Things I hate......

....I hate that I knew it was worthwhile to get a coffee loyalty card when I got my Flat White at the hospital today.

....I hate that I know how to find my way through the maze of corridors to the Child Cancer unit.

....I hate that I now know how to spell leukemia and what A.L.L. means

....I hate that every cough or sniffle from my children now grips my heart with fear

....I hate that there is so little that I can do to help

....but most of all I hate seeing my lovely curly-mopped nephew looking so sick and I hate that his family have such a long road of treatment in front of them.

I am so aware of how fragile it all is.  

I am also aware of what a wonderful gift NORMAL is.

One visit to the doctor, 

or one mass of rock straining and fracturing against another, 

and it's all changed.  Normal is gone.  

Now I am grateful for even glimpses of it. 

For those of you reading this who still have your normal 

don't just exist in it, 

be sure to experience it - enjoy it - be thankful for it.

Mission.....Failed

This fantastic piece of failure was written as a part of the Mother Flippin': One Funny Mother Fallen Quiche Friday series. A Fallen Quiche moment is a celebration of failure.  Please read to the end to find a list of links to other bloggers who admit failure with a bit of a laugh.  Now we know that we are not alone.
Today I remembered why it is so hard to be involved in any type of community work when you've got littlies.  I find it incredibly frustrating - there is so much I want to be involved in and help out with but the reality is I'm usually stuck at home doing the mundane.  A shame really considering that I end up missing out on the stuff that would energise and excite me rather than drain and exhaust!  It is the reality of my life for now though so I try and squeeze some community stuff around the edges - which is one of the reasons I decided to write this blog.  Everything I read about community mission seemed to be from the point of view of people who did it as a job and I wanted to reflect on it in a way that was perhaps a little more common, a little more realistic for most of us.
So back to todays fail.  
I had noticed last week that a lot of parents were hanging around at the school rather than going home so I talked to the principal about having a whanau space where they could go and get some coffee, tea, support and that I was happy to help with it.  She thought that was a great idea so the school library was the chosen space and an invite went home with the kids that day.  
So today started with a sleep-in.  
Then an incredibly grumpy mum yelling instructions to her kids about getting ready while she threw her clothes on and got the baby ready.  
Which led to very uncooperative children (understandably so - they were being yelled at by a rather unreasonable woman) and various meltdowns about shoes, socks and hair ties.  
We drove a little too quickly down the earthquake wobbled roads to school and when we got there (only a few minutes late I might add...) there were no other parents in sight.  It seems they had all got over their earthquake worries and were quite happy to drop the kids at the school gate and head home.  
Being a person who likes to keep my word I trotted off to the library anyway just in case someone might turn up.  Hamish looked at a few books while I took the chance to feed Erin.  
We had been there less than 5 minutes when Hamish informed me:  
"I need to poo."  
Usually a small hassle but a rather large hassle when the school doesn't have a working sewerage system. 
That's when I gave up. That's when I remembered why I don't try and do 'intentional' community work much anymore. 

  http://kiwimummission.blogspot.com/2011/02/intentional-by-proxy.html

Please take a moment to read about this bloggers Fallen Quiche moment. 
Mother Flippin': One Funny Mother shares her Fallen Quiche woes in Killing Cacti.

Dis-jointed

That's how life feels at the moment.  
So many places are not open, or closing early, or you have to drive halfway across town in congested traffic on broken roads just to get to a Warehouse that is open.  
Hamish has no kohanga and I have no idea when it will be open.  Most of the kaiako's homes are not safe to live in so they are busy dealing with that before anything else.   
There are piles of belongings and furniture on the roadside with 'FREE' signs - they are everywhere in our community - families gone to live elsewhere where they can flush the toilet and drink the water from out of the tap.  
Zoe's school started last week - they have an hour and a half of school each day until the temporary sewerage system is working.  There are 7 kids in Zoe's class, the school's roll is at about 40% of it's pre-earthquake numbers.  Many parent's hang around for the whole time that their child is there - partly because it's not long enough to bother going home but also because it's too hard to leave them at school again just yet- what if it happens again?
The teachers at Zoe's school are awesome.  They are heroes in my eyes for getting the kids all out safely and looking after them until parents could get there.  On the day of the earthquake I stayed there on the school field for as long as I could.  It took Iain 5 hours to drive across town (usually 20 mins) and I didn't want to be at home by myself with the kids.  
Too much broken glass on the floor and too many aftershocks. 
A couple of the teachers pulled out their guitars and got the kids singing - sometimes a large aftershock would hit in the middle of a song and the singing would pause for a second or two while everyone looked nervously around hoping the shaking wouldn't get any worse.  Then the shaking would stop and the song would keep going. 
Now, just like the power and water supply, everyone is disjointed, displaced, disconnected.  
We dig around looking for the broken bits so that we can fix them and, little by little, pull everyone together again. 
So that when people are ready, and when the shaking finally stops, the song can keep going.

Back to life....

It is so good to be back in our wee house, in our community.

Some things have changed.....

I do like how Mr Earthquake styled my paintings...

my kitchen...not so much!

At least I still have coffee.

We were driving to a friends house last night and got some great sewerage smells wafting into the car.  

"Ewww - that smells yucky" complained Hamish.

Zoe's reply blew me away: "Let's try and ignore the yucky smell Hamish and think about all the lovely things people are doing to help instead."

Yes - let's.

The Longest Fortnight

Time has definately slowed down since the earthquake.  
It seems like such a long time ago that we packed up the car and drove to Blenheim, not sure when we would be coming back.  It was such a weird thing to have to do, like getting our Red Cross evacuee number, something you think you only hear about other people doing.  
We are all incredibly tired.  I keep having random moments of nausea when the reality of what has happened hits me.  My husband has had constant headaches.  Zoe is more demanding than usual. Hamish has reverted to pre-toilet training. Erin refuses to be put in her cot while awake leaving me no option but rocking her to sleep for every nap.  I have next to no energy - doing the simplest of tasks like going to the supermarket leaves me exhausted.  
And then I feel guilty for finding it hard.  
Our house is standing, the business is surviving, we are all alive.  I am immeasurably grateful for all these things and I know for so many people in Christchurch the loss is so great.  I think that is partly why I am tired - so much grief and so close. 
We get to go home in a couple of days, I am so looking forward to being back.