Friday, June 17, 2011

Third time's a charm???

As I drove around after the latest series of major aftershocks I felt an overwhelming sense of pride in my city.  The roadwork crews were patching up the same roads, again.  Engineers were checking buildings, again.  People were shoveling the liquefaction silt from their properties, again.  
Everyone was just picking themselves back up and getting on with it.
What surprised me most this time was how much easier I found it all.  Instead of feeling desperate to leave the chaos it felt like we could cope, manage with staying.  It felt like an inconvenience rather than a disaster.  
And the thought of another major aftershock doesn't actually terrify me like it used to either.  After my Auntie was killed in a car accident when I was 16 I was terrified of being in a car for awhile, but gradually I had to accept that I would have to go in cars and that car accidents do happen.  I had to adjust to that being a fact of life.  And that's what it's like in Christchurch now, I have accepted that earthquakes will happen and sometimes people will get hurt.  
Lots of people have asked me why we don't leave.  I have certainly thought about it but for now it still seems harder to go than to stay.  We have been spared any major loss through the earthquakes and this is still where our home, work, school, friends, life is.
Don't get me wrong, it's still exhausting and hard.  Especially trying to help the kids cope, I don't think I will ever forget the look of terror on Hamish's face as he tried to run across the lounge and get under the table.  But he will be okay, we all will be okay.

Saturday, June 11, 2011

Big changes for my little man....

We made a hard decision this week.  
We took Hamish out of kohanga and enrolled him in the local kindergarten.  Many of you will know how important it has been to me to have my family involved with kohanga (see Kohanga Reo, Kohanga Reo 2, Honouring the Treaty) so it was difficult to decide that it was the best thing for Hamish to go elsewhere.   
He had been finding it so hard after the earthquake - with so many of his friends gone and 4 staff leaving as well, he would come home and talk about the people that weren't there anymore.  
One of the two staff still here went away for a couple of weeks and our kohanga joined with another while she was gone.  She got back this week and let us know that she would be leaving for good and it just got too hard for us to stay. 
So much constant change and uncertainty for my little man who loves structure and predictability.  With only 6 months left till he starts school we decided it was time for one last change and then, hopefully, a bit of stability.  
I am grateful for all that kohanga has meant for my family and I will always treasure the time that we had there.  It's hard to let go of my own ideals in order to do what is best for my children and I will still have a bit of grieving to do I'm sure.   
But for now the new kindy is awesome, they use quite a lot of Te Reo there and it is literally a stones throw away from our house.  Many of the other children will be going onto the same school as Hamish and I am getting to know some of the other parents better.  
And to finish on a light note:  
Zoe and Hamish were playing in a hut they made in the lounge the other day.  Zoe came out with a funny smile and told me that they were pretending to be in bed and were kissing and cuddling - "I was being the mummy."  
Hamish appeared out of the hut after her....
Me:  "And were you being the daddy?"  I asked Hamish
Hamish: "No, I was being the postman."

Tuesday, June 7, 2011

Mind games and other Blockers - Part three.

You might want to read Part One  and Part Two first.

Blocker 3
I have always been something of a wuss.
I have spent most of my life avoiding anything that could possibly be painful or unpleasant for me.  This is a good survival technique by itself but when you combine it with my extremely vivid and overactive imagination it becomes a little limiting.  There is danger and death lurking around every corner and I'm not going round it thank you very much!  
When I was a kid I was too scared to do anything daring.  
I was the kid who was too chicken to hang upside down on the bars at school.  My dad once had to bet me $10 to cross a swing bridge before I could summon up enough courage to do it.  I'm scared of injections, spiders, flying and even going on hydroslides.  
So why on earth would I take up Roller Derby?  A sport where I am practically guaranteed to injure myself?  A sport where I have to willingly throw myself at the floor to practice my falling technique? 
I'm not entirely sure actually, but I know that facing up to that part of me is part of the attraction.  
You see I have come to realise that the reality of the pain and discomfort is nowhere near as bad as I imagined it would be.  And I am actually pretty tough under it all.  
After being terrified about giving birth I managed to do it three times with no pain relief.  In fact my last midwife told me that the ward midwives assumed I was a farmers' wife I was that staunch.  
And I love how I felt after giving birth - like a brave, powerful woman who could handle anything. 
I'm not having any more children just to experience that feeling again so derby it is from now on.  

Playing derby is very similar to giving birth actually...empowering, painful, exhausting, exhilarating, and you have to be a woman to do it!
Reading back over these last few blogs it all seems a little daunting actually and I wonder why I don't just give up.  Well for a start, I have spent way too much money on gear....but also it is some of the most fun I have ever had.  
I love how strong it makes me feel when I finally manage to learn a new skill.  
I love that I am getting just that little bit fitter and stronger every week.  
I love watching the old meat practice and knowing that if I stick with it I can learn how to do that. 
I love that there is a team full of women helping me get there. 
I love that my daughters get to watch me being brave and trying something new.  
I love that I know that I'm not going to give up trying to get past the blockers.

Monday, June 6, 2011

Mind games and other Blockers - part two.

Warning: Unless you read mind-games-and-other-blockers-part-one this post probably won't make much sense.
Warning 2: If you are already sick of me posting about roller derby you probably should stop reading now.

Blocker 2
Well to put it simply this blocker is Chronic Atrophy of the Vastus Medialis Obliquus Muscle.  
Google it if you want to. 
Say it fast five times in a row if you can. 
Basically it means that since surgery a long long time ago my left thigh muscle is pretty stuffed.  It shouldn't be.  I should have done all the exercises the physio gave me at the time and got it back up to strength.  In fact if I'd done all the right exercises to begin with it's highly likely I would have avoided surgery all together. 
Instead I took the 'easier' option - I adapted my everyday life to accommodate my weak muscle so that I didn't notice it's weakness.  Let me explain - when I go up stairs I lead with my strong leg and put all my weight on that.  When I get up off of the couch I use my hands to push me up and so on.  So over the years the weak muscle has actually gotten weaker, or 'wasted' to use the proper term.
I cannot possibly continue to do roller derby with a weak thigh muscle, I have to strengthen it or I will never get good enough to take part in a bout.  
Thinking more about this I realised that I take this approach to a lot of things in my life.  And that's probably okay for awhile, until I do something where I have to use the weak part.
For example, dealing with depression.  For so many years I just ignored any weakness in my mental health and adapted my life accordingly.  When it all got a little too much I would hide away for a few days to rest and recover.  
Then I had children.  Technically I was diagnosed with postnatal depression but I know it had been there for awhile.  It was just that there was no way to adapt being a mum around this particular weakness so I had to face up to it and start getting better, stronger.  
I worry about other areas of my life where I could be tempted to sweep any weaknesses under the carpet.   
Like my relationship with my children.  I can probably wing it for quite a few years and not really connect with them or spend quality time with them but I can guarantee that any weakness here will show up when they become teenagers!   
Or what about my relationship with my husband?  With three young kids it's pretty easy to ignore any weaknesses here and push them to the side.  But do I really want to discover a few years from now when we hit a rough patch in life that our marriage muscle has wasted away?  
Pretty sobering thoughts really.  
So tonight I am going to do my leg lift exercises, then I am going to take the time to read my children a bedtime story and then I might actually talk to my husband.  
Man this training for roller derby sure is hard work!

Sunday, June 5, 2011

Mind games and other Blockers - Part one.

So now that I have stepped completely out of my comfort zone and taken up the challenge of learning to roller derby, I have discovered that it is a whole lot harder for me than I thought it would be.  
I was confident, shall we say, slightly cocky, to begin with.  Having done so much roller skating growing up I thought I would take to it pretty quickly but there were a few things I didn't see coming, a few 'blockers' that I will have to get past...

Blocker 1
My core strength, or rather my complete lack of it.  After stretching to accommodate 3 babies my abs resemble one of those cheap wine bladders rather than a sexy six pack.  
Anne Lamott writes  after the birth of her child that when she lay down to sleep her stomach 'laid down next to her like a puppy.'  I love that description - and it fits me perfectly.  
This has never bothered me before now - I am actually proud of my post baby body and all that it has achieved in bringing my lovely children into the world.  I have never felt driven to whip my body into shape so that I look like a 20-something who hasn't had children.  
After all, there are times that a soft squishy tummy comes in helpful.....
Suddenly though I care about how my abs work. By the end of training my lower back feels like it is on fire because my core is so weak, I can't even manage to do a proper crunchy and my attempts at 'whipping' are more like some kind of awkward high-five.
So it's baby steps for me, or shall we call them 'post-babies' steps?  Luckily one of the other freshmeat is a personal trainer and she showed me some easy starting exercises (did I mention that the other women who do derby are Awesome?)
Rock hard abs are only a few million crunchys away...