Surely I've earnt my "Girl Guide" badge in THIS by now?!?

Sometimes people think I must be adept at moving...

Having moved over 30 times in 11 years, you'd think so, hey? That I'm masterly at packing boxes, a dab handy with a roll of packing tape, expert at the relocation vocation...

Nope. I'm shit at it. And furthermore, I hate it... I hate moving. With a raging passion. Were I insanely rich, help would be hired and I'd simply show up and live in the new house.

One thing I am expert at? Being highly productive and intensely involved... in doing OTHER things that aren't packing-related! Like conjuring up amazing playlists on Youtube... or baking scrumptious cakes... or immersing myself in keeping up-to-date with current events and the breaking news (for those of you who don't know, I never read the news!!!)

The thing I think that makes me loathe packing/moving so much is the fact I am a great sentimentalist when it comes to possessions. I still have ticket stubs from Chelsea matches I attended in the UK 4 years ago... I have every piece of paper that Tyler has ever laid a pencil or texta on.... I have quirky little "memory hooks" of items everywhere that remind me of my gorgeous, free-spirited past. But when you add all of this nostalgia together - it makes for a whoooooole heap of crap, that serves no real "purpose" and in turn becomes a plethora of clutter. I bought a book called "The Clutter Diet" once - by which you follow steps to remove the clutter for your life. It's probably a very effective book... if only I were able to find it!!!

So with Mongolian Warrior-like strength today, I am culling the SHIT outta the place. I even hired a mini-skip... So far this morning, I've welled up twice whilst shredding and tossing away items of my past. It's kinda painful! There's a residual energy around everything I'm culling, like a little portacullis that can transport me back to a particular emotive state and set me off into a whimsy of what lovely things there once were in my life...

But the productivity of letting myself get whisked away with the ghosts of my past is little to nil. Nobody ever got ahead by sitting on their behind... To of course, again, quote my "dear friend" Eckhart Tolle: "“Sometimes letting things go is an act of far greater power than defending or hanging on.” So whilst I feel saddened or overwhelmed or lost in these "treasures" right now, I know I'm making way for a clean tomorrow... The "slate" I have presently is battered and covered in tatters of paper-fine memories like an old, well-loved suitcase. But sometimes it's good to throw out the old baggage, and go invest in a pristine, new set of luggage - after all, everything new you'll put in the new casing is less likely to fall out and get strewn along behind you if it's held safely in a nice, new place... How exciting to think that by shedding the "old", I am creating a beautiful new space for the "new" to arrive :)

As always - peace out :)

PS. Whilst this blog is good for my soul, you may also chastise me for the fact that it, itself, is also a form of procrastination from getting the packing done :P

Finding Our "Happy Place"

The last couple of years, for both me and the children, has been pretty intense and busy... For the children, being born was pretty momentous for them! Coming into the world and joining the hustle and bustle of the world, then growing, learning, developing, bonding with people, moving, eating, walking... And to add to all this, my own "business" - the breaking down of relationships, the arrival of a second baby, moving house, moving towns, starting new hobbies, taking on work here and there, budgeting, saving, managing money, managing housework, managing the babies who were busy trying to manage themselves... Our lives have been a bit of a hullabaloo!

Now finally I am yearning for some ultimate serenity... Some peaceful grounding which we can simply relax and enjoy our calm and simple lives. The babies of course will continue to grow and change, yet I am at a point where I want to provide them with some true consistency.

Part of this realisation, and the process that attaining this involves, means it is time to tie up lose ends and prepare to become settled. We need to find a house we love to live in. I need to be happy with what I'm doing in my work/studies. The children have developed an amazing routine and ultimately, I'd like it to continue the way it's been thus far, as really - they are superbly clock-work and things run very smoothly parenting-wise as a result.

A pattern that has emerged in my life pre-children is not exercising enough of a degree of discernment. I've hastily accepted houses on the basis that they would "do for now" only to be disgruntled not too long after moving into them. I've fleetingly entered into relationships which in turn haven't turned out to be the right ones. I've dabbled in various vocations job and study wise yet still haven't established a profession or career, and I have fair-weathered hobbies which are fun whilst I'm enthusiastic, yet get cast by the wayside when something new and equally fun takes its place.

It's taken a shift in my thinking to make the realisation that, essentially, all I have done for the last decade is really repeat the same patterns just in a different fashion. It's like putting on an identical jumper every morning, just in a different colour, yet we don't concentrate on the fact it's the same jumper - we concentrate on the fact that we're wearing a different colour that day and forget that infact, it's the same outfit, just in a different tone!

In order to be able to truly break this carousel I set myself on time and time again (in many aspects of my life), with the motivation for doing so being the wellbeing of my children, I feel a need to make a physical pledge or put it in writing. Hence why I'm blogging about it. Writing about it makes it a lot more "real" for me, and the more real it feels, the more likely I am to embrace it - I will feel like I need to be accountable to the pledge I have made, and encourage myself to act with discernment - be sure that what I seek and what I choose is what I truly desire, for me and my babies...

I think this can be summarised in a point made by Lama Shenpen Hookham, who states:

"True discernment is essential to the nature of our being. When we are trapped in thinking we turn that discernment into thinking and trap ourselves in confusion. But if we simply put into words what we discern in the heart, they point us to the ungraspable essence of our experience - a light and joyful process..."

I therefore now look forward to what I believe will be a light and joyful process myself... I am excited about finding a home we shall love and enjoy, interacting with the people we choose to have near us; myself I am eager to get back on track with Uni. at the return of next semester, and am thrilled to have had some more work fatefully come my way. I think this growth is going to be great for us - all of us... Now that the mind is decided, it's time to turn thoughts into actions. I anticipate quite a busy time ahead of us, but at the end of the day:

"All the hard work must be worth it if you get exactly what you long for, in the end..." (my good self)

As always - peace out :) xx

The Birthday Story (for Tyler - who turns 2 this weekend!!!)

Once upon a time there were two little children named Tyler and Maya. They were bright and happy children who lived amongst the angels in heaven. They were very happy there. They admired the beautiful colors in heaven and enjoyed listening to the beautiful music there, and that was where they belonged...

But one day the clouds parted in heaven and both Tyler and Maya caught a glimpse of the beautiful green earth below with all the people happily playing and working and they suddenly longed ever so much to go there and see what it was like. They saw all the rainbow colors of the earth. They saw butterflies visiting flowers and birds flying in the air, trees swaying in the breeze and leaves falling to the ground. They seemed to be beckoning the children. They saw fish swimming in the sea and all the different plants that covered the earth. They saw other children climbing trees, running, playing, skipping about and jumping in the meadows and walking through sand and leaves. It was all so beautiful!

Tyler said to his guardian angel: "Please, may I go down to earth?" But his angel looked at him and said: "No Tyler, it is too soon. You and Maya must wait a little while yet." So the children remained in heaven and were happy, and soon forgot all about the earth.

Then one day again Tyler alone saw a glimpse of the earth through the clouds again. He saw people working and enjoying their lives, and mothers and fathers, grandparents, uncles and aunts with the children of Earth. He saw beaches and forests, mountains and islands, and on one of these islands he saw a beautiful mother with love and longing in her heart for a child, and he asked his angel: "Please. May I go to her?"

The angel said: "You must go through the land of dreams, first."

The next night the little child had a dream. In it he dreamed that he went to the mother and she held out her arms and said: "Please come and be my child. I will love you with all my heart and keep you from harm down here on Earth."

The little boy went to the angel and told him the dream. The angel said: "Tyler, It is now time for you to go. Maya will stay here, but she will join you in a while. The mother you have found you will give you and Maya all the love and guidance you will need in your life on Earth."

Tyler said he understood that Maya would have to wait in heaven until later. He hugged her and assured her he would see her again, and then he said to the angel: "I am ready. May I go now?"

That night Tyler went to sleep into dreamland and while ten moons waxed and waned he rocked in a little boat upon the sea. At the end of ten moons' time. a beautiful rainbow bridge stretched from the heaven to earth and upon reaching it Tyler took the form of a tiny baby.

From this bridge he slid from heaven to earth into his mother's arms.

She looked in awe at this new life and said "I shall call him Tyler... For that is the perfect name for him". And with that, Tyler received his first earthly gift - his name...

In Tyler's first moments on earth, he growled like a little old-fashioned teddy bear. His face was screwed up and he peacefully lay in his new mother's arms, and nothing had prepared her for the love she would feel when he first opened his eyes to look into hers.

In his first year, Tyler grew and grew. He was small but thrived. At 4 months he rolled over, at 6 months he crawled, at 7 months he got his first two teeth, and by 8 months he was walking along whilst holding onto the furniture. His first words were "Jack-Jack" - the name of his favourite toy bunny and he soon learnt even more new words such as "Mama" and "Flower" and "Star" and "Moon".

He started trying new foods and drinks, loved other children, and played with lots of toys. He loved being outdoors - touching plants, listening to the birds and the rain and discovering "nature".

Then before him and his mother knew it, he had turned 1 year old.

In the next year, Tyler grew more and more! He was soon walking so well that before long, he was running! He learnt so many new words and became interested in new things. He had developed a strong affinity with nature in his time so far on earth and admired the trees, the leaves, the flowers and the creatures he found on earth. It was in this year that he called out to Maya and insisted that she come and join him from heaven!

And so Tyler became a big brother in this year. He loved his little sister and showed her such delicate affection, she loved him back too and was glad that Tyler had called out to her to come to earth with him.

It was not too long after Maya arrived from heaven that Tyler turned 2!

And so, today, 2 candles will be lit to celebrate the day that Tyler came to meet his mummy and bring her all the love and joy she needed, and so she would have a beautiful little boy to love in return...

(This is my son's "Rainbow Bridge Birthday Story" - it is based on a Waldorf philosophy of telling the children a story about themselves, and their creation, in honour of their birthday. Each year an additional paragraph about the child is added to follow the previous years, and a candle is lit at the end of each year's paragraph - year by year, a candle at a time... A simplified version can be found in "Beyond the Rainbow Bridge", a book by Barbara J. Patterson and Pamela Bradley. The story found in this book can be adapted to create an individual story to tell specifically to your children about themselves with personal detail. This is my first "go" at a "Rainbow Bridge Story". Please don't copy or redistribute this one for yourself - if you wish to create one a basic outline of one can be found at http://herbnites.tripod.com/waldorfinspiredschool/id12.html )

The Occupational Hazards of Single Motherhood

Despite society coming a long way with views towards sole-parenting, being a single mum is still not without its social stigmas and different negative preconceived notions. There are certain assumptions made about single mothers which need to be torn to shreds. Like with most stereotypes - yes, of course there are some instances where some of the assumptions can be applied or ring true. But just because of a small few, why should everyone be tarred with the same brush?

Through my experiences as a single mother (albeit short, I've only been a mother for just shy of 2 years) here are some of the assumptions I have found being made about my circumstances:

• Single Mother's Are "Easy" - they must be up for it with anyone, right? First and foremost is the "easy" label sometimes universally applied to single mothers. And noone interested in potentially sleeping with you really has the time or the want to listen to your long spiel about what actually led to you becoming a single mother in the first place anyway. Because they're too busy checking out your arse or your tits or asking you when a baby sitter can be arranged. Not cool. Not all single mum's are "easy". Not all single mums were promiscuous, nor their children unplanned or unwanted, and definitely not all single mums are lacking in their discernment for whom they would and wouldn't choose to bed.

• Single mother's are lazy - they just sit about the house all day whilst I as a taxpayer fund them to do so! Again, this is another assumption by which YES there are some cases where this is accurate, however not every single mum out there is like this - and I think I'd be right in saying for the most part, the "pension bludger" mother is actually the minority. Having children does impact the amount of time and effort that can be put into other pursuits - that's a given. But there are plenty of single mum's out there whose work ethic is still strong. In some cases, stronger than double-income mothers. Because as a single mum, you are the only person accountable for the well-being and comfort of your children, your actions dictate their lifestyle and thus many single women feel more inclined to work harder for the sake of supporting their children to give them a "good life".

• She's made her bed, so I suppose now she has to lie in it. If she didn't want to be a single mum, well, she could have just stayed with the father! There are a million reasons for becoming a single mother. Not always are single mothers made by choice. For example, if you were presented with two different types of single mother - the one made because she left her partner, versus the one made because she was widowed, people would find it more easy to readily accept and empathise with the widow. Yet without being understanding of a single mother's background or knowing the story behind her circumstances, you don't know if a single mother was fleeing a violent or abusive situation when she left her partner. Or if he was unfaithful in the relationship. Or uncaring towards the children. Or acting outwith the law. Also a great deal of single women, when choosing to have their children (planned or unplanned) if in a relationship at the time do not forsee with some divine gift of prophecy that their relationship will come to an end and they'll end up being a single mother. A great proportion of single mothers go into parenthood believing that they'll be doing it as a couple. It's not always a choice to become a single mother, and it's not always their fault.

• She must have been hell to live with - no wonder the poor bloke left her! This ties in with the previous statement also. There's an assumption that if you're a single mother, it's because there's something wrong with you. You've failed as being part of a relationship and must be so pathetic at maintaining one that the one you were in stuffed up. A single woman without child, however, doesn't so often receive this label. Yet when you've got kids and are single - wow, you must be a difficult woman.

• She probably can't even look after her kids properly. This one gets my goat the most. There's a stigma that implies that single mothers (in addition to all the other aspects mentioned already) are bad mothers. That they don't parent as well, they have no control of their children, and that they don't do as good a job as a complete family unit would. So not true in many circumstances. If anything, single mothers could be considered to be more selfless in their parenting because to a single mother there is no competition for their affection or attention or time and energy - their children are their everything in most circumstances, and as a result they more often than not devote a great deal of themselves to being a highly dedicated mother and wonderful parent.

Again there are always exceptions to the rule which stick out like dog's bollocks, however too great an emphasis is placed on the minority and there is too small an understanding of the majority when it comes to single mothers out there. The old saying "Don't judge a book by it's cover" rings so true. Every single mother has it's own story. And should you hear out this story, don't misconstrue it for complaint, justification, excuse-making or whining. If you hear a single mother's story, consider it a privilege to be given a greater understanding, insight and the fact that in order for her to be telling it to you means she trusts that you will not judge her for it. Considering recent statistics indicate that 70 percent of adults believe it is "bad" to be a single mother, it only makes me wonder how on earth we can come so far in society with our stance towards other contentious issues - such as inter-racial marriage, gay parenting and the like, yet still be so negative towards single motherhood.

Furthermore, when a male is a sole-parent it's considered such a "good thing" that he's doing - he's praised for being a dedicated dad and it's considered such a selfless thing on his behalf to be doing that for his children's best interest. He's not labelled a lazy slut who was a nightmare to be in a relationship with and deserves all that he's been given, after all, he chose to be that way.

Perhaps the next time the people who look at a single mother and begin to make these assumptions need to imagine whether they would come to the same conclusions were she a man, instead... ;)

As always - just food for thought.... Peace out ;)

"Happy Fa...." Hmmm... "Happy ME Day!"

So today down in Oz it's "Father's Day"... which is a relatively uneventful day whilst the children are still young and oblivious to it being any different a day than any. My children still have no excitement about weekends, let alone marked holidays or events! (Feel free to read the memo on "Weekends are rest days and you can permit your mother a sleep-in on Sundays" at anytime, my darlings!) I found myself staring at the Father's Day greeting cards in the shop this year and thought "there really isn't a very inclusive market out there for those of us doing it on our own (whether by choice or not)"...

To make myself feel special today, we bought a tacky "dad's card" - the stereotypical blokey one, with a fishing rod and golf clubs and a beer stein on the front, and inside I allowed myself to write:

"Some dads fish...

Some dads play golf...

But my 'dad' does everything...

She's my MUM...!"

and signed it "Happy Awesome-Parent's Day - love from Tyler and Maya"...

Of course we also made an effort to treat my own dads (yep, I'm a 'statistic affected child' myself!) and have spent the day at their grandpa's house cooking a barbecue and playing bocce on the lawn in the sunshine. Just having an all-round generally "nice" day...

I'm not bitter about father's day... If anything, I think it's wonderful to acknowledge people in general. Though with today's society being created so much of step-families, blended-families, same-sex oriented parental families, adopted families and the like - perhaps it should just be "parent's day?" That way neither party (single dads on mother's day, or single mother's on father's day... or grandparents/aunts/older siblings who have taken on the parental role in the mother/father's absence on either of the occasions) would feel bad. Even the non-parents out there would feel good because even if they don't have kids themselves, they're still someone's child and therefore could surely see some sense in occasion of "Parent's Day"!

I find it interesting from an etymological perspective, too, to note that the origins of the word "dad" or "dada" indicates the word was most likely actually relating to mothers! In Hebrew it was represented by the word "dod" which was the provider of food from breasts (ie. a mother. You know. The one with the BREASTS!) In one faction within Italy, the word "dada" still means "mother" to this day...

Furthermore the fact babies tend to say "dada" as their first words has no correlation to any admiration of their paternal figures whatsoever. Studies have revealled babies brains are wired to have increased frontal and temporal lobe activity recorded when adjacent repetitive sounds are played - but whether they are "mama and dada" or "baba and gaga" make no difference whatsoever. The activity in the brain is simply more responsive to adjacent repetitive words of any kind as opposed to non-adjacent words (like bo-ma or pa-co). So it is no preference of the baby to adhere to terms like "dada" and "papa" than it is "mama" and they are unable to process any link between paternity and "labelling" at such an age where first language is developed, and more than likely through overhearing occurrences of repetition in our own daily vocabulary and come out with these phrases on their own (plus the fact such words are sometimes reinforced through the "teaching" we provide as parents are encouraged to continue to vocalise these sounds). The likelihood of "dada" and "dad" being applied to the paternal figure of the household is probably prehistoric (as, afterall, being the "head of the family" probably meant our little cavemen were of course assuming the baby would be expressing "words" to him above all others!) despite the fact it's "meaning" was nothing more than noise...!

Taking the origins of the word into account, I therefore feel that anyone who is a parent can choose to call themselves a "Dad" today - and relish in the fact that they are providing for and nurturing their children, regardless of the kind of "junk" they have in their trunk..! I wish everyone out there a Happy Dad's Day. And if you know a great parent/grandparent/aunt/uncle/older sibling/foster parent or ANYONE who is doing a great job of raising a child or children, you wish them a great day too :)

Peace out ;)