School holidays

I have always loved school holidays. 

It was a time to reconnect with my children, to embrace them, hold them, hug them tight and cuddle in front of the telly without constraint. 

It was a time to cherish them and be a fun mum who wasn’t necessarily telling them to hurry up or to get ready or do their homework or ensure they showed me notices.

It was a time to make pancakes, cuddle in bed reading books, visit the museum and the zoo, and go to the park without needing to be home at any specific time.

One time we wrote a story after a walk when a dog followed us home and we had to find its owner and get it home.

And sometimes we would walk to the koala crossing just down the road and put leaves in our mouth and cross the road pretending to be koalas crossing the road.

And later I would get the kids to eat salad by pretending to be different animals....lizards and koalas and giraffes.

One time we made plasticine figurines and made little book scenes, and we read Enid Blyton books and went to the library and came home with as many books as they allowed.

I wrote letters from the tooth fairy with wondrous descriptions of how their perfect teeth were being used to make necklaces and stars. And even got my friend to write a letter when they were at a sleepover. Just because I could spread some magic and joy. So I did. 

I showed them how books could open up whole worlds, and pretended to be a waiter for our very own restaurant that sold home made meals and had a set menu, but there were menu cards and I would take their order nevertheless.

And when they couldn't sleep, I invented sleep cards, and I made a card for every bed time with a benefit of sleep and why they should try to go to sleep and what we would do the next day.

Car seat day was on a Thursday I think. The day I'd put a little something on their car seat when I'd pick them up from school just because.

And i got to go to excursions and camps and play like a kid again. I had never been on camp before I went with them.

And every day I would just gorge on their awesomeness and just love them. Savour every moment that I was fortunate enough to get to be their mum.

How lucky did I get to have the two best children in the world be my kids? Mind boggles.

These kids have saved my life. And I will never say otherwise. With every bit of joy I imparted, a small bit of me healed and put me back together. 

They have shown me how to love unconditionally and I will adore them for being who they are until the day I die. And probably beyond if it is in my power to do so.

They have taught me patience, how to regulate my emotions, how to breathe and let little things go. They have taught me how not to stay angry and let a fight go straight after I admonish them. They have taught me to correct behaviour and not who they are.

They have taught me that the most important thing in life is to live, and not what you have at the end of it, whether it be material or qualifications. They have taught me that you can be perfect at being imperfect. 

And that even I can love without hurting.

That I can love without hurting.

My biggest fear before I became a parent. I didn’t want to hurt them. That’s why I didn’t want to have children for such a long time.

They are truly the best thing I will ever do. 

They are the result of healing and peace, the result of years of introspection and a wish to be something else, to break a cycle I had no choice in.

I am forever grateful to them.

Who knows if I’d still be here if I had not chosen a path that included children. 

They are so pure and fun, and untouched by cultural norms and innocent and warm. Loving and even in their teens, taught me to let go and allow freedom and independence. In their horrible moments, they taught me to love them despite their anger and frustration and yearning to be separate from me. 

And now that I can feel everything again, I am so absolutely and fully in love with those human beings.

All I can say is please don’t wish them back at school. Enjoy their red cheeks and happy smiles. Enjoy their small uncoordinated attempts at cooking and allow their exploration and breakages around the home. It is so worth it, and they really do grow up too fast and inevitable fly the coup. As they should.

I told this to a co worker today who was pregnant. She told me she often hears a lot of negative comments about motherhood. And so do I. But honestly. It’s 99% wonderful and only 1% shitty. I don’t know anything else that has such fantastic odds.

Enjoy your parenting journey.

 

 

Tectonic

 

There is a fault line in my earth.

A fault line that formed as I was emerging from the earth. The earth cracked and shifted as I crawled out of the ground. The water seeped into my groundwater and broke the innermost core of me. And plants grew in there. They used the water and they made me with the air and fire above. And I grew from there.

The fault line lay open for years. Unmoved. The whole of me grew above.

Then, the me above started to get heavier and heavier. And the ground was not strong enough to hold me. The fault line started shifting.

I became unbalanced. I noticed rumbling and quiet stirrings that moved me slightly. And before I knew it, an earthquake started and my whole foundation crumbled to the ground.

I fell onto the earth and I lay helpless.

Then the fault line continued to move, and shift, and bend, and fold, and ripples of mud and hay and fire and air and vegetation mixed together and enveloped me and held me and reassured me. And I took it, and had to stare at it in the face. I looked at it.

It was an ugly, deep, dark hole. A huge scar in the earth cleaving me in half. And I took it and I told it I didn’t want it any more.

I acknowledge you, chasm. But I don’t need you and I don’t want you to rule my foundation any more.

I took it and I gently turned it into malleable sand that seeped through the cracks and allowed water to enter and roots to start to enter the earth, and take new hold. New footholds and spikes in my new foundation. And this took a long time. This took years of slow growth. A millimetre at a time. And then I’d get it wrong, and I’d have to go back in and clip some of the shoots off and start again.

And only recently I have actually seen something stirring above ground. For so long I have tended the roots and nothing showed for it.

Then not long ago, a small shoot emerged. I looked at it and it was beautiful. It was me. I re-entered the earth and emerged unchanged, bur forever altered. For I am grounded back to my earth and my water, and I am the fire and the air and the excrement that formed me. For they are all beautiful molecules that make up what I am.

I am matter. I matter.

I can now focus on growing these shoots and I know now where the roots all are, so if I need to trim one of them, I can go back into the earth, dig a little and find the one I need to trim. Delicately and lovingly, for I know the fault line lies dormant, as it has settled back into the ground, and the more I trim and the more I do in there, the more it settles, a day at a time. It still quietly rumbles, and the small cracks that are still in there slowly fill with sand. And this will be forever. For the fault line is in me. But it is not me. It is my foundation  and my roots. I cannot deny it,  but I am settling it. I am filling it and quietening the earth that I came from.

My ground. Mine. My roots. My being. Me. I can see me.