Watching Life from Afar...

Sometimes I catch myself, watching life go by. Not as a participant but as an observer. It is like I am going through the motions participating in the routines, physically. Mentally I am somewhere else, no where in particular, but not there.

 I become aware of this removed perspective and often get a bit of a shock. How can we move though the motions, making decisions, and interact with others while not really being there, not really participating in our own lives.

Sometimes I find myself observing myself in social interactions, like I am sitting at the next table. Such a strange sensation... brains are so complex.

I am not sure yet as to why this happens, but I know it isn't a positive thing. My prediction is that it happens when life is too fast. I think we all have a limit as to how much we can process at once. When my overload point comes, I think I must retract, go else where, shut down and escape. Only mentally, physically I am still doing all the things that I need to do.

I had a moment yesterday when someone asked me how my day was.... I was taken a back... I wasn't really sure! It was a blur, it was hard to recall what the day had even been and I was still a part of it.

It can be hard to snap out of this mind state. It takes some deep breaths and very conscious decisions to be present. To be peaceful, slow and deliberate. To re-take control over the speed things are moving.

I find that the more I am inside, working, the more of an observer I become. Wild spaces bring me back into my life. They are my soul food, the place where I don't need to try to be present, I am, no effort needed. Life slows to now in nature... my senses are switched on and I am in my body, in my life.

Nature is my need... Holidays are coming. Time for a deep breath of fresh air on its way...

Rock and Gem Party

He is 7! It has happened already! Now I need to figure out how to parent a 7 year old! I haven't done that before.

Every 2nd year we support our children to organise themselves a birthday party. Orlando has done a few now and he loves the process.

This year he had a dilemma as to which 'theme' to choose (he is passionate about many things) so we planned them all! Through this process there was a clear winner. A theme that he has been passionate about for a long time and was going to make for a really cool party.

Rocks and Gems!

Here is what he planned...

Invite

Tools

Each guest was provided a bucket with a magnifying glass, paint brush, pair of tweezers and a tool for excavation. These were used in all the activities and then taken home at the end. 

Activities

Excavation - Sandpit was buried with bones, real fossils, polished gems, shells and an assortment of other 'treasure'

 Fossicking - Big tubs full of sand, water, chip gems, shells and large gems. Scoops, real fossicking sieves and gold pans made it feel even more authentic.

Rock Dig - We had a lot of fun creating a plaster and sand rock dig. We followed the tutorial over at 'longlivelearning'. We had great fun making them before hand and 3 of them lasted the whole party, and now, 3 weeks after the party, they are getting close to being finished. They were very popular and the party and the kids got a real sense of achievement when they finally got out a treasure.

Gold and Gem Mine - I forgot to take a photo of this! We got a kids tunnel and a small tent and covered the whole thing in MANY black plastic bags. This made it completely dark inside. We then spray painted a bucket full of normal rocks gold. These rocks we hidden all through the tunnel and tent. So when the kids went in with a head torch it lit up the gold for them to collect. We hid some large rough cut gems in there also.

I am not a big fan of competition at birthday parties. So near each experience was a bucket for you to place the treasures you had excavated or found. This served two-fold, if an activity was wiped clean, we could re-hide treasures, but also made the morning feel like a communal effort. We were all working together to excavate as much as we could. At the end of the party we collected all the buckets and put it into 2 really big trays. One of the kids said "WOW look at all the work we have put in! We have all collected so much!" (my non-competitive heart sang)

Then everyone collected 20 of their favourites to take home from the party, along with their tools.

Cake

This is always the first thing Orlando plans. Pinterest is a wonderful tool when it comes to ideas for cakes. There are some very talented cake decorators out there... I am not one of them. I can usually make a cake look pretty good but when thinking of rocks... A friend had her sons birthday party a few weeks earlier and she had made EDIBLE GEODES. They were IMPRESSIVE! So we got to thinking and thought that we might use this idea to make a geode cake topper.

Not all went to plan, I learnt a lot. But we had some crystal caves to use and found some chocolate rocks to add to the 'rock-i-ness'.

Inside was chocolate mud with jube lollies baked though it (like gems in the dirt). I DON'T recommend doing this... and wont be doing it again :) They made the cake really hard to cut and all sank to the bottom. They were hard to eat also.

Food

Well the food all needed to be rock - related so we had...

Chocolate Chia Seed Balls
Caramel Macadamias
Chocolate Rocks
Caramel Pop Corn Balls
Rock Cakes
Pretzels (with Salt Crystals) 

We also added -
Homemade Sausage Rolls and Spinach Rolls
Prawn Cutlets
Fruit Platter
Cheese Platter

Pocket Money

Boy, can I tell my kids aren't babies any more when I start being asked about pocket money!

Orlando (nearly 7) said the other day "If I help you with this dish washer, maybe you could give me some pocket money and I could buy this Lego Boat I want from the shops..."

I had a stirring of some very conflicting thoughts and emotions...

I asked him... "How does pocket money work?"

O - "Well I help you with jobs around the house and then you give me some money to buy things that I want to buy."

Me - "Oh that sounds nice... so can I have pocket money for the jobs that I do around the house?"

O - "But you already have money, I only have the money I get from my teeth" (there are a lot falling out at the moment)

This got me thinking... my kids rarely ask for things from the shop. They don't nag, so when they see something really special, I ask them to tell me about why it is so important to them and then I would usually buy it for them. But Orlando hadn't asked me to buy it. He wanted to buy it, with his own money.

This isn't something I wanted to overlook, to me it is an indication that he is wanting to take responsibility for some things, to feel a bit more grown up. 

A few years ago we had agreed to swap money for jobs - he chose 4 jobs that he would do each day and got an agreed amount of money at the end of the week. He would choose things like putting everyone's bed side lamps on at dusk and setting the table etc. It never felt right. I thought he should be doing these things anyway and I felt like I was bribing him with money.

It got me thinking about how we could make this work in an authentic and meaningful way. I like the idea of both the kids being able to have some say in what we buy. To want something enough to save up for it. To get some supported experience in how to use money. 

I went back to my tried and true thought ... "How does it work in the adult world?"

Well I get an allowance from the family budget, as does Nath. The kids don't get one, it is sort of combined with mine, as I usually spend all of mine on them anyway.

We get this allowance whether or not we got our 'jobs' done at home. If the house is messy and the washing un-done, I still get my allowance. I feel conscious of not pulling my weight but I still get it.

This made me think... I am a responsible and considerate member of a family. We work together as a unit. As a respected member of this family, I get an allowance. I also respect the other members of my family enough to participate in the running of the household. 

This could work just as well with the kids. They are also respected members of our family, and thus deserve to have an allowance each week, that they can make decisions about. 

They also need, as respectful and considerate members of this family, to contribute to the running of the house hold. If they don't then we deal with that... as a separate issue, not linked to the money at all. 

This feels SO much better to me, and seems, thus far, to be working. I'll let you know in a year when we've given it a good run!!

Secret Spots...

As a child I had secret spots...

Spots to go an hide, play, sit. 

We had forts. There was a stone fort, a wood fort, a forest fort and.... I forget the other. But all four of us would build a 'home' in our fort and then battle off against each other. It made for hours of fun! 

We also had dams. In the dams we would swim, make floating platforms, catch yabbies, construct dams in the inflow streams, ant villages in the water (they couldn't escape if surrounded by water). I remember one ant village was so elaborate it took 6 children 2 weeks of school holidays to build, mend and tend.

We had LONG grass. Wonderful for hide and seek. Or to lay in and feel that you are in a different world.

We had chooks. I wasn't so keen on them, but I cared for them anyway and now a home doesn't feel like home without them.

We spent our days outside exploring, creating, collaborating. Mum used to have this 'coo-eee' call that would let us know where ever we were on the 25 acres that it was time to head back to the house for some (probably boring) reason.

I have yearned deeply for my children to experience the same freedom. I have worried that in living in suburbia, they wouldn't get the same opportunity. I have worried that in this new world of fear, I wont let them have that same freedom. I also worried that other children are missing out on these freedoms. To explore create and be children... without the watchful eye of an adult.

To my GREAT JOY I have discovered otherwise. Being school holidays here at the moment we went for a walk down to the park. We decided to go to a different park than we usually do. On the way we saw 6 different groups of children down at the local nature reserve playing. Exploring, up to their knees in mud. Tackling each other in a game of ruff and tumble on the grass. Climbing trees, making cubbies, daming the creek with rocks and sticks. Delightfully there was not an adult in sight (other than me of course :)) 

 

The late afternoon sun was shining and the kids were out playing. I stopped a moment to watch some boys at the creek and they noticed me and said "Our mum's said it was OK..." I replied "I think it's wonderful! looks like your making some real progress with the rocks" They smiled, took a breath and got back into it.

Orlando said "Where are their parents?" I told him that when you get old enough you can go exploring by yourself. He was rather impressed.

He then suggested that maybe instead of the park we could find a place at the creek to play. I had always seen this creek as a storm water run off... but originally it was a natural creek. So we explored and now we have found our own secret spot.

We have been down there 4 times already. We have cleaned out any rubbish that was there. Used some clippers to trim the bushes and made a nice spot to sit. We have put stepping stones in good places so that we can get across the creek.

All the time it was right under our noses and we had never seized the opportunity! It is really quite beautiful down there and best of all I get to sit in the warm winter sun while the kids play, explore, create, engage.

Many more a trips we will have to our secret spot... we may even bring a friend one time... or when they are big enough... leave me at home!!

Catch Up Take 2!

Well in my last posting I said that at Mt Field the sun came out... Well it has stayed out ever since, so I have been out busy enjoying our holiday and not had a lot of time for blogging or much Internet connection (good old Tassie!). We have some mega catching up to do! More than 2 weeks worth actually!!! So it will be brief but I'll elaborate when we get home :)

Following Mt Field we went to:

Bruny Island
This was a wonderful stop. We rode the ferry (or Fairy as the kids are convinced it is) over. Orlando was in heaven! Yet another form of transport to add to the repertoire! Or camp site was on one end of "The Neck" which is the famous isthmus the joins north and south islands together. Our campsite was merely meters from the BEAUTIFUL beach and we very much enjoyed sleeping to the beating of the waves (have actually had this for 3 weeks now and will miss it as we move inland).
We could have stayed here for weeks! The island has a small population but it has a beautiful relaxed atmosphere. There are little factories and farms like the cheese factory, the smoke house, the berry farm and fudge shop. We did the tour and went back to our beach with a hamper full of goodies to enrich our camping pantry. We had sunshine and no wind YAY!!

We saw the Fairy Penguins waddle in from the beach at night time and squark around their nests (the part of the holiday Matilda has been waiting for.... I think she is still a little surprised they didn't look like the fairies she was imagining :))

Dover

Our dear friend Kathryn and her daughter Jasmine live in the little fishing village of Dover. It is always good to spend some time with old friends. Particularly ones you were very close to and then don't see for ages. It was nice being in a house for a few nights but a bit of a culture shock also. The kids were in heaven! Another kid to play with! And TOYS!!!!!!!! After an awkward start, Orlando and Jasmine hit it off and quickly made friends. Orlando found it rather tricky to say good bye to Jasmine, she made quite an impression on him. He sobbed for a good half an hour when we left, upset he wasn't going to see her again for a long time. This was also a clear indication for us that he is REALLY missing all of his friends and the social community he has around him at home.

Hobart
Well Hobart nearly blew us away!! LITERALLY! This was when the gale force winds hit Tasmania and Victoria and Oh MY!! We were in a horrible little Caravan Park on the outskirts of Hobart and were in a wind tunnel next to a bay so we had 3 sleepless nights just trying to hold the van down so that it didn't take off! Nathan's wonderful rope skills meant that he was able to tie the roof of the van to the ground to hold it down. This wind scared me a bit and I didn't feel settled or safe.

But on the touristy side of things we went to the Cadbury Factory and learnt all about chocolate. The kids were in heaven! We also brought a good lot of it from the very very cheap retail shop (I was also GOB SMACKED buy the amount of chocolate some people we buying OMG why are they not the size of houses!)


We also spent a very windy day in Hobart at the Salamanca markets which is always a nice day out. Got some delicious produce to nibble and found a FANTASTIC little book shop in Salamanca square. Could of spent days in there. It was my idea of a beautiful little tucked away treasure. Even the kids were happy for a full hour looking at all the kids books.

We had our Belated Fathers Day. We went to see MONA (Museum of Old and New Art) This is a great gallery and a real asset to the Art world. We really enjoyed our visit here, the museum has been well done. We also agreed that much of it, is not the sort of art we really like to look at! A bit too much exhibitionism for my liking. We then went over to the Royal Tasmanian Botanic Gardens. These are beautiful but it was really interesting to been in a 'constructed' natural space after spending so much time in wild natural spaces.

Tasman Peninsular

I always marvel at how old foot stones
wear down over hundreds of years
 and millions of uses.

We were pleased and relieved to be going bush again and this is a beautiful part of Tasmania. We camped at Fortescue Bay which is a stunning beach with white sands and picture perfect blue water. We had quite an adventure getting in to our campsite as it was raining, just a little, but enough! The road was dirt and the hill was long and VERY steep and started to go straight up, straight after a sharp corner, so you didn't even know it was coming to get a good run up.... well with this and a whole lot of loose, wet slippery gravel on the road.... we couldn't get up the hill... Bugger... we had 3 attempts, each time Nath had to reverse the car and van down the ridiculous hill that was so slippery we were sliding even when stopped and trying to be still. Just when we were discussing other camping options in the area an 'old cobber' came out of no where in his little suzuki and said "Common cobber, hook this to your bus, we need to get those kiddies to the beach!" and he hooked a tow rope to the front of the car and his little box of a 4WD pulled us, the car and the van up the hill. Thank goodness! And bless the little bush yokel fairy that saved our asses!

 
Once here we really enjoyed a day at Port Arthur. Ollie really loved the stories about how people used to live and we only included a few of the horrible bits :) Tilly didn't understand much of it but loved the old houses. We also went on an epic bush walk that was meant to be "flat 3 hr coastal walk". Well it took us at least 4 1/2 hrs and was VERY hilly. Like we walked over the top of 3 mountainous headlands. By the end we all felt exhausted but satisfied. Ollie walked the whole lot of it and Tilly helped me build back and shoulder strength with her luxury back pack ride.







Freycinet
Being the "Gold Coast of Tasmania" and Tasmanian school holidays, it was a lot busier here than we have had anywhere (saying that we have come accustomed to having campgrounds to our selves :)) So we felt a little crowded. We are also starting to get a bit tired and need to remember to schedule in some slow days, other wise we are going to need a holiday from our holiday!

We had a meander along some little pebble beaches, one with some amazing granite boulders and caves. The bouldering/rock climbing bug has bitten Ollie and Nath and Ollie are having some FANTASTIC boy time going off and rock scrambling. Matilda on the other hand sits in the sand or pebbles and has a little sensory massage, rubbing and rolling her whole body in the sand. She gets in quite a zone!


We also did the iconic Wineglass Bay walk. Up to the lookout and over the mountain to possibly one of the world's most beautiful beaches. I am so pleased they haven't put a road through nature to get easy access here but instead you have to walk, a decent walk, to enjoy and appreciate its beauty. We continued on an extended bush walk, totaling 5 hrs of walking. Ollie has developed into a champion walker and only complains a little near the end of 5 hrs, which in all honesty we all feel like doing :) I found it interesting to reflect on the beauty of the beach and then to discover why it is called wineglass bay. Partly it is to do with it's shape, but mainly, due to how deep it is and the fact that it is very protected, it was an area of great protection for whales and it had an enormous migrating whaler population.  During early settlement of the area it was discovered how many whales were here, and low an behold man started to slaughter them at great speed. First all the Sperm Whales and then the Humpbacks, so much so that the bay was continuously full of blood, so much that it looked like a glass full of red wine.... :(


Mole Creek
For our last stop in Tasmania we have decided to stop at the sleepy little town of Mole Creek. Today we went and explored the caves which was one of the most beautiful and well preserved limestone tour caves I've seen. It also houses one of the largest populations of Glow Worms. The kids have become quite the glow worm fans! Ollie expressed today that they were like beautiful stars and he and Nath are hatching a plan to construct a glow worm haven on his roof at home. Tomorrow we bush walk some more and go and visit the honey shop and other gourmet delights.

On Wednesday evening we embark on our return voyage on the Spirit (as you could of guessed Ollie has been talking about for a week already!) and then we have just over 2 weeks of this journey left! Time is flying for us!

5 Weeks in we have settled into a nice hum together as a family. The kids have made great friends and are really enjoying each others company. We are thankful for the bonding we have the opportunity to be doing and I think it will stay with us for a long time following this journey. All of our internal communication has improved out of sight and we are appreciating each other everyday. Parts of us are longing for home, we miss our friends, family and lives. We miss our chickens and garden, which should be blossoming just beautifully about now. But that will all be there waiting for us on our return.

Coming to the end of the Tassie leg it is hard not to feel like we're going home. In a part we are but we still have 2 1/2 week in Victoria. It's hard to get there mentally right now so we are just being and will explore Vic when we arrive on Thursday! (Which is also my BEAUTIFUL little sister's Birthday... HAPPY BIRTHDAY JENNA!!)

Until then...

Caio!