Family round up

Isabelle is busy preparing for next weekend's ballet show - the culmination of the year's worth of ballet classes.

Aidan is enjoying school this term - his reading and maths are visibly improving.

Orla looks forward to Playcentre and has a special doll (Baby James) who she carries most places.

Ewan has 3 and a half teeth and is enjoying solids. He rolls heaps (back to front) and has rolled front to back at least twice when I wasn't looking.

The older children especially are looking forward to Christmas.

Don't worry, it's only temporary

On Tuesday, June 26, 2007, I blogged:

The bookcase and its books now (temporarily) live in the lounge.

Yup, they're still there....

Searching questions

- Mum?
- Yes.
- You know how there are people in the ballet school who have dark skin?
- Yes. (This should be interesting!)
- Well, then they can't have these undies you see (holding up special ballet "skin"-coloured undies) because they are the wrong colour. What would they wear?
- I don't know. Maybe dark coloured undies?
- But that's not fair. The undies might be the wrong shape, they won't fit under the leotard.
- So what you're saying is that your skin-coloured undies aren't skin-coloured if you don't have light skin and that that's not fair?
- Yes. Why is that?

Searching questions indeed!

Parenting for a Peaceful World

Well, I have finished reading the above book by Robin Grille, and it's due back at the library tomorrow. So, what to say?

It is a long book - longer than it needs to be. It could have been made much more punchy by quick summaries of other people's work (rather than what looked like long paraphrasing) and cutting out the occasional brain spew of rampant opinion. (Brain spews are of course quite acceptable in one's own book - or blog! But a few in here are just not in keeping with the main style of the book, which is a reasoned and referenced argument for re-examining and reprioritising how we raise our children).

The first part of the book looks at a psychohistory of childhood throughout the ages. It extensively references Lloyd de Mause and the Journal of Psychohistory - so much so that I wondered if I should just save myself some time and read de Mause instead. A quick google echoed two of my criticisms - that the history was really about child abuse rather than childhood, and that it required acceptance of the notion that emotional trauma in childhood was the root cause of war (and indeed any interpersonal violence). I find it hard to accept that any complex phenomenon can be explained by a single factor.

The model of a number of different child-rearing modes evolving over time (and co-existing) is an interesting one though. I liked how it avoids simple dualisms (such as "if you don't believe in unconditional parenting, therefore you must love your child conditionally" or "if you aren't attachment parenting, therefore your children are detached").

I found it interesting that not once did the author discuss abortion - perhaps because it fits uneasily into this model. I suspect that abortion is more acceptable overall in liberal families in the helping mode than in the stricter, authoritarian or sociailising families (who might place abortion squarely into the infanticidal mode of child rearing). This gap is surprising as he discussed foetal awareness later on in the book.

It took until part four (173 pages in) for the book to really hit its strides for me. I found the psychological spin on parenting and discipline styles genuinely interesting and a real contribution to the literature around this topic. The discussions surrounding emotional intelligence really had me thinking about my approach to life and personal growth.

And then I started pulling away again. Recovered memory syndrome...hmmm, I remember that from the 80s wasn't it? Recovering memories of your own birth? Well, not impossible I guess....maybe...I might be able to suspend disbelief.... Much of the last part of the book seemed to be relying on some fairly large assumptions and were almost a stereotype of what the layperson thinks of as psychoanalysis. Lie down. Get comfortable. Now tell me about your childhood....

So. I'm glad I read this book. It interested me. It engaged me. I particularly enjoyed the middle section and would like to come back to it again. But I hesistate to recommend it to everyone. Some readers would be entirely alienated by some of the psychospeak. Others would struggle to get through the sheer number of words to find the gems hidden within.

Why I love blocks

Our blocks were well used over the recent school holidays.

First we had dramatic play - blocks used as an essential element of a story.


Isabelle and Aidan combined their various interests and the result was "A Sylvanian Day with the Sith".


Here's a Sylvanian trying out Darth Maul's Sith speeder.















Isabelle took a number of photos that we printed out. She has written a story in draft and the photos will illustrate each page. I think the story is about Sylvanians in space going to the Sith lair for a day trip.

Later on, the children did some maths. I think it began with a question about whether there was a three-block, and if so, what it would be called. I said that there wasn't a single triple-unit block, but how could we make one?

Here's the result, with the quadruple block alongside.




















Yes, my lounge floor usually does look like that. The construction to Aidan's left is some kind of gun - I forget which type. (He makes up different types of weapon according to different specifications and gets annoyed if I mistake an uzi for a double-barreled rifle etc, so I'm hesitant to give this one a name in his absence!).

Not long after, Aidan did some similar experiments with the quarter and half circles.

















There was some other cool stuff going on too, but I've left it too long to remember the details. Blocks are cool.

Baby schema

People sometimes wonder how early a baby's schemas might be able to be identified. It seems to me that there are a number of scholarly ways to answer this question - depending first on how you define schema!

For Ewan right now, I notice how he bursts into giggles and becomes incredibly animated as he watches his big siblings race around the room. He exclaimed in delight as Orla threw wooden toys through the air to hit noisily against the glass of the cabinet. (My exclamations at this point were somewhat different). He jumped up and down in my arms as Orla burst open her train, scattering carriages and engines in all directions across the floor.

Trajectories, anyone? And a touch of the disconnect. Sound familiar?


And in other news, he really likes eggplant. And the cat. (But not together. Yet).

Haiku on the family E

Son of my right hand
A free woman, doubly blessed
A mountain, to sing



Welcome little one. You are so loved!

Because everybody else is

I'm supposed to answer in just one word.

1. Where is your cell / mobile phone? nonexistent
2. Your hair? long
3. Your mother? loved
4. Your father? loved
5. Your favourite food? rich
6. Your dream last night? weird
7. Your favourite drink? water
8. Your dream/goal? contentment
9. What room are you in? lounge
10. Your hobby? showering
11. Your fear? loss
12. Where do you want to be in 6 years? home
13. Where were you last night? here
14. Something that you aren’t? unwrinkled
15. Muffins? bran
16. Wish list item? camera
17. Where did you grow up? Christchurch
18. Last thing you did? breastfed
19. What are you wearing? trackies
20. Your TV? nonexistant
21. Your pet? houdini
22. Friends? somewhere
23. Your life? lived
24. Your mood? tired
25. Missing someone? yes
26. Vehicle? odyssey
27. Something you’re not wearing? glasses
28. Your favorite store? none
29. Your favorite color? red
30. When was the last time you laughed? today
31. Last time you cried? newspaper
32. Your best friend? best?
33. One place that I go to over and over? toilet
34. One person who emails me regularly? forums
35. Favorite place to eat? out

A no-fault system

In 2008-09 ACC paid more than $62 million for motorcycle riders but collected only $12.3 million in levies from them.

(ACC spokesperson in the Dom Post today).

I'd be interested in seeing how much in levies ACC collected from cyclists and pedestrians vs payments for road accident-related injuries.