2010 Resolutions

OK so it's February and a post on resolutions seems more than a little tardy. But I did make them at the start of the year -- though I don't tend to -- and I thought that a month on, it would be good to have a checkpoint.

In my extensive list, there are very specific things that I want to pay more attention to, like drinking more water, avoiding buying food from the school canteen, being a better dog owner, and having more control over the time I spend on the internet. There are also little things to preserve sanity, like going out more with people other than Hubs and/or Bubs and having Bubs babysat more than often than last year. Some of these I'm slowly establishing, other have been acted on, and the rest, I haven't even begun doing.

But on the sheet on which I have typed up these resolutions, and which I have posted in the ensuite and next to my desk, I included what I called "rules," overarching guides for myself. I guess, having come off a bad year (many people I know were glad to see the back of 2009 -- really bad juju going on there, it seems), I needed some simple statements to keep me in check, even if I forget all the rest of my resolutions:

1. Do not panic.
2. Have something specific to look forward to.
3. Don’t be so hard on yourself.
4. Be brave.
5. Be thankful.

They seem like airy-fairy motherhood statements, but in my case, they were forged from extremely challenging experiences. Each in their own way represents a desire to overcome and move forward.

A month on, I think I'm doing fine.

[Photo: First blush of lobelia in a flowerpot, taken on the balcony of our flat in 2001]

Jack at two

Antiquarian dreaming, Part 2

In my previous post, I wrote about my cherished little collection of antiquarian photos.

They're not the only old things I've purchased over time.

These are:
* Grimm's Fairy Tales with 48 colour plates by Harry G Theaker. Published ca. 1920 by Ward, Lock & Co.
* Alice's Adventures in Wonderland and Through the Looking Glass by Lewis Carroll. Illustrated by AH Watson. Published 1951 by Collins.
* Just So Stories for Little Children by Rudyard Kipling illustrated by the author. Published 1950 by Macmillan and Co. Ltd.
* Andersen's Fairy Tales published by Blackie & Son [undated but web search suggests ca. 1940s??]
* Peter Pan and Wendy by JM Barrie. Published by Hodder & Stoughton [undated but web search suggests ca. 1947]

They're not mint condition but definitely pre-loved. I don't mind that. I'm not really one of those serious collectors who bid X dollars for antiquarian books in pristine condition, with dust jackets and all. I buy them for whimsy [for instance, the Grimm's book has a couple of clover-like leaves pressed between its pages, placed there who-knows how long ago]. And I guess from a deep love of old-fashioned books: their smell, weight, texture and (sometimes) colour. A couple of these hardbound children's books have got gorgeous illustrations called colour plates, made by two of the most popular book artists of the genre and of the period:

[Alice and the Caterpillar, AH Watson]

[Rumpelstiltskin, HG Theaker]

These images are straight from the scanner, Photoshop-free, simply cropped with MS Picture Manager.

Again, as with my request with the old photos, if you happen to come across books of a similar nature to these, please purchase to be reimbursed or let me know where they can be found.

Antiquarian dreaming, Part 1

I've always loved old things. While my high school classmates were headbanging to Guns 'N' Roses and Metallica, I was bopping to The Platters, The Drifters and Everly brothers. I was also into old films. I remember finding Casablanca really gripping, and Gone With The Wind really boring (Scarlett O'Hara is an odious character).

My fascination with things from the past was fully realised when I started buying "relics" on holiday trips to former gold fields. We were browsing through a few antique stores in Ballarat a good number of years ago and I fell in love with a collection of photos. I think it was just that they were clearly from another era, a whole other world that was accessible only through images. Here are a couple from my very small hoard bought over time.



Don't they make you wonder whatever happened afterwards? [On the back of the second photo is an inscription: "To Dear Mum with best wishes from (indeciph.) & Frank. Taken 29/10/14". In four years, this photo will be 100 years old and the oldest thing I own. The top image is probably older but it's not dated].

I like purchasing wedding photos for this reason, because they do have that resonance, more than any other type of photo. Wedding photos also provide a fashion snapshot, and since then, I've gotten a couple from other eras as a study. Please, if you do come across really interesting old photos, could you buy them for me and I'll reimburse you? I'll pay up to $30 for a really good find, preferably dated and with interesting inscriptions (store prices tend to vary based on quality, size and age).

Look what we found at the Salvos!

Although we were looking for a crafting table (for me), and this really isn't it, it was such a charmer. It's an old primary school desk, with inkwells and grooves to hold your pens. I think we were taken in by the bygone era that it evokes. Such desks were used around the 1950s, some holding through to the early 1980s. As with any secondhand (thirdhand and so on) furniture, it also sparks the imagination: what are the stories of the young people who sat at this desk over the years? Where are they now? What happened to "KE was here 1980"?

On a practical level, we had been thinking of getting Bubs a desk of his own in the study because he tends to want to climb onto our laps whenever we sit at ours. It's a lovely opportunity for cuddles, but also rather annoying when something needs to get done (like paying bills). This was a desk he could have a relationship with, one that actually has a lot of character, compared to a DIY-assembly, laminated desk that we would have likely gotten. So we bought it from the Salvos, and it now sits in our study. It needs some sanding and a lick of varnish, but not much more labour than that. And in a way, any restoration just adds to its history.

Of course, there's a twist in the tale, and a good lesson to have, when buying old furniture: do some research on e-bay! As it turns out, we might have gotten the exact same desk for less than we paid... but then again, we didn't have to travel far to pick it up and the Salvos got some fundage for their excellent work.

A Facebook and Twitter Diet

I'm pretty much your average netizen with an opinion. (Actually, I've always been rather opinionated; the arrival of the internet just meant that I could potentially bore even more people with my views).

It didn't take long for me to get hooked on Facebook and Twitter. I've been blogging for many web lightyears now, but the responses I get from these social networking sites are more immediate, frequent, varied and numerous. Moreover, through status updates, I was getting marvellous glimpses into the lives of friends, and learning new things through their experiences and interests.

But then it just got a bit silly. I was checking for updates way too often, as if life were that interesting from one click of the 'refresh' button to the next. Also, over the course of my day, I was bookending activities and amusing moments by providing a 140-character precis online.

So I was already feeling that I needed to take better control of my time and communication when a blinding moment of clarity came. Last Tuesday, I was sitting at my laptop reading posts that I had already read on my iPhone (because of course I have the Facebook app on there), when I finally twigged: surely I've got more productive things to do. Not exactly an earthshattering epiphany but it shifted me about 90 degrees. Different view from there. I wondered what it would be like to be completely off the radar. I decided to not visit my Facebook and Twitter accounts for the rest of that week.

The first several hours after quitting were really hard, but once I got past the 36-hour mark, it got easier. I was able to hold out until Saturday afternoon (and could've gone on longer if I hadn't seen Avatar on 3D at IMAX).

In the end, it was a great exercise in abstinence (which I don't tend to be very good at). And it helped me gain a Buddhist detachment from Facebook and Twitter -- which I had sorely needed. And yes, I did become more productive. Yey, me. This might bode well for the rest of the year.

Living with irony

I've come to the conclusion that being a parent means living with irony. And by this, I don't mean bad luck or coincidence as in the 1990s Alanis Morisette song. I mean incongruity or inconsistency between reality and context, between two desires, between expectation and outcome.

Let's take excursions down the street. Not too long ago, I had to carry Bubs on my hip if I'd forgotten the pram or trolleys weren't available. When he started walking, it was fantastic! That is, until he learned that he could wriggle his hand out of mum's. Now that he's walking, running and climbing up and down things, sometimes I'm like - could you please stay in the same place I left you?

It's the same with feeding. When Bubs started using the spoon, it was wonderful because it gave me a bit of space to do other things while he ate. However, being a toddler, his aim and table manners aren't quite refined yet. Hence, after meals, there's a bit of table-wiping, face-cleaning, clothes-changing, floor-mopping and sighing going on.

So it's this bittersweet spot of being fit to burst with pride and yet oddly harking back to "simpler" times. I think when you're marking time by the growth of your child, you tend to straddle the past and present. You remember how things were, what you wished for, then you see them come true... along with other things you hadn't anticipated, least of which is wishing things hadn't changed at all, even as you are pleased that they did. Funny that.

Who and why I follow

I don't follow many celebrity blogs or Twitter feeds because most celebs just aren't that interesting or witty. But the handful I follow, do have a common thread: they are all patently down-to-earth. It made me think of one side benefit from social networking, especially Twitter. As with any "offline" conversations, after a while, you get a sense of what people are like. When somebody is posting updates regularly, it becomes easy to detect patterns (even if those patterns may be generated by the PR manager).

So who do I follow?
* Neil Gaiman [Twitter] [blog]
* Jason Mraz [blog]
* Rob Thomas [Twitter]
* Pink [Twitter]

Three musicians and one writer. The writer lives in a Addams family house on a few Minnesota acres, devoted to his family, his girl and his dog. One singer lives on a 21st century commune, planting vegetables and feeding friends. The other singer raves about Puerto Rican fare at the in-laws and campaigns for unwanted dogs. The third singer is just plain Alecia offstage, cooking massive Thanksgiving dinners for her crew and missing her beau everytime she tours overseas.

As far as "interesting" goes, I guess they don't tend to tweet or blog stop-press stuff. Nothing of what they say gets flung about on Facebook, or re-tweeted, or quoted on Digg and Reddit. Some lazy hack on an online news website won't build a 300-word report on their feeds.

But what makes them eminently interesting to me is their ordinariness, the basic humanity that shows through in their rants and musings. Or maybe I just haven't outgrown fan-dom. In any case, it's always cool to find that we're all the same in the ways that matter.

Vale, Sir Ralph

In July this year, upon learning that he had been diagnosed with cancer, I wrote about my high school English teacher, Ralph Cecilio. I was a little distraught, the way people often are when those they know to have such vitality face death. As testaments on Facebook demonstrate, he was a wonderful teacher, much-loved by many. Absolutely one of Cagayan de Oro's greats, and they are rare.

Ralph had a brief remission after treatment. He passed away early this morning.

I am deeply sad, but the sadness is not as sharp as it was months ago. It seems to be cancer's dark gift, giving people time to reconcile themselves with impending loss. The grief is also tempered by a very strong sense of legacy. When news spread of Ralph's illness, students from way back 1993 (when he started at our school) to this year, honoured his teaching, honoured the man. He lives on each time one of us drops lines from Keats or Donne. I echo the sentiments of others when I say it was a privilege to have been taught by him, although we can only attempt to qualify why we feel this way.

There was something in his passion for English and what classical literature offered to us. How he always treated us as if we were more capable than we realised. He didn't suffer fools gladly, although he liked to play the fool himself. His reputation for awful puns and lame jokes was the only chink in his imposing armor. But also, he was extremely generous. He had as much of a fondness for the disengaged troublemakers as he did for the bright ones.

I've always had in Ralph a model for teaching. I still have a lot to learn, but I hope that I honour his legacy and be remembered with as much love by my students as he is.

(Photo from Facebook page run by his children)

Entertaining my toddler

[The post title was going to be "How to entertain toddlers." But then I thought, well, Bubs is a particular toddler with particular preferences; I couldn't really claim to have the definitive list of how to keep kids his age -- nearly two -- occupied. The reason I'm really sharing this is because it's an ongoing learning experience for me, trying to match the growing demands of an increasingly sophisticated brain. It might be useful to someone else, in the way that I learned from friends with older kids].

So.

1. Stickers. I used to be a sticker fiend and I have oodles of remnants from my scrapbooking days. Stickers almost always work with Bubs. I give him a sheet of them, plus blank paper or a throwaway box, and off he goes. But there are practical benefits: stickers help promote fine motor skills (peeling them off takes dextrous fingers!) even as they stretch the little one's attention span. I once got twenty minutes' peace when he was 13 months old, leaving him to play with stickers. He somehow ended up with half a dozen on his forehead, but that's the fun part for mummy!

2. Drawing/painting. With painting, I alternate between using fingers, brushes, and sponges. Each delivers its own learning focus (texture/sensation, hand-eye coordination, applying pressure). Painting is of course a messy business that requires set-up, supervision, and clean-up, but it's a fun activity with a visually rewarding outcome. With drawing, I used to let Bubs use textas but then I spent half the time fretting about permanent stains on furniture and clothing, so crayons are the thing at this stage. We normally draw together on one big page, so he can observe and recognise the things I make (elephant, house, plane, car, etc) while he happily freehands. (IKEA sells a fantastic roll of large, blank paper which is perfect for these activities).

3. Play dough. Bubs used to try to nibble on play dough, but he quit after a few admonishments. (It probably doesn't taste good, anyway). At this stage, his molding skills are pretty low level: mashing, squishing, patting, and otherwise destroying mummy's sculptures. But again, it's a kinetic/tactile activity that engages his brain. It involves naming objects that mummy makes freehand/with shape cutters, sticking things into the the clay (feathers, popsicle sticks etc) to make a new object (ball becomes bird). It's something he'll sit down for, for quite a long time.

4. Sand pit. Fortunately, we've got the sort of outdoor space that allows a permanent sandpit. A couple weekends ago, Hubs built one in the courtyard with four sleepers (3x8 solid timber pieces), bolts, weed mat and sand. Bubs lurves it (and no, he doesn't eat the sand). Because of the glass door and windows, I can even keep an eye on him while I stay inside and do stuff.

5. Toy library. If there's one run by the local council (as ours is), then take out membership, pronto! As Bubs grew, we found that toys had limited engagement span; after a while, he'd just get over the novelty and look for something else (in our bathroom drawers, in the study, etc). It's far too impractical to keep buying new stuff, and that's where the toy library more than pays for itself. Our fees were $75 a year (a portion of which you get a rebate if you volunteer for a few hours), and we could borrow any three toys for two weeks at a time (renewable). There is an amazing range, anything from small wooden puzzles to toddler-sized play kitchens. This means that Bubs' play-learning experiences are quite diverse, ideal for the formative years.

6. Books. He lurves them. Completely. He has been surrounded by his own books from when he was a baby, before he could even hold them properly. There is as much space for them in his corner of the lounge room as there are for toys. Certainly, reading was something we promoted early on, the value of which does not need explaining. It seems to have paid off. Bubs now sometimes insists on being read to (like on the potty), but quite often, he'll sit himself down on his little couch and go through his books one by one. It's quite a charming sight.

7. Children's television. OK so this is probably controversial for some people. But my take on it is that, as long as a) the viewing experience is parent-mediated (sit with your child and talk through what is happening), and b) there is a set duration (turn off after one show/segment, allocate at regular times during the day e.g. at morning tea), then TV-viewing is absolutely fine. Even for toddlers. I've seen Bubs name objects, connect what's on telly to what's real, interact (e.g. dance to music/imitate actions), and respond appropriately to plot points (e.g. crying out "Oh no!")... well, these speak of the educational value of television. The caveat, of course, is in the choice of programs, and this requires quite a bit of parental discretion.