"Stop the World, I want to Get Off!" she said...

I don't know how many times I must have said this out loud, to myself or in my head.
Stop the World. I want to Get Off.

Life was too fast. It came at me from all directions and I could never, ever catch my breath.
Since becoming a sole-parent nearly four years ago and re-entering the paid workforce, life has been faster than ever.

Endless days of driving kids from place to place, juggling chores and work and parenting.
I once totalled up the amount of time I spent in my car each week during winter sport season and it came out to more than 20 hours. That's half a full-time job, just on driving.
No wonder I wanted it all to stop.

How many times did I say to my kids, "ONE DAY! JUST ONE DAY is all I want. ONE DAY where I don't have to drive ANYWHERE..."

Well, I got my wish, didn't I?

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Ideas for Fun at Home *lockdown edition*

Hello from the depths of coronavirus lockdown, here in Auckland New Zealand!
I've been thinking of all of you with younger kids and heaving a bit of a sigh of relief that my kids are all so independant, screen-savvy and self-sufficient these days, which is allowing me to keep working my two jobs from home - mostly without too much interruption.

My lot are all giants now, aged 17, 15 and 11. See that little one in the photo above? Same height as me.
They are so far happily connecting with their friends online via PS4 live gaming and HouseParty snapchatting, but eventually they must get bored of that, right?
And there's only so many walks with the dog we they can take...

To help provide some ideas of stuff to do for fun while on Lockdown I've dug into the archives and rounded up some of my old "at home" holiday fun ideas. After all it is officially school hols here in NZ at the moment, and there's really nowhere else to be but home on Lockdown...

I have always been a big believer that there's lots of fun to be had at home...

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After 17 Years as a Mum Here's What I've Learned

[Image Credit]

My eldest boy turned 17 the other day, which is crazy because it feels like only yesterday that I began blogging when he was five.
Oh my word, what a journey we've had, what a rollercoaster ride. With one short year of schooling left, my 6-foot-tall manchild is almost ready to take on the world. I'm caught between shock and awe - shock at how fast it's all gone and awe that we have made it this far.

Let me share some of the things I've learned - the hard way of course - in the last few years of parenting. I hope to shed some light and sprinkle some hope for those of you just entering the teenage years, to encourage you that if we can survive, anyone can...

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Hanging On - through the Teenage Years

A long time ago, in my life before kids, I worked with teenagers. Some of these teenagers were from really tough backgrounds, the kind of backgrounds that gives kids a label of "at risk".
At risk of being counted in all kinds of negative statistics like teen pregnancy, drug and alcohol abuse, crime, lack of education, unemployment and most of all, at risk of living the kind of life and having the kind of families that passed on this risk to the next generation.

All kinds of teenagers came across my path and I did my best to help them at the time, even though most of the time I felt like I was out of my depth, clueless, under-equipped and flying by the seat of my pants.
At the time there were certain kids who stood out, who broke my heart more than most. My love and concern for these kids kept me up at night, quite often; there were prayers and tears and sleepless nights. There were phone calls in the middle of the night ("can you come?"); there were conversations, pep talks and feeds. I didn't know if any of it was doing any good. I didn't know if they would manage to break all those negative cycles and live healthy, happy lives, with healthy, happy families. That was what I wanted and hoped for them but I had no clue if it would happen.

That was more than 20 years ago. We lost touch over the years, but recently a few of those special ones that kept me up at night have crossed my path again, and it has blown me away to see how amazingly well they are doing. They've beaten the statistics.

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From the Ashes

It has been nearly three years since I left my marriage. It was the most difficult decision I have ever made, and one with the highest cost I’ve ever had to pay. It was ‘Hobson’s Choice’ you might say – the choice you have when there is really no other choice. When my marriage ended it wasn’t from lack of trying – we’d been in counselling since 2012, after all. But when all avenues have been tried and the pain being caused to all parties is greater than the benefit of staying, well, at some point you have to call ‘time’.

No-one walks away from a marriage lightly. No-one launches a grenade into their family on a whim; but still, I had no idea at the time just exactly what the price would be for that decision, though all things considered it was still the only decision that could have been made.

With the decision to walk away came Death of the Dream.

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My Journey in Te Ao Maori

Photo Credit: Stephanie Soh

*(kei te haere tonu ahau)*

In 2016 I began working at the Parenting Place, which had been a long-held dream of mine, after writing freelance for the magazine for years.
Unbeknown to me, my new workplace had begun a journey (haerenga) into te ao Māori (the Māori world) and I was swept up in it along with my workmates.
This was no tokenism or surface-level nod, but a wholehearted journey delving into who we are as a nation, our history, where we've come from and what it means to be good Treaty partners.
Along the way, I had the privilege of staying on a number of marae around the country, including Te Tii Marae at Waitangi (where our nation's founding treaty was debated before the signing) and Parihaka (the site of a terrible injustice perpetrated by the British in the 1880's).

The journey began for me as just simply something my work was doing, which I found interesting, but it has become something personal for me now - a personal odyssey and a challenge to discover who I am and where I belong.

In 2018 I had the privilege of beginning to learn te reo Māori with a bunch of my workmates, during work time. I was worried my middle-aged half-speed brain would not cope with the challenge of learning a language, but I did OK, passing all my tests and actually learning stuff. But the main thing I've discovered is that learning te reo isn't just about learning to speak the words - it is about opening myself up to a whole new way of thinking, new ways of looking at the world and finding a deeper sense of belonging and identity in this whenua (land).
I completed a questionnaire sent out to all of us at work to "gauge the bi-cultural journey the Parenting Place has embarked on over the last three years..."

Here are some of my responses...

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Big New Things

Hello again, at long last. It's been a while, but big things are afoot - HUGE things, even.
It's been so long between blog posts - I'm not going to lie, blogging has been at the bottom of the list of priorities lately. Life is a whirlwind, a relentless nerve-wracking rollercoaster and this is the last ever blog post I will write sitting at the computer in the hallway of this, my dear old house.
I'm sitting here typing this on a whim when I really should be packing boxes because...
WE ARE MOVING.

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