Alone

Today I was alone.

I wasn't actually really alone. There were people everywhere.

I had an appointment in the city and so took myself to it on the train and then met up with husband and the children for lunch in the city afterwards. The appointment ended up only taking half an hour of the expected 90 minutes and overall I spent over three hours alone. This is unusual because I have two small children and the youngest is breastfed, I can't go too far from him. And when I do go out alone I have an agenda, a plan, things to get done.

It was weird.

I talked about myself. To an adult. Without being interrupted.
I wandered aimlessly.
I strolled into shops just because they looked interesting.
I browsed. I observed. I thought.
I realised they way that people in the city dress is not the way that people in the suburbs dress.
...

It's funny how a kind of isolation can sneak up on you. Not that I don't get out much, on the contrary, I use my free weekdays to socialise with a lot of friends who have a day off, or just a lunch break off. Sometimes I feel as if I'm flat out. But I always have at least one child in tow and my brain is in mum mode.

It was an interesting morning. Not in a good way, not in a bad way, just in an interesting way.

This Is My Family

Back in August last year, I showed you our renovated study and said that I would tell you more about the tree later. Well, after more than half a year of nagging relatives for photos, here it is, our family tree. Five generations in photos. The leaves of the tree are thumb prints of our friends and family - if you are visiting our house, please do make sure that you add some leaves to the tree.

This is my husband's side of the family, all born in Australia. The blue arrows help you navigate who begat whom.. We are missing photos of both of his paternal great-grandfathers, both of whom appear to have disappeared before anyone caught them on film.

And my side of the family. We are missing my maternal great-grandfather's photo, but do have photos of my paternal great-great-grandparents to compensate. My maternal side are from Ireland, Jamaica and China, and paternal side are from Australia, England and Switzerland.

We have a photo at the bottom of us with Miss 3 (then nearly one year old). Need to update with the four of us - perhaps a yearly replacement photo as the children grow?

Are they twins?

Every Thursday and Friday for over a year now at least two people ask me if Miss 1.5 and Miss 2 are twins. "No, they're not," I reply. "One belongs to me and one to my friend." People look confused. Why would I purchase a second car seat and a double pusher to look after a child that is not my own?

Well, it's because when I was pregnant and thinking about the logistics of children and work, I talked to my friend, Kat, who was also pregnant and thinking about the logistics of children and work. We don't live that far from one another and we have similar values and parenting techniques. So, we arranged our part-time work days to be complementary and once Miss 2 was about a year old and Kat was going back to work two days a week, Miss 2 started staying with me on Thursdays and Fridays. And when Miss 1.5 was about one year old and I was going back to work three days a week, Miss 1.5 started staying with Kat on Mondays and Tuesdays (on Wednesdays she hangs out with Grandpa).

My mat. health nurse said that she had never met anyone who had an arrangement like this before.

There are lots of benefits. Miss 1.5 is with someone who I know and trust, in a home environment. Kat and I can share stories about what the girls did each day and call up if we just want to say "hi". Miss 1.5 learns things that are different from the things that I focus on - for example, Kat taught them shapes and letters before I thought to.

The girls are great friends and learn more from one another than I think that they do from adults. They keep each other entertained, which means that they are less dependent on mum. They also have massive fights, but that is part of learning how to share, so I think that it's good.

From my point of view, the arrangement is much more flexible than childcare. And it's free (yippee)!

The bad things? It's like having twins, really, so it's a pain when one of them is sick. The other one is bound to get sick (more specifically, Miss 1.5 is bound to pass whatever illness she has on to Miss 2) and looking after two sickies is hard work. You have to purchase double of all the baby stuff: car seat, pusher, cot, highchair. A bit more organisation is required to co-ordinate going out and to stop escapes in shops. And when one of us goes on holidays or gets sick, things can be a bit tricky.

I miss the year that Miss 1.5 and I spent at home alone, when it was just the two of us. I think that it's sad that I'm never going to have that time again with future children.

I think that for this to work, you need two families who have similar ideals and parenting styles. And to talk to each other, remembering that this is a friendship, not child care. But the child sharing arrangement is working really well for us and I'm looking forward to more double trouble from the "twins"

Road trip to Mount Gambier

We are just home from a five day road trip to Mount Gambier, visiting four week old Mr D and his parents. We spent most of our time getting to know Mr D and catching up with my brother and sister-in-law, and aunt, uncle and grandmother who were also visiting. There was very little time crafting, although I did get some inspiration from my sister-in-law's house (more on that later).

Aside from family bonding, the most wonderful things were the beautiful wattle displays and the black-shouldered kites and other falcons that were happily hunting.

The road trip home was just Miss 1 and me, as Darren flew home early for work. We went to Branxholme, only 1.5 hours, on Tuesday night and stayed with friends and then made the trek to Melbourne together on Wednesday. Miss 1 was very well behaved, sleeping the first two hours to lunch, then spotting sheep, playing with toys, snacking, reading, singing, sticking stickers, drawing pictures and generally trashing the car.

Broken easel

For her birthday six months ago, Miss 1 received an easel with a magnetic blackboard on one side and a whiteboard with a big bulldog clip on the other side from my parents, as well as a table and chairs from her aunt. We set up the living room so that she can always draw. On the table there is always paper and washable crayons and textas within reach, as well as a craft box, playdough and paint brushes on the shelf. I keep the paint in the laundry, it's washable but a little too fun for use without supervision. The easel has chalk, a duster and a magnetic alphabet (all from Darren's parents) and blank newsheet clipped to the back. This is what it looked like when I got up this morning.

The drawing area is one of her most loved (close to her bookcase, but far behind being outside) and she and Miss 1.5 play there every day. Both the table and easel have been subjected to "accidental" drawing/painting (Miss 1.5 likes to draw inside the easel, for reasons that I have yet to discern).

But last week, the leg of the easel snapped at a knot in the wood. Devastation. Darren took the easel and the transaction details back to Windmill and they identified that there was a similar knot on another leg. They went out the back and checked all the others that they had and gave him a replacement with the least knots. They were great and the "twins" were ecstatic to have the easel back again. Miss 1.5 has promptly dedicated herself to replacing the decoration on the inside.

So, I know that "buy handmade" is a great and all, but also, support small Australian business. Especially fantastic toy shops that have real, educational toys, wonderful customer service, and no Dora The Explorer in sight.

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This post isn't sponsored by anyone and reflects my personal opinions and experiences only.

Mr D, a photo a day, and toddler art

On Tuesday morning, my brother and his wife welcomed their first child, a little baby boy, Mr D, who looks just like my brother. Yay! I'm looking forward to visiting them in Mount Gambier and meeting my new nephew, but not looking forward so much to the six hour car ride with Miss 1.

When I was pregnant, my sister-in-law gave me a lovely 365 day journal. When Miss 1 arrived we took a photo of her every day and kept a diary of her achievements and put it in the book. It was a great idea and the presentation was lovely, but the journal wasn't really designed for having 365 photos stuck in it and is now bulging somewhat.

Miss 1 is now one year and 196 days old and we're still taking a photo of her every day, which is a pain on days that I work, but otherwise fantastic. Although I suspect that we've now committed to doing this for all future children too... I just received my latest update of 174 prints and although the 2012 boring spiral bound photo album isn't as pretty, it is designed to comfortably hold a whole lot more photos.

The prints arrived in duplicate (even though we only ordered one copy), so my family can expect a selection of photos heading their way.

In crafty news, I found a Blog post where a lady named Kara made a sticky window and thought that it would be fun for the "twins". It's a sheet of contact stuck to a window so they can be artistic sticking, well, anything to the window. My sticky window wasn't terribly neat, because I set it up with the help of the "twins". I cut up coloured paper for our window, and fished out some animal shapes and some stars that I had in the craft box as well.

Miss 1 was instantly hooked. Miss 1.5 gave it a go, tried (unsuccessfully) sticking things to the regular window, and then decided that it was more fun to pull things off the sticky wall.

 

A week later and the contact is holding up very well (i.e. is mysteriously not covered in dog hair!). Miss 1 has been playing with it every day, cousin Mr W has had a go, and I caught Miss 1.5 playing there this morning (although she escaped before I could find the camera).