Black crows – an omen or just Spring?

/ Lexyvale / Leave a comment

Crow

Yesterday I was driving home from Sydney on the Hume Highway, pelting along at 110km per hour with the cruise control on and my daughter in the back seat listening to music with her headphones on. It was raining hard and I was lost in a podcast.

Suddenly, out of nowhere, a black crow swooped across my windscreen. It was an unusual sight and close enough to startle me out of my reverie, bringing me back to the present. Whilst I don’t think I was drifting off as such, it pulled me up. Black crow crossing my path, isn’t that a bad omen? Doesn’t that mean bad luck? Death?

I took the car out of cruise control, reduced my speed and re-focused on the road ahead. The Hume Highway has played host to a number of random, catastrophic accidents in recent years, and I have no intention of being one of them.

Then, out of the blue and around 10 minutes later, another black crow flew across my windscreen. Ok, now you’ve got my attention. I slowed the car a little more, sat up in my seat and drove the rest of the way home trying not to obsess on the doom that awaited me and my daughter (who incidentally is named Tippi, as in actress Tippi Hedren who is best known for her role in the creepy film The Birds).

Today out of curiosity, I googled “what does a black crow symbolise?”  Many things, it seems. Bad luck, yes. Death, sure. If you see a crow near your house, be concerned. When death is near, a crow will come to a window or near a home repeatedly for several days before the passing takes place. After someone has passed, a crow will visit the home again in the same way.

However, I’m relieved to find crows can be taken as a positive sign as well. They can mean wisdom, magic, personal transformation, change. When a crow crosses your path, it symbolises positive changes in your life, two crows crossing is good luck.

Interestingly, after years of my life being somewhat stagnant – I’ve called it being in a holding pattern – there are big changes ahead. I don’t know what next year will look like, but it will almost certainly be very different to the last few.

Was this a warning to pay attention to the wet conditions I was driving my daughter home in, or a positive sign of changes on the horizon? I’ll never know, but it served to ensure I drove to the conditions and got us home safely.

Maybe it’s just Spring.

 

 

Holiday Time the AF Way

/ Lexyvale / Leave a comment

Peppers

65 days into this alcohol free journey – or AF as they say in the sober circles. Although it’s not really a count down to 100 days anymore. Not drinking booze has become my new normal, and not a struggle most of the time. The days are tallied up on an app that I go into now and then out of curiosity, and when people ask, which they do quite often.

I passed the half way mark while we were on holidays. The three of us went to Palm Cove in Far North Queensland to escape the Southern Highlands winter for a week. It was one of those lay around the pool holidays, at a naff but lovely resort with a huge pool full of kids (school holidays), a swim up bar and a bar tab that you avoid thinking about until the last day.

What else is there to do but to drink from midday, right? A beer or 2 with lunch, cocktails at the swim up bar, pre-dinner drinks, wine with dinner. Usually I’d cruise through those holidays in an alcohol haze, not really getting drunk, just kind of slow  – until the evening when it would be revved up a notch. Head to bed by 10 or 11, wake up the next day and do it all again. By the end of the week, I’m feeling properly pickled and in need of a detox.

But not this time! I’d be lying if I said I wasn’t tempted. Normally I do love a beer (or 5) by a resort pool in the warm sun, and hey I’m on holidays aren’t I? Surely hitting the pause button on the 100 days was acceptable.

But then I used a technique I learnt in one of the “quit lit” books I’ve read: I played it out in my head. What would having a beer by the pool mean? It’d certainly mean I’d have another. And then that would certainly mean I’d have (or want) another. I’d have to slow down there, as it’s day time and I still have an 8 year old to be a parent to, so there’s no sitting at the bar getting on it in party mode like the old, single days.

So I’d slow down or stop and start to feel yuck – that tired, hazy, headachy feeling you get when you have a few drinks in the day then stop. It kind of makes the rest of the day a big effort, until starting again with pre-dinner drinks, all the while feeling foggy until that first drink kicks in and gives you a lift again. Of course, then, there’s the next day. The hangovers are probably reasonably mild, and all over after a good breakfast, but since I’d given myself permission to drink the previous day, I would do so again, and everyday it gets a little worse, getting tireder every day, eating more and more and go home 2kgs heavier and feeling like crap.

So I didn’t! I recognised the thoughts for what they were – conditioned responses. Of course the thought of a beer by the pool popped into my head! My brain has 30 years of conditioning to think that way! I brushed the thought away and ordered a Coke Zero instead. It will take a long time for those conditioned responses to go away (assuming of course that I continue with this experiment) but my training has begun. One night, the barman forgot the “virgin” part of Virgin Mojito, but I tasted it on the first sip and sent it back without an issue, no temptation to secretly drink it, what would be the point of that.

Did I enjoy the holiday? Damn right I did! I went to the gym a few times, and did a 5km run and felt great. I enjoyed the meals but made good choices so didn’t come home heavier. I felt cheerful and relaxed and present for the whole time. We were in bed by 9.30, when I took my iPad and headphones and binge watched Season 2 of Unreal on Stan (a big disappointment after Season 1) using the hotel wifi. Heaven!

I’m sure if we went with a bunch of friends, it would have been more like party time and quite different, harder certainly, but for a family holiday, alcohol free is a winner.

The biggest issues were the mocktails. Firstly, my virgin mojito cost around $10 in most places. WTF?? I Googled the recipe: it’s soda water, fresh lime, sugar and mint leaves. WHAT A RORT! Secondly, Miss 8 acquired a taste for them and lost interest in her $3 Sprite. As soon as mine hit the table, she was into it and downed half of it before I even knew it had been delivered to the table. By the end, she was ordering them for herself. Yeah… no. $10 drinks for an 8 year old? I think not.

 

 

 

35 Days – boredom and clarity

/ Lexyvale / Leave a comment

bored

Five weeks in! Go me!

Since my last blogs, which were in the first two weeks when my resolve was strong, and the first two weekends were busy with house guests swarming, things have changed a little.

Life settled back into it’s normal, guest-free rhythm. Work and school all week, followed by weekends at home on the farm. For various reasons, I’ve never managed to cultivate a busy, active social life living here in the Southern Highlands. It’s very different to my old life where I always had strong friend networks and social events on all the time. I had a tribe, in fact I had several tribes. Whilst I have a few friends here, who I value very highly, I have never really found my tribe.

The upshot of this is that when my old tribe isn’t visiting (which is most of the time), my weekends are very quiet. I’m home on the farm, catching up with the weeks’ housework, planning meals, and trying – usually unsuccessfully – to minimise my daughters time on the iPad.

Now to some of you busy, overbooked people out there, that might sound like heaven. I remember a time I dreamed of a weekend with no plans. It’s just that these days, I have no plans pretty much every weekend.

So, let me get the point before this dissolves into yet another whinge-fest. My point is that I’ve realised that it’s not so much socialising that is a trigger for me to drink alcohol, it’s boredom. Without realising it, in recent years on those weekends where I’ve nothing to do but housework, cooking or parenting, I’ve found myself totally, mind-numbingly bored.

So what to I do? Crack a beer of course! Why not? It’s 3 in the afternoon, Andy’s started (he has that annoying ability to stop if he wants to so he starts early in anticipation of going to bed early), may as well get going. Two beers lead to white wine and together we ease into Saturday night.

Weekends, therefore, are a trigger for me, but not for the reasons I expected; what triggers me more than socialising is boredom.

For those reading this imagining that I’m black-out drunk in front of my kid by 5pm, let me defend myself and be clear. Firstly, I would ease into it. A 3pm start doesn’t mean I’m hiding in the pantry swigging wine straight from the bottle. Secondly, I am – for want of a better expression – a very good drinker.

By that I mean that I can function very well on booze. I don’t go off the rails doing stupid shit. I don’t slur my words unless it’s very late and been a very big night, which would generally only happen if we have company. I can function as a good wife and mother. The dinner gets cooked and served, the kitchen gets cleaned, the kid is looked after and loved. A friend recently commented that I could be 1.5 bottles in and you’d never know it.

I don’t get in the car and drive, and I don’t call everyone I know tearfully telling them I love them. I don’t pick fights. I just get on with having a quiet Saturday afternoon/night at home with my little family. I don’t say all that to brag, in fact I see it as a curse. I know people who don’t drink because when they do, they do or say stupid shit and get themselves into trouble. I never had that barrier (with a few notable exceptions through the years, nobody’s perfect).

And now, five weeks alcohol free (or AF as they say in the sober community) the biggest challenges for me so far are 1) I have suddenly become acutely aware how bored I am and have been with my life and 2) what the hell do I do now to fill the many, many freed up hours that were previously filled with  a couple of beers and a bottle (sometimes more) of wine?

So, if I’m to continue successfully on this AF path (btw I haven’t yet made any decisions on if this is forever or just 100 days), I need to spice up my life, find ways to entertain myself while still meeting my family obligations.  I’m not a hobby person, but it looks like I’m going to have to find one. They say it’s good to be bored, that boredom fires up the creative juices. Boredom leads to progress.

I’ve also realised in my new sober clarity that no one can do it for me, it’s up to me. I have been guilty of trying to shift the blame in the past – to Andy for wanting to live on a farm, to motherhood, to my friends daring to live their lives and not entertaining me every weekend. But the only person that can make changes to make myself happier is me. I know that now.

 

 

The Best Timing of All

/ Lexyvale / 1 Comment

Bonfire

Day 14

In hindsight it turns out that I chose both the worst and best time to make a public vow of sobriety.

Worst because for the first 2 weekends – notoriously the hardest part of going alcohol free – it was party time here at the farm. Old friends coming to stay loaded with food and wine. Winter in the Southern Highlands is the time for bonfires and red wine, kids running free in the (snake free) paddocks, there’s no driving anywhere, everyone is in party mode. I am not a winter person, but these times make it bearable.

However, its FULL of triggers – it would have been very easy, and indeed probably very understandable, to cave in. I really did choose a time that would challenge me the most.

As it turns out, though, the timing was perfect. The steadfast resolve that came from the announcement meant I didn’t cave. I didn’t allow the voice in my head to win – it just wasn’t a decision and so the voice went quiet. I kept waiting for the cravings, for the white knuckling, for the irritation at all the noise and fun around me, but it never came. I felt relaxed and happy the entire weekend. Sure the thoughts of a glass of wine popped into my head, but when they did I’d remind myself of  what that would mean…

Drinking me would have polished off at least 2 bottles of wine to myself each day. With that amount of wine under my belt, I’d have tuned out from all the fun chitter chatter, buzzing around in my own world.

Sober me was engaged and involved. I have caught up with my dear friends’ lives. We’ve dissected at length the enigma of the “poo jogger” and the bizarre popularity of Trump in the US. We’ve shaken our heads over the spectacular self-created undoing of  Barnaby Joyce.

And I hugged and kissed my daughter at bed time, whispering good night to her as she dropped off to sleep so happy and tired from a full day of playing and running with other kids. I didn’t breathe wine breath all over her, or slur silly, non-nonsensical rubbish at her, or impatiently dismiss her fears that she often has when it comes to lights out, eager to get back out to the party.

And remarkably, I remember everything.

So my announcement, whilst challenging, was at the best time of all because these last 2 weekends have taught me the most valuable lesson of all…. I LIKE being sober. I really, really like it.

And I LOVE my friends. 🙂

xx

PS. MASSIVE shout out to my Andy who, many weeks ago after I was having a bit of a poor me “I don’t have any friends anymore” moment went to a huge effort to make this weekend happen, and to keep it a surprise. I have been very spoiled this weekend. xxxxx

#sober #soberlife

No Shame

/ Lexyvale / 6 Comments

wine o'clock

Since I outed myself about my relationship with alcohol, I’ve had so many people comment both online and in person on how “brave” it was to be so public about such a “private matter” that it’s got me wondering: why?

Why is it so shocking that I would be open about this admission? And why am I surprised that people are shocked? Haven’t I just admitted in public that I’m an alcoholic?

My answer to that is no, I haven’t. I don’t identify with the term “alcoholic”. It’s an awful word with dreadful connotations. When we think of an alcoholic, we think of the homeless person on the street clutching their brown paper bag, all hope gone, their life wasted away by a terrible addiction. Alcoholics are scorned, considered shameful that they lost control and let it get so far. The blame is laid squarely on the drinker.

According to society, there’s just two types of drinkers; normal drinkers who can moderate easily, and hopeless alcoholics – two extremes. In actual fact, alcohol dependence is a spectrum. There’s degrees of dependence ranging from take-it-or-leave-it, up to that alcoholic extreme, and most drinkers, like me, sit somewhere in between. Most of us can lead productive lives, keeping families and homes ticking along, hold down high pressure jobs, maintain relationships. There’s even a word for it: “high functioning”.

We can do all that, but just feel crap all the time and pile on weight.

So I admit to being one of those in-betweenies, which means I do admit to a level of addiction, absolutely, or I wouldn’t be here, but alcoholic? No, I don’t accept that term – I don’t take on that shame.

You see, I have learnt enough about this poison that to know that it’s the drink not the drinker that causes the addiction. We grow up in a world where booze is revered. As kids we watch our parents drinking every night, with more on the weekends. Everywhere we look we are bombarded with images of people having fun together with drinks in their hands.

Now it’s all over our social media feeds – hundreds and hundreds of bright coloured, witty, fun memes (whatever that word means); we all have these come up on our feeds on a regular basis. It’s the only drug in the world that those who don’t use it have to justify. Every event from kids parties to book clubs to dinners out to play dates involve booze. We have booze to relax, booze to celebrate, booze to commiserate, booze to socialise, family dinners, holidays. Almost everything I do involves alcohol.

Point being that society literally PUSHES a highly addictive drug onto us every. single. day. The “addictive drug” part is a scientific fact, it’s not under debate. Regular use will change the neuro pathways in your brain over time, literally changing your brain to make it think it needs it and that it gives some sort of pleasure and stress relief.

No one told us this fact when we were watching our parents drink and roar with laughter with their friends, or seeing glamorous movie stars elegantly sipping champagne, or singing “I feel like a Tooheys”. We heard about the dangers of heroin and tobacco and marijuana and cocaine, but we were never told about the dangers of alcohol. We were never taught to treat it with caution like we are with those other drugs, quite the opposite.

So no shame here. I’m not afraid to talk about it. I didn’t know.

My name is Lexy, and I am not an alcoholic.

PS. in case you’re wondering why I did go public, it’s purely selfish – it’s keeps me on track and gives me accountability. Without that Facebook post last week, I absolutely would have drunk one the weekend. I intend to keep blogging the journey (don’t worry, not every day), even though I risk never being invited to anything ever again, and I don’t for one second expect anyone to keep following. But if you do..feel free to ask me any questions you’re curious about.

 

 

The Journey Begins…

/ Lexyvale / 2 Comments
IMG-0190

Me, Day 1. Make up cant hide the puffy, dark eyes

Last Monday morning at 6am I went insane and posted this on my personal Facebook page:

Ok accountantability post. Alcohol is no longer my friend. I’m sick to death of feeling like crap, the 3am sleeplessness, the weight gain, the absent parenting. I am good at 10 drinks, but no longer able to have just 1. I will not feel shamed, alcohol is a dangerous, addictive poison that we are duped into believing is the elixir of life. I guarantee I’m not the only one feeling this way. So, day 1 starts now. I vow to remain 100% booze free for 100 days. For those who have social plans with me coming up, don’t despair, I will still be social and fun, still have your wine with free abandon. I just won’t be talking stupid shit and will remember everything the next day ☺️❤️. Ok…. death breath…. hitting post. Wish me strength! 💪🏼

Aside from the obvious typos and autocorrects…. WHAT THE HELL WAS I THINKING??

Well, I was thinking how tired I was of waking up with the sweats at 3am then barely dosing until the morning. I was thinking how much I hate that I can’t seem to just have a couple of drinks and leave it at that. I was thinking how long I’ve been trying and failing to moderate. I was thinking how much I hate that my daughter is growing up with alcohol always as part of her environment. I was thinking about the Friday night before that I’d made a stupid, insensitive quip at my friends expense that was supposed to be funny but was so far from that. I was thinking about how for the last 3 months I’d successfully quit the Sunday to Thursday drinks, then Sunday snuck back in, then Thursday, and by Monday morning I’d had at least a bottle of wine or more for 4 nights in a row.

It’s time to address this. My Facebook post got 76 “reactions” and over 45 comments – waaaaay more than I’d get for the usual whinge about my life or picture of my kid. Mortifying. That post was unplanned and ill thought out, but now it’s out there.

To be fair, ALL the comments and reactions were positive;  incredibly, embarrassingly positive. Have all my friends known this all along and been waiting for me to realise it? To be honest, no, I don’t think that. I know that people are being kind, supportive friends.

So here I am, one week in to 100 days of sobriety. What most of those lovely Facebook supporters don’t know is that I’ve been leading up to this moment for a long time. I’ve always been one of the biggest drinkers of my various groups of friends. You could always rely on me to get on it with you, and I’ve always hated that about myself.

Last August, my Facebook feed popped up with an ad for a course called “This Naked Mind”. I clicked and signed up and have been immersed ever since in educating myself on the truth about alcohol. I’ve learned that trying to quit with will power is useless – you have to reprogram your subconscious.

It seems to have sunk in, as I’m now more determined and committed than ever before, and certainly not miserable about it, quite the opposite. This weekend I had 8 of my oldest friends come to stay loaded up with bottles and bottles of red wine. I’d be lying if I said that I went the whole time not wanting it, I certainly had my moments. But when the cravings came, I sat with them, said no, had no indecision and they passed.

And guess what? I had a ball. I belly laughed and bum danced and I remember it all. All the years I’ve been drinking with these lovely people, it turns out it’s my friends that are the fun part, not the wine. Who knew?

Today I’m excited and upbeat and strong. There’ll be bad days of course, but for now, it’s all good.

 

Dear Jess. Tippi writes a letter to her best friend after her big holiday.

/ Lexyvale / Leave a comment

Dear Jess,

Hello, it’s Tippi! I can’t wait to see you in Sydney at your birthday party next week. I wish I were turning 6 too – it’s not fair that you always get to have a birthday before me. But it’s ok, I love you anyway.

We got back from our holiday in the UK and the South of France yesterday morning. It was a very long flight from London, and we flew in to Sydney so early in the morning it was still dark. I didn’t sleep much on the flight – Mummy kept asking me to go to sleep but I wasn’t tired. Mummy mustn’t have been tired either, because whenever her eyes closed, I would ask her for a cuddle and she stayed awake too.

I have had a mazing holiday. On our first day there, Mummy and Daddy made me walk all over London. I was very tired and it was a bit boring, but I did it and it made Mummy and Daddy very happy. London has these wonderful shops everywhere full of useful stuff with English flags on them – money boxes, pens, cuddly toys, t-shirts and loads more. I love love love those shops! Mummy calls them souvenir shops and says they are full of overpriced crap. I’m not sure what that means – maybe that they’re lovely – but she did start to get her cross-face on whenever I asked to go to one. I got a Big Ben statue that broke that very same day, here is a picture;


I told Mummy that it doesn’t matter, we can just buy another one. She got cross-face again and I wasn’t allowed another one.

Then we went to my cousins house in a place called West Sussex. My first tooth fell out! I wrote the tooth fairy a letter and left it and my tooth under my pillow. The next morning the tooth fairy had left me one pound, but did not reply to my letter and I was a little sad. I wanted to know what they did with all those teeth. Mummy says maybe she was too busy that night to write back, and she might write next time. Now I have another wobbly tooth and cant stop wobbling it.

We went to France where everyone speaks funny and I don’t understand what they were saying at all. It was super hot, I was very sweaty all the time. But we were close to the sea and we were able to swim lots and lots. I swam in really deep water with my Mummy and Daddy, and could look down and see all the way down to the bottom. I learned to use a snorkel and saws loads of fish. We even went out on a boat one day.

Best of all, I played with my cousins who are English. They are three girls, Stella, Rosie and Hattie, and their big brother Charlie. Charlie is a teenager and I was scared of him at first, but it turns out he is really nice and funny. My girl cousins played and played and played with me. I got a bit sad when they went off and played big girls things that I couldn’t do like long swims out to sea, and playing cards. Mummy says that she was the little one once and also got sad when her sisters wouldn’t play with her, but that one day suddenly she was big enough to join in. I was still sad and didn’t like being the littlest.  But soon they would come back and we would play again or watch my new favourite show Barbie Life in the Dreamhouse. We even did a show for the grown ups and I got to be Queen Elsa.

Now we are home and we picked up our dog Pepper on the way. It was still early in the morning when we got home and Mummy wanted me to have a sleep but I still didn’t want to. But then I did fall asleep for hours and hours. Mummy tried to make me wake up in the afternoon. She said that if I didn’t wake up in the day, I would be up during the night but I was so tired I didn’t care I just stayed asleep whenever they weren’t looking. Then I did wake up and had dinner and because I’d slept all day I didn’t want to go to bed. Eventually Mummy got really cross and went to bed and Daddy lay with me till I went to sleep. I woke up first and it was still very dark – Mummy says it was 2 o’clock in the morning. I was really hungry and finally got to have a midnight feast! It is morning now and Mummy wants me to have a sleep but I’m not tired, really I’m not. She says that there’s no way on this earth am I allowed to sleep this afternoon, and I promise I wont. She says that stopping me from sleeping will be like holding back the tide, like it was yesterday. She often says things that I don’t really understand.

I didn’t eat much while we were away. All the food tasted different and the food on the aeroplane is yuck yuck yuck. I really only liked the bread and croissants. Now I keep asking Mummy for food and she gets me some, but when she gives it to me I don’t really feel hungry anymore so I take one bite to be polite and leave the rest. Then in a little while I feel hungry again, or maybe just bored I don’t know, so I ask for more food. Mummy says to eat the food she put out for me before, but I want something else so she gets me something else. When she gives it to me I find I only want one bite of it again. She is sighing a lot, I wonder why?

I have to go now. Mummy seems a little cranky so to cheer her up I am running around the house singing “fly birdy fly” over and over again at the top of my voice but she just wants to type on her computer. I think I’ll have a little nap after lunch, I’m starting to feel a little tired. I wonder what’s for lunch.

Love,

Tippi xxxx

How long do I have to pander to my kids’ fears ?

/ Lexyvale / 4 Comments
Scared

Scared

It’s a loooong time ago that I started kindy, so long that I cant even face working out what year it was. Somewhere in the mid 70s I’m guessing. Around 40 years ago, so I cant profess to remember the whole experience, but I do remember snippets clearly and have an overall feel for how it went.

We went to school. Full stop. No clinging, no crying, no begging Mummy not to leave. We were dropped off and went inside and got on with it. I don’t remember it even occurring to me to cling or cry even when I was scared or uncertain. Granted I had two sisters there, but the very last thing they were going to do was look after me. I barely got a grunt out of them until we all got home after school.

In fact, I don’t actually remember being dropped off at school. In Sydney we caught the bus. When we moved to Perth, I was 8 and we rode our bikes to school.

I know, I know, I’m doing the “in my day” thing. Ugh. Sorry. But it’s relevant.

Tippi has always been a nervous, shy kid. She’s always stayed close to me, she’s not the kid that gets lost in the shopping mall, she’s not a risk taker. Which has served me well over time as kids who wander are harder work, but it means she misses out on experiences. As she’s grown in age she’s grown in confidence, which has been frankly a big relief, but not that much confidence. At least 3 days a week, there’s some kind of clinging when I take her to school – it might be as mild as needing a few cuddles, or right up to the full blown Beg and Cling dance. Yep, she’s that kid. You’ve all seen them.

And then there’s the night fears that appeared a couple of years ago. I know, I GET that! I was terrified of the dark as a kid thanks to my two older sisters’ constant torment (cue evil Russian accent): “Dracula is coming to suck your blooooood”. Teeth time, story time, snuggle time, ‘night, love you’, dark…… ARGGGHHHHHHHH! Terrifying. The dark was so so scary for me right up until adulthood and then some.

But I had to suck it up. The hall light was left on while I was falling asleep and that was it. No parent checking on me, no staying with me, no lullabies. It was goodnight, get myself to sleep. I remember lying there in a sweat sometimes, trembling. But I went to sleep eventually and now I can live on a remote farm with no other adult in the house and all lights off and sleep soundly all night.

Tippi has the door open, the hall lights on, lullabies playing softly, a 2 minute check, 5 minutes, 8 minutes etc until asleep which doesn’t usually take long but jeeeez it is interminable when has started, it’s the end of the day, couch is beckoning.

So here’s the thing. I want Tippi to grow into a person who is independent, resilient, brave, fierce, adventurous, confident, able to take risks, living life to its fullest, and every other cliche I can think of. I don’t know for sure, but I strongly believe my parents did that for me, with a little help from my big sisters.

I confess, I’m over pandering to her fears whether they’re real or imagined. Surely by doing so, I’m fueling them, aren’t I? By hugging her 10 times at school drop off, hanging around, waving, encouraging, maybe I’m being nice and loving, but it’s not helping her to learn independence. By staying with her in her room when she’s scared at night might be a motherly thing to do, but doesn’t it confirm that if I’m not there, monsters might come in?

I’ve toughened up lately. I walk away at school after just a couple of hugs. I speak sternly if she follows me out, and I don’t look back. Actually this week I did look back and she was skipping happily back into school which tells me she’s playing me. I don’t stay in her room after lights out.

Then on the flipside… she’s 5, that little teary face breaks my heart into a million pieces.

Oh FFS, no it doesn’t, it’s infuriating, I have other things to get on with and this kid needs to learn resilience.

So tell me, how loving and patient do I have to be to these fears without cementing them for her, and how tough do I have to be without traumatising her?

Parenting Dilemma #5078.

Do you have a fearful child? How do you manage it?

A Year Gone By

/ Lexyvale / 5 Comments

A little over I year ago I jumped into this blogging thing with gusto, cranking out 10 or so blogs in a couple of months. It seemed to get some reads, some interest, mainly from my friends. Lot’s of indifference, of course, you’ve got to expect that, but some nice comments too. I got some Facebook likes, and then…….I stopped. Why?

Because it got terrifying. On Facebook it gets a much, much wider audience than I would have by just staying on WordPress, which was exciting at first. Then a little intoxicating as I looked at the stats – people were clicking! But then self-judgement came in and it suddenly seemed unbearably self-indulgent, boring and well, kinda embarrassing.

So I stopped.. And I must say I now have an enormous respect for those successful bloggers with thousands, tens of thousands of readers, letting it all hang out. What amazing confidence, such lack of self-consciousness – opening themselves up to the judgement and the brutality of the internet. Because with all the love they get, there’s a whole lot of nastiness thrown their way. It’s a brave person who blogs for a living.

A couple of my lovely friends have told me to get onto it again, and after a somewhat turbulent 12 months, I’ve had an urge to write. Please feel free to bugger off now, this is me time.

The Last 12 Months 

We built:

IMG_3594 IMG_3596

IMG_3599

Our very grown up house. I think it looks like a winery. Actually it could be with the amount of wine going through our place these days.

Nothing to get excited about yet – it’s more or less a shell. We are about half way and any further progress will be slow unless someone wants to throw a lazy couple of hungey grand our way (PM me for bank details).  We chip, chip, chip away at it one tradey at a time. And to bring in the bucks to get it finished, Andy continues to work away, which frankly is hard on the family and our relationship. But eye on the prize – when it’s built he can come home, get a lower paying local job and we’ll be a family together living in our glam country home.

We sent:

IMG_3421

Our girl off to kindy. With a 1st of March birthday, we had the dilemma of sending her this year, at 4 nearly 5, or waiting till next year when she’s 5 turning 6. I agonised about it right up to the day she started, and then for the first half of 1st term. She is fine, she loves it, is making friends and is loving learning to read and write. I will always wonder if she’d have been better off if we’d waited, and I suspect she would have been. But she’s fine, she’s happy.

We changed:

My work situation. By far the absolutely best thing that has happened in the last 12 months is quitting my job as a part-time financial planner. I’m not sure Andy agrees, but he’s supporting it bless him. We have one kid, one shot at it, and I wanted to do it completely. I wanted to be involved in her schooling, be there for her achievements, her school life. As it turns out, I haven’t completely quit the financial services world and continue to do some contract work, but it’s in my time and I’m not bound to an office, sitting in a job that my heart wasn’t in.

I’ve never been busier, with at least 2 hours of driving a day – a MASSIVE downside of rural life is the driving that’s involved with a young family. Everyday into town and back out and in and out again. Or hang in town and have to kill hours while you could be at home working, or getting the house clean, or cooking a great dinner for the family. Tippi is keen to get the bus, and we’re working towards that, but it’s complicated with a child with anaphylaxis and putting a 5 year old on a bus trip for over an hour carrying her own epipens is a tricky obstacle to overcome.

We lost:

IMG_3343

My mum. In the lead up to mothers day last year, I wrote about mum and her battle with ovarian cancer. She was doing so well with it it seemed. She’d endured more chemo, but still it hadn’t made her sick – she was definitely off, but not super sick like you see cancer victims in the movies. Maybe she was just being brave, but she was managing to live almost a normal life. She did hate the chemo though.

My sister brought her family out from the UK for Christmas, and we although we didn’t know it at the time, we had our last time all together. Mum was quieter than usual, with stomach and bowel issues dogging her a little, and a bit of vagueness she called “chemo brain”. By New Years Eve she was back in hospital with a bowel blockage. It was cleared for a while, but it came back and she was scheduled for bowel surgery in February to – in her mind – fix it once and for all.

But it wasn’t to be. The blockage became inoperable and untreatable, nothing more they could do. By then she had barely eaten for a few weeks, weight was falling off her. “Take her home” the doctors said, “keep her comfortable, give her whatever she wants.”

So we did. Mum never really grasped the fact that she was terminal, right up until the last week when she went into palliative care. My sister came out, leaving her young family in the UK for weeks, we all spent weeks going to and from Sydney to nurse her and be with her and Dad. And then, finally,just before Easter, we were doing the bedside vigil as we had been for a week. She was so weak, unable to speak or move. We sat with her all day, then at the end of the day, we kissed her, hugged her, told her goodbye, we love her, it’s ok to go. Her eyes indicated that she could hear us, and she loved us too.

My sisters and I left Dad alone with her and went home to Mum and Dads house where we’d all been staying together. Dad came home soon after. We were shattered. Then, within half an hour of Dad leaving the hospital, they called. She’s deteriorated, it’s very close. Did we want to go back?

We talked about it and decided no. We’d said goodbye. She’d held on all day, waiting for us to go. This is how she wanted it, she wanted to spare us from the moment. We sat together until the call came, and when it did we hugged each other close and wept.

At Christmas time when we were all together, we never dreamed we would be burying her by Easter.

Fucking cancer.

The Aftermath – so what DID happen to Jaq?

/ Lexyvale / Leave a comment

It’s 24 hours later, we’ve had time to figure out just what the hell happened last night. The truth is, we’ll never really know, but this is the favoured theory at the moment;

We think there was a feral cat under the veranda. Jaq got into a frenzy chasing it, it dashed into the shed. Tussle ensued, cat sprayed (hence the vile stench).

Jaq, always an excitable thing when it comes to cats, got so worked up that her body went into overdrive. It wasn’t about the cat anymore, she knew she was in trouble and needed to get inside the house. She couldn’t calm down, she was beyond the point of no return.

Her heart gave out.

That’s our most plausible explanation of why a 4 year old fit and healthy dog would suddenly die without a scratch on her. It explains the banging and barking, the stench, and the lack of physical damage. The vet agrees this is most likely but won’t be definitive without an autopsy, and we’re not going there, it’s done.

Thanks for the messages and phone calls of support, dear friends. We are all fine, sad but moving on. That’s life in the country, they say.

Xxx