halloween

We had a nice Halloween night. Wine and food with friends, with trickertreating and sparklers in between. I trundled two tired, pale faced children with sore tummies home and gave them kiddie painkillers. Yeesh. Parenting Award, please!

Olivia was Captain Jack Sparrow, complete with perfect swagger/mince and longing for rum. Bodhi was a furry monster, and he went out with the big boys and apparently got twice as much loot as everyone else because people kept going, Awwww, he's so cute!!! and loading up his bag. He came home with three. I won't go on about them, or post pictures, because you've probably already waded through a rake of people's little zombies and princesses of facebook, and, well... it's easy to overindulge in that sort of thing, am I right? Speaking of overindulgence as we are, I am full of pumpkin pie and cheese and crackers and Indian finger food and tortilla chips. Faced with a table of food, I just keep eating. Tss.

It was much quieter out and about than last year, with fewer houses looking inviting with lots of decorations and lights and all. Lots of dark doors and closed gates - which is fair enough. It's expensive, it's a pain in the ass if you live in an estate and the bell goes every two minutes. But the people who are into it are heart warming, so generous, and sweet to the kids - they even dress up. That's nice, and it's friendly.

I#m glad to have friends who let us feast on the fat of their estate, and provide us with such hospitality. The kids dived into their bags and watched Hocus Pocus in a very civilised manner. It was all good. 

brighter and bleaker

The tree beside our house is being cut down.

It's a huge fir, 30 years old, and not in enough soil to hold it. If it fell, which my neighbour is assured it will, chances are it will crash into my bedroom or hers. So. Down it comes. Our neighbours on the other side are happy - she's a sun worshipper, and is excited at the thought of how much more light their garden will get.

We will too. And of course, not being crushed in your bed is always a good thing.

But the kids loved it, and spend many happy hours playing beneath it's branches, digging in the needle carpet and hiding around it. Olivia ran to her room when she heard of its sentence, and sobbed that everything she loved goes...

I'm finding it hard to watch. The kids are interested. I just have this sneaking feeling that we underestimate trees, maybe, and seeing it stripped of its branches, chainsaws swiping great scars and gashes in the the bark... it's like Aslan's table and the witch's ritual humiliation of him, and torturous too. It feels like a desecration. It feels like an ugly murder that I've stood by and watched.

I wish I had the money to put something else wonderful there instead. A swing set, a little house. A well grown tree? Olivia suggested a hot tub, which is a fucking fantastic idea but one beyond our means, sadly. I told my neighbour, and she said she did once look into the idea of finding one that didn't use too much energy - and discovered one that went all day on a bale of briquettes! Which is pretty fantastic. But I think the days of hot tubs in Ireland are over for now.

Outside it's bright, and empty, bleak feeling. It doesn't help that it's a grey, drizzly day. I can hear the chainsaws drone, I can see the Bray Head from my window now. I finally got my view.

tremors

Bodhi watched his first scary movie tonight. We wanted something Halloweeny, and when I told them about Tremors, they were very eager. I remembered the funny bits and tension more than the scariness, so when I got to Xtravision and they had a box set (including the two sequels, oh dear!) I decided to go for it.

He liked it, but it freaked him. But he wouldn't stop watching. And discovered the hiding-under-the-duvet tactic  favoured by his mother.

I don't know - if he was my first I never would have let him watch it. Poor kiddie! Olivia loved it of course, and was frustrated the couple times I fast forwarded gory bits. It's a very ketchup-splattery movie, but the tension is good, and the way it sets that up by killing off less important characters so you worry more about the main ones is effective, if you're small.

He was scared of monsters afterwards, though, even though he agreed the Worms didn't look real. So I got into bed with him with the light on, and he was asleep in minutes. I'm anticipating nightmares tonight though. Poor baby. What have I done!

I can't seem to stay focused when driving. I just don't SEE things. I'm becoming a terror. I need to get my shit together or stop driving completely. I wish I could put all the stuff in my head in a box in the passenger seat, so I can drive a little bit more safely and concentrate better.

OH YES

thank you, Mary! A good start to the day.

something someone told me

Complete transformation is entirely possible.

It's a positive message. I wonder if I'd get in trouble for reading this in a Halloweeny light :)

try again

I need to fail better tomorrow than I did this morning. 

:(

I went to the dentist some time ago.. 6 months ago? because I was worried I had decay in a heavily filled tooth.  He said there was no sign of it and seemed very confident. He said, at the end of the consultation, well I can xray it for you if you want me to. In that voice that suggests it's not necessary and he's just humoring me. SO I didn't ask for an xray, because I don't want to have xrays done if they're not necessary - the less radiation the better, you know?

So yeah, that was stupid. I developed a hole and more signs of decay - went today - not good. I have a faceful of anaesthetic as it doesn't seem to really work for me, and my resilience just wasn't there this morning. I nearly cried in the chair. The one he angles downwards to save his back, and it's too tall for me so it destroys MY back as I sit in it for an hour being drilled and injected. And injected and injected til my ear went numb. And it hurts my dodgy jaw to have my mouth open that long.

But there was deep decay, touching the root - which isn't dead yet, but may die and get infected. I may get an abscess. I may have to have this very visible tooth extracted, or get root canal. I have a temporary filling, and a little tube of more of it in case it comes out. And a precautionary prescription for antibiotics in case of an abscess. And come back in two months and see how it's going.

I wish I'd had the xray last time. I wish I was more assertive. I wish I made better decisions. Ah. A pathetic self pitying mess of woe is me. 

catching up

I wish there was someone I could ask questions of who would know for sure the right answer. For certain. Someone with all the answers. I get things so wrong, I follow my gut and then I cringe but then I'm still not sure. I think I'm right and wrong all at once. Which, in my world view, is pretty much how it is in reality. Some people have the gift of black and white vision though. Not me. I view the world through uncertain spectrums of doubt and possibility.

But, aside from that thing I can't really talk about, I had a wonderful morning. I've had the sweetest, bestest class of lovely Italian teenagers for the last three weeks. Today they did their exam that I had them terrified they'd fail - and they all passed with flying colours! I am so happy. I made them cupcakes, and their teacher bought me flowers.

This in itself is a wonderful thing, because only yesterday I was walking past the flowers in the supermarket, eyeing the roses and thinking, I wish I had some flowers. I wish someone would give me some flowers. And wonder of wonders, it came true! They did their tests, I gave them chocolate cupcakes that they all adored, and then I went and got super positive feedback from the examiner - I waited for the But, but it never came! They were all well prepared and they all got As and Bs. I came back in to this chorus of happy faces and tears (I really did scare them too much!).

I'm really going to miss them. Their sweetness and humour and genuineness and happy teenage energy. Lovely people.

Then I went back out into the rain, the rivers and rivulets and pools of moving, splashing water. Oh, is it raining. So hard, for so long. All the drains are blocked, because this is Ireland, and the water is building up and up and it's hard not to splash pedestrians as I go by. Yesterday I was momentarily lost, and while I was looking around to see where I was I managed to miss a red light - and when I tried to brake, I skidded out across the little junction. Luckily they saw me coming and nothing horrible happened. God, I am not a good driver.

My granny got hospitalised with nearly-pneumonia that was affecting her heart, but she seems to be ok now. She doesn't seem to realise that given that she's 94, it's pretty amazing that this is the first illness she's EVER been hospitalised for. She thought she was dying :(
But apparently she should be off the oxygen and IV antibitoics and home on Tuesday. I hope so, anyway. People come out of hospital sicker than they go in these days.

People keep asking me have I any news. Well... there's my news. 

a mother's lot somethingsomething pillar of salt

This morning I went out to teach, in a building with no small children in it. It was immeasurably easier than working round the kids. But I've used up my babysitting time now. So the night-job is left out in the cold. I've been to the supermarket, got some food for us all, I have to go out in the cold dark now to hang out a wash...

I'm trying to write an exam. This involves reading, thinking and hopping between several files at a time.

The kids are playing on the bed that's beside me - their game involves lots of loud, ridiculous, repetitive, shouty fun. On one hand, I'm grateful that they are playing together happily (although, yeah, watch this space, a real time head butt will probably enact itself as I type). Also that they eagerly ate sliced carrots tonight, and asked for More, along with organic hummus, that alone fills me with a relieved glow. However. However. It's really hard to concentrate with this much noise and flurry and impending fights going on around me. It's been like this for weeks. It's not that I haven't wasted time I could have grabbed to myself, I put my hand up on that one.

But this working from home thing, it just doesn't work so well. Not without childcare too. Sigh.

Still, at least it's cheerful, for now.

confronting

This article is, for me. 

I grew up in a house where my mother was often screamy and hysterical, in a disordered, stressed sense.
My father, I have come to realise, used rage and the threat of his rage as a defense mechanism - he never had to deal with anything if he could rant and bellow and scream at it and make it go away. And I suppose that it became a knee-jerk reaction, that and irritability. They were both damaged and depressive, I suppose, at least, so it seems from the hind sight perspective I now see through, through the eyes of parenthood.

I'm ashamed to put this article up here. I have done something I never anticipated - I've allowed my father's way of dealing with stress and demands to manifest itself in my parenting too. Shouting and cursing and menacing, at times. Explosive, trapped, loud outbursts of frustrated, infantile  behaviour. I've scared my kids. Not just on isolated occasions, but routinely, and the worst thing is that despite my horror of it, I'll most likely do it again. Maybe even tomorrow.

My first paragraph strains to let me off the hook. It's what I learned. It rose up from the deep, a demon leviathan, squashing all my good intentions, all my intuitive knowledge and research, grew me into the monster Mama instead - instead of the protector,  I became the thing to be afraid of. To a degree. That's not good enough, though. Explanations of what damaged my father just made me feel guilty, frustrated, responsible for him. I was not responsible for him. I am not now. I am responsible for me, and my own children. That is the bottom line.

And yet, it's hard. It's so fucking hard. But that's just how it is. I read to the end of this avidly, because I need an answer, a quick fix, and dose of strength and peace. I know it doesn't work like that, but I'm putting it here as a reminder for myself. And naming and shaming myself and my selfish unthoughful parenting.

 After twenty years of learning and teaching self defense, I believe the most fundamental skill women learn from this practice is the ability to stand up for themselves. The best self defense teachers structure their classes to rehearse that core experience of stating what we expect, desire or require and having it honored. It becomes normative to be heard and to have our boundaries respected. I teach like this now and I know that it works.

 So why not parent this way too? It's not like parenting isn't going to be a royal bitch anyway. There's no way to make this job easy, no way to transform coexisting with a growing little being into living with a rational adult—or into living alone, which is what I secretly crave on my most selfish days, no matter how deeply I love my family. So I may as well cultivate those skills I want for her, even if it means she's not always the "good" kid. The cost to me—if you can call it that—is having to really live my values, having to recognize my daughter's full humanity in every moment. Yes: even those tired, end of the day minutes when we are both coming unraveled, I have hours of work ahead before I can lie down, and I just want her to do what I say. The benefits are myriad, but on the short list is the fact that I can worry about her just a little less as she moves away from me and into the world. She's growing the skills she needs to fight for herself. I've got the bruises to prove it.

remember the green nylon nightie?

Well, I've yet to come across a representation of what it actually looked like, but in retrospect, I think this is what I felt like when I wore it (I just didn't know it yet :)

Strange the expectations you have about boobs before you actually have them. I remember my sister giving me one of her cast off bras, which was probably a Ccup, and looking at in in incredulous amazement - being me, I said, thanks, but I can't imagine I'll ever need a bra that big. Being my sister, she took offense, laughed bitterly and suggested that I might be surprised.

And... she was right. 

what we're like in labour

Can anyone who will ever be a parent, support a parent or have anything to do with birth please read this?
http://navelgazingmidwife.squarespace.com/navelgazing-midwife-blog/2010/1/20/labor-a-visual-guide.html

It makes me think deeply about how I was and what I needed in labour. I was lucky enough to have manageable ones, the pain of them was not particularly extreme, I wasn't frightened (well, not of the pain, at least, given the circumstances of the second one), maybe the babies were just in good positions to come easily. I still wish I'd had better care for the second, because I think I would have been one of those pop-him-out-with-a-smile mothers if things hadn't gone so pear shaped.

The whole post is SO IMPORTANT and highlights so strongly what it hospital procedure is doing wrong, and doing to women and babies so violently. Our own birth processes have been stolen from us. And it's getting worse - that Midwife and Nurses' bill is going to go through unamended again, ringing a death knell for home birth and independent midwifery. I am no fan of our new health minister, who doesn't even bother to come vote on the bills the government is passing and for the whole health service, who seem to insist on ignoring evidence based best practice. 

And to my children...

I leave... my blog. 

Yeah, thanks, Ma. 

thankful

I am so grateful for the treat a friend just bestowed on me. As a completely unnecessary thank you for a few days of my picking her daughter up from school when she was busy with onerous family responsibilities, she gave me a beautiful card and a gift voucher for the Avoca shop. She shouldn't have, but I will go spend it with glee.

I have an avaricious soul, or at least one that delights in nice things, and the prospect of going browsing among the jewellery and stockings and bowls and cupcake wrappers with actual intent to buy rather than just longing fills me with joy. Maybe I'll even do what the sweet pair of friends in the Italian gift shop recommended: I was buying a box of little candles and the lady asked should she wrap it up. I said no no, it's just for me - and her male, middle aged friend said then of course I should have it wrapped, it's even more important - he always gets everything wrapped for himself. Because he's worth it, the gist was. It's a sweet way of thinking. The only down side is the woman I always end up getting things wrapped by is an abysmal wrapper, worse even than myself, and that's saying something. Still. It's a nice thought.

I'm not proud of it, but I do miss having my mother taking me places, and buying me things. This feels a little like being treated, being looked after, and it's lovely. I really appreciate it whenever people do this for me, it's hard to say how much.

sighting

This morning as I was driving to work, down the hill towards the sea, I saw a woman walking down the path.

I noticed her long, full, yellow skirt, and her flowing, voluminous orange top that came down to her knees. She had sandals on, I think. She was middle aged, and her hair was long and wild and grey. I caught a glimpse of her serene face as I passed, as I looked in the mirror - and she was draping herself in a long, black... cloak, as she walked. 

Do you think I saw a witch? I hope I did. 

It frustrates me - 15 pages of Google images reveal only ugly, horrible crones, or sexy, nubile temptresses. Where are the beautiful, older, wise women? The ones with the knowledge? The ones who know how to deliver babies, and heal, and look after animals, and cook. Where is my mother, in there? It's a pity, the extent to which we bought the propaganda. 

listening to...

Damn, I'm miserable. Is it this time of the month already? It feels like it. Chocolate urges and tearfulness. I brought Olivia for an assessment for the play therapist today - the woman there asked if I'd brought her to a child psychologist when I explained our stuff - this has been my first port of call. I can't afford to go private, so all I can do is go to the GP, get a referral to the Children's Mental Health service, the Lucena Clinic and go from there - only down side is the €65 for the GP and the year long waiting list at Lucena. So, I suppose we'll do this while we wait.

She asked me who supported me. I didn't quite know what to say. Lots of people, here and there? Nobody? Various professionals, when I can afford it/get it together to take remedies? People I don't know on the internet who let me complain to them? She asked Olivia who the people who were important to her outside her immediate family were, and the only people she could think of were her granny and great grandmother. I wish I had a better ... I wish there were more people around us in our everyday life she could feel part of, people with kids her age, people she could go to.  I wish a lot of things, and I'm sure there's a proverb about the uselessness of it that is perfectly apt in this situation. To this situation? For? Agh. 

seriously, lurkers? seriously??

You can watch that learned to ride a bike post, and the sweet little hedgehog post, and still not comment?

Hearts of stone.

Shakes head*

spoiling you with video - garden visitor

We have seen no hedgehogs in the near decade we've been here - but the other night Axl saw one running up the lane, and this morning he found a trapped fugitive in the sandpit - this poor little creature must have been there since last night, unable to get back out.

We were all enchanted - I had a retriever who used to go retrieve hedgehogs, memorably leaving the first one in the sitting room, where my father thought it was a hairbrush left on the floor til it started walking away. She did it often, and had to be encouraged to stop. Then she overheard my mother telling my granny about it it months later, and rushed off and came back with one. I haven't seen one since, now that I think about it. It was the kids' first sighting of one, and right up close. Very exciting!

I think we'll go out and get a hedgehog hibernation hut for the winter. We put some dog food out for it, will see if we can encourage it to visit again.

pride and delight

And I was wrong - it only took her a handful of goes to get it - no being-let-go-too-soon-falling-off-trauma at ALL!

Bag End

A Hobbit House! I want to live here.

I can't wait for The Hobbit to come out. So Exciting. I saw photos of Bag Eng in the paper the other day and they looked perfect.

One of the main reasons I had chidlren was so I could read them The Hobbit. Olivia didn't disappoint me, she loved every poetic word of it and has twice listened to it since on tape.

I'm a bit torn - Bodhi's too young to be read it yet, I think, so he can't come see the film in the cinema (well, he's too young and I have obsessive Book First, Movie Later principles). I do wish we could all go, though. Maybe I should try him with a chapter... 

I love my ring and my watch. 

sleep

there's not much going on online tonight. Most people have lives on a Friday.

I have work, but my kids hog the computer, cause noise I can't focus around, need things... like kids do. I chase Olivia to bed at 9pm after falling asleep with Bodhi for 25 minutes.

I briefly contemplate drugging myself with coffee and  trying to get some work done, but it's no good. I know it's no good, I can feel it. Bodhi was up at 6am this morning, for some reason, and I went to sleep too late last night. Teaching is wearing me out, even though it's only a four hour class. I am going to go to bed now, and try to make it all back up.

Someone I know has recently been hit with a crippling, inexplicable bout of near total insomnia, it's quite terrifying. What makes your body decide to refuse sleep completely, even though it's killing your brain cells and your systems? Why does a brain turn on itself like that?

I wish we could lie together and let my leaden exhaustion open up a path that pulls us both down into deep, restful dreams and holds us there, as long as we need, until all is recharged again.

There's some nasty shit in our shared past, there really is.

Illegitimate babies used for vaccine research as late as the 60s. 

The ESB/Teresa Treacy story is sickening me as well. 

better

Well - today - new class, one just for me - more Italian teens, but this time they're on the side of good. Intelligent, funny, respectful - QUIET when you're giving instructions. Love for the students, thank god. All my stress n' dread has receded significantly.

Still, I was thinking today, god, it's a long way til Friday... staring at the sea and thinking about the week ahead. Realised just now, hours later - it's not Monday! Yay woo!

Now I just have to plan a course, write it up, correct some essays, proof some exam papers and marking schemes, write some more exam papers and marking schemes, try to clean and manage the kiddies and work work work and not succumb to my baser internet/sleep/reading needs. Yeesh. 

phewwwww

Wow.

I arrived in to work yesterday and instead of the quick two hours of placement testing I was expecting, I had to  sub for another teacher, with a class of 16 Italian teenagers. Usually I heart Italian students, they're pretty, they're kind, they are willing to take on whatever silly grammar game you're giving them with a light heart and an 'Alora'.

But my god. This group of kids, they're the rudest, most uncooperative, unmotivated bunch of foreign students I've ever taught. Pah.

There's another group coming tomorrow, I hope to god it's not the same thing. It's a bit of a worry, as Italy is giving them grants if they do the Trinity speaking exam - so they're here on a free holiday without any actual interest in the lessons or outcome of the exam. Leads to... frazzled teachers. I was honestly dreading going to class today, and the actual experience bore out my dread. I swear, I came out of class today stressed and ... well, there's no other word for it. Affronted. Yes. Affronted. Bastards had me clutching my pearls.

Ohhh, to sleep. For a long, long time. 

loss

I just found out that my godmother's sister, who'd been sick for some time now, died yesterday.

Grief... there is no escaping it. I find its inevitability terrifying, the knowledge that people you care about are in pain and there is nothing you can do. I wish I could go to the funeral, but it's just a bit too far, and I have to work and be here for the kids, and I know I am not really needed. There is family enough there to look after each other, I am grateful to say.

The last few times I've seen my godmother, it's struck me how much more like her older sister she is growing. After I got off the phone from my friend, I was jolted by the memory of the dream I had this morning - my godmother, looking elegant and beautiful in black and white clothes, was talking to me in a big house that I think was my own family home, though grander. She told me that she was planning to go - I don't know the right phrase - to opt for voluntary euthanasia, I think to avoid being a burden, despite being still well and young and all the things she is. In the dream I felt a huge rush of loss and emotion, and took her hands and earnestly expressed my great dismay at the idea, and how much importance she held for me. It was an alarming dream, and I feel slightly unsettled to realise that her sister had died the day before.

I feel so sad. For her loss, for the everyone's loss and for what everyone has to go through. Protracted illness doesn't really make the loss any better, I think everyone's just worn down by the impending outcome, the sadness to come.

We have lost such a unique and fine person. A person of humour, and intelligence and poise. It seems stupid, what, to wish that no one ever died? People have to die. And yet... well, I am just scared of loss, of grief, of the formless, expansive breadth of it.

I hope that my friends can laugh and cry and be with each other and make a good thing out of their loss, in being together. And after that, the world is a little bit smaller, and lonelier, but there are new, small people in it to fill in the spaces left. That's just how it is.

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/opinion/2011/0107/1224286963352.html

curses

Dammit, dammit. Garlicky fingers just contaminated my illicit chocolate spread sandwich experience. Boo. 

I ♥ Jeff Bridges

Saturday Crush Day

I really do. I wish he was my dad. I don't know anything about him, I admit, but I love his films and his characters and his wonderful face.

I've written about him before, I think, so I'll leave it at that.