things I miss

things I miss from my life pre 2 kids (currently 11 weeks and 2.5 years):

thinking. I can't get very far into any abstract thought at moment due to both sleep deprivation and intervening thoughts like - when is Owl (the baby) going to want to feed next? has Sparky gone to the toilet enough today?

working outside the home. or doing anything that takes me out of home and home concerns for longer than half an hour- though I'm back at work soon - excited but apprehensive.

cooking elaborate creations

eating slowly

watching movies (even on DVD, they take too long at the moment)

Having something to talk (or blog) about that doesn't involve small children

To be honest, I'm meant to be all "aren't babies wonderful", but instead I'm very keen for latest one to be at least crawling!!!!! doing something!!! showing ability to get beyond baby age!!!

window safety

my cousin's boy -4 yearsold -fell out of a 2 storey window on sunday. on to concrete. he is miraculously alive and not paralysed, though with a fracture in his neck - waiting to find out what this means. please pray.

but also , please be aware of window safety in your home. kids can be expected to do the unexpected.

nicknames for my boys

Felt I should stop calling my kids by numbers. So we will call eldest son Sparky (he's bright and bubbly, chatty and charming, very adorable and very tiring) and for my baby, as an interim name, as he is still really to reveal himself - Owl ( he stays up late but mostly because he has a really wise little solemn face) though he has also been called Clancy (of the overflow) and Wellington (windy).

My husband has just commented he should have a nickname too. Have to think about that.

A room of one's own

I an writing this as our night owl baby is still sitting up with us in the evening resisting sleep. I have totally forgotten whether our first used to do this -I have tried to recall but have come up blank. I think sleep deprivation has a continuation of the species purpose - you forget a lot of the difficult baby times and go and have another one. I am just thinking come on baby, get out of my hair. He's not being especially difficult, not screaming. It's just that I am desperate for personal space. I have discovered that 2 kids seriously gets in the way of my introverted need for personal space and time. When one is out of your hair, the other one is in it. It's amazing how necessary that time alone and not touching another being is for me (so cuddling baby while I watch TV doesn't count). And the constant noise! chatter from 2 year old and crying from the baby. My idea of paradise at the moment would be to have no one to talk to or interact with for a whole day. It doesnt matter what I was doing for that day - I could be doing housework. Just with NO-ONE around. Virginia Woolf wrote a famous essay (title as mine above) which suggested women wouldn't acheive the way that men do without having a room of their own - i.e. the ability to get away from the demands of home. What about an apartment, I say???

boys, balls and ballet

It looks likely I will be the mum of boys only (considering due to medical reasons we are stopping now). I never imagined this would be the case - I always thought that I would have one of each, or maybe just girls. I was a very girly girl growing up, all pink, barbies, ballet and fairies. The comment we keep getting is: now you can have your own footie team. I don't think there is a comparable comment for multiple girls. So, there is this masculine ideal for all boy families - this idea that now I am fated to be a soccer mum. I really can't see me as that kind of boys' mum - all sensible hair and tracksuits. Anyway, I would rather have an all boy family like one I knew grewing up - each one of 4 sons grew up to be successful (using the term in a fulfilled rather than worldly sense) in very different ways - they were all allowed to be themselves - no matter whether that fulfilled stereotypes or not. Perhaps having all one gender is liberating in a way - as we don't have both genders we can't influence the girls to be all girly and the boys boyish - we can treat each child as a person, not a gender.

personality and first impressions

Here I am responding again to the same friend's blog! (see my post below on christians and culture - this shows that stuck at home with kids, reading blogs is now my community!) - she is reading about friendship at the moment and the effect that conversational style has on our judgment of each other. This really made me think back over past relationships. I thought this also related into personality - say for instance introversion/extraversion. Introverts such as myself often show a different public face to private one. I know for myself I tend to not show my serious side until I know someone well - as I keep what really matters to me private. I also tend to show this serious heart more in what I write than in what I say. I wonder how many people have not become friends because I do this? Do I miss out then on becoming friends with those people who would share my most deeply held views and ideals?
this is related also to my mysers brigg type - INFP see http://users.knoware.nl/users/veldman/frans/dutch/infp.htm or http://www.personalitypage.com/INFP.html
what are you?

big babies

No 2 son has caught up already to No 1 son at the same age, despite being 3 weeks early. Now he is above average in size - trying to catch up to tall older brother. Considering I am only 5 foot, I am amazed I give birth to these big boys. I am sure this amazement will only increase. Anyone want to bet when they will catch up to Mum in height???

Christians and culture

I have been awol due to family sickness - 7 week old with a cold worst part. A friend of mine has blogged about attempts to masculinise Christianity to make it more attractive to men http://www.loveasunnyday.blogspot.com/. She wonders why we keep looking at peripheral issues as Christians rather than get to the heart of the gospel. I'm quite frustrated at the moment with Christians (but should point out that perhaps my viewpoint is skewed due to living in the sleep deprivation torture of having a young baby). So often as Christians we seem to want to talk about not being captured by culture but this is usually a rallying call for conservatism. We only selectively apply this principle. While we might speak out about issues such as abortion, in other ways we are quite captive to our culture - for instance we are materialistic and status oriented. I have been thinking about our Christian response to elections (watching West Wing and current Australian climate). It seems to me that many Christians vote according to what a government will do for them, or vote according to unexamined loyalties inherited from their parents - very few approach it with a clear sighted attempt at WWJVF (who would Jesus vote for). Why aren't Christians viewed as being at the forefront of the critique of our culture? I have been reading Maggie Alderson's columns recently for the Sydney Morning Herald - her columns usually expound on fashion , but she decided this month to become a Compacter - that is not to buy anything new for a month except undies, food, toiletries and the like. This stand against consumerism is quite radical for a fashion journalist - this is the kind of statement we as Christians should be making - but we aren't, as a whole. When will the church as a whole be truly counter cultural - rather than just conservative? Of course I have to start with me....