Free Children

Havelock's Freebirth

2007-12-02T21:24:00.001+11:00

I had no intention of freebirthing when I found out I was pregnant - I'd read about it and admired women "crazy" enough to do it, but was firmly convinced it wasn't for me. I wasn't even completely convinced that I wanted to homebirth, so my first attempt at securing care was to ring the Birth Centre - two weeks after I conceived, the day I found out I was pregnant. They were already full for October, and their waiting list was so long that I never made it to the top in the whole nine months. We also missed out on our preferred midwife by a matter of hours (she was booked by a mama she'd already attended previously while I was considering). We had no idea where to turn. Freebirthing still didn't look like an option I wanted to take, but I liked the idea of hospital even less. The idea of having to book the only remaining midwife simply because she was the only remaining midwife didn't appeal. I basically stopped thinking about it for several months and went on with the business of being pregnant...

Somehow, by about the fifth month, the reading and considering and option-weighing I'd been doing while avoiding making a decision had crystallised my feelings that I reacted so strongly to the idea of freebirthing because it was something I truly was drawn to doing, if I could only clear away the layers of fear and distrust. I stopped ringing the Birth Centre and badgering them about their waiting list. I sank into myself and connected with my baby, and learned how to read my body's cues without the interpretation of a medical professional. I started reading more seriously about freebirth, and paying attention to what fears came up. Eventually, I got hold of a copy of Birthing from Within, and using the author's suggestions about birth art as a spur to exploration, began to process my feelings around my previous births, my own birth, and my relationships with my parents and children. It was the most profound spiritual exploration of my life, and it released a lot of deep emotional energy for me.

Anyway, on to the birth! By Friday afternoon, I'd spent the week with Braxton Hicks contractions getting stronger and more painful during the afternoons and dying away at night, so I wasn't all that hopeful that the ones I was having on Friday afternoon were going to lead anywhere. They started to feel less like BH and more like gradually intensifying period cramps as the day went on, leaving me feeling rather more hopeful. I was completely exhausted and intended to take advantage of my MIL yet again to keep the munchkins entertained while I had a nap, but Tiffany decided she needed cuddles, so walked home and we snuggled up in bed and had some lovely bonding time. Better than a nap, although as things turned out I could really have done with the sleep!

In the evening things had started to heat up even more, and I began timing the contractions at about 8:45 to get an idea of where I was. At that point they were roughly 8-12 minutes apart, over a minute long, and getting stronger. I stopped timing them after a while and went and tidied up my study while listening to Tiffany reading aloud. As I was now getting fairly confident that things were going to start happening this evening I persuaded her to have a shower and go to bed (she had decided that she didn't want to be at the birth). While she was in the shower, I was standing up and circling my hips to get through a contraction when my waters broke with an almost audible pop, flooding everywhere. They were straw-coloured, but there was no sign of fresh meconium, and given the fact that the baby was at nearly 42 weeks gestation at this point I figured it wasn't worth worrying about. I cleaned myself up, put on a pad (then another one immediately afterwards *g*), then some comfy PJ pants to put Tiffany to bed. I was feeling confident and excited about the upcoming birth. DH SMSed our friend and labour support person N to tell her where I was at, and they arranged for her to come round once she'd finished feeding her baby. At this point I was still expecting things to go pretty slowly, so we expected that she'd come over and have a few hours sleep while I was in early labour so that she wouldn't have to drive too late at night. But by the time she got over (about 10:30pm), my contractions had started coming a couple of minutes apart and I was definitely in active labour already.

At this point I found that I could only stand up and circle my hips through each contraction. I tried a couple of different positions but anything which put pressure on my tummy was unbearable. After processing and releasing my fears of another painful posterior labour like Susan's, I had mostly stopped paying attention to the baby's position by this point in the pregnancy, but I suspect he was still turning round to anterior in early labour (he certainly came out that way), and the hip-circling was helping him rotate. I lit my aromatherapy candle ("Bliss" ylang-ylang and rose - I knew what I wanted!), put something to lean on on the corner of the bookshelf, and rested my forehead on that while I circled. It still hurt a lot, but the feeling of opening up was incredibly sexy. Each contraction was like an exquisitely painful orgasm, and when I started having to vocalise through them my noises reflected that. I was still feeling them very low in the belly - in fact I never felt them in the top of my uterus until pushing stage, in contrast with previous births. I just wanted to be alone, so DH and N were setting up the birthpool and getting it filling while I was in my study.

As the contractions got more intense I decided I wanted to be in the shower. I can now testify that instant gas hot water is the best thing ever invented (we had it installed during the pregnancy). I was in the shower for quite a while as the birth pool was filling, and when I moved to the pool I wanted the water on my lower back the whole time, and we never ran out. While I was in the shower I was still feeling the contractions, low down in my belly, as simultaneously intensely sexy and intensely painful, but nothing unbearable. With each one during first stage labour, I could feel my cervix expanding and my vagina becoming lush and ripe and ready to birth, it was beautiful and awe-inspiring and kept me focussed through the pain.

Then I must have hit transition, because suddenly I felt disoriented and nauseous and just wanted to give it all up and run away. When I heard myself thinking "If we went to hospital now I could have an epidural!" a sensible bit of my brain was able to identify "Aha - this must be transition!" Something which later amazed me was the degree to which every level of my being was working in harmony - my bodymind was able to move and vocalise and labour instinctively with total freedom and confidence, but yet some part of my conscious mind remained completely in touch with what was going on, able to analyse and even provide a running commentary at times (I told myself off during second stage labour when I started writing my birth story in my head *g*) without disturbing the deeper balance. The overwhelming sense of physical and mental unity that I experienced as the birth progressed was a truly profound feeling.

With the nausea and disorientation, I was worried that if I stayed in the shower I might lose my balance, so I went into the living room and got into the pool. The pool was about half full by this stage, and as I wanted the water on my back, there was a minor flurry of organisation with hoses and buckets before the amount of water coming in was equalised by the amount flowing out again, and nobody needed to worry about flooding! This meant that we needed to leave the front door open, but according to my support team I never made enough noise to worry about disturbing the neighbours. The baby had obviously finished getting into the correct position now, because it no longer hurt to bend onto all-fours. I had a couple of final "opening up" contractions, then started to feel definite shifting movements in my belly of the baby making minor adjustments to his trajectory and beginning to move into the birth canal. I still couldn't quite believe that I was about to start pushing my baby out! My last two births had pushing stages which were about two hours long, so after those experiences that part of my brain still capable of rational thought was somewhat worried...fortunately I was doing a good job of not being distracted by my fears.

I think it only took something like fifteen pushes to get Havelock all the way out and I pretty much remember each one individually. The feeling of him starting to move through the cervix and down the birth canal was just amazing - I love that I was so in tune with my body that I could feel and understand those interior processes which in previous births I had needed a midwife to describe to me! I was mostly breathing through these early pushes and not overworking myself, but as he got closer and closer to freedom I started feeling the urge to really push (my diaphragm was sore for days afterwards). As I felt him getting closer to crowning my sliver of rational brain panicked about how badly I had torn with Susan - who emerged posterior and with both hands up by her chin - and I stopped pushing for one contraction and just breathed. Then I told myself that I could hardly change my mind and run away at this point, so with the next contraction I started growling "I can do it I can do it I can do it I can do it!" N and DH started encouraging me at this point (the first time they had spoken directly to me during the labour); they could see that the head was close to crowning. It took two contractions before the head actually emerged, and the second one seemed to go on for about three years and hurt like hell, but finally his whole head was out! I reached down and touched the slimy hard lump of his head as I rested between pushes, but it still didn't feel real to me. The pause between each contraction seemed to lengthen each time until my internal monologue was getting desperate for things to hurry up so I could get it all over with! I also distinctly remember thinking, "where's my foetal ejection reflex, damnit?" *g* I had a final moment of panic that he was going to get stuck at the shoulders, but psyched myself through this one as well with my mantra.

Havelock emerged in four movements: head, shoulders to tummy, butt, and then the rest of his legs. From his perspective, DH said Havelock woke up and started trying to swim when he was only halfway out, and he breathed as soon as we took him out of the water (1:18am). Finally, after so much anticipation (and, admittedly, whinging), he was here! DH went to wake Tiffany so she could meet her new brother, although we left Susan to sleep.

I wanted to get out of the pool and go somewhere more comfortable to start breastfeeding, so we got me out and into my study (originally designated as a possible birthing space, so it had plastic dropsheets next to the bed and covering the mattress). I was feeling very dazed and as I stopped tuning into my intuitive self I was much less sure of what I should be doing, so found it really hard to get into a position where Havelock could start rooting for the nipple. I felt the urge to push but as I was lying down nothing much happened. After a little while I started feeling quite shocky and couldn't figure out how to stand up while Havelock was still tethered to me with the cord, so I asked DH to cut it (not the most rational response, but I couldn't explain what I needed and it seemed simplest at the time!). The cord had stopped pulsating and only oozed a little, which was good as, given that we had intended a lotus birth, we didn't have anything available to tie it off. When I stood up and pushed the placenta basically flew out of me and there was a huge rush of blood with it. I soaked through a couple of maternity pads immediately and we started on the things we'd discussed in case of possible haemorrhage. I had a cup of raspberry leaf tea and successfully started feeding Havelock, but when I got up to go to the loo I was still gushing blood and there was blood on the bed too. I decided it was time to try eating the placenta and N went to cut me off a piece. I couldn't bring myself to actually eat it so I stashed it in my cheek instead. This trick worked almost instantaneously and the gush slowed immediately to a normal lochia flow. I didn't think I'd lost enough blood to need to transfer to hospital, so concentrated on replacing electrolytes with a sports drink and adoring my new baby instead.

Despite the fact that he was 4.76kgs (10lb 8oz for the metrically disinclined), I barely tore at all - much less than with my two previous births. At the most I had a couple of grazes which took less than a week to heal completely. Having such an easy pushing stage also gave me a new appreciation for my magical, flexible pelvis, and I even forgave it for the three months of horrible SPD pain and discomfort beforehand! Babies in his weight range have a comparatively high risk of shoulder dystocia, and I can imagine the birth going very differently had I been labouring in the hostile environment of a hospital labour and delivery room, with too many distractions to listen to my intuition, and the constant pressure from even the most benign staff to conform to their expectations and routines which made my previous births so much less instinctive. I am sure that staying home, plus the prenatal work I did in releasing my fears about birth, contributed to having such a short, joyful, safe labour and birth. This time, I listened to my instincts and stayed upright the whole time, which helped bring the baby down into my pelvis quickly and easily. I was able to relax into the contractions from the very beginning, welcoming them as a positive part of my labour, and managing them with water and my natural birthing hormones. Being in a safe, familiar environment, with lowered lighting and minimal noise and fuss, allowed me to go deep within myself, and facilitated maximum hormonal release. Having the weightlessness of a waterbirth enabled me to get into a position where my pelvis was open to its widest extent, and contributed to me not being too exhausted to push when it came to those last moments.

Freebirthing was a magical, transforming experience for me. I might not have chosen it had circumstances been otherwise, but I am incredibly grateful that it chose me...

Dealing with Organic Waste

2006-12-26T12:27:00.000+11:00

We are in the process of setting up a complete organic waste treatment system. When it's all up and running, if we use it systematically there should be absolutely no organic waste leaving our house for the landfill. Here's a brief rundown on the components.

1. Rabbits.

The rabbits are fussiest eaters, so come first in the system. They can eat most green leafy vegetables, with the exception of green lettuce, so they get the stems and tough old leaves from spinach, Asian vegetables, and green herbs like parsley and basil. They also get broccoli and cauliflower stems, as well as carrots and carrot tops, Brussels sprouts, cabbage etc. They can have some fruit, like grapes, apples and oranges. (They also get fed rabbit pellets and lucerne mix).

2. Rats.

They don't need to eat very much, but our two rats get the pick of table scraps after dinner. They also like small amounts of leftover cereal, bread, hummus, etc, left over from the toddler's mini-meals. Feeding them raw vegetables is a bit pick and miss so I don't bother, it's easier than remembering whether they can have raw Brussels sprouts (no, it contains an enzyme which destroys thiamin) or tomato (yes, but they don't like it). They love cooked chicken bones, although they can't finish off very much - but then I got a new stock pot for Christmas, so if I can keep the carcass away from the cat long enough to put it in the fridge, I can make stock instead!

3. Chickens.

They get the rest of the table scraps, as well as some of the vegetable peelings, like pumpkin, and any other edible byproduct from cooking which doesn't go to one of the above. Also stale bread and crackers, pasta, rice, etc. We stringently avoid feeding them chicken meat or eggs (but if a chook was suffering from Mad Chicken Disease, how would one tell?).

4. Worm Farm.

When we get this up and running, this will take all the inedible bits of fruit and vegetable preparation, like potato and sweet potato peelings, mango and banana skins, avocado and watermelon rinds, apple and capsicum cores, etc. They can also process small amounts of paper and cardboard, mostly anything which is too dirty to go into the recycling.

5. Mealworms.

Only an incidental contributor to the system (we are raising them for RSPCA Wildlife, where they will eventually go to feed wild birds), but they can eat a few strips of banana peel, potato peelings, or apple. They also like lettuce or other green leafies. Mostly this is just to give them moisture, since they live on oatmeal and bran.

6. Bokashi Bucket.

My big Christmas present this year :-) The Bokashi Bucket takes just about everything else (except liquids). Bread, tissues, dead flowers, teabags and coffee grounds, cheese, meat and fish (cooked or uncooked), and the orange peel and onion scraps which the worms won't touch.

I've tried having a compost tumbler in the back yard, but we can never be bothered taking scraps out so it simply hasn't worked to cut down on the amount of organic waste going to landfill. Feeding interesting things like chickens or rabbits is much more of an incentive to get outside (plus I can happily delegate the job to my kids *g*). The worm farm is going just outside the back door, and the Bokashi bucket can go right in the kitchen itself, so cuts down on the disincentive of having to trek halfway across the back yard. I am hoping that this system will be pretty much self-sustaining in the long term.

Busy Week

2006-10-13T13:33:00.000+10:00

We've barely stopped all week and we have a full calendar for the weekend as well. Boy...

DH finished his last contract at the end of September, and we had a slightly nervous wait to find out where he was going next. After there being a bit of a job drought for months, suddenly he had three interviews in his last week of work. Interesting timing :-) Fortunately, he was offered a job by the company he really wanted to work for, starting on the 16th. Slightly blah timing, in that the two weeks he had free coincided with the school holidays, so one of the benefits of homeschooling (being able to take holidays when everything is nice and quiet!) was lost, but we have still had a nice time.

After spending the first week at home catching up on all the jobs which needed doing around the house and garden, we went to the coast for three nights and had a bit of a whirlwind vacation. I think we struck a good balance, without trying to cram too much into each day and getting crabby with each other. On the first day, we went on a walk around a mangrove habitat, which had an awesome boardwalk going right over the mudflats. We went at bang on high tide, so the water was lapping over the boardwalk in some places. Ms 9 has been very intrigued by mangroves recently so this was a good fit for her interests (altho she was disappointed that there were no fish or sting rays visible, other than one toadfish, since the description of the walk suggested that you could usually see such creatures at high tide). After Miss 18months fell asleep instantly in the car on our way to do some shopping, we parked just outside the ice creamery and took it in turns to go in and order our ice cream cones, then drove off to the information centre to get some more ideas on Things To Do. As Miss 18months stayed asleep, we decided to go for a scenic drive and stop at a beach when she woke up. This we duly did, although it was a bit of a bust for Miss 18months since she fell over face first in the water, got sand in her nappy, and was generally cold, wet and miserable and had to eventually go back to the car with Mama to nurse and get into dry warm clothes. But Ms 9 got to swim and build sandcastles while DH supervised, so she was pleased. We then went into town to do a quick bit of frivolous shoppage, and get gloriously fresh fish and chips for dinner.

The next day we walked up the road to visit an animal park, where we wandered about the big enclosures, fed some of the animals, and watched demonstrations with koalas, wombats and snakes. Ms 9 got to pat the koalas and wombats, and hold a python. We went on the miniature railway, which Miss 18months wasn't sure about at first, but once we started moving she loved so much that she got very upset when we had to get out at the end! She fell asleep in the pram on the walk back to our cottage, and snoozed on the back patio in the shade while we made our BBQ lunch. She has developed an amusing habit of spurning our carefully cut-up bits of steak and grabbing the nearest large chunk of meat (usually that belonging to Dada) to gnaw on. In the afternoon we backtracked to the beach we visited the day before, since Miss 18months had managed to lose her favourite teddy bear, Purple Ted, and that was the last place we definitely remembered seeing him. No teddy was found, so Dh took the elder daughter to investigate the beach at the end of our street (which unfortunately turned out to be unsuitable for swimming), while I retraced our steps around the previous day's shopping trail with the younger daughter. Thankfully, Purple Ted was recovered, having spent the night in the book shop, and there was much rejoicing.

On our final morning, we packed and were out of the cottage by 10am, then went into town to book tickets for DH and Ms 9 to go on the sightseeing cruise up the river. There was more ice cream, and a little bit of shopping, then we split up. Miss 18months and I went upriver a little bit to a park, where she pootled about until we saw the boat heading up past us. I doubt she understood me talking about how Dada and Big Sister were on the boat, but they at least did see us waving microscopically from the shore. After they had gone past, we got back in the car and drove upriver to the rendezvous point. Miss 18months fell asleep almost instantly in the car, so I had an hour to sit in the shade and read a book, which was a nice break! The weather was perfect for a picnic lunch once DH and Ms 9 disembarked, then we set off for home.

Yesterday we had another school holiday activity at the War Memorial, which we had already decided to go to before our last minute holiday booking (hence our weird timing of Sunday to Wednesday): a free screening of a movie about messenger pigeons in WWII, followed by the release of live homing pigeons. DH and Ms 9 went to the movie, while Miss 18months napped in the car, then DH took the elder daughter away while I took Ms 9 back inside. We had morning tea then managed to be in just the right spot to catch one of the very dramatic multimedia shows, G for George, which is about the bombing of Berlin, and made me cry (as the War Memorial always does make me cry at some point or another).

This morning we dragged ourselves out of the house super-early (8:20am! gasp!) to watch the huge flag on top of Parliament House being hauled down and replaced with a fresh one. Very, very cool to watch the process, with two guys going up the flagpole in a little cable car, then fastening themselves to the platform at the top and wrestling with this enormous length of fabric - given my dreadful vertigo, not a career option I would ever contemplate! Apparently it was just about as windy as is safe for them to be up there, and fortuitously the wind was coming from exactly the right angle so that the flag didn't tangle on the legs as it was lowered, or they couldn't have done it at all. Then we all got to help roll it up - it's absolutely humungous! - and stow it away. After that was finished we went to have breakfast at our favourite cafe, then I spoilt Ms 9 by taking her on a shopping trip for hair doodads and new clothes. She is off now playing with her friend across the road, while the younger daughter naps.

Here endeth the recitation...

So tired...

2006-09-28T15:04:00.000+10:00

The homeschooling group activity went off very well. Ms 9 went off with her group quite happily and Miss 18months and I met up with the rest of the parents for morning tea and a natter. I managed a coffee and a muffin but Miss 18months was distinctly unwilling to stay put for the nattering part, so I spent most of the time following her along the paths. We saw three different water dragons, and lots of ducks, and a rainbow in a sprinkler, as well as following some of the paths which we haven't taken her on before. She had heaps of fun, but eventually got tired and grizzly and in need of a nap.

Ms 9's group came back from following the bush tucker path with the volunteer guides, and she disappeared immediately to explore with her best friend J. Miss 18months was OK with sitting still for a little while so I got to catch up with most of the other mums, but eventually she was just too grumptious, so we went off for a walk in the hope that she would go to sleep in the stroller. She didn't, but after fifteen minutes or so J's family had to leave, so (after visiting the gift shop to buy postcards) we went home too. Miss 18months was asleep in her carseat within three minutes of leaving the gardens *g*

A quiet afternoon is definitely in order, I think. I'm knackered...

Another Day

2006-09-27T15:35:00.000+10:00

Today has been quite productive, although it doesn't look like much written down. Ms 9 did some maths revision - we're going through a workbook written for kids about her age, and just giving her the practise in translating mental arithmetic into standard written forms. She's breezing through it quite happily, which doesn't surprise me. We may buy the next book in this series when she's done with this one, since it's an easy and non-stressful way of keeping up with What She Should KnowTM. After that, she wrote about her rats, then decided to turn the idea into a comic about homeschooling. She spent nearly an hour drawing and carefully writing the dialogue. Her handwriting has improved enormously this year: she is hardly reversing any letters at all, and she is managing to keep her lines straight when she's writing on blank paper, both of which were very hard for her not too long ago. Then she decided to call it quits for the day and hang out in the garden.

Since we've had plants waiting to be transplanted since Sunday, I got on with that while she and Miss 18months pottered around. I planted a bottlebrush along the back fence, which should be small enough not to interfere with the power lines, but big enough to act as a screen when it is fully mature. Since the garden of our back neighbours (a respite care house) is completely bare, it will be nice not to have a direct line of sight into their back windows in a year or two. I also put in some more groundcovers into the side bed, and tomato and petunia seedlings into the big pots beside the deck. I plant out these pots every year, and almost every year forget to water them sooner or later. We shall see... now that Ms 9 has developed a passion for gardening, perhaps she will help me keep them alive! I added to my mental plans for the back garden, adding a hardenbergia to climb over the dead treestump beside the new bottlebrush. They grow very slowly, but eventually it should disguise the stump, and possibly even add to the screening effect of the bottlebrush if I train it onto a trellis on the fence. But it shouldn't get in the way of anyone needing to carry out maintenance work on the power pole. In a previous house I lived in, the owners had planted a fig tree right next to the pole, and one year power company staff cut it right back to bare bones just as I was anticipating a luscious, drool-worthy crop. Waah!

Other than that, I've caught up with the laundry and the washing up (thrilling, I know), and worked on getting our postcard trading up-to-date. Since we got involved in trading in July, Ms 9 has been diligently filing the cards away in a folder in order to work towards her Collectors Badge at Cubs. She was awarded that last week (her first badge!), and has decided to work towards her Collectors Badge Level 2, which involves a further six months of collecting. Suits me, since I definitely enjoy arranging all the trades and sending out the cards. And, of course, getting lots of mail! *g* But I'm currently way too far behind in sending out cards, so I need to get to a newsagents and a post office this week...

Miss 18months, in addition to wreaking havoc and destruction, has enjoyed pottering about the back garden, and getting extremely muddy and wet after I let the hose run into the sandpit for a while. She woke up late, so Ms 9 and I had quite a while to get stuff done without her, but after she had watched Play School and had breakfast, she got very frustrated that we were still insisting on sitting inside on such a nice day! Once she was outside she was much happier. She's been asleep for nearly two hours, so I anticipate receiving the pleasure of her company again quite soon... I'm enjoying the peace and quiet right now, as Ms 9 went off with her grandmother this morning to go swimming and then spend the night out at the farm. We get her back tomorrow, in time to go on a field trip with the homeschooling group. Thursdays are always hectic! There will be a lot of kids along tomorrow, but her two particular friends will both be in the same group she is in for the activity, so she is looking forward to getting to hang out with them some more. It's nice to see her making new friends...

Thou Art An (Expensive) Scrub

2006-09-27T12:21:00.000+10:00

Miss 18months found her elder sister's reading glasses this morning (which is more than we've been able to do for months now). Unfortunately, we didn't discover this until she had twisted both arms into interesting shapes *wince* That's several hundred dollars of optometrical accessorising down the drain...

Head Over Heels

2006-09-26T20:51:00.000+10:00

Miss 18months has just turned her first somersault. Pretty much since she started walking (7months ago), she's loved to turn herself into a little croquet hoop with feet, head and hands on the ground, and balance there waving her tush in the air. I've recently been watching her waver back and forth, and wondering when she was going to give enough of a push with her feet to go right over. She has just done precisely that, then got up, looking very pleased with herself, and attempted to do it back the other way, which would have ended with her lower anatomy inserted into her dolls' house. Luckily she wobbled over onto her side instead, and lay there giggling.

Are we going to have an acrobatic prodigy on our hands? Her sister was 8 before she got the hang of them...

Reason #173 Why I Love Freecycle

2006-07-29T21:55:00.000+10:00

We just picked up a huge, two storey outdoor rabbit hutch, and a large, commercially made chicken run! I originally responded to a posting about the rabbit hutch, and when E went around to look at it, he discovered that the owners also wanted to get rid of the chook house before they moved. Since we've been procrastinating about building a chook run for at least a year, E didn't have to think too hard about offering to take it off their hands too... We need to fix one of the side wire panels and attach chicken wire to the bottom to discourage predators, but other than that it's got the lot - a raised sleeping house with three nest boxes which are accessible from the outside through a hinged side panel, and an enclosed yard with a full-length door for human access to clean, feed, cuddle, etc. It's wonderful! Ms Nine is excited about getting her pet chicken Nimmitabel back from Nannie's farm, as well as some of Nimmitabel's flock mates. Nannie decided to get herself some new pullets and give us the ones who are used to Nimmitabel, so there will be less risk of bullying. We originally got Nimmitabel almost four years ago, and she was fully mature then, so she's a fairly elderly creature and well past her laying days, but she is very placid and kid-friendly.

Since we gave away our old rabbit to someone with a large outdoor run and a suddenly bereaved single bunny a few months ago, we will of course need to adopt new rabbits, too. There are two young females, presumably sisters, available through the local RSPCA shelter and hopefully we can go and adopt them tomorrow, so we will need to intensively clean the cage tomorrow morning, but we will have to wait a few days for the chickens. Probably long enough that I will manage to use up the three dozen free-range eggs which my parents have given us recently, before we can start collecting our own!

Tangentially yours...

2006-05-11T22:07:00.000+10:00

After watching one of her shows, Ms Nearly Nine left the TV on, so Parliamentary Question Time was burbling on in the background. Ms Nearly Nine, in another room doing some beading but within earshot, suddenly piped up and said, "I know what they're talking about, Mama." She then proceeded to give me a potted explanation of Australia's cross-media ownership rules, more or less as follows: "If there is a TV station, a newspaper and a radio station, a person can only own one in an area, because otherwise it would be like having all TV shows about teddy bears [the example at hand], newspapers about teddies and radio about teddies, and nothing else."

Succinct, eh wot?

Anachronism and Cooking

2006-05-09T20:20:00.000+10:00

We've been taking it easy for the last couple of days, and waiting for our colds to blow over. After a very lazy day (spent primarily on the couch) on Saturday, my cold was practically gone by the next day, but Ms Nearly Nine's is hanging on. Probably because the only way to get that girl to spend a quiet day on the couch would be to break both her legs first *g* So circus was a no-go this afternoon, although we did wrap up warmly at lunchtime and wander down the road for half an hour on the playground. Then in the evening, Dh took both girls over to his parents' place while I was getting dinner ready, partly for general granddaughter-appreciation time, but also for Ms Nearly Nine to rendezvous with her Auntie A's cardmaking supplies in preparation for Mother's Day...

DH took the elder daughter to a feast in a neighbouring shire on Saturday night, and, as a result of networking there, it looks like he'll be involved in organising a demonstration feast in a nearby town which doesn't yet have its own group. He has run one or two events in the last year or so, and Ms Nearly Nine has been free to help out as much as she wants. While she's not really all that interested in the minutiae, I guess she already has a better view of what's involved in running one than most people! Miss 1 and I might go along to this proposed feast if we can get accommodation overnight, otherwise DH and Ms Nearly Nine will go by themselves and drive back afterwards. I haven't yet taken Miss 1 to a feast, so I wouldn't want the first one to be at a town an hour's drive away without giving myself the option of retreating to a quiet bedroom when it all gets too much! On Sunday, we kitted out Ms Nearly Nine's best friend in medievalish garb (difficult, in that she's quite a bit bigger and more heavily built than Ms Nearly Nine and none of the actual garb fit her) and took her with us to what was supposed to be an informal garbed event, with the usual fighter practice, dancing, singing and general anachronism. Unfortunately it got rained out, and turned into a bit of a political gabfest in the hall in front of the fire (well, heater), so I took the three girls home after three quarters of an hour or so. Dunno when the next event is scheduled, although I'm in the early stages of organising a demo for the local homeschooling group (if it eventuates). We shall see...

Yesterday was almost entirely devoted to menu planning and shopping (I do my major grocery shop monthly, and write my menu plan accordingly). For some reason I was feeling very uninspired, and had to go through most of my cookbooks before I could find enough recipes which a) appealed to me and b) looked like they could possibly be modified to make them acceptable to Ms Nearly Nine. Menu-planning in our house is interesting, as, while DH and Miss 1 (so far) are happy to eat just about anything, I would prefer to eat vegetarian most of the time, and Ms Nearly Nine is just as enthusiastic a carnivore. The answer, more and more, seems to be offering buffet-style meals a couple of times a week. Tonight we had nachos, with vegetarian and non-vegetarian options; on Sunday night it was pasta with cheese sauce and a selection of vegetables, tuna, pinenuts, etc. It seems to be working out quite well. The rest of the time I try and either find meals we'll all eat, or provide Ms Nearly Nine a substitute (I save our hardcore tofu or other vegan delights for Wednesday nights when Ms Nearly Nine is visiting grandparents *g*) It means I end up eating more meat dishes or doing more cooking than I'd otherwise choose to, but at least we all have something we like, with absolutely no dramas or recriminations about "eating what's on your plate" or other such rubbish!

Another option, of course, is letting Ms Nearly Nine cater at least one night a week. Last night was her night to cook, and since she wanted chicken schnitzels it meant I actually did have to finish my menu plan and shopping list so we could go and buy them. It was a hard slog, but we made it to the supermarket, and even had fun! Ms Nearly Nine helped me find things on the shelves, and happily scooted hither and yon as I worked through my list with the inevitable recollection of something I'd forgotten two aisles back... She was also busy comparing items to see which was best value for money, with various interesting discussions ensuing. As it happened, she had more of an advisory role during the actual meal preparation, as she had her kitchen hand (me) busy chopping up vegetables, and another kitchen hand (DH) actually frying the schnitzels, while she prepared the garlic bread. But (despite the fact that she then decided she didn't like her schnitzel, LOL), she was very pleased with her efforts.

Another Lurgified Update

2006-05-06T12:14:00.000+10:00

So how come I only ever seem to update this blog when we're all cold-ridden? Miss 1 has mostly gotten over hers, although she's still using up about a tree per day in tissues (doesn't help that she's also getting both sets of first molars coming in at the same time - the drool is phenomenal). Now I've been struck down. I'm mostly okay, except for the sinus headache and the feeling that small rodents have been piddling in my ears. DH got up early this morning (well, 8am is early for him) and took over daughter-wrangling, to let me go back to bed. I slept til nearly eleven, whereupon my head merely felt like it had been detached in the night and filled with warm glue, rather than concrete. Ms 8 has it too, although rather more mildly. So we're not too badly off.

The three of them have just finished farnarkling, and headed out to do some shopping. Ms 8 is about to be inducted into Cub Scouts, but before she can she needs a Cub Scout Shirt, so they've gone off to find one. They're also investigating the price of tents, with a view to replacing DH's dome tent (dating from the days when he used to attend Festival without a wife and daughters) before our next SCA camping event. There are various other errands contemplated, I believe, included the quest for lunch. So I shall be here for a while, gently waking up and contemplating what part of the horror of this house I shall turn my attention to when the coffee runs out...

We had a couple of thrifting windfalls this week, including rocking up to one op-shop which was having a booksale with all paperbacks at 10 for $1. Ms 8 was thrilled to discover an entire shelf of R. L. Stine's Goosebumps books, and bought forty of them *g* I was also pleased to discover the first 8 of Anne McCaffrey's Pern series. I'm not a huge fan of McCaffrey, but I haven't read most of these books for fifteen years so I figured I would buy them, read them, and then probably go trade them at the fantasy/SF bookshop for something new. I've been trying to read The Pope's Elephant, the first of two non-fiction books DH bought me this week as a (very belated) birthday present, but haven't been able to get into it due to the onset of cold-symptoms, so something light and fluffy and requiring absolutely no intellectual effort seems like just the right fit.

Ms 8 (or perhaps Ms Nearly Nine would be more fitting these days) decided this week that she wanted to be a Goth, so we've also been looking out for suitably black clothes which actually fit her - not an easy task, actually. Most girls' stuff for her age/size is still too pretty-pretty or grungy for her tastes. However, during our thrifting axpeditions we found a crushed velvet skirt, another skirt patterned with Chinese dragons, and a black top which met her specifications, which is a start. She has now decided she doesn't actually want to be a Goth, which is a slight relief because I had no idea where to start with the whole make-up thang she was asking about. I don't wear any make-up myself and wouldn't have a clue about how to use it, so I'm glad she's decided that she just wants to wear all black clothes instead *g* She's growing up fast...

I've been feeling recently that we've been getting into a bit of a rut when we're at home, so on Thursday night I pulled out the small wooden table-top loom I found a few months ago (at an op-shop - where else!) and my book on weaving. We started out yesterday rethreading the loom, which was quite tricky. Ms Nearly Nine bought a drop spindle and a bag of unspun wool at Festival, and learning how to weave seemed like a logical extension of that interest. If we ever get the darned loom set up, I'm sure it will be! Then she decided she wanted to get the workbooks out, and drew up a Plan for how many pages of each she wanted to do each day. I'm slightly doubtful that her concentration span is up to that much bookwork every day, but we shall see. We did some reading, handwriting and spelling at various times yesterday - Miss 1's assistance is not hugely conducive to lots of seat work either! At least she likes being read to, and Ms Nearly Nine quite likes reading to her - thanks to a year at school and almost a year of school-at-home, she prefers to read without adults around (although she's mostly gotten over that around me since we started unschooling) and Miss 1 is a suitably uncritical and adoring audience.

Other than that...hmmm... Ms Nearly Nine took a break from circus for most of last term, but has been offered her place back this session, and taken up the offer. We're investigating starting back with swimming lessons after a couple of years' break from formal instruction, and I'm also researching karate and basketball. She's started planning her upcoming birthday party - a sleepover, pizza party and movie marathon with her two best friends (did I mention this whole growing up thang?). I finally found (thrifted, of course) a pretty little vintage mirrored dressing table and stool for Ms Nearly Nine, after looking in vain for one for two years. After complaining with the utmost lack of tact imaginable that I am not as good a cook as her grandmother (Ha!), Ms Nearly Nine has been deputed as official Chef every Monday night from now on, which she is highly excited about. She has been cooking breakfast every morning since to hone her stove-top skills *g* I've been baking muffins, tweaking a new recipe and making use of the mini muffin pans my BIL gave me for Christmas, and the heart-shaped silicon muffin tray my MIL gave me just-because. Miss 1 has been trailing muffin crumbs from one end of the house to the other, and Miss Nearly Nine says she must have one of the heart-shaped ones each time because that way' she's eating my love for her. Awww...

No Good At This Blogging Thang...

2006-04-23T15:00:00.000+10:00

I do mean to update, really I do...

Well, actually, for all of March I've been completely obsessed with preparations for Rowany Festival, which happened over the Easter weekend, and I've spent the last week recovering from it. So actually, blogging hasn't really been a priority. Instead, I sewed enough mediaeval garb to kit out a just-walking, just-turned-one year old for the full four days, in all conceivable weather conditions. Since we ran the gamut of hot and sunny days, cold and gloomy days, torrential rain and wind on one night and the first frost of the season on the next, I was very pleased that all of us had enough garb to cope with it. Even if I did have to hand-sew the baby's fur-lined hood at the campsite! Most of Ms 8's garb, which I made for our last Festival (2004 - we didn't go last year due to having a 3 week old baby) still fit her, although she's grown ten centimetres since then, and even with all the generous hem tucks taken out they were still too short. My stuff also still fitted me (and has continued to fit for two or three years and a 20kg fluctuation in my weight - gotta love early period garb *g*), although the lack of nursing slits in any of it was, to put it mildly, a bloddy inconvenience.

Fun was had. Quiet, laid-back, at-home-at-the-tents fun, for the most part - camping with a toddler is exhausting! We had our campsite laid out and tested for baby-proofness ahead of time, and fenced in the gaps between the tents with old cot sides so that at least we could sit down for five minutes without Miss 1 disappearing over the horizon... Of course, she spent the weekend finding new and inventive ways to escape, and we had to find similarly inventive ways to stop her, but the extra trailerload of equipment was definitely worth it for peace of mind. We also had various parents of non-yet-walking babies coming past taking notes for how to do it next time *g*

Ms 8 was in heaven the whole weekend. We were camped with a bunch of other families, and she had kids around to play with day-in, day-out. As well as running around with the other kids, she did various classes in handicrafts and heraldry, participated in archery and boffer-fighting, went on Quest, met the Queen, and spent her savings at the Market Day (very wisely). It seemed like we hardly saw her, except when she'd come back to the tents to collapse and/or refuel... She didn't want to leave, but unfortunately DH and - especially - I had had altogether enough of uncomfortable foam mattresses and noisy neighbours, so we didn't linger. Now, to actually do something about all the ideas for making our campsite more period, which we've been talking about since our previous Festival but hadn't bothered to get around to in the intervening two years...

Catching up

2006-02-25T17:36:00.000+11:00

Miss almost-1 has a mild cold, which appears to be the inevitable consequence of a visit to the indoor ~~disease vector~~ play centre. Still, when I was sitting there the other day watching her play, neck-deep in ~~germs~~ plastic balls, I was thinking about how many childhood infections she *isn't* being exposed to, courtesy of the public education system and Big Sister. Even Ms 8, by this age, was mingling with other little ~~plague carriers~~ kids and their germs at creche.

Our washing machine is highly unwell - probably the pump. We can't get anyone to look at it til next week, so I'll be spending at least part of the weekend lugging buckets of dirty nappies to my ILs' house, the next suburb over. Still, at least I can go to my ILs', where I can drop them off and come back when they've finished, instead of having to hang out in a laundromat for several hours to get them done. It means I can come back and clean the house while I'm waiting (Oh, lucky me).

Ms 8 and her grandmother have gone to the circus. We originally had tickets for last Saturday's show, which was cancelled, but fortunately everyone involved was able to make the new time. My mother and father have finally joined us all in the late 20th century, with their acquisition of mobile phones (something they said they'd never do). Unfortunately, the phones still aren't of any use in contacting them, due to the fact that my father left his at home, and my mother discovered that the instruction manual to hers is the size of a small encyclopedia but contains very little useful information, such as, say, how to turn it off when you are going to a live performance (and no, there isn't a button marked "Off"). In the process of trying to find out, she forgot her PIN and the phone now needs to be reset before she can log back into it. In any case, Ms 8 being away means that I have been tidying up in her space, and have come up with Plans (yet more Plans) for simplifying and streamlining her stuff. The Beloved thinks my idea would work, now to run it past Ms 8 when she gets home.

I have just gotten home myself from picking up a big collection of plant pots, seeds, potting mix, watering cans and other gardening paraphernalia which I scored for Ms 8 on Freecycle. She has really gotten into gardening in the last six months, and has used pretty much everything which I gave her for Christmas. So she was thrilled to get a big pile of new seeds, in particular - her snapdragon seedlings mysteriously disappeared into the chaos on our back deck, but now she has two more packets to plant. Freecycle is such a fantastic resource for unschoolers!

Dragonflies

2006-02-25T10:47:00.000+11:00

Ms 8 has just been rediscovering an important principle of evolution with regard to dragonfly nymphs: survival of the fattest *g* She collected a dozen or so nymphs from the backyard the other day and put them in one of our observation tanks. Since then, they have been steadily disappearing, until this morning there was only one left. Now she's out collecting more victims for this tiny cannibal.

Thanks to the marvels of television (specifically, Life in the Undergrowth, presented by the amazing Sir David Attenborough) she was able to identify the ugly little things almost instantly, plus she knew what they ate. We couldn't remember if dragonflies live for years as nymphs, but thanks to Google we were able to confirm this. Since the one we have is still very small and can't be more than a couple of weeks old, I guess we probably won't be able to keep it long enough to watch its metamorphosis. But, since Ms 8 "farms" mosquito larvae for her fish, we can try to keep it alive for a while, at any rate. I was interested to read that dragonfly nymphs are also one of the predators of cane toads (in their tadpole state, of course). What useful creatures!

We've been seeing a lot of dragonflies about recently, and imagining what it would be like to co-exist with the huge prehistoric ones with wings which were each as long as a ruler...

Gotta Getta Betta!

2006-02-15T20:24:00.000+11:00

Ms 8 finally has her betta (Siamese Fighting Fish), after a few days' delay. We went to the pet shop last week, but the woman we spoke to advised us that we hadn't had our aquarium prepared for long enough, and it really needed to sit for longer before it would be healthy for the fish. So Ms 8 twiddled her thumbs impatiently for an extra five days, which incidentally also gave her the opportunity to save more money and give herself the option of choosing between the expensive Crowns and Deltas and the less expensive, "no-frills" (pardon the pun) kind. In the end, she fell in love with the colours of one of the less-expensive ones, so she had more money to put towards buying dog toys for the dog's "birthday" next weekend.

In the process, we've had an interesting discussion about percentages. We have a VIP customer keyring token which give us 10% off all our purchases at our favourite pet shop, and during our visit last week, they gave us another one. Since then we've spent a long time exploring how percentages work. As ever, Ms 8 is very creative when it comes to finding ways to maximise her money...but alas, this time her schemes came to naught. For example, even if we use both our tags on the one purchase, we don't end up getting 20% off, and if we split the purchase between the two of us and each use one tag, we don't get any more off either *g* But we've also worked out what 10% of various amounts is, and I've explained the process of moving the decimal place. We sat down and calculated how much she could actually buy for the money she had if we factored in the discount beforehand. She was quite pleased to discover that it added up to a whole smoked pig's ear for the dog *g*

Having her own money to spend and plan for has been the major way Ms 8 has learnt about addition and subtraction, and she's beginning to explore multiplication and division as well. Now I can add percentages to the list of skills which she is acquiring through having a real, day-to-day reason to put them to use. Instead of using paper maths to arrive at a real, ingrained understanding of mathematical concepts (if she ever did - I didn't really get to that point in my own school career), she is acquiring the concepts first, and whenever she needs to, she will easily acquire the skills to translate that into writing.

A Meme of One's Own

2006-02-10T15:06:00.000+11:00

Never really having done the public blog thang, I've never been tagged before. But now I have, by Miranda. So here are my answers:

The Four Things Meme

Four Jobs You Have Held

1. I did an Office Traineeship when I left school and didn't know what to do with myself (I failed filing and telephone skills. Woe.)

2. Lots of dull administration positions while I decided that what I wanted to do with myself was go to Uni.

3. Tutoring for my Honours supervisor in an undergrad course he was offering which was in my area of interest - this is actually very unusual in Australia (he's a transplanted American - maybe it's more usual there?) and he got a bit of flak for getting a lowly undergrad to tutor other lowly undergrads. I quit Honours halfway through, but the tutoring was fun.

4. Unschooling mother, when I decided that really uni wasn't what I wanted to do with my life after all...

Four Movies You Could Watch Over and Over

1. Pirates of the Caribbean

2. The Lord of the Rings trilogy

3. The Princess Bride

4. Monsters Inc.

Four Places You Have Been on Vacation

1. Adelaide (South Australia)

2. Wilson's Promontory, Victoria

3. United Kingdom (to visit relatives)

4. South Island, New Zealand.

Four Websites You Visit Daily

1. Always Unschooled and Shine with Unschooling e-lists.

2. The Sydney Morning Herald.

3. The Cellar's Image of the Day.

4. Blogs, blogs and more blogs.

Four of Your Favorite Foods

1. Apples.

2. Cheese (why I could never go back to being a vegan).

3. Chocolate.

4. Tofu (yes, seriously!).

Four Places You Would Rather Be Right Now

1. Dunedin, on the South Island of New Zealand. I fell in love with the city during our holimoon (holiday/honeymoon) in 2004, and would love to live there for a while.

2. Somewhere with maid service...

Other than that, I love this house and this city and can't really see myself anywhere else. I'm not really a rolling stone, I guess.

Four Cars You Have Owned

1. My very first car was a beaten-up two door Toyota Corolla, c. 1974, which my parents acquired for me just after I had Ms 8.

2. A Kermit-the-Frog-coloured Mazda 626, c. 1981, which was given to me by friends of my parents who had bought it very cheaply while they were here on sabbatical and decided it was too much hassle to sell when they went back to Japan. It later became piebald Kermit-and-silver after an accident, where I had to replace a door and front panel with bits from an old Mazda my brother used to own (we keep cars in the family).

3. A slightly newer, automatic, silver Mazda 626, which perhaps technically doesn't count as "owned" because it was on extended loan from more friends of my parents after the above car was stolen.

4. A white Toyota Camry, c. 1994, which we recently sold.

Four Bloggers You Are Tagging

I have to admit, I don't really have anyone to tag. This is a very new blog, and as far as I know nobody reads it. So, nothing to put here...

Edit: Blogger was being flaky when I tried to post this last night. At least this time it worked!

Quote of the Day

2006-02-08T08:35:00.000+11:00

Ms 8 to Miss almost-1: "Ah, you daft halibut!"

*snorfle*

Snowflakes

2006-02-03T23:11:00.000+11:00

Last year, Ms 8 and I read a picture book from the library about "Snowflake" Bentley, a lovely, quirky book about a boy growing up in Vermont in the 1800s who was fascinated by snowflakes and became the first person to figure out how to photograph them. Well, courtesy yet again of the Cellar's Image of the Day, I found my way to the Earth Science Picture of the Day, and in browsing their archives, discovered the Bentley Collection held by the Schwerdtfeger Library. If you like snowflakes, this is a wonderful site. In hunting up the name of the picture book, I also found this site, which has a further digitised collection of Bentley images.

Ah, snow. Did I mention it was 35C here today? Snow has a definite appeal...

My name is Liz and I am an Insomniac

2006-02-02T07:45:00.000+11:00

This was really not the best morning for Miss almost-1 to decide that 5:30 am was a fabulous time to start the day. Still less was it the best morning for me to discover that my coffeemaker had self-destructed overnight. And it was definitely not the best morning for my husband to be heading off for his first day at his new workplace, leaving me in sole charge of two children all day for the first time since the end of October last year.

On the other hand, it was quite a good morning for Miss almost-1 to decorate a nappy as a farewell present for her Daddy, rather than waiting til ten minutes after he'd left to go to work so I had to change her, as was her usual practice last year...

Wednesday

2006-02-01T22:54:00.000+11:00

Ms 8 had another of her periodic fits of wanting to do school-at-home today, which I suspect will pass even faster than last time since she didn't even make it past the first hour before she had found something more interesting to do. This time I found her a blackline master map of Australia (courtesy of a link posted on the Australian unschoolers e-list a while ago which I bookmarked for future reference) and she added the names of the capitals. Then we brainstormed all the sorts of things she was interested in doing more of, while I took careful notes. The main interests she wants to follow up are geology and meteorology, so we hunted around in the bookshelves til we'd found all the resources I've collected on those subjects, and thought of different ways we could explore further. After that, she did a couple of pages in a maths workbook and a couple of pages in an English workbook, read through a short list of sight words, played at buying morning tea from the canteen, and then declared that one of the things you can buy from the canteen is an hour watching TV *chortle* She got me to set the timer for an hour, but before that was over Miss almost-1 had gone down for a nap and I started cutting out the pieces to make some new semi-fitted cloth nappies, so she joined me to make her own creative projects with the scraps. I will be surprised if "school" is resurrected tomorrow, although I'm now ready for her learning rhythms to start shifting into a higher gear. A good time to start planning some new things to do...

Well, at least they're honest...

2006-01-29T19:26:00.000+11:00

Reason #573 in Why Our Children Don't Go To School, an occasional series.

The West Australian government will ban jeans and other denim clothing from all state schools from next year.

State Education Minister Ljiljanna Ravlich says denim is associated with "having a good time" and has no place in primary or secondary schools.

Heaven forbid that anyone should think they are at school to have a good time, of course. The full article here.

Making Connections

2006-01-28T14:38:00.000+11:00

About a week or so, I showed B this photo: of an astonishing recreation, in Lego, of Escher's lithograph Relativity. It led to a discussion of making all kinds of Lego creations, including the Dr Who supervillains, the Daleks. We searched, and found various links (displaying a greater or lesser degree of obsessiveness on the part of their creators *g*). B printed out the instructions for how to make daleks from this site, and found another which looked rather more easily achievable, albeit less convincing, but my personal favourite has got to be this chap's gallery. Plus, when I went back to the original photo and followed some of the other links, I found a link to this site. More people doing scary things with Lego...

Getting away from Lego, the discussion reminded B of the jigsaw puzzle version of the Escher print which we had seen a while ago and failed to follow up. Having finally tracked one down, I think I may have to add this to our birthday wishlist *g* In the course of writing this entry I have also found the official M C Escher website, and been reminded of this fun, interactive site, which we played around with last year but haven't thought of for a while. There's enough to keep us busy for a while!

Butterfly Alphabet

2006-01-24T21:47:00.000+11:00

My Butterfly Alphabet poster arrived today. I first read about this in a newspaper article years ago, thought it was cool, and more or less forgot about it. Then I saw a link to it posted on an unschooling forum late last year, and went to check out the website. I squeaked and bounced about it sufficiently excitedly in my beloved husband's hearing to convince him that it would be an excellent Christmas present. And it was. Now I just have to decide where to hang it...