narrating kayoz

Eggs!

Having weekends in which to get things done is great. But some things can even be done during the week with kids in tow.

Our new, permanent chook-run fence still needs a gate. We bought a screen door from a junk yard, but it's a little narrow for the space. The plan is to reduce the space just at the points where the hinges go by screwing in some cut-offs from the hardwood sleepers we used to edge our new vegie garden last year, and on the other side do the same thing where the latch fits. Except I think we're one piece short. Also we still need to get a face plate (I think that's what it's called) for the door latch to fit into, but my step-father reckons he probably has one lying around somewhere.

The problem is, Chris and I are both seriously lacking in the handy genes you need to do all this sort of stuff. And add to that, Chris likes to do things properly. Me, I'm more of a "get it done, good enough will do" sorta gal. But, now Chris can't really do much of this stuff anyway, because of the tendonitis in his hands, which is just the sort of impetus I need to get it done myself - sort-of. So on Tuesday, while Kaely got soaked half emptying one of the our small rain-water tanks, and Liam got filthy digging in the dirt, which quickly became digging in the mud thanks to Kaely, I wired in the screen door. I wired it in on both sides, so it's not openable, but it does stay in place, right in the middle of the gate space. And it does keep the chooks in and Lochie out.

The part of the yard we are giving over to the chooks is the part that has the gate into it from the front of the house, so we can get into the chook yard through that gate, and we can get into the rest of the yard through the back door. The back-yard also has another gate down the other end that we don't use much, but we can. So this system will work, even if it's not perfect. I do plan to get that gate done properly at some point, and the downside of my 'get it done now' method is that getting it done properly is now no-doubt further away than ever. But in the meantime we have collected four eggs, and discovered that our little australorp-wyandotte cross, Speckles, has started laying. She's just a little thing - about a third the size of her rooster brother - and she has a really dreadful scoliosis, so we weren't sure laying eggs successfully was in her future.

Added to that, this week has felt almost like Spring - or at least like August - and so I am getting inspired to get serious about the garden again. It's an exciting feeling for me.

Brrrr

It must ber cold outside this morning, because I've been in my nice warm office building for a good ten minutes now (after a ten minute walk from the bus) and my face still feels slightly frozen - almost numb around the edges - and my fingers still aren't working properly.

Kiss it better

Kaely has definitely figured out that kisses make things better.

She is pretty resilient generally, falls over often but jumps straight up to continue her play. She'd have to be a bit tough really, or she couldn't maintain her lifestyle as a gymnast/rock climber in training. But sometimes things hurt.

If it's really bad she'll cry and/or want to nurse. But if it's just a little bad, like if she trod on a bit of lego in her bare feet say, she's likely to come running over to have it kissed better. She's fussy too. If the first kiss doesn't help, or isn't in quite the right spot, she'll ask for another before she runs off to scale another tall building dining room table.

The other day she hurt herself and I wasn't quite sure what she'd done."Do you want mummy to kiss it better?" I asked. I thought maybe she'd banged her chin. She probably had, but it wasn't her chin that was hurt. She nodded, came over to me, and stuck out her tongue.

Well, I guess if it works...

Regular posting and/or writing

Clearly that regular posting thing has gone down the gurgler (is that the word?) since I went back to work.

Also I haven't yet sat myself down to plan out a regular writing time, much less sat myself down to write. However, I am getting there. In the psychology of change talk I think I'm in the contemplation phase (after pre-contemplation, but not yet on to planning, much less action).

I've been back at work two weeks now. This will be the third week (started Wednesday, because Monday and Tuesday are devoted to unpaid house and parenting work). I think maybe next week will be one to get serious about making time to write again. Next week.

The Red Tree concert and two-day weekends

We are enjoying unplanned two-day weekends at the moment. Unfortunately, this is because Chris has got tendonitis in his hands and can't work - can't Rolf/massage that is. It's a form of tendonitis that is apparently common in parents of young children, though more often mothers than fathers. But Chris does carry Mikaela around more than I do. Then again, it could be unrelated to parenting altogether.

We had planned that Chris might take a six month break from Rolfing from around Christmas this year until the end of first semester next year. That way we would get a few months of two day weekends, and when I went back to studying next year I could work all day Sunday and we could still have one day weekends. After having no weekend days to speak of for the past eighteen months and more, we want to make sure we keep at least one family day from now on.

Well, it looks like Chris is going to get his time off Rolfing a little early. He's already had a few weeks off, in the hope that his hands would improve, but they haven't. Which is not all that surprising, when you think about it - cutting out one day a week of Rolfing was hardly likely to make a huge difference, unless it was Rolfing that caused the problem, which seems unlikely. He's going to see an osteopath who sounds like the closest thing to a Rolfer there is in Canberra (aside from Chris himself), maybe that will help. Of course, the osteo he wants to see would have to be on the other side of town and not work on weekends...

All this is sux course. Painful, for Chris, and also frustrating. Rolfing is by no means the only thing he can't do, and so far it seems to be getting worse, not better. And of course there's the missed income... lucky it only happened right when I was about to go back to work. Too bad about the money we'd been planning to save when I did...

But the upside? Two-day weekends. Two-day weekends are delightful. I can't tell you how nice it was this weekend to just potter around without any plans. Sort of. We did go see my cousin out on his property in Wamboin, which we hadn't been to before. We're thinking of buying his car (which is a whole other post, but maybe I'll get to that later). It was nice to be able to say "We'll come out Saturday morning," and not have to worry about fitting it in around clients or studying. And I did spend most of Sunday at my mother's doing washing - with and without kids - because our washing machine broke down two weeks ago today and *still* isn't fixed. That's another post, and a whingy one, but I couldn't be bothered writing it.

But in addition to that I (finally) finished off the fence to keep the chickens in and Lochie out - now we just have to put on the gate (easier said than done, but we're nearly there); we read lots of books to the kids; I read half a Kerry Greenwood book (while doing washing at Mum's without kids yesterday afternoon); Chris took Liam to learn to ride his bike with no training wheels on (which reportedly went very well); and we sat down as a family to home-made fruit bread rolls with jam and whipped cream for brunch yesterday morning. Yum. 

Actually though, the most fun of the whole weekend was not dependent on it being a two-day weekend, because it was on Saturday night. My mother gave us tickets to see the Australian Chamber Orchestra as a birthday present for Chris, and then babysat while we went out to dinner and to the concert. I'm not much of a music critic, but I must say it was an awesome concert. I'm not generally a major fan of modern orchestral music, and this was all modern. The first piece was Shostakovich's String Quartet No.15, with projected images from Shaun Tan's book The Arrival. I don't know much Shostakovich, and I was blown away. I found the combination of the images and the music effective but also distracting - each one distracted from the other. Still, it was an interesting arrangement. The second piece was even more modern. In fact, it was the world premiere, by Michael Yezerski with Richard Tognetti (artistic director of the ACO). It was a collaboration with Gondwana Voices, and was also accompanied by the images of Shaun Tan, this time from his book The Red Tree, which inspired both the music and words of the performance. 

One time when we went to see the ACO there was a piece that included fifteen separate violin solos – all at once. That was, frankly, not my cup of tea. But this was altogether different. There was a bit where there were at least four different violin parts going at once (as well as viola, cello etc) but it was melodic, not the cacaphony that was fifteen solos. I was pretty tired by this time (shouldn't have had that glass of wine with dinner, even if I did let Chris finish it off), and had to let alot of it wash over me, but even so I enjoyed it immensely. The choir were fantastic, and the first solo soprano - who I would say was about 13, but I could be out by several years - had an amazing voice. The other soloists they had were also good, but she was stunning. All this, and we got to have dinner out - with no kids - as well. What more could we ask for a fabulous evening?

Managing the toddler's 'negative' behaviour

I've been re-reading bits of You are your child's first teacher, by Rahima Baldwin Dancy. I have to return it to the library today, but I'll be getting it back because it's full of good reminders and information. It's written by a Steiner teacher, but what I like about it is that it doesn't just rely on Steiner's ideas, it backs them up (and occasionally updates them altogether) with more contemporary research.

This is the sort of book you can just dive into anywhere and find something good. I opened it first (randomly) at a section called 'Dealing with Negative Behaviour' in the chapter on 'Helping Your Toddler's Development'. It starts out "One of the challenges of living with the child from eighteen to thirty-six months is dealing with the 'negativisim' that he manifests. If you can recongnize your child's emerging sense of self and power as something positive, you won't fall into the trap of thinking that you have done something wrong..." (or, I would add, that the child is somehow 'wrong').

She talks about the importance of being loving but firm, providing limits and corrections in calmness (not anger) but with 'absolute certainty' that there is no other choice. She goes on to suggest that you

...set up your house so that the child has the maximum freedom and requires the minimum of no's, and then you are firm about what is not allowed. It is wonderful for your child to be curious, but he doesn't have to play with your makeup, which can be met with a stern no, removing the child from the scene, and then putting the makeup in a less accessible place. There is no need to punish the child, because a toddler is unable to understand what he has done or to remember the next time.

This idea of then making it inaccessible is the key. Why set yourself up for conflict? She goes on (a bit later)

Many two-year-olds hate change and fall apart during transitions between activities. Everything has to be a certain way or pandemonium breaks loose. This doesn't mean you need to give in each time or put up with whiny behaviour, but understanding this aged child's attachment to order can help you avoid problems.

Of course, knowing something is age appropriate and acting that way are two different things. I find it a whole lot easier to accept Kaely's two-year-old age appropriate tantrums than Liam's six-year-old ones - even though I know in my head that his behaviour is just as understandable as hers. Head knowledge doesn't stop me feeling cross about it. But - and this, I think, is the important part of Dancy's comments - knowing what's normal can help you avoid problems, for instance by putting the makeup out of reach, or in the case of transitions by creating set routines and rituals that the children know and even enjoy. She gives an example of a bedtime routine:

One mother I know lights a candle while she sings a song, and then lets the child blow out the match, which is an exciting incentive to get the child to go into the bedroom. Then they go into the bathroom to put on pajamas and brush teeth. The mother has turned off the bedroom light, so when they return, they have to tip toe and be very quiet as they enter the softly lighted room and lie down together for songs and playing the children's harp.

Of course, sometimes it's not that easy:

...sometimes your child will just be negative, and she may astonish you with the force of her refusal...

One of the most effective ways of handling negative behaviour is removing the child from the area of activity. With a young child, this requires going with her and staying with her until she is ready to return. For example, fussiness and throwing food at dinner can be quickly handled by taking her down the hall, telling her what when she is a happy clown the two of you can go back, and then standing there like a stone until she comes around. It usually takes about one to three minutes, because it's very boring being out of the action with a deadpan mother or father who won't interact with your until you're ready to do what is expected.

I'm not sure how I feel about the 'happy clown' idea - do I want to teach my kid that 'happy' is the only acceptable emotion? But the idea that you removed the toddler from the situation, stay with her, and remain impassive - that all makes sense to me. There's no point in getting upset or angry. She's only two after all - but there is a point to firmly enforcing acceptable limits. She needs them enforced in order to learn them.

Oh dear, I'm going to have to take this book back to the library now, and I had so many other bits bookmarked.

Back in the workforce

I feel I should be blogging about the Garnaut Report today, but I haven't got the detail of it yet, and besides I'm sure there are many, many other people doing it better than I could.

So instead I'm going to blog about my new job. I started back to work in the public service this Wednesday. I'm still officially working for my old area (that is, they're paying for me), but I'm located in a different area. It's web work basically. Initially it looked like it would be more writing and editing, but it looks like it might end up being more the technical side of things, though perhaps with some editing, or at least providing advice about writing for the web.

And that's okay with me, because I'm going to be learning new stuff. Yesterday, for instance, I learned some new things about coding in XHTML (strict) which I haven't done before. Also the main website I'm going to be working on is in a content management system which I haven't used before, and the intranet (managed by the same area) uses SharePoint, which I also haven't used before.

More importantly even than the work, the team appears to be fairly together. By that I mean they seem to like each other, they're interesting people, and I think they'll be fun to work with. My last team was peopled with lovely people, but was nonetheless rather dysfunctional - most people didn't seem to want to be there. I think this is going to be quite different. There are also a number of other part-timers in the team, which is a good sign. I've only spent a day and half in their company, so I could be wrong about this team. But I don't think I am.

When I was studying psychology in year eleven, I remember reading that people's beliefs tend to match their behaviour to the extent that if you manage to change someone's behaviour their belief system will usually follow.

I've been back at work three days, and already I can see that working on me. I think I might just like working. True, it costs me the time I've spent writing over the past year. And if someone would pay me to sit in my study and write - write the stuff I want to - than yes, I would choose that. But you know, there's something rather pleasant about getting out of the house, getting to dress-up a bit, maybe even put on some makeup (though I predict that won't last another week) and be with other people.

Another nice thing is that while I was on leave the function of government I work under was moved from one department to another. So I am working in a new department, and of all the departments there are, it is probably the one I would choose. (The one I was in wasn't bad, but only because of the function that came across to the new department*, and even so, I didn't feel quite as at home there as I think I will here.) And now I am working in the main part of the department, so that potentially opens up opportunities to move into other areas at a later time.

And so, for the first time really in years I can see myself starting to think of this as a potential career, rather than just a job. So much, I think, depends on the team you find yourself in. I hope this one goes on as well as it has started.

________
*Sorry about the confusing code, I don't want to actually mention department names. Though anyone from my team who read this would immediately know who I am, so I'm not sure why I am so careful. It's just my policy.

One blissful day, or, Meeting Trish, Eating Oysters and Getting a Fabulous Massage. Mmm...

Yesterday was a day worth repeating.

First there was the morning. Then there was the afternoon. And then there was the late afternoon. Mmm.

But perhaps I should begin at the beginning. For Mother's Day this year I got a gift voucher. It was for a massage, a special kind of massage, from my husband. He is a qualified massage therapist, but this is not the sort of massage he would give anyone else. I leave the details to your imagination.

But the trick was finding the time and space - kid free time and space - to make the most of such a gift voucher.

Actually, that's not the beginning. The beginning was more than two years ago when Trish first said, "Let's get coffee together." At the time she was working and I was working. On my non-work days I had Liam. On my work days I didn't have a car. Also I was heavily pregnant. And then she got sick. Long story short - we never managed to get together before Mikaela was born.

Roll forward two years to Trish emailing last week to point out that with neither one of us working now (not for money anyway) we had no excuse. So yesterday morning we had coffee. We got a lovely sunny table at Cafe Fontaine on the top level of the Canberra Centre, and for two hours we talked and drank coffee and ate yummy blueberry pancakes. And I'm here to tell you that in person Trish was just as lovely and interesting as she is on her blog.

We talked about the way people can seem different in person to the way they do on paper - pen-friends, or job interviewees, for instance. And yet somehow I never made the connection to the two of us, meeting for the first time in person, after a few years now of reading and commenting on each other's blogs. Afterwards I thought about it - was she different in person? I decided that one meeting was perhaps not enough to go on, but if I had to make a call I'd have to say not particularly. Luckily we decided to get together again in August, so I will pay more attention then!

While I was having this lovely morning with Trish, Liam was in school and Kaely was at my mother's house. Liam finishes school at 12:30 on Fridays, but my child-free day didn't end then. No, my mother picked Liam up and took him home with her, while I picked up Chris for a romantic lunch date. This was planned as a sort of last hurrah before I go back to work next week, as well as a nice lead-in to using my gift voucher later in the day. But it also worked out to be a celebration of me finally posting off my bound masters project the day before.

We went to Delissio in Curtin. Mmm, yum.

We started with a dozen piping hot Oysters Kilpatrick, served around a hill of rock salt. That cost $24 which is about what I had initially planned to spend on this whole meal, but they were well worth it. Then we each had pasta dishes. Mine was a chicken, sundried tomato, pesto sort of thing. It was very good, though not out of the ordinary. Chris had something with seafood (predictably). I didn't pay attention to what exactly it was, but he looked like he enjoyed it. To finish we shared a Lindt chocolate fondant. A hot chocolate pudding with a lightly crunchy crust and a gooey chocolate sauce centre, served with a mint coulis and just enough cream. It was as good as the oysters and that is saying something. To keep ourselves hydrated we also had a glass of wine each with the meal and coffee with dessert. We were the last people in the restaurant (everyone else looked like they had to go back to work, poor dears) - we didn't get out of there until three.

Of course, a single glass of wine - even when strung out over a couple of hours and a solid meal - is enough to put me to sleep. So it was just as well Chris took some time to set up the massage room when we got home (with candles and an oil burner and so on), while I got to relax with the last of the Diana Wynn Jones series that has been my reward for finishing my project. Then, finally, I got to use my gift voucher. And let me just say that despite working professionally as a Rolfer and remedial massage therapist, Chris does a darn good relaxation massage when he sets his mind to it. And what there was beyond that, is not for this blogger to tell.

I'm creating a new category called 'the story of my life' I think I'm stealing it from Dawn.

Oh yes, there it is on her list.

That's all.

Happy Birthday Mikaela!

Kaely is two today.

We didn't do much by way of celebration, but we did have a cake with her cousins at our weekly visit to their house and pretend like it was a party. Not that they noticed the difference.

And now I am going to bed.