“A portrait of our children, once a week, every week, in 2013.”
Our children don’t play with toys. We’ve given up buying them these days.
They have an amazing ability to make their own fun out of the most mundane items.
I just wish: a) they weren’t so destructive and b) they would learn to pick up after themselves!
“A portrait of my children, once a week, every week, in 2013.”
It’s been a hard week. Cranky, teething, sick kids = a tired, cranky mum.
It has been one of those months.
The kids have barely slept. The most sleep I’ve managed in a row is two hours. In total about five hours of broken sleep a night.
The twins are teething and they’ve developed separation anxiety. J is suddenly scared of the dark. Did I mention that makes three whiny, whingey, crying children waking me up at night? And they’ve been doing a brilliant job of tag-teaming.
No wonder it has taken me almost a month to decide on a fabric colour for the dinette cushions in our Airstream. I can’t make a decision to save myself. I feel so cranky I just want to scream at the world, “why didn’t you warn me children are blood sucking leeches?”
To get through this, I’ve started taking more photos. I barely have time to reach for my camera these days, but I’m making a concerted effort to capture some of the fun moments to remind myself that: a) my kids aren’t always rabid and b) I don’t want to give them away.
I’m enjoying my friend’s reactions when I tell them we’re planning to live in a vintage Airstream and travel around Australia with our three little munchkins.
The best so far, “I think you’re bonkers jamming three kids and two adults into a confined space like that. Maybe you can be sponspored by Kambrook or some other pressure cooker manufacturer.”
I actually think by the time we hit the road it will be an opportunity to let off some steam.
Pressure cooker for me is having three babies in the space of three years (one in India and moving countries within weeks of giving birth), moving house three times in three years, three adorable babies who don’t sleep much, waking up everyday feeling it’s Groundhog Day, never seeing your partner because he works too much, and sharing a house with your mother who you haven’t lived with for 20 years…
I’m under no illusion that trailer living is all peachy and fun. My friend who made the seachange recently described the reality of dropping out from her city life:
“(G)etting on the road doesn’t mean getting away from the work that motherhood brings (in fact in our case, and I’m sure in yours at the start, it actually increased the work while we sorted our new life out and got into the swing of things), for me I think it heightens the experience, softens the grind, increases my patience, and lessens my anxieties. But whatever your circumstances, chores are chores, food still needs to be cooked and dishes washed, poo is poo is poo is poo and puke still stinks whether you are at home or on the road. I know you recognised that you simplified the issues – the work involved and the inevitable sacrifices that these sorts of freedoms demand – but for us it has all been absolutely worth it and only time will tell if this remains the case – and I desperately desperately desperately hope that your freedom – when it finally comes rolling off that boat – is too.”
One of our twins said his first word today “Mama.” My heart almost burst with happiness. Within half an hour he was saying “Mama, Papa, Mama, Papa.” But his Papa is away for work for the next two weeks and is missing out on this incredible milestone. He works hard and he pays the bills but he misses a lot of the magical moments.
I think too many people are on a similar treadmill, missing out on the precious first years of their children’s lives. And for what. A mortgage? A fancy car? Things?
Time to downsize and bring on the Airstream.
Moving definitely has a way of making you re-consider the value of your possessions.
We have just moved from a six bedroom rented mansion into a three bedroom shoebox with my mother and brother. That’s four adults and three kids squeezed into three little rooms, all in the name of saving for our Airstream Adventure (thanks for putting up with us Mum).
Five truckloads of boxes and furniture were dropped off as I juggled exhausted babies and tried not to hyperventilate.
Five. Truckloads. Most of which is still sitting on the verandah. There is no way even half of it will fit inside this little house.
Right now, I just would love to drop every unpacked box off a cliff. Where did all this junk come from? I feel overwhelmed and really pissed off that we, well mostly I, have managed to accumulate so many things.
We need to downsize dramatically. As I unpack, I’m trying to cull. In the back of my mind is the fact that in less than one year we will be living in a 28 foot Airstream and I won’t miss 99 per cent of all this stuff.
But the crazy thing is as soon as I open a box and see what’s inside, I think “I can’t possibly give that away.”
The road to reducing is proving to be a long one.
This is just one of five truckloads of our possessions and we don’t consider ourselves overly consumeristic.
Our two year old was distraught when she saw her empty room. This image really breaks my heart. How many of us unknowingly corrupt our children by giving them so many “things”?
