Grateful for knitting and knitters

The sun is finally out so I can dry the Poppet's cardigans out on the washing line rather than draped around the house. I love the tiny cardigans - what's not to love, everything small seems to tug at the heart strings, but little hand made stuff seems to do so doubly - but they're a pain and a half to wash and dry. 


Every so often I give in and throw one in the dryer and we end up with a very dense teddy-bear top. 


Watching them flapping on the washing line just makes me smile so today I'm grateful for knitting and crochet and people who can knit and crochet. Especially the wonderful women who knit things for craft fairs and church fetes and op-shops.

I love the idea of my Poppet and Sprocket being dressed in clothes that are hand made with love and affection. I love the idea of them joining the long tradition of children dressed in painstakingly crafted garments filled with love.

Unfortunately, I can’t knit. Well, not anything that requires corners to turn or stitches to change. I can make ragged and uneven scarves and holey blankets, but that’s the very outer edge of my craft skills.

As for grandmothers.  Hmmm. 

One is working on improving the heart-breaking health situation in Papua New Guinea and the other is doing a Phd on Malarial bugs in East Timor, when not rallying for various causes.

So.  Attending rock concerts in aid of impoverished and oppressed nations? 

Yes.

Wise, informed and passionate women who work hard to make a real difference in the world?

Yes.

Knitting booties? 

No.

Which is why I give thanks for the women who do knit. Who keep the traditions going. Who stock the church fetes and op-shops with dainty little cardigans and adorable little beanies.  Who crochet tiny shoes.  I give thanks that they sell them for what must surely be less than the price of the material. They truly are labours of love.

I'm grateful for people in the younger generation who have the patience and dexterity and heart to continue these traditions.

I am grateful that because of these kind-hearted and skillful people I have been able to dress my children in warm and cosy, dainty and beautiful clothes, made with love. 

Breastfeeding to Adventure

I've been thinking about breastfeeding a lot over the last few days, firstly because of an article a British Parenting magazine editor wrote about how breastfeeding her child made her feel 'creepy', and then more positively today because I went to a Breastfeeding Association meeting and it was so lovely talking to other mums.

Reading the article where the writer wrote it felt 'creepy' seeing her breast in her infant daughter's mouth, I considered how it made me feel to nurse my children.

And I came up with - womanly, lucky, bountiful and well, free. 

I've been incredibly lucky in that breastfeeding has been very easy for me. Both my babies were very clued in as to what to do. (Which is lucky, because I basically just showed them the breast and expected them to get on with it.)
I'd seen my Mum nurse my brothers, I'd seen my aunt nurse my cousins. I just assumed I'd nurse my babies and there wouldn't be a problem and, luckily, that's how it happened. 

I also lucked out in that I had seen my aunt feeding while travelling through Indonesia.
When I was fifteen my family joined my aunt's family in Borneo, where they were living at the time, and we travelled into the heart of Kalimantan and then over to Java and Lombok. And my younger cousin, a toddler at the time, was nursed throughout. With her first baby my aunt was living on Bouganille during the troubles and also travelled through Papua New Guinea. Breastfeeding made travel to remote villages possible and opened up so many more options. 

When my own babies came along I knew that as long as I was breastfeeding (and within reach of medical aid) the world was our oyster - we could safely travel anywhere because we would have, on tap, highly nutritious, hygenic all-in-one food and drink for them.
When the Sprocket was 1 month old we moved to Vanuatu. When the Sprocket was 3 months old my husband's work meant he needed to travel to a remote island two small plane trips away. The Sprocket and I went too.
 The island we were staying on didn't have electricity or running water and the toilets were fifty feet away from our huts. If I'd had to worry about sterilising bottles and clean water, we couldn't have gone. Maybe an ultra-organised person could have.

That person isn't me. 

It was an amazing experience and I am so glad we had it. 
Later a friend came over to visit us in Port Vila and wanted to see one of the smaller islands so I arranged a village stay.
Again, not knowing what to expect, it was easy to just throw some nappies and changes of clothes in a bag and head off. Waiting at the bus stop for 5 hours for the ute to turn up? Not a problem, the Sprocket has clean, safe, food at hand. No electricity and no running water? Not a problem. Clean, safe all-in-one drink and food at hand.

Breastfeeding, to me, opened up so many more possibilities. It's meant adventure, travel and amazing experiences.  Freedom. 

                 Nursing, Torres Islands, Vanuatu

          

                 Airport, Torres Islands

               

In praise of Padded Cells

You know those days when you know from the first second that opening your eyes is going to be a bad idea and as for getting out of bed? 


Forget it. 


Today was one of those days. The house looked like it had been torn apart by wild monkeys due to a slight glitch in our going-to-bed routine the night before and my Beloved and I were snarky even before the sun rose. 


By the time the playroom had been deconstructed (courtesy of the Sprocket) and the firewood and half a cup of milk transferred to the kitchen floor, (also courtesy of the Sprocket) and the Sprocket had decided to run and hide behind the back shed just when I had the Poppet in the car and the bags packed, making us late (well, later) for gymboroo, I was thinking fondly of padded cells. 


Either for me or for the Sprocket, I didn't care which. 


And then I remembered. 


There are actually legal padded cells for toddlers. 


And their fraught parents. 


They're called 'Indoor Play Centres'. They cost an arm and a leg by the time you add snacks and drinks and they don't let you bring your own, but they have bouncing castles and pits full of balls and slides and climbing frames and mini cars and dress-ups and kid-proof gates. 


They sell hot, caffeinated beverages. 


Everything is padded. 


They are the best. 


The Sprocket dressed up as a dinosaur and bounced in the big blow up castle. He followed the big kids around slavishly. He wriggled and giggled in the pit of balls. He climbed right to the top of the climbing complex and grinned and waved down at me. I didn't have to use my 'I am very disappointed in your behaviour at the moment',  speech.  I remembered why I completely adore him. 


We stayed there all afternoon and now the Poppet and Sprocket are soundly asleep and all I can say is thank-you padded cells, I love you. 

Ebooks are my Friend

Techno stuff is an odd thing to get nostalgic about.

But I bet I will. 

Like most of the rest of us, I love all the techno gadgets we have today. How did people live without washing machines, mobile phones, the internet... gulp. The thought is inconceivable! 

My latest love has been ebooks. I have been purloining my husbands ipad to access his ebooks and kindle applications. 

This allows me to wallow in nostalgia as I re-visit the best loved books of my childhood. So far I have downloaded all of the 'Anne' books by L.M Montgomery and a book for my mum (Harding's Luck be E. Nesbitt) that she had been unable to find hardcopy.
I  have also spent a very happy evening curled up with the glow of the ipad re-reading Little Lord Fauntleroy.
Because these books are out of copyright - they have all been free - which is a not inconsiderable bonus.
I've also brought several recent books I've been hanging out for. Malcolm Gladwells 'Outliers' was simply brilliant - the autobiography of the Yellow Wiggles guy... dissapointing. 

The ease and convenience of ordering both- unsurpassed. A little click and voila - there in bed with you or in your living room, is the desired item. 

The temptation factor... hmmm. Let's not go there.  

I have my eye on a 700 page biography of L. M. Montgomery (author of Anne of Green Gables among other works) which I know will delight, inspire and probably depress me. 
I know I am late on the scene of ebooks - but I am in love. 
Already I am salivating at diving into all the old classics. About handing over a techno-book of some description to my kids stocked with The Wind in the Willows and Homers Odyssey and ten thousand other classics from the dawn of writing until... hey, 70 odd years ago, give or take! I might finally get around to reading Lord Chestertons Letters to his Son.
These books do not need storage space. (ie. no bookshelves for the Sprocket to use as a ladder and the Poppet to carefully void of books) 
They will not incur library fines when they are 'posted' behind the fridge and lost. They cannot be torn or drawn upon. They will not form tottering, unsteady piles along the walls of my postage-stamp sized home.

I will depart. 

I have washing to battle with and... ahem... books to download...

Five Years...

Not so many days ago my beloved and I celebrated our five year anniversary. 

Not our wedding anniversary but the time when we were swimming at Ten Dola beach in the Solomon Islands at some pre-dawn hour and I announced that since I'd already told everyone that we were going to start going out, we'd better make it official.

My more subtle attempts to inform my Beloved that I had changed my mind about his earlier declaration of affection (I believe my words then were cut, edit, paste, rewind, or something similar) had failed.

We had glow sticks, an appreciative audience on the beach among the palms (the kustom owners who took the money for letting us use their beach) and balmy water. 

It seems like so long ago, and it seems like yesterday. Sigh.