Awake with the Kookaburras

Uncle Don and I had this competition going when we were up at his place in Mapleton last month.

"So, when were you up this morning?"  he'd ask.

"Up with the kookaburras." I'd reply.

One of our neighbours.

The kookaburras start laughing at you right before sunrise.

Which is about 4:30 AM.

Ha ha.

So that, when Ian DOES sleep through the night  (and I mean THROUGH the night, 8 PM to 5 AM through the night and not the piddling 5 - 6 hours the baby books tell you ought to count as sleeping through the night.  Who are we kidding here?!  Although, in retrospect, I would have paid good money to get that much sleep when I had the twins.  Or Andrew for that matter!)....

So that when Ian DOES sleep through the night he is just my favourite little bald man in the entire universe.

He's totally alert and ready for a morning stroll at 5:30 AM.

This will only keep me amused for so long, you know!

Who can blame him?  I'd love to be carried around the block at that hour too.  Make sure the trees are still where they were the day before.  Come back in for a second breakfast.  And then take a quick snooze right about when the other three boys wake up at 6:30.

Idyllic really.

It just sucks being the mode of transportation and the breakfast cart!

Then again, the sight of the kookaburra sitting out on the fence, never fails to cheer me up.

Never mind that he's only watching out for the cane toads who commit suicide in our pool.

I like to think that he's laughing with me, not at me.

Matthew helping out before school.

As I put Ian in his cot and trudge back up the stairs for the third breakfast seating of the day.

I AM the dummy!

"Does 'dummy' mean, uh, something else here too?"

Damon was assuming - and hoping - that it did.

"Or else everyone around here has taken to calling me an idiot."

Pause.

"And that's your domain."

Like the time in Geneva when an English mum asked me for a nappy and then looked at me like I was out of my mind when I went through my diaper bag - note the term! - pulling out wipes, tissues and towels while at the same time explaining that I didn't have any napkins, but I thought one of those would do just as well. 

Looking back on it now, I don't know why she looked so exasperated when she finally took matters into her own hands and grabbed a diaper.  As if she'd never watched American television.  And hey, I wasn't the one without a nappy!

For the record, they don't call them diaper-bags over here either.  (Carry bags, maybe?)   Or strollers.  (Prams, which somehow always reminds me of heavily-bundled nannies in 1920s London.)  I believe what they call singlets here are what I used to call onesies in the USA.  Neither of which will mean very much to you unless you have had a baby.  I just call them those little tiny shirts that you can button under their legs to avoid confusion.

Back to the dummy, though.

"If the term fits." I replied.  Before explaining that yes, dummy was the term for pacifier. 

Seems that dummies are out here.  (As in dummies are out of fashion not as in there are idiots all around us.)

Which is fine with me, having never considered using one.

The generation - and nationalities - that ask are the ones who used them to keep their babies quiet while they spent time doing other things, the ones who have been taught that children shouldn't be heard (perhaps not even seen in some cultures!) and shouldn't make demands and certainly not as newborns.

There is also the mistaken belief that you should make it as easy on yourself as possible, that the baby should be taught early on to be easy, that you have the right to have time for yourself when you want it and that you are somehow a failure at parenting if you spend too much time doing it.

Problem is, I really wanted this baby.  Really wanted him.

Not so that I can silence his demands on my time but so that I can raise him.

Sure, I'd like to be writing more, I'd like to get that children's book out and submit to more - okay, admit it, ANY magazines.

I'd like to do my yoga.  Or at least 5 -6  minutes of abs.

But sticking a dummy in Ian's mouth is like plopping my other four in front of the television.

It's a poor substitute for my attention.

Let's face it, the little guy is already 8 weeks old.

"The Cat's in the Cradle" and all that.

I deliver meals to the elderly with a friend of mine every so often.  I see the amount of time I will have on my hands later on.  Alone. 

Say what you like.  I'll be the 'dummy' for as long as I have the privilege.

Mothers' Day in Oz

Picture perfect at the park on Mothers' Day 2011

But what I REALLY wanted to talk about - before I got sidetracked by all that collective guilt - was Mothers' Day.

It was truly awesome here.  The best holiday so far.

It was bigger than Easter - which was celebrated more like we celebrate May 1 in the USA - with picnics and beach.  It was bigger than Christmas.  Maybe because it rained for the entire month of December and into January and noone knew what to do without their traditional Christmas camping trips.  And then we have had the floods to recover from.

EVERYONE WAS OUT CELEBRATING THEIR MOTHER.  Restaurants were pre-booked.  Parks and beaches were packed.  And it was a holiday that every race and ethnicity seemed to call their own.  Damon's native Australian customers told him that - because of their huge respect for ancestors and elders - they started the day at 6 AM and went on until evening, visiting mothers, grandmothers, aunts, tribal mothers and more.  Ancestors are also highly revered in Asian cultures so I was hoping they embraced the day as well. 

Although he DOES look exactly like his DAD, not his Mum!

It wasn't a commerical thing like what I remember from the USA. 

And it wasn't some lame obligation where the kids had to make a cheap trinket in school like it is in Germany. 

Australians REALLY celebrate their mothers!  It wasn't a marginalized, second-hand holiday.  It was THE REAL THING!

And so I holiday that I have always found rather lame and extraneous has become my favourite one here!

We went down to the beach on Bribey Island and found a table at a Fish and Chips joint.  How great to walk with my four children and have everyone smile at me and wish me well.  How great to see other families all out enjoying eachother.  How fantastic that families are truly respected and treasured here, not seen as some obligation as in Germany.  How great to not be judged as somehow second-class for having a large family.  How great to feel the joy in it.

I still got my daughter!  AND a free table for Fish -n- Chips!

The Mothers' Day stall that the PandC ran at the school was incredible.  I gave each of my kids one dollar to buy me something.  Thinking great, another crappy wooden picture frame or some lame piece of sewing I have to keep in the kitchen for the next two years.

I got a package of fudge, some bath salts, a cool refrigerator magnet and a bead decoration that hangs over my calendar.  The kids were so truly happy to have picked these treasures out themselves - to see that they WERE truly treasures and not just some crap they had to make for me that I had to like because that is what you do on Mothers' Day - and they were so happy to make ME happy.  Better than a birthday.  Better than Christmas.  Because my kids got to feel really good about themselves making me happy.  Thank you for that, PandC!

My two hip-hop dancers perform for me.

And thank you for this holiday Australia - and for the general sentiment.

There is JOY in being a mother. 

And I finally get to live that joy, rather than wonder where it all went.