Latest Posts

What Makes a Community?

Published by

Today I took Minnie and Jackson to register with the library local to the house we’re buying.  I am trying to get a feel for the community we will be living in, making sure we’ll fit in.  I realised it’s actually the small things that help you to feel comfortable in a community.

We were crossing the road to get to the library and as we waited at the lights and the green man appeared, the little old lady stood next to us, took Minnie’s hand and guided her across the road.  And Minnie held her hand all the way.  That to me, says we’ll like this community.

So even though there are bumps from liquefaction caused by the earthquakes at the end of our road and some of the houses on nearby streets are a little scruffy I think, I can live here, because there are little old ladies who take your child by the hand and make sure they get to the other side safely.

As I write this I also think, choosing a community to live in shouldn’t all be about what it can give to me.  Surely it’s a 50/50 split between that and what I can give to the community?  Instantly my viewpoint is turned 180 degrees.  Instead of seeing the needs of the community as ‘unattractive’, I consider that if this were my community, what could I do to make the problems go away or improve the less than perfect elements.  Now I feel invigorated and excited about where we might be moving to.

Ooh I hope we get this house.

Toys R Free

Published by

In New Zealand they have an amazing service to families with young children on a limited budget – toy libraries.

My Irish friend Sheila who has lived here for years and now has a toddler and baby, advised me to join one, as we had only the toys we could fit in Minnie’s trunki from the UK.  So on Thursday night I left Gareth putting the angels to bed and I went in search of my local toy library.  They are often in an unused classroom in a primary school, which mine is.  You pay about $70 a year and can take out eight toys every two weeks.

It was like finding Aladin’s cave, there were shelves and shelves of every puzzle, doll, lego or play station ever invented.  I took about 20 minutes to select a few things for each of my children, already planning what I would get the following fortnight.  Paid my money, signed up to do my volunteer session each month and packed the car full of joy.

I set everything up that night so that in the morning the children would have a Christmas morning experience.  It was so good to see them dive into the toys and for the first time in weeks I had half an hour in the kitchen without any interruption from bored children – bliss!

TOY LIBRARIES ARE GENIUS!

Image

Miracles

Published by

A friend reminded me today that my children are miracles.  Just over three years ago I wasn’t sure I would ever be able to have children.

Now I am a mother and that is a miracle.  I am so grateful to the God of miracles.

My children are a gift that I don’t deserve.  If I’d been given a choice, I would have picked these two.  They are awesome.

This is my remembrance day.

Image

Anzac Day

Published by

In New Zealand there is a Bank Holiday for Anzac Day (their version of Remembrance Day).  And it is a holiday that falls on the date rather than the day, which sucks if it is a Saturday or Sunday because they don’t “carry it over” to the following Monday.  Thankfully this year was a Wednesday so Gareth got a cheeky day off in the middle of his second week of work in Christchurch.

We weren’t sure how the day goes for locals, i.e. did they have a sombre day of reflection?  We went to the beach with some friends.

There were New Zealanders there so hopefully our day of fun wasn’t being hideously disrespectful.  Even though it’s their Autumn now the weather is warm and sunny so the children just ran around the whole time and I crouched under a sun tent feeding my 10 month old happy.

Now that we have the children in bed and I am sitting on the couch drinking a cider, I can reflect and remember what generations before us did so we can have these wonderful days in the sun.  What amazes me is how people so far from what was happening risked their lives to fight a war alongside foreigners.  There are many things to be in awe about.

This is Woodend Beach, Canterbury.

Image

Potty Training Whilst Flying

Published by

Minnie has been ready to potty train for a long time but we had to postpone whilst we were living in other people’s houses.  First day into our rented property in Christchurch, I showed Minnie her big girl pants and we were off!

Minnie has been taking herself off to somewhere private to have her number twos for about a year now.  And for the last month she has started telling me she’s having a wee.  Even Jackson has his evening poo in the potty, which his sister takes great interest in.  Basically I thought we’d get through this quickly.  One day in and I’m not so sure. 

The problem we seem to be suffering from is not what I expected.  I was sure Minnie would hate the mess and wet of peeing through her pants…not so.  In fact she is delighted every time she wets herself because that means she can choose a new pair of pants and leggings to wear…on reflection I should have seen this coming.  My little budding stylist changes her outfits every hour so adding brightly coloured knickers to her wardrobe was just making it more fun.  How do I convince my little girl that having to change her wet knickers five times a day is a bad thing?

On our first day of potty training, we go to an emergency services vehicle show near the airport.  Three outfits down already I had my reservations about going on an outing so early into our training but it was in a field so essentially one big wee-ing ground. 

New Zealanders know how to give a family a fun day out.  There were fire engines, ambulances, a bouncy castle, face painting and the best bit, helicopter rides.  One of the helicopters was parked so you could just sit in the seats and play with all the flashy buttons.  Distracted by the growing queue behind us, and my need to persuade Minnie to get out of the pilot’s seat, I hadn’t noticed the puddle on the pilot’s seat. “OK we really have to go now Minnie”.  Thankfully they were leather seats, I had some wipes on me and the next person in line was a mum of a toddler with a sympathetic face – phew!

One embarrassed mother later, we switched to a nappy, which meant daddy was happy to take our little puddler on a helicopter flight across the city.

On a positive note, just before bath time, Minnie was knicker-free (I refused to let her have another pair after the sixth) and all of a sudden she leapt up and took a huge dump in the potty – that’s my girl!

I still haven’t worked out my approach for day two of training, but I do have a huge pile of clean knickers ready to go.

 

When A City Falls

Published by

Last night Gareth and I watched the DVD, “When A City Falls” which basically tells the story of Christchurch’s earthquakes.

It’s very simple and real.  You get a good insight into how people were effected, which really is the story you want to learn when you move to the city.

We wander on Sumner beach like the picture below and you get no notion of what Christchurch citizens lived through. You realise why people are selling their houses and moving North.  If you experience a 7.1 in the September, dust yourself off, mend what’s broken, celebrate a Christmas, see a New Year in and then wham get thrashed (literally) by a 6.3 in the February you are going to really struggle to forget and just carry on life as normal.  If it were me I would be always suspicious, always thinking about the chance of another, working out the odds of whether I’d fair as well as the last time.  I’d want to leave to.

I still haven’t even felt a tremor so I have nothing but this DVD and comments of locals I meet to give me an idea of what it was like.  I hope I never go through what they went through.  I hope all I see is the rebuilding of a beautiful city.

Despite the past, in my present version of Christchurch, I can see peace and calm.