Wondrously Other: January 2017

Anatomy of a Mountain Trek

Last weekend I headed off with the children to climb a notoriously changeable mountain and spend the night at our first DOC hut.

I like to do these things to myself every now and then because nothing makes me feel alive like flirting with disaster. Who wants to go to a nice safe camp site with flushing toilets, and cooking shelters, when you can walk up a mountain with starvation rations, and only airplane blankets to keep you warm?

So we went and did adventuring. And (spoilers) clearly I got back alive, so I leave this here for any parent who has wondered whether there’s room for a little bit of Captain Fantastic in their lives ... If you haven’t seen the film, that will mean nothing to you. If you have just know that I quoted from the film at least twice on this trip.

Friday

4:00 Leave home feeling confident, prepared, and excited.

6:30 Weather forecast is good. Arrive in rain.

6:45 Set up tent under the tree. Children insisted on climbing tree above tent just to give me the shits.

7:00 Children realise this is our first DOC site to allow fires. I realise every piece of wood is sodden and there is no chance of a fire starting. Try anyway and salute brave sacrifice of 2 firelighters.

8:00 Console distraught marshmallow hopeful children and decide it might be time for an early night.

8:15 Make bed for Alfie in back of car. Read girls to sleep with a John Connolly book. Realise this is not a wise choice of book when camping in a forest.

10:00 Wind picks up and the tent starts folding itself in half and stroking me on the face at random intervals. Girls sleep fine, I do not.

Saturday

6:00 Wake up, realise I have lost the car key. Also have no phone signal. Catch a couple about to leave and type in a message to Keith for them to send when they reach civilisation.

6:30 Decided that we might as well push on with our adventure since we weren’t going anywhere in the car.

6:45 Start down the path to Blue Range Hut trying to convince the children to at least TRY to avoid the puddles.

7:30 Stop for snack.

7:45 Find the first signpost where the tramping track parts ways with the family friendly circular walk.

7:50 Reach start of near vertical climb.

8:17 Get phone signal and start heated debate with husband about launching rescue mission with spare car key.

8:20 Stop for snack.

8:30 Alfie screams “THIS IS THE BEST DAY EVER!” as endorphins hit. Hope he will still feel that way in 4 hours.

9:00 Struggle for breath as we slip and slide our way up the track. Realise children look like water dragons trying to climb a vivarium. Find that humorous between wheezes.

9:15 Stop for snack.

9:20 Give up asking children to avoid puddles. Hope rumours of a wood burner at the hut are true to dry shoes before return journey.

10:00 Stop for snack. Warn children about finite nature of snacks.

10:15 Start having existential conversation with self over whether forcing children into 4 hour death march up mountain will help shape the “endless complaint” or the “deep fount of resourcefulness” parts of their essence.

11:00 Stop for lunch. Reply to latest missive from husband on how to be Responsible Adult with unusual good humour.

11:30 Find sign for hut. Promise children that hut is around next corner even though this is big fat lie.

11:45 Now that we have reached the top of the mountain, children think it is the most beautiful sight they have ever seen. Offer mumbled thanks for endorphins.

12:20 Children spot bright blue of the hut through the trees and find a turn of speed so far lacking in our adventure.

12:30 The hut is even more insanely cute in person: old maps on the ceiling, a bench for cooking, four bunks with actual mattresses, and old signs from a hospital. Also a doorbell.

1:00 Build fire, and hang all clothes from the spiderweb of lines cleverly strung between rafters.

1:05 Ask Olive to please stop ringing doorbell every 5 seconds.

2:00 Welcome a pair of utterly sodden trampers who have come much further than us and are looking for a warm quiet spot for lunch. Trampers clearly feel our welcome is a little too enthusiastic and choose to eat lunch on the picnic bench outside.

2:15 Ask Olive to please stop ringing doorbell every 5 seconds.

3:00 Wave goodbye to Sodden Trampers and go on wood gathering mission. Wonder how long until the children fall into a coma so I can read more of my book.

3:20 Realise book is in the car, but find a pack of top trumps I hadn’t realised were in the bag from a previous trip.

3:25 Ask Olive to please stop ringing doorbell every 5 seconds.

4:00 Welcome Lads who have walked up for a night of beers and banter. Lads clearly feel our welcome is too enthusiastic and choose to set up camp at the picnic table outside.

4:15 Ask Olive to please stop ringing doorbell every 5 seconds.

4:20 Regretfully decline offer of beer from Lads and instead start to cook dinner on the top of the wood burner.

5:00 Welcome Family of Four who greet us in awe having heard en-route from the Sodden Trampers tales of the family-with-small-children who have walked the hill. Feel like minor trekking celebrity.

5:10 Ask Olive to please stop ringing doorbell every 5 seconds.

5:15 Offer to share the 4 available beds with other family and am instantly rewarded by the mum engaging all the children in a game of Hit the Deck. Am in awe of super organised trekking family.

5:30 Ask Olive to please stop ringing doorbell every 5 seconds. Eldest son from Family of Four offers his screwdriver to remove bell.

5:45 Have cheerful discussion with Family of Four and Lads about sleeping arrangements. Lads agree to sleep outside and depart to build a campfire for warmth.

5:50 Mass exodus of children to help with fire building.

7:55 Take moment to acknowledge how fricking awesome the children are for making it up the hill.

8:00 Stare misty eyed out of window to see Alfie showing his butt to a horrified looking Family of Four (and amused Lads).

8:05 Decide to change dynamic of group by putting smallest children to bed after long day. Realise manically over tired children are hard to herd in open spaces.

8:30 Finally get children to sit on the bed and read from an abandoned Trekking magazine in best monotone voice.

8:32 Feel smug as children fall asleep in record time.

8:35 Re-join camp fire and take Lads up on offer of victory beer.

8:45 Apologise to Family of Four that Alfie is eating them out of house and home. Lament awkwardly that children always like other people’s food better than their own.

9:00 Alfie reaches moment of evening where he turns grey and decides he needs to go to bed.

9:15 Take Alfie to bed and decide to join him. Enjoy an hour of solid sleep before Family of Four come into hut.

10:15 Spend next 8 hours listening to the sound of Other People’s Noises. Wish I had brought more blankets.

Sunday

6:30 Wake up next morning feeling surprisingly human for so little sleep.

6:45 Throw on clothes and usher children out of hut ahead of Family of Four so not left with cleaning duty. Do not feel remotely guilty.

6:50 Realise we have no water left for journey. Feel like dreadful parent.

7:00 Start off down mountain. Realise down is harder than up.

7:15 Fall on arse. Watch children fall on arses. Start repeating “walk it off” at 30 second intervals, just in case.

8:00 Teach Olive to get down large steps by sitting on butt and sliding off.

8:15 Watch in awe as children turn into mountain goats before my eyes.

8:16 Instigate emergency protocol to deal with Alfie disappearing into the distance.

9:00 Watch in pride as Alfie becomes Amazing Big Brother as well as Monster Explorer.

10:30 Discuss future trips. Esme is clear that there will be no future trips.

11:45 Reach bottom of hill and burst from forest into scalding hot campsite.

11:50 Retrieve spare car key from Secret Non-Obvious Hiding Place

11:55 Throw kids in car and leave for home

12:00 Realise children will not make it far before falling asleep.

12:30 Stop at golden arches for Happy Meal treats.

12:45 Drive home in the stunning sunshine shovelling McChips in my face and when Cake’s I Will Survive comes on the stereo, feel at one with the universe.

Tuesday 31 January 2017 Comments: 4

Attachment Parenting Learning

Engaging different ages in learning

One of our learning intentions last year was to bring a little more structure to how we tackle the basics. Not too much structure, because our approach to learning is very much "here's a seed, you go plant it and let me know if you need any help with the watering", but a little structure. The challenge is that the children are all at different ages and stages, and finding common ground can be a bit of a challenge.

Armed with an app that Keith discovered the children are now treated to a new book every day.

Like a lot of other apps, this one gives us options about how much "help" the children get with words, meaning we can give all three children what they need. Oh yes, I said three, because if Alfie and Esme are doing it, Miss Olive needs to be all up in the learning too! High fives for unschooling three children!

Anyway, the app is great, but what the children really enjoy is the worksheet that you unlock at the end of each story.

I remember from my own school days how much I enjoyed cutting and sticking and annotating these sorts of workbooks. I enjoyed the quiet comradery of sharing scissors and glue and colouring pens with my table. I enjoyed creating something far better than my artistic talent would allow. In fact, I pretty much hung out for days when we did worksheets.

I had guessed that my children might enjoy worksheets too, but I had missed how much they would enjoy the shared experience. I had missed how amazing it would be to come home in the evening and line up three lovingly crafted pages, each one screaming at the author's strength.

Alfie who's colouring is precise and careful, but who cuts out shapes like he was forced to use his teeth.

Esme who shows a flamboyant disregard for the constraint of lines, but writes precisely and carefully.

And Olive, who lives her life according to the laws of blue, and who is so proud to be able to identify her sheet with an "Oh-for-Olive".

There's something about slowing down and observing differences side-by-side like that.

Tuesday 24 January 2017 Comments: 1

Attachment Parenting Highly Sensitive Person Learning Working Mama

When in a ditch …

I have always lived by the Third Rule of Life: When in a ditch, stop digging.

After 2016, that saying no longer seems enough to deal with the endless onslaught of woes and doom, so I've started to wonder whether the time has come to change it around a little.

My biggest problem last year was that I dug myself a ditch (or a rut I suppose) and while I was doing some stuff to keep me happy and healthy, the majority of my brain was taken up on the hamster wheel of work stress, child stress, and WTF WORLD?!?! stress.

For me, the back end of last year was a really introverted space. I watched YouTube videos every evening to catch up with world events in the same way that I might pick at a scab, I scrabbled around trying to be the parent the children needed without direction, and I ran round at work putting out fires in an enthusiastic but ineffective way.

So my revised Third Rule of Life: When in a ditch, dig sideways. That way, you turn a ditch into an interesting undulation in the ground you can call a "feature".

I’m still working on the wording.

My plan for 2017 is to get all up in some different stuff, focus on what I can influence, and do lots of things that I enjoy. Or that I might enjoy, if I stop worrying so much. Especially about shit I can't change. 2017 is my year of getting some perspective y'all.

My list of not-resolutions for this year so far involves:

1. Learn the Ukulele

I really wasn't thinking that I needed to add another layer of crazy to my life, then our amazing friends bought us a ukulele for Christmas. I've lamented for many years that I'm not cool enough to play the guitar. I gave it a try at school, hoping that it would turn me into the sort of salt haired, effortlessly waify surfer chick I always wanted to be. Disappointingly, guitars aren't possessed of magic powers, so instead of improving my appeal, it just made me look like Duane Dibbley about to break into an enthusiastic chorus of Kumbaya. I've accepted that, but I'm giving our new ukulele the side-eye and wondering if I might just be weird enough to give it a crack.

Maybe I am, maybe I'm not, but I've downloaded an app so I figure it's worth a try.

2. Read some parenting books

I'll be honest, this parenting thing is really fucking haaaaard and I'm not sure I'm doing it right at the moment. Actually, I'm pretty sure I'm NOT doing it right at the moment. I know with every fibre of my being that I am an attachment parent, but that's a bit like declaring yourself to be Japanese, jumping on a plane and wondering why the hell you can't understand a word of the language or the first thing about the culture. Gesturing and blind luck will get you so far, but for the most part, there'll be a lot of floundering around. Well, I'm over floundering around, so I'm going to read a few books written by people who are better at adulting than I am.

The first one is called Raising Boys by Steve Biddulph which I need to read because I need to find a way to deal with the utter boy-ness of Alfie's behaviour. I need some context for the rough housing and I need some tools to handle the testosterone fuelled brain farts. Judging by the reviews I'm either going to love it or have to explain to the library why I burned one of their books.

Second up is The Highly Sensitive Child by Elaine Aron which I think is going to give me a whole new insight into both Esme's personality, and my own. I also think this is going to be a deeply personal book to read and I fully expect to need a lot of hugs and tissues.

The last one is Childhood and Society by Erik Erikson which has been staring out of my bookshelf for the longest time. I feel embarrassed by the length of time it has sat, forlornly, as other books have come and gone. The time has come, my friend, I need some 1950s societal context in my life.

3. Ride my bike more … with Keith

Towards the end of last year, I started riding with a group of women called The Litas. Look at them, aren’t they badass? I have no idea why they let me ride with them, but they do, and thanks to them I have already pushed my riding way past my comfort zone and rediscovered my passion for being on two wheels.

One thing I didn’t do enough of in 2016 was to ride with Keith. We never made it to the track day we’d promised ourselves. In fact, the last time we rode together was out trip out to Castlepoint for Keith’s birthday last February.

Which sucks.

It especially sucks for me because nothing gets my vixen on faster than seeing Keith on his bike and I’ve been denied that pleasure for nearly a whole year. A year dammit! Where’re m’damn perving opportunities, husband? How am I supposed to check out your cute, leather clad butt if you’re never out riding with me?

Only joking kids, your father and I sleep in separate rooms and we found you under rocks.

4. Swim in the sea

I'm almost ashamed to admit that in the 18 months that we have lived in our house, I have yet to take a swim in our sea. Yes, when the sea is literally your front garden you get to call it your sea.

In my defence, that shit looks cold! Like all year round hypothermia levels of cold. And I don’t care how many people tell me that it’s good for my health, if I wanted to be miserably cold, I would have stayed in the UK.

Anyway, this year I’m going to swim in my sea, because over our Christmas tiki tour, I invested in a surf suit and if I don’t make good on my pathetic justification for spending that amount of money on fancy swimming togs, I suspect Keith will throw me into the sea without it.

Plus I need to get in some practice because in a few months the dolphins will be back in our bay and when they arrive, I’m planning on grabbing our body board, the Go Pro, and communing the hell out of that nature.

Tuesday 17 January 2017 Comments: 0

Attachment Parenting Esme Highly Sensitive Person Travel Working Mama

Travel with kids – The very late 2016 edition

Over the last 4 years, we have crossed the globe 7 times as a family. I know a lot of travellers who will scoff at that, but personally, I'm very impressed with us.

I would also say we've done a pretty good job of learning from our travel mistakes and given another 4 years, we may even have an approach that doesn’t require medication to survive.

And since a year is a long time between trips (and I forget things) I'm making a note of my big three learnings from our 2016 trip for future reference:

1. Luggage is everything.

I have decided that there are two space-time laws of travel: Everyone (and kids especially) run out of legs on a long trip, and luggage actively multiplies in transit.

If I might translate that to my experience of long haul journeys, it means that for every flight, you will have an extra shoulder strap, an extra piece of clothing and another person to carry off the plane.

So in 2016, we took a bold step; each person would have one piece of hand luggage, and they had to be able to fit everything they needed into that one case .... and look after it.

I don't mean one piece of hand luggage, but that's OK because we will have a huge suitcase checked in as well. I mean each of us had ONE BAG TOTAL.

In my case, my bag had to hold all my clothes, camera kit, shoes, makeup, paperwork, to be away from home for 3 weeks. For the children, their cases had to hold all the random bullshit toys they couldn't live without for a few weeks, as well as enough clothes to deal with an English summer and a Canadian autumn.

Enter stage left Trunki.

Since this was a bit of an experiment, I bought three of these little guys second hand so they wouldn't cost me too much if they were a total flop. I also waited until Christmas to give them to the children (even though they were more for my benefit) because I'm evil.

I'm also very foolish for not having bought these earlier.

You ever see those families who have to borrow a crappy airline pushchair to get their children through transit? There's one exhausted child sitting smugly in the seat, a couple of siblings trying to climb over them like puppies because WHY AREN'T THEY IN THERE TOO?!?! and a shit tonne of coats and bags balanced on the handles?

Normally, that's us.

This time, we had three exhausted children perched atop their own plastic horned steeds. Each one gliding gracefully down the halls of the airport behind their cautiously optimistic parents while fellow passengers smiled, pointed, and then flagged us down to ask all about them.

Was I wearing a T-shirt that said: "Stop me and ask about luggage"? No, I was not, but such is my love for these little cases I did it anyway. You're welcome Trunki, you're welcome.

2. Sleep is everything-er.

Unlike every other fucker on the plane, none of my family can sleep more than five straight minutes in an airline seat. That means that after the first lengthy flight, we all feel like we've been turned inside out.

It is also a family rule that someone has to vomit copiously throughout the night, at just the right interval to make sure we all stay sharp.

By the time we got off that plane, I just couldn't even pretend to be a hero about how I felt. So I did the only adult thing I could think of, and sat down in the middle of the airport and refused to move until Keith agreed to give up on the idea of sightseeing for the day.

Luckily, nearly ten years of marriage has taught my husband a few things about me, so he had already scoped out the local facilities, which included pay-by-the-hour-massage-offering-rooms inside the terminal building.

It was my first experience of a No-Tell Motel, and I'm pretty sure it was the receptionist's first time checking in a family.

That's just a guess, based on the tone of her voice when she asked us if we wanted a massage. Despite my post flight demeanour, I could clearly hear her unspoken words. "Please," her voice was saying "I'm doing my job by asking you, but I'm not a bad person, so just say you hate any form of physical contact and we can all go home tonight with our lives unblemished".

Having established that we weren't into anything that would lead to a police investigation, we were led down a corridor that (I shit you not) was straight out of The Shining.

At one point, a cleaner ducked out of a room and shot the receptionist a look that read "Dude! What new level kinky shit is this?!"

The replying glare from the receptionist virtually screamed "DUUUUDE!!! Remember the memo!!! We're a Respectable Establishment!!!!"

Respectable or not, there were beds in our room which meant I got a solid 4 hours.

#NanaNap

3. Routines are not a cut and paste deal

I'm not even sure how to write about this without weeping quietly into a glass of wine. Even now, five clear months later.

Until last year, we had sort of just made the assumption that when we travel as a family, the basic shit kinda just stays the same. I'm talking about the real basics here, the sleeping, three squares a day, passing interest in doing cool shit sort of basics.

It was a bit of a shock to find out that none of the above was necessarily true.

There are some of us who just seem to keep kicking along, regardless of time zone or hemisphere. There are others who hate the shit out of travel.

I'm talking specifically about Esme.

In Esme's world, change is literally the worst thing that could happen to her. She hates to travel so much, that when we landed in Vancouver, she began to lose her mind on a daily basis. These weren't your average jet-lag grumps, she would get so worked up, people would stop and stare.

One man even offered her money to get her to stop screaming. $5 to be exact, to be spent on sweets, toys, or a phial of unicorn blood if it would help. It did help for a short period of time, right up until the point that Esme realised that $5 didn't buy her very much unicorn blood, at which point she stopped traffic in China Town for a straight hour.

I say this without any judgement on Esme, by the way. The fault (such as it is) lies with me and with Keith. We tried to get her to power through what we thought was a simple case of jet lag, and as a result rendered the downtown Vancouver area unable to hear themselves think for sizable chunks of the day.

This is usually the point where I start to write about our beautifully crafted solution, which I would gladly do if I had one. I could write something trite about just having to listen harder, or be more responsive, but that would be a total fabrication.

The truth is that nothing we tried made the blindest bit of difference. Nothing. And we tried everything we could think of to help Esme cope with the changes brought about by travel. The only truth I have is that Esme does not enjoy change. The only coping mechanism we have right now is the dim flame of hope that somehow, we'll work it out.

Monday 9 January 2017 Comments: 2

Highly Sensitive Person Working Mama

The Next Orange Triangle

So 2016 wasn’t the best year. AmIright?

Around about the time I was getting over jet lag on our annual trip to the UK, a few things happened that tipped me into the abyss of Not Fucking Writing Anymore. While I was down there, someone dropped a grand piano of work stress on my head, ripped up my faith in humanity with their “protest votes” and left me doubting both the authenticity and the authority of my voice.

Which is another way of saying I felt like I needed to spend a bit of time listening to the insanity around me, instead of trying to talk all the time. So that’s what I’ve been doing for the last few months.

I still don’t feel ready to start speaking again. I still don’t feel like I have anything worth saying, or any right to be saying it, but writing was always a form of therapy for me, and I have missed it in my life.

Over the Christmas break, we packed up the car and got away with friends. When I say that, I mean we ventured into the land that 3G forgot, living under canvas, adventuring in caves, washing in rivers and walking trails marked only by small orange triangles.

These orange markers are nailed to trees on all but the most obvious trails, and as my experienced walking friend commented, you may start each walk feeling confident of your direction, but by the end, you hold on to every orange marker triangle like they are your lifeline.

Actually in some cases they are your lifeline.

I bring this up, because while I was dragging my sorry ass around trails that no office worker should attempt, it struck me that these orange markers were probably quite a good analogy for getting back into writing; no grand plan, no expectation, and no fucking analytics.

Just talking about stuff that I care about, as if nobody is listening.

Wednesday 4 January 2017 Comments: 2

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