When the adult kids come home – and all hell breaks loose

Tags

extended family, Family, moving back

I sometimes chuckle smugly when others complain their grown up kids don’t leave home, for years or decades. I feel just a tad righteous because we managed to offload both of ours straight after uni and packed them off to live independently and successfully in different cities.

But here we are, 10 years later and one of them has just moved back in—this time with her whole family in tow! That’s five people including a five-year-old, a three-year-old and a very vocal but not-yet-talking-not-long-one-year-old, and a big hairy dog. Oh, and the entire contents of their house that has completely taken over our double garage, totally lines one side of the hallway, and covers each and every horizontal surface in the house including the floors.

It’s a temporary stay, just while their new house is completed after the rental property came to an end. We were all supposed to be just ships passing in the night as we travelled with just a week or so crossover. But then, of course, the house got delayed!  What were we thinking? Houses always get delayed.

It’s been a manic month. Very busy. And very noisy. And extremely messy. And quite stressful. And we’re not even the parents or doing most of the work. And I’ve been to Brisbane, Bendigo, Melbourne and Newcastle too in that time.

There’s the very loud, teething toddler who’s into everything – cupboards, dishwasher, garden beds, yogurt, the big kid’s Woollies herb mini-gardens, the dog’s eyes; a digger-crazed Mister 3 with magic snow and ice powers who runs incessantly up and down the now-thinned hallway draped in a soft blanket (cape) as Elsa the Frozen princess shouting ‘let it go, let it go’ and who likes to regularly re-landscape our garden (ie, make mud) and who goes so hard he sometimes just crashes out on the sofa; and Miss 5 who just resists sleep with a fierce passion and somewhat resembles that jumping bunny filled with Everlast batteries advertised years ago. The one that just keeps on going. Actually she’s pretty easy in comparison to the others, AND she goes to school during the day.

Meanwhile the parents zip in and out to meet builders, fencers, contractors, landscapers, carpenters and carpeters, and do long inspections and get sign offs, and disappear into the dark of night to paint and spak-fill, and paint the old chest of drawers which now lives in the laundry on a drop sheet in the laundry (next to the change table) almost blocking the washing machine which hardly gets a break from the 16 loads of washing per day.

The dog is an angel and no trouble at all.

It’s not all bad. On the other hand, it’s been a delight to have them all and disperse the work load a little. We’ve played lots of games, had oodles of cuddles and bedtime stories (we even started Narnia) and we get much assiduous assistance with feeding the worms and the goldfish and watering the pots. Mr 3 even called me his ‘other mum’.

We’re lucky really that we can all grit our teeth and survive this with a smile and sometimes a grimace, and a glass of wine at the end of the day. Sometimes two. (I’m taking notes for when I’m old and decrepit and need assistance from the young’uns. I’m sure it will be repaid.) Mr T is just a bit anxious as he’s trying to get the tax return done in time for submission (tomorrow!). Nothing like a deadline.

We’re a family. Pretty messy one at the moment and I’m not getting anywhere near the things I need to tick off my lists, but we’re going all right.

Two nights to go.

No, wait – then the other one arrives from interstate with her bub.

2018: the year that was, in words and pics

Tags

bring on 2019, Family, good times, summing up 2018, the year that was

Personally speaking, 2018 was a pretty bloody good year, though it disappeared much more quickly than I’d like. A tell tale sign of ageing, to be sure.

There was much to be grateful for. I’m aware it wasn’t great for many, so that’s even more reason to be grateful.

My year brought some great joys and many good times. The most special joys related to new arrivals in the family and news of imminent arrivals:

• firstly a delightful fur ball with the name of Harkin

• the safe delivery of a little angel with the sweetest of dispositions and the worst of sleep habits.

• the great news of another bubba on the way, this one to be a first-born.

There were pictures of the days and the moments, the little ones as they grew and charmed, and the travels and the sunsets and the pretty things all around.

Mainly it was about my family. What a tribe. How do you capture a year of living and laughter and little ones at your feet? It really doesn’t do it justice.

• 

Let’s be frank. There were a ridiculous number of photos, far too many, but much has been captured forever to help it into our eyes as well as our hearts. (2019 will perhaps be the year of taking less but better photos, and certainly should be the year of culling them.)

But still,  here’s an attempt at putting my favourite pretty bits of 2018 in a little pictorial grid.

There were more good things.

I officially retired and now have a new world of opportunity before me, including photography and writing. Lots of travelling up and down the coast and visiting family.

We packed up and sold my Mum’s home and saw her happily settle into a new and improved life, although a lot of her belongings are still at my house!!

I was part of the Urban Providore Taste Panel and met some lovely new people, both online and in real life.

I joined in a local group and learnt new skills, like capturing light painting at night.

I went to my first gay wedding, in the first year it was made legal.

I had an article published about ghosts, with the promise of more in 2019 (articles, hopefully not ghosts).

Yep, it was a good year.

Unfortunately that long list of thing to do around the house remains remarkably long, but I guess there’s always next year.

And let’s just not mention the political disgraces that are going on around us, here and overseas. But let’s not go there – that would drag this down.

Happy New Year! Bring on 2019.

Luck and gratitude, and a brand new baby girl

Tags

Family, gratitude, luck, newborn

Only minutes in this world:  Photo: Mel Hill

Just days ago, at about the exact time Australia welcomed its 25th million citizen, a new baby was born into our tribe – another strong, beautiful granddaughter for us. And as I hold this brand new bundle, only hours in this world, I ponder the notions of luck and gratitude.

I’m not going to tell you that this is the most beautiful child ever born to mankind, though of course we think she’s right up there, but I will tell that already this child is incredibly fortunate and in many ways already way ahead of the pack.

She is undoubtedly incredibly lucky.

Sometimes I’m a bit sensitive to comments about luck. It’s easy to dismiss someone’s hard work or even lifelong efforts as being due to this luck, this notion of random fortune that falls out of the sky to clonk you on the head.

– You’re so lucky to have a nice house.

– You’re so lucky to be able to retire early.

– You’re so lucky you get on well with your family.

As if these things land in laps with no thought or effort involved on the part of the recipient. The reality is there’s often a large difference between luck and making our own successes in this world.

But there are indeed many things that just come down to the cards we’re dealt with. Just pure bloody luck.

Take this little babe, for instance. Already, she’s experienced great fortune that many will never have.

First up, she’s lucky to have been born in Australia, this big, bold, beautiful country where we have a democratic government (shortcomings and short-sightedness notwithstanding), and a way of living that provides education, health care, freedom of speech and opportunity for the vast majority. Many other countries have that too, of course, but millions are born into places where abject poverty, perpetual violence or warfare is the norm, and where medicine, education and even food are not available. For millions, even progressing beyond birth or childhood is a challenge. Many don’t make it.

She’s lucky to have been born in an era when medicine and technology allow us control or at least provide ammunition against illnesses, and where we have the longest longevities ever experienced, where women are valued more highly than they have been in the past and have a world of opportunity before them, and when we have more peace in our world than we’ve had previously, though it often doesn’t feel like it.

She’s lucky to have been born into a caring and competent family, who can provide for her, who value education and who will encourage creativity, teach her resilience, and who don’t have to struggle with addiction, mental or other illness.

I’m reminded that as I hold my granddaughter, I’m lucky too. There are friends who are no longer here to meet their grandkids, those who never got to have kids when they would have liked to, or those who lost children or grandchildren along the way in one way or another.

Blessed.

I wonder what this tiny girl might become and what lies ahead for her in life. How much luck will she encounter and how much luck she will make for herself?

Whatever the future, she’s already off to a rollicking good start.

It is the best of times.

 

 

The final clean out

Tags

#cleaning out, ageing, Family, moving on

After many months and literally hundreds of hours of sifting, sorting, cleaning and distributing, my mother’s house is finally cleared and emptied, and sold to another family.

It’s a pretty huge job, this cleaning out the goods and chattels of your parents’ lives and emptying a house. Enormous. And it seems there are several ways to approach the situation and the process:

• get rid of everything without qualm or hesitation
• leave it for others to do
• do it with painstaking care and thought, one tiny item or piece of paper at a time, inching forward bit by bit with excruciatingly slow progress, and constant pause for reflection and consideration.

Guess which camp I fall into? Of course, that last one – the most exhausting one, physically and emotionally. Self-appointed keeper of the faith and the memories, and of way too many of the things. Thank goodness a sister was sharing the load – and likewise  the distribution and retention of earthly goods, with several willing helpers and recipients of belongings. And praise lord for hard working and patient husbands.

The more invested you are in capturing the past, the harder is the task. Some things were very easy, and others too difficult, so decisions kept getting deferred, and the piles of ‘to keep’ or ‘to think about’ kept growing.

When there was a home where no-longer-needed goods could go to do some good, that provided a respite. Like glasses to optometrists to use for those in under-privileged countries. Another life.

But how do you discard books dating in the 1800s inscribed to your great grandfather that no one else wants? They’re falling apart and speckled with the brown spots of age, but are they worthy only for landfill? No doubt they’ll get there eventually, but not just yet. As for some of the furniture? While it’s much appreciated and of a quality that’s now difficult to find, a happy, loving home just can’t be found for some of it. Yes, there may be a few bits still lurking in a garage somewhere, gathering dust and awaiting further thought.

And it makes me consider how fleeting is our existence on this earth. Unless we are world changers or somehow famous for doing something extraordinary, within a hundred years or so perhaps all or just about all vestiges of our lives will have disappeared, and the things we treasured and loved most may be discarded to the rubbish tip without the blink of an eye. Perhaps only in the memories of our children and grandchildren, and the dearest of friends, will we linger for a while for what we were, did and loved.

Just a tiny, insignificant blip in time.

I’m constantly grateful that we’re going through this process while my mother is alive, and happily ensconced in a new and better environment for her. Dealing with death at the same time as cleaning out would be so much more difficult. Grief is bad enough on its own.

One of the last things left in the house was the container of my Dad’s ashes, which had  sat quietly, tucked away in his chest of drawers for five years, awaiting a decision.

‘Throw it out’ said Mum. ‘I don’t want that.’ Simple. (And yes, they were a devoted and loving couple.)

No, I can’t do that. Instead, at some point, we will go to Dad’s golf club of days gone by and play a game in his honour, tell a funny tale of him or a joke on each hole, and have a few laughs. He did love a joke. We decided the winner on the day will take home one of his retained golf trophies as their prize, which meant that there was just one less item to make a decision about.

After all of this, perhaps an even more frightening thought is that I know my house is worse. Much bigger and also full, not just of my stuff collected and kept from decades, but now too of some of the passed on collections from generations before.

I know I must start some of my own clearing out. Right now.

And I must also go and thank my daughters and sons-in-law right now, in anticipation of the efforts they will undoubtedly put in for us, decades down the track.

Peepo!

Tags

Canberra, Family, kids, photography, thosefaces, Weston Park

Ah, those faces!

No matter the rubbish that’s happening in the world, they smile and the world is a better place.

#grandkids #thosefaces

 

White fluff or a shared celebration? – a mother’s view of weddings

Tags

Family, love, marriage, Monica Dux, mother of the bride, weddings

Monica Dux’s recent article discussing marriage versus weddings hit a chord with many, depicting traditional white weddings  as exercises in doll-like gender roles and wanton excess, but here’s an alternative view from a mother’s perspective.

I love weddings. Mine, my daughters’, all the ones I’ve attended. In all their whiteness and fluff, yes, and even expense, I think they’re one of life’s greatest and most joyous highlights. I even like carriages.

But that’s not why I like them. I like them because they are a glorious celebration of love and the formalisation of two people’s lifelong commitment. Why wouldn’t you want to embrace that joy and shout it from the rooftops, and have your family and closest friends involved in the celebration? In our family, marriage is taken very seriously (like really lifelong stuff) and weddings are revered. So they’re ‘big’ events. Not necessarily in terms of size or cost, but in terms of importance, of detail, of planning, of emotion.

Weddings, at least for us, are about sharing the celebration. The marriage is the personal commitment of the couple but the wedding is the shared celebration of that commitment. It’s exciting, it’s important, it’s momentous, so let’s have an event that is worthy of the sentiments. The intention is they’re only going to do this once so let’s make it memorable. In fact, let’s have a party.

Weddings are also about celebrating how we got here and what’s important to us all as family and friends. We, the bride’s family, who love her (and now him too) are part of this journey and celebration. We raised her, guided her, protected her, and cherished her, and now we are ceremonially ‘passing the baton’ to someone else as they become their own separate entity, still joined but detached. Of course they were together before, but this is the public declaration and we’re celebrating it  and living the exquisite joy of love in families, and among friends. Enough love to have us all teary-eyed with exploding hearts, before the event, during, and even after – entire tables of adults, silently weeping at the pulsing emotion rebounding in the room. It wasn’t embarrassing – it was beautiful.

Some choose to elope or marry in a registry office to escape the hype and the cost, and maybe avoid potential fighting and  embarrassment. If that’s your preference, great – do what’s right for you. But it’s not right for others. For many it’s about family and friends too – we are an integral part of the celebration. All cost considerations aside, I personally would have been shattered to discover my child had married and excluded us from sharing the moment with her. We would be devastated to have our children marry without us, just as they would be devastated if we couldn’t be there to be part of it. Sometimes I refer to my daughters’ weddings as ‘our weddings’. It’s not a misnomer.

No doubt the preparations drive many to distraction and perhaps mortal combat because there are too many options and opinions, and knives may occasionally be drawn. But I even love preparing for weddings – well, mostly. The planning, the choices and even the stress is part of building the momentum and anticipation and a nod to the importance of the final event. You know, it’s a big thing this getting married. We’re allowed to make a fuss.

It’s undeniable weddings often involve considerable up to ridiculous cost. But each couple and family is capable of deciding what they want to spend and how they want to spend it, in a way that makes them happy. If photography is important to you, get a great photographer, or if music’s your thing, hire a band. If it’s not, save your money. If you want lots of friends to come, cut back somewhere else. Horses for courses.

And ‘special’ doesn’t have to mean exorbitant. We, as a family, in preparing for Wedding Number 2 are looking for bargains, sourcing treasures second hand, borrowing items and reusing others. Even Dad is making decorations from recycled bits of discarded timber. The ‘girls’ will have working bees to handcraft invitations with the most basic of materials in a charming and thoughtful way. It’s not necessarily about cost but caring and creating something that’s worthy of the celebration.

Does the wedding then overplay the marriage or the lifelong commitment? No doubt for some it does (think Kardashian). But for us, and so many others, it acknowledges the importance of the latter. It’s not about the bells and whistles, love those as we may.

I agree with Monica it’s a travesty of social justice that currently in Australia only heterosexuals get to participate in this array of wedding choices, and let’s all agree marriages can be celebrated in any number of ways with any number of budgets. But let’s also remember why so many of us are having weddings, even the ones with tiaras and masses of tuille. Let’s just hope we can avoid sub-standard catering at all times, weddings or not.

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It’s a family affair.