sleeps to go!