Sunday, October 30, 2011

Balance is fleeting

Scarecrow


OOoooh, it's been a long week. Oh my goodness.

We've all collapsed in a heap today (apart from T of course  who is working) and are re-charging our batteries, getting ourselves ready for the next wave of trick or treating, hotdogs, mayham and tidying up. I also need to think about the tsunami of work-work, Christmas presents, childrens arrangements for 2.5 weeks and everything else which needs to be organised before I leave on Wednesday. Packing is going to be easy as I've come to the conclusion that I need an entirely new wardrobe. Pretty much everything I own is frumpy and a lot of it (hallelujah) no longer fits me.

This is of course Halloween weekend. Yesterday was the annual Cedar School Halloween party at Nanny Cay (except we're very PC so it's called a Costume Party). We fielded a Scarecrow (lots of raffia and our old dining-room chair covers) Charlie Chaplin (full kiddies tuxedo from the Thrift Shop for $4) and a Hells Angel (denim and tattoos).  As usual there were brilliant and original costumes, lots of stalls and dunking of Headmasters. It's a really big event and much loved by all.

I've continued with my rather strict bee pollen and aloe vera gunk regime during the week and have not been imbibing anything alcoholic or caffeine-related. Of course after 2 glasses of warm, box wine yesterday, I was showing off on the Hells Angels bike (rather embarassingly). Bit sad, really - but it's so hard to get the balance right.

Hells Angel & Charlie Chaplin
I've always been a fan of Nancy Mitford and loved the Pursuit of Happiness. I really wish she was still writing her ascerbic and rather snobby observations, although now I think her book would more likey be entitled the Pursuit of Balance. 

You'd think that if you lived in a tropical paradise, worked in a stimulating part-time job and had eventually managed to find an excellent cleaner - you would be as close to living as balanced a life that there is to be had?

Urrr, not so.

I'm increasingly beginning to believe that this place called Balance is some mythical nirvana that dos'nt really exist, and if it does, it certainly dosn't feature in my version of Google Earth.

When I run out of good ideas for runaway weeks like the one I've just had, I'm inclined to search for articles like "how busy mothers remain  sane". It's the management consultant in me.
In this excellent article by Kari Henley in the Huffington Post, she writes that balance is a fleeting thing and one should rather have fun instead. A wonderful idea, but not one I experience much when looking at the wreckage of a small bathroom used by 3 little boys, for example.

After Shirley 'Superwoman' Conran in the eighties and Nigella 'Domestic Goddess' Lawson in the nineties, this decade dosn't seem to have thrown up the poster girl for getting it right yet. So after not finding much on the internet, it's back to balancing hedge funds and halloween, sobereity with relaxation, mornings with afternoons and 'Cirque de Soleil'- quality juggling acts. I seldom feel balanced, am rarely calm and often feel a bit unhinged.  I do enjoy reading other people writing about it though. It's like reading a grown-up Agony Aunt Column ("Dear Susy. My life is unbalanced, what should I do about it?") with the theory of relativity thrown in for good measure (balance is not equal to zero).

I need to go and butter 30 hotdog rolls and get out of my pyjamas. Thank goodness it's all fleeting.

Sunday, October 23, 2011

It's quite hard to do nothing


James
I'm quite proud of us. After a very bad start to the day (couldn't find car keys, shoes and a long assortment of other things) I decided to actually cancel the day and stay at home and do nothing.

Well not quite nothing - the house looks like a hell-hole after a long weekend with piles of laundry to sort for the week and other domestic delights, but I just felt very tired of organising things and trying to be on top of things. In fact we all just felt tired.

So when my neighbour phoned and said "would you like to join us for a spritzer on the balcony" (I think the word 'quick' may have been in there somewhere, but after so many spritzers I can't actually remember) around Noonish, we accepted  - probably a little too hastily.

It has been a great day. We watched the channel, we drank spritzers until the club soda ran out and we carried on after that anyway, the kids played somewhere, things happenend in the background, nobody got fed but nobody died because of this, the house didn't get tidied, a long list of "To Do's" never happenend, the afternoon trundled along  and we were all very happy.

I know I'll pay for ths later somewhere along the line, but today it was just very nice to do bugger all.


Boys sailing in the Channel


Tuesday, October 18, 2011

PTA-types


Paris, October 2009

My Mother* was 34 years old when I was born, which was considered old for having children in those days. Not being in the first flush of motherhood when I came along and after a 13 year gap from rearing my brothers, she did in fact have a rather jaundiced view of it all, swiftly dismissing a long list of things such as camping, kiddy birthday parties and school sports days with a shudder saying she’d already “done her bit”.

She also did not have too much time for the mothers of my peers. High on her list of irritating mothers were “The Young Mums” who only spoke about babies at birthday parties (boring). Special horror was reserved for “PTA-Types” whom she found equally boring and slightly alarming. But at the top of the list were “Pushy Mothers”. Her much-used example of a Pushy Mother were the ones who would sit with stop-watches at my brothers Western Province swimming training, haranguing their children to do better. This my mother viewed as rather scandalous, not to mention a bit vulgar. The concept of Tiger Mothers would probably render my Mother speechless.

Needless to say, I did not grow up in a fluffy fug of Barbie Doll Cakes, although I did have my fair share of ballet and Guides and all that. Nothing then to explain this born-again motherhood thing which I'm currently experiencing and am struggling to reconcile. Even as I write this, I’m wearing my Halloween Witchy earrings, having just finished a Halloween Costume Sale at the school in my role as a Grade 5 ‘Class Parent”. I’m hanging around waiting for a PTA “meet the Board” meeting – practicing my Count-to-10-Deep- Breathing-excercises, on the off-chance that I may find the meeting a little bit patronizing. I am ‘transitioning’ the experts will tell you from my old life to my new one. I read these things on the Internet, so I know. I  may however, just have become my Mothers worst nightmare, and I havn't even factored in the Sunday School teaching bit either.

"Did I move to a tropical island to join the PTA?” I ask myself, late at night. It wasn't quite what I had in mind. I was thinking more Cowboy-hat-wearing-yoga-on-beach-Mom when I got here and then I went and joined the PTA.  What was I thinking?

It is true that I have a sneaky admiration for Tiger Mothers (although I’m frankly too lazy to be one myself) and I don't feel productive unless I've tried to enhance or improve just about everything around me and then worried about the kids future SAT scores - but does this make me a Pushy PTA Mother?

The biggest compliment that women seem to pay each other these days is to say that “so and so is really organized”. We all glow with that kind of affirmation and feel like we're actually getting somewhere in our rather chaotic lives.

Maybe I've detoxed just a little too much, and have become far too balanced. Happiness is actually quite a tricky state of mind to be in all the time. You sort of worry that you arn't worrying. So then you go and organise something else and pile it on, in order to give yourself something to worry about. It's like writing out lists only so that you can then cross out the things you've aleady done. I do things like this.

I realise that I definetly need to get to a big city fast** and go shopping for random girly clothes and stop worrying. I'm starting to scare myself.

* My mother reads my blog,and since this is all true, she will not be offended, hey Ma? 
** I arrive in Cape Town on November 4th and Joburg on the 9th November.

Sunday, October 9, 2011

And the pan-pipes played on


Cane Garden Bay
It's funny how sometimes the perfect weekend can just sneak up on you and happen just like that. It all started going well on Friday evening with a very funny movie called 'Paul" (if you are fans of Sean of the Dead and Hot Fuzz, it's by the same people) and was exceptionally funny. It also took my mind off the fact that I was starving, but more on that later.

Nanny Cay Beach: Beach Bar
Saturday started with a party - of course - down at Nanny Cay to welcome the new Kindergarten families. A gentle start to the day. Georgie then had to be dropped off in town for another birthday party, which was a treasure hunt up Mount Sage, topped off with chicken wings & cake at the local nightclub dive called 'The Batcave' which is a child-friendly restaurant during the day, though scenes from Little Miss Sunshine do linger.

As a mid-detox treat Tyler had organised a massage for me on Saturday afternoon at the beautiful spa at Scrub Island. Even better, I was able to take the boys as they could play in the little pool in the Spa villa, whilst Mama's pressure points were being pressed and she endured the ubiquitous 'aromatherapy music' (harps, pan pipes, tweeting birds) just loud enough to drown out the Caribbean surf. The massage was welcomed as I've not deviated from my detox program even once the whole week. Can't say it's been easy or that I've enjoyed it or that it has anything to recommend it, apart from the fact that I've lost about 2 kgs (5 pounds) and feel calm and focused. Sadly, alcohol and caffeine clearly leads to loud voices in your head, although we all get very good at living with them. I finish up on Tuesday.
Back to the weekend: After a very, very relaxing Saturday afternoon we had an even funnier film in the evening 'The Perfect Host'. Fall-off-the-sofa funny. Stars Frasier's (TV series) brother. Clever and twisted, you just have to watch it.


Sunday was Canadian Thanksgiving (you didn't know?) and we were invited for lunch. I frantically worked out howmay calories turkey and stuffing was (I am allowed 600 calories a day) and took along my Lemon Perrier . A lovely afternoon with our 'Island family' and lots of food and babies and kids and chatting (the local elections are coming up and we've registered to vote, so we're having a crash course in local politics). It was such a lovely afternoon that we decided to continue the day  down on the beach and men were dispatched off to fetch paddle boards and cozzies. I would like to say that everyday is like this, but it isn't.

We had a wonderful hour or so paddling at sunset, kids jumping off the pier, no-one around but our friends. It's a good life (if you ignore the housework, which I generally do).



News for the rest of the week. William lost his first tooth and James's football team, Cedar U12's won the BVI FIFA School League.  Our family company was incorporated and this week we'll get our trade license. The hunt is on for premises, but we do have our little factory to get on with some things. All things are possible after such a lovely weekend, or is that maybe just the bee pollen talking?



Sunday, October 2, 2011

Party # 24

Georgie at 9
It was Georgies 9th birthday yesterday, his second one already on the island. We held it at a hotel with a large, sparkly pool and slide which I know seems a bit odd when we are surrounded by crystal, turquoise bath water, but it's considered a big treat by the children. So 18 kids spent 3 hours tearing around the pool, dined out on hotdogs and fruit punch and a happy time was had by all.

All of this was justified, I felt, after another late class party on our balcony, Thursday evening. A tiny rivalry may have developed between Grade 3 and Grade 5 in that the latter stayed longer, drank more and was all round slightly more dishevelled on Friday morning. 

Twenty fourth time I've done this already.....


One friend yesterday mentioned that now that her youngest child had also reached nine,  the big parties had come to an end. She also has 3 kids and had worked out that she had stuffed over 4000 goody bags, made hundreds of cakes, sung happy birthday more times than she could count and had done her bit. As you can probably see, I quite enjoy parties, but I did feel a moment of deep depression when I worked out I had 22 years of baby albums to catch up on. My other thought is that if I don't do it pretty soon I'm probably going to have to make most of it up (First Words: urrrrrrr "juice"/"I started crawling when I was"......urrrrr, 8 months?). It could get silly.

The rest of the week disappeared in the usual boiling hot blur of work, PTA meetings (yes me, do not laugh) and the daily afternoon dance of piano-tennis-sailing-judo-football. The low, low season of September is now over and things will start to pick up again. Must say I've rather enjoyed having the island to ourselves during the summer, but tourists make the world go round.

I've started a rather serious detox programme today (well wouldn't you if you had this lifestyle?). I get to live on bee pollen tablets and aloe vera gel for 9 days.  I'm OK at the moment, but it's only 11am in the morning on the first day. I made the boys pancakes and Barefoot Contessa hot chocolate for breakfast and have to do the chicken roast later. It's pure, pure masochism, really.  Anyhow it needs to be done and only I have  to look at any photograghs taken from about Christmas onwards, to feel totally motivated. It is not going to be easy. I really don't want to think about my first glass of Pinot Grigio or my Monday morning coffee in the office, and will save my bee pollen pills for those moments.

Anyhow thought I'd look at a few food blogs today to make me fell like I'm doing something on the family food business front and totally torture myself with. Then I'll get out the Christmas Album. Then I'll have a bee pollen pill and do some ironing, or something. Maybe I should plan a Detox Party for the middle of the week, when I'm really taking strain?


The Big Boys