Organising ALL THE THINGS

I have been falling down internet rabbit holes on organising recently. I'm reading about Project Organize me Entire Life, reading reviews of ring bound vs disk bound day planners and gazing at endless filing systems on Pinterest. I spent about three hours in Officeworks last week. This obsession is sucking my time and I recognise it as something with more complex motivation than just wanting a new way to get paperwork in order. As I was wandering around the house looking for the plastic-y stand-up sticky notes that I remember seeing somewhere (If you must know I needed a temporary way to label my folders before I commit to catagories using permanent marker) I had a sudden epiphany - there are things in my life that I can't just organise away, much as I wish I could. As Sanjay and I are splitting up, and I'm currently waiting on paperwork from him, I don't know when I am going to move out of this house, I don't know how much money I will have available to rent or buy an apartment, I don't know where the kids will go to high school, I don't know whether I will pass uni (it's likely - I haven't failed a subject yet!) and graduate at the beginning of next year, I don't know if I will get a new grad nursing position, hell, I don't even know if I'll be able to do a new grad program considering I will have 50% custody of my kids.

There are known knowns. These are things we know that we know. There are known unknowns. That is to say, there are things that we know we don't know. But there are also unknown unknowns. There are things we don't know we don't know.

- Donald Rumsfeld

Writing it down makes it obvious. Organising is channeling the anxiety related to the vast quantity of really major unknowns in my future (including the 'unknown unknowns' - worrying about them came free with my anxiety!). It is also serving to focus me on something I can do, although it distracts me from more useful pursuits (I'm an expert procrastinator but this is ridiculous. I have heaps of uni work!) and it's a weird form of escapism, just like looking at IKEA catalogs where we imagine perfect lives for ourselves filled with light and swept floors.

So now I will try to get some uni work done without being quite as distracted by the various online rabbit holes. I will be a bit kinder to myself, now I know it's not just laziness that is pulling my attention away from what I need to do, acknowledge what the distraction is giving me and make time as I drift off to sleep to imagine a world where paperwork doesn't rule my life.

At least one thing is for sure, I now know I want an A5 sized planner with a whole heap of fancy custom inserts from Etsy.

UPDATE: Tuesday morning

I realised at ten past one this morning that I had just spent 5 hours looking at folders, after countless hours over the weekend. I peeled my eyes away from the computer and went to bed, only to lie there awake and bug-eyed for another hour or so. Either the anxiety is out of control, I have a very special procrastination superpower, it's a weird ADD symptom or I'm having the most boring manic episode in history. Not sure whether to ask for dexies, benzos, mood stabilisers or just give myself a swift smack around the chops for being lazy. I will ask kind Dr S when I see him.

The Homework Conundrum

I've been very me-centric here for a while, so let me just very quickly explain what has been happening with school homework here. The boys, year 1 and 4 (ages 7 and 10) have been complaining more and more about homework. They don't have very much to do but it has become a very big issue in our house, with far more time spent arguing and cajoling than actually working. I've done a little bit of reading (Louise Porter is my go-to on all things child development related. I find her approach makes a kind of visceral sense to me and works for family).

It came to a point where I re-read Louise Porter on homework and decided we had to change something for everyone's sanity. I talked to other parents and realised that I have too much going on in my life to take this up with the department of education or the school, but I could address it individually for my kids with the teachers. I don't like singling my kids out - part of the reason they go to school is to learn to be herd animals - but this was causing significant disharmony, so first I spoke to the kids about what parts of homework they thought were valuable (spelling words and writing - reading doesn't count because it's one of our leisure activities) and talked to them about the idea of 'opting them out' of homework. We agreed it would be a good plan. At this stage they have the option to do any homework they want to do and need to do the big annual projects. They don't get out of spelling tests or any other regular classwork. The other big change is they need to help more around the house. More home work less homework and it is now their responsibility to cook dinner on Monday night. It has started well, and although they require lots of help they are getting the hang of the idea, and that cooking dinner includes planning, shopping and cleaning up, which makes my heart sing.

I spoke to their teachers, who were surprised but supportive and I followed it up with an email. I'm going to include the email here (names etc redacted) in case I can inspire others to have a full and frank discussion about homework in lower primary school and potentially provide a template for them to opt out too, if homework is causing trouble. Significant thanks to my dear friend Tanya for her copy editing genius!

Dear Jxxx and Txxx
Thanks for meeting with me - this is just a follow up to that conversation. Firstly, let me thank you both for working with our kids this year. Axxx and Kxxx have been extremely happy with their classes and they both have great respect for you, their teachers. I feel like you’ve really heard our concerns that at present, homework is detrimental to their learning and causing distress for both boys at home. Both Sxxx and I feel strongly about this, and he’s asked me to make it clear that this email comes from us both.
Accordingly, we’ve discussed homework with the children and the two things they feel are valuable are reading and spelling words. They will also be expected to continue with any tests and work done by the other kids. They will also participate in big projects ('all about me', dioramas etc). As a family, we’ve decided to make any other homework optional and focus on more holistic learning opportunities at home instead. For example, they will need to cook dinner one night per week. My hope is that this can help them with maths (shopping, measuring ingredients), literacy (reading recipes, interpreting recipe information), science (heat/oxidation reactions, physics of liquids etc, biology, ecology), PHPE (nutrition, self-efficacy and fine motor skills improvement).
We want to decrease our family conflict around homework, leave space in all our lives for other pursuits, including letting kids be kids and leaving them outside to play freely as well as relieve you both of one set of homework-marking.
Thanks so much for reading this. I'd very much like this to be the start of a conversation about homework, and I'm more than happy to work with you to ensure there is minimal disruption to your classroom.
Warm regards,

Nursing Prac - the reflection that I couldn't submit to uni

This prac has been a game changer for me.

I've always been a bit 'nursey' - black humour and can talk about gross things at mealtimes. I have endless relatives in nursing and a few of my friends are nurses but over the last three weeks I feel like I've started my induction into a whole new world. It's not just the stuff people talk about - naked bodies and bad smells, although I guess that's part of it. It's not just that I was useful and made a difference to a few people's days, although that was pretty important to me too. It's something else, that I'm finding much harder to put my finger on.

When you become a parent you are generally pretty blindsided. Although people talk about it, you hear the jokes, you know there is going to be sleepless nights and dirty nappies and you hope with gritted teeth that you are going to love the little thing when it arrives. But nothing, no amount of pet-ownership, nannying, teaching, reading or siblings can prepare you for the visceral reality of it. I remember back in the early days talking with my wise mum mates, lamenting the fact that no one prepared us and coming to the conclusion that no one told us because there is no combination of words that can make those feeling make sense. There is simply no way to warn anyone else of the horror and the joy of it all. I suspect it is this, multiplied by many, without the social approval and the vast proportion of the population that go through it, that prevents so many veterans from talking about their experiences in the way. No words can convey the fullness of the reality.

And finally, here I am, being admitted to the only club of which I have always wanted to be a member, without understanding there was a club or what membership entailed. I do look at naked bodies differently now (FYI old bottoms are strikingly similar, everything else is surprisingly unique) but I'm more interested in their skin tone and their abilities than their shape, whether I'm going to be able to manage whatever I'm doing without tearing skin that has become tissue paper fragile with age; whether they are going to be able to lean forward so I can wash their bottom without them standing; and how I can best help these people maintain their dignity in the most undignified of situations. As for the bad smells, I use the advice of my mother, wise old nurse that she is: breathe through your mouth. I am also in favour of surreptitiously chewing minty gum.

But the other part was the amazing part, bodies and dignity I always knew I could manage, but how to manage my own feelings when someone old and in pain gazes into my eyes, not knowing who I am, except that I am in a nurses role, and asks pleadingly 'when am I going to die' (I replied with 'I don't know' - that was over a week ago and she is still alive, but is rarely conscious now. She has no visitors so I never worked out where the garden-fresh roses or gardenias in the little vase near her bed came from). What can I say when people say 'I really don't know why I'm here' and you don't either, except they forgot they had the same conversation with you yesterday. And every day before that. So I concentrated on being my very own tiny-but-strong force for good - taking my time when I moisturize battered old legs to give the gentlest leg massage in the world, using two teaspoons of instant when making coffee for the lady who I know likes it extra strong and reciting any tiny snippets of any old poems that I can dredge up out of my memory (Ogden Nash is a favourite!).

For the record, in the 'reflection' I was required to do for my assessment, I did the written equivalent of mumbling about wound dressings and how I want to improve my aseptic technique. That isn't actually wrong, I do want to improve, but really, that's like asking a veteran about the war and being told that whenever he got new boots he got blisters. Important in it's own way, but missing the point.

Short post: atheism, kids, diwali and my nursing studies

I'm kinda joking with that 'short' part, but considering almost all the big life issues are jammed into the post title, and some of them are somewhat contradictory it will be short. You will be pleased to know I don't have anything to say about politics today.

Have I mentioned before about how I sort of consider myself an atheist Hindu (atheist first, Hindu second)? It came about when the wise Punditji who performed our wedding ceremony telling me, when I mentioned I was an atheist, that the Hindus 'have room' for that but the Christians probably didn't. It's only relevant because I am still trying to work out how to talk about religion with my kids. There is nothing better able to to joyfully force one to consider one's own position on difficult issues than trying to explain where you stand to some bright and inquisitive school kids. In this case I was explaining to Asher why we celebrate Diwali ( AKA Deepavali and other spellings and pronunciations. translating Sanskrit into the various Indian languages and then into words that can be spoken in English is tricky). We bought some lottery tickets to give to Sanjay and his dad as Diwali gifts and a lovely candle for Sanjay's mother.

It also seemed to be a good time to talk about the bigger meanings of the festival, so I reminded him of the two stories I know about Diwali, both familiar to him from 'Amma tell me about Diwali' by B. Mathur. One of the stories sees the goddess coming into the home of a poor woman, working late even on a festival day, and granting her wealth. The other story, the main story, is from the Ramayana and describes people lighting lamps to welcome their banished King and Queen home after fourteen years in exile (er, that was... brief. It's a massive, intense, tragic, brilliant epic!). I was trying to think through appropriate ways to talk about the meaning of these stories as I was talking to Asher and I came to the idea that they are both about shining a light on the path of right - either in terms of personal hard work or using the ancient city of Ayodhya as a metaphor for self and the lights help to lead us to 'right action' - whatever right action looks like to us.

Which brings me, neatly, back to my nursing course. People keep asking me how my course is going; everyone from the crossing supervisor at the kids' school through to my family and my therapist mentions it and for sure sometimes it's just politeness but often people want to really know about the course and how I'm feeling about it, and wondering if I'm going to enjoy clinical nursing. I generally answer with a flippant comment about being busy, stressed or the fact that I've just finished first your again (!) and sometimes I go to say 'I should have done it years ago' but the reality is slightly more difficult to talk about. I feel like whether I enjoy it or not is almost irrelevant. I am fulfilling my dharma. I am on my path. The course is tough, tougher than my first degree and although I don't have the memory I did then I am wiser. I still agonize over my assignments. But whatever stress and drama it causes me, I am where I'm meant to be. I don't think I should have done nursing straight out of school - my dad was very well known in the field and in my 20s I wouldn't have been able to answer the 'but why didn't you study medicine' without shame. I didn't get the marks and also I wanted to distance myself from my family, not follow them into the healthcare field. So now, in my forties, with ten years of tech career, then ten years of mum-ing I am into my next phase - nursing. Maybe for ten years. And because I spent some time thinking about Diwali, and talking to my kids about the idea of a life path and dharma, next time someone asks me how my degree is going I can reply that I am on my path, without feeling awkward or being flippant or dismissive.

Homework

I've had a shitty week. Lots of tears and gritted teeth but a lot better after seeing the compassionate Dr S. He told me I should be writing stuff down more (I think he meant writing good stuff about myself down so I could go back to it in moments of self-loathing) but making notes for myself and diary writing have always had a whiff of make-work about them to me, so I will write here. Also, writing good stuff down about myself makes me nauseous, so I'm going to write other stuff.

Dr S asked me where I thought my crazies came from and I have no doubt that for me there is a genetic and environmental component. I am not a geneticist, psychologist or neurologist. I have not seen inside anyone else's brain and I have not studied theories of the mind. I have a working knowledge of undergrad sciences, a smattering of anatomy and physiology, and I've read some pop-psychology books, including the wonderful 'Brain that Changes Itself' by N. Doidge about brain plasticity. And I know that a cigar is sometimes just a cigar. All that being said I want to explore where my crazy comes from (disclaimers: This is about me, not you. I'm not a doctor. Blah blah blah).

Lets see how far I can stretch my little marble-run analogy. At my conception genes were reconfigured and I got my own set of blueprints, part of this was the plans for an amazing marble run that would become mind. Genetics used the building blocks available, from my mother, to build the marble run. It was so complex that a marble could barely get from top to bottom - too many options, too many connections, inefficient. But genetics had a plan - it knew that after it had built this complex structure, it would start getting used, and as that happened the connections that weren't useful would start getting dismantled, or at least have blockers installed so marbles (thoughts) would take the more efficient way, thus the thing could actually work (so far this is OK, it's just my understanding of basic neuroscience). Unfortunately, in the plan for my mind, my genetics included a bunch of things that are not very helpful. Some were probably included in case they could be helpful and some are probably attached to other things that are helpful in ways that I certainly don't understand. 

For instance worrying is a useful adaptation. It allows us to plan for the future and keep ourselves safe. Anxiety and panic attacks are unhelpfully overdoing worry, and making it difficult to manage normal things, like putting on pants and getting out of the house. I have always thought that anxiety and creativity were also linked - as in, you have to be creative to make up that many scary scenarios in a mundane world - but apparently research backs up my hunch (admittedly, I haven't read the research paper, but that article makes me feel like I have a superpower!).

More unsettling than the anxiety is the depression. Why did the plan include whole sections of the marble run that for some reason colours all marbles blue and slows them right down, takes them in circles and drops the marbles off the edge of the table rather than neatly into the velvet lined box? Why weren't those bits pruned off in the early days? Worse than that, some of those blue sections were somehow encouraged by my early experiences. Some of the splits where a marble can either roll, unimpeded and cheerful, to its destination or head down the blue and tangled depressive path have had the happy option blocked. 

Triggers? For some people, healthy people, who maybe only have one tiny offshoot of 'blue' can weather life's ups and downs. They may get depressed, but there is usually a trigger - major life changes, losses, identity changes, that kind of thing. Once they recover, and they almost always do, their depression is in their past. For me the triggers are often untraceable, some tiny switch that was triggered long ago that means that random marbles will end up in the tangled mire of depression. I have major depressive disorder and my depression is always in my future as well as my past and when it is really bad it is almost impossible to live with (as a friend said to me once, urging me to get some help - you have an illness that is trying to kill you). Sometimes there are triggers for me - lifestyle factors like alcohol (specifically binge drinking), lack of exercise, toxic people, being in situations where I feel my options are curtailed or (more usually) a combination of the above can be problematic. Add normal stressors on top of those things and my thinking can go off the rails.

The next question becomes how to manage things when the marbles are travelling through a blue section, is it possible to avoid the blue sections or can I make the blue sections less blue or even unblock routes so the marbles can exit the rough parts. Sometimes I can avoid triggers (still doing 100 days sober without any problems, still having issues with exercise), often I can use CBT style thinking to interrupt my patterns and divert a marble* sometimes therapy can help divert those marbles. Medication helps massively to keep my brain chemistry in order. Hopefully this combination, including having to mess around to get a good stable medication regime going can help me get back on track and then stay there.

..... and if you made it this far you deserve a punchline - now you know why I smirk whenever I talk about losing my marbles ;-)

Question of the week: is it weird to send your therapist your blog posts?

* Like yesterday when I attempted my clinical skills exam - I did something wrong and need to resit, but managed to halt my catastrophising feelings of 'I swabbed a wound wrong, clearly I'm not cut out for nursing. I can't contribute to society I may as well be dead' and get back to 'drat, I have to re-sit the test on Friday')

Don't Blame Autistic People, or Mental Illness, For Mass Shootings

Don't Blame Autistic People, or Mental Illness, For Mass Shootings - when I was googling trying to find information on some of MY mental health diagnoses I found a surprising amount of bullshit about how people with mental illness are awful, un-compassionate and destructive. Not good stuff to come across when you are having a mental health crisis. Trust me on this, it's pretty horrible having your worst suspicions about yourself confirmed by random strangers on the internet, people with no evidence of having any actual education on mental health issues. This post is from a blog that I have followed on-and-off for over a decade and this post obviously resonated with me.

Not a Joke

Question: What did the penis say to the hairdresser?
Answer: Absolutely nothing.

It's the hair on heads we are talking about here, not genital hair, OK, so the presence or absence of a specific set of genitalia has nothing at all to do with haircuts. Right? Are you with me so far? Not too complex really. Here is another not-joke for you:

Customer: Can I have a haircut please?
Hairdresser: Have you got a penis?

See, I told you. Not funny. But a situation like this happened to my friend today, and I need to rant.

My friend has short hair, exists mostly wearing jeans and tshirts and is often covered, to a greater or lesser extent, in paint. In fact the paint is often the most memorable feature - I asked at a local cafe is they remembered my friend coming in for coffee and it was when I said "covered in paint" that their eyes lit with recognition and they said 'strong latte no sugar!' or some such. Because unsurprisingly the lovely staff at the cafe are more interested in what someone's regular coffee order is than what genitals they have.

Back to hairdresser. My friend is a woman. She doesn't like labels for herself, but the labels other people ascribe to her might include woman, girl, lesbian, queer, genderqueer, gay, gender non-binary, dyke butch, possibly boi and definitely the one she really hates, shorty (I think she is over five foot tall, but not by a whole lot). She occasionally gets mistaken for a young man. She has pretty short hair. Today she walked into a hairdresser that advertised $12 haircuts for men with very little money in her pocket and asked for a boys haircut. The hairdresser gave her a haircut but charged her for a 'ladies' haircut. She didn't have the money, was told to use her credit card, and to add insult to injury was told the business charged a $2 fee for credit card payment.

In whose world is this OK? In whose world is it OK to charge my brother with his handsome, long, curly, difficult hair (and penis) one price but my friend with her handsome, short, straight, neat  hair (and vagina) a higher price? It's not OK in my world!

The anti-discrimination board clearly states that:

Sex discrimination is against the law... ...when you get or try to get most types of goods or services – for example, from shops, banks, lawyers, government departments, the police, public transport, local councils, doctors, hospitals and other medical services, hotels, sporting venues and entertainment venues; 

from the Anti-discrimination Board of NSW sex-discrimination fact sheet 

So this behavior is not OK in NSW law, either.

(Here endeth my rant, but if this, or something like this, has happened to you and you want to make a complaint but need some not-a-lawyer support, let me know and I'll be so happy to help you out)

Mental illness (nope, I don't have mental health at the moment)

I've been thinking a lot about ideas around accepting help, asking for help contrasted with autonomy and self-reliance in the context of mental illness. In my own self-critical way I told myself to shut-up and deal with the fact I need help, that to get it I need to ask for it, I don't need to 'prove' I need it and receiving help is difficult and weird but I'm going to have to get used to it. Thinking about this, and thinking about the process of getting better made me draw some analogies with the equivalent process when recovering from physical illness or injury. I used physical illness and recovery as a metaphor for mental illness with a friend and it seemed to be useful, so I thought I'd flesh out those ideas a bit.

In the acute stage of, say, a sprained ankle you need to take meds (anti-inflammatories, pain meds), rest and elevate the ankle, use ice and compression. You will probably need some help with what healthcare professionals call 'activities of daily living' (ADLs) because you can't and shouldn't use that ankle to hobble around to look after yourself. In the acute stage of mental illness you may need meds (which might be different to your usual meds), you need to rest (sometimes resting your thinking and feeling parts requires meds. A chemical compression bandage, if you will) and sometimes you need help with ADLs. You may be able to walk ok but the part that needs rest is the thinking and feeling part, so making decisions, sometimes even simple everyday decision like which tshirt to wear or what to have on your toast, become totally overwhelming.

In order to help a friend in this situation don't just offer to make them toast, say 'I'd like to make you toast, is Vegemite ok or would you prefer honey?' BUT if they say they don't want toast you MUST respect their autonomy (or make the toast but reassure them you won't be offended if they don't eat it - it's like the great post on consent and cups of tea)

Even when these things are possible they might take a lot longer than normal (so don't expect your depressed friend to turn up anywhere on time, and don't give them a hard time for being late, they have almost certainly already done that for themselves).

At some point the acute stage morphs into the recovery stage. With physical injuries this is the point where, if you have sort help from a medical professional, the physio might have given you a bunch of exercises to do. What questions should you ask the physio? How often should I do the exercises, will it hurt or will there just be some discomfort? When should I start to feel better and get full function back? How long will it take me to heal? What are the SMART goals of treatment? What is the long term prognosis?  These questions can and should be asked of mental health professionals. For sure these questions are more difficult in the field of mental health than physical injuries and ailments but it's really important that if you have a therapist you are on the same page with respect to these things. If you aren't recieving treatment and/or don't have a therapist it's just as important to try to work out where you want to be. A psychologist/psychiatrist/therapist may give you specific exercises - what is cognitive behavioural therapy (CBT) but a series of mental exercises. If you doubt this stuff works, or can work for you (which is pretty normal for depressed people) look up the research. If that is too difficult/personal/scary/etc look up brain plasticity (I liked 'The Brain that Changes Itself' by Norman Doidge) and pense on the fact that brains are incredibly powerful - if you can re-wire your brain after massive trauma then we can probably do some of the re-wiring necessary to be able to live and manage our mental illnesses.

Everybody says it, few people do it but WRITE DOWN* YOUR QUESTIONS. Doing this can be really hard when you are in the black pit of despair or when you are so anxious that you are worried about being able to keep breathing, so cut yourself some slack if you can't manage it. You could also enlist the help of a friend to do this. In fact, I have a few close friends and all of us suffer to a greater or lesser extend from mental illness. When we sense someone might be struggling we will often offer to help them make a list. Along the same lines, take a pen and paper to your appointment and try to write a few things down. Even if you ask the therapist what you should write down, it means when you walk out and suddenly realize you have very little memory of what just went on you will have something written to research or just jog your memory. Memory and cognition can be affected by mental illness, and I'm not just talking fear of impending doom or sense of self here. When I'm sick it takes me longer to process stuff, even simple stuff, and there are lots of things I don't remember so keep the pen and paper handy and don't beat yourself up when things don't go as planned.

Where does this get us? Like other illness and injury, there are steps you can take to get better, but healing often takes longer than you want it to. Even after you get back to a functional state you might find you get tired or overwhelmed more easily. As before, cut yourself some slack and surround yourself with people you feel supported but not smothered by. There IS treatment for mental illness. You can get better, even if you don't think you ever will. I have depression and anxiety and the symptoms have ebbed and flowed since my childhood. Sometimes I'm fine and sometimes I'm most definitely Not Fine. If I had proactive about treatment younger I might be better now at managing my 'twins' - the Black Dog and the Monster - but maybe not. Either way I am much better at calling for help now than ever before, I'm much better at allowing myself to heal, I'm still terrified by relapses and with this current relapse I'm trying to work on what might trigger these major episodes so I can avoid, to some extent, things spiraling out of control.

If you, or someone you love, is suffering with mental illness please work on getting some help  <3 p="">

Group Therapy #1

JUMP.

Oh crap, Here I am. First group therapy session. I spoke briefly to the nice psychologist E yesterday for the first time. She encouraged me to come, and here I am. She promised she wouldn't make me, or anyone, speak if they don't want to so I'm scrawling busily on a piece of paper. Busy. Maybe it's just something to do with my anxious self, I'll have to try it next time I'm at a party, instead of the ever-filling glass of wine. Crap. 
I wonder if the guy next to me can read my writing. I wonder what he thinks. I'm scribbling away before we even start and I hope I'm not making anyone else feel uncomfortable. I would be uncomfortable with someone else writing. It is like having someone in the group texting. Consciously I know everyone here is far more worried about themselves, but still, what is the etiquette?. Since I tend to since I feel like I take over in group settings, I'm going to concentrate on holding back and I'm going to use writing to help me fill the space left by talking, left by amusing people, left by emoting messily all over the place.
Nice psychologist E has asked everyone to introduce themselves. Name only, thank gods. I've got this. She started around the other side of the room, will I participate? I pitch my voice low and clear. My professional voice. It carries but is still quiet. That part went OK but I'll keep writing. Now she's explaining that the group topic is 'Values' and she's going through the ground rules. Normal stuff - confidentiality, respect, no mobile phones. Easy. Now Values. What are they, where do they come from, what stops us living according to our values, she's writing on the whiteboard.... TRIGGER.

Then Nice psychologist E started talking about about the fact we tend to beat ourselves up over.... I couldn't really hear her words any more, just the buzzing in my head, tears pricking, her kind voice saying that we are too hard on ourselves. Not me, I need to harden up, I cried in the gentlest of group therapy sessions. Then tears started to really flow the sobs were on their way, I fled. Seeing only the carpet in front of my feet (I'm good at that). Abandoning my shoes which I'd slid off and kicked decorously under my chair ten minutes earlier. 

Reading for Pleasure

My littlest one, not quite 6 years old, just came downstairs to tell me something.

He and his brother are meant to be asleep, but the big brother wanted to finish a book, probably one he's read multiple times, so the light was on. I think the little guy must have been bored because he came down to tell me.... wait for it.... He had read a book.

He's only just gotten the hang of reading, he's just practicing matching the sounds with words, and the words with meaning. This is actually the first time ever he has read for pleasure! I hugged him excitedly and welcomed him into the world of reading-for-pleasure, explaining how wonderful and powerful it was, and told him that my favourite activity in the whole world was actually just reading for pleasure. I'm so happy!

Today my baby, my first baby, turns six

Last night, as I tucked the blankets around him, I hugged him tight and told him ‘this is the last time I’m going to get to say goodnight to my little five year old’ I saw his face light up. It lit up with the realisation, not just that it would be his birthday in the morning, that there would be presents, and cupcakes to take to school, but that things were changing for him. I consider six to be one of those liminal times, where the mother-centred life of early childhood elides into something more external and outward-focussed. If I remember correctly, in his book ‘Raising Boys’ Steve Biddulph talks about six being the age when boys go from being (and I wish I had a more elegant way of saying this) their mother’s children to being their father’s children.


It’s a happy coincidence that his birth happened so close to the winter solstice – these are the darkest, most home and hearth focussed weeks in the year and as the light increases, we tend to become more outward looking. Less interested in hanging around home with our nearest and dearest, more likely to head ‘out’ somewhere. This mirrors what I feel is happening for Asher.

I’m feeling really good about this blossoming. I feel somehow safe, like this is the right time for this. I don’t want to keep him a baby or push him away. I want to walk half a step behind him, ready to answer his questions and share his joys, ready to note points of interest and encourage him to get up when he falls. I want to watch him grow into himself.

I think I might start him catching the bus to school after these school holidays, just one or two days a week. That way I can let him know that I trust him to be safe as he goes out into the world.

Indigenous voices in literature and the arts

I just read this column in the SMH (http://www.smh.com.au/opinion/society-and-culture/answers-dont-roll-easily-off-the-tongue-20110923-1kos3.html) and I thought that it might be interesting to discuss. As part of my undergrad bachelor of science degree I have a major in "Aboriginal studies" (probably now called "Indigenous Australian studies") and I remember doing a subject where we spent our time talking about appropriation and authenticity in Aboriginal art. We were mostly talking about visual arts, but it's the same kind of situation with writing and, to my mind, a similar conversation can be had about pop culture and mass media representation. Read the article and ask yourself these questions: 

• Is it ever OK for someone to speak 'for' Indigenous Australians?
• In your art making would you ever use traditional Aboriginal motifs?
• In your writing would you ever try to get inside the head of an Indigenous Australian? What about a (let's say) recent migrant? Is it different if the migrant is from a place you have some connection to?
•  What about speaking for people/getting in the head of people with a different gender identity or sexuality? Why is it more OK (in my mind) for me to write as a man than, for instance, my lovely brother Michael to write as a woman? 

I think this whole vexed question is wildly interesting because I look at my own reactions and can only see wild inconsistencies. I would never presume to speak for Indigenous Australians in pretty much any context (except to remind people that 'they' are not any more a homogeneous unit than 'us') and I freak out a bit when I hear of other people doing it. And yet I support Michael going to Q&A/Insight/whatever as part of their 'Aboriginal' audience - he is, however loosely, a very peripheral part of an Aboriginal community. So no, it's generally not OK for anyone to speak unbidden for others, but I guess it is sometimes OK.

I can't imagine a situation where I would include traditional Aboriginal motifs in any art-making that I do, however, worry that blanket statements are generally a bad idea when we talk about art. No one can argue that child porn is a good thing, but to prohibit any images of naked children would decimate my photo albums, eliminate huge quantities of religious art (naked baby Jesus anyone?) as well as harass artists like Bill Henson and there is no reason to suppose it would stop child pornography. How do we find the right balance? How can we support the rights of people to speak for themselves without prohibition?

Historical fiction is plentiful - why is it uncontroversial for, for instance, Kate Grenville to write from the perspective of a fictional white male from history but not OK for her to speak for fictional historical Indigenous Australians? I really like her answer in the article: "we had stolen enough from them already, we shouldn't also steal their stories" and I agree wholeheartedly. But how do we move on from that point to creating a shared Australian history and identity? I read recently (on the SMH I think - I can't find a reference though) that stories by Patricia Wrightson like The Nargun and the Stars that I loved as a child are now thought by some to be cultural appropriation. I don't want to claim Dreamtime stories as my own, but I want to acknowledge that they are part of this country, that the history of Aboriginal Australia is part of my history.

It's easier for me to speak (and think) about the similar issues that feminism has brought up. Easier because I'm a woman, and I know I can't speak for all women, but I can speak for me. I find men that speak 'for' woman pretty painful, but I'm sometimes not sure if it's just in situations where I don't agree with what they are saying. I find Alexander McCall-Smith speaking in an African woman's voice grating, and I'm not sure whether it is because it is a man speaking as a woman, or because it's a white European speaking with the voice of a black African.

How do *you* put your thoughts around these issues into practice in *your* writing or art-making? Do you avoid the problem by avoiding reference to Indigenous Australians? I confess that that's what I tend to do, because the alternative is so damn difficult. Unfortunately that isn't the way to create an Australia as a place for Indigenous people, those with colonial heritage and also more recent migrants. Let's start a conversation about the way forward...

What is an Educational Philosophy?

I've been thinking even more than usual about education for little kids this month and, freakishly, I feel like I've come to a small conclusion about my own 'educational philosophy' (for want of a better term).

This all came about because Asher had a trial day at John Colet School. I really like the school and think that with it's emphasis on manners (and the reason behind them), structure and intellectual rigour it would be a really good fit for Asher. I have always said that it's not just about a school being 'good' but about it being a good fit for a particular kid, and I think that John Colet will be right for Asher. So, we talked to the headmaster and he suggested we think about starting Asher in Kindergarten this year. He is old enough, just, to have started Kindergarten at the beginning of the year, but at the end of last year we knew he absolutely wasn't ready for school. Now, after almost six months at KU Preschool his social skills have improved markedly and there are kids he knows from preschool who are his friends, who he wants to invite to his birthday party. So he went along for a trial day and it went OK for Asher, but we met a marked lack of enthusiasm from the teacher. She actually seems like a good teacher but she does have a bias. She's one of the people who believe, in her words that 'children, especially boys, who start school young will always be at a disadvantage' compared to the other children. Since teacher perceptions influence educational outcomes (and probably how much students enjoy school!) I really don't want Asher to have a teacher (for 3 years) who firmly believes that he will always be behind because of his age. I know Asher, I know how incredibly quickly he picks things up, I know that he has a long attention span and can sit still and focus for reasonably long periods for a child of his age-group and what I want for him is a teacher who believes in him.

Since we've ruled out that option we have to looks at 'what now' and my two next favourite options are a) send him to John Colet School to start Kindergarten next year or send him to the local public school for Kindergarten half-way through this year. My next steps will be to talk to the local public school about a mid-year intake and to put Asher on the wait list for John Colet. The other possibility is, of course, is to send him to the local public school Kindergarten starting next year. If we do that I'm worried he'll be bored. Not all of the time of course, but considering he reads pretty well and his level of numeracy is quite astounding, he has a decent grasp of science that pretty much leaves handwriting and the arts to focus on. And this brings me to my revelation.

I think I really like John Colet because they seem to teach to a subject, theme or text, and use that to teach a variety of things at a variety of levels. Conversely, at the local public school they use a text, theme or topic to teach skills set out in the curriculum.

At John Colet they study something, and use that study to develop skills. For instance, John Colet teaches Shakespeare, even to the youngest children. This will help them learn vocabulary and reading, public speaking and drama, storytelling and probably a bunch of other things. This means that kids who are already proficient in one area can be encouraged by what they can do and directed to work on what they find difficult. This seems to me to be a really good strategy for teaching to a bunch of levels - got gifted kids in a class? No problem, Shakespeare is tough enough for serious scholarship. Got kids with intellectual/physical/social difficulties? No problem, there's something in the work for everyone.

The public school model is fine when all the kids are at a pretty similar level, but when you have kids with quite disparate needs this model seems to be less robust, and more difficult to ensure all kids are getting their learning needs met.

So there you go, it's not massive or complicated, just a small difference in framework which seems to have the power to change the way a classroom works. It also has pretty clear implications for where I would like MY kid to go to school.

Language update

I've been looking through this blog trying to work out what Asher's language was like when he was the same age as Kiz is now and I'm wishing that I had updated more frequently! I know that he had a bunch of words by the time he was Kiran's age, but the blog doesn't relate how many, or which words (I think I might have a list written down on a scrap of paper somewhere though - which is the exact reason I try to blog my updates). So, in the spirit of too-much-detail-never-being-enough here is the list of words, in no particular order, Kiz says recognisably (as of today, with him being ~16.5 months old):
Bird
Puppy
Mummy
Daddy
Asher (kind of - because the 'sh' sound is to hard so it comes out something vaguely like 'ah-gar')
Baby
Ball
Na (for nose)
Ta-ta (which can mean 'thank you' or 'give it to me' depending on context. He also mimics when we say 'thank you' with the correct intonation and a decent approximation of the sounds of the words)
Nigh' nigh' (night night)
Car
Hello
Bye-bye
Apple
Yes
Bear
New today are cracker and Chacha (Hindi for fathers-younger-brother/Uncle) but I'm not sure if they will stick (I think he's starting to learn a word or two every day now).

He also asks for songs with the actions and sweetly sings 'row row' so that I will do the actions with him. He has a kind of grasp-y sign which means he wants something but no signs that we have taught him and he sometimes strings two words together ("hello puppy" "bey-bye Daddy"). He often insists on taking a book to bed with him, which is very cute and like Asher at the same age he loves being read to. I'm really loving watching the process of the little guy learning language, and this time I'll try and make more notes about it here.

Oh the questions of a 4 year old!

I didn't think the Starbright, Meditations for Children book Elvira brought us today would cause quite so much difficult conversation with my 4 year old. When I pictured parenting a preschooler I expected to have to field questions about things like why the sky is blue (It's got something to do with, ah, reflection or refraction - lets look it up!) and where babies come from (they come from a mummies tummy! - How do they get in there? - Ah, well, ah, when a mummy and a daddy love each other very much and want to make a baby they, ah, well you've seen little plants grow from seeds? Well babies kind of grow from special seeds. Kind of) but Asher still surprises me. Not just difficult but doable questions like 'What is shift work' 'What is the government' and yesterday, driving through the rural fringes of Sydney, 'Is that a Tapir?' (it was a remarkably tapir shaped cow, for any punters out there who might be wondering) but tonight I needed to try and explain magic, guardian angels and what his imagination is!  

I always try to answer Asher's questions simply and honestly, with appropriate depth and detail (I find the key is to answer the question he's really asking, without getting into details unless he asks further) because I feel that is the respectful way to address the genuine questions of a smart kid. And it appears that it's not just his parents and immediate family who think he's a bright kid. We spend a lot of time with some pretty exceptional preschoolers, so Asher seems bright and inquiring but relatively normal for his age but Asher's childcare teacher has noticed his facility with language and his literacy and numeracy skills and has suggested we get him assessed. We are somewhat ambivalent about this and cagey about having a preschooler labelled as 'gifted and talented' (or whatever) but it seems the benefits might outweigh our niggling reservations - we aren't overly happy with how things are at childcare and feel this might be the key to changing things for the better. We are going to ask what they are planning to do with the information with respect to looking after his 'special needs' with the follow-up question being why they aren't currently providing him with a more thought-out program.


So for now, send us sympathy. We need to try to answer all this smart little kid's difficult questions and give him with enough food for thought without overwhelming him. We want to provide for his thirst for knowledge without burying him under our expectations. Really, in the end, we just want the kid to be happy.

Kiran Update

We went to the Early Childhood Health Centre (ECHC) yesterday (when I started this post the visit was yesterday, now I'd have to say 'Thursday' instead) for Kiran's 8 week check. It was all good and apart from the Whooping Cough he is fine and growing like a weed. In fact it appears that he put on around 500g since last Tuesday's paediatrician visit. That is a lot of breastmilk! When I told Sanjay he suddenly realised why I've been so hungry recently and why I've been a bit tired (I feel like a Cheshire-mother, I might vanish at any moment, leaving just my milky breasts).

As well as getting longer and chubbier he's developing in other ways. He seems to recognise my face from several metres away now, he will lie on the floor and look at his toys or lie on the bed and gaze out the window for ten minutes at a time or more. I don't remember Asher being able to amuse himself for that long with any regularity until he was much older. He's very communicative and loves to gaze into my eyes, smile and then we have 'conversations' where I ask him questions and he vocalises with little 'ahs' back to me.

Kiran is also getting into a really good nighttime routine (will writing about it jinx it?). He goes to bed between 8 and 9:30 then wakes for a feed between11:30 and 1:30. He generally wakes again around 6 or 6:30am and Asher usually wakes and comes in before 7am so we are effectively awake for the day, even if Kiran sometimes goes back to sleep.

The little guy also had his first bottle last night. I went out for dinner with the Mummies and left both boys at home with Sanj. I expressed some milk the other day (almost 100ml) when I was feeling a bit full and so I got another 100ml yesterday which I hoped would be enough. It turns out he was a little reluctant to drink from the bottle at first but once he got the idea had the 100ml and a bit more from me when I got home before he went back to sleep. Dinner out with the mummies was great for me - just the tonic I needed after feeling a bit caged and tense for the last week or two. We were talking about how everyday things slip by so fast, particularly with second children, and how we should all be keeping a diary everyday and I thought about how irregularly I blog and made a pact to write something every day for a week. That seems a bit poor in the light of day, like I should be doing more, but I really want to do it and I hate over-committing. So, stay tuned for a post, however brief, every day for a week!

Reading-Writing

I'm not really sure what to title this post but I'll try to think of something by the time I finish writing. In fact, I've been putting off writing this post for almost a month because talking about this subject makes me feel oogy. I'll just dive right in. Asher is starting to learn to read and write.

He is, in typical Asher fashion, doing it backwards, by actually learning to write, and in the process he's accidentally learning to sight-read the words he can write. Of course he doesn't have the manual dexterity to actually form letters with a pen or crayon yet, but he types. He loves to type. It's just because kids want to do what they see their parents doing, which makes me look like I use the computer as much as I wish I did. Anyhow, one way or another, he's obsessed with letters and words. We use typing as a bribe ("when you've finished your breakfast you can do some typing"). At playgroup he does painting but mostly so I'll help him paint his name (sometimes over and over again, when I'm feeling weak). Whenever we have some waiting to do I get him to point out letters and sometimes words - there are plenty of signs about, there are menus to read, even number plates when we get desperate. When someone asks him his name he tells them A-S-H-E-R. There are a few books that people have given him with his name in them which he will point out every time we read them. In short it's pretty full on, and it makes me feel strangely uncomfortable and even a bit guilty.

I know it's meant to be a good thing to have your kid reading early, right? Right? But because he's only two-and-eight-months I feel he shouldn't be learning reading and writing because he's just too young. I'm strangely terrified of being judged as a pushy mum - one of 'those' mothers who who do flashcards with their babies, lots of classes and structured learning and, in my mind at least, compulsively check 'milestones' and obsess about their kids 'keeping up' with the little kids around them. As far as I'm concerned, this couldn't be further from the truth - I reckon that kids develop at their own pace and different kids have different skills that come easily. I don't think little kids need much extra stimulation, I think they just need to see the adults around them doing normal stuff, and ideally spend a bit of time involved in that normal stuff - cooking, cleaning, shopping and interacting nicely with other people, that kind of normal stuff. It just happens that for me 'normal' also includes spending time on the computer, little kids are amazing learning sponges and perhaps my kid is wired to be able to pick some of the basic reading-writing stuff up pretty early. I actually don't think that this interest in letters, spelling and words marks him as being particularly intelligent (I do think he's really smart! I just don't think that this proves it).

I am proud of my boy, but even more there is a strong feeling of relief that it's unlikely we're going to have to really battle to help him to learn to read and write. I'm also really defensive, but I haven't examined why. I don't know why I'm so concerned about being put in the pushy mum box that I have been unwilling to talk to my friends about this, have been putting off posting here about it and instead just telling his grandparents, who already thinks the sun shines out of his footsteps.

So, as to the post title, I think I should swallow my discomfort and go with the obvious...

How does a toddler undestand Love?

If this conversation is anything to go by, Asher might think that loving someone means that you enjoy hanging out with them. It occured at around 9pm last night, when Sanjay was at the end of his tether trying to get Asher to sleep.

Sanjay: Goodnight Asher, I love you and Mumbo loves you and now you need to go to sleep
Asher: I don't love Mumbo
Sanjay: Yes you do, you love her the most!
Asher: I love you, and when you're not here, I love Mumbo
Sanjay (not knowing what else to say): Goodnight.

Absurdist conversation

Some of the best parts of living with a toddler are the wild and crazy conversations one suddenly finds oneself in the midst of. Much better than dealing with the 45 minutes of exhaustion tantrum today or Asher's research into what pisses his mother off yesterday (it seems flinging oneself on the ground repeatedly whilst walking around the shopping centre will eventually do it). This conversation is as close to verbatim as I can remember it. It happened on the train coming home from dinner with my dad on Saturday night.

Asher: I'm a fish
Keda: A baby fish?
Asher: A big fish!
Sanjay: In a small pond?
Asher: No, in a big one.
Keda: So you are a big fish in a small pond?
Asher: Yes
Sanjay: What kind of fish are you? A red herring?
Asher: No
Keda: A carp?
Asher: No
Sanjay: A sardine?
Asher: No
Keda: A dolphin*?
Asher: No
Sanjay: A cod?
Asher: No
Keda: A tuna fish?
Asher: Yes! I'm a tuna fish!

* Yeah, I know, dolphins aren't fish. We were both giggling and I was finding it difficult to think of random fish by this point.

Asher milestones

Emailed from Anil's Blackberry
Originally uploaded by karmakeda

Isn't this a cute pictutre? Sanjay's parents usually pick Asher up from Kindy one day a week and they are away at the moment so various other people (well, Anil and my dad) have been helping out with picking Asher up from Kindy. Asher actually seems to be getting on a bit better at Kindy these last two weeks, not many tears in the morning before we leave the house and just a bit of distress when we (usually just Sanjay) drops him off. Anil took Asher to the park today when he picked him up and they spent a bit of time playing with Anil's Blackberry camera - I think he sent me this photo to reassure me that they had fun!

I've been meaning to blog quite a lot recently - I've got a lot to say about Asher and what's going on for him - but I haven't been able to find time when I'm not exhausted. I've also been recovering from the cold that has lasted all winter, and I'm finally feeling a bit more on top of things with my health.

The other reason I'm exhasted is that Asher is really finding his two-year-old self. He's really into asserting himself and testing boundaries and, being Asher, that means he's experimenting quite carefully. At the moment he's trying to work out what the story is with physical aggression generally, and biting in particular so he sets up his experiments. He wants to work out what kinds of biting get a neutral or positive reaction from me (food), what kinds get a mildly negative reaction (toys and other objects) and what makes me really angry (other people). He has been biting objects (toys, doorframes, this morning it was the doona on our bed) and notes that he gets told 'no biting' but nobody moves to stop him. He tries biting me and I say 'NO BITING' very sternly and physically move his head away. The very first time he sank his sharp little puppy-teeth into my leg I brushed him away so quickly it was *almost* a smack, which of course shook me more than it shook him. He even tried biting Audrey on Tuesday afternoon which upset me tremendously. I really hope he works it out quickly (I know I have to stay *really* consistant) and can find some other subject to experiment on. I guess I should be happy that it's such a carefully controlled experiment, even if the fact that he's being calculating upsets me, because my suspicion is that biting-in-anger would be harder to manage.

In better news, his language development has really come on, so have both gross and fine motor skills - he is starting to learn to use scissors, he can roll out pizza dough, he can climb things at the indoor playcentre this week that were impossible last week, he can get the soybeans out of their pods when we have edamame, he puts texta/pen lids on with ease, he opens the door to our apartment, he puts bottle tops on and takes them off, the list goes on and on. He's also starting to be more confident (he shoos away pidgeons rather than bursting into tears) and more assertive with his peers (he has been pushing Audrey out of the way when she tries to get in front of him) which I feel are developments that have been helped by going to Kindy.

There'll be more updates over the next week or so, promise!