Nature, Nuture, Spiders and Steps

I’m frightened by a fair amount of things. Heights, deep water, falling, and even the dark, in certain situations. And then there are those fears that kind of make no sense when you think about them rationally; cockroaches, wild mice, slugs and worms. Urgh, worms. I am ridiculously cautious, to the point of my own exasperation. I am a Murphy’s Law abiding, worst-case-scenario dwelling, afraid of my own shadow scaredy-cat.

This being the case, I have said from the beginning that Paul can take care of the physical, slugs and snails, slightly dangerous kind of stuff. Because Paul is the cheese to my cracker, the apple to my cinnamon, the pen on my parchment. We complement each other perfectly and I would have thought that with our powers combined, we’d have this parenting thing sussed. Public speaking may make him faint from fear but that man will race a truck up a cliff then abseil back down again. I figured that Paul can show Alice what fearlessness looks like, what excitement and adrenaline and confidence in your body’s ability looks like, and I’d show her how to rock a crowd with her art.

And then, of course, Alice asserted herself as an actual person and all that went out the window.

I’ve always felt that fear was a ‘nurture’ thing. Beyond the innate reflexes that babies are born with, I’ve always believed being afraid of something, like heights or worms or the dark, was a learnt response through experience or lack thereof.

I didn’t want Alice to learn a fear of heights from me, or a fear of deep water, or any of the less rational and equally unhelpful fears I have. So I tried my hardest to not share these parts of myself with her, not while she’s basing so much of her opinion of the world on what I do. But ‘be careful’ inevitably slips out. Often, as it would with any toddler, right?
And Alice IS afraid of these things, and more. She’s afraid of heights and dogs and caterpillars and puppets and steps. She panics on uneven ground if an adult isn’t nearby to help. The happiest moment of my parenting life was when she jumped from the ottoman to the couch, but there has been no climbing a ladder past the second rung without someone close by.

Is my saying ‘be careful’ when she’s on the edge of a fall the reason Alice still slides down steps on her bottom? Is it why she doesn’t climb, pretty much ever? Is it why she doesn’t enjoy slides? That last one breaks my fearful little heart. I find myself thinking quite often, ‘have I literally damaged my daughter?’ Is she so cautious because I’ve taught her to be so?

About now is when some of you will be thinking that I should stop complaining and be grateful I don’t have ‘a climber’, ‘a runner’, ‘a jumper’ or ‘a child that wants to know what snails taste like’. But every early childhood teacher knows that this is how children learn. We have the ‘learn through movement’ sermon dictated to us from day one. Apparently, ALL children have the natural desire to push the limits physically, so why doesn’t mine?
Furthermore, if they don’t get the opportunity to express this desire, they will have stunted development and delayed learning. This is pretty much a direct quote from a number of text books. Talk about pressure! So you see? Alice’s behaviour is the exact anti-thesis of the learning, growing, developing child! And to think that I may have had a hand in creating that behaviour is frightfully saddening.

I find a little solace, funnily enough, in the fact that Alice is also afraid of spiders. I don’t know who would have taught her this but it wasn’t Paul and it certainly wasn’t me. I talk to spiders, complimenting them on their lovely long legs. Could she have taken my ‘be gentle’ warning the wrong way, maybe, thinking that she’s not allowed to touch spiders because they’ll hurt her, not the other way around? Who knows. But the fact that spiders make her nervous leads me to believe that her cautious behaviour is inbuilt. It’s personality, it’s essence, it’s part of what makes her brilliant.
And if this is the case, I can totally cope with that. As time goes on she can spend more time on the farm with Paul, experiencing the world through his tenacious, adventurous energy; it might just be that her naturally cautious approach will mean she will never forget her helmet.

Dear 2016

Hello 2016!

I saw you in asleep, sorry about that. It’s not that I wasn’t excited about your arrival, not at all! You know how it is though, a solid few hours of sleep is mythical gold for parents of young children. So when I went to bed at ten, I wished you safe travels through time, and when I was awoken at two, I saw you had slipped in unnoticed. Thanks for tiptoeing!

Your arrival is full of promise for me, did you know that? Of course you do, in some generic, stereotypical way. Your arrival is full of promise and hope for a lot of people. A strange sort of relief, too, much of the time. There must be a lot of pressure on you and I know that sometimes it’ll be impossible for you to deliver, and that’s okay. I understand.

A lot has happened in my little world that you will need to catch up on. 2015 did her best to guarantee she was remembered, that’s for sure. Did she tell you? I started a new job, I studied te reo Maori, I went to Melbourne. I lost 20 kilos (more on that later), found one thousand dollars and cut off my hair. We adopted five chickens, Paul and I celebrate five glorious years together and we bought a TV. My niece went home, I married people on mountains, and I lost my grandmother. These things will impact our relationship, I know that. You will see emotion and loose ends and repercussions from events that you had nothing to do with. I'll do my best to keep you up to speed and not blame you.

And of course, Alice did some amazing stuff. Did you know she isn’t a baby anymore? I know this because she negotiates with me. The next step for both of us is to navigate through these head waters that are the second year (dun dun duuun…) and emerge into young childhood smiling. This will happen in your year, 2016, you lucky thing. You will get to watch every tantrum (Alice’s and mine), hear every ‘I love you’, and see every time I fail. I know you won’t be too judgy…

For me, your arrival brings the possibility for new beginnings and new challenges. I feel that I’m right on the edge of ‘next’. For too long now I’ve been treading water, stuck in the same place while I figure out the balance between family and work and not going mental. Well, I need next.
And I think you’ve got it.

I know you’ve got a lot on your place at the moment, 2016. Resolutions will be flying in from left right and centre. You’re almost like the Cosmic Santa for personal improvement. My goodness, where are you actually going to store all that quit sugar? Well, I don’t need much from you, I plan on doing the work and find the ‘next’ that you carry myself. Teaching will challenge me, my family will thrive, and I will focus once again on trying to enjoy who I am, inside and out. I will make sure of it.
What I need from you, 2016, is for you to be understanding and gentle. Please? Some time to reflect and gather my thoughts would be so, so lovely (2015 managed to find a little time to spare, but I don’t think 2014 knew what ‘peace’ was!). Being on the edge of ‘next’ is exciting but scary, too, and it would be nice to know that a timeframe as substantial as yourself is on my side.

Well, I best be going, and you, too, no doubt. I hope this letter finds you well! Thank you, by the way, for a fabulous first day. First impressions really do matter, after all! I so look forward to getting to you.

With love,

T.

Getting my Think on with Loo Paper

You know, it’s A. It’s always A. It always was and always will be. The reason I think A is the right direction a toilet roll should be put on the holder is because you’ll only need to turn the roll once to find the end. If it’s hung the other way, gravity holds the end of the paper against the roll and it and it can be hard to find.
I appreciate that everyone is different and some prefer B, but here’s the honest truth; I never believed that both A and B are right, I believed that I prefer the right way and others prefer the wrong way. The WRONG way. There have been times when I’ve gone to other houses and, seeing it’s not hanging right, I smile to myself in a small, pretentious way, and ‘fix’ it for them. For me, what way the toilet paper hangs is one of the few black and white decisions that one can make in life. You can choose A, or you can choose to be wrong.

I love how toddlers come in to the world and shake things up. You think you know something in every way there is to know it, and BAM! A small person will come along and teach you something you didn’t know, a new way to look at something as boring and normal as a roll of toilet paper.

You know what B will do? B will buy you a few seconds if your toddler finds themselves in the bathroom with the urge to redecorate your house. B will put a small but potentially crucial speed bump in your toddlers plans to unravel all the toilet paper and feed it into the loo. B might intrigue and challenge your toddler long enough to allow you to whisk away the bubble bath before they see it (and therefore want it) and start a tantrum comparable to a Kardashian on Christmas.

B is clearly the right way to hang a roll of toilet paper in my house. Mind = Blown.

If you have a toddler, try it. Think about your philosophy on toilet paper (I bet you have one…) or maybe something different. Maybe the way you stack the dishwasher, or the way you fold towels. Maybe the way you organise your pantry, or stack books, or even what you think about having a door closed in your house. The way I think about all these things has changed because now things like accessibility and safety is more important than, well, pretty much anything else. Having a daughter has shown me that there is a new ‘right way’ and nothing ever has clear cut, black and white, hard and fast rules.

And then, once you have a giggle about how those tiny, loud, adorable, dribbly kids have actually permeated every single tiny little microscopic aspect of your topsy turvy life like I did, this little moment of realisation can be applied to life in general. There is a new ‘right way’. Every time you grow, or learn, or something changes, the rules change, too. What was right becomes a little left, and you have to readjust your direction.

This is an especially handy thing to remember when inevitably judging the actions of other people, especially other parents. Remembering that my toddler has shown me the delicate, circumstantial nature of ‘being right’ helps me to take a step back and remind myself that, actually, the person I’m looking at is as ‘right’ as I am.

Oh, parenthood. It’s a special kind of crazy, when spiritual enlightenment comes from toilet paper.

 

Tanti Tactics

We are but a few weeks away from the famous second birthday; the birthday that marks the end on infancy. It’s the birthday that, until about thirty seconds ago (when I wrote that it’s a few weeks away) had always felt like some distant dream. Alas, Alice’s friends turn two, Mother’s Group celebrates, and we have had the tell-tale sign of the beginning of young childhood;

Tantrums.

Joy.

Alice has always been opinionated, but lately those opinions are accompanied with lying face down on the floor, banging her head against hard things, and getting so angry she visibly shakes. There’s a bit of throwing, lots of ‘nonono!’, and the other day I saw her try to bite the ottoman out of frustration. When I’m not in a hurry and I’ve had enough sleep, it’s still pretty cute.

But it’s kind of like living with a ticking time bomb. What was perfectly acceptable yesterday is horrendously offensive today. Don’t you dare pick out the wrong socks to wear. Daddy had better not look at her at dinner time, or talk to her, or do anything other than lie on the floor and be a jungle gym. She will eat dinner so long as peas only feature on every third mouthful. And it’s off mum’s plate. And it’s served at 5.37pm and gone by twelve past six.

There is that internet trend of taking a photo of your upset baby (urgh) and posting it along with the explanation as to why they are crying. Last week Alice had a tantrum because I wouldn’t let her lick the strange brown smudge on the side of the bath. It was oddly comical moment (for me anyway) and kind of sums up the toddler experience perfectly. The need to defy, in the need to try.
It’s a tricky time, when Alice is beginning to understand the concept of ‘negotiation’, but only on her terms. She is beginning to understand the concept of ‘sentences’, but doesn’t have the vocabulary to flesh the conversations out yet. And she is beginning to join concepts together like mum’s car keys and going in the car, but not concepts like already been out all day and petrol, which means her demands for ducks at the front door is extra frustrating for everyone involved.

 

So I realised today that, in order to appease the beas – er, I mean, the toddler – I do some… ‘stuff’. And it’s not even ‘stuff’ that I told myself I wouldn’t do when I was naïve and free and had time to think of such nonsense; things like ‘my kid’s not going to know what cake is’ and ‘my kid’s never going to watch TV’. Oh, no. the ‘stuff’ I do is a bit weird.

I was baking cookies today. Peanut butter and honey cookies, since you ask – I’ve eaten three and Alice has spat half a bite out and quipped ‘more ham’. Anywho.
While baking cookies I allowed Alice to pull out the cardboard and newspapers from the fire basket and cart it around the living room. It’s not overly weird, just a bit untidy.
Then, with my hands covered in flour, she took my finger and said, ‘Walk! Open corner!’ We get to the door of the library and she cocks her head to one side to say ‘pleeeease’ in her sweetest voice, so of course I oblige. She spends fifteen minutes in there, delighting in pulling books off the shelves, opening CD cases, emptying the cardboard recycling…. The room is a war zone. The weird starts; if it means Alice is not on the floor banging her head and crying like I’ve murdered her teddy bear, I’m okay with her touching my book collection. Nothing is sacred any more.

And then Alice comes out to the kitchen. It’s morning tea time. She throws a small wooden bowl and its lid on the tiles and looks at me defiantly. We stand off – I hold my breath. Alice grabs the freezer handle in a moment of unknown frustration and something unexpected happens; the door opens! She looks at me and I feign surprise; this could buy me five more minutes of peace! I play along. Alice opens the top drawer and finds the frozen mixed vegetables. She eats a pea. I allow it. I don’t just allow it, I actually say ‘Oooh, can you find a piece of corn?’ honestly.

So I’ve got the first batch of cookies in the oven and I’m rolling the second lot so they are ready to go. The fridge is going crazy, beeping non-stop because the freezer door has been opened for about three minutes now. This is the moment I realised that I’ve succumbed to the tantruming toddler. I didn’t simply close the freezer door, oh no. I took the bag of frozen vegies, poured some in to a bowl, and sat them on the floor – the FLOOR -  for Alice before replacing the bag in the freezer. Seriously, how did this madness happen? Apparently, I will do almost anything to avoid a tantrum, short of backing down on something I’ve asked Alice to do.
Incidentally, she ate three more, wanted play dough, and “cracked it”, as my sister would say.

 

Oh, crap. I haven’t said anything useful for you to take away. Okay, okay, tantrum tips…

Number one: Ask yourself, are they hungry, dirty, tired, or bored? Fix accordingly.

Number two: Is it between 4.30 and 6.00 at night? Is it a full moon? Is it Thursday? Kids pick up on these things.

Number three: if possible, tag team. Show a united front. I’ll be damned if there is one ‘ass-hole’ parent and one ‘fun’ parent in this house. If I was a more negative, pessimistic person, I’d say that I want Alice to look back on her childhood and hate both her parents equally.
If tag teaming isn’t an option, you’re doing a fricken awesome job and I admire your commitment to the cause. Refer to point five.

Number four: Cuddles are important, even if you feel like having a tantrum yourself. During the long, loud tantrums of pre-bath tidy up, I give Alice cuddles all through her yelling and defiance. Cuddles are calming for everyone, and it reminds both parties that you love each other, regardless of the frustration. It doesn’t mean you’re giving in, it just means you’re still there even though what they’re doing sucks ass.

Number five: Take five, sit on the couch, look at your kid that’s throwing things or screaming or lying on the floor or doing whatever it is he or she does during moments of frustration, and reassure yourself that this is healthy and normal and part of growing in to independent, expressive older children. Kids have tantrums whether they come from a single parent family who has sacrificed everything or a two parent family that can provide everything or any other kind of loving, attentive family. Kids have tantrums if their parents are lawyers, or house cleaners, or ECE teachers, apparently. And some kids don’t have tantrums. Take five, breathe, and remember that you guys aren’t the only one, that you’re not doing anything wrong. Go easy.

That’s what I like to tell myself, anyway. Please, tell me it's true!

A Little Language Barrier

Ko te reo te tai kura or te whakaao marama.
Language is the key to understanding.

Alice might not be jumping off furniture, expressing her creativity by drawing on walls, running like a mad woman toward muddy puddles or eating everything in sight. But man alive, does Alice talk. Alice’s first words escape her lips often before she opens her eyes in the morning (usually it’s ‘boo, mama’) and the running commentary doesn’t stop until she’s chatted herself to sleep.
She tells me where the keys are. She yells at dolls for not sitting the way she wants. She talks to her little wooden fish and she demands bubbles – more bubbles! – at least ten times a day. There are animal noises and copy-cat games and weather reports and ‘NO!’, all before breakfast.

It’s pretty awesome!

And now what’s even more exciting, there’s te reo Maori, too. The other day Alice told me, ‘Sshh, manu. Walk, please.’ She took my finger and led me to the front door, where we watched the fantail dance around under the awning catching bugs. I was so excited to hear a reo Maori word spoken by her, un-prompted, that I forgot to listen to what she was telling me about the little manu itself, the whole point of her first sentence.

Alice has said lots of te reo Maori words in the past, but it’s always been parroting me. Counting and animal names and action words have all been repeated back to me which is exciting, but not as exciting as Alice choosing to say ‘manu’ in order to communicate an idea.

Sshh, manu. It MEANS something!

I wonder if it’s common, for parents to be really focused on teaching their child one specific thing, giving it more importance than other skills. Maybe it’s counting, or riding a bike, or milking a cow, or singing in tune. For me, teaching my children to speak reo Maori is pretty much top of the list.

It’s been a huge undertaking that has pushed me on my own learning journey so I can lead Alice through hers. And I was beginning to think it was an uphill battle; after all, Alice’s world is filled with chatty, loving adults that saturate her with language, ninety-nine per cent of it English. I am the only one that speaks to her in Te Reo Maori consistently and even then I’m still learning myself. I was beginning to think the opportunity for Alice to experience the gift of two languages was slipping away. What’s the point?

Sshh, manu.

I’ve had lots of people ask me that question, actually. What IS the point of teaching Alice to understand and speak reo Maori? I sometimes get strange looks in public when I use te reo Maori and more than once I’ve been told what I’m doing is pointless. Apparently, it’s a dying language and there are more useful languages I could be teaching her. They are right, in a way, it is dying. Ever wondered why that is? Is it dying because it has a lifespan and now the language is bedridden? Sshh, manu. It may be dying in some places but in my house, it grows in me every day and now I can see it start to blossom in Alice as well.

I’m teaching Alice reo Maori for lots of reasons. Firstly, the effect a second language has on the brain is huge – children’s brains are crazy busy when they learn to talk, firing off in all directions as they listen, decode, comprehend, and say the words themselves. Can you imagine what a kid’s brain is doing when they learn two?! Positively explosive activity is happening in there! And the more use you can make of a brain - a muscular organ - the bigger and stronger and more powerful it becomes. Language, whatever language that is, is the foundation for life-long learning, be it one language or seven. I’m teaching Alice reo Maori to help her use her brain to its full capacity.

I’m teaching Alice reo Maori because it’s a different set of sounds to English. If she can master the slightly different vowel sounds that come with reo Maori, Alice is better equipped to take on countless other languages, like Spanish, or Japanese, or pretty much any Pacific Island Language. If I knew German or Dutch I’d teach her that, too, and then she’d be equipped with the tools to learn almost any other language on the planet because her mouth knows how to make those sounds. I’m teaching Alice reo Maori because I want her to make the most of the world.

I’m teaching Alice reo Maori because she deserves to know. Thank goodness people are taking a little bit of responsibility now, a little bit of ownership of past trespasses, and trying to right some of the wrongs that has resulted in this language teetering on the brink of extinction. Alice deserves to know the history of her country, history that includes land wars – wars between two races and wars between mountains. She needs to understand two languages to make full sense of one history. She deserves to know how to correctly pronounce government department names, to take part in noho marae, and to engage in debate over the inclusion of the ‘h’. I’m teaching Alice reo Maori because I want her to be a responsible citizen, not a citizen of half a society and pretending the other half doesn’t matter, but of a full society. And she needs two languages to do that properly with a heartfelt sense of belonging and servitude.

Lastly, my heart is wanting me to teach Alice te reo Maori because I believe in it. I believe in Papatuanuku, earth mother, and I want Alice to have a relationship with her. I want Alice to understand the concept of whenua and manaaki and Atua. There is a spiritual essence in New Zealand that lives within Maori culture and in the environment, the two being intertwined like rope fibres. I learned a lot about Te Ao Maori, the Maori world, through being a teacher, and I realised two things. The first is that I know nothing. The second is that, in order to enjoy the intense spirituality of Aotearoa, learning the language is a must. I want nothing more than to share this feeling with my children, with Alice, so I will share this gift with her. Te reo Maori is my gift to her.

Ka tangi nga manu, ka tangi hoki ahau.
As the birds voice their presence, so too do I.

Swiss Cheese and Circumstance

March 9, 2015

Not long ago, my home town was shaken by the tragic death of a toddler in the most unbelievable, heart breaking circumstances. All over town people were talking about it, voicing their anger and their disbelief, while somewhere in the suburbs a family drowned in the grief and silence left in the wake of their lost baby boy. A mother had her world fall away from her under her feet while carrying the weight of a town’s ‘two cents worth’. Thousands of comments, well-wishes, and calls for justice made by people she had saved, made by people she might recognise on the street, and by people who don’t even know what colour her hair is.

I’m not going to talk about her any more. I’ll talk about me and Alice instead.
 
Alice got sick on Christmas day last year. It was her first ever fever, the first time she’d gone off food and the first time she just wanted to lie on me all day and sleep. It was the first time she was determined to sleep with me at night, too, which meant her discomfort and fever kept us all up for most of the night, every night, day after day.
Her first unexplained sudden rash came two days later, and it spread quickly. It was holiday season and my doctor was closed which added to my growing concern.
The day before New Year’s Eve I found an open doctor’s practice and begged them over the phone to find an appointment to see my girl that day. Luckily they could squeeze me in, and I had less than an hour to get Alice ready, fed, and in the car to drive the thirty kilometres from my house to the practice.

Am I a bad mother yet?

 When we were finally ready to go, I sat Alice in the car seat with a cold flannel. Her shoelace was undone so I tied it again. I don’t normally care too much about the position of the sunshades on the windows, but Alice was so hot and I didn’t want the sun on her at all. So I used two precious minutes to meticulously re-position the shades. I kissed her forehead, closed the door, and walked around to the driver’s seat.
I drove at 105 all the way in to town. I drove at 57 in town where I could. I just wanted to get to the doctor’s and have them tell me that Alice was okay.
Am I a bad mother yet? Do I deserve public ridicule yet?

When we finally arrived at the doctors and I opened Alice’s door, I realised that I hadn’t done up Alice’s car seat belt. Not only that, Alice was actually sitting on the belt, so she wasn’t even sitting properly in her seat at all. My heart dropped in to my stomach, and the ‘what if’ hit me like a brick in the face. Not the ‘what if’ I’d been pulled over by a cop and they’d discovered what I’d done, it was the ‘what if I’d crashed’? What if, because of my choice to speed and take a chance with our lives as it was, I lost control and Alice was thrown from the car? I felt like I’d dodged a bullet and I couldn’t fathom how I had forgotten to do the very basic action of fastening a belt. An action that, in the wrong circumstances, would mean life or death for my baby.
Be it by God’s good grace or sheer luck, I was given a free pass. No one saw what I had done, Alice wasn’t hurt, and you can be sure I triple check the seat belt every time we get in the car now.
Am I a bad mother now? I broke the law, for god’s sake. This is the first time I have really talked about it and even as I write, I feel panicked by what I had done. Am I a bad mother?

 You know me, you know how seriously I take my job of protecting and nurturing my own child as well as the children I teach. If Alice had died, would you console me? What if you saw the headline, ‘baby dies in crash, mother ‘forgot’ to fasten belt’. Now am I a bad mother? Do you still feel sorry for me?



I have read that life, or rather, the series of events that lead up to an event, is a little like Swiss cheese. It’s full of holes all over the place, the random nature of the holes means you can pop a toothpick in each one and eventually hit cheese before you get to the bottom. However, by complete chance, there are rare occasions when those random holes in each slice of cheese align and the toothpick falls right through.
Let me explain;
Hole one - Alice has been sick for three days and I’m exhausted, having had very little rest.
Hole two – I’m stressed because we’ve got no time to waste, I’m anxious for the well-being of Alice, I’m worried because we’re going to a different doctor.
Hole three – I lose focus with the flannel, the shoes.
Hole four – something out of routine happens, in this case I’m preoccupied with the sunshades. Again, because I’m concerned for Alice’s health.
Hole five – My decision to add five kilometres to the speed limit to cut half a minute off travel time.
And then my toothpick hits cheese. The weather was good for driving, I didn’t meet any erratic travellers or drunk drivers, my car was road-worthy and got me to the doctors safely.
Does it make me a bad mother?
The woman I mentioned at the beginning had very similar looking Swiss cheese to what I’ve described for Alice and I. Except for her all the holes aligned, right down to the end.

Being completely responsible for a person and having to protect them from a dangerous world, bad people, human error and divine circumstance is bloody scary.

Tell me. Tell me to my face. Does my mistake make me not love Alice anymore? Am I a bad mother? Do I deserve public ridicule now?

And I have to ask myself – am I brave enough to share this moment of utter disbelief at my own forgetfulness and feeling of stolen luck in order to highlight how easy it is to judge someone else? To ignore their story, their circumstance, the series of events that lead to their outcome, however tragic? Am I brave enough to point out how easy it is to say ‘that would never happen to me’ and ‘I’d never do that to my kids’ when, in actual fact, circumstance and human error means that, heaven forbid, you might?

It is human to charge forward with judgement. It is humane to strive for understanding. But to go forth with compassion and love, that is divine.

And for god’s sake. Give someone a hug, will you?

The Strength of Women

March 3, 2015

 

In between the sleepless nights and teething and wondering how Alice got such a small amount of sweetcorn in that many places (mind blowing, really), I find myself daydreaming about who Alice will be when she grows up. Not so much what she will do for a living, but how she will treat people, where she will find peace and happiness, how she will handle herself in times of doubt or stress. It’s daunting, knowing that I have such a big influence on these outcomes for her. The values and ideals that Alice experiences now will set the tone for the rest of her life, and that is a very humbling thought.

Being a teacher I am no stranger to philosophies and mission statements, but I never thought I would feel the urge to develop a philosophy of raising a daughter. There are things I want Alice to know, to believe, for when she is older and needs to look inside herself for guidance. Things like empathy, and gentleness, and cultivating the ability to see beauty all around her. And I want her to believe wholeheartedly that she has strength.
The following is today’s email to Alice, and the first overt lesson in what the strength of a woman is all about.
 
So, Babygirl, yesterday was a pretty big day for me, and I kind of have you to thank! Yesterday I cut off most of my hair and donated it to be made in to a wig for people who have cancer. I took you, too, and you chatted to people at the gym and played with the swiss balls while I talked to the people from the newspaper and had my pony tails cut off. Our friends and family also donated $1000 to the cancer society which helps cancer patients and their families in lots of ways.

Here's why I have you to thank. The first reason is because, when I was pregnant with you, you made my hair grow long and strong and it hasn't stopped since. Because of you I don't have time to wash my hair as often as I used to, and that means it's super healthy. I think this is an example of how having children changes your life in every way possible, even down to how a mother looks after her hair. Luckily I wouldn't have it any other way!

The second reason I have you to thank for yesterday is because you - sweet little
unassuming you - have taught me all about the strength of women. Girls are powerful. I hope you know that, and if not, I'm telling you now. From the day I found out about you I have been learning about the strength of women. Women have babies, we fight history and make the world our oyster, and the truly powerful women use that strength to build up others. Truly powerful women know that strength is within themselves, and they don't need to bring down anyone else - man or woman - to express their power. And the amazing thing is that women do all this with their finger on the pulse of their emotions and an eye on the greater good.

YOU have taught me that I am capable of this, too. I might be tired or hangry or maybe even a bit frightened, but you have shown me that, with a deep breath and a plan, I can overcome everything. I hope with all my heart that you know you are capable of this, too.

So, yesterday was about celebrating this strength. The gym we were at is all about the strength of woman, and so is the Roller Derby team that the money is going to the cancer society through (Just quietly, if you ever get involved in this sport I'd be so happy! Those girls are the epitome of tough and they treat each other like family!).

And of course, the hair is all about strength, too. A woman with cancer might be using all that strength inside her just to fight it, to keep her family together, to remain positive. We can get more strength though - maybe from reading or dancing or the love of our family or eating a piece of chocolate. Well, little pudding, strength can also come from a good hair day. So you have helped me share my strength with another woman who is already using up every ounce of hers. Thank you, baby girl.

I hope you don't mind me sharing a little bit of this email - Can you imagine how wonderful it would be if the lesson you have taught me could help others, too? Strength is a bit like love, after all; share it with others and it grows.

We are going to have a wonderful day today!
Lots of love, Mumma

Even when I do something that has nothing to do with her it's still, in some ways, all about Alice.