Adding to the interview collection [see Ruari's one - which set us off - here, Zadie's here and Maja's here].
Couldn’t wait to log our interview with our just turned two year old. It’s such a cute idea. And as with all these kind of projects, will be awesome once you’ve built up a few and managed to follow through each year.
And I just saw the ever popular Play at home Moms recently ran a fab give-away [Daisy notes: posted this too late to make this a hot tip; sorry Lize!] … Also in the memory-saving vein. (Note: app not available in all countries yet).
A while ago there was this video going around. The über momento:
So here’s our humble contribution to the archives:
Sitting still is quite hard to do when you’re two. Our interview started on the potty (we have a nappy-free child now).
Note: I asked these questions in Afrikaans. So she answered most of them in Afrikaans. I’ll translate the questions I asked her to English here and her answers I’ll translate in the brackets.
1. Which colours do you like? Parkie (playground)!
I asked again and she said Pers, which is purple in English. She was looking at her purple jersey at the time.
2. What fruit do you like? Blou, oranje nee groen.(blue, orange no green.)
3. What do you like for lunch? druiwe. (grapes.)
4. Which animals do you like best? Druiwe nee apie! (Grapes, no, monkey!)
Monkey was quite unexpected. Cat or giraffe or elephant I would’ve thought.
5. What do you like to snack on? Giraffe. Kaas! (Giraffe. Cheese!)
6. What do you like to read? What’s your favourite book? Gruffalo!
Yea definitely one of her favourites.
7. Who are your friends? Leonie sick. Torin.
(earlier in the day we had fun playing with some of our friends. But leonie couldn’t come because she felt a bit under the weather).
8. Who are some of your friends at school? Sue.
(sue is one of her favourite caregivers).
9. What is your favorite song? Wheels on the bus.
That is definitely true!
10. What is your favourite toy? nose blow.
Her nose was a bit runny and she took a tissue to blow her nose.
11. What would you like to be when you grow up, like where would you like to work? Xero.
(Her Daddy works at Xero.)
A lot of fun. And glad we’ve got these for the record.
Have fun documenting, or not. I don’t think you have to have a scrapbook or tons of videos to enjoy your child’s precious early years. Often living in the moment is more important … Which I have to remind myself of often.
Lize, guilty of taking way to many photos of the child.
Maja found plenty to love, quickly latching on to a few favourites (the shark in the waves; the gnome that appears Where’s Wally-like on every page, which she quickly christened ‘Father Christmas’). Its many, many animal characters and wide range of settings gave her the chance to impress her aunty with her broad vocabulary, and me, in turn, the chance to bristle with pride (only human, only human).
Check out its creator, Donovan Bixley – I’m beginning to feel embarassed I wasn’t aware of the guy. He’s got a lot of other books under his belt that look just as boisterous and colourful and full of noisy life as this one is. And I just got caught on his blog for about half an hour (that’s, like, six months in internet time) – he has an eye for the interesting; particularly visual stuff in general and children’s illustration in particular. Oh, those ‘Secret Lives of Teapots’ prints! So lovely.
As most posts go on this topic, I mostly address the public view on gender stereotypes, the corporate money-hungry toy companies’ shameless cashing in on said stereotypes and/or your family and friends buying your baby-girl pink socks … I’ve been waiting with interest how it will all pan out for us, in real life.
Cut to: Real life drama.
Tannie loop!
MOVING HOUSE! Holy heck what a nightmare. Especially bad for us this time around cause we decided to de-clutter completely. To free our lives of the trinkets and doodads we’ve been carting along with us, all around the world. This meant the usual weeks of pre-prep, driving car loads to the tip, and packing boxes. Then the actual move (all by ourselves with the help of my dad – thanks granny for taking care of the child in that time), the cleaning of the house that no longer looks like our beloved home, merely a shell of its former glory, and then, finally, the unpacking. Cue: small box, marked “random stuff”, opened to reveal two barbies I couldn’t part with. One of which is Ultra hair Barbie. the longest-haired Barbie ever.
(note: see there at the end, poor Ken desperately vying for a place in the market. ha. couldn’t care less. Wasn’t interested in boys then, barely interested in them now).
Now, Lu has been absolutely LOVING the unpacking process. I’ve never seen her occupy herself at home, by herself, for so long. It’s been a thrill to see how much she’s grown and developed. All the new interests. All the new experiments.
Well, Barbie didn’t hold her attention as long as, say, packing out the box of her books, reading and rediscovering them all, but it did give her 5 minutes of “tannie loop”. Directly translated: “lady walk”. That’s it. She saw that the lady had shoes on and two (very long) legs, and like most of her role playing at the moment, it was about imitating the adult world. I think it’s the same reason why she likes to help clean and cook, walk around with a handbag, containing a cellphone and keys, ask to wear a watch (like her daddy), dress the doll cause she’s cold and ride off on her scooter saying “Luca winkel”. (Loosely translated: “I’m off to the shops”.) And off she scoots: “see ya dude”.
WATCH-ing Tallulah eat.
Pre child, looking in on this, I’d be mortified that my daughter is playing with a BARBIE, cleaning house and doing the shopping…. But isn’t that how our babies learn? To imitate. Not to mention that playing with duplo and helping to screw her bed back together after the move and loving diggers and trucks and playing football and climbing (lots and lots of very brave climbing) and swimming and painting and dancing and singing and hanging out with Spidey. It’s all there.
The point being: what’s the fuss.
Daisy, remembering my Barbie-playing-days and really looking intently at the reasons for hanging out with my girlfriends, sometimes playing Barbie, really truly being honest about it … I can say I never once thought of Barbie as a role model. Not in any way. It was a bit like what Lu is doing now. Imitating the adult world. What we’d do if we had our own place. Where we’d work, who we’ll grow up to be. I definitely agree that it would be an ideal world to get those proportions better …. but until the toy companies get on board, I’d like to offer up the wise words of my mother, confirmed by my own experience.
“If you don’t make an issue out of it, there won’t be one”. This is a very bad summary of one of the many life lessons she so quietly, gently, imparted on me. Trying to condense it into a sentence is hard. What I’m trying to say is that my mom never said, “o wow look how beautiful barbie is, she has killer legs”. or. “I wish Mattel would stop putting these notions of what beauty is into our daughters heads”. I didn’t get a chance to think of any of that…. It’s like how I found out much much later in life that there is a chunk of society saying that the Ninja turtles were evil. WHAT! I frikking love them. I was always Michelangelo, for heavens sake. Most of my childhood was me fantasising about being a ninja warrior.
I was trusted to make my own choices, formulate my own thoughts.
Yes, it’s a fine line. You don’t want your daughters unaware of the crazy stupid world we live in where you as a woman couldn’t vote till the other day… but I’m also saying maybe you don’t have to point out to your two year old that “Barbies are from the devil and I don’t want you growing up thinking you should be one”. Huh. “But I was only dressing the Barbie Mommy, I didn’t realise I could be wishing to be as thin as her!”
Lu noticed the pink cupcake tutu dress her fabulous Aunty in America sent her the other day. And since she’s usually allowed to wear what she likes, I didn’t go running out the front door throwing the dress in the nearest bin. Nope, she wore her pink cupcake frilly tutu dress to school. And why not. Of course she’ll like it – as soon as she saw it she said “Ouma cupcake”. Her granny bakes the best cupcakes and she always associates any cake-type treats with her Ouma. She was homage-ing her granny. (What I didn’t love though was the reaction she got. The “o so beautiful” and “how cute” from strangers and passersbys…. Why don’t you comment when she’s in her brown pants and Tee, or why comment on clothes at all? Why not comment on her beautiful smile, her wicked sense of humour or the weather?)
Scooter shopping. Best Christmas present ever!
Cut back to original point: This is a hopeful post. A post for mums and dads with daughters. I actually truly think it’s going to be Ok. Toy companies and society be damned. My child will have me as a role model … I hope this kind of level-headedness lasts beyond her second birthday (next month!).
A new gadget for a new year. I can’t remember where I saw the iPotty first, so i’ll give both Babyology and EssentialBaby credit. (both great spots to hang out if you what to know what’s hot right now).
When asked what people think of this device it seems to divide the camps nicely into the obvious “yay we’ll try it” vs “boo what would the caveman do” gangs.
Personally we’re taking the “baby-led weeing approach” (yes i’m pretty sure I coined that phrase). I wouldn’t go near the thing.
Love Janet Lansbury so much. Can’t resist linking to this wee post on “potty training“. Easy.
Happy toileting everyone! May the poo-force be with you.
lize
Here is an extract from the book Bitch & Famous by talented author Wendyl Nissen. Wendyl was a mega-stressed bitch magazine editor now turned green goddess who invents natural cleaning products. Wendyl’s motto: It’s Okay to Be a Nana.
Thank you Wendyl for letting us share this beautiful piece of writing.
Zelda
************
The Female Confessional
Leaving town for a while has several advantages. You get to eat really good food, live among cultures and buildings created long before the Auckland Town Hall and say to your enthusiastic uber-tourist husband with endless monotony… nice church, nice art, nice fountain, and in Rome, nice ruins, nice Pope.
The disadvantages are that you return broke, miss your kids so much that the place behind your ribcage physically aches, and you long for your mates.
And none more so than the one you lunch with… your Dear Friend. The one you talk to every day, whine, drink wine, rejoice and cry with. That one woman you trust above all else to be honest, objective and tell you when you’re being a stupid bitch, or if you really have been wronged. The one who will always take your call even if she is in the middle of a disaster at work, and will always keep a bottle of wine in the fridge just for you. You miss her most because when in Europe you see the two of you everywhere. In a dainty Paris restaurant, sipping kir royales, slurping snails with an unusual intimacy and tucking into two pork chops and a carafe of wine, all the while chattering as only two women can do over lunch. Barely pausing for breath the chat goes on and on, at times the Dear Friends lean in close, barely missing the garlicky green snail shells with their breasts as they share the most intimate information and then lean back giggling like two schoolgirls they once were, 50 years ago.
There is nothing more rewarding, uniquely feminine and ultimately as healthy as the relationship developed between two women of a certain age who like to lunch.
Observers will never know just what Dear Friends have discussed but one thing will be certain. The two of them have, do and will share information they will tell no one else. They are essentially each other’s priest and the restaurant the confessional. Both leave less burdened by the travails of life and return to it unburdened by doubt and insecurity…
… In a woman’s lifetime she can have several Dear Friends if she is lucky, but only one at a time. There are no qualifications for the role except an understanding of each other’s life, a level of trust and a huge love for each other which inspires loyalty, respect and humour. And Dear Friends don’t live in each other’s lives. You won’t find them hanging out at each other’s house in the weekends. They are too old for that and weekends are for kids the partner and the house. Lunch is the Dear Friends temple.
Back in New Zealand Dear Friend is waiting. There’s been no chance of a catch-up for months as we’ve both been travelling and texts every day can only say so much. Where to start, and how to finish? One day perhaps we’ll scoff snails in Paris, trundle along the canals of Venice or cry on the banks of the Tiber in Rome. But for now it’ll be a long lunch in Ponsonby, which is just as it should be.
Want more Wendyl?
Follow on twitter @wendylnissen or check out her Green Goddess blog
The most important, most powerful, most special event in my life, was giving birth to my baby.
(for the non-baby folk reading D&Z: yes, I could rewrite this same sentence and replace “birth to my baby” with “meeting my partner” or “deciding to move to NZ” or “starting my own business” etc. I am of course a human being comprised of important events throughout my life not a product of merely one, but today’s post is focusing on the birthing experience in particular.)
Watch this.
Toni and Alex are my heroes. There are some things in life you wish with all your heart that you could’ve done or be a part of, and this endeavor by One World Birth is exactly one of those times.
The Rent Tent – Image from nuttermother.com
This is a fact. The modern woman, the Lize of 2010 (pre-baby), had no clue to what it meant to have a baby. The art of being woman, of being there for one another during childbirth, of sitting together with your peeps in the red tent hanging out menstruating and being ok with it, is lost. There’s no argument. It is the saddest truth about our society today, that we do not know how to give birth. If we are having to fight for the freedom of midwives, we have no clue.
(I’ll do a quick side note and give New Zealand big props for giving me the opportunity to give birth with a midwife, free from unnecessary medical intervention. NZ you are miles ahead of the rest of the word.*).
One World Birth inspired me. I’m putting it in writing (just finished Michael Hill’s A-MA-ZING bookToughen Up; he talks about setting goals and writing them down).
My goal: I’m going to organise (and be apart of) an exhibition that will ask women to comment on child birth. Whether that be from own experience or perception. Whether it be positive or negative.
The aim: to bring society face to face with the act of giving birth. To inspire, to critique to question.
This will show beginning of 2013. I’ve got the gallery booked.
And this is my argument for why we should all care and talk about birth. (e.g. why you should be involved in this exhibition).
Artwork from rubylane.com
Giving birth to a human being is a big deal. The physical act of bringing your child into this world takes bravery, strength, support, the utmost trust in yourself and those around you and I believe that If we were present at our sister/auntie/neighbor’s birth, we would know this fact undeniably. All fears woman (and society) might have will melt away when they see and feel the all encompassing love coursing through the air, your very being, when a baby is held for the first time. The connection to the world and your fellow humans are so powerful, it makes you re-evaluate life as you know it. Unfortunately I don’t think this will be a reality any time soon, so in the mean time we can talk about it honestly. The good, the bad and the ugly. Birth is a big deal. It’s the moment your child’s journey in this world starts. The first day of loving your human for the rest of their life. Birth, it is the biggest deal.
If everyone cared about each and every birth, each child born into this world. We will have the paradise many wish for here on earth.
And that is something to strive for, to fight for, to believe in.
Every person in this world is entitled to that kind of love and commitment. Lize.
*Having modern medicine to help save lives during birth is the most wonderful thng, this is not a rant trying to deny that fact.
Thanks to this unintentional guilt-trip of a post, Grandma seems to be on a one-woman crusade to fill Maja’s bookshelf recently (a noble endeavour from 20,000 kilometres away). We’ve recently received Margaret Mahy’s beautiful, springy-sprongy celebration of life, The Moon and Farmer McPhee, and now we have our sticky little fingers on two New Zealand favourites, The Little Yellow Digger and another Mahy, the classic Jam. THANK YOU GRANDMA!!
This is how the Mahy-ness manifests itself in Jam:
Its words: which give the impression of having been happily collected one by one, like plums from an old tree out the back that are slowly, lovingly cooked into glorious sticky jam: … atomic, sunspots, anxious, well-informed, thud, tumbling, delighted, capacities, wonderful, challenge, Picasso, roly polies, haunted, shadowy, terrible, spaghetti, enthusiastically … Do you want your children to develop rich, flexible, creative vocabularies? I have one word of advice for you: MAHY.
Its cast: the harmonious Castle family – in which the little ones are ‘more like Cottages, really’: Clement, Clarissa and Carlo.
The matter-of-fact way in which it makes something beautifully natural out of the not-so-normal – that should be normal. Mrs Castle works, so Mr Castle:
… washed dishes and then pegged them out to dry. Not only did he sweep the floors, he swept the ceiling too. He vacuumed the carpets, put the dough to rise in a warm place … wiped down the bench, had a quick cup of tea … planted a row of cabbages, folded the washing, baked the bread anda cake … put Carlo down for his afternoon sleep … had another cup of tea … cleaned the bath … prepared dinner … read the paper (so as to be well-informed) … kissed the children when they came home from school – and Mrs Castle when she came home from work – and asked them all what sort of day they had had.
I have to say those two pages almost made me cry. In sheer empathetic joy for the luckiness of the fictional Castle family – to have such an ‘excellent house-father’ as their backbone! I need hardly tell you now who it was who made the pots and pots of jam that gives this book its title. What a man!
The heart of it: story. A simple, familiar, satisfying story. The essence of MM. No one could do it quite like she could.
And I’m off to have a cup of tea sweetened with jam.
In a series that was filmed over a year, Jaquie presents a refreshingly comical and honest journey in becoming a parent in New Zealand. Episodes are spliced with some wonderfully frank video diaries. In episode one viewers get flashed a glimpse of her beautifully rounded post baby belly – complete with the linea nigra. The show proves to demystify the ABCs and challenges faced in the world of mummyhood.
As well as modern-day parental life, Jaquie dives into some kooky old-school trends. The show reveals some fascinating archive footage. A highlight was a bizarre recommendation from Truby King (founder of Plunket), who informed mothers to toughen nipples with a toothbrush prior to breastfeeding – ouch, poor grandma!
If you have missed the first three episodes, don’t worry: you can catch them online with TVNZ on demand – brilliant for any busy mother or inquisitive father.
Keep Calm and Carry On screens on Wednesdays 8pm TV One.
To my shame, I’ve kinda … run outta books to cover.
I desperately want to replenish our picture book collection – I’ve got out of the habit of buying ‘real’ books since I got my kindle, but Maja very much benefits from the tactile ones, so I really should reprioritise my budget in that direction. Rather than chucking money at upgrading the car (planned, very much desired by Mr A), or developing my autumn wardrobe (but really, how could I not have bought these gorgeous cheap things??)
… or keeping us well stocked with alcohol and caffeine groceries.
Anyhoo, I thought I’d share 10 books I’d buy right now – if I had the money and the inclination to do so. If anyone has the urge to go out there and purchase one of them and send it post-haste to Hungary (thereby allowing me to buy more of the sweet fruits of Chinese children’s labour in the form of footwear educational materials for my daughter, oh please do be my guest.
(1) The Kuia and the Spiderby Patricia Grace – I remember this one from childhood (first published ’83). The kuia’s arguments with the spider are at once fantastical and familiar; with Robyn Kahukiwa’s beautiful illustrations this is a local and lovely treasure. I’m not sure if it’s been reprinted recently – if at all? It would be a great shame if not. Patricia Grace has done a few other children’s books; another one I remember and would like to get my hands on is Watercress Tuna and the children of Champion Street.
(2) Two Little Monkeys by Mem Fox. We discovered Mem Fox, an Australian author children’s books, in the Wellington Library. Beautifully put-together words; wonderful stories. This title is merely representational; I’d like to get my hands on any one of them. ”Two little monkeys are hiding in a tree – two little monkeys named Cheeky and Chee. Swing on in if you’d like to see just why they’re hiding in that big old tree …’
(3) Grandpa’s Slippers by Joy Watson and Wendy Hodder. Another New Zealand classic; first published by Scholastic 1989 – I remember it from my little sister’s bookshelf rather than my own.
(4) The Little Yellow Digger by Betty and Alan Gilderdale. For some reason I keep hearing about how great this book is! I’ve never seen it in real life. But Maja is really into tractors and trucks right now; and I’ve got a feeling this book would really hit the spot.
(5) Love you Forever by Robert Munsch. This is one of those children’s books – I’m generally wary of them – that are actually designed to make the adults reading them cry like, um, babies (see also Guess How Much I Love You and others of its ilk). Here, it works. Devastatingly. The illustrations, I must warn you, exacerbate rather than counteract the effect.
(6) Corduroyby Don Freeman. Absolute classic from the sixties.
(7) Curious George, by H A Rey. Another classic, which I once bought for Mr A, for one of those reasons you accumulate when you’re young and in love. But my copy is currently 20,000 kilometres away. grrrr.
(10) Huia has tantalisingly promised to publish a Māori-language version of We’re Going on a Bear Hunt! For realz! How awesome would that be? If I’m gonna be exploring te reo Māori at all with my daughter (and as a proud New Zealander I should be, shouldn’t I?), I can think of few more fun ways to do it. Unless we’re counting te reo books originally devised and published in New Zealand, of course! See, for example, Huia’s recent award-winning Rahui (also published in English), and The House that Jack Built in Māori.
That wish list pretty much represents the first ten that floated to the surface of my mind, of the many books I wished I had at my disposal right now.
Growing up all small town-like, enjoying every minute of the sunlight, outdoors, racing around on our bikes, camping in our backyards, swimming, playing … swooning over musicians and actors just wasn’t part of my social education.
That and perhaps my mum only ever listening to the likes of Vivaldi (Bajazet being her fave at the mo) and Beethoven (Fidelio her always favourite). When I spoke to her about it recently, she figured beginning the littlies on Mozart is great.
So melodic. Ah memories …
Fills your heart with joy (or sorrow, depending on your mood of course).
… so when I look at the Blieber fans in this live performance clip:
(at 30 seconds, 50 seconds and 1 minute 10 seconds in) I’m shocked to see the screaming girls so very very young. (Were the Beatle-loving fans that young too??)
Don’t get me wrong; I’ve got a very eclectic music taste and don’t mind the song itself … but … am i allowed to forbid my child from screaming and yelling at a boy to “love me love me”…?
only kidding! I don’t think it will come to forbidding anything to anyone at any time. I was merely pondering.
Rock on party people,
Lize
PS. if you invite me to your wedding Z, i’ll bust out these moves for ya! Gangnam style. whoop.
