These are some of Luna’s recent drawings, pipis above.  And a jelly fish…

Different kinds of rain, soft and hard rain.

And stems…

Interesting, to me, this quite accurately reflects our activities, we have some tall stemmed plants in the garden at the moment, cosmos and tall tomatoes, we are at the beach often, it’s littered with sea shells.  On a recent visit at my mums we talked about the huge numbers of jellyfish that had washed up lately, though when we went to investigate we couldn’t find any.  The only stand out is rain, it’s very dry at the moment, so the only ‘rain’ is in the shower, or when we hose the garden.. so I guess it’s not that unusual after all!

Those two dots on the left are my Water Babies.  Swimming and watching some learner kite surfers.

Perfect tidal pools, and little ‘islands’ as they called them.

Love it.

And have you read The Water-Babies, A Fairy Tale for a Land Baby, by Charles Kingsley?  It is quite lovely, and imaginative.  Some of the most memorable illustrations I’ve ever come across, just give it a google.

I love a bit of wild play, especially at the beach.

My family moved from Auckland to Snells Beach when I was 11, and I spent many, many hours at this beach.  Safe for littlees to swim anytime, shells, trees, sand.

The kids and I went for an early morning beach walk, after breakfast with mum.  One of the characteristics of Snells Beach is how far the tide goes out, leaving tidal pools to explore and rocks to climb.  That’s Kawau Island in the distance.

The beach has changed dramatically since I was a child, is was mostly sandy, with the occassional patch of eel grass – which the parore or the black snapper eat.  Now the beach is almost covered by the weed.  I used to help my poppa put out and empty the net of fish when I was little, stunning, gutting fish and cleaning the net.  I know this beach well.

The population grows, run off from streets and houses increases, effecting the ecology of the bay.  I even found a mangrove seed putting down roots, or at least attempting to.

Environmental changes aside, it was a great morning of exploration for Luna and Blake!

All the usual suspects.

Yes, this is a juvenile flounder, we followed it for a while.  The tidal pools are full of small fish.

Beautiful.

The last few visits to mums’ were during the school holidays, and I was astounded that whenever we went to the beach, which was at high tide everyday, and the occasional low tide walk, there were almost no children (or adults actually) to be seen.  I wonder where the children are?  Inside?  In school holiday programs?  Another reminder for me to get out doors, and get my kids out too, we all get on better with all that space and freedom for creative play.

Luna and Blake love cooking, well, they love mixing and messing, so I set this up for them while I was working in the kitchen recently.  Just the right height, an old shelf, screwed on top of two old speakers, a few bowls of various sizes, I picked up a couple of small sieve sets, and small measuring spoons, some kid size whisks, add a couple of jugs of water, some bowls with old flour, stale bran and oats, a few little dishes of spices, a couple of little essence bottles with water to add and mm-mmm good times.

I made sure there was a proper glass jug for each and numerous bowls for ‘ingredients’.

Serious business (Yes, Blake is wearing undies over his pajama pants).

Cute!

“See, this is too thick, too thick for crepes.”

Just moments after this photo, I must confess, Blake tipped a whole jug of sticky wet floury good stuff all over the floor.  I sounded really cool, and so was repeated a couple more times.
Because, sometimes I see these amazing and inspiring photos of play-at-home kids set ups, that are IMMACULATE, like all the containers, all the shelving units, all the natural-nonplastic-organic-colourful-multisensory-play-stuff so well ORGANIZED looking.  Things might start out neat and tidy, and sometimes what I call organised here, but the reality for me, is things are somewhat chaotic, and messy.  Have fun, get messy, tidy up, eat food, get messy, tidy up…

On the theme of favourite things, this doll has been with me since I was eight years old. She came with a big bunch of flowers my dad sent me when I was hospitalised with meningitis.  It was a weird time and I felt quite special receiving my very own bouquet of flowers, with a little doll on the front too!

I think having a serious illness as a young child can have a strange affect on a person, it was a surreal time, lonely, and frightening, very disconnected in a way.  I remember telling my mum not to worry, that I wasn’t going to die.  It was a very hard time for my family, my Nana Shirley, dads mum, had recently died of cancer after being ill for some time, and it was the first time I saw my father weep.  Mum said that it was probably Nana dying that made me succumb to an illness.

My memories are very fragmented, I was in hospital for several weeks, I had mumps first, and I understand that is not so uncommon.  I was so ill at home, with the worst headaches and just wanted to sleep so badly.  When I arrived at the hospital, with unconfirmed meningitis, I was initially on a ward with other children, at Princess Mary’s Children’s Hospital.  One night I awoke when doctors and nurses (I assumed) wanted to take me to have a lumbar puncture, but I got upset and wouldn’t go, I also remember an older boy in the bed next to mine siding with me and saying that shouldn’t try and do anything and that I was too upset.  This was so weird, as an adult I have wondered if it was a dream, but I don’t think so, some part of me knew it would not be a good idea for me to go with them, it felt unsafe.  I’m glad there was that other boy at the time.

The next day I had the lumbar puncture, and mum was there with me, it was awful, the procedure involves taking spinal fluid by inserting large syringe between your vertebrae in your lower back.  I had to curl up, knees to chin, for a long time, motionless, and it was scary. The needle was massive, but I was also having blood tests every day, so needles were really not a big deal, they used to take my blood with those fingertip prickers in the morning.

Also I had a brain scan, which was awful, worse than the lumbar puncture as I was nil by mouth and had an injection with iodine solution which made me want to vomit the whole time.  So I had to hold it until it!

After sometime on the ward with the other kids I was moved into my own room while I was infectious.  This was a room with, I think, double doors, VERY sterile, and visitors had to wear gowns and masks when they came into see me.  I was also visited by student doctors, several at a time, strange to be the subject of observation and study.  This was particularly unpleasant.

I have fond memories of playing cards with Nana Joy, we played Canasta and did jigsaw puzzles.  My Auntie Teresa sent me a package with puzzles and other goodies.  My mum and dad used to visit, my dad used to come most days, I think, but my mum not so frequently.

Once I was home, things were much better, no more headaches of death, though I do still get migraines and headaches.  I was supposed to drink this electrolyte drink, which was disgusting, I drank it all of course.

I also had my eyes tested afterwards which picked up myopia, though I was already shortsighted.  Looking back over my school reports I’m not sure why this hadn’t showed up earlier.. but it was quite amazing, I had these, ‘Oh that’s what so-and-so’s face really looks like!’ moments.

Then I was one of those kids with glasses.

Being a parent takes so much time and energy, and there seem to be endless programs you can, and probably *should* take your baby or child along to, the sooner the better apparently, it’s kind of bewildering.  I haven’t actually signed either of my kids up for anything, we’ve been along to some casual play groups, we have our weekly catch ups with my local La Leche League group and a couple of friends we see pretty regularly, but it’s all very informal.  The thing is we are actually really busy, despite doing ‘so little’.  Both Luna and Blake need a big afternoon nap, about two hours.. so we must do our activities in the morning, usually between 10-12.  And, between food preparation, the eating, the tidying up, and doing the washing, food shopping and errands.. there’s not much space.

I have included Luna in my day to day activities, from early on, and she has enjoyed it, all the normal activities are so very new and entertaining.  However as she grew older, she needed to climb and run and explore far more.  What has worked best for us is more flexibility, and more free play outdoors, the beach, the park, exploring the museum.  Always in the mornings of course, and we’re home (mostly) for lunch, stories and naps.  Fortunately I love going to the beach and have got the hang of going with both kids.

I think we’ve not needed any of the popular ‘educational’ toys and games around, with my focus being exploration and free play, drawing, gardening, working together, and lots of block towers..

At the moment Luna is loving tree climbing, and going to the beach is about details, and learning about being safe and confident in the water.  I have been really impressed by her ability to learn the different names of sea shells, fish and sea weeds, we talk about how they live and what they eat – or what eats them!  I enjoy it, and her world seems full of adventure and nature, which I want to keep up.  It’s tricky seeing that Blake gets enough sleep and plenty of opportunities to breastfeed too – he needs a slower pace and still is needing to be in arms or the sling.  Cramming too much into our days sometimes means he wants to be at the breast all night – which is exhausting!