an interesting follow on to yesterday's unschooling thoughts -
today we went to a kindergym for the first time. the space and equipment were great, and later in the free play session dandan would have a ball;
but the class session, whooboy! i was dumbstruck by the amount of control exerted over and expected from the children.. all of whom complied.
sit here, don't talk, watch this; do this, then this, then this, in this way. now stand, now go do it.
for a session devoted to physical activity, there was an surprising amount of quiet sitting and watching required.

and then, at the end of the session, the kids had to sit in a circle, feet crossed, (and not tucked under the parachute they were sitting around), with their hands on their heads palms down. so that the instructor could go around the circle, and stamp each obedient hand with a "good" stamp. literally. freaking unbelievable.
ironically, in adults this would be considered cultish or brainwashed behaviour. or what we'd expect from prison inmates. it's the stuff of futuristic sci fi horror a la Orson welles' 1982.

thank goodness that by then dandan had long checked out of the group, i don't know if i would have wanted him to be sitting obediently there with his hands on his head waiting for the Stamp of Approval.

from the instructor's pov, dandan was a big Fail for this class. she was constantly trying to get him to stop what he was doing and come back to the group, and barraging him with commands (not instructions, these were very clearly Commands) to which he replied NO! to every one. good on him.

this one child had chucked it, and his mum took him out for a while. she brought him back in later apologising that he had "lost it" but was now ready to join in;
he was now totally subdued and compliant, and obediently did all the activities meant for his enrichment, with a broken spirit and the remnants of his tears drying on his now-passive face.

so this reminds me why i don't want him in conventional school. because he's not a prisoner or in the army. and i do want his spirit intact thanks.

it's just ridiculous.

say it in pictures

i've gone and added some pics to recent (especially the travel ones) as well as older posts;
i've tagged all of them with "pics included" so you can pull up only posts with photos, if you want (they're usually the non-whingy posts too), using the tags menu lower down on the left (or clicking the tag at the end of this post).

=)

the darwin bit of our trip

darwin was HUUmid! and when someone who's just come from singapore says that, you know it's got to be true.
it wasn't even that hot, but moving around made you instantly sluggish and sweaty and longing for a/c.

but it was nice having our own space after scunging off relatives. we got this cool 4 star hotel for $80 a night (rack rate of $250) from wotif... very lush.

darwin's an interesting place. absolutely nothing to do in the town centre, incredibly non-happening as they say, except think about the aboriginal folk wandering the streets and lounging in doorways.

the food was mostly awful though, in the town centre, i suppose catering to the backpackers comprising the majority of the population there. coming from singapore, this threw me into the food-blues.. i ended up eating ravioli from a can and cream cheese triangles in our hotel room, which was surprisingly quite nice.

*but we did go to a nice and swanky place; A had barramundi, i had wagyu rissoles, and dandan was a beyond perfect dining companion (thank you colouring book):

*continuing the fish theme; here we are with our darling little rented car ($33 a day with baby seat!) fishing on the wharf, in the rain, at sunset. lots of people came along for the same reason; it was a really nice vibe. dan spent almost the whole time playing in the car, i guess water all looks the same, especially when it's physically quite far away and untouchable:

*these are the only remotely darwin-y looking pictures we have. the soil is literally red! (more apparent IRL):
^(no, i don't know why i'm looking so goofily)


*and this was a highlight of our little darwin trip; hundreds of fish turning up for a daily feeding; you get to touch them, they eat out of your hand and nibble your fingers!, and they flash in and out of your legs in the water.. dandan had such a blast:

*and a close second for favourite outing: the crocodile park, which had dandan saying "coc-o-dai-yl!" for days afterward.
it looks very cage-d, but apparently this park is run by the conservationists, and is vital to conservation (public education, breeding, farming, education of farmers who would otherwise kill their eggs, etc)
the croc really does leap at astonishing speed, up several metres. even though we were expecting him to do so, we still jumped when it happened. and his jaws make a big "pop" sound as they bang together, from the air escaping so rapidly. scary stuff.

but this little guy was fun. i feel bad for him, but well, dandan had a blast tickling him. (this is after i gave dan a bath with a bottle of water, in the public bathroom. he was ridiculously sweaty..)

but the art bit of it was very cool. we trawled all the galleries - they're co-ops, working directly with local artists and communities, and the art starts from very affordable entry level prices of like $60 upward (for the unknown or lesser-names of the aboriginal art scene); some of them had the artists themselves working there or even running the gallery.

this is a local resident at one of the art co-ops.
he was funny at first, nuzzling against A and licking the salt off his skin, but then he got reeeally insistent, and scratched at A when he tried to get away! also scary stuff. but cute.

*and this is at a hotel lobby we stopped at for their a/c, and to get some sweat off our skin with a facewasher we rinsed with a bottle of water. classy. we didn't even order anything from the bar.
how cool is this setup though:

what we did on our holidays, con't.

(just edited)

in singapore, we stayed at A's aunts' home, a teeny tiny flat above with an insanely large and beautiful palm-fringed pool.
think resort pool; all undulating lines, curving around corners (it took 5 mins to walk along the waterline from one end to the other), rounded nooks and eddies; a bar set within the pool itself, secret tiny bubbling spas hidden under palm trees, wooden loungers and big umbrellas; a "mountain" concealing a big water slide. a big toddler pool and splashy area with big pipes gushing jets and curtains of water you could run in and out of.
and behind said fringe of palm trees, 2 little playgrounds at either end to choose from, as well as several balinese huts.
(why did i not take any pictures of this???)

it was lovely. every morning we'd pop downstairs to take in this tropical paradise, set ourselves up at a deck chair with the breakfast we'd bought at the local shops, then splash around with dandan - "me monkey! me fish!"
dan only had 2 baths in the 10 days we were there, most days i brought bath wash down with us, and would surreptitiously wash him while he was swimming and playing with the poolside showers (it was a very unchlorinated pool, i guess being private and all).
although, oops, he turned down swimming a few times in the latter half of the trip, in favour of the playground.. maybe he cottoned on to it? pool = bath.. =(

it was hot though. blagh, i hate hot weather. it makes everything tiring.. walking from the apartment to the local shops to get breakfast, though first thing in the morning, made us sluggish and sweaty and a bit grumpy.

but the food was sooo goood.
in fact, i'm writing this now because i saw some ad on tv with some hawker food, and it made me grumpy. why do we live here and not there? there's literally nowhere here to get a decent approximation of most of my favourite things. imagine having to wait to fly to a faraway country, once a year at best, just to satisfy a craving...

like goreng pisang, soft sweet gooey sugar banana deep fried with an impossibly crispy and fluffy crust (the urban legend is that they melt plastic PET bottles into the cooking oil. surely there's some way to find out for sure?).

or my favourites, all which seem to involve being grilled over an open charcoal flame, and fanned with a woven heart-shaped fan (colourful plastic strips or dried banana leaves) by a sweaty man in a sarong and string singlet.
like otak, spicy fish meat mixture wrapped in banana leaf. satay, sweet and tender and spicy meat. sting ray atop a banana leaf covered with a thick layer pungent sambal; you use chopsticks to scrape off the thin layer of delicious stringy meat off the dense comb of sturdy bones.

dandan loved the food too.
*he demolished a whole plate of pappadums one night (each one as big as his head);
(in little india (we're about to have fish head curry)):

and he developed such a taste of kueh (soft jelly like cakes made with coconut milk) that he asked for them no matter where he went.
but only the green ones (kueh talam) - "dreen duay!"; so much so that, well, the contents of his nappy ended up a bright green smushiness. although that could have been the change in local germs.
and the rainbow layer kuehs; you can peel off one stretchy layer at a time, each one a different colour f the rainbow. he only ever wanted green and purple (he could be tricked with blue), leaving the rest discarded.
or the paus (steamed rice flour buns with filling); the green one with sweet pandan flavoured filling, or the light purple one with sweet yam filling.

we didn't get the camera out very much, so there's a lot we'll just have to remember.

*here he is on the plane (with the sticker book that literally saved our holiday, daily):
*at the science centre with the boys:

*the bird park (much too big a park / too many birds for one little boy, despite there being a monorail, but the aviary was fun.. biggest aviary in the something something):

this is inside the biggest aviary in the something-something. you can't even see the mesh of the gigantic tent..:^(these guys were eating out of a cup from my hand, but it freaked me out a bit so i put it down, after which they pushed it over. dandan kept saying worriedly for ages
"cup fall down! birdy fall down!". i think he thought the birds had fallen with it...)

treetops walk! we're VERY high up, this are the tops of tall trees.. and this bridge sways.. very Perils of Penelope Pitstop:

and this very special one - dandan took this picture! all by himself! and this is just one in a whole series of perfectly framed pictures (well 90% of them anyway).
if i do say so myself, he is a genius:

*at the night safari at the zoo (i saw a bull elephant 15ms away! dancing and swaying significantly in the silent darkness). no pictures unfortunately, but there was this indonesian fire dance show (with fire-eating!!, fire blowing-from-mouth; fire twirling, and loincloths galore):

*the water playground with leaping jets of water atop a gigantic mall. i thought this warranted a whole day of our holiday - there're dozens of jets, along the whole stretch of concrete you can see in this pic, all spurting to some cool rhythm:



*and uncle ronald's magical car:
(this is taken at the northern most point of the island, one of the few undeveloped pockets left; looking over to malaysia across the narrow strip of water)


*and dandan hanging with the boys he absolutely lost his heart to. he followed them all around at every opportunity, and hugged and kissed them all at every farewell.
here they are having a cigarette break :| after dinner:
^p/s - note the open air eating places with lots of space to run around? THIS is why families with children can eat out in asia, where they can't in australia (apart from fast food places with playgrounds). garh!

*and on a side note, visiting my uncle who has lung cancer and a prognosis of a few months. he spent a lot of time caring for me when i was dan's age, so i wanted to visit him especially:

ain't this the sweetest thing!:

unschooling school

dan and i spent the day at a learning co-op today.. i have lots of thoughts and questions, am still digesting and mulling..
but briefly;

first, wow, a group of children all different ages interacting together? simply awesome, so obviously the way things are meant to be. the younger ones learning from and mimicking the older ones (in dan's case, literally and openly and comically); the older ones nurturing and caring for the younger ones, being mindful of their limitations, and carefully and thoughtfully including them in their play, adapting the play to suit everyone.

and the social stuff.. eg bullying or anti social or hurtful behaviours. the group of parents are fully present in the children's environment, and therefore are to-the-minute aware of what's going on. they're also very involved with the children throughout the day, often one-on-one. and most parents have been / will be so for years, the entire duration of the child's time at the co-op, often more (10, 14 years often.. a time even spanning their siblings' time at the co-op too!). plus, parents meet once a week, and therefore are well acquainted with the ins and outs of each child's life at home and at the co-op.
to me, that's places the adults perfectly to deal with any social issues that arise between the children.. contrast that with a large school, 30 students to one teacher at a time, who only sees each group of children for a few periods a day.. even if a teacher was made aware of bullying for example, how could she reasonably be equipped to deal with such a complex issue?

on the flip side, though;
granted i was only there for one day, and didn't really ask about the"curriculum"; but i was expecting something more like this:
http://mominmadison.blogspot.com/
i was hoping to see children reading, working on science projects they had come up with, cooking and eating together, ongoing gardening projects, art projects and displays, musical instruments...
is this an unrealistic unschooling expectation?

what i saw was cool, but i confess i was hoping for more. but ah, i know it's just one day in the life of. probably over the course of months, the amount and variety of projects and activities made available to any one child would be pretty dazzling.

what was really of interest to me were the boys.. they mostly moved in a group, the odd loner. they played / watched a chess game on computer, and then they played this really rambunctious fighting game (a jumpy sort of wrestling). this was really interesting to me, as dandan was dumbstruck by fascination by this activity, and stood there for ages holding my hand, wanting to join in.
at first i was a bit horrified by the rambunctiousness and loudness, and what seemed and sounded like aggression.
but then i saw that, whenever someone expressed hurt, the game would instantly stop, and the leader of the game would tend to the injured one, ascertaining if he was alright, and then trying to cheer him up, taking as long as they needed before the game would continue.
and i also saw that as rough as they were, and as tight and real as the strangleholds were, no one was angry, no blow was intended to injure or hurt... the direct opposite of so many similar childhood games i've witnessed / been in before. very significant.
they really seemed to just be playing out a world where they were warriors, or perfecting their moves in preparation for warriorhood. i think i'd be okay with my little boy doing this..

and then the (male) co-ordinator came out (obviously hearing the escalating blood curdling shrieks), and suggested a game, an athletic rolling competition, which they took to eagerly.
dandan has made me very aware of the nature of male mentorship and role modelling, how a boy is naturally drawn to an older boy / man to follow and mimic, in preparation for manhood; and how groups of males naturally fall into a hierarchy and seek a leader (or, if they're all the same age and there is no intrinsic hierarchy, will fight until one is established), man or wolves alike in this.
so it was very cool to see this in action today..

after all, it's all about balance. there is usually plenty of input from at least one woman into a child's daily life; but usually much less from a man, if any at all.
plus, i read somewhere that boys learn best in a one to one mentorship arrangement with an older male.
which makes me add to the mental checklist of what i want for dan's education (be it home unschooling, an unschooling school, or some sort of conventional school): some amount of teaching input from a man.

obviously the gender question is irrelevant for home unschooling (his learning environment naturally being tailored to him specifically), but it does come up when considering a group learning environment, no matter how unschooly..

but boy, was it cool watching him follow all the older kids around and be part of things all day. unless this is just me projecting onto him all my self-criticisms about being such a loner by choice or circumstance?

i can imagine us home unschooling, and it seems so wonderful and cool (right now i'm picturing this blog again (http://mominmadison.blogspot.com), and soulemama's blog, just to name the first two that come to mind.
but i can also imagine endless days of dan running around the co-op and being, daily, part of a group of children, and that seems incredibly cool as well..

so, okay, projecting again, but the latter is everything i ever wanted for myself, longed for even, as the pattern of my life seems to have been my feeling ever on the fringe of things. to belong, to be woven into a group of people, to have someone already there as soon as you even felt you could do with company).
whereas the home unschooling picture is the life i always had (minus the parent anyway, and outside of our short school hours), and always felt very isolated in.. (then again, i am an introvert, i probably would have chosen it anyway?)

okay, going in circles now. i'll let this decision marinate some more over the next few years. in the meantime, this co-op rocks!

dan today

good news by way of an update - dan's mild cold has passed - THAT was the reason for all the night waking and horribleness!

everytime a bad sleep phase passes, as this one just has, i think - thank goodness i didn't nightwean him after all.. the bother, the emotional stress (on him and on me);
plus there's some part of me that believes that, in general with children/parenting, things are the way they're meant to be..

but of course this is so general and sometimes untrue too. but in this case it feels like it seems to apply, i can't explain why..

but i am very glad this one has passed. i'd even taken to drink! (well, a shot of dessert wine)

----------------
horriblehorribleness today...
went to a friend's birthday in a fantastic park (more on that later) with a racial harmony festival thing going on at the same time;

dan was happily playing on steps (while i was tensely waiting for him to one side, wanting to go check out the market stalls), when he stopped crouched on the bottom step, leant forward...... and (i could see this coming, but was frozen in place like a stupefied rabbit)... toppled and fell FACE FIRST onto the rough gravelly concrete below, his face taking the full weight of his fall.

i heard a crunch sound.. and thought - he's broken his nose. my first thought is a visual picture of the fine thin bones of his nose. my second thought is getting to him.

i leap forward and lift him to me.. that side of his face is all covered in fine bloody abrasions.. and of course he's howling..
but even though so many things are going through my mind, the main thought being on lifting his body closely onto mine, another one of them is an assessment of the damage. a quick scan, no deep cuts or scrapes, bleeding is from under his nostril not from inside, only light abrasions, please god don't let anything be broken.

thankfully we're only metres from the first aid tent. a passerby brings me there and carries my over-large bag. i give him boob and he calms, but the gauze dabbing with lotion and powder makes him really upset.
again, thank god for breastfeeding! how on earth would we cope without, with such wee ones?
the first aider, a grandmotherly sort, tells me i'm a good little mum, which is nice i suppose.

dan's fine for the rest of the afternoon, in fact has a grand time playing with ducks and kayaks on the launchpad. i even put 40c into a mechanical ride for him - it was a zebra, and i did it cunningly and secretly so he wouldn't make the mummy-put-money connection.

he's unaware of the horror of his face, red bruises and scrapes all over one half of it. (ETA: it doesn't look as bad in the photos!)
it's such a contrast to his happiness. in profile, when he faces one way, all you see is a perfectly happy and sweet angel.


although later in the day, he brought it up to talk about twice, and i did once or twice too; and he revisited the trauma and the fear and the pain (it showed on his face and his literally trembling lip), and we patted and talked through it.

needless to say, it feels awful as a mother. i can literally feel what they call the mother's heart; it's like my normal heart, but swollen and enlarged and tender with pain and feeling.

and when your child is suffering, what every ounce of your being wants, is to wrap yourself around them and engulf them, back into your body, where they'll be safe and innocent and untouchable and unhurt again.

but all you can do instead is to put your arms tightly around them, a boob in their mouth and comforting milk inside them (and don't forget the breastfeeding hormones!), rock and sway them, and croon the comforting song mothers have known since time began.

(note: read this in the context of the posts i meant to come online and make previously, of how delightful he is these days, verbose and wordy and so able to express himself in specific words and funny sentences, so insightful and knowledgeable, so affectionate and sweet with his frequent kiss-mummy sessions, so many delightful jokes and "look at my funny face, mummy"..)

ah.
today, i feel a) completely convinced that i don't have what it takes to parent, and, b) thoroughly sorry for myself.

the (a) seems to be a universally experienced sort of juncture, so i'm happy enough to suck that up, but the (b) is a killer.

i just feel like, above and beyond the normal travails of parenting a young child, that i've really received a package more challenging that most other parents'.
sometimes i have professional opinions to back it up, in the way of authors of books a la "sears' fussy baby", "active alert child", "highly spirited child, and on and on.
not to mention having chosen a parenting style which is in the short term anyway, the harder way to do things sometimes.

currently it's being pawed at all night and latched on to for endless hours overnight. and pawed at and being latched on to, on and off, all bloody day.
in between the million episodes per day of being clamored for NOW because something has made him upset, or because he wants something and doesn't want to wait for it, and crying loudly ("dandan CRY!"), or just because he wants me for the millionth time, all of me.

and when i start feeling sorry for myself, i lie there and think of how bloody hard it has been the whole time. all those nightmarish frequent sudden and gut-emptying vomits all through his babyhood. the gazillion nights of intense boobing through the night. the gazillion being-pawed-at for boob, no matter where or when. all that carrying, refusing to walk or sit in a pram or sit in his own chair. the gazillion conversations i've lost with friends or interested strangers because he has to have me NOW. being "on call" to run to the bedroom as soon as he whimpers, even after he's finally gone to sleep at night, so that i can't take a shower even then, or feel finally free, but always always chained by the ankle.

not to mention all the friendships i feel i've now lost for some reason or another (nothing to do with him, true) since becoming a mother, and how isolated i feel / am. not to mention how stupid this marriage now is. and how i feel i have to do everything around here. why, if i almost killed myself planning and packing for our trip away, must it also be me who unpacks it now that we're back? why must it always be me that does all the cooking, especially since it's also me that uses my baby-free time to buy groceries? why does he get to use his at-home time to relax and do his own thing when i've parented all day, will be night-parenting all night when my sleep's already all fucked to shit, so now why must it still be me to parent all evening, while also doing housework? he shouldn't fucking get to, is the answer.

it's so tempting to cast around desperately for a way out. at times like this, i run through my options. if separation would make things easier i'd definitely consider it.
stopping breastfeeding? this does seem to be a common milestone for mums to crack it. i'm on the fence about it.. it seems so likely that it'll make things easier, and i really sometimes feel so tired of it. but i also sometimes feel so glad we have it, plus it would feel like such a big gap... all this time it's been the cornerstone of our relationship. ideally i'd like to cut back - bloody nightwean already, and one or two sweet convenient civilised boobings in the evening.

scarily, the option of full-time day care even lifts its sneaky head as an option. only doing a few hours of evening parenting a day... the time together is enjoyable, only delightful, and then he's off to bed. far better right, than today's constant sniping and griping (mine, to him) and simmering resentments running over to occasional flashes of internal violence.

which makes me think, the (a) of earlier. i really am not cut out to do this. we have no day routine, he goes for ages without food and actually gets crabby from hunger. there are so many things he won't eat, so few things he will eat. he doesn't let me brush his teeth at all so god knows what might happen to them.

i think i might go and borrow an evil gina ford type toddler book on setting routines etc. perhaps there might be something helpful in amongst the evilness..

i also need new sleeping arrangements. we always end up squished together in a desperate clump half the night. and he seems to stir more after i go to bed, and get more grabby for boob.
i may not be ready for him to be in his own room (even if he can walk himself over to me sometime, it would still end up being him and i in a queen size bed for the latter half of the night).
i'm thinking, if we had a big enough room: single, queen, single. so at the start of the night A and i could be on the QS, dan on the single. then when dan wants boob in the night, A rolls onto his own single, dan and i on the QS. then when dan falls asleep and lets me go, i roll onto my own single, so all 3 of us will be on our own mattresses. the luxury, the freedom!

but we don't have the space, so i guess a QS and a single, for dan and i. A will have to keep sleeping in the lounge.. unless i can find a narrow roll-upable foam mattress?

or, thinking out loud. maybe dan CAN go to his own room.. then in my room there'll be a QS and a single. A on the single, me on the QS; when dan comes over to me in the night for boobing or company, he can join me on the QS and stay there. if dan crowds me too much, i can spill over onto A's single, or get up and climb over dan and switch sides.
hm! a bedroom for dandan... how novel!
another upside is that maybe A and i can finally get back to talking in bed like we used to, it's always traditionally been our only time to talk, which maybe explains why we don't talk at all now anymore, hence all the issues and deadness.

maybe i'm feeling like this today cos i'm so bloody tired, from having my body clock reset from the trip. it's 1.30am now and i'm still up, though i was super wrecked all day today. during the day i put the tv on for dan, walked off to bed, and just fell semi asleep, while he kept shouting "MOMMY"in my face and trying to wake me (for non essential things like "where's the doggy?". when he got distressed i'd respond sleepily.). he played around me, and in the living room. eventually he fell asleep too on the boob, so A came home at 6.30pm to find us both asleep. of course, dan then woke at 8.30pm, so he only fell asleep again at midnight..
it's the travelling...