Today is Walt Disney’s birthday. Walt Disney was a man of vision who has touched all our lives in some small way, and continues to do so through our children. In honor of his Birthday I am posting my favorite Disney quote. I remember the first time I went to Disneyland. I was 15 years old and the joy I felt at being there was overwhelming. I grew up watching the Mickey Mouse Club and The Wonderful World of Disney so when I actually stood in this place that I had only dreamed about…….it was truly magical. I have never lost that feeling. It returns again and again every time I visit Disneyland. That’s why this is my favorite Disney quote. If you have one please share it too. Happy Birthday Walt!

” To all who come to this happy place… welcome. Disneyland is your land. Here age relives fond memories of the past and here youth may savor the challenge and promise of the future. Disneyland is dedicated to the ideals, the dreams, and the hard facts that have created America. With the hope that it will be a source of joy and inspiration to all the world.” – Walt Disney

True story:

My 8 year-old, Dizzy, is talking to a ten year-old during a recent home school outing to the Science Museum.

“Are you good at art?” my daughter asks her.

“Well,” the ten year-old muses, “I do try to pay attention to detail when I draw. This means I’ll be good at art if I keep practicing.”

Say what? I’ve never heard ten year-old kids use phrases like “attention to detail” or mention the importance of “practice makes perfect.” This girl has the vocabulary and understanding of a young adult–yet another side effect of spending her days learning in the home, I suppose. Wow!

Sometime along the way it became okay to argue with a 4-year-old.

Four year old: I’m going to find my froggy.
Me: Froggy is hibernating dear.
Four year old: What are you talking about Mom?
Me: Hibernating is when froggy’s go underneath the ground to sleep through the winter. They don’t like to be cold.
Four year old: Yes they do.
Me: No they don’t.
Four year old: Yes they do.
Me: Sigh…
Four year old: I am going to dig my froggy up.
Me: No sweetie they are wayyyyyy under the ground where you can’t dig for them.
Four year old: Yes I can.
Me: No you can’t
Four year old: Yes I can.
Me: Sigh… 

It’s snowing so my whole day will consist of arguments between my four-year old about who knows what and my eight year old about having nothing to do. I’m not a big snow freak and neither one of my kids are either. My son was conceived in Jamaica so well you can see there that cold just wasn’t forecasted in his dreams. And my daughter seems to be having a bad day about 90% of the time right now so coldness would just ruin everything to her. All of the mothers at the bus stop yesterday were telling all of the kids that it was going to snow today and my daughter says, “Ya but we don’t have school on that day.” Heehee she is just like me sometimes. I don’t know how long it’s going to snow or how much, I’m just hoping I don’t have to shovel. But alas this is Saturday so let me get on with the gratitude about the day which is becoming harder and harder to see or find.
  

Heat, warmth are always heart-felt when it is so cold outside. I know I am lucky to have it.
Books are wonderful for days like this.
Cups of Joe make my morning worthwhile.
Chili left over in the fridge make lunch tasteful and EASY.
Hot water to take the chill out of my body after the snow steals it from me. 

So right now I will hum “Let it snow, let it snow, let it snow.” Just so I can enjoy all of those things because without snow I wouldn’t have realized had them to be grateful for.

This morning I’m making oatmeal for breakfast. I make it the old fashioned way, by boiling oats until they’re cooked. Not with the flavoured instant packets that I grew up on. I have to call it porridge for my daughter to eat it, because that’s what they’re serving up in Goldilocks and the Three Bears. Everything has to be branded for kids these days.

And by “breakfast” I mean “first breakfast” because I’m about to go meet some friends for brunch/second breakfast. Then going to check out the Puces Pop Xmas Sale, where I’m hoping to find some kind of silkscreened 2010 calendar.

There’s been a lot of music floating around the house, and next week Murray and I are taking a trip to Los Angeles. Maybe you’ve noticed my “pilgrimage” twitter posts, well, that’s kind of a joke. Kind of. Part of the trip was timed with going to see Morrissey, which is actually happening, which I’m a little giddy about. Can you tell?

As you may know, I play in a band, so going to see other bands’ shows is kind of like work for me. The venue/club/bar environment is like an office party. Or like a really long coffee break. And the obligatory alcoholism, made mandatory by boredom, gets tired after 30. I’m actually turning into the old joke we made about The Dears being a bunch of brandy-sipping, philosophy-reading, candlelit-bathing snobs. That’s what parenthood does to a person. Bottom line is: you can’t make porridge and watch The Bugs Bunny and Tweety Show if you’re hungover. Well, I guess you can…but according to my particular set of values, Hangover+Parenthood=Degenerate Street.

All guilt issues aside, I’m stoked about going to LA. Maybe we’ll go to The Grove and look for celebrities, go swimming in the freezing ocean while Americans correctly observe: “They must be Canadian,” and definitely hang out here.

One of the best things about being a mother is that your kisses make everything better.  They’re magical.  Amazingly, my boys believe in that magic as I kiss away the pain.

Last night the boys had a scuffle, which is now par for the course.  Sean received an injury.  Nothing serious, just a little energetic move by Evan.  Sean came moaning to me.

Sean: Mommy!  I hurt!

He rubbed his head.  I gathered him up onto my lap and kissed his head 

Me:  All better.

Sean: Thank you, Mommy!

I slid out of my lap, walked over to the TV, and carefully bumped his head on the TV stand. 

 Sean:  Ow!  Mommy!  I hurt!

He rubbed his head and walked back to me.  I stifled a laugh and kissed his head.

Me: All better.

Sean: Thank you, Mommy!

He walked away.  He knelt down by the coffee table and carefully bumped his head.

Sean: Ow! Mommy!  I hurt!

He rubbed his head and walked back to me.  I laughed.  I pulled him onto my lap.

Me: Sean., you don’t have to get hurt to get kisses.

Sean:  I hurt!

I kissed him, and he slid off my lap and walked back to the coffee table.

Me: Sean!  Don’t hurt yourself!  Mommy will give you kisses whenever you want them.  Just tell me you want some.

Sean shot me a dubious look.  Then he lifted his head to aim it for the coffee table.

Me: No, Sean.  No hurting yourself.

He went back to trying.  I dove and covered him kisses.

Sean:  Thank you, Mommy!  I all better.

He walked away.

I have been quiet about this but truth of the matter is, we have decided to finally part ways.

I have thought about this a thousand times,

and even tried to save and reconnect the thing between us.

A relationship becomes futile when one is unhappy.

We’ve enjoyed our togetherness but everything has its end.

Parting is truly a sweet sorrow.

But we all have to move on.

Although it’s so difficult,

we all have to make decisions.

We only wish for strength to withstand temptations.

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My wife, Tina, with our son Gabby and I have ended our love affair with…

and other softdrinks, soda, whatever you call them; regular, diet or even zero!  

It has been two weeks and counting…

And you ?

This friday I wanted to do something a little different.  Yes a little different from loosing my marbles.  I want to give a few shout outs to some of my favorite blog and I hope you find them as satisfying as I do!

I Want Ice Water  This first one here is my favorite of all the blogs I visit on a day-to-day basis.  Mak is the blog owner and he writes about everything under the sun, moon and stars and he does it in a very passionate way.  He takes pride in his blog and he is a great conversationalist so be sure to leave him a comment.  I don’t have a favorite post on his blog because the whole thing is not only interesting but completely thought-provoking, it can make you stop in your tracks for a few minutes and really think about humanity but it can also bring laughter to your day.  Seriously GREAT BLOG, go check it out.

…salted lithium Ah what can I say about Gabriel’s blog? Gabriel has an uncanny way of writing. He’s another passionate writer and takes great pride in his blog. He has feelings and it really shows through his writing. If you leave him a comment, he always gets back to you and makes you feel welcomed into his life. He cares about everything and everybody but sometimes forgets to care for himself. He reminds me of a great hug when your heart hurts. Be sure to stop in and share your feelings with him, trust me when I say you won’t be sorry that you did.

raincoaster Okay you need to check this blog out because it makes me laugh my butt off all of the time! raincoaster is also a huge help in the forums and I am talking HUGE. You never know you may learn something while you are laughing so hard you pee your pants.

Matt Of course I can not forget to mention The Founder of Automatic which runs wordpress.com our wonderful blogging community. He takes fabulous pictures! He also has a main blog, Ma.tt which he writes in occasionally and his confidence at times can be contagious.

And now as for serious alcoholic blogs and I am talking sometimes heartbreaking, I visit two on a daily basis. The first one; AAnohelp is a husbands daily account of his life with an alcoholic wife while raising their two wonderful kids. It’s raw and honest, something that helps keep me sober just one more night sometimes. Then there is; Iamanalcoholic which is another daily account of an alcoholic except it’s from the alcoholics point of view but none the less heartbreaking and raw, the same as the first one.

I am trying to find blogs about women alcoholics but haven’t come across any that aren’t old and unused, that they don’t write in any longer. So if you have any suggestions please let me know!

So that’s my Friday post, just a little shouting out and let you know what I think is interesting. I hope you enjoy these blogs as much as I do. Happy Blogging Everybody!

Two articles out this week are creating quite a storm of comments among lady bloggers. The first is an article by Sandra Tsing Loh in The Atlantic Monthly talking about why – in addition to being a bad wife – she’s now also a bad mother. The second is an article by Elizabeth Weil in The New York Times about her year-long experiment in trying to see if she could improve her not-so-bad marriage and the painful lessons learned along the way.

Yesterday, a bunch of us over on the Woman Up page of PoliticsDaily.com weighed in on these two treatises about contemporary parenthood/marriage. Here’s how mine begins:

*****

Well, ladies, I must say I’ve been having a jolly old time here in London reading your takes on the Loh and Weil articles. On a day when my combined maternal/spousal duties left me thoroughly winded and already jonesing for that third espresso before 9 a.m., I take comfort in the fact that:

yup..
menjaga anak2 adalah sangat mencabar okay
apatah lagi seorang diri tanpa pasangan

saya gembira sebab today papa is coming from penang
setelah 4 hari outstation di sana
saya dengan jayanya dapat handle wafiy dan damia
which is papa tak caya i cud make it
sebab budak dua orang tu sangat interrelated to each other esp at night
maksudnya kalau sorang bangun, sorang lagi akan jaga juga (mcm twin daaa..apa tak nyer..sorang cuit yg sorang lagi..mau tak jaga dia)
memanglah tak cukup tidur saya 4 hari ni..
tapi takpe la
demi anak2 kan…

hari ini (petang) papa balik dah..
tunggu lah souvenir nanti petang..

My daughter is always splitting things down the middle, asking me to choose one extreme or another, asking me to make things black or white. “Is that person big or small?” “Are you fast or slow?” “Does that make you happy or sad?”

One of her biggest splits though is about crying. “Do only girls cry?,” she’ll ask. “Boys don’t cry, mom?”

Oh, yes they do, I tell her over and over, boys cry all the time. “Why?,” she says. My reply? Because they got their feelings hurt, or because they fell down and skinned their knee, because they’re just sad, the same reasons girls cry. Or because they’re happy to be home…like Allen Iverson.

I have a secret.  It’s buried deep within me.  I don’t want it out.  But I think you’ll understand.

When I decided to get pregnant, I spent months agonizing over the decision.  I weighed the pros and cons.  I knew I wanted another child.  But was it practical?  Was it a need?  Was it a smart decision?  We’re in a rental home, and The Husband is rebuilding his business in a time of economic down turn.  I had my hands full with the boys.  I had other issues that I should be deal with.  But I still wanted that child.  It didn’t seem logical.  In fact, it was quite illogical.  Stupid as I made my list of cons.  I hate doing something stupid.  But there it was a calling to have another child.  A strong desire that I had only felt once when working towards college and picking the unpractical degree of Creative Writing.

So then I asked the really hard question.  Did I want another child or just a daughter?  If it was a daughter, then I might as well start saving for adoption.  I began research over adoption, foreign and domestic.  I continued to analyze my want.  In the end, I realized I wanted another child.  I be perfectly happy with another son.

So after months of praying, thinking, meditating, I told The Husband, who had no idea I was going through such a mental crisis, that I truly wanted another child.  He was already on board.  But since I couldn’t deny a little girl would be nice, I decided to naturally switch the odds in my favor.

Tomorrow I’ll find out if I did.

And I’m nervous.

What if I wasn’t really honest with myself after all that soul searching?  What if I truly wanted a daughter so bad my heart bled with want?  What if I’m disappointed that it’s a boy? 

I wasn’t disappointed with the first two pregnancies.  I thought I could always have another.  With Evan, we found out the moment he entered the world and the doctor checked.  My mom and The Husband were so sure he would be a girl, but he was a boy.  I was so excited that I kept saying “it’s a boy” over and over again.  With Sean we decided to find out just so we could have everything ready.  The Husband, Evan, and I stared at the screen as the technician rolled the instrument over my belly.  She announced, “It’s a boy.”  The Husband asked if she was sure.  She was very sure.  I said, “We’re still buying a play kitchen.”  The Husband was worried I would be disappointed, kept watching for signs that I didn’t love the baby enough.

Any mother would find that preposterous.  How could I not love my baby to the fullest extent of my heart and beyond?  Boy, girl, it doesn’t matter.  It’s my baby.  So I know that if the little bean is a boy, I will love him to the point of breaking my heart.  And thanks to Raising Boys Without Men, I feel more comfortable with the thought of raising men who won’t run off and forget their mom. 

But what if tomorrow there is just a moment of disappointment?  Just a slight part of a second where I realize I won’t have a daughter.  I think I will cry for that moment of doubt.  But to make it worse, what if The Husband sees that flicker of disappointment across my face?  Because he won’t understand.  He’ll always wonder if I don’t love my third son as much as the other two because he was another boy. 

This is why I hate opening up presents in front of people.  Sure, there are things I truly want, sometimes expect to get.   But there’s that brief moment of empty disappointment over realizing you didn’t get what you want.  Sure, you’re extremely ecstatic that you got this awesome present from people who thought about you and love you, but it wasn’t really what you wanted.  Your voice sounds fake to your own ears as you thank them.  The disappointment fades off as you brag about the gift to other people, but you always wonder if the givers ever knew you weren’t really excited those first few minutes.

Part of me doesn’t want to know tomorrow.  There’s a chance hope will die.  But in its place will be love and excitement.  I wish I could know without anyone there, without worrying about what I feel or say or think or look like.  I just want to absorb the fact.  If I thought The Husband would understand, I would ask if they could just put it in an envelope for us to look at later, and then I could open it without anyone there.  But The Husband is super excited.  He hated waiting to find out Evan was.  I don’t think I could sell him on the envelope idea.

Doubt about God, Heaven and Hell, the brilliance of Shakespeare, I can handle.  I don’t know if I can handle doubting myself.

Check out my latest post on Chicago Mom’s Blog where I explain how our pediatric dentist gave me some surprisingly disappointing news about Eva and Charlie’s favorite toothpaste here.

I’m a big sister, the oldest of three, so I don’t know what it’s like to be a younger sibling…striving, curious, yearning to be in that number-one spot, lol. I’m kidding. But sometimes, younger siblings are just cooler, more seasoned, more interesting than their big bro or sis. This isn’t always the case, of course, but sometimes it just happens…

So Diggy (Daniel Simmons) is on the move. He’s the fourth of the six Simmons kids, and according to his press release (yes, he has one) Diggy feels people always think he has it easy so a rap career should be a piece of cake, but he’s attempting to show folks what he’s got. Aside from the much talked about clothing line, Space Cadet, Diggy just dropped his first mix-tape, “The First Flight.”

Diggy on his website

I’m so not mad at this effort, but I’m old enough to be his mom, so I think he sounds very cute. At 13, he’s written this entire project, so if you have a pre-teen or teen, download and let them listen. The Juice Boxx definitely recommends it!

Check out the first track, “Point to Prove” here.

The First Flight mix-tape.

If you watch his family’s show, “Run’s House” on MTV, you also know that Diggy has  had his own blog, Life of the Jet Setter for a while now, it’s full of fashion and music, again pretty cool stuff.

Parents: Do your children compete? Have a little rivalry going on? Is the competition healthy?

What do you do when your child utters a “slur”? Check out this scenario via Babble:

“My four-year-old daughter told me that she was put in time out at school today because she was calling one of her classmates a “monkey.” The classmate is black. Teasing and name calling among four-year-olds is pretty normal, so how do I explain to my daughter why she was punished in this particular instance? Should she have been punished for this since other name calling is tolerated? How do I talk to a four-year-old about racism and prejudice and why certain words are especially insulting to certain people?

— PC in the PK

Dear PC,

Ah, the unwitting faux pas of the young. Your daughter is way too little to understand the complex interplay of racial, cultural and social meanings attached to the word monkey. To her, calling a kid monkey is probably no different than calling a kid platypus. Maybe, she, like us, has heard parents calling their kids monkey as a term of endearment. She doesn’t have any context. The way we evaluate this incident has to take that into account: It’s not like she’s a political cartoonist or famous sports announcer.

We can understand how a teacher might feel compelled to react strongly to a name with such negative associations. But punishing a kid for something she doesn’t understand is pretty much useless. What’s more confusing is why the school will allow name calling of some kinds and not others.

At four, your daughter’s capacity for empathy is somewhat limited. This is the age at which kids usually start to cement their association between their words and actions and other people’s feelings, but it will be a while before she can make that connection quickly enough to avoid doing things that make others upset. (We’re still working on this ourselves with older kids.) It’s much easier to get that hitting or biting someone is not okay than to decipher the code of offensive and inoffensive language.

What seems to work well for young children is a general approach: If name calling happens, remind your daughter that often people don’t like to be called things other than their name. Since it’s hard to know what names will hurt people’s feelings, it’s best to call other people by their real names. This is the way we’ve seen this handled in our kids’ schools, and it makes a lot of sense to us.

Although your daughter is too young to fully grasp the idea of racial prejudice, you can certainly begin the discussion about race. You will want to start with a positive approach, helping her see how everyone’s different, and how skin color is one way people differ visibly. The important thing is that you’re instilling a respect for difference. The latest research indicates that our kids are very much inherently interested in differences in skin color. And that it’s important for us to address this, not to encourage “color blindness” or avoid the discussion. Research indicates that if children are left to work out racial differences on their own, they tend to develop more exclusionary practices.

As your daughter gets older you can start a dialogue about real discrimination and prejudice. Eventually you can even talk about the semiotics of monkey — it’s obviously very complex, but thanks in part to the aforementioned sports announcer and cartoonist, there is ample literature out there to help her parse the controversy.

Parents, do you talk to your children about race? Stereotypes and slurs? Did your children understand or did it seem to go over their heads?

Emmet has made some major progress in the past few months. It has been a blast to see him change, physically and mentally. Here are some of the high points:

• The pincer grasp must be Emmet’s favorite new motor function. In this video, Emmet is gobbling down some Gerber puffs with expert efficiency. In the end of the video, he looks at his hands like he’s thinking, “oh, such wonderful instruments!”

• He can high five, and with such enthusiasm you would think he won the big game!
• He likes to blow raspberries with his lips, leaving a nice spray on your shoulder.
• He has become a bit more clingy these days. David and I are enjoying the cuddle time with him while we can get it!
• He sits ups like a champ and has even begun army crawling across the floor. He does not realize that he can use his legs to propel him yet, but he’ll get there. I’ll get some video of this soon.

“Wow  —- what an excellent opportunity, especially for your children!  They will have wonderful experiences.”  So they say. 

People have remarked, almost invariably, as if to congratulate me, never doubting that my children will grow up to be perfectly fluent in Japanese and  perfectly at home with Japanese culture. 

Yes, I do appreciate the opportunity to give my two young children a broad array of multicultural experiences, from okyushoku-toban (serving famously yummy school lunch, clad in a white costume) to Sports Day (photo posted below), and from festivals (replete with cotton candy and kingyo-sukui, every one’s beloved gold-fish catching game, as described below by Daniel) to the New Year’s celebrations all of us eagerly await.  

My children themselves keenly recognize that our relocation has enabled them to explore so many new things in their “other” motherland they had never visited before, expanding their horizons. 

Nevertheless, they are not twisting their mother’s arm, begging to consider staying here longer; instead, they often start sentences with the same phrase: when we (I) go back to Seattle.  “When we go back to Seattle, I want to have another playdate with Alistair.”  “When we go back to Seattle, I want to take ballet lessons.”  As much as they savor Tokyo Disneyland and freshly cooked dumplings, they continue to view America –unmistakably— as their home. 

“Life in Japan is hard,”  wrote Daniel in his journal.  (Though he added immediately after that: ” but it is also fun.”)  I did not ask my boy what he had meant.  But let me guess.  Perhaps all those kanji (Chinese characters) tests at school, where he has struggled with reading and writing in his second mother tongue.  Perhaps those classmates who tease him, though good-naturedly in Daniel’s own terms, by calling him “foreigner.”  Or is it simply the Tokyo Metro trains we ride day in, day out, surrounded by sober-suited men?  (Riding the subway itself remained an enthralling experience only at the beginning.  It has quickly lost its exotic charm.)

Oh, the way I write may have set a grim tone.   In any event, rest assured that their scale tips in favor of Japan.  (And that is exactly what I hope for, at least while we are here.)  They have new friends.  They cherish virtually every place we visit.  (I take pride in selecting good places for our weekend outings, thanks to my research skills.  Hey, I went to law school.) 

Okay, Daniel, I fully agree that there is one place you loathed: Sanrio Puro Land –”Hello Kitty Land” in his sister’s words, a theme park filled with sweet cute Sanrio characters every little girl in her pink fluffy dress will fall in love with.  (And thank you for enduring it for hours on her birthday.)

Did Do you believe in Santa Claus ?

We bumped into him in Shangri la mall last Sunday and our son, Gabby took the chance of having a photo-op with him.  It was the first time he saw Santa in the flesh!  The red clad old man even gave him 2 pieces of candies.   Perhaps he really knows that our son has always been naughty  nice.   He is super nice!

Back in the late 80s, we used to hang old knee socks at our capiz-windows a day prior to Christmas thinking that all our wishes to Santa Claus will be granted.  I even wondered how Santa does the gift-giving despite our lack of chimney and a fire place, LOL   Everything was seemed to be magical until my brothers, cousins and I saw our grandmother putting in packs of  sliced cheese and some candies into our socks which apparently any kid would not wish over toys.

How did you discover the myth legend about Santa?

How do you explain Santa’s being to your kids?

In as much as we want Gabby to believe in flying reindeers and Santa’s existence, he has a mind of his own now and somehow knows how fantasy differs from what’s real. Still, he gets excited with the cheers that the holiday brings.

HO HO HO!

I didn’t even look at my exam schedule until today. As it turns out, I have PLENTY of time. One of my exams is take home and I get three weeks to do it. The two that I need to sit for are not scheduled until the 18 and 21 of December! All this loveliness and tomorrow is my last day of class! Now – there is absolutely no reason for less than perfection on these babies. Absolutely no reason at all. I need these grades to bring up my averages from last year. For tonight, reading for tomorrow. Tomorrow night I will plan my time. Motivation during the interim will be a struggle perhaps? We shall see. I’ll write again soon. Good luck to everyone.  (P.S. Yes, I do still have children. They are doing quite fine. I will be setting aside some time for them as well.)

I spent my weekend in a little graceland on the banks of the Macdonald River. A place usually reserved for the quiet pleasures of the local Aboriginal mob that own and care for the land, but momentarily transformed by freaks, festies and a strange breed of workaholics into a music festival wonderland for the weekend.

(I say workaholics because I spent a large proportion of time contemplating how hard this strange folk had worked at something as surreal as decorating bush and lugging large scale music equipment into the middle of no where).

The extreme heat and continuing bizarre weather conditions were also hard at work, transforming this little piece of paradise into 40 degree dust bowl – It was slap in the forehead hot, and clothes layered in a thin film of dirt dusty.

When we arrived there were hundreds of cars lined up in rows, parked outside in the baking heat. Scouting for a spot to park our van while I uncontrollably and repeatedly chanted ‘its fucking hot’ almost sent us around the bend and we very near made the fatal mistake of parking next to a bunch of P platers in a ute. Luckily we found a place to shove our van under some poor saplings try to pass as trees before we melted off down to the river for a swim.

We sat rooted by the little stage on the waters edge all afternoon. The Yang was booked to play that day, and managed to make a crowd of very hot people do some very slow dance movements. I was impressed at his ability to rouse people from out under the heavy cloak of heat to dance, even if it was on the head nodding scale of movement. And so I thought it was only fair that I should venture into the festival heartland i.e a place not on the river side, to get us some food.

It was a strange encounter of a mysterious kind. It was like walking through the desert at high noon. The sun was high in the sky, casting a gruelling glare on the open fields below, and despite all the hundreds of cars we passed on the way in, there was not a soul in sight. It was a deserted, desert ghost town save for the outside rim of stall holders, markets holders and stage hands looking silently on, which despite being strangely eerie, did have the added plus of the Golzeme stall miraculously being free from the usual mile long queue.

But surprisingly, all this wasn’t the most interesting aspect of my weekend, nor was the remarkable cactus growing, chemical producing mushroom man that plied my friend with horse sized tablets and lead him on the trip of his life, saying, ‘when you get there, you will find me, looking back at you’. No, what was most noteworthy, was the childless status of my partner and I for a 24 hour period.

For the first time in over 12 months we would spend a night away from our boy wonder. The first time we would be together, but alone, for longer than a few hour stretch, in over a year. A year! And the first time since pre-pregnancy, we would get sufficiently smashed (which for light weights like us, basically meant having a few beers and staying up till 11pm).

Yes, it was noteworthy.

Because it meant spontaneously stopping the car in the middle of a windy dirt road that ran along the river, clambering down the steep bank through shrub and reeds, and splashing freely in. It meant swimming out to its middle depths, lightly stoned, and having the sweet caress of that cool river water, and the eagle soaring high above, and the peace and magic of that river that had not another soul in sight, all come into sharp focus. With my friend on one side, and my lover on another, we wore ear-splitting grins as we made joking caricatures of ‘this is the life’ enthusiasts.

And once we arrived at the festival it meant lazing about on the banks of a much more crowded river, covered in dirt and dust, enjoying the hard earnt reward of a day that had finally cooled after forcing you to first survive its sweltering intensity. Kicking back, watching little clusters of people bobbing away in the water, sitting next to a slightly crazed man whose piecing blue eyes screamed at you from the blood shot haze of red that surrounded them – and not worrying about sand getting into the baby bag, or the baby food, not worrying about meal time, and being far too intoxicated to administer it, not worrying about a thing but continuous dips in the river and crawling back up the sandy bank to the ice cold beer my lover had fetched me and the sweet little toke that my friend had rolled me.

And it meant watching other couples trying in vein to shelter their young from the gruelling heat, or battle with them over eating their lunch, or incessantly following after them as they wondered off, and turning to smile smugly and with huge relief at my partner.

And it meant finding our other childless-for-24-hours friends under a starry night with dirty feet and hip hop beats and having them extract a bottle of Peruvian wonder juice that we all took hits from, giving cheers to our childless state and the wonder and awesomeness of grandparents.

And it meant joining my lover arm in arm and wondering off into the fields to pee under trees and then wondering full circle back into the heart of festival land where we fetched our dinner and ate it under the open night sky without a second thought of that well worn couch we usually ate on in spitting distance of The Boy should he cry out or need us.

Yes, all of that was very noteworthy indeed.

Like visiting the well worn paths of a former life that you thought long lost, and realising that its all still there. But its better now, because the next day you wake up, drive home full of anticipation for the shrieking delight and loving grin that your little boy wonder will lavish on you, only to get there and have him scream and cry his head off while you laugh and grin and love like a lunatic.

Natural learning has its benefits–and lack of boredom is one of the best!

It is a direct result of allowing children to explore their own creativity, unhampered by the clanging of a school bell (that would force them to stop working) or the pressure of peers (who might mock some of their more out-of-the-box ideas).

Here’s an example, with photographic proof, of what I mean:

While stranded in a “loaner house” to await the availability of our new home last month, my children had nothing to do! It rained all day, our home school books were still on the moving truck, and I imagine that most parents would resort to television, video games, or psychotropic meds to keep sane while stranded like this all day with five children.

Not me! While we lived in this limbo for an entire week, my daughters started finding things to do.

My oldest–we’ll call her “Prima”–found some scrap paper and an old pair of scissors, and almost immediately went to work, creating artistic designs and life-like shapes with them:

My second oldest–aka “Dizzy,” started writing letters to friends (something we usually do in our home school for writing homework, to make it fun)

And the little ones went outside to gather leaves, which we pressed inside wax paper shapes to make bookmarks (an activity so fun that I forgot to stop and take a picture, alas!). In the meantime, my older daughters gathered different specimens and created an impromptu “nature guide” of our new surroundings:

For the organic educator, being stuck indoors with a large group of children isn’t a headache, it is an adventure! And home-taught children adjust to different environments and situations easily–mine rarely act out or complain that they are “bored.” Instead, they thrive, thanks to the flexibility they’ve developed in an ever-changing learning atmosphere (as opposed to the public school reliance on constant, repetitive activity, requiring children to stay busy at all times, lest they “get into trouble”).