Another Visit

The last week has been spent with family visiting from Australia.  We have been to Akaroa rocking on boats, Hanmer Springs wallowing in hot rock pools, and the Antarctica Centre watching penguins and riding in military style buggies! It has been a wonderful week and we were sad to see our our brother and sister and law, niece and nephew leave.

I have had gastroenteritis for 5 days so this afternoon am having a rest and cleaning the house while Sergeant is testing two new co-operative games at our friends house with the children.  

I am very fortunate to have made a few close friends in Christchurch who share similar conclusions in parenting and education, one of which was a nanny previously.  Whilst I have yet to find any research which states that mass childcare is beneficial to the development of a child in terms of social or emotional well-being, I have seen much evidence that if a child is bonded with alternative caregivers the experience can be positive so employment is restrained by the hours my friend can offer as a nanny and what flexibility the role offers.

While I love the theory of democratic schooling, if under-resourced both in terms of the input of fellow parents and in terms of support and actual resources, I prefer whole-life learning as a more holistic and nurturing education.  Subsequently I have been asked frequently if I would consider Sonic going to a “normal” school. I do not accept the social norm – children are natural learners and mainstream school does not work for millions of children, (certainly not my son) and learner centred education does; so I would rather support alternative means of education – let’s support a revolution!

 

 

Our House – PICTURES in New Zealand

My sister has asked for pictures of the house – it isn’t quite ready yet:

Our house living room

The box room

Kitchen

Bedroom

Playroom

Actually these are the pictures after the children spent the day making dens and piles, playing with paper and scissors, baking, making playdo and goop. It took me 6 hours of cleaning over the next two days… thought I’d give my parents a view of our abode at its worst before they come to visit us 😉

I am actually a very tidy person so I struggle with the disarray, it’s clean but lived in one could argue. I guess I take pictures because I am trying to value their creations. 80% of the time I can now take it in my stride! Not bad for someone who had OCD for cleanliness. Children are our wisest guides.

A Wet Sunday Afternoon

Rain has fallen heavily all day.  Big fat raindrops, slanted rain, drizzle, damp – our house’s windows are full of condensation even if I open the windows.  We sat in the box room, and the whole family watched Cheaper by the Dozen in our pyjamas. We all liked it but damn it irritated me! How can you have 12 children and have such a nice house, such nice clothes and everything pristine? It did inspire me though, we went out this afternoon and bought some posters for the playroom and Lego, it felt more homely.

Renting after having your own house can be challenging, every mark on the wall or stain on the carpet reminds me I am living in someone else’s house.

Sonic Orange has been making a Chima Lego buggy and has so far done it with little help, he leaned over to the girl’s house and said to them “the flowers are lovely”. I smiled and said “you like their Lego too?”. “No” he whispered, “I was just saying that to be nice because my Lego looks better than theirs…”. I am not sure if I have modelled being disingenuous ;-/ oops.

He is really enjoying being at the democratic school!  If you are interested here is a video about a similar school:

I go with Sonic Orange several times a week, but leave him now for a few hours so I can spend time with the girls  – and there are always other parents sat around.  On Friday, it was the last day of term so they planned a sale and a shared lunch, as well as a communal clean up.  Sonic Orange asked for us to make a Millionaire’s Shortbread after seeing it in a cooking book, so we planned the ingredients, and made it.  In the morning we planned how many pieces to make and calculated the cost per slice to cover costs.   It is really interesting how empowering the democratic process is for them. So far I have seen no bullying or teasing – I guess because the children and adults all have equal respect, there is no resentment.  Sonic Orange has truthfully flourished in the environment.  I see children sitting around learning because they want to; teaching themselves how to play the guitar with chords printed from the Internet, attending the morning classes out of interest, asking for support with their spelling and writing. I wonder if the world would be a more peaceful place if all schools were like this? Interestingly the country with the greatest number of Democratic schools is Israel…

Update: Sonic Orange has now started eating wholesome food! Recently I read somewhere that up until the age of 7 years some children see food as lots of individual parts, not as the whole so it is very hard for them to try new foods. Hmm I thought, not likely – but at 6 1/2 years he proved me wrong!

Beach bums and amazing parks

Yesterday I had a wonderful uplifting day. We got the bus (easily) to  a park called Hagley Park. When we got off the bus, the bus driver got off before me and carried my pram and opened it for me, and said be careful when you cross the road when you come back.

The sun was baking hot, and so we were glad when we got to the playground that there were sprinklers with children running underneath and two free swimming pools to paddle in! It is still the school holidays and there was a free show for children in the park, so there were families everywhere. We met up with a lady and her 6-year-old twins.  Hopefully, we will meet soon in more comfortable circumstances as we seem to have a lot in common.  They own a farm and yoga studio, and I felt echo my aspirations for The Good Life dream!

I like not having a car, it encourages us to walk more. And honestly I feel that we need to be the change we want to see – and I believe environmentally, that means making sacrifices… BUT it is so challenging sometimes. And I really don’t want to be as isolated as I have been before.  We are considering saving up for or getting a small loan to buy a cheap car to use for emergencies and weekend camping trips.

Had a bloody awful day today.  Had nightmares for most of last night and woke up moody – not only because Movecorp have turned out to be very unprofessional and untruthful, after 8 weeks of thinking our shipment was on its way – turns out not left the UK.  Shame. I guess we cannot let the based things in life keep us down!

x x x

Rental housing and mediocre first impressions

On Friday our family was invited to DHs work drinks.   It was such a lovely day and I knew I was meant to be making a good first impression and mingling, but to be honest I was feeling very subdued. I did make a bit of chit-chat but I was completely overwhelmed with contentment. Being able to sit outside with a group of adults, in an environment that is suitable for children to run around, with a glass of white wine spritzer in hand, with a wonderful view and joyful friendly people around me isn’t an everyday experience.

Today we went to the Whole Life Learners group – it makes my week to meet people like this and the children are happy when we are there.  They sat in the sand digging with spoons, and Sonic Blue and his friends made a big assault course over the wooden benches using planks and old tyres.  It is truely wonderful to see what skills they use when just left alone to learn – team working, problem solving, architecture (ish?). Amazing! I can see it in myself too, if someone trys to tell me how to learn something I turn off, it discourages my creativity – whereas now I have the confidence to try and learn things off my own back, I love learning. And I know when it is time to get advice or support from someone more knowledgeable than me, when and only because I want to.   Talking of intrinsic motivation to learn, got to wait till April for our shipment so really missing my sewing machine…

On the walk to the bus we happened to look up a street to see some boxes of books out. We went to have a look and a woman came out of her driveway and said to me take it all! In NZ they seem to leave gifts out to share unwanted items, I love it! We manged to get some amazing books and toys to bring home, and the children were all very happy to play when they got home with their cars, dolls, and activity packs.

We are in the process of filling up the house. I have managed to find some good websites for buying items second-hand and there are also a few 2 dollar stores here filled with items for re-use. Seems so much better to encourage people to reuse and recycle with financial incentive, rather than encouraging a materialistic society by producing clothes and items cheaply through slave labour or environmentally damaging processes. Although I must say, sometimes I just want a something new that is cheap too.

We have a rental house now, it is light and airy with three bedrooms. The garden is a reasonable size but all concrete and poor soil, so my self-sufficiency dream will have to be put on hold a while longer. I have been reading a page called grow food, not lawns and had some great inspiration for how to grow things in old chests and such like.

The bitch box and other stories

The Outskirts of Christchurch

It is clear that the earthquakes have devastated areas of Christchurch and there are few people untouched by the events. However there is so much human spirit – and an eery beauty in the devastation.  These people have experienced so much loss, not only losing the surroundings that they know but some their loved ones too. I don’t know – I hope I won’t – ever know that sadness and loss.  We were driving through the outskirts and I saw this wall, and I thought it was so full of hope that I am sharing it here. It was a wall with the word repeated – before I die I want to….. and people wrote their response..

The Bitch Box and the Wildlife Park

We spent an afternoon at Willowbank Wildlife Park. We are able in the future to get the bus there, so ended up getting a year membership for a very reasonable price.  The park was set up in the 80s by a man whose childhood dream was to have an animal park. Over the years he and his wife have built it up to a good size.  All the animals are extremely well looked after and the setting is very homely and close to nature.

This is a bitch box – apparently they were used when a bitch went into season. She was placed into the box to prevent unwanted pregnancies. I can think of better forms of contraception…

Travels over the Mountain

We drove through Dyers Pass up the mountain and down to the bays on the others side. We stopped in Lyttleton for food. I went into a Himalayan clothing shop and the woman who ran it was so friendly, she seemed to know everyone that came in and chatted with me giving me the coffee she’d just bought for a perk up because she couldn’t stand it, uck she said. Good for me!  Then we went onto the beach.  Corsair bay is a delight.  Before you go down the slope to the beach there is this playground, see if you can spot the girl with the curly hair and straight hair?  The picture to the right is the bay which we swam in. I honestly, usually have panic attacks when swimming in natural water but I managed to swim out alone. It was so beautiful I quite forgot my usual fears and was just enjoying being there.  Ahead in the middle, you can see the former leper colony Quail Island.

Lyttleton harbour had me thinking of the song I learnt at school – little houses on the hillside. 

A Last Note…

We have been very fortunate so far to have had some playdates for Sonic Blue in the last few days and he has enjoyed meeting some new friends, although struggling a bit with it too.  We have a few appointments this week to see houses, so hopefully one of them will be suitable and gained. With love x x x