Summer Loving, Loving Summer, The Learning Never Stops.

The tip of my nose has been getting cold at night. I pulled an extra blanket onto the bed last night. My mother tells my off every time I wail at the thought of a receeding summer. But wail I do. I’m sitting, with a steaming cup of coffee, rugged up in bed. The more-watery autumn light is coming in through the windows and I’m wearing a merino top. Summer seems to be over. This summer has been sensational – I haven’t posted much (at all) because I’ve been enjoying it so much. We’ve been swimming almost everyday and sometimes more than once – in the river, in the sea, in various swimming pools. We’ve been boogy-boarding, body surfing, pipi hunting, sand-castling, eel-rescuing, river walking – so many aquatic related activities this year.

Water play holds a dear place in my heart as the “thing” that demonstrated unschooling in action to me. If you haven’t read that story, read it here. And now, again, still, it is that.

Louis has progressed this summer to swimming with his arms circling above the water (freestyle strokes). He can go for metres and metres underwater, and this week, he learned to dive.

Joss is now putting her face underwater and just having a whole lot of fun in the pool. A couple of years ago, Joss and Louis were playing in the water at our local beach, which isn’t safe for little kids to actually swim in, and a big wave came and dumped on them. Louis very bravely hauled his sister out of the water and we all tramped home sopping wet. Since then, Joss has been petrified of even the sound of waves. This year, she has become comfortable sitting up on the ridge (where she can still hear them, but knows she wont be “got” by the waves) and watching Louis and I, and our dog Isa muck around in the white wash.  Then we were at a beach round the corner from us, which is a little bit safer, and Louis was playing in the waves with his boogy board, and Joss was really scared to go down to the water, which I’m used to, so I thought we’d just play in the sand. But after a while, she started pulling me towards the water – very slowly. It maybe took us 10 mins to get there, but she ended up playing in the water, in the WAVES, and then went back to get her boogy board and while I held onto the cord, she caught the waves in. She absolutely loved it. I was so happy that she was happy. I was so happy that I hadn’t crowded into her need for the space for being scared, that I’d honoured that space and respected it. I was delighted to see her delight.

Louis has been meeting his needs for interaction with adult males with ease and grace. He can now have conversations with people, and becomes interested in things they’re interested in, gets involved, and goes off on adventures with them. At a recent camp, with other lovely unschoolers, he learnt how to make coffee from a lovely unschooling dad who does that for a living. And he spent a good hour swimming in the rough west coast waves with another lovely unschooling dad. He really gravitates towards people who are going to respect his spirit.

Joss has discovered a love for dancing… and let me back this truck up so that it becomes an illustration of unschooling in action.

In January, we went to a gathering in Port Waikato called Heart Politics (HPX), which is a coming together of people who explore different ways of living. We went, because it was suggested by my lovely friend that I might fit in there with my talk on Connection Parenting, and because part of my unschooling philosophy is that it’s important that we go to lots of “things” like this, and that the kids have all the opportunity to hear about all kinds of different things, and that I connect with people, and nourish my own need for community. So, we went, and on the Concert Night, on the last evening, a young girl did a Scarf Dance, and we loved it, and then, we came home.

I bought my mum the Adele 25 CD – she was listening to it all the time at work off the internet but didn’t have a way of listening to it at home, and would never buy it for herself. So I did, and Joss happened to go and hang out with my mum for a couple of hours one Sunday, and my mum turned on the Adele CD and Joss busted out some very clearly Scarf Dance Moves. She LOVED it. And now very clearly asks for ‘Dele Song, and Dancing Dress. She is totally lost in the music, and buoyed up by it, and expressing whatever is coming through her. It is pure joy to watch.

Unschooling, strewing, in action.

It’s been a glorious summer, with lots of relaxing, lots of television watching, lots of delving into the world of gaming, lots of aquatic adventures, lots of camping, and even some number and letter work.

Great Friends

We got a cleaner.

Anyone who knows me, knows that I’m not really “into” cleaning. I do it because I HAVE to.

For the last six months of last year I was grumpy as hell most of the time. It’s a long story. Anyway, I found myself saying to my children, “Hang on while I…” or  “No, I just gotta …” or “Yes, just  let me finish …” and the dot dot dot was invariably some kind of cleaning job that I hated doing but equally hated not having done. So, our lives were a grumpy, untidy, endlessly cleaning but never tidy grumpity grump.

And then a friend said to me, “I hear a lot of complaining. Tell me what you want.” Great friend, right?

Well, what I want is to not be grumpy at my kids all the time. What I want is to have a peaceful, calm house all the time, magically, without spending all day cleaning.

As an aside – one of the things I didn’t factor into my Life As a Homeschooling Family envisagement, was the mess. The constant activity, the constant stuff, the constant mess.

So, when The Sound Guy told me he raised his daily rate, I knew, instantly and without a shadow of doubt, I’m getting help.

And so, we got a cleaner. Because sometimes, when I say crazy things, which other people think clearly indicate that I, as well and as much as my thoughts, am crazy, like, I’d like a cleaner three days a week for an hour a day, the universe lines itself up and produces a magical cleaner who lives around the corner and can do an hour three times a week. Sometimes, the universe does that.

So, here we are. I have help. I have a lovely child minder three times a week, and a magical cleaner three times a week. 

I have help.

The Invisible Mother

A few things have happened lately that have got me thinking.

The First Thing
We recently re-mortgaged and in doing so changed banks. So we met with the over-eager sales people who gushed and bounced and called me "Trudes". There are about five people in the world for whom calling me "Trudes" is normal. The guy at the bank isn't one of them.
The Sound Guy happened to be in town for this financial event, so he came with me, and there ensued A LOT  of drooling on the behalves of the bank people about his job, the bands he's worked with, the travel he does, the romance of his life.
They didn't once ask me about what I do. Because, on their piece of paper, I had listed "no income". So, I don't do anything, right?

The Second Thing
We were at a party recently - we arrived late, and I walked over to The Group with one child and said hello to a few people, then I remembered something I left in the car so went to go and get it, just as The Sound Guy was walking up with the other child. For him, there followed lots of standing and shaking hands as people introduced themselves.

The Third Thing
The Sound Guy recently posted this on his FB page:
I never go to gigs but when Jakob is playing in my home town and I can bike to the venue than I'm there! 
Do you see him mention in that post about how lucky he is that his wife's home to look after the kids?

I'm trying very hard to write this post in a way that doesn't whine.

We've got Oprah saying that being a mother is the hardest job in the world. We've got shit hitting the fan all over the place, horribly high suicide rates, homelessness, terrible divorce rates. For 70years, since the end of WWII, we've squeezed women back into the home, with no other adults around, and we've said "This is now normal. Deal with it."

I have been dreaming recently about buying a one-way-ticket to somewhere far away and only coming back when I feel sane. I tried to get away for a few days when the Sound Guy came home but that shit is expensive. I thought to myself, 'imagine a society that had Mum-hotels - a place where mum's can go and re-charge their batteries' then I thought 'That place used to exist, and you went there in a straight jacket. Or, you went to another place called Valiumville.' And then I thought 'Fuck it's AWFUL that a Mum-hotel would probably be overbooked and have a waiting list that rivaled the hospital system' Surely, that's an indication that something's really fucked up.

And do you know what the response to this is, on a societal level? Twenty Hours free childcare. It sucks when you're doing things differently. You know what I'd like? that money deposited into my bank account. Trouble is, then I'd have to produce lesson plans and vaccination records.

There is SO MUCH research around attesting to how important the early years are for people. But we have a culture which thinks mothering "just happens" and so we get twelve weeks maternity support and are expected to hand them over to a stranger for some kind of "finishing off" process when they're three, or are overtly encouraged back to work even earlier. Because handing our babies over to someone else is apparently just as effective as the Mother doing it. I'm trying to illustrate how the importance of mothering is marginalized - not offend people who have chosen that path.

In a world like this, I can't see a way out. I can't see how we can do things differently which reveres mothers in ways that go beyond lip service. I can only do things differently myself. So, here I am, often on the verge of insanity, silently, invisibly blazing a trail for mother-honouring.

I think what I need is a t-shirt with I AM A MOTHER emblazoned across it. Actually, for maximum irony, it needs to read I AM A .

If any of you have found a way to become visible, help me out here - I need to know!

"Mama, can we get a gearbox?" Six Ways We Strew

Strewing is like having a FB mind-reading algorithm in your head focused on "stuff your kids might enjoy". Both Facebook and Netflix do this brilliantly. The movies I have watched on Netflix based on their strewing have become some of my favorites.

Strewing is a Sandra Doddism. She coined it for placing things around the house that might interest your children. Here's a link to her post about it. I think she had things in mind like, leaving books about some rare pink-footed-chimpanzees by the toilet, and bits of drift wood from the beach on the kitchen table, and dragonflies in amber by the toothbrushes. We don't do it quite like that. Here are some ways we strew in this family:

1) I sometimes choose books from the library - like The BFG (happy dance). I chose it because it's in a section of the library that Louis doesn't yet venture into, and I remember loving it as a kid. And I wanted to see if Louis would like it too.

2) We have a pin-board (which is actually the spring-web-thingee from an old set of bunks that we peg things to) and I put things on there that we've either done, or could do. One day, Louis or Joss might look at something and say, "Wow, can we do that?".

3) When it's my turn to chose something to watch on TV, I try and choose things that interest me - like this one, about a young guy who's choreographing a NYC Ballet. Stuff like this interests me, and I like that it introduces ballet to my kids. Joss couldn't stop twirling while we were watching it. Other things we watch are Jamie Oliver, BBC Life, Gilmore Girls…All strewing.

4) By doing stuff - going to the dentist together, going fishing, getting our hair cut. Tomorrow we're all going to the solicitor to sign off on our re-mortgaging. The kids come with me to my semi-regular volunteer work at a local organic vege farm.

5) Hanging out with other families - seeing what their toys are, which books they're reading, what they're watching.

6) Going to thrift-stores - buying sports gear, dress ups, old jigsaws, putting them in with all the other games and maybe one day they'll pick them up and do something with them.

I think the ABSOLUTE KEY with strewing is the no expectation thing. Putting something out there, holding the space for the possibility of them using it, but holding no emotional attachment to an outcome. And that's where we can channel FB and Netflix. "Don't like that one, no bother, move on."

Can there be more than one absolute key?? If there can then the next one is - be authentic about what you're strewing. It can't be an Opportunity To Teach. I think there has to be a high level authenticity about what's being shown or offered. If I was to come at something from a "I think you should know this" angle, it's not strewing. It needs to be more like, "I would love to share this with you, if you'd like".

The other night as we were snuggled up in bed, Louis asked me, "Mama, how do whales sleep?" and I couldn't answer him but suggested that we look it up the next day. Well, we did! And we found that out, and then followed a few you tube links and watched one video about a humpback whale that becomes caught in a net and is freed by a group of people, and then gives them a very demonstrative thank you. It was beautiful.

One of the first things I did when we moved into this house five years ago, was paint a couple of cupboards with black-board paint (hint, don't leave wood that you've painted black out in the blazing sun to dry. Warping things happen to it) and Louis has drawn on them approximately five times. Well, this week he quietly picked up a piece of chalk and drew this:

which, if you can't quite make it out, is a whale blowing out its blowhole, caught in a net, and a knife showing how it was cut out.

So much amazing.

This all reminds me that I need to get a hold of an old gear box. Louis was asking me about how they work. WTF dude?? And I figured if we (like all sane families) had one in the back yard he might go and tinker with it for a while.

I would love to hear about how you strew - I'm always up for ways to inspire us and change things up a little.

Advent Calendar

So, it's nearly Christmas. We have an advent calendar which has a different activity every day. Like, take Aunty Anna lunch at work, go to the beach and dig tunnels in the sand, take Isa (our dog) for a swim at the river. 

I made it because I really love the idea of family traditions. And it's become one, so, Yay!! 

Louis and Ron got together and wrote a Christmas List. I had no idea this was going on until Louis mentioned it to me one day. There followed quite a bit of listing from Louis about what he wanted and I got a bit antsy about the way he was using the list more like an Order Form. Anyway, I did all the Christmas shopping in two hours flat yesterday, and I really hope that he will enjoy what we bought him. I'm finding it challenging to make sure that Christmas is about getting together with family and friends, celebrating how awesome our lives are, doing cool things together, and eating delicious food… as well as embracing the thrill of getting new and exciting things. 

Well, Hello!!

I just put my running gear on, then ate two Christmas biscuits and a Christmas chocolate that our neighbors gave us.

Louis has been introduced to Minecraft, and is lying, SO RELAXED, on the couch, exploring that.

Joss is drinking milk and eating blue cheese on a rice cracker on the floor of the lounge playing with the new hot wheels car and watching Octonauts.

It's a lazy, hot, summer day here.

Hamburgers Deconstructed

This is a photo of what my six year old son ate - he actually had another hamburger patty and some     extra mushrooms too. 

These patties are honestly just mince. Not even seasoned. Because, sadly, my kids don't like pepper. <<sad face here>>. So, you could perk them up with salt and pepper, with chili, with any herbs or spices you like.

I shaped them into patties and heated up my gorgeous cast iron frying pan with some bacon fat - MMMMMMMM - then I placed the patties in and cooked them til they were done. I always have to cut one in half to check. But that then becomes my sample one, so nothing lost! When the patties were all done, I popped the mushrooms into the same pan and the mushrooms soaked up all the yumminess from the patties and the bacon fat. Then, when the mushrooms were nearly done I scoooched them over to one side and popped the kale in the other side to wilt a little. I did sprinkle some salt on the mushrooms and kale.

That's IT! easy as! And all in one pan!

The cabbage-y looking stuff on the plate is some of my friend's DIVINE sauerkraut. I can't get enough of this stuff, and neither can Louis. She's not in commercial circulation yet, but the moment she is I will do a piece on her so you know where to get some.

Hope you and your family enjoy this super simple meal soon.