narrating kayoz

Getting into the garden despite the 35 degrees!

I had my sister here over Christmas, and both her presence and her presents have re-inspired me to put more effort into the garden. Truthfully, I had already planned to find more gardening time in January. I missed the Spring plantings (with being o/s), not to mention the Spring weedings!, but I could still do some summer planting right?

I recently bought me a copy of One Magic Square by Lulu Houbein, and I was thinking, surely I could manage that. If I reclaim one square metre of my veggie garden this year - preferably next to where the comfrey and rhubarb are still going strong, so I have one edge taken care of, and only one area to water - maybe next Spring I'll manage a little (or even a lot) more. But one square metre shouldn't be too hard for now, and I could get a zucchini in there maybe (and not much else, but that might be okay).

Anyway, that is still going to be my first goal. But. Like I said I had my sister visiting. She's only owned her own place for a short time, but in that time she's done a lot more with it (food-garden-wise especially) than I have. I blame the fact that I have three children and she only has one, but since I had none when I first moved in here and she had a newborn when she first moved in there (who is now three), that's probably not the real reason. Whatever, she has done a lot, and she's done some courses in organic gardening and joined a permaculture blitz group and everything.

So when I put "fruit trees" on my kids Christmas wishlists* (wishlists are a tradition in my family), my sister immediately claimed them, and bought each of them a tree, plus a blueberry bush for me for my birthday (which is shortly before Christmas). So now I have a nectarine, pear and orange tree to find places for (that is, the kids have them, but I have to find places for them). I don't need to find a place for the blueberry bush, I've got that planned out. I plan to have a whole bed of blueberry bushes.

Not only that, but while my sister was here, we did a full garden walk around and talked through some ideas I had and she added some more ideas - plus of course we were talking where to put to the trees. And then, while we went up to visit my grandfather in Forster after Christmas, she stayed here in my house and she dealt with my over full compost bin (making all the delightful compost down the bottom accessible) and did a few other garden chores. I know, I have an amazing sister. And she has a much different work ethic to me!

So today, my first day back at home, it is 35 degrees outside (95 F) but I have spent the past week planning and dreaming and am desperate to get back into the garden. So this morning I dug some compost into my blueberry garden to be, before it got too hot. And then I couldn't help myself, I got the kids to help me move the chooks into the supposed vegetable garden. It is full of the two banes of my life, couch grass and ivy. Actually, the ivy is just encroaching, it's not full of it yet, but the grass and other weeds are spreading throughout. There is also gone to seed silverbeet and parsley, but I can live with them not self-seeding next year if the weeds don't either.

Of course, they were only in there for the day. I didn't move their house and anyway our labrador, Lochie, put a hole in the fence recently (we fenced the vegetable garden off to make it safe from him a couple of years back), so having the chooks in there today meant having Lochie locked up on the deck for most of the day (he spent some time in the chook run too, but then he started to whine, so I brought him back). And there is very limited benefit to the garden having them for a day, but on the plus side they got a lot of greens today!

Now, tomorrow Chris is off work so that I can work. In three weeks I will be back to my 'real' job in the public service on Wednesdays, but for the next three weeks I have Wednesdays to do my home work. Mostly that is meant to mean writing for Sustainable Suburbia, but I had thought I might spend tomorrow morning on garden tasks. Originally I'd been thinking maybe I could clear a metre or so of the vegetable garden, dig in some compost, and maybe plant a zucchini. But now I'm considering whether I could possibly build a small chook dome, a la Linda Woodrow, in a morning? I only need a very small one, to house three hens temporarily. Then I could have my square metre and they could gradually work over the rest of the garden, without getting into my rhubarb (poisonous leaves, and they did peck at them a big today), or my zucchini.

Mid last year I seriously contemplated getting one of these, but decided I had to learn to live within my budget instead. (By the by, that blog is now defunt, more or less, because I've lost the password and the wordpress installation seems to be buggered and won't show the captcha, so I can't get a new password. I have back ups, so I could start again and just reinstall it all, but I can't be bothered at the moment, so I'm just back to blogging about everything here. I always end up that way anyway! The main Sustainable Suburbia site is still going though.) So maybe it's time to make something myself. Or maybe not :) So that's what I'm off to do now - research the design, and make a decision.

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*This may sound a little self-serving, but aside from Eliane, who doesn't care one way or the other, my kids were really pleased with these presents. The big kids each have an apple tree that is "theirs", planted over their placenta when they were each about three or four, and one of Mikaela's other gifts was a purple flowering ground cover to go in her 'purple garden' around her apple tree. Neither kid is all that good with the work part of gardening, but they both love the concept (a bit like their parents really).

'Tis the season to be Jolly (and we are!)

I am really enjoying this Christmas season, and Christmas school holidays (so far), more than I remember doing in a while. I mean, I'm always a bit of a Christmas tragic: my birthday comes right beforehand, and there are the summer holidays as well - when you're a kid, I'm talking - so how could this time of year help but have good associations? Not to mention the simple pleasure of longer days and growing gardens.

But in many of the past ten years I've either been pregnant, or had a baby, or recently had a miscarriage or - something! Well not this year. This year my youngest child is old enough that she is currently playing outside in a bit of sand with minimal supervision (not that that will last long, but still...), I'm well and not pregnant, and also not working!

Of course, it helps that I've had my fabulous sister-in-law Grace here for the past week (she left this morning, boohoo), who is just a pleasure to have as a house guest. She's both lovely and interesting in herself, and she loves and is loved by the children, making the transition from school to boring old home very easy for them (and for me). But honestly, even without Grace, I am so glad Liam & Mikaela finished school last week. Most of the schools in Canberra only finished yesterday, and while I get that that's great for working parents, it doesn't leave a lot of time to get into the Christmas spirit.

Not that we've done half the creative, fun, Christmassy projects I had planned for this week. Homemade presents for the rellies anyone? The kids were too busy having fun with Auntie Grace, and who could blame them? But we did make jam (okay, I did, but Mikaela helped a little), last week, and the kids made some christmas decorations out of playdough, which we baked and painted. We'll probably use them to decorate their presents for the grandparents, but they are a bit too lame to be the presents. But there's still tomorrow right?

Oh, and we have half-way made a gingerbread house, which I promised Liam we would do this year.  So far it looks like this:

We made the dough yesterday (based loosely on this recipe, but with lots of changes which I may document sometime), refrigerated it over night, then rolled out and baked today. Now it has to sit overnight again to harden up, so the plan is to put it together and decorate tomorrow. But I think I'm looking after four extra kids tomorrow (all between 3 and 9), so it may have to wait until Saturday. Well at least it will be fresh to eat on Christmas Day!

There would have been a whole lot more extra dough to make stars and so on, but the girls were 'helping', so there wasn't that much left! Actually, Eliane wasn't even trying to help, I just gave her dough to play with at the table to keep her out of our hair, and replaced it every time she ate it! But don't worry, Mikaela got her share too :)

I must say, the decision in my family to skip presents for grown-ups has really made Christmas a lot less stress. I was probably one of the hold-outs for presents - I am one of those weird people who's always loved Christmas shopping - but with three kids, time is at a bit more of a premium! So we buy presents for the kids (my three, my sister's one, and my brother's one - though he's only new this year!), and my kids make presents for the grown-ups (with a little help, admittedly), because I don't want them receiving without giving, but that's just fun really. I'm not going to say what they're giving this year though because my Mum read's my blog, and besides, they still have some work ahead of them!

A perfect day

I have had such a lovely day today.

After dropping Liam at school, Mikaela and I went to my mum's, where we spent the day hanging with her, along with my cousin & her two little girls (4 months older and 12 months younger than Kaely).

The three girls see each other almost every Monday, but this was a particularly good day. There was some squabbling, of course, but there were also tea parties, taking turns playing drums and piano, racing around squealing like crazy people (okay, that did get old fairly quickly, but my wonderful Mum put a stop to it by reading them a story or two while I got lunch), feeding the fish in Mum's backyard, hiding under bed clothes, building train sets, and so on. Most of which was done in remarkable harmony.

It was 32 degrees today (90F) so after school (and a few errands) Mikaela, Liam & I hung about outside in the shade for nearly an hour, the kids having a cool outdoor bath (in a clam shell), me sitting with my feet dangling in the water. Liam actually spent most of the time out of the water, just popping into it to cool down from time to time, so it wasn't much of a bath for him, but it was a lovely way to spend an hour. And then later the water can be bucketed onto the garden, which it needs.

When we came in I sat knitting* for another half hour or so, while Liam read to me (his idea - we went to the library before we left school), and Kaely pottered around, making beds, reading books to 'Baby Purple Teddy' etc, and Chris cooked dinner.

And after dinner, we spent another half hour outside enjoying the evening cool, playing with Lochie, and watering**/weeding the vegie garden (not as much as it needs though, of either one).

Now the kids are in bed, and I'm off back outside to bucket the water from the clam shell onto the new plants we've put in out the front.

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*I'm knitting a blanket for the baby, to match the ones I made for Liam & Mikaela (a bit like this one, but it I gave to my best friend's baby, who was born first - Kaely's is not even half this size, and neither will this new one be), but while I'm more than half way through the pregnancy I'm only maybe a third of the way through the blanket, so I really need to get on with it!

**With rain water, of course, though that is fast running out.

Whirlwind week in Melbourne

I've just been in Melbourne for a week, and would love to blog it all properly, but when is there time?

We hadn't been down there as a family for four years, and sometimes it seems like we have more friends in Melbourne than we do here, so it was a bit of a hectic week. I would have liked to stay for longer, but when you are imposing on friends with your two children - well, it's a whole different thing to when you could just crash on the couch without much impact. So a week seemed about the limit. Not to mention that we had someone house- dog-, cat- and chicken-sitting for us, and they had to leave yesterday.

Anyway, during the week we managed to get to Scienceworks, with the family with whom we stayed, swim in the Yarra with some other friends who live out at Kangaroo Ground, tour the Children's Garden at the botanic gardens with a friend we stayed with for a month back when Liam was a baby and who now has a two year old of her own (and I highly recommend the gardens to anyone with youngish kids, but take a change of clothes and a towel!), have a picnic with a friend, a play & a coffee in Fitzroy Gardens with Chris's brother and partner, and brunch at a lovely cafe out at Belgrave with my sister and family. We also got to spend quite a bit of time with my sister and her new baby, and of course with the people with whom we stayed. They have a Liam too (although theirs is ten), and while there was a little friction towards the end (our Liam got upset and felt forgotten when their Liam had a sleepover with another friend), they got along really well, and ten-year-old Liam was very sweet to six-year-old Liam, especially when he realised about the forgotten feeling.

It was very hot though. Maybe next time we do Melbourne we should pick a different time of year, we always seem to be there in Summer.

Welcome Charlie!

Finally, after some years of trying, and the 21 week birth of Samantha last year, my sister has a baby. Charlie was born last night, just a couple of hours past his due date. We are all extremely excited. I can't wait to go down to Melbourne to meet him (and spend some time helping my sister of course). Hopefully next weekend...

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.

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*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.

Looking for a new house, without much enthusiasm

Because of my father-in-law's recent ill health, we have been trawling through allhomes.com looking for a new house. Unfortunately, anything remotely suitable is way out of our price range. What I basically want is a house that a) has a granny flat and b) is not dramatically worse than what we have now. Which doesn't seem to be available for anything less than about $200,000 more than our house is worth, and that's not taking into consideration taxes or moving costs.

So since we can't have that, I figure I might as well fantasise about what I really want. This is the basic criteria for my ideal home:

1. No further from Liam's school than we are now, ideally in walking distance.
2. Has an ensuite
3. Has four bedrooms.
4. Has a study (what the hell, this is a fantasy).
5. Has a Rolfing studio (this could double as a study if necessary, as it does now, but oh how lovely it would be to have a "room of one's own"), which needs to have it's own toilet or the facility for us to add one.
6. (And this is key) Has a granny flat, with internal access, no stairs, and a bathroom which could be used by someone with a walking frame. This is not essential at the moment, but it seems like it would be insane to move somewhere with a granny flat which is not going to be suitable for a granny in the long term.
7. Ideally has a northern aspect, good insulation, shade and or/evaporative cooling, ducted gas heating, gas hot water, updated kitchen and bathrooms, tank water... etc. These are the things our house has now, minus the northern aspect and updated ensuite (and our tank water is minimal and not plumbed into the house, but it does the garden well enough). Oh, and it would be lovely to keep a view. We are very spoilt with a gorgeous view of the mountains from our living areas and deck where we live now.

We found a few houses with something like these criteria. One even that was almost in our price range (combining the value of our house with half the value of my FIL's house). But it had only three bedrooms, no space that could be utilised for rolfing (so we lose income), was about three times the distance from school to where we are now, and consequently would also probably add about 1/2 hour each way on the (bus) commute to work, and it had none of point 7, as far as we can tell, though the kitchen looked okay. Also the living space is less than we have now and the fence would need to be replaced to keep Lochie in. The granny flat doesn't have internal access, but is on the same level as the house and appears to have no stairs. There was no photo of the bathroom. In other words there is no upside from the point of view of our family, several downsides, but it did have a granny flat.

Then there was quite a nice one only a couple of suburbs further south than we are now - which would be fine - with four bedrooms, which would be lovely, what with the planned extension to our family sometime next year. (The one above was the only one we found with a granny flat and less than four bedrooms.) It also had a great kitchen (in black and white, not my preference, but a great gas cooktop and lots of bench and cupboard space) and ducted gas heating, and even a view from the main bedroom. Also a double metal garage which could be converted into a rolfing studio if there was any money left over. The flat was under the house though, and had stairs down into it from the outside entrance. And then of course there was the fact that even with the full value of our house and FIL's house, we still wouldn't cover taxes and moving costs (let alone converting a garage).

And there's the fact that if we use the full value of FIL's house then brother-in-law is completely disinherited, which seems like it could cause some life long friction, even if FIL was willing to do it (which I don't think he would be). Unless we were prepared to sell up and move when FIL dies, which frankly, I'm not. I hate moving, I want to be settled somewhere where we can plant our fruit trees and expect to still be there by the time they bare fruit. I'm already mourning the potential loss of this house, with all the work we've done on the garden, including the apple tree we planted over Liam's placenta (still haven't gotten around to doing anything with Kaely's and maybe we should hold off). Also, what if we then have another aging parent who needs to move in with us? Three out of four of our parents, plus the one step parent, live in Canberra, and we are the only offspring from either family who does likewise. We're the bunnies on the spot, in other words.

Anyway, it's all very complicated. Is it unreasonable of me to not want to have to significantly reduce our standard of living in order to accommodate him, and particularly in order to preserve BIL's inheritance (which FIL may well fritter away once it's not tied up in his house anyway, after all it is his money)? I feel resentful about that possibility, and yet I can also see how BIL may feel resentful - I mean, imagine this scenario: we use all of his Dad's money to buy ourselves a new place, one with (say) an extra bedroom over what we have now, plus a granny flat. In short, increasing our asset base by about $200,000, while he gets nothing. Then FIL ups and dies the week we all move in. It could happen, quite easily. He might go on for another ten years (though I think it's unlikely), but he might also drop dead tomorrow.

Sigh.

 

A whinge

In addition to having a nasty virus that had me unable to sleep for three days (slightly better last night), for the mucus blocking up my windpipe each time I relaxed, with a ferociously sore throat, now moving into the ears, and which I have now passed on to poor Mikaela; in addition, I say, to all that, we now have my father-in-law staying with us, fresh out of hospital.*

Let me be quick to say that I do not begrudge him our help at such a time. He has no one else here to look after him, and when he yesterday told Chris he would be discharged today but did not want to stay with us, I was momentarily horrified by the idea of him going home alone. Then when Chris went to pick him up today and he said he wanted to come here after all, I was equally horrified by that. Quite aside from not wanting him anywhere near our germs, there's the logistics of sleeping arrangements.

Picture this. We have a three bedroom house, one of which is really a study (no closet). Chris and I sleep in the study (where we have moved our queen bed, which just fits, leaving the low and less comfortable futon in our room), because it is more convenient to do that, and put K in our room, than have her sleeping just off the family room, and because she and we both sleep a lot better when we don't share a room. Right now Kaely is coughing a spluttering half the night, and the other half I am clearing my throat and blowing my nose. Chris is slightly better, but the nose blowing! Seriously, you should hear it.

Enter the father-in-law. Where is he going to sleep? Well, there is really only one possibility, which is the study. You see where this is going. No sleep tonight.

 

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*I'm not going into details about the hospital stay, just like I haven't for other significant people in my family in the past year or so, because his story is not mine to tell. Not here and now anyway :)

Grandad

I recently discovered that my Grandad has a Wikipedia entry. How cool. It doesn't say much, I'll have to dig up some more information and add it. I also discovered (via the entry) that he was Australian of the Year in 1977. You'd think I'd know something like that.

Instead I know things like the time he saw the ghost at Government House (and it wasn't just him, the security guard saw it too); I know how he used to hide his Vitamin B tablet under his wine glass at lunch and pretend to Nanna that he'd taken it - ostensibly to avoid it/annoy her, but really to entertain us; I know that he used to tell great stories about Flatfoot, Fleetfoot and Floppyfoot, three rabbits he claimed to know, and about Chestnut, the horse who lived at the end of his street. I tell stories about them to Liam now, although mostly I am required to add faries and sometime hobgoblins to the mix (Grandad used to always blame the hobgoblins for things like hiding his Vit b tablet).

I don't think those are the sorts of details Wikipedia would be interested in though. I'll have to dig out an old copy of Who's Who and see what it has to say.

A birth and a death

My sister gave birth today. The baby died during the labour, not unexpectedly. She was at 21.5 weeks gestation, and she had no working kidneys. Her name was Samantha.

Samantha’s story has been one I haven’t been writing, because it isn’t mine. But today I feel the need to give her some acknowledgment. I don’t know who she would have become, or even if that’s a useful question to ask. She would have been my niece, my parent’s granddaughter, Liam and Mikaela’s cousin, and most of all, a loved daughter of my sister and her husband; their first-born.

Rest in peace, little one.

Happy birthday to you, happy birthday to you...

Mikaela turned one on Sunday. Can you believe it? She's a year old.

All year we'd been deliberating about what to do about a blessing, and god parents (to have or not to have?). Finally we decided to go ahead and have the blessing combined with the birthday party.

One of the people we wanted to ask to be a god mother (in a fairly non-religious sense) has been trying to have a baby for two and a half years. She's currently on IVF, and pregnant, but has just found out the baby has no working kidneys, which also means that even if it made it to forty weeks the lungs wouldn't have developed either. She didn't find that out for sure until last Friday (the day before Kaely's blessing), but an earlier ultrasound had suggested that it was fairly likely. So for a year we'd been wondering if it would be tactless to ask her to be god mother to our own baby, but finally, with things at nearly their worst point for her, we did. She couldn't really understand why we thought it might be tactless and said she'd be honoured. Liam also absolutely adores her, so she said she'd be happy to be an extra unofficial godmother to him too (in other words, she won't preference Kaely in such a way as to leave him out). We're the one who are honoured, I think.

Anyway, so we had a blessing. We had a party. And now Mikaela is one. She seems so much younger than Liam seemed at one, partly because he was already walking and she's not even close, but also of course just because he was our first. She's still a complete baby compared to him. But in reality, she's almost not. She's almost a toddler.

I'm not sure how I feel about that. A little sad - I love the baby time - but of course it is also exciting, seeing her development day by day. We are still debating whether to have another baby, but I think we will go ahead and try. Not for another year though, so we may change out minds yet. And of course there's always the possibility that this time it just won't happen. But I think we will try. Somehow, our family just doesn't feel complete yet.

My relaxing beach house fantasy

I left out the best part of our coast trip, which was the day trips down to Mossy Point (20 minutes South of my MIL) to hang out with my cousin and his family. They were staying in the house I grew up visiting for holidays every year.

I love that house. It is full of wonderful memories of childhood holidays with my family, teenage holidays with friends and Before Kids holidays just with Chris. We spent most of our honeymoon there in fact. And it was lovely to hang out with my cousin and his family too. He has an eleven-year-old daughter and a three-year-old son* who gets along famously with Liam. we could have stayed there but it was a little crowded (cousin's brother-in-law was staying as well, and another cousin was there with her partner and  baby for some of the time) and besides, it's nice to spend some time with Liam's Grandma too.

I am a bit jealous of my cousin though. He's there for two weeks (still there now as I type), and a couple of years ago he was there for a whole month in summer, something I've only ever fantasised about.** When was the last time we went on a holiday that didn't involve visiting family?

Our next big holiday plan is to go up to Forster (mid-North NSW coast) to visit my grandfather, and maybe go up to Byron Bay (about a day further north - two days with a baby) to visit some friends. We haven't been up to visit Grandpop in more than three years, and haven't seen the friends since they moved up there two years ago. And it will be nice to see them. Still, if I had my druthers, I'd spend the whole two-week holiday down at Mossy Point relaxing, and just let other people come to us.

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*Technically the daughter's a step, but she's only ever known him as her dad, and that since she was about two. He also has another son who's about ten, but he lives with his mum and left to go on holidays with her the day we arrived.

**My lotto-win fantasy includes spending whole summers down there - with laptop - getting lots of inspired writing done while children play quietly in the background.

Holidays with in-laws

We've just spent a lovely few days down at the coast staying with my mother-in-law.

Last time we visited my MIL we arrived Friday night and left Sunday morning - and I felt that was about my limit. I have something of a reputation in my family for talking a lot. One of the charming nicknames my step-dad had for me as a child was motor-mouth. But I have nothing on Chris's Mum. Nothing. She is a full on extrovert who spends most of her time alone. Enough said? (Actually, probably not. I should probably add examples of how she started up talking to me while I was in the middle of reading to Liam, how she kept talking as we walked out the door, barely pausing for breath as we strapped the kids into the car and got in ourselves, but you still wouldn't really get it. You have to see to believe, I tell you.)

This time was different though. This time, instead of being tired, cranky and pregnant, I was tired, happy and - importantly - in charge of a baby. When you have responsibility for a baby you can say "No, no. You go to the beach now, don't wait. I'll just stay here and get Mikaela to take a nap." Then you take yourself off to the spare room (where Liam sleeps - we sleep on a sofa bed in the living room) and Close The Door. A few minutes later there is blessed relief as Chris, Liam and MIL troop out to walk to the beach. And then silence. Pop Mikaela in the bassinette. Make Tea. Listen to - nothing. For an introvert (that would be me) this is the definition of holiday bliss.

Oddly, Chris seems to cope far better with these too-busy holidays than I do, even though he comes out far more introverted than I do on every scale. Then again, she is his mother.

Now I will just have to get myself a laptop and all will be absolutely perfect. Of coruse, by the time I do that Mikaela will probably be school-aged and my excuse for staying home will be long gone. Maybe I can invent working holidays, where I send them to the beach while I stay home to "work".

I am MAD

I should be in bed now - 10:40 at night, and my best friend who is also a Bradley Childbirth instructor likes to tell her students that by this point they should *both* (pregnant woman and partner) act as though every day might be the day before labour. ie Not stay up late writing bitchy blog entries. But, I can't sleep anyway because I am too full of righteous anger.

Usually I don't bitch about people I know in here, because I work on the premise that anyone I write about will probably read it eventually. This time I don't care. My father-in-law and I don't see eye-to-eye on many matters, but in general I guess we get on okay. He has a great relationship with Liam, and for that I will tolerate much, and, I suppose, so will he. Every now and then I snap at him about something, but usually that's as far as it goes. But today he pissed me off royally.

Actually at the time I was only mildly pissed, and moreorless let it pass. In fact it's really partly Chris's fault I am so mad, since I waited till tonight to debrief with him, and while he agreed that it wasn't the most appropriate comment or way that his father made the comment... well, you can hear the 'but' there, can't you?

Now I've built it up to be something major, I'm afraid you'll be disappointed. You have to understand the context, and particularly the context of my life over the past two years or so, to really get it. What he said was that I should not be driving anymore - you know, at this point in pregnancy. I was risking two lives now, he said. Because of the steering wheel don't you know, should I have an accident. Not that I've ever had an accident. Ever. (Unlike him.)

Now, part of this is that I am just sick of being told what I should and shouldn't do - 'One drink won't hurt you' 'oh my god are you drinking tea while pregnant?' 'Isn't avoiding pre-prepared salads a bit extreme? I ate whatever I liked in my pregnancies - even sushi - with no problem' etc. But it's also more than that.

I am not a risk taker. Ask my husband. Ask anyone. I am one of those parents who has to be careful not to over protect - Chris will let Liam take way more risks at, say, the playground than I would, for instance. This is something I am conscious of having to manage, if I don't want to instill too much fear and caution into my children (but of course, I also want them to be safe - it's a hard balance to find).

Further, I do my research and I take it seriously. When I was trying to get pregnant this time I read that listeria can have up to about an 8 week incubation period (can't remember the exact time now) - so in other words, you can eat something well before you get pregnant and not show any symptoms of listeria until you miscarry weeks later. Presumably this isn't that common, because when you hear of listeria outbreaks (and people do die of it every year) people tend to all get it within a relatively short space of time, or so it seems. Nonetheless, since that time, I have been rigorous about not eating anything remotely suspect.

That means that for two years now I've been avoiding all the obvious things: soft cheeses, raw fish, deli meats... but also the less obvious things, that not everyone bothers about: cold left overs, pre-prepared salads, including anything from a sandwich bar, anything that I'm not completely sure has been cooked, thoroughly, just now - so that means pretty much everything from a food court (except hot chips or uncut fruit), anything like a BBQ chicken or hotdog, any salad served with my food food in a restaurant, even vegetarian 'sushi' rolls. People mock - bad enough that I haven't been drinking alcohol or caffiene (and Chris and I both moreorless gave those up about 3 months before we started trying to get pregnant, though we haven't been as strict as we were with Liam's pre-conception and pregnancy) - and this means that I also have to turn down food people offer me in their homes that I'm not sure of, or that was prepared earlier. But like I said, I'm not a risk taker. I had one miscarriage, I don't want another one. Let alone a still birth, or for the baby to die after birth because of something I ate beforehand (and yes, that is a risk with listeria).

People mock, and I'm pretty sure my father-in-law has been among them, although not as badly as some, and probably he learned his lesson after I snapped at him once when we were still trying to get pregnant (or maybe it was even after we got pregnant?) and he commented that just relaxing might help/have helped. I believe I told him that was about the most offensive thing he could say to someone suffering from fertility problems. (And I think I made myself clear on that score here in this entry). So for him now to turn around and say I shouldn't be driving... it's not just offensive because it's telling me what to do, what risks to take, and that basically in his view I am an irresponsible mother if I do what virtually every other pregnant women does and keep driving right till the end of the pregnancy. It's not just because he has been dismissive of our other efforts to keep this baby safe, that I am mad.

It's because, I am not a risk taker. Do you know why? Because I constantly imagine tragedy & drama. I strap Liam in the car and then walk across the road to return the shopping trolley, but I never close his door, just in case - because as I walk across the road I am imagining a scenario where I get hit by a car and taken away in an ambulance, and he is left alone in the car. I take a shower when Liam and Chris are out and imagine someone breaking in and stabbing me, and trying to get to a phone in time to call an ambulance to maybe be able to save the baby (though probably not me) - I imagine out this whole scenario, and almost have myself in tears. I do this countless times a day. Whole conversations get played out in my head.* You wouldn't guess it, probably, because I am basically an optomist. In fact, I'm as much of an optomist as anyone I know. But I'm not a risk taker.

Well, now someone has told me not to drive. What happens now if I do get in an accident? If something does happen to the baby? It will no longer be a freak chance, but my fault. Never mind that the bus I'm travelling on could have an accident. Or I could get hit by a car crossing the street. Now if I drive, I am going to have to feel guilty. You probably think I jest, but I don't. I am so angry at this man for making this become my fault.

And just in case you are wondering... driving in third trimester pregnancy is considered such a non-issue that I could find almost nothing about it on the web. Babycenter talks about seat belts and airbags, but doesn't even consider that you might be worried about driving in general. The Durham Council County website in the UK has a page entitled 'Driving and Pregnancy' but all they talk about is the best way to wear a seatbelt. All I could find on the Essential Baby site was that you should try to take breaks and move around regularly on long trips. Finally I found sofeminine.co.uk where someone had actually written in to 'ask the experts' about driving in the third trimester. The answer was plain: " Driving always carries the risk of having an accident, whether the driver is pregnant or not, it is up to you to weigh up that risk. As long as it is comfortable, you can get in a car right up until the end of your pregnancy. I would certainly rather you drive than walk everywhere!"**

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*I tell myself that this is a good sign for a writer, even if it does make me sound completely neurotic.

**BTW, Chris's 'but' was, he claims, that although he didn't agree with his father and wasn't trying to justify him in anyway, he probably was right that the steering wheel imposes a greater risk on the baby in an accident than not - than, in otherwords, being in an accident in the passenger seat. He wasn't saying that meant I shouldn't drive, just that technically his Dad was probably right about that. Whatever. A but is still a but.

A wedding!

I'm so excited - my brother just announced he's getting married! This is exciting just in itself, but also because it should necessitate a trip to the States. He hasn't set a date yet, but as long as it's a decent amount of time away (ie when I am no longer pregnant) and he gives us sufficient notice, we will definitely plan to be there.

A baby!

My cousin had her baby today. It's a little girl. I can't wait to meet her!

The joy of doing dishes vs the joy of finishing my essay

Yesterday our dishwasher broke down. Actually, it may well have broken on Friday, since we hadn't put it on since then. Not that we didn't have the dishes. We did. In fact, I packed it, completely full, on Saturday morning. And then, somehow forgot to put it on. And because I spent the rest of the day studying, and Chris spent the rest of the day trying to keep Liam out of my hair, we didn't look in there all day. So come Sunday morning, when I opened it up to unpack and repack, I was confronted by a dishwasher full of dirty dishes. These were in addition to all the dishes we'd accumulated on Saturday of course.

Does that not sound like such a bad story? Two days worth of dishes can't be so very bad can it? But it gets worse. Sunday I was studying and Chris was keeping Liam occupied while at the same time cleaning house. Why? Because we were having a dinner party of nine that night. My brother and his girlfriend are visiting from the States very briefly, so we had a family dinner at our house. But because the dishwasher wasn't completely buggered, it took Chris a while to notice that it wasn't working - it did the rinse cycle then stopped. It had been doing that a bit last week, and in fact we had someone already booked to come and look at it this morning. So when Chris happened to notice that it had stopped, but not finished, he started it again. It did the rinse cycle, then stopped. In desperation, not wanting to believe that it was completely hopeless, I am ashamed to admit that we tried this more than half a dozen times between us over the course of the day.

It wasn't until lunchtime, when Liam was napping and I came up for air, that Chris broke the sad news to me. Our dishwasher was done for. And we had a lot of dishes to get through before the 6pm dinner guests arrived. Plus Chris had to cook that dinner, and there were other household cleaning chores to do. Goodbye essay, hello housework.

Not that I'm complaining. Tonight, for instance, I was planning to study. And then I saw the kitchen - I did some of the dinner party dishes last night, and Chris did some more today while Liam was asleep, but there were still some left - and today's dishes of course. So instead of studying, I got to rediscover the joy of having a clean kitchen by my own hard work. And, having it clean at night. Normally we leave the dishes till the morning and pack/unpack the dishwasher and generally clean up while Liam either watches Play School or draws/plays with play dough in the high chair. And by lunch time it's all a mess again. This way it is nice for the evening and will still be nice when I get up tomorrow. And the bonus is - no study time.

Oh yeah, have I mentioned how much I hate studying? Was that me, three or four weeks ago, thinking I might like to do a PhD next? Who am I kidding? Studying sux! And believe me, Liam agrees. He is truly sick of mummy going to work so much. Did I mention his latest excuse for not having a bath/eating dinner/getting dressed etc? He says "No Mummy, I'm too busy. This is my work!" No kidding.

PS The truly sad part? $140 spent today to get someone to diagnose the dishwasher's problem, $400 more to fix the it. We already spent around $200 on it about 18 months ago. An equivalent new one would be around $1000. So now we have to decide: do we cut our losses and do the environmentally irresponsible thing, dispose of this one and buy a new one, OR do we fix this one and hope that we don't just have to spend another $540 on it next year?

PPS I wouldn't hate studying - I think - if only I could get paid for it. If I could do it instead of my paid job, instead of instead of Liam & Chris time, that would be OK. Fun even. I think.

PPPS I do realise that there is an alternative to spending either $400 or $1000 - sucking it up and doing our own dishes. But believe me, we are not good housekeepers. We are not good dish washers. Actually, we suck. We should not sacrifice our dishwasher. Truly. That one extra thing to fit into our day would probably be the thing that pushed us all over the edge. Liam especially.