Mikaela came running out of her bedroom this morning to tell me excitedly "It's my birthday again today!" She seemed very pleased with the idea.
"Is it?" I said, "Well happy birthday!" Luckily she hasn't needed anything else (like more presents) to keep her happy.
Via the Twelfth Down Under Feminist Carnival, I've just been reading Andragy: CyberBullying, Feminism, Mean Girls, Queen Bees and Boys, and from there, the bit of Queen Bees and Wannabes that's online at Amazon.
Andra says of Wiseman's book:
I'd love to read a similar book about boys (though I note from the TOC of Queen Bees that there is a chapter on boys, and I have requested it from my local library). I do feel that ever since Liam began school the influence towards violence and group behaviour has certainly been growing.
He still does plenty of lovely creative play,* plays with girls as well as boys and so on. And I love his teacher and think she is working really well with them to teach them to be courteous, that making sure everyone gets a go is more important than winning a game etc. But the cliques seem to be forming, the popular children and less popular children are finding their places.
And I am starting to feel that I need more information. Liam is a boy, which I plainly am not. And also, he seems to be quite popular. Which, it might surprise you to know, I already was not by his age. I wasn't the lowest of the low at any time, but I was below the middle, right through until the end of year 10.**
So I'm not entirely sure how to teach him to - well, to be nice. To not fall in with group behaviour which is mean to others. To stick up for children who need support. Andra quotes Wiseman:
This is the sort of message I am afraid Liam might be picking up from his friend 'Craig'. That being kind, wearing a beany, playing co-operatively etc might may him some kind of 'sissy' (a word I would hope he's never heard, but I'm probably kidding myself), and that there's something wrong with that.
Any book recommendations for me?
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*Am I showing my biases here?
** Year 11 & 12 is at a different school in Canberra, and quite a different experience - for which I was extremely grateful.
I was just rather belatedly pleased to discover that my open letter to Nicola Rixon on cover for homebirth midwives was included in the Twelfth Down Under Feminist Carnival, back in May.
And on that subject...
A quick refresh:
Two pieces of legislation are combining to mean that midwifes will be unable to legally attend homebirths in Australia from 1 July 2010.
July 4 - that's next Saturday - is a national day of action organised by the Maternity Coalition. (The link takes you to a facebook page about it, which is all I can find so far).
And on Monday Sept 7, Homebirth Australia has a major rally planned, in Canberra (outside Parliament House) from 11.30am.
I think I must be a real parent now. I am stuck with my first real parenting dilemma.*
Liam has made friends - best buddies type friends - with one of the two kids in his class I would really prefer he wasn't friends with at all. I am going to call this friend Craig. Craig is not a bad kid - it could be a LOT worse. He can even be quite charming, in a ratbag sort of way. But he's quite aggressive, doesn't seem very clear about personal boundaries (by which I mean, has no idea, even for a seven year old), appears to watch a lot of the sort of television I would not let Liam near (though this is self reported so may not be true - but he certainly knows a lot about the shows and movies he talks about), and, did I mention quite aggressive?
I think the main thing that concerns me is that Liam seems to be strongly influenced by this kid. Some minor examples: for a while he didn't want to wear his beany to school, because Craig didn't wear one; he won't have bananas with his lunch any more because Craig doesn't eat them. More major issues is the increase in aggressive behaviour in him this year, and particularly in name calling and yelling. I can't, of course, put that all down to his friendship with Craig. Some of it may be the change in environment from the very protected kinder space to class one, some of it may be age appropriate. And there could be other factors I haven't thought of.
I also think Liam is a bit intimidated by him. One day he told me he didn't want to go to school after he'd been off sick for a couple of days, because Craig would yell at him, when asking him where he'd been. Liam *loves* school so I took that quite seriously. I told Liam we could talk to his teacher about it when we got there, so that's what we did. But, first we had to shake off Craig. He really likes Liam, and grabs him (sometimes metaphorically, sometimes not) as soon as we get there - or more often as soon as he gets there. But even though he likes Liam, he can be quite belittling towards him as well.
On this occasion Craig was there first, so he followed Liam into the classroom, where we went to deposit Liam's lunch and then to find his teacher, Margie. I was able to indicate to her that I would like to talk to her, but without Craig around, so she directed him to take down his chair and put his bag away (outside), while she led me and Liam into the little kitchen that comes off the classroom. Craig more or less ignored her and tried to follow. I was bringing up the rear, so I was the one who had to firmly tell him "No, I need to talk to Margie. Sit in your chair," and basically closed the door in his face.
Before I even told her what we were there for, Margie asked me if I'd had many prior dealings with Craig - she said he needs that sort of firm handling, firm boundaries set, but that some parents are intimidated by him and let him walk all over them. I hadn't had much to do with him, but enough I guess!
I asked a teacher-friend for advice, and she suggested nurturing relationships with other kids in the class who we like - remember, he is going to be in this class for seven years - having playdates with them, and avoiding playdates with Craig. So that's what I'm planning to do, as much as possible.
I guess my dilemma comes from the fact that I'm not sure if it's the right thing to do. I mean, someone has to play with this kid. And if all the parents with - okay, I'm not sure how to say this without it coming across as completely egotistical, but what I'm trying to say is: this boy could end up being a troubled teen. He could. And if all more involved, boundary-providing parents discourage their kids from playing with him, who is he going to end up with?
Look, I have no idea if Liam would be a 'good influence' on him in the long run. But he might be. On the other hand, Craig might be a horrible influence on Liam. Already, I don't like the effects. What would you do? Or what have you done?
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*First one that springs to mind with my virus-befuddled brain, anyway.
I was getting frustrated with facebook not posting my (admittedly long) status update, when it suddenly dawned on me - I should write a blog post about this, not a status update!
I went to the 'spiral walk' at school today - a beautiful reverential ritual involving nearly 60 six- and seven-year-old children with candles, slow marching in time to harp music in and out of a spiral of ivy and red camellias: in the near dark and almost complete silence (except for the music). Wonderful.
Edited to add pic and detail:
This is a picture of the spiral the kids walked around before the lights were turned off (and the kids brought in). They walked into the middle to light their candles, then out again while other kids were still on their way in. There were red camellias placed at about each metre along the ivy, and on their way out they placed their candles next to the camellias, so that by the time they had all gone through, it was a spiral of candles as well as ivy. It looked fantastic.
Once they all came out of the spiral they sat down in the far corner of the room, and one of the teachers told them a story, all still by candle light.
Chris didn't come because he had Kaely (they asked us not to bring toddlers because of the need for quiet for a long period - the whole thing went for about an hour). Liam said to Chris tonight "I wish you could have seen the candles, it was so beautiful."
[It is true, twitter and facebook have at least as much to answer for, in terms of my lack of blogging, as work and study do. But that's a whole nother post.]
I've just come back from a 'poetry salon' at Tilleys in Lyneham with the lovely and talented poet, Sarah Tiffen. Who just happens to be a friend of mine too :)
Sarah is poet in residence at Tilleys at the moment. She goes in there a couple of times a week during the day to sit and write and whatever, and she's hosting these salons on (at the moment) Thursday evenings. So far it's just been three of us going (and I missed last week), but we have high hopes of it!
And since it is just three friends there'd be a good chance that we would just sit and chat the whole time, but actually, we really did read and talk about poetry, at least for part of the time.
I remember having this moment, the first year I was in uni, sitting on the steps outside the library: I remember suddenly thinking, feeling, I'm here, I'm at University. Like Cambridge, or Oxford - only not. Actually I was at Flinders Uni in Adelaide, which was only about 25 years old at the time, so did not have the history or ambiance of somewhere like Oxford.* But I had spent my early teenage years reading about Tolkien and CS Lewis and Oxford and the Inklings, and I suddenly had that sense of being there, at university, studying literature, just like them.
Well, the first week of our poetry salon I had a similar moment. Not quite the same awe, but the sudden sense of - I don't know. Like we could do something here. We could, for instance, actually talk about poetry, not just chat on like we usually would. And then we did! Woohoo.
Anyway, it was fun. Sarah wants to take it a bit further - maybe read some of our own poetry, or even have a performance night, or even more unlikely, actually write something.** I don't know about that, but I am going to keep going along. Of course, I can't actually afford to eat at Tilleys (my one decaf coffee tonight cost me $4.70 - can that be right?), but the atmosphere is great.
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*Then again, it didn't have signs saying you could only walk on the grass if accompanied by a fellow, which Oxford does, snotty place.
**Not that I in anyway consider myself a poet, but I did write a few poems that I'm a little bit proud of in the course of doing my masters project last year.
This is a random conversation we had in the car on Saturday. Not sure where it came from, as we hadn't been talking about J or his family.
Liam: Does J have two dads?
Me: Yeah he does.
Chris: How lucky is that - two mums and two dads?
Liam: Yeah!
(J lives in California with his Mum, my best friend, and his Mama, my best friend's wife. His bio-Dad is also an important, involved person in his life, and since he is also married (though not legally - they don't live in the right state for that) J has two Dads as well.)
I've blogged about this before, but it bothers me how little real diversity Liam sees in his day to day life, particularly with regard to sexuality and family styles. And what bothers me too is how I have failed to offset the reality of the dominant culture he lives in by providing non-dominant role models in books. Because the fact is, that while we have some books (at least one anyway) with two mums, and others with only one mum or one dad (none with two dads I think), and quite a few with people of colour, and we borrow others from the library from time to time, there are scads and scads and scads of books - both in our house and in the library - with one mum, one dad, three kids, all white.
And at school almost all Liam's friends have a mum and a dad, living together. A few (and no doubt this will increase with time) live with their Mum and see Dad on weekends. Most of them are white, though not all. Most of the Dads work full-time. Many of the Mum's work part-time, while many are SAHMs. Don't get me wrong, I have no problem with stay-at-home mum's - or dads - Chris and I would both like to be them! It's just that I want Liam to see that there are options. That there is not one right way to be or to live.
Anyway, this is a bit of a rave with little focus, but I'm on my lunch break at work blogging a day late (in Australia, but it's still the 1st in much of the world) for Blogging for LGBT Families Day 2009. And this is where the that conversation with Liam took me. Any recommendations for books with different family structures, particularly books with two mums or two dads where that's not seen as a big deal - just a general background feature of life - much appreciated. Anything from picture books for Mikaela, who is nearly three, to chapter books to read to Liam, who is seven.
I have been back at work for nearly a year now (I started back at the beginning of July).
In that time I have written almost nothing, submitted absolutely nothing (despite having several pieces either ready and waiting or just about ready to submit), have blogged very little, have gained about five kilos, have had one miscarriage and have not (since then) gotten pregnant.
One of the reasons I haven't been blogging much is that people at work might read it (being in a web team is quite different that way, as it turns out, to being in a communications team). Not that I mind if they do, exactly, it's just that there are things one usually doesn't talk about at work - trying to get pregnant, for instance - that one might blog about ad infinitum.
Also - some notes for anyone new to the blog, eg, someone from work:
So just because I'm trying to get pregnant, doesn't mean I'm going on maternity leave any time in the next year. Or ever. Just so we're clear.
Now, back to the point of this post, which is not that it's seven months since my miscarriage and I'm not pregnant, despite being convinced that May was the month it would happen. Nor about the lack of blogging lately.
No, it is about the fact that I've put on about five kilos since I started back at work.
There are a few reasons for this - too much junk food at work and not enough exercise being high on the list - but the main one is that I lost my focus.
I got back down to my goal weight of 63kg early last year.** I had a health check within a month of starting work that determined that my healthiest weight range is something like 62-66kg. All good. And then I started trying to get pregnant again. And then I got pregnant again. And then I had a miscarriage. And somewhere in there I told myself I could eat whatever I liked (ie lots and lots of chocolate) because obviously I deserved it.
Yes, I have issues around food and deserving and comfort and anger and self image and shame and probably all sorts of other things. As I'm sure have blogged before,*** I took a long time to acknowledge any of this, let alone to acknowledge that I was overweight, still less that I cared. I was a feminist. And we feminists don't care what we look like, do we? Right...
Actually it was two things that snapped me out of it. It was realising (shortly after Liam was born), that I was unhealthily overweight (and I was, trust me on this, I'm not talking putting on five kilos here), and also that that was not okay now that I was a mother, and realising that however much I pretended not to notice or care, other people just had to look at me to know I was unhealthily overweight. I was fooling no-one.
Despite all this, now that I am back to an ordinary sort of weight I have largely gone back to pretending that none of that happened. That I don't have any food/weight issues. That I am, in short, too cool to care.
Well, I'm not. And that is why I am now taking back my focus and my control. It may take me another year to get pregnant (although we've given ourselves a deadline of this December, so lets hope not), or it may never happen. So to say even half consciously to myself (as I have, if I'm honest, been doing) that I can wait till after the next baby's been born to get back on track is ridiculous. It is self-delusion.
Food tracking, I've discovered, is my best defence against over-eating. So food tracking is what I will do. And to jump start myself, I am signing up for the Fab Fatties Challenge #2 - there are about five hours left to sign up, but if you do, make sure you tell them I sent you so I get me some 25 points in the challenge!****
The challenge goes for two weeks from today (May 29) and involves the following - all of which I am going to try to do every day (except the one about not drinking 'soda pop' since I don't do that anyway).
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*I've probably said this before, I'm just a little paranoid and still haven't come to terms with this weird collision of offline-personal, work, and online lives that facebook has created.
**Back down not from all the weight I gained during pregnancy - though there was some of that - but from all the weight I gained while trying and failing to become pregnant beforehand.
***But it was a loong time ago, before categories, let alone tagging, when I still did each entry by hand in dreamweaver, and I can't find it.
****And thanks to Food Food Body Body which is where I discovered the challenge.
This is a wonderful article from Kate Cole-Adams that I have found slightly late via The Rachel Papers:
My precious burden | theage.com.au.
The last two mornings Mikaela has woken up a little before six and lain in bed chatting to herself. This morning's chatter included the tidbit that she was in need of marshmellows. Yesterday she woke up singing "No, no, no, no, you're not the one for me!" (KT Tunstall) She calls it the 'woo-woo' song.
It's cute, but I could wish it happened an hour later.
Edited to add: Actually I had that wrong, she calls it the 'who-who' song. :)
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