Tis the season

And so, this is Christmas….. And hasn't it come around quickly this year?!

Religion doesn't play a major role in our family but we observe Christmas as a period of good will and family celebration. It's a scheduled opportunity to take stock, give thanks and celebrate the privilege of being alive. Whatever your beliefs, I think there is a magic that surrounds the season and I swear I've seen lights in the sky on Christmas Eve that could only belong to a sleigh.

Luckily, my children have inherited the Christmas passion that I inherited from my mother. Regular readers of my blog know that I lost my Mum many years ago but Christmas is one of those times that makes me feel close to her. In fact, Mum died on Christmas Eve and lots of people question how I can still enjoy the holiday so much when it's the anniversary of her death. It's easy really. Mum was such a great fan of Christmas that I see it as a celebration of her life, not her death. After being given a final, terminal diagnosis in November she decided Christmas Eve was the time to go because she'd read some cockamamie story somewhere  that the leprechauns had struck a deal that anyone who died between midnight and dawn on Christmas Eve got a free pass to heaven. I guess morphine can do strange things to people but Mum was never one to let facts stand in the way of a good story and she liked to hedge her bets on the whole heaven & hell thing, so Christmas Eve it was.

Given the doctor's prognosis of 2 weeks after an appointment in November, I wasn't so confident that she'd make Christmas Eve so we held Christmas early that year, on December 1st. Mum's rule about the tree going up was strictly Dec 15th ( I can't remember why) so we had to fudge the truth a bit.  We had a great celebration with some close friends, we opened all the presents and sat round her bed (in the lounge room) telling stories & listening to Jaime sing several renditions of Rudolph. The next day Mum slipped into a coma and didn't really regain consciousness until Christmas Eve. On that day, she suddenly sat upright in bed and demanded that I open and drink the bottle of Moet that the district nurse had left her. We had what would be our last conversation while we listened to the Myer Christmas Carols. She put down the glass, went to sleep and never woke up again.

Anyway, I digress. Ever since Mum died, Dec 1 has marked beginning of the Christmas season for me  and I'm glad and grateful that my family support my need to maintain the tradition and ritual that keeps me anchored to my childhood. Not only do my children respect my OCD order of things, so does my husband. If there's one piece of advice I would give to any girl, it's find a man who loves Christmas. If you've found yourself with a Humbug (or one who tells you Valentine's Day is a commercial joke), get rid of him.

It took me a long time to give up the 'real' tree. Christmas tree hunting was one of the more hilarious but also stressful features of my obsession. The tree had to be 'just right'. Not too short, not too tall and definitely not too skinny! When we moved into our new house though, the thought of all those dead pine needles was too much for me so we bought a spectacular fake fir. It's just the right size and it stays green for the entire month that it's allowed to reside in the lounge room but it has to be put up PROPERLY! The lights go on first and then the ornaments, in order.

First, Grandma's ornament. Clearly I was in the midst of grief when I bought it because it's a naff pink rosy thing that Mum would have hated. Nevertheless, I pack it in tissue paper every year & then tuck it into the tree somewhere where the lights will reflect on it.

Next, special ornaments that the kids have collected over the years. This year, lots of special ornaments that made their way home with us from our big trip last year. Elvis dressed in Christmas colors from Memphis, Santa holding the Statue of Liberty, turtles with our names on them from Key West and a Boston Celtics baseball ornament from the Quincy market. Shells in a glass ball from Santa Monica, Minnie Mouse from Disneyland, the official 2012 edition ornament from the White House and a Navajo indian ornament from the Grand Canyon. More hedging my religious bets with a beautiful wooden cross from the church in Sedona, a handmade owl from a shop in Natchez that was so deep in the South that the shop assistant referred to her boss as 'Miss Emily'. And my personal favourite, one that reminds me that Christmas crosses racial boundaries, a black Santa riding in a sleigh pulled by alligators from the Everglades.

It was odd being away from home last year. Amazing, but odd. I don't want to sound at all ungrateful about spending Christmas Eve watching the snow fall in New York because it was amazing but I am glad to be home with my own traditions this year.

Last but not least, on top of the tree goes a pretty ordinary looking paper angel that Sophie colored in at school the year that Geoff first joined our family. It was a symbol of our new family unit and so it maintains its superior position over all the glitz and glamour below it. By the time all that goes on, I have drunk at least one glass of champagne & we've played some sort of irreverent Christmas Carol from the Simpson's Christmas CD.

Then the present buying begins. I am totally unashamed of the over indulgence that is the pile of presents under our tree. We're not usually extravagant people but Christmas is different. We love buying each other stuff and there are no rules, except that everyone gets about the same amount of parcels because it makes the unwrapping process more fun. It doesn't matter how old you are, Santa brings everyone a sack full of things to wear, things to eat, things to read and rubbish to play with. Online shopping has played right into my compulsive Christmas shopping addiction because its so easy to order bits and pieces in the lead up. By the time the parcels arrive I've often forgotten what I bought and so it's like a double Christmas surprise - for me and the recipient. Then of course there's the sorting and wrapping and more buying because inevitably I've got sidetracked with things that one of the kids will really like and left someone else's pile a bit short. Then, (every year) about a week before Christmas I suffer from over indulgence phobia and take a few things out and tuck them away for birthdays, only to change my mind on Christmas Eve and put them back in again!

Giving to strangers is a relatively new tradition in our family but it's a growing one. Last year in New York Taine elected to spend his Christmas money in $1 bills, giving them away to homeless people in the Subway. The genuine gratitude from people for the price of a coffee was a humbling one for all of us. This year we've concentrated on online donations, the Wishing Tree and a couple of Secret Santa drops. There's a lot of joy in anonymity.

Jaime and Xavier and Sophie arrive in time for a late dinner on Christmas Eve and we take our annual photo in front of the tree. This takes some work because from one year to the next we forget how to use the self timer. Everyone yells at Sophie because she insists on putting lipstick on first, then Sophie yells at everyone else because we aren't sitting in THE RIGHT ORDER. Then Taine ruins Christmas by jumping up before the timer goes!

The Santa sacks go on the chairs in the lounge room. NO ONE is allowed to open ANY presents before 7am when I am sitting in my chair with a cup of coffee beside me. We'll eat bacon and scrambled eggs and croissants for breakfast, served in my grandmother's Royal Doulton warming bowls that only come out on Christmas Day. The girls will go out to the farm for lunch and Geoff and Taine and I will have a ham sandwich picnic. Tomorrow night we'll share with our co grandparents- to- be and Xavier's extended family. We'll take along one of our Christmas traditions ( the super enhanced bon bons) to join our traditions with theirs.

This year of course, given that the eldest child is heavy with child(ren), Christmas is especially significant. Christmas is a celebration and promise of new life and ours is about to be doubly blessed. I can't believe my baby is about to have babies of her own and I can't wait. With the new additions, our lives will cross into a new phase but Christmas will always be Christmas and a way to connect past generations with the future.

Like thousands of other Victorians, we've watched the Myer Music Bowl carols tonight , we've left some carrots on the deck for the reindeer and some shortbread and some water for Santa (with a side serve of red wine for the elves) on the kitchen bench. We've done a quick Secret Santa run and now the house is quiet and brimming with anticipation. The sky is full of stars and I swear if you look closely enough you'll spot the lights of Santa's sleigh. I'm off to enjoy the sort of sleep that only ever happens when all of my precious children are tucked into beds in my house.

Happy Christmas to all of You and Yours from Me and Mine :-)

100 Lyme Light Keepers for Sheridan

There's nothing like Christmas for reflecting on just how lucky you are to have a happy, healthy family. I look forward to Christmas Day because it's one of the few times I have my three kids all under the one roof & I can see for myself that they're all OK.

There's also nothing like Christmas for realizing not everyone is as lucky as you are and that your luck and your life can change in a millisecond. It's also, if you're anything like me, a time when you really feel like giving back to the world in some way. Contributing to someone less well off than yourself is one way of counting your lucky stars and hoping that karma will pay back to you when you need it most.

I work with lots of lovely people and Vicki Jones is one of them. She's an invaluable member of our Education Support Staff and she works in the Home Eco room, preparing for classes by doing the shopping and collating the ingredients; helping the students with their cooking and then when everyone else has eaten and gone, she gets to clean up behind them. More importantly though, she's a mentor to many of our kids, especially the troubled ones. She talks while they cook, she encourages and cajoles. She praises and scolds when necessary and she has made an amazing difference to the literacy and the confidence of countless numbers of young people. Vicki is also one of the most positive people I've ever met. She wears pretty tops and bright lipstick and she always has a smile on her face.

That smile is the smile of a true professional because beneath it Vicki has been facing an unbelievable challenge over the last 18 months.

Vicki's daughter Sheridan, (pictured with Vicki in the photo above), turns just 26 today. At the beginning of 2012, Sheridan suddenly felt very tired and fatigued and strangely, her handwriting became messy. The initial diagnosis was a vertigo type illness and possibly carpal tunnel syndrome. She was advised that some Bowen therapy should soon see her right. Unfortunately, she began to experience other symptoms including loss of feeling and function in one leg. A barrage of MRIs, CT scans and blood tests pointed to a devastating diagnosis of Multiple Sclerosis. Having clearly inherited her Mum's positive outlook, Sheridan tried to slow the progress of the disease with pilates and physio and water aerobics and speech therapy but to no avail. The symptoms worsened quickly and she was no longer able to work. Further tests indicated that perhaps it wasn't MS but a rare condition called Spinocerebellar Ataxia, for which there is no cure.

I can't fathom how a family copes with devastating news like that :-( and as the months went by it just got worse. Sheridan's speech deteriorated, she had difficulty swallowing and had to give up driving. The diagnosis changed yet again to another obscure and incurable disease before discovering from DNA tests that this was also incorrect.

By July this year she was confined to a wheelchair and her future looked very bleak. Then, a chance encounter with a doctor in Western Australia uncovered the real cause of her symptoms ; LYME disease. In late 2011, Sheridan had been camping in the bush and on her return had found and removed a tick from a friend who had been with her. Sheridan hadn't found one on herself but in hindsight, she must have been bitten. Many of you will have seen the 'Today Tonight' stories on Lyme Disease during the last year. Like me you probably half listened to the tragic stories of victims of this disease that officially doesn't exist in Australia! It's an insidious bacteria that mimics the symptoms of many other debilitating diseases and is therefore very hard to identify.

Hard as it is to diagnose, it's even harder to treat and will involve high dosages of antibiotics and other medications for many years. Sheridan will have to follow a completely organic diet; gluten, sugar, dairy and yeast free. Her doctor is in Western Australia and to get the best treatment she may have to go overseas. And because, despite many people having been accurately diagnosed with Lymes, it is still not officially recognized as existing in Australia, there is no funding for the treatment!

Sheridan's family and friends have worked out that the overwhelming figure of $50 000 needed for her treatment can be broken down into a more manageable 100 lots of $500, hence the title 100 Lyme Light Keepers and they have started a Facebook page to gather support for their fundraising effort.

It's no secret that I love the internet and I believe very strongly in the power of social media to change the world in a positive way. I have 398 Facebook friends. If everyone of them donated just $1 to this cause then we'd almost cover one of those $500 lots on our own. If everyone donated $5 then we'd cover 4 lots! (For the record, I did that calculating all by myself ;-) If everyone on my Facebook list shared this story with their friends and some of them donated a dollar too, imagine how quickly we could make a difference for Sheridan and her family.

Of all the money you spend this Christmas, this could be the most satisfying.

Donating is simple. Just bank transfer your dollar, or five or ten to

BSB: 083-617

ACC: 395 357 425 with your full name as the reference.

Or you can write a cheque (do people still do that these days?) and make it out to 'Sheddies Light on LYMES' and post it to P.O BOX 179 Mortlake, Vic, 3272

Woorndoo Primary School - sweet memories.

The local Historical Society updated their Facebook page with this photo yesterday and it transported me 30+ years back in time to when I was teaching at Woorndoo Primary School. I taught at the school twice, once when it was a two teacher school and again when I was the Head Teacher (and only teacher!)

I found a photo of myself and the kids the year I went solo. Geoff challenged me to remember their names and I did it easily. In fact with all but one little fellow, the names rolled off my tongue as if I was back there doing the morning roll call. Shelley and Kerry Bourchier, Kylie and Narelle Milward, Simon …and his little brother Coulter, Megan and Prue Wentworth, Jason and Jodie Hill, Kate and David Mudford, Ricky-Russell the Keilor twins and a single Jervies' child, Bruce. I remember these kids (as I do most of the kids I've taught), so well that I could probably recall their reading scores and favourite stories if I tried.

At 24, with 3 yrs teaching experience, I was responsible for planning, teaching and assessing the entire curriculum for all 15 kids spread over 7 grades from Prep to Yr 6. There were no specialist classes and no planning time for me. Mind you, there were no staff meetings to worry about either 😉 I bought all the supplies, paid all the bills, balanced the books, administered first aid and supervised every recess and lunchtime. On the days when Bruce's mum didn't come to clean, I did that as well. I had complete autonomy over everything. I even got to choose the wall paint colors and I did the contrasting trim myself in my spare time. Actually, this was probably a bad thing because I was going through an 'autumn tonings' phase at the time and in retrospect the peach and russet together made a pretty nauseating combination.

There was no need for behaviour reports or time out rooms because no one misbehaved. In fact the only behaviour problem I had was that, having been given the responsibility of ringing the bell, Kate  took the job so seriously that on the (rare) occasion that I wanted a second cup of tea or had to make a phone call, she got very upset if I asked her to let recess go for just a wee bit longer.

Bullying was unheard of. With so few kids you couldn't afford to be off side with anyone. I don't know how the kids picked teams for cricket but I know they shared Kylie because she was better than everyone else! Luckily she was also the best sport I've ever taught and she always made sure the little ones got an extra bat.

In the mornings we spent 15 minutes (or 50 depending on how much fun we were having) doing compulsory exercise. To this day I blame my frozen shoulder on the fact that I tried to outlast the kids in outstretched arm rolls. We skipped rope and hula hooped - I remember that little Narelle in Yr 1 could hula hoop all day if we let her. She could also read anything you put in front of her and write stories that would put my current Yr 9s to shame, which is probably why she's called Dr Milward now!

Many times in the ensuing years I've chuckled (or sighed) to myself when parents question the idea of composite classes or vertical groupings. This was the ultimate in vertical grouping and it worked like a charm. Every child worked at their own level. It was all about 'stage' not 'age'. Even then I abhorred one size, fits all text books and with my trusty Gestetner duplicator, (oh how I miss the smell of duplicating fluid in the mornings!), and a box of colored chalk, I designed all my own work sheets and filled the blackboard with hand writing patterns and maths puzzles. While I taught one group, the others would work at their own task, at the same time absorbing everything I said to the teaching group. Just as I do now, I expected every child to work beyond their perceived potential and mostly, that's exactly what they did. The little ones learnt from their older role models and the big kids took their responsibilities vey seriously.

Despite my youth and inexperience, it was accepted that I was in charge and I was given the utmost respect from the children and their parents. I was an integral part of the community and I was nurtured and cared for, just as I nurtured and cared for their children. Many days I would know it was lunch time from the smell of homemade chips or scones being bought across to me from Maureen Hill next door. I was never short of cake for afternoon tea and Roma Keilor's apple & quince jelly kept my breakfast toast covered all year. If something broke (or my car had a flat tyre) I only had to pick up the phone and one of the dads would come and fix it for me.

We had a rickety gas heater in the top classroom but there were no fans or air conditioning so when it got really hot in Summer I used to fill a wading pool with water, then we'd all put on our bathers and sit in it while I read to the kids. Or we'd fill up mine and some parents' cars and head off 15 miles up the road to Lake Bolac where we could use the real swimming pool for lessons. Inevitably, I would spend the whole lesson trying to keep the twins from drowning- they had no buoyancy due to their complete lack of body fat! To this day they are the only kids I haven't been able to teach to swim.

Science and Nature Study lessons meant a walk down to the creek to look for tadpoles or collect specimens for our Botany books. One year we collected hundreds of taddies and put them in a tank in the downstairs classroom. I forgot about them over the September holidays and came back to find the whole place hopping with frogs!

The District Inspector came twice a year to check that I had everything under control. He checked my accounting (unbelievably I was never a cent out) and tested the children on their spelling, times tables and hand writing! I had to present all my courses of study and my weekly work program. He'd sign off on those, wish me well, and disappear until next time. The only time I ever looked like being in strife was when he rang unexpectedly one day while we were all out playing playing hide and seek. One of the Bourchier kids answered the phone and when he asked for me she said, 'I'm sorry but she's up a tree somewhere and we can't find her!' I was indeed up a tree, one that had a magnificent, panoramic view of the playground so I could keep an eye on everyone but still eat my lunch in peace.

At Christmas time we put on a concert. It was an awesome, community occasion and the start of my love for and understanding of how important Performing Arts is in education. We spent a little bit of every day of term 4 practising to fill an entertaining hour and a half with singing and dancing and silly skits and at the end of the show we all shared a typical country supper of sponge cakes and lamingtons and Santa came and gave everyone, including the teacher, a present. If I remember correctly, the highlight of that year's concert was a cheer leading rendition of 'Hey Micky'.

Not long after I left, the school numbers were judged financially unviable. The school closed and the Woorndoo kids started bussing to Lake Bolac or Mortlake. I was sad that my own kids just missed the opportunity to experience schooling in this unique setting.

I still love teaching but it's much harder work than it was then. The simple 5 columns of accounting have been replaced by thousands of order books and audited receipts in triplicate. The curriculum has become jammed with everything that every organization in the country thinks children should know. There are rules about rules and protocols and meetings to discuss the protocols, and acronyms - oh, the acronyms! Good manners definitely aren't as prolific as they used to be. Despite 30 years of experience and a Masters of Education under my belt, parents are less trusting of my ability to know best about the educational needs of their children. Unlike the village raising approach at Woorndoo, sometimes it feels like we are on opposing sides of a tug of war.

And we aren't allowed to climb trees anymore :-(

With apologies to anyone I've forgotten or mistaken for a different sibling!

Please pack your hat!

Fourth term starts tomorrow and with it, compulsory hat wearing at school.

I've heard every excuse known to man for not wearing a hat. It's too hard to bowl with the hat on, I have naturally brown skin, the dog ate it, someone stole it, Mum forgot to put it in my bag, it will ruin my hair! I've had kids who will sit in the sun with their hats in their lap, put the hat on when the yard duty teacher walks by and then take it off again. I even had one mother tell me her doctor said her child should leave her hat off because it makes her head itchy. Let me tell you, if the kid gets melanoma the itching won't be a problem any more :-(

After so many years of Slip, Slop, Slap education the ignorance about sun exposure totally bewilders me. Today the temperature was unusually high for October but later in the week it may only be 15 and it might rain so I'll have kids telling me the hats aren't necessary. Rubbish! Sun damage is linked to UV exposure, not temperature and not wind. The UV will be high tomorrow and it will stay that way until at least April next year. After 10am in the morning you need to be wearing a hat. Every day. Even if it's cold and over cast.
If you need a reminder, there are great apps that will tell you whenever the UV goes over 4.

I first met melanoma when my mother contracted it. Mum was an active, vibrant woman, universally loved. She played tennis and golf (quite badly but enthusiastically) and she was devoted to me and to her new grand daughter, Jaime.

There was no visible change in any of Mum's freckles or moles, just a tiny lump under the skin on the back of her neck but by the time they biopsied that lump and provided a diagnosis the melanoma had metastasized to every part of her body. In her initial surgery they removed 94 separate surface lumps requiring 357 staples. The internal lumps were hit with radiation. Every inch of her skin and behind her eyes was searched for the offending mole with no success. Later, after traction to relieve a pain in her neck (believed to be caused by arthritis) had failed, a scan revealed that she had a primary tumour in her spinal cord. Not all melanomas are visible. Removal of that tumour caused paralysis in one arm and required her to wear a neck brace to hold her head up. No more golf or tennis, no more carrying Jaime. Metastatic melanoma is a death sentence and we were told she would likely be dead within weeks or months. Mum was 'lucky' enough to gain a place on a new Inteferon drug trial. 3 times a week I or a nursing friend would inject her with a drug that caused her to vomit, to shake uncontrollably and made her itch so badly I had to wrap her in glad wrap at night time to stop her tearing her skin off. The drug boosted her immune system and slowed the growth of the tumors. More importantly to Mum, it gave her an extra 18 months with Jaime and provided research data to help in the fight against melanoma for future sufferers. When the trial finished so did the free access to the drug so I took out a personal loan to pay for the injections. Eventually though, the disease won. In late November a scan showed massive tumours in her brain and in the early hours of Christmas morning, the black scourge stole my mother from me. She was 56. She missed seeing that precious grand daughter grow up to have babies of her own. She missed meeting two of her grandchildren, and I still miss her, every, single day.

I had inherited enough of Mum's colouring to know that I was at high risk of the disease myself but unfortunately it was a bit late for caution. The skin damage that causes melanoma begins in childhood and I lived mine in the coconut oil drenched 60s and 70s. I had literally baked myself on enough occasions to know that my fate was sealed. So despite slip, slop, slapping through the 80s and 90s and having numerous surgeries to remove less dangerous skin cancers it was no surprise when I had my first melanoma removed a couple of years ago. I was lucky that this one was a) visible and b) in the early stages. If I'm really lucky no renegade cells found their way into my bloodstream before it was removed. If they did, then sometime in the near or later future it will appear somewhere else in my body, most likely my brain or my liver. It's likely I won't know about that until it's too late. I get my skin checked every 6 months and anything odd is biopsied in between but I live in constant fear that every headache or nagging pain is a sign of my worst nightmare. Every time I suffer from vertigo or nausea, I'm rushed into an MRI- just to check.

In between Mum's illness and mine I have lost friends to melanoma and I know countless other families who have lost children and brothers and sisters and parents. Scarily, many of these people have been much younger than me. Melanoma is the most common cancer in 15 -39 year olds and it kills more 20 - 34 yr olds than ANY OTHER CANCER and yet still our young people risk their lives for the sake of a tan and their parents allow it. My Facebook feed is full of teenagers posing in bikinis with comments like 'great tan babe'. Just last week someone even told me their child had a 'genuine Noosa tan', as if it was something to be proud of!

Genuine Warrnambool tan. Not worth dying for.

If you're lucky enough to avoid a deadly melanoma then you might just get a basal cell carcinoma. That's less likely to kill you and they can cut them off fairly easily these days. I've had lots of bccs and I'm lucky that my dermatologist is also a great plastic surgeon and does very neat stitches. Once though, I sat in the waiting room and watched a woman lose her entire nose over the course of an afternoon. Because that's how facial surgery for skin cancer works. They take you into theatre and slice a bit off and send it to pathology. While that happens you sit, (with all the other poor suckers) in the waiting room with dressings and tape holding your face together till you get the all clear and go back in to get stitched up. If the pathology doesn't show clear margins then they take you back to the table and slice some more off and so on until it is clear. The fear in that room while we waited to see who got the call back was palpable.

So, to all the parents reading this blog, I hope you understand that the only reason I ask your children to put their hats on is because I care about them. I don't want them to become skin cancer statistics and until the time they are mature enough to make their own smart choices you and I have to make them for them. I also hope you understand why I feel so angry with you when you don't support the hat rule or when you turn up at a school event without a hat yourself. We need adults to role model safe sun behaviour. You wouldn't put your child in a car without a seatbelt - don't send them outside without a hat. I make no apologies to all the kids I will cajole, plead with, yell at and send inside because they aren't wearing a hat this term - I hope you live long and scar free lives because of my 'meanness'.

When I see kids actively sun baking, I feel sick. When parents tell me there's nothing wrong with a 'healthy tan' or their kids turn up at school with bright, red sunburn and peeling noses I have to bite my tongue not to accuse them of child abuse. The sun kills people and to ignore that message is disrespectful to me and my mum, to my friends Wendy and Jenny, to Nigel's brother, to Jim Stynes and the thousands of other people who have lost their lives and their loved ones to this vicious disease. Worse still, it is inviting disfigurement and risking the lives of our precious children.

When you pack the lunch boxes into the school bags this week, please make sure the hat and sunscreen are in there too.

Ode to the graduate.

We went to Sophie's graduation last Saturday to witness her receive her Bachelor of Arts (Media Communication) Degree. I'm pretty sure it won't be the last time we see her don an academic gown, in fact she's already enrolled to go back to Uni next year but it's her first university degree and therefore the culmination of her childhood education and a good time to reflect on that journey and give thanks to the people who helped her along the way.

Sophie was blessed and burdened by being a 'faculty kid'. She started Prep the same day that her sister started Yr 7 and I started teaching at Mortlake College. By the time she was in Year 5, her step father had joined the staff as well and for 3 years she spent more than half of each day being taught by one of us. When your parents are teachers at your school there's nowhere to hide. If you stuff up then they hear about it pretty quickly! On the other hand, there's always someone to cheer for you at the sports, to watch you in the school play and get you some lunch when you leave yours at home.

When Soph made the state netball team, we toyed with the idea of her going away to school for awhile. We had some pretty lucrative offers from independent schools in the city looking to add her success to their honour boards and since we were traveling over 500kms a week for training it seemed like a possible solution. In the end though we knew that no school could offer the same, individualised program that ours could and above all, we valued having her at home with us more than anything else. Kids are grown and gone so quickly and you never get back that precious time with them once they're grown so we kept her with us. As a result, she combined the training and travel with her study, right through to the end of year 12. I'll always be grateful we made that decision because the conversations we had during that stressful, teenage time helped to forge the bond we have now. We spent a lot of time discussing novels and practising formulae in the car so it was also kind of an enforced study space and I guess her 96+ ENTER score was proof that multi tasking in year 12 is not only possible but also a good way to keep yourself organised and focused.

After a gap year to help earn her own way, Sophie eased into independence at Melbourne Uni by spending two years on res at St Hildas (giving her the boarding school experience we'd denied her earlier ;-) and then jumped headlong into life by taking an exchange semester to UT in Austin, TX. What a great learning experience for her and a fabulous excuse for us to go and visit.

And now she's a fully fledged Media Communicator working in the industry as an Events Assistant and looking forward to adding a teaching degree next year. While I'm not entirely sure about her entering the 'family business', I know she'll be a great teacher and I'm glad she's discovered that the glitz of the media world is nothing compared to chance to enrich the future of generations to come.


Graduations are pretty boring occasions. You pay a fortune to hire the regalia, then you sit through name after name, pretending polite applause until your hands go red, waiting for your own graduand to have their 30 secs of spotlight. I wish I'd been rude enough to have my phone out though because both the guest speaker and the valedictorian made some excellent points. If I'd had my phone out I would have recorded them or at least made notes but I was trying to be technologically pc and 'live in the moment'. Consequently I can't remember the exact words but the valedictorian spoke about the worth of the Arts degrees that Saturday's group were receiving. She said that an Arts degree is an investment in learning about yourself and your place in the world and indeed, about the world itself. It's about learning to appreciate and discover things about the world and how the people who inhabit it connect with each other and their environment. We've made plenty of the 'fries with that' jokes about Sophie's Arts degree but the truth is that she hasn't been unemployed at anytime since she left school. That's because she has a great work ethic (and stingy parents who insisted that if she wanted to travel the world as a student then she'd have to pay for it herself!). It's also because she does have a desire to learn about herself and how she connects with the rest of the world and I think the future of the world depends on more people knowing that.

So well done to Soph and on her behalf, thank you to all the teachers who have inspired, motivated, goaded, annoyed and at times, bored her into reaching this academic milestone. Her sister who taught her to read before she went to school, her kinder teacher Andrea who nurtured Sophie's problem solving ability by letting her play endlessly with jigsaws when everyone else was at the play doh. All her teachers at Mortlake College but especially; Mrs Goddard, who in Prep let Sophie sort her earring collection and chased her down the corridor when she was screaming to stay with me. Kerry Talbot who taught her to have fun and write naughty poems, Kath who taught her to sing despite her genetic disability with pitch. Lyle, who allowed her to try on so many different characters, Jackie who instilled an understanding of kitchen clean up and taught her to make great coffee and muffins thereby ensuring she would always be valued in the hospitality industry. Geoff who taught her that girls can be good at Maths, Earl Carter who polished her manners and encouraged her to respect herself and reach for the stars and Jane Boyle who role modeled female leadership at it's best. Thank you to her friends from school and netball and university and Texas and the workplace.

Every one of you has added something to the sum of the whole.

Mr Miracle turns 10

There's been lots of press lately about older mothers, most of it negative.

I'm certainly not refuting any of the scientific evidence. I know that fertility declines sharply after 30 and even more sharply after 40. I know that the odds of chromosomal problems increase with maternal age and that the chances of miscarriage and gestational diabetes are higher. I know that even with IVF it is very difficult to safely deliver a healthy baby after 45. And yet, that's exactly what I did and the resulting little miracle turned ten today.

I had my first baby at 26 - conception, pregnancy and birth, all to plan. Then followed several miscarriages, including two ectopics. That my body managed to gestate my second daughter seven years later was, in itself a miracle.

And then life, as it does, took another unexpected twist. Divorced and remarried to a (much) younger man with no biological children of his own, it occurred to me that if possible, he too should experience the wonder of pregnancy and childbirth. We didn't seek any assistance with conception but nor did we do anything to prevent it. It was a pie in the sky, fairytale sort of maybe but not likely thing, like when you imagine how you'll spend the Tattslotto winnings. I spent 3 weeks of every month in fairytale mode and then one week in resigned acceptance of the inevitable failure of my ludicrous plan. Then I actually got pregnant and had a couple of early losses and began to wonder if maybe the misery of miscarriage would overwhelm the pipe dream. I decided that my 45th birthday would be a defining moment and that after that I would look at some permanent contraception, but the birthday came and went and I was busy and didn't get around to making a doctor's appointment......

I didn't feel any different being pregnant at 45 than I had at 25. Apart from an early CVS to check for chromosomal issues, I had no extra attention because of my 'elderly' mother status. The pregnancy was textbook. Blood pressure normal, sugar normal, no morning sickness, no fluid retention. I was at work the day before he was born and and at 9.20 am on his due date, with no medical intervention, almost exactly one month before my 46th birthday, our beautiful boy was born.

I've read lots of comments on other blogs from women who say they couldn't imagine having the energy at 45 for a small child but honestly, I don't think I was any more tired than I had been with the girls. In fact because Taine had an enthusiastic and energetic new father and two much older and besotted big sisters, I probably had more rest than I had with either of them.

I've also read lots of comments lately about the selfishness of having a child whose mother will be an old age pensioner at his 21st. I do have moments of sadness when I do the sums that tell me I'm unlikely to spend a lot of time with Taine's children but despite having me in their mid 20s, both my parents were dead before I was 30 so I'm hopeful that he and I will get at least that much time together. If not, then there's the aforementioned big sisters and younger husband to maintain family continuity and in the meantime I make a big effort to record all our memories together. I also take exception to the assumption that I'll be in my dotage at 67. I may be too busy swanning around the world to organise a great 21st bash but I certainly won't be doddery!

My advancing age doesn't seem to have put too big a brake on our adventures so far. I may be a bit older than other mums but I'm not totally decrepit! We've ridden Dumbo at Disneyland and cycled the Washington Mall together. We walked the length of the Highline in New York and last week we snorkeled on the Great Barrier Reef. Admittedly, I'm not that keen on getting up for junior footy early on Saturday mornings and I'm a bit over parent teacher interviews but every age-stage of a child is so wonderful and I've been able to enjoy my hands on parenting of these stages for much longer than most people. I feel very blessed that Santa has had a reason to visit our house for 30 continuous years.

So while it's optimal to conceive before you're 35, I believe it's more important to be a great parent and to have babies when the time is right, whether you're 18 or 50. And if you're an elderly, want to be mum, then don't give up hope. Even against the odds, it is possible. And so very worth it :-)

If you can't be nice..........

It's taken me awhile to get back to my blog. I've got lots of drafts saved but, you know how it is, I've been busy.

But today one of the kids at school was bullied and it made me so angry, mystified, frustrated, saddened, bewildered that I had to write.....something.

Kids sometimes get bullied at school so this incident wasn't all that unusual. Some schools will tell you they don't have a bullying issue but they're lying. I think bullying behaviour on some level is a part of everyone's learning curve and a lot of my day is spent following up the real, the perceived and the imagined hurts that kids inflict on each other. Usually it works out well and everyone learns from their mistakes and kids become better at being kind to each other as they grow up.

Today's issue though was with big kids, mean girls who should know better. It was a cyber incident, an online, nasty comment. Not defamatory or illegal, just mean. Mean enough that 4 different people sent me a screen shot of it (This is a good thing because it means other kids are looking out for each other and for someone to 'fix' this sort of behaviour). Online bullying is hard to follow up because of the fine line that exists about what is and isn't school business. Nevertheless, I will follow this one up and likely I'll be accused of not minding my own business etc etc etc. No mind, I'm a big girl and I get paid to make sure everyone feels safe in my school.

However, what really led to my overwhelming frustration was that when I got home I read several different versions of this post  about a political party menu with a totally disrespectful 'joke' about our Prime Minister. Every political affiliation and debate over misogyny aside, it's not ok to say this about another person. Worse still, while some of the comments on the sites that published this news were in agreement with me, many were not. "Just a joke', 'harden up', 'the Labor Party do it too', appeared frequently. You know what, it's not a joke to make derogatory comments about anyone's breasts. Payback doesn't make a wrong thing right. The office of Prime Minister is occupied by a person and all people deserve respect.

No wonder my mean girls thought it was ok to bully one of their own :-(