The endless training and retraining merry go round

I am pausing in my reminiscences about travelling Australia to have a rant about an email that I  recently received.  I had only gotten around to reading it yesterday and the thoughts and opinions that I have about it are bouncing around in my head.  I'm sure it will help if I set them out here as it is a subject that I have touched on before.

This is the email:

Hi Emma,
I  hope that you and your family are all well.

Training Admin at Head Office have asked me to let you know that you will need to upgrade to the NAT10006 Cert IV in BE Counselling and NAT10007 (Community) in order to be able to train and assess, once back from maternity leave. It doesn't take long to do :-)

I wondered if you would like to have a chat about it?
Best wishes,


Now firstly, I haven't replied yet or found out what this is all about and whether everyone has to upgrade to the new qualification, or it's just me because of my maternity leave. But either way it's still feeding into this mentality that is prevailing at the moment of training, more training and constant upgrading of qualifications.  I have written before about this need to stay current and the onus that this then places on women to stay connected to the workforce.

This email was sent to me not from an employer, but from a volunteer organisation that I have been involved with for 17 years.  For more than 15 of those years I have been actively involved as a volunteer breastfeeding counsellor.  I went through an extensive 12 month training course to gain the necessary skills and knowledge in order to gain the qualification.  As well as counselling 100's and 100's of women over the ensuing years, a requirement has always been to keep up to date with changing information and so to engage in self education.  This I have happily done as it is a particular area of interest for me.  Plus, I was in the process of having babies which greatly reinforced, and often upgraded pre-existing knowledge and skills.

Fast forward a number of years and the Australian Breastfeeding Association (ABA) became a registered training organisation (RTO) and had to not only total rewrite all of their training programmes but had to fall into step with a whole new bureaucratic way of doing things in order to satisfy the requirements of being an RTO.  So I retrained as a breastfeeding counsellor and community educator through a complicated process of recognition of prior learning.  I also went on and trained as a trainer and assessor.  I had only recently at that point trained as an assessor with the association under their old scheme and had to go and retrain in order to fit in with their new framework.  That was the fun and games I engaged in at the end of my Australian trip through 2008 and 2009.  After jumping through the various hoops and settling down to the business of actually doing some volunteer work for the association I found that I needed to upgrade my training and assessment qualifications again!  It seems that there is constant review happening and everything needs to be upgraded every five years as a matter of course. I started to feel like I was spending more of my 'volunteer' hours jumping through administrative hoops than actually at the coal face helping mothers.  Each year required a complicated appraisal of the experience and skills that were utilised during the preceding year and a requirement to reapply for the position of counsellor and trainer and assessor.  It was all enough to make you want to bang your head against the wall. 

This year, partly as an excuse to just leave the whole thing behind and have a break from it all, I decided to take 12 months leave to just enjoy being a mum with my beautiful new born baby girl.  ABA has not respected my leave and I have been asked to help here, answer questions there, fill in reports and field endless requests about when will I be coming back. So far I've only been on leave for 10 months.  Already I have been thinking that at the end of my twelve months I shall
resign as trainer and assessor and counsellor, and just go back to being a member.  I still really believe in the association and what it stands for, but feel that it has allowed itself to get derailed by its adherence to this governmental paradigm.  I have heard that the association is some millions of dollars in the red, and with the need to spend so much of its time and money satisfying regulatory requirements instead of doing their core business of providing information and support to breastfeeding mothers, I find myself not surprised.



It saddens me that a women's organisation like ABA whose soul goal is to improve women's ability to breastfeed their babies would allow themselves to be corrupted by a system that is actively discriminating against women and disadvantaging them if they take even a short amount of time off work. It feels to me like they are just following lock step with a new dogma without assessing how this affects not only the women working for them but also the message it is reinforcing across society.  As a women's organisation we should be standing up and pushing back against this insidious incursion of our rights.  Women should be allowed to take a reasonable amount of time off work (paid employment or volunteer) and by reasonable I mean years if necessary, and not expect to be treated like some out of touch imbecile with the memory of a gnat.  Being current in qualifications up to the last second is not only ridiculous, but insulting. Humans have the intelligence to being able to grow and develop and hone skills without the need for a training organisation or regulatory authority to sign off on their supposed competence.  The idea that ticking boxes is somehow indicative of a person's worth is a sad joke.  When we take time off work to raise our babies, our brains do not atrophy.  We often still have cause to think about work, through just the natural reminiscences of past life, reading the journals that still come through our mail and email inboxes, reading relevant articles in the newspaper and just generally being connected to the outside world by being fully functional and normal intelligent human beings.  The current system seems unable or unwilling to recognise this fact unless you prove it in triplicate by filling in a convoluted series of forms that sets out against very specific criteria just how each piece of knowledge and experience fits into a predetermined matrix written in training goobly gook.



What I find most ironic about the ABA's need for me to upgrade my qualifications, is that while I have been on leave I have actually been doing the very thing that I have to prove that I have the skills and knowledge about.  For the past 10 months I have been breastfeeding my baby every single day, sometimes it's felt like 24/7.  I have, through personal, real life experience, managed the newborn days, the supply issues, the managing paid work, expressing, the teething, the introduction of food and all the other issues surrounding a baby.  This is the stuff that we work in and train mothers in as a part of our volunteer work.  Surely to actually be doing all of this in practice should knock any theoretical training course right out of the water.  Logic says it would, but logic and bureaucracy don't seem to exist in the same bubble.  We have our heads so far in the sand that we can't see the illogical consequences of this. Particularly in a volunteer organisation where there is no paid incentive to be made to jump through these hoops.  At work, you cop, to a certain degree, the madness because they are paying for it and for you.  A volunteer organisation is getting your goodwill and time gratis.



I really hope that this madness will end and there will be a collective realisation at some point very soon that this training and assessment regime is completely unsustainable as it is costing way too much money and it is leaking good quality people, who are fed up with the system, from the association.

Bowraville

We went to Bowraville today to watch Evan play in the Coffs Harbour City Orchestra.  They were giving a performance in the old theatre there.  Bowraville is a lovely quiet little town inland from Macksville on the NSW mid north coast.  It still has lots of its original buildings, like a boarding house, a wash house, an emporium, and of course the theatre. It has a reasonably high Koori population and as yet seems to not have been discovered by the alternative community people like Bellingen has been.  I was really surprised at how quiet the town was today.

The logistics of getting to Bowraville today were a little challenging. Evan needed to be there early to set up, and being a hour's drive away, it wasn't feasible to drop him off and the rest of us come along later.  Also, to further complicate matters, our 'big' car, the one that can actually fit in all of the family, was out of action.  That left us with the small car, which can only seat 5. As a family of six this meant we needed some advanced planning.  We weren't keen on leaving anyone behind, so Steve managed to organise a lift for himself and Evan with someone else from the orchestra.  They left quite early and had a long day at Bowraville.  Steve chewed up some time at the Bowraville museum, learning that the town was originally called Bowra.  When it got its post office the name was changed to Bowraville in order that it was less likely that it could be confused with Bowral.

Sarah was the driver for us today and she drove Harry, Ellie and I.  We left much later than the others and got to Bowraville about ten minutes before the start.  Along the way, Sarah and I discussed the outline of the story that we had thought up while travelling Australia in 2007.  Sarah reminded me of a lot of details that I had forgotten.  We nutted out a few more ideas and I wrote a bit of a skeleton of the story.  Sarah had various writings of the story that she had attempted in the past, and was able to show one of them to me that she had stored on her laptop.

The concert was very entertaining and we had great seats close to the front and right in the centre.  The theatre is quite old and still has its original style.  The acoustics seemed to be really good too.  The orchestra played a number of pieces such as White Christmas and Polar Express.  Then we had a sing along of Christmas Carols with orchestral accompaniment.

Ellie has a ball climbing the steps in the aisle and made herself a little friend when she discovered a little boy around her age.  He was a little less able on the steps, so Ellie had a great time showing off her prowess by standing and walking and getting herself up and down the steps.

Body Rock

My friend told me about body rock a new fad exercise regime that involves short bursts of very intense exercise, followed by a short rest and then repeat.  The exercise bursts are supposed to be very intense and are meant to hurt a lot.  The whole workout only takes about 10-20 minutes..


I was warned before I looked it up on you tube that the women in the websites are very "busty". I can see what my friend meant, it looks like boob jobs are mandatory for this.  Maybe because the exercise is so intense that if you had "real" big boobs they would be flapping around all over the place, I know mine would be.  These women are very skinny, so obviously their boobs are enhanced.  They have boy hips and E cups, at least.  I haven't seen any men doing it either. Just endless videos of hot sweaty women torturing themselves.  Looks like a combination of perving on sexy women as they are scantily clad and writhing around in various positions, where you get a nice view of boobs and bum; and women voluntarily torturing themselves (along with posting their workouts on facebook) in  order to gain approval from others.

Not sure that I'll be jumping on this craze anytime soon.  I think yoga is more my pace.

Evony

http://www.evony.com/

It's hard to find time to blog today as I am setting up all of my cities in my Evony accounts.  At long last after years of asking for it, the powers that be, have finally granted us a merge.  I suspect it's a bit late as so many people gave up waiting and have already left the game.  I am practically on my last legs and doubt that I can last much longer.  I just don't seem to have the time required to devote to it anymore.

Life in Evony started about four and a half years ago with just one account.  The kids insisted that I play so that we could set up a family alliance.  Not many weeks into the game, they got sick of it and gave up their accounts to Steve and I.  As time went on I picked up a few other people's accounts as well.  Soon I had at least 10 active accounts and a bunch of in-actives that I could activate if needed. This all took 2 computers for me and 1 for Steve to run. Then Steve quit.

I got left with all my accounts and two laptops dedicated fulltime to running them.  This carried on for a while and the game seemed to gradually lose its attraction as more and more good people left.  Then when Ellie came along I found that I seriously did not have time to play anymore.  Which has been fine because the server was dead with very little to worry about in terms of getting attacked.

That was then. Now we have merged and everything is all lively again.  I don't know for how long, but I can rest assured that come 48 hours time when truce wears off, I'm gonna be faced with a bunch of flashing birdies to deal with and still no time to do anything about them.  I'm interested to see how the new server pans out, but really can't see myself sticking with the game for too much longer.  Perhaps by the new year I might be able to finally kick the habit.  Not bad seeing as I was the last one in the family to join the game and the last one to leave.  I think that the kids will think twice now before inviting me to join them in another online game as I seem to end up being in it for the long haul.

Homemade Ice Cream

Non Dairy Ice cream

 

 

2 teaspoons powdered agar agar  ( usually just use gelatine as I am not concerned about making it vegan)

3 cups of soy milk (use flavoured soy milk of your choice: vanilla, chocolate, coffee, etc) You could also experiment with other ‘milks’ such as chai or almond.

½ cup castor sugar

1/3 cup sunflower of safflower oil

1 – 2 teaspoons vanilla extract

1.       Combine agar agar and 1 cup of soy milk in a saucepan. Stir over a medium heat until agar agar dissolves and milk begins to boil. 

2.       Add remaining ingredients and stir until sugar dissolves.

3.       Place covered mixture into the fridge to for about 2 hours to chill.

4.       Stir mixture and pour into an ice cream churner.  Process until it has reached the desired consistency about 30 minutes.

5.       Enjoy.

 

 

 

Pestilence

Evan is home from school today insisting that he is sick.  he doesn't look too bad to me, but his mate had some bug that had him off school for a few days and Evan is convinced that he has it too. It consists of upset tummy, headaches, general body aches, sore throat and runny nose.  Harry has decided that he's coming down with it too as he went off to school with a headache today. I gave him a dose of Nurophen and told him to call me if he got worse. Steve was complaining about aches and is a tad nervous as he has to fly to Sydney tomorrow for a job interview.  He doesn't want to be sick for that. I feel fine, Ellie seems fine and Sarah left at 6 this morning for a volleyball competition in Byron Bay.  I am assuming she's fine too.  I always find that the path of disease as it spreads through the family is slightly different each time.  A different mix of people seem to catch it, and a different person gets it worse than the others.  Usually, the pattern is that one gets it quite bad, one doesn't get it at all and the rest inevitably catch a slightly less virulent version over the ensuing days.

The other pestilence Evan visited on us today is a very annoying piece of malware that he downloaded onto my computer last night.  I have spent all day removing programmes, doing scans and removing shortcuts to get rid of the bugger.  So annoying and frustrating to have your computer hijacked.  I think he's banned from this computer from now on.

The last great pestilence epidemic that Evan visited upon the family was back in 2002 when he brought home chicken pox. Harry was a babe in arms so was spared the disease due to being protected by my immunity as I had already had chicken pox when I was a child.

Sarah, succumbed next followed by Steve with each successive victim getting a worse dose than the last. I must admit that I wasn't the most sympathetic to everyone's plight as I found the whole thing quite amusing.  They were dreadfully uncomfortable and I sat there perfectly comfortable, feeling like I had super powers as my immunity protected me.

 A few years after the event I wrote a couple of  children's stories about them.

No Spots For Harry

 

Evan came home from Preschool one day with a few spots on his skin.

 

 

“Mmmmm”, thought Mummy, “they look like they might be chicken pox”.

 

She wasn’t sure because she hadn’t seen any chicken pox since she had had them when she was four.

 

That was a long time ago.

 

She remembered that they were very itchy and that she had had a lot more spots than Evan had.

 

 

Two weeks later, Sarah who was a little older than Evan, came out in quite a lot of spots.

 

“Yes”, thought Mummy, “They must be chicken pox”.

 

 

Daddy started to worry.  He couldn’t remember whether he had had chicken pox when he was little or

 

not. 

 

He rang up Ninny and Pa.  But they couldn’t remember either.

 

 

Two days after Sarah broke out in spots, Daddy who is a lot older than Sarah and Evan, broke out in

 

loads and loads of spots.  Really itchy spots. 

 

From his head to his toes and everywhere in between.

 

He was miserable!

 

 

Although Sarah and Evan were feeling a little itchy themselves they couldn’t help thinking that Daddy

 

looked very funny.

 

 

There was one other person in the family who had not yet come out in any spots.

 

Mummy, Daddy, Sarah and Evan waited and wondered whether Harry, the youngest in the family at

 

only six months, would get any spots.

 

But Harry, who liked to snuggle up and breastfeed happily in Mummy’s arms didn’t get any spots at

 

all.

 

 

Because Mummy had already had chicken pox as a child she couldn’t get them again.  She had an

 

immunity to them.  It was this immunity that she passed to Harry through her breastmilk.  Harry was

 

protected from chicken pox because he was breastfed.

 

 

Harry and Mummy being so healthy, looked after the rest of the family.

 

Evan had a few little itches so on went the calamine lotion.  That helped him a lot.

 

 

Sarah had lots of itches so on went the calamine lotion.  But it didn’t help enough.

 

So she got into the bath as well.  That helped a lot.

 

 

Daddy was beside himself with itches.  Every spot from the top of his head to the tip of his big toe

 

itched – especially  the one right on the end of his nose!

 

On went the calamine lotion.  It didn’t help at all.

 

So into the bath he went.  But that didn’t help either!

 

 

So he went off to see the doctor.  But even the doctor couldn’t help him very much.  Poor Daddy!

 

The Doctor said that Daddy had to try not to scratch and wait for his spots to get better.

 

 

It was a long few weeks.

 

And Daddy did eventually get better.......

 

 

All  except for that one spot that left a scar right on the end of his nose!

 

 

Here is version 2

No Spots For Me!

 

One day Evan came home from preschool with a few         . 

 

Mmmm, ‘thought mummy they look like they might be the dreaded chicken pox.’ 

 

We hadn’t had any chicken pox in our young family yet. 

 

2 weeks later Sarah who was a little older than Evan came out with quite a few         . 

 

Daddy started to worry.  He couldn’t remember whether he had got the chicken pox as a kid. 

 

Mummy well remembered having chicken pox as a child.  ‘Ooh it was so itchy.’ 

 

Two days after Sarah broke out in

        , Daddy who is alot older than Evan or Sarah, broke out in ALOT of spots.  He was miserable. 

 

There was one other person in the family who had not had chicken pox yet.  Harry, the youngest in the family at only 6 months didn’t get any          at all. 

 

So while Harry was breastfed from mummy they were both protected fromthe dreaded                                           

        .  Harry and mummy looked after the rest of the family. 

 

Evan had a few little itches. 

So on went the cream. 

Sarah had lots of itches.

So into the bath with her.

 

Daddy was beside himself with itches.  He was covered from head to toe including the one right on the end of his nose.

 

Daddy was frustrated. 

 

After a week the dreaded          started to fade away. 

Still mummy and Harry did not get those dreaded itches. 

 

After 2 weeks it was back to normal and they lived happily ever after. 

There is a postscript to this story.

Although we thought that Harry was immune from catching the chicken pox virus, some years later, when he was around 4 years old, he came down with shingles. This was an odd occurrence in a four year old, particularly one who'd never actually had chicken pox.  As it was an oddity we were sent to a paediatrician to have a look at him and check that all was well.  The specialist conformed that it was indeed rare, but not unheard of for Harry to get shingles at such a young age.  The specialist concluded that Harry obviously got a subclinical dose of chicken pox when he was a baby, and this virus had laid dormant in his body until he came down with shingles.  He also told us that Harry would not need to be immunised for chicken pox as he now had his own natural immunity to it.

That sounded great, except that two weeks after presenting with shingles, Harry came down with chicken pox. I didn't spend the $100 plus to go back to the specialist and show him that Harry had managed to catch chicken pox off himself.  I'm sure he would have presented as a very special oddity, but I didn't want to foot the bill to show the paediatrician, so he shall remain  a medical obscurity.

School daze photos

It's funny how I think that I have done a good job at collecting the kids yearly school photos. Yet when I actually went to collect them all into one place there seems to be a few years missing. Obviously, whatever safe spot I put them in is still not ready to yield up its treasure quite yet.  I often find I have to actually be looking for something else before I find what I was looking for a few days ago.

My sister has this really cool display of her children's school photos on the wall, in order (I'm pretty sure she has matching sizes as well) all the way from Kindy to end of high school.  I thought that would be a cool thing to do too, so I have been saving school photos for years. Well, so I thought.  I was going to compare the kids' photos in each year of school, starting of course with kindergarten.  The only problem is, I am missing Sarah's Kindy photo. I do have her year 1 photo, but not Harry's year one photo. Moving onto to year two. I do have all three year 2 photos, but Sarah's seems to be a joint shot with Evan. Obviously, that year I decided that rather than do individual photos I would get sibling photos.  Or maybe I did get individual shots too, but have mislaid them, which is entirely possible.

Year 2





Harry, Evan, and Sarah

My problem is that I am a hoarder, but a disorganised hoarder.  I hold onto stuff with the best of intentions, but don't store or catalogue them properly. So when the time comes to actually do something with my hoardings I am faced with frustration at not being able to carry out my original intentions.

Year three seems to be missing Evan's individual photo, so I have to move forward to year 4 where I have all three of them again.

Year 4

Sarah, Harry, and Evan

\

Two years out of their primary school years isn't too bad, well, it could be better.  I just need to mis-locate something else and while searching for it I may come across the lost years, fingers crossed.

Sarah years 1 to 4

Evan in Kindergarten, years 1,2 and 4

 

Harry in Kindergarten, years 2,3 and 4



A thoroughly modern couple

Since I have started blogging I have encouraged the rest of the family to get on board and start their own blogs too. We all have our various facebook accounts, some of us more than one, but the idea of leaving constant status updates never really appealed to me.  Steve uses his account mainly for contact with his errant venturers and to play games. Harry probably has the most accounts which is ironic given he's technically not old enough to even own one yet.  Evan, delights in being anti-social so decides it is easier to start a new account rather than unfriend people on his old account when he's maxed out his friend quota.  Sarah uses her account regularly, but unlike most her age seems to refrain from excessive status updates and status checks.

So far, Steve, Sarah and Harry have started their own blogs.  In true Harry fashion, he hasn't started one blog but many.  Probably by this time next week he'll have about 17 of them running, all sporting just one post.  I think with him the fun is in the setting up.  Sarah has made some good posts on hers but is determined to only post once a week, whereas I have set myself the goal to post daily on my blog.  Steve got on board and has written a couple of posts, I think he's running at about once a week too.

This morning Steve wrote in his blog about yesterday's sailing lesson.  I read it and posted a comment on his blog.  He asked me what I thought of his post.  I told him to read his blog as I had left my opinion there.  That's right, we no longer have the need to communicate in the conventional way.  If he wants to know what I am up to, he can read it on my blog.  What am I thinking? Check out my blog.  With all of these forms of social media available today there is no reason he shouldn't know how I am feeling.  If I'm annoyed with him he may find a long diatribe on the blog, a snide remark left as a status update on facebook, a photographic essay about it on instagram, a collage of images, blog posts and webpages examining the issue on pinterest, and a witty cryptic message that links to a relevant website on twitter. He can similarly comment back if he feels sufficiently confident to do so.

Okay, back to reality. We're not really that bad, not quite that modern yet, we do still talk to each other in the good old fashioned way.  It's interesting that the teenagers have led the push toward authentic person to person communication amongst the family.  I have been instructed in no uncertain terms that it is not cool for me to comment on their facebook posts.  As we live together we can talk directly to one another and there is no reason what-so-ever I need pass comment in public on their facebook accounts.  More over, upon discovery of the incidence of my rash posts on their facebook page, they have been received with firm facepalm to their respective faces.  Okay, thanks kids, duly noted.

Evan and I did become fellow kiksters there for a while as we chatted away to each other just before bed.  I'd be in my room reading an ebook on my tablet and he would be watching anime in his room on the ipad and we'd have a bit of a chat (or is it called a kik?)  I tried out a bit of my texting lingo with him but was told, again in no uncertain terms, that correct spelling and grammar are paramount, otherwise you just look like an idiot.  Right, okay, cool. No public posting and always use proper English, got it.

Now the kids are all over Skype with their friends, playing league of legends.  They seem to be carrying out a very vibrant and active social life from the comfort of their arm chairs.  Every afternoon and weekend they get to hang out with a group of friends, whilst never actually ever being in the same physical proximity as them.  It's astounding, really.  As it is quite loud and everyone in the house can hear, language and themes must be appropriate and must most definitely be G-rated.  I find it fascinating how social media is starting to establish certain limits on acceptable behaviour and it is largely driven by the younger generation.  This must surely erk some of the older generation who like to point to the moral decay of modern society and place its blame firmly at the feet of 'young people today'.  I personally find the evolution of language as it is being influenced by social media use fascinating.  I suspect it was ever the young and up and coming generation that have challenged and pushed the boundaries of language to get it to evolve into what we see today. As English is such a malleable language we will no doubt see its continued metamorphosis into the future, only this time the now younger generation will be the older one, complaining about their how kids are mucking up the language.

We're Sailing! We're sailing!

Today's sailing lesson was all about getting us novices out into the boat sans instructors. A very daunting prospect given that I have never managed to sail a boat using both the tiller and the main sheet. The past two lessons have seen me being 'crew' and managing (badly) the jib sheet, and manning (womaning) the tiller. I have found that I really like being in charge of the tiller as it gives me a much better feel for the boat.  I guess that's why the helmsman controls the boat from there.

The first time out on the water today, Sarah and I jumped into the boat with Chris, our instructor.  We were supposed to go out alone, but Chris was keen for a sail.  I was put in charge of the tiller, Sarah managed the jib sheet and Chris the mainsheet.  We had a great time tacking back and forth across the river.

The second time out Sarah and I again decided to go together and we added Kate into the mix.  No instructor this time.  As I had never used the mainsheet, I felt that Sarah would be the most experienced one, so I suggested that she go as helmsman and Kate and I would be crew working the jib sheet and balancing the boat.

Right from the get go things started to go awry.  First step as we pulled away from shore was for Sarah to get the rudder down so that she could steer the boat. But the rudder wouldn't go down.  As she fiddled with the tiller and rope, none of us were really paying too much attention to the sails.  The wind did it's thing and shot us downwind ( I think the current was helping too) and we very quickly found ourselves heading full speed for the bridge.  Derek was chasing us in the rescue boat, yelling out instructions and trying to get us back on course.  Unfortunately, this was only going to end one way: with us capsizing.  Sarah got her rudder down, turned the boat and it straight away became evident that we were going over....

The nice thing about capsizing is that you just kind of resign yourself to it.  There's no sense of panic or impending doom, you just know the boat is going over, so you may as well abandon ship.  Derek suggested that I stay on the mast side of the boat, while Sarah and Kate swam around to the centreboard.  They were to stand on the centreboard and scoop me back into the boat.  I had my doubts about this procedure working, but work it did. I slithered into the boat with relatively more grace than I expected. Then it was my job to steady the boat and get it under control. Given that we hadn't been under control at anytime during this entire episode, I also had my doubts about this as well.  Oh ye of little faith. I scrambled, well actually I slipped and fell on my bum into the back of the boat and grabbed hold of the tiller.  I would have then proceeded to get the boat 'under control' but although I had hold of the tiller, it was not actually connected to anything.  Derek was telling me to steer the boat straight and I was waving the tiller stick around saying "I can't the stick's come off". 

Meanwhile, I still had to get Sarah and Kate into the boat.  I somehow managed to shove the tiller into it's housing and then set about assisting Sarah and Kate. Sarah, being young and lithe, pretty much slithered herself straight into the boat without any help.  We both helped haul Kate aboard and then the three of us sat down and had a jolly good laugh.  This was turning out to be a hoot.  While we were finding the whole thing highly amusing, Derek was tying us to his rescue boat.  Apparently, we were going to get towed back to shore.  That was when we truly realised just how far we had come.  I was glad that we didn't have to tack our way back from there, it would have taken us the rest of the day.

I found myself still in the helm and by holding the tiller and following the direction of the tow boat and holding the main sheet I was able to kid myself that I was actually sailing.  When we got back to shore and were directed to stay in the boat, it seemed that our sailing adventure was not yet over.  The men set to work bodgying up a repair on the tiller, while us girls rolled around the boat laughing about our experience.

With the repairs made, and me still in the helm, eeeek, we took off from shore again, this time making sure that the rudder was DOWN.  With tiller in one hand and mainsheet in the other we were off and sailing.  Yes, we were actually sailing. Derek kept a close eye on us from the rescue boat (I can't understand why) and gave us timely advice to keep us on a nice even keel.  Kate worked the jib sheet with help from Sarah, and Sarah also helped me by holding the mainsheet while we tacked.  We had our little system worked out really well and we tacked to and fro across the river many times.  We didn't get up much speed but we were making progress and we were sailing, woohoo!.  We even struck up a few bars of "we are sailing" such was the excitement and happiness of what we had managed to achieve with no instructor in our boat.

Us three girls agreed that it was the best sail we'd ever had.  Now we just need a bit more practise and we'll be unstoppable, well unstoppable unless we capsize again.

Ellie can do lots of things

It's amazing to witness the incredible things that a nine month old can do.  Only nine months old and already Ellie has a really good understanding of what you say to her.  She is able to eat, move, babble some words, and explore her world.

Ellie has a fascination with our dog Schnitzel.  She wants to touch and poke him whenever she is near him. Unfortunately Schnitzel takes every opportunity to lick her on the face, gross.  Schnitzel tolerates Ellie and he really is very good with coping with her poking him and pulling his ears.  I still have to keep a close eye on the both of them, though, because no matter how placid, a dog is still a dog.  They have sharp teeth, quick reflexes and unpredictable ways.

 Schnitzel

 

Many, many years ago now when we still had Steve's dog Chelsea, a kelpie cross, she snapped suddenly at one of my nieces.  Now Chelsea was the most lovely dog who was great with kids.  The kids were always playing with her and she put up with all of their attentions with good grace. But this one day she lashed out and snarled at my niece, it was so totally out of character that we all rushed across to see what was up.  Chelsea was getting older, so probably had less tolerance for all the touching and feeling, but one thing we discovered close by was a lighter.  We didn't see it, so don't know for sure, but suspect that the child has tried to burn the dog. No wonder she lashed out.  Luckily, Chelsea just snapped and snarled, she didn't bite or hurt the child at all.  It is a reminder though, that any dog can lash out at a child, so they need to be watched always.

Chelsea

 

There are a few rules with handling dogs like no approaching them from behind and not disturbing them while they are eating.  These are hard to enforce with a nine month old who just wants to grab hold of any part of the dog that she can manage to reach.  She is also partial to sharing the dog's bones, yuk. Today Ellie kept trying to pick up the dog's discarded bones.  Just by using my tone of voice and firmly telling her 'no the bones are Schnitzel's', she would put them back down again.  Then I asked her to come into the shade and she crawled across to us in the undercover area.  She has learnt how to negotiate a couple of steps, after we showed her and talked to her about going down backwards.  She is getting the concept of 'ta' and although she's not saying it yet (she still grizzles for what she wants) she knows to hand an item to me when I put out my hand and say 'ta'.  Today, for example, I decided that I wanted my keys that she had been playing with so that I could unlock the house. The keys had been discarded where I could not see them.  I asked Ellie to get them for me by saying 'ta for mummy's keys, ta for mummy's keys'.  She knew exactly what I wanted and went to get them, then she handed them to me, repeatedly, as it now had turned into a game.

 Ellie

We went to the Coffs Coast Apex Toy library today because as Ellie is on the cusp of walking by herself I thought some walkers could be a fun thing to hire for her. It seems like a waste of money to buy something that she may only use for a matter of weeks.  The membership cost $90 for the year and it allows us to borrow 4 toys and 1 puzzle for up to a month.  Inside that month we can return and re-borrow as often as we like.  Harry had fond memories of being a member of the toy library when he was a toddler.  He was so excited that we were going there today that he ensured that Steve left the big car for us to use.

 Harry

Baby led weaning

The main idea behind baby led weaning is to trust your baby to make good food choices by providing them with a range of foods that they can eat at each meal.  Their instinctive needs and likes and dislikes will drive their food choices.  Although each individual meal may not look balanced as babies often favour  just one or two food groups, their overall diet will tend toward being balanced over the course of a few days.

I decided to give baby led weaning a go with Ellie. Certain aspects of it were not that dissimilar to the way that I introduced solids with the other three.  I started them all at around six months when they were old enough to be able to sit up by themselves and to be able to hold onto food.  A lot of the food was finger food, but I did use some purees as well.

I remember the first thing that I fed Sarah was rice cereal, which promptly set like concrete inside her and she had great difficulty passing it out the other end.  Evan presented problems as he had eczema and I wanted to be very careful which foods I introduced and in which order.  The thinking back then was to introduce foods one at a time and wait a few days to see if there was a reaction before introducing the next food.  This was rather time consuming and I can remember us getting stuck with just eating pumpkin for a very long period of time.  Not surprisingly, he is not that fussed on pumpkin to this day. With Harry I don't remember too much about the solids stage except that it was really messy, and with carpet under the dining table I spent a lot of time on my hands and knees scrubbing it clean again.

Ellie, like Evan suffered eczema, so I was a little dubious about introducing foods haphazardly and simultaneously.  But if I was going to give this baby led weaning a go, that was what I had to do.  I must say that I got a pleasant surprise, with the introduction of food, far from getting worse as I had feared, her eczema improved.  Now she has very little eczema, so I was wondering if a restricted diet could have been the cause rather than the cure.

To start with very little if any food goes down. By handing baby chunks of fruits and vegetables they either taste them or toss them depending on their mood.  At first, Ellie was quite suspicious of this food thing, as when she shook it, it didn't make a noise.  Once she got past that she would then feel it by squishing it in her hand. As she was used to handling toys, she preferred foods that were nice and solid.  Banana, initially, was way too squishy and she wasn't interested in that at all.

The thing that mainly worries mums about baby led weaning is the fear of baby choking on a piece of food.  Obviously, you don't leave baby alone with food, but also,try not to be overly protective and watch them obsessively either.  Yes, it's true babies do gag their way through for the first few weeks.  This can be a little hair raising, but it's worth remembering that the gag reflex is a protective one, and it is natural.  It actually stops them from choking, so if you hear the gag reflex in action you know that baby is doing exactly the right thing and learning how to deal with chunks of food in her mouth. The gag reflex in a six month old baby is quite a long way forward in the mouth, about half way along the tongue.  I watched Ellie gag on a small piece of food and when I looked into her mouth I could clearly see the food sitting about halfway back in her mouth and no where near the windpipe. What she was doing was biting small pieces of food off, moving it around her mouth with her tongue, if it went in too far she'd gag it back to the front, and then she'd use her tongue thrust to push the food out of her mouth when she had finished with it.  She really wasn't bringing anything to the back of her mouth to be swallowed in the beginning.

This is where continuing with milk feeds is still so important.  You may have 'officially started solids' but the amount that baby is actually eating is negligible. Again, this means you need to trust your baby  and give her time to be able to learn how to eat, because this is exactly what she is doing.  Eating is a many step process and she needs to learn each one and also start to associate this food concept with the concept of hunger.  For Ellie, this took until she was about 9 months before she really started to 'need' food. Her nappies were still predominately consisting of the breastfeeding poo, nice and sweet smelling, with chunks of undigested food in them. Around nine months she started to pass some smellier poohs and she started to be really hungry for food.  Breast milk was still making up the majority of her diet but it became evident that it was no longer enough.

The great thing about baby led weaning is that baby eats what the family is eating.  It is so easy to just put a little aside on a plate for baby.  They sit up with the family and share meal times and they enjoy being a part of family life.  Basically, anything goes with food, so long as you are mindful about keeping it healthy and avoiding junk food.  Spicy food may need to be used with caution too, but that's not to say we haven't tried it on Ellie with some funny results. One meal laden with chilli made her bounce up and down in her seat and we could almost see the proverbial steam coming out of her ears. Ooops, maybe that was a bit too hot, mental note to tone it down a bit next time.
How we wish we'd had the camera handy that time!