Chicken pox
picture by nursing pins
We’ve been in quarantine for a couple of weeks now, since Miss Eight broke out in her rash. Initially, I kept the whole family home to ensure everyone caught it (thus giving them valuable immunity for the future) and to prevent us passing it on to everyone else at school. Short-sightedly, I sent the boys back to school after a week when they didn’t develop secondary symptoms (ie, the itchy rash associated with chicken pox). They were missing so much school and more than half the kids there have now contracted the virus, so what’s the point, right? Well, I sincerely hope we haven’t infected anyone else (who didn’t want to be infected) but that’s all spilt milk now.
Now the other three kids have developed their rash and, aside from general crankiness, they seem to be tolerating the discomfort very well. We chose not to vaccinate for what is normally a fairly harmless childhood illness. Dear husband remembers having chicken pox as a child, and so do I, so we figured we were safe being exposed to the kids. Most interesting to me: many of the children immunised against chicken pox at the kids’ school are still contracting it - albeit, usually in a milder form (but not always).
And even though my mother claims that I have had chicken pox twice in my life, I still assumed that having them, even once, equates with some sort of immunity. Apparently not. Darling hubby has now contracted a second case of chicken pox in this lifetime, and he is not a happy camper. His rash is mild but the migraine headache that seems to be the major symptom of adult chicken pox has knocked him flat. I feel terrible for him, but guess who ends up playing nurse … again!
While I anticipate at least one friend is going to want to bring her kids over and expose them to the virus, I can acknowledge that vaccinating against childhood illness is a choice we all get to make at some point in our parenting journey. I take responsibility for the decisions I’ve made with regard to my children’s health and I don’t like to be scare-mongered by doctors and friends who think that just because a vaccination is offered it should be accepted. Are we messing with the health of our children (and future grandchildren and beyond) by opting to vaccinate against otherwise ordinary childhood illnesses? I’m not so willing to choose convenience in this generation, without understanding how it might impact on the next.
September 5th, 2010 - Posted in gratitude, childhood, partnership, parenthood, duty of care, beliefs, health | | 2 Comments
Ethical pet food
picture by furtwangl
A friend in my network is taking her family home to New Zealand, and they cannot take “Shady” their four year old black Labrador X Kelpie with them. We agreed to adopt her and she has fit in with our family very well in all but one very problematic way: she loves chickens. Her previous family didn’t know it but she loves to chase chickens, she loves to catch chickens, she loves to romp on them and carry them around in her mouth. When they’re dead, she likes to eat them entirely–there’s no waste–unless we interfere at some point in this cycle. You can imagine, this has been very bad news for our chickens.
And it has been very bad news for Shady since this means she lives her life on a running chain while the chickens are out. We snap-decided the dog would have to go. The chickens were here first, they’re our priority, and having them free range the orchard was an important part of the design of the garden. We’d only just managed to breed some chicks for the first time. Now it’s chick: singular. And we’re down to two laying chickens from a population of nine. But I don’t want to dwell on the negatives.
I called a dog trainer for advice. He said that she’s had too many chickens now to be trained out of it. I’ve been trying to rehouse poor Shady for the past two weeks but she’s a bit of a hard sell now. And in this time we’ve seen there’s a really delightful side to Shady too.
She’s playful, and affectionate, and likes to stay close to her family. She’s undisciplined, but a good communicator. She doesn’t bark much and if she gets a bit of a run every day, she’s quite mellow the rest of the time. She’s a great kids’ dog, and she’ll roll over and present her belly for a scratch if you even so much as look in her direction. She delighted us with a flying leap off a pile of earth in the yard as she ran around with the kids like a crazy young pup. She’s managing to work her way into our hearts and I keep trying to think of ways to keep this dog away from our chickens. You’d be asking for trouble keeping chickens and then keeping a dog that kills chickens, wouldn’t you?
We’ve had our share of challenges keeping chickens here. Feral dogs and cats and foxes roam the neighbourhood at night. Rats and snakes also present problems if you don’t have a secure coop for the birds. And human error, I’m sorry to say, has lost us many birds as well. So it’s not like this dog is the first chicken disaster we’ve ever had to manage. We could pen the chickens. We could fence the dog. We could put the chickens in tractors. We could set up a perimeter dog run. We could … We could ….
At the same time, this is a situation we can avoid altogether by just taking Shady to the RSPCA and being done with her.
If only it were that simple. Do you know someone with a fenced yard who’d like a fixed, micro-chipped, vaccinated, wormed, flea-treated female dog? Please get in touch.
May 31st, 2010 - Posted in childhood, play, duty of care, sustainability, grief | | 4 Comments
Out of the mouths of babes #7
picture by jj.figueroa
Miss Four asks me where her chihuahua is. I look at her blankly.
She persists, “Maaa~aam, do you know where my chihuahua is?” “Maaa~aam, can you help me find it, pleeeeeeze?”
I’m baffled. I try to think if she has any pictures of dogs in her books, on her clothes, or maybe she has a stuffed toy somewhere? Surely not or I’d know about it.
Knowing full well what a chihuahua looks like I figured I’d ask her anyhow. She rolls her eyes.
“You know Mum, the princess chihuahua I wear on my head!”
Oh, that chihuahua. I find her *tiara* and try not to look amused.
May 18th, 2010 - Posted in childhood, parenthood, play | | 2 Comments
Shadow artist
picture by anandham
I’m definitely one. Are you?
I’m back to doing the Artist’s Way again. This time with a bunch of online buddies I have known for some time through the Intuitive Parenting forum. The first chapter urges you to trawl through your past and process past hurts with regards to your creativity. I put up some resistance to this process last time, but this time I’m feeling more ready to express all those petty hurts. It feels good to get it out.
How weird that I have supported so many others on their creative journeys and in the process, delayed my own creative ‘awakening’.
We have many musical and artistic friends, and we’ve collaborated on creative projects in numerous ways, and yet I only indulged myself some formal music lessons for the first time last year. And I’m loving it!
Giving up art classes and drawing in highschool to focus on more academic things was a way of appeasing my dad’s interest in us being employable when we left school. Which I can appreciate (and goodness knows, the touch typing class definitely gave me skills I still use) because now I’m in a position to do it again, but geez, I don’t know why I’ve been denying myself that pleasure all these years! I did at least allow myself the pottery hobby years ago, but it really wasn’t practical with a small family. Must get back into that, too.
And there have been times when I’ve caught myself reacting against someone else’s success, just like it was described in the first chapter of TAW, and having an ‘aha’ moment about all the time I’ve wasted not-practising the things I loved to do and was good at, because my friends and acquaintances were already doing it, and better than I ever could be (ie. more practised at it by the time I realised it was my thing too).
Even becoming a teacher, was a way of staying in the shadows (which I suspect is the case for many teachers).
I’ve spent so much time in noisy clubs, lugging sound gear and coiling leads and packing cars for friends, more time assisting in recording sessions and bouncing ideas around, more time reading about than doing, more time enabling someone else to achieve their goals than pursuing my own. Even my husband’s successful career is an extension of my shadow.
Not that I see all that as a bad thing, but I can definitely now perceive it all as a delaying tactic, because I’m afraid to fail at something, rather than try my hardest. Well, I’m not that scared of trying anymore.
March 4th, 2010 - Posted in personal growth, childhood, play, wisdom, self-care | | 10 Comments
Out of the mouths of babes #6
picture by jimmiehomeschoolmom
There is always some resistance but we have a Saturday morning clean-up ritual with the children.
This involves a bed making, floor-clearing, putting-away-fest that ends with an ‘inspection’ (all in fun - not exactly the white glove treatment) and a rating out of ten. Before the TV goes on, or any activities start for the day, we get it done and I think the routine is starting to pay big dividends, reducing the amount of clean up work I have to do in any given week.
This Saturday was no different and the kids got down to business without complaint. Except for Miss Four, who has spent the past few days in her new ballet uniform, twirling and jumping and demanding everyone’s rapt attention, or else!
Her resistance to helping out on a Saturday morning, or for that matter, shirking the dishwasher duties her three sibs attend to every day, has probably evolved from her being the youngest, and therefore, most indulged child in the family.
We say, “You’re four years old now, and you have learned from watching everyone else. Now it’s time to start helping out.” But we are met with silent resistance. And her stamina in the resistance department is only exceeded by her stamina in the screaming department - though we anticipate she’ll grow out of that one soon.
This morning, before the clean-up commenced, Miss Four put on a dance performance. “Dad,” she said, “I want to dance to some classical music.” We weren’t aware she knew what classical music was but at least we had something to appease her majesty. In the end, Miss Four put on a great show, dressed in a pink leotard and tutu. Ballet becomes her. And her big sister too. Heaven help us.
And so it was, just one hour later when Saturday clean-up was well underway and everyone was coaxing Miss Four to do her very best and help get things tidy, that our little primadonna declared,
“But Daddy, you know that I just don’t do work.”
February 6th, 2010 - Posted in gratitude, childhood, parenthood, play, ritual | | 2 Comments
