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I dislike unfinished business, so here are a few updates: what happened next, or what got left out.
The cria – courtesy of my daughter's Facebook page
Lots of noise in the yard, and when I go to investigate, the cria is rounding up the chooks, with some enjoyment … S/he s very cute, and lets me catch him/her every morning for eye drops and a cuddle.This one, I say in my delusions, will be halter trained.
They began preschool at the beginning of September. My daughter posted a very brief, sad blog on their first day
How to feel like the biggest traitor. Ever. Take your kids to pre-school. Leave them there.
A week later she says
In this week, they seem to have grown up. After the first day, we are in the playground. Maja is complaining that a big boy is ruining her sand-bear that she is building. I tell him once to leave it alone, and afterwards say that it's up to her. When I look up again, I see her standing there, arm over her sandbear, looking the destroyer square in the eye and saying Don't TOUCH it. It's MINE. Janek is standing beside her in solidarity.
And at the end of two weeks she writes in a post called “Respect”
This is what I am starting to feel for my children as I watch them handling preschool …They are serious small people, dealing with a situation they don't always find easy with all the ingenuity in their power. I give them a stuffed possum each and tell them that when they feel sad they can hug it … I hear Maja repeating this to herself in the mornings, her little voice saying over and over again 'when I sad, I gunna hug my possum' as we approach the preschool. I see the triumph and elation in them after the first morning – it's clear as day that they are relieved, and proud of surviving. For the first week, Janek hugs Maja while she cries. The second week, Maja tackles Janek and wraps her arms around him while he heads for the door. They struggle with the concept of bravery (I no brave, Mummy. I cry) and can't wait to report back if they avoid tears.
Buying the land
For those of you who were onlookers when my son and his family were agonising over buying a bit of wilderness, settlement for 580 acres of Bundjalung land with a river frontage of 1.8 kilometres took place on September 11th at 1500 hours.
I mentioned in my photography memoir the huge number of pre-digital real-world photo albums lining my bookshelf. In the radical study-purge I've been undertaking, I've been stunned by the appalling quality of most of the photos I've kept, and I've been chucking out blurs, compositional nonentities, what-the-heck-was-that-supposed-to-bes, and multiples of sub-standard shots. However there were a few pluses: I see the genesis of many current photographic passions such as rock patterns, bark, reflections, architectural detail and flowers; I recognise how much my photography has improved, thanks to experience, new knowledge, and the quality of my cameras; and I find two crisp $100 notes between photos, presumably part of a stash I hid during the GFC when banks looked as dodgy as my photography. Here's the pile of rejects, a few centimetres deep, nearly a shopping bag full. They have just gone into the garbage bin.
When I wrote the swimming post I failed to mention two books that have given me watery pleasure. One is Roger Deakin's Waterlog, which documents his adventures swimming across England via many waterways. The other is Blue mind by Wallace J. Nichols, a marine biologist, who draws on neuroscience, environmental psychology, philosophy, poetry and experience to explain the attraction and the psychological effects of water.
Dargue's mine
In a recent post I mentioned the potential threat to many aspects of life along the Deua River and out to sea from gold-processing in the headwaters. For once there's good environmental news. After community submissions, support from the local state parliamentarian, and strong objections from two local councils, gold-processing on the site will not go ahead.
Hoorah for your son and his wilderness! And those twins are heartbreakers π I remember that traitor feeling so well. It must be great to have a buddie to stand beside you π
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I love the feeling of my daughter’s love that comes through her account, and the idea that a mother respects her children – that’s true respect, not the demanded sort that parents and other adults often require of children.
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I love your postscripts! Good news about the land purchase and the gold processing. Poignant thoughts from Poland. I wonder if it is harder for twins to socialise? My first-born loved his pre-school. His very-close-in-age sister, who worshipped him, was less impressed. She cried every time I left her in her English school and back in Cape Town, where her brother was in a separate classroom, she stood patiently by the door waiting for play time when she could be with him, for months! Only when he left and started school did she settle. It is hard.
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Maybe it is harder for twins to socialise, although they’ve encountered plenty of people and kids outside school. I suspect my other children had a similar slightly enclosed world of many cousins who lived nearby when they were younger. I think the land purchase was almost gazumphed by my grandson’s grand-final football victory in extra time!
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Hooray for Deua valley!
Well you sent me right back to my children’s first school days and the tears. You’re brave throwing out the photos, I need to do the same, why do we keep even the out of focus ones?
This is a nice update post, I hope you write about your son’s new place as they settle Meg π
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Hooray indeed. Not often a victory of this kind, sadly. My own kids and their first day? My feisty first born wouldn’t let me even take her in to the school grounds. Her miseries came later.
If you’d seen my photos you’d have wanted to discard quickly out of sheer shame. As I write the garbage truck is emptying them into its maw.
My son’s land is purely recreational: it’ll even be a few weeks before they get down there. T’s off to Japan next week, and A’s in Canberra and the snow this week, both on school excursions.
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Gosh you have been rounding everything up and off, Meg. You also had me heading away to your daughter’s blog mid-read. What a good writer she is. You have such a lovely family. But then why wouldn’t you π
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I’m very lucky indeed in my family! And my daughter does indeed write well. I missed one very final bit: “Neutering day cometh. Anyone want to chuck their body on the line on the 1st Oct when the ‘paca boys go under the knife? I will buy the beer and cook you lunch.” (Posted on fb this morning.)
As for why wouldn’t I have a lovely family. I can think of many reasons when I reflect on my totally laissez faire parenting.
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Ah, now then – you stood back a little and let them bloom?
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They did bloom, didn’t they?
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I need an electronic version of this clear-out. However since digital photography and the ease of editing and deleting the clear-out won’t be so massive.
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I can’t imagine you letting anything through your scrutiny that isn’t worth keeping. And you seem to know where everything is as well. I suspect my digital clean out would be equally massive: just not quite so visible – that decorous little trash bin doesn’t really measure volume.
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