First day of summer. Time for a refresh!
Never wear contact lenses on a day where you cook with chilli. No matter how many times you wash your hands between cutting up the chilli and removing your contact lenses, it will Never. Be. Enough!
Poor chilli-fied eyes.
… is not as much as the value of my sanity!
This wasn’t the post I intended for tonight. Tonight’s post was going to be about the organisational things that have gone on this weekend, inspired by my job! However, when I looked at my photos, I discovered the documentation of Monday, so that is what I’m posting tonight. It’ll make the organisation post all the sweeter!
So, I’m trying out a new recipe each week. Generally something easy, requiring minimal preparation and concentration. I decided that this week I wanted to make spinach spelt muffins for Master Z. The two things that I was determined to do on Monday was make the muffins, and have dinner all ready to cook for when R arrived home. That’s it. A simple goal. Just two things to do, in the, oh, 10 hours that Master Z and I had together in between R leaving for work and returning home. Oh, and do some study. I need to learn so much more about the Tupperware!
Master Z was on board with my idea….
He kept himself entertained very well…
As I tried to make the muffin mix and chop veggies, in between breakfast, lunch and snacks, the kitchen chaos grew…
At the end of what ended up being a slightly stressful day – the stress rising as I watched the clock tick closer to 5:30 and the mess continue to grow rather than diminish – Master Z did not even take one bite out of the muffin, instead demanding books. I think that I should have just spent the day reading to him instead.
Incidentally, R had the place back to normal in less than an hour. I have a wonder husband!
Like a stone rolling down a hill, some developmental leaps just keep coming faster and faster. This has been a week, maybe a fortnight but certainly no longer than that, of developmental leaps for both Master Z and myself.
Linguistically, Master Z is making the connection of possession and “for”, as in “for somebody”. He understands when we ask “Where’s your ….?” as well as “Where’s Z’s ….” He has also started using “me” to express wanting something for himself, or wanting something done for him. Example: “Me book” – book for me/read me a book”
He can say so many animal sounds, and both Nanny and Grandma have been working diligently with him to teach him new animal sounds. There are many sounds which he has clearly absorbed over the months of us saying them, and singing “Old Macdonald Had a Farm”, but I didn’t realise that he could say them until two weeks ago when driving home from playgroup and I was using “Old Macdonald” as a way to keep him awake. I exhausted the animal sounds that I knew he could say (sheep, cow, cat, kookaburra) and started on the ones which I thought we’d have no luck with it. I couldn’t believe it when he proceeded to respond to my question “What does ….. say?” with the animal sounds for horse, snake, mouse, duck, crocodile and dog. His repertoire has expanded even more to include owl, lion, bear, tiger. He says the cutest “Grrr” for bear! His “woof” is more of a “ff”, but definitely getting there.I’m starting to run out of animal sounds to teach him!
I used to think that parents who would insist on going through the cycle of “showing off” their child’s latest linguistic acquisitions, particularly the acquisition of animal sounds, was a little bit like asking an animal to perform a trick. It seemed a little disrespectful and show-off-y to me. Silly, silly me. I get it now. Master Z is so happy to show us what he has learnt and to express the things that he can express, that he *loves* to be asked the questions, and loves answering them. And we keep doing so because we still can’t quite believe that he really can say all those things. And it’s pretty cute. Still, I try and limit my showing off of him to just two or three animal sounds.
As for me, well, I really feel properly motivated and energetic in the first time in what feels like forever. I have so many photography projects to get stuck into, and blog posts rattling around in my head waiting to get onto the screen, as well as the house extension to keep pushing along and fine-tuning……so I’ve gone and gotten a job! Not a job I ever imagined doing but I’m really excited about it and I can see so much potential for it being something ongoing which will mould around whatever our family life is at the time. Plus, the sexiest plastic-ware will be filling our house.
Yes, that’s right! I am now a Tupperware consultant!!!
It’s perfect. I love organisation, but we’ve never completed the organisation of our pantry or kitchen cupboards. Part of the extension will involve turning our current euro-laundry into a pantry, at which point I intend to set it all up properly. I was happy with the few OXO containers that we have been using, but having been introduced to Tupperware, the contest was over. Liquid-tight, air-tight, different colours (always an important consideration), different sizes and shapes, lids that don’t take up 5cm of space in the container. I can’t wait!
I have already considered the possibility of this sort of job once the children got to school-age so this is just bumping things forward a bit earlier, and with a different company. I really love everything that I’ve seen so far, so even if it doesn’t work out as a career, I will not lose because I will have the Tupperware which I intend to get anyway. Setting my own times means that I can still do what I’m doing, being a stay at home mum, and just book parties in for a couple of evenings a week. It’s a win-win situation to leap into. So leaping I am.
I have also been meditating in the evenings again, which is lovely. I attended a workshop at a friend’s house two weeks ago and at the end we did a small 5 minute meditation, which made me realise that it was possible to meditate for just five minutes at a time, and I could really do that each day. It feels good, like a bit of balance coming back. Given how much my mind is racing right now, I think that it has re-integrated into my life at just the right time. Speaking of which, it is time for me to go and meditate, and pause all thinking until tomorrow.
I have given up Facebook. It hasn’t been as difficult as I expected. It’s a decision that I’ve been toying with for a few months, but I was worried that I would feel isolated without the connection with friends afforded by Facebook. Early on, when night and day were indistinguishable, it provided a way to connect with other mums who were also up, and help me to feel not so alone in the dark. Later, while I was still too tired to follow more than a two sentence conversation, friends’ status updates were the perfect combination of reading and ‘catching up’, such as it was. I’m also part of a mothers’ group on Facebook and have found the group to be an amazing source of encouragement, sympathy, experience and advice. That group has been the one thing keeping me going with Facebook.
Somewhere along the way, however, it stopped being just a tool for connecting with people, hearing snippets of their lives and seeing photos and it became an obsession. I knew it was bad when I’d be stopped at traffic lights and my eyes would glance at my phone, wondering if anyone had posted anything new since I last checked.Especially as I’d probably last checked whilst putting my seatbelt on.
Between Facebook and my Kindle, not to mention Master Z, I’ve felt my attention span shrink and my ability to just sit in the moment without craving entertainment had all but vanished. I’ve heard discussion about the impact of technology on younger generations; that the youth of today flit from topic to another, having never learnt patience, or been required to go for periods of time without entertainment in some form or another, be it an i-device, e-reader, playstation, whatever. So much in the world today encourages immediate gratification and attention in short spurts.
I believe this because I could feel and see it happening in me. I love my kindle. I love having so many books at my fingertips without having to carry around a lot of bulk and weight. A double bonus now that I carry around a backpack full of supplies for Master Z. My kindle gave me back the ability to have a book, or 500, with me at all times. It also gave me the ability to flit from book to book at the touch of a button. I’ve often had two or three books on the go, different books for different moods, but the number of books on the go reached silly proportions this year. At any one time I could say that I was part-way through about five parenting guide books, two parenting experience books and maybe one or two other books. Some of the flitting was justifiable; the parenting guide books often deal with stages of development so I generally read the about the current stage in each book and leave the following chapters to a time closer to the next stage. A lot of what I’ve read this year though I couldn’t tell you about because there’s been quite a bit of ‘in one eye, out the other’ going on. A month or so ago I instigated a rule for myself whereby I had to stick with one reading book and one guide book at any one time and must finish a book before starting a new one. I am getting much more out of the books now and finding reading to be relaxing again.
When I was a child, my mum forbade me from watching T.V. in the mornings. She said that it dulled my mind and sapped my energy. She would head off to work at 6am, leaving me to my own devices in the mornings before school. I would occasionally sneak in some morning T.V viewing, but when she came home at night, she could always tell. I used to wonder how on earth this could be so. But she could, and so I just didn’t watch T.V. in the mornings. Now, I can see what she meant and I can see why it would have been so obvious to her. To this day, I can’t stand watching T.V. in the morning, not because I don’t like it. Oh no, I can get suckered in with the best of them. I don’t like it because I can feel my brain switch off and I spend the day feeling sluggish, unmotivated and just wanting to go back to watching T.V. In the past couple of weeks, I’ve noticed the same thing happening with Facebook. The days that I haven’t checked it first thing in the morning have been much more productive, enjoyable days.
So last week I conducted an experiment. I didn’t tell R what I was going to do, because really, I didn’t want to feel like I’d failed if I gave in and checked it a few times a day. On Monday I just put off checking Facebook. I put it off all day, then the evening. Then the next day and the next. I didn’t say that I was quitting it, and I am keeping my account open so that I can check in every now and then, but I find with each day away, I feel less and less inclined to log in. I actively don’t want to log in, although I do need to make mention to people there that I won’t be around. It was much easier than I expected and so far I am not feeling any more isolated for lack of Facebook contact and conversation. I have been much more motivated and productive, I can think more clearly, I am happier and I am here in the now…sometimes there, in the future, as I plan things.
My online time this past week has been spent working on my blog and I finally have a space that feels All Mine in the online world. I am in love with this layout, and all the options for photo galleries, which I’ve yet to explore. I am so grateful to my wonderful, gorgeous R for helping me over the hump of getting it set up and his ongoing patience with the semi-frequent clashes between myself and technology – he can now head off a confrontation between my laptop and I at Sigh Point, instead of having to wait until I’ve reached Curse Point. Seriously, on-tap IT support – my match in heaven!!! Lucky me to have it here on earth.
