narrating kayoz

Sick day for Mikaela

Mikaela is sick today. She had a high fever during the night and didn't sleep well at all. The fever continued unabated this morning and she ended up going back to sleep at about 10:30am in the car. Not before throwing up at the shops, however, poor thing. I suspect that might have been largely caused by the fever, because she hasn't shown any sign of doing it again, despite the fact that she has eaten since then (banana, rice crackers and baby jelly - the only things she would accept), and hadn't eaten anything at the time.

She also had a really bad night on Thursday night, and while she had no fever that time, she was pretty miserable on Friday. But she's seemed okay in between times, aside from having revolting poos. So I don't know if the two events are related or not. I keep meaning to check in her mouth to see if her two year old molars are coming in, but I don't think they would justify todays misery anyway.

What does an eight year old do with a mobile phone?

A week ago Liam told me that he would really like a mobile phone of his own. Liam, I remind you, is six years old.

Today Liam was playing with an older boy - maybe eight - at the playground, and this boy was showing Liam his mobile phone.

Chris (who told me this story tonight - I was of course working on my essay all day) said to Liam afterwards that really, that boy was a little young to have his own phone.

"No he's not," Liam said, "He knows how to use it and everything."

"How could I tell he was too young to have his own phone?" Chris asked me tonight, "He was sliding it down the slippery dip."

Yeah.

I told Liam last week - maybe when he's sixteen. Ask me again then.

The problem of unrealistic expectations

Sometimes lately I seem to be yelling at Liam all day. Not screaming, angry yelling, but definite voice raising and frustration. And the subtext, I think, is often "Don't be so stupid!" Not that I would ever say that to him: I wouldn't. But that's part of what I'm feeling I suppose. Quite aside from the fact that I don't think yelling is a great parenting tool, the fact that this is happening a lot leads me to think - either he is stupid (and he's not) or I must be expecting too much.

I know that in fact I do expect too much, I've been catching myself at it ever since he learned to talk in reasonably coherent sentences. His language skills trick me into thinking he's rational, even though I have read over and over that rationality, logical thinking, and understanding of consequences, is all very slow to develop, and really only just beginning at the age he is now - six. So why do I have so much trouble converting this intellectual knowledge into practical parenting?

An aside about blogging every day: one of the effects of this is nothing-posts like yesterday's, but a good effect is posts like this one. I was just thinking about this while I prepared dinner (while the kids are in the bath), and normally I'd think - 'I should blog about that' - but never do it. Because I'm trying to post everyday, this time I decided to take the couple of minutes I have before the kids emerge to post something. Not a long, thought-out analysis maybe, but at least the kernel of thought, and the record of a parenting challenge.

Sleep, sleep, glorious sleep

I have written a post for today, but I wrote it in my head while I was nursing Mikaela to sleep for her nap. It was all about how she says 'nooo' in a thoughtful sort of voice, in response to virtually any question she is asked, unless it is 'do you want mummy milk', or (be prepared to be horrified, all good Steiner parents) 'do you want to watch PlaySchool'. If you say, for instance, 'Are there some balls at Nanna's?', when she has just been at Nanna's playing with balls, she will think about it briefly and then say (try to imagine this in a good Ocker accent) "Nooo..."

So I had a post all written (in my head) but instead of actually committing it to virtual paper I am going to bed. As my Facebook status says today, I am operating on less than two hours of (broken) sleep since midnight, and my brain is mush.

Busywork, blogging and bandannas

Thursdays are my busywork days. Every day is a busy day, but Thursdays are the day I do housework and cooking and so on. Also they're my only 'free' day, that is, my only day without a regular commitment (aside from school drop off and pick up), and aside from Tuesdays (when I usually hang with my cousin and her two daughters, four months older and twelve months younger than Mikaela), most of our regular commitments are structured around Liam. So I tend to use Thursdays to make any social engagements I might want to make for myself, or for Kaely.  Hence the state of my house (that's my excuse and I'm sticking to it).

Today I had my Dad over (which involved driving over to the other side of Canberra and back - about twenty minutes each way - to pick him up, and again to return him, though we did that as an extension of school pick up) but also tried to get the busywork done. I did cook a huge pot of chicken passata, and tidy up a bit. I also did a load of washing, but thanks to Kaely only taking a 25 minute nap (courtesy of having dozed off on the way back from picking up Dad I think), I forgot to hang it out. Damn.

Actually, what I meant this post to be about was the fact that I have posted every day so far in May. That has surely got to be a record. I noticed the trend on about the 3rd, and decided to try to keep it going for a week. Then today I knew it would be hard to find time (what with the busywork, and the exhaustion that usually arrives on Thursday night as a result of not sitting down all day. Not that that's particularly unusual, I'm exhausted every night!), so I thought, 'Well, if all else fails I'll just put up a post pointing out that I posted every day for a week. Even if one of those days was just a quote from someone else.' But now the kids are in the bath (supervised by their fabulous father) and because I cooked this morning, I have dinner taken care of. So I can sit here and rabbit on about busywork and blogging.

Oh, my first mate (Liam) is calling, having finished his bath. I think I need to go tie a bandanna on his head, as all good pirates have.

Anyway, did you notice, I posted something every day for a week? And now I've started another week. I wonder how long I can keep it up for?

The longevity of labels

I had a conversation with a friend yesterday about her experience of being given a label as a young child, and how she wants to avoid that with her children. I'm not talking the extreme sense of labeling with diagnoses, but in the more general sense - he's such a bossy boots, she's just like her aunt.

My friend had had this label applied to her at a young age (just like your aunt*), meaning she was the selfish, self centred one in the family. She carried that label through into adulthood (as had her aunt), and anything she did that supported it was remembered, anything she did that negated it was ignored. Which of course is the normal way we humans approach life generally. We notice and value evidence which supports our beliefs and disregard that which doesn't. She told me that after several years in a caring role (living with an elderly parent), she finally shed some of the stigma of the label, yet it still comes up from time to time. It clearly was a big deal for her earlier in life, and still affects her now.

This made me think about the labels Liam is given. I have always tried to avoid them, but the older and frankly more challenging he gets (while remaining a lovely child really), the more I find myself thinking them, at the very least ('little brat' comes to mind, though I've never actually said it!). And people certainly do use them to his face - bossy, is the one I am particularly thinking of, though no doubt there are (and will be) others.

I guess it's inevitable, to some extent, that accumulate labels as you age. Extrovert, introvert, confident, shy, funny, serious, active, musical, whatever. Of course it's the negative ones that I particularly want to avoid. But others can also be molding and limiting: shy, serious, even funny. Even labeling a child as confident could limit their ability to show their vulnerabilities and ask for help when they need it. I don't know how to completely avoid those labels - even for myself - but I guess it helps just to be aware of their power.

___________
*Co-incidentally one of my sisters-in-law had the exact same label given to her, and was even named after this aunt, and still, as a women in her fifties, suffers the stigma of that label within her family.

Will we, won't we?

It's clear that I am better rested than I was when Liam was Mikaela's age (despite the fact that at the moment she is tending to wake up twice between 12 and 6 most nights!), because when Liam was this age I couldn't imagine wanting to be pregnant again any time soon. Whereas now, I am starting to romanticise pregnancy and think how nice it might be (at least between 20 and 30 weeks - I'm not completely delusional).

Of course, that could also be to do with the fact that we always planned to wait until Liam was three to have a second child, so I wasn't that close to trying when he was 22 months. Whereas with Mikaela, because of our ages, we only planned to wait till she was 24 months to start trying. We've put that back now by a month or two, so that I can have at least one full month back at work before getting pregnant (a little optimistic I know, but you can't start trying if you're not ready, regardless of the statistics). But at this stage, we are pretty sure we will try. Not sure how long we'll keep trying for if it doesn't happen, but we will try. I think.

Quote of the day: what the hell is "post-feminism"?

"Journalists and commentators write of ‘post-feminism’, as if to suggest that the need to challenge patriarchal power or to analyse the complexities of gendered subjectivities had suddenly gone away, and as if texts were no longer the products of material realities in which bodies are shaped  and categorised not only by gender, but by class, race, religion and sexuality."
(Gill Plain and Susan Sellers in the 'Introduction' to A History of Feminist Literary Criticism, in the context of explaining that the book is not intended as a history of something complete, but more an 'our story so far' summary (and analysis) of an ongoing project.)

Essay writing and the gnashing of teeth

Back when I was doing my undergrad degree, I almost invariably approached essays the way I was taught to in high school:

1. define your terms
2. take a position
3. write an outline, include relevant quotes
4. write an introduction saying what you are going to say (ie doing all of the above)
5. write the essay, make sure you use quotes, examples
6. write a conclusion, saying what you've said

Point six was always the hardest part for me, since it was hard to make it significantly different to the introduction.

That method worked well enough in high school and still went pretty well for most of my undergrad years. It helps, of course, to have an essay question that you are required to address. As a post grad, I mostly haven't had that benefit.

How I write an essay now:

1. Develop an interest
2. Read as widely as possible
3. Start to narrow down the interest
4. Repeat 2 & 3 ad nauseum
5. Start to write - this may be something by way of an introduction, attempting to set out some parameters for the essay, but it's more likely to be some disparate paragraphs supposedly from the body of the essay; presuming the latter:
6. Try to write an introduction
7. Write some more disparate paragraphs
8. Realise the introduction hasn't captured what I am trying to do at all.
9. Try another introduction
10. 7-9 on repeat, interspersed with much wailing and gnashing of teeth.
11. Finally figure out what I'm trying to say.
12. Write yet another introduction, hopefully capturing 11 above.
13. If 12 works, move on to actually writing essay. Otherwise, go back to 10 above, only moving to the body of the essay when 12 is finally working.
14. Write conclusion - hopefully this flows easily from body of essay, otherwise go back and try again; put gnashing of teeth on repeat.
15. Having written essay, realise that 12 was wrong after all, and re-write introduction again.
16. Tweak body of essay.
17. Repeat several times, then move to 18.
18. Tweak conclusion.
19. After sundry proofing efforts, submit essay.
20. Breathe.

I've been thinking/reading for the essay I am currently working on since last year. It's due for submission in less than a month. Finally, I think I've aced point 12. Or, it could be that I'm still stuck on 10 but just haven't realised it yet. I'm about to try moving on from the introduction (again). Wish me luck.

A sunny autumn day at the park

This morning when I got up (after a bit of a sleep in, only somewhat disturbed by Liam yelling right outside my door from time to time), Liam said to me
"Mummy, I have an idea."
"Yes?" I said "What is it?"
His idea was that we should - as soon as he got dressed - walk down to the oval to practice playing soccer (or football, as we now call it in Australia, aligning us with most of the rest of the world). It was a good idea, though it had to wait a little longer than he planned - for me to get dressed, get Kaely dressed, have breakfast, and generally wake up.
It would have been nice to take Lochie down with us, but as he is still not well trained to the leash I decided not to - it's too hard to control him and the stroller at the same time. In fact, last night he managed to get out of his 'soft collar' (which goes around neck and snout and makes him a little easier to keep hold of) and run off. A black dog in the dark - not easy to find. In the end he did come home, but I wasn't going to risk it happening again today.
Anyway, eventually we got organised and went for a lovely walk on this perfect autumn day. It's less than a ten minute walk down to the ovals Liam had in mind, but we managed to be out for nearly two hours by the time we played soccer, met some dogs, played some more and walked home - Kaely deciding she would walk, rather than ride in the stroller for most of the way home. The only sad part of the day was how unfit I was proved to be, by getting puffed fairly quickly while running around trying to get the ball from Liam. Actually there was another sad part, which was that Chris was working. But in only four more weeks I will be finished uni for the year, and then we will have Sundays off all together as a family. I am looking forward to that.