Checking out old photos

Well here it is another monday morning, and a beautiful Auckland morning with a hint of spring in the air.

We had a Mondayitis morning this morning and after us all losing our cool, I finally got three kids to school on time. When I dropped them off I went for a walk - it is so great I leave my car at school, plug myself into my ipod and then hit the pavement. We have a nice park down the road with a walking track that takes me about 8 minutes to do the circut - so I sometimes go down and pace round there several times or else I go for a walk down to the local wharf and then finish with a lap or so round the park.

I call it my mental health break. It is very meditative, I just have the music on and think, plan, daydream and enjoy the beautiful scenery. Though I didn't do that this morning as I was trying to catch up on some Podcasts - I am really enjoying the Muggle cast which is what I was listening to this morning. I only did a half hour walk because I have got a list of things to do as long as my arm!

So home it was and embarking on preparing for the final session of the class I am teaching tonight. I also have study to do and then onto working on a scrapbook album I am doing about my grandmother, which is my topic for today.

To fill you in on the background. I have until recent years had a very close relationship with my nana. She has always been a really important part of my family and of my life. Sadly she was diagnosed with alzheimers several years ago and we have watched her slowly lose her memory - she now doesn't know me at all.

A couple of weeks ago she became very sick and mum got the call that this was probably it..so her and my uncles spent a lot of the next two weeks sitting by her bedside and having some memorable time with her. Despite the alzheimers robbing her of recent memory, she comes and goes so she sometimes will remember her kids, which she was doing during that two week period.

Now my nana has had a hard life and she hasn't really enjoyed the latter part of it, but she is a tough cookie and a stubborn old thing (she's 84), so when the doctor told her she was dying she decided no she bloody wasn't and has made a recovery that was nothing short of a miracle! Having said that, she was up to hospital last night because she had a fall - so who knows. So mum and uncle are back to their usual visiting schedule as the "death watch" is temporarily over.

In the panic that Nana might be dying, it was decided by my dear family that I should make an album and a DVD about nana for her funeral. So photos were hastily sorted, family stories written down and supplies purchased so I could make a start.

So here I was on Saturday sitting with mum going through the huge box of family photos that haven't made it into albums. A trip down memory lane from the 1920's to the present. My ancestors through to my kids. Wow.

We found photos and certificates. We laughed alot and enjoyed figuring out who was who and what year it was. The kids were excited to see their great grandparents and grandparents as young people. We laughed at the fashion changes throughout the years, from the very bleak and conservative 20's to the outrageous 80's! The cars, the hairstyles the fashion...how life changes.

So now I have a heap of photos, certificates and letters..... and a huge and daunting but exciting project. I feel huge responsibility scrapbooking the family history and all those old, precious photos.

I ended up looking through my own box of photos for a picture I knew was in there of nana, and ended up spending about an hour going back through my own little history. There were pictures of old boyfriends, some whose name I remember and some whose names I don't, there were sports events, parties, family christmasses, my mum in hotpants! And what was I thinking in the 80's - I never took myself to be a follower of fashion, but lets just say I'm not embracing the 80's retro! There were photos of loads of people I can't even remember yet who were important to me at the time, and photos of my DH as a young 15 year old boy (the way I still see him!). Talk about nostalgia - it was bittersweet! I guess that is part of getting older, the trips down memory lane take longer and a little more energy as you become old enough to have a life that is longer than your memory!

So here is a little tip remember for future generations, and your own memory, it is really important to label your photographs - people in them, the event, the date. Even the digital photos, if you are downloading them to disc don't forget to make sure that you are labelling them well so that you will know the details and the people in the photo.

Well that's my rant for this week. I think it is time for a cofee outside in the sunshine for 10 minutes before I embark on my study.

Looking with new eyes

Another week has started. The weekend was a blur of me working and household chores, though on Saturday night did watch Hitch and I Robot on DVD. Very enjoyable - I really like Will Smith movies.

I taught a one-day antenatal refresher class on Saturday. It was good fun, three couples all having second or third kids - in this class the mums all had kids and the dads were all first timers. It makes for an interesting session that's for sure. Most of the refresher classes I teach seem to be either first time dads and second + time mums or blended families - very few now are mum and dad who already have a child together. A sign of the times I suppose. Refreshers are really great to teach though because the couple are a lot more relaxed, the dads are usually really keen (more so than the mums) and there are a variety of birthing experiences and knowledge from the mums.

It is so affirming to me teaching these classes as it is one of the few areas of my life where I get feedback and acknowledgement that I am doing a good job. The class evaluations were good and I went home buzzing feeling really great about myself.

Lather that afternoon I was watching our kids across the road at the park with the other kids in the neighbourhood and I thought how lucky they were to be so carefree and to have so many friends that live locally and are on hand for playtime. It was good to see them outside running around - mind you they all came over for food and nearly cleaned out the pantry! New Zealand children are so lucky - they have the lovely parks and beaches and it is still relatively safe for them.

My daughter who has just turned ten was allowed to have her ears pierced for her birthday. This morning was the BIG DAY...she got to take her earrings out at last after six weeks of waiting. I ended up getting them out for her and she put in her new earrings, but alas she had a sore ear. I felt so sad for her because she has waited and waited to put in earrings other than the piercing studs and has had no infections but on the big day she has a sore ear! .... Sods Law.

We took photos of the big event so that I can do a scrapbook page on this important ritual of young womanhood. She managed to wear her earrings until school time and I bathed her ears for her and put the piercing studs back in ready for school.

It had seemed such a small deal to me, but watching her this morning I felt priviledged to be able to enjoy the event from her perspective. It is not often as an adult that we take pleasure in the little things in life, but as a parent we get that chance to relive and re-experience the joys of childhood through our children.

So this morning I did the loving mother thing and after I dropped the kids off at school I headed straight up to the mall and brought Miss 10 two pairs of earrings!

Who is the invisible woman

Who is the invisible woman - me of course.

I am a stay at home mum with three beautiful kids (aged 10, 8 and 5) and a DH (Darling Husband). My family are my life of course. I also have a bunch of girlfriends that I like to hangout with and I get cranky when I don't get time with them - I enjoy the girl talk, bitching about stuff and bouncing ideas off each other. I refuse to be defined as a housewife - I married a man, not a house. I also refuse to accept that being a mother means that I am a cleaner. In my mind (though not in the mind of my DH) they are two separate jobs. While I do take responsibility for the majority of the housekeeping tasks, I do believe that all who live in the home are responsible for picking up after themselves, helping to maintain and clean the place.

While typcially classifed as mother who stays at home raising her kids, there is so much more to me than being "mum".

I do voluntary work for a not-for-profit organisation, Parents Centre, and have done for almost ten years while at the same time working for them in a paid capacity as a childbirth educator (that's a prenatal instructor) which is my niche in life - a job I love and am passionate about.

I am training to be a postpartum doula and studying to upgrade my certificate in childbirth education to a diploma. It is all a great challenge and a daily struggle of balancing. In some ways I probably would be better off if I actually just had one 40 hour per week job instead of lots of little bits which probably add up to 120 hours.

Another aspect of me is that I have a chronic health condition called Addison's Disease (think JFK) which from time to time puts me out of action, usually in a hosptial bed, for a time. I have Addison's disease, but it is not who I am. Sometimes people mollycoddle me and it bugs the hell out of me.

I am hoping that this blog will give me a forum for my thoughts and ideas - a soapbox if you will.

Whew...so that is the invisible woman. I'm opinionated, honest to a fault, active in the community, and (I like to think) fun, when I have time. A typical new millenium woman.