A Rare Saturday

It is a rare Saturday in Otaki that sees my three beautiful girls playing nicely together and my two sons engrossed in their own worlds.  My oldest son is obviously in a haka mood.  Various war cries replay through his head often, and the floor echoes with the bass thump of his heavy feet stomping out some action.  The girls are playing Bingo in the room – in Te Reo Māori.  Now that’s the vision at play for sure!  They use so much Te Reo when I remember not to beat them up about not using Te Reo!  My grandmother told her children, who are native speakers, that you should teach your children to speak Māori, so that you always have someone to laugh with. 

I have very happy memories of all my uncles and aunties laughing hilariously together with my Grandmother, all speaking Māori.  My mother never taught me, and I remember trying to have conversations with her, as an undergraduate student ‘new’ to te reo.  Lol, she looked at me with my grammatically correct sentences (they were back then), my non-rolling-off-the-tongue very enunciated words and probably wondered what the hell I was saying!  The fact that I had a very ‘eff’ sounding ‘wh’ for a pair of very Northern taringa would have been an onslaught and a half too.  The very beautiful and distinct Te Aupouri ‘hu-wah’akarongo versus my learnt ‘f’akarongo still makes me cringe and laugh when I think of my Mum.

The house is clean for once too, that is especially rare on a Saturday!  Usually we are out at some sport or another and cleaning has to wait till we get home, or Sunday, or whenever.  But today is rare and just peaceful.  It wont last but while it does, I will sit back and enjoy my picture perfect children and thank god for each of their gorgeous selves.

Christmas Joy?

Christmas has rolled around again and deliberations begin as I decide what the kids will do for Christmas, and where.  I initially thought that I would be gracious and let the kids spend Christmas with their father.  It makes sense.  Technically its ‘his turn’, they were with me last year and him the year before.  But in a real grown up tantrum moment I said stuff it, I want my kids for Christmas, you father of the children,  can go jump in a lake!  There was a sense of justice, a kind of rationalising going on inside my own head.  I have had the kids all year, done the hard work of raising them successfully (according to my own measures) and blinken heck, I think I get to reward myself on THE whanau day of the year surely, by sharing it with my special crew.

But there are other forces at play.  Dark stuff.  Lets face it, the ugly side of any break up is the inability to control the emotional torment and hell you insist on putting your ex through.  I have worked like a damn demon to recognise all the ‘triggers’, the physiological changes, the everything that goes into an all out torment and hell attack.  And I thought I had really gotten a good handle on it this year.  Queen of composure.  Not.  Even the best prepared defense is nothing when the underlying base is Scorpion, Māori and woman.  All my counselling flew out the window and a years worth of frustration at an ex who can fly around the world, take trips evey two weeks to Sydney, buy label shoes and gifts for his kids but who can’t organise time with his kids (yes, this is solely my perspective, he will have his own story) and has a million totally plausible excuses was too much.  Just too much, the taniwha was unleashed.  In a flash of complete brilliance I challenged him to come and get them – with a parenting  order or don’t come at all!  Huh!   I’m gunna have to dig out my counsellor’s card again.  Back to the ‘work it out’ drawing board.

Regression aside, Christmas really is such a special time, when whanau naturally want to be together.  But Christmas can be horribly lonely too, and I’ve obviously noticed it more since I have become a solo Mum.  I read once that our ontological vocation is to ‘be human’.   I get incredibly sad at the different ways that people, things, society etc. contribute to that notion of being.  You can feel such a sense of loneliness in some people, and a natural yearning towards healing this, which is inherent in the need to be human, yet never make a connection with that individual.  In our efforts to become something, we at times cease to be exactly what we need to be.  Human.  Woah, who pressed the contemplative, melancholy Sunday button in Otaki!!

So really, to be honest, part of the reason I kept my kids is because of the loneliness.  I couldn’t bear to be alone in a room full of people, even if they are whanau, without my kids.  and another reason, my special someone too will be at the other end of the country, as miserable as I am without him, and so that was part of the reason I reactively kept my kids this year.  I love them, and spending Christmas with them is always magic. But I do feel guilty that part of the decision to have them at Christmas is because I cant be with Mr New Guy.  What can I say, the woman in me is growing and nurturing a very special relationship with an awesome guy, and I love it when I have time to give to that.  Juggling this new relationship is not something I thought I would discuss through my blog but it adds another layer of complexity to raising a family on my own.  Because of course, the time I crave to spend developing my new relationship, which could have been over the Christmas/New Year Break , wont happen because I brilliantly decided to keep my kids to spite what I believe is an undeserving father.  Haha.  What is that saying about cutting off the nose to spite the face??  Me and my Scorpion, Māori, woman bloody waha.  As my grandmother would say - Kai tō!!

Geocaching madness

My sister recently put me onto this 'geocaching' game.  Its like a huge worldwide treasure hunt.  Members hide caches all over the world, upload the GPS co-ordinates to the web, you download them and you're away looking for the hidden treasure.  Its a bit techno, so it may not be for every whanau, you can get a geocaching application on your phone, and no matter where in the world you are, you can check if there is 'treasure' nearby.  I suppose you could print off the co-ordinates and navigate with a trusty compass and a good map but following a bleeping dot on a phone has much more visual, audio and techno appeal for today's generation of kids.  If you understand the bleeping dot that is.  More on that later.

My kids have already found many caches all over the North Shore, using their Aunty's iPhone (pooh) so they have the geocaching bug already.  Their mother's lack of a decent phone with adequate technical support has halted that bug for awhile.  Much to their disgust!  But my ANDROID phone is now geocaching compatible and I purposely saved the first whanau4life geocaching excursion for summer and my daughter's birthday.  She's the summer baby, she gets all the cool summer stuff.  We checked the website and Otaki has a few caches which was fantastic.  We picked the one along the Otaki riverbank.  I tell ya, its kind of cool to plan a treasure hunt, it has big kudos in my kids world and petrol and phone aside, is one of those relatively cheap whanau outings.  I was looking forward to it and the kids were pretty stoked too. 


OMG.  The bloody bleeping dot.  You know how you do geography at school and you study maps and keys?  The teacher tells you that blue is the universal symbol for water?  No brainer.  I did geography, relatively successfully I might add, and I had the map, the co-ordinates.  Geocaching?  I got this!!  I clicked the application on, got the co-ordinates and using the insipid techno voice of the GPS on my phone to navigate, we headed off. My son who had seen the map says "just go to the river Mum".  I'm like all anal and saying nooo....we have to follow the GPS. "Turn left".  Again he says, "just go to the river".  And again I persist with the insipid techno voice directions "turn right", and we get to - the river lol.  The ITV on the GPS says "2.5 kms" so we park up and start walking.  The Otaki river looks peaceful  on a beautiful summer's evening, we are all talking and chatting, laughing and watching the meandering river.  They have all learnt to swim in this river, I have many fond memories.  We check the map every now and then, it bleeps the closer you get to the treasure. "1.8km", the bleep is taking a longtime to bleep.  I kept seeing the blue ribbon on the map with a dot on the other side of it.  Suddenly the dot starts bleeping "You are here".  Here?!  I realise in horror thatMiss ITV is telling us we're here but the damn dot is bleeping over there somewhere.  I didn't make the connection until we were physically  right opposite the dot with the 'blue ribbon' of the Otaki River between us and the treasure, that we were on the wrong side of the river.  How do you tell a five year old you cant read a GPS map?  Or that you let some insipid techno voice override your common sense?  We've just walked 2.5kms and he just wants to get thedamn treasure!  I'm a Mum.  I winged it, bluffed my way out of it and said "who wants to throw stones in the river!!".

Now, if I had actually applied some logic, I would have realised that the GPS navigates, using the nearest roads to your destination, based on where you start from.  If I had actually read the map, the old fashioned way we were taught in geography, and applied my local knowledge of the Otaki area, I might have over-ridden the GPS directions and gone the right way!!  Lessons learned.  We trudged back to the carpark, laughing at being on the wrong side of the river (lots of nek minit jokes), and made plans to attack the 2.5km walk the next day.  As a consolation or a bonus I looked up another treasure and we found one down by the Waitohu reclamation ground, by the Otaki beach.  We headed over there, without Miss ITV thang's help and scrambled up the bank.  With the last of the summer light fading, my tired geocachers searched half-heartedly but the 5km walkbefore  had them beat.  They sat down dejectedly and failed to find the treasure.  My 5 year old declared he was tired and wanted to go home.  I was pretty gutted for them. 

We stopped to buy a birthday cake on the way home and my 8 year old says quietly "Mum, we suck at geocaching.".  We so do.  But we will head out again, and I will hopefully be more clued up and we will nail geocaching as a whanau.  Trials and tribulations, so they say.  Not everything is successful the first time around.  I might let them school me on what their Aunty did, and do a bit more research or at least reading of other's experiences and then we are going to dive straight back in that geocaching deep-end.  We have to, my sister is streaks ahead and "one, two three, four, I declare a geocaching war" has been set.  Geocaching game on.  The upside was the walk.  Otaki is so beautiful, the river so healing, and there is something about the sound of running water, on a still and glorious summer evening.  And my gorgeous children's laughter and chatter echoing across the land.  Memories are made of this. 

Selecting stones for throwing in the river, its the simple things for 5 year olds.

My keen, geocaching kids.  Smiling despite being on the wrong side of the river!

 

Birthday madness.

I love my kids' birthdays.  Yesterday we celebrated my youngest daughter's eighth birthday.  She woke up and I had already cooked her favourite pancake breakfast, her siblings were all seated at the table and we sang happy birthday, she opened her presents all carefully wrapped and it was a magical start to the day. :-).  Oh wait, no I must've read that magical start to an eight year old's birthday somewhere else!


Our birthday day started completely different.  My just turned eight year old daughter stumbled into my room just after 6am.  I blindly reached out to her for a cuddle, she had been banished to her bedroom at 6pm the night before for god knows what and I knew she needed the reconnecting hug.  I snuggled her into me and, still half asleep, sang happy birthday to her, morning breath and all!  Magical lol.  We let the moment last for a few milliseconds and then I told her to go wake the whanau up.  Regatta day in Porirua, and my crew of waka ama paddlers had to be breakfasted, changed, packed and ready to go in under an hour.  No small feat.  The eight year old ripped open presents on my bed, I plaited two sets of ponytails, bellowed at the older kids to pack the lunch I'd made the night before and fill the water bottles, washed and changed myself, thought about breakfast, flagged it and assumed everyone had eaten.  We left at 6.52am.  Only seven minutes late.


We reached the petrol station where the teams were meeting, I did a quick stocktake.  No one had had breakfast, my youngest son had no jacket and no shoes, the chilly bin for lunch looked strangely like a bright yellow PaknSave bag, and we had one water bottle - by default, it was leftover from the last outing.  Inwardly damning my lack of follow up before we left, I handed cash to my oldest son to go buy me a mocha from my favourite Streetwise coffee cart .  Caffeine.  When all else fails there is caffeine.  I went inside and stocked up on water, bought a raspberry lamington for Mr 5 for breakfast and handed more money to my oldest daughter to go buy me a mocha from my favourite Streetwise coffee cart. Duh.  Not a magical birthday start  at all!!  Saturday sports days that start at 6am will be the death of me.


The rest of the day was pretty damn good.  My paddlers did really well, enjoyed the day and got some fresh air and exercise.  I was caffeined up and enjoying the show from the side, and the five year old was ignoring all the requests not to throw stones, and was throwing stones.  We went shopping after waka ama (having made an executive decision to leave Miss 14 waving the starting flags for the races from the back of a boat in the middle of the Porirua Harbour lol) and treated the birthday girl to a birthday lunch - she chose Maccas, the 5 and 10 year old did too, I had sushi and the neverending pit of a stomach on my twelve year old son had Indian.  Nothing makes Mum's feel like they're getting something right than seeing them all happily eating.  I was exhausted though.  We made it as far as the QEII turnoff and I knew I needed to pullover.  We pulled over and the boys and I crashed in the car at the park while the girls wondered off and explored the beach.  I managed ten minutes of sleep before thoughts of water disasters, wondering children and loud family picnics woke me up.  We got home, tidied up, had leftover salad rolls for tea and then the long awaited geocaching session was on!  We geocached (see next post) and then on the way home the birthday girl got to choose her very own birthday cake from New World.  What can I say, that's how busy solo Mum's do it.

A song, a piece of cake and then one happy, exhausted eight year old crashed out on the couch.  Much love my beautiful Princess, may all your birthday wishes come true. 

Whanau4life: the next three years

So the election ran last night and the results are quite frankly mind-blowing.  No surprises really with National getting 48 percent of the party vote.  But the lack of strategic thinking from the Labour and Greens voters in Epsom allowing John Banks through was hard to stomach.  Peter Dunne!!  Winston!!  Aue.  Watching the party vote for Maori and Mana was also hard to watch.  What have we done?  It was humbling I'm sure for the Leaders of both Maori and Mana parties, and there will need to be some very serious thinking if we are to regroup, regather, and regain some real strength at the next elections.  I was pretty gutted at the lack of sentiment from Annette Sykes, in conceding the Waiariki seat to Te Ururoa (though the "sell-out" message I agreed with).  Equally though, Te Ururoa did not hold anything back in claiming his victory.  Basic tikanga missing from that equation I think, something that I thought I heard Pita hint at last night as the driver for the Maori Party going forward. 

I am seriously concerned for all my whanau for the next three years.  John Key outlined his priorities and we can expect some real hard hitting welfare reforms by Monday (thats is an exaggeration).  I just feel like weeping because to hear John Key and John Banks conceive of poverty and welfarism as a shameful blight on the Nations coffers and not as an impact on tamariki, pepi is heart breaking.  220,000 children living in poverty (fact) becomes 220,000 people on welfare (John Key turn around).  Reform welfare, solve poverty?  No John, no.  Our assets are a signature away from being sold (another exaggeration).  Choice, now I wont be able to afford the rates I currently pay for power AND the ability to have some say in that anyway will be stripped. And the discourse around cuts to the public sector, though tenth in the priority list, is something that will affect me too.  I have just spent three days in a planning meeting with State Sector Union reps from around New Zealand, and the reality of what we face as a Union whanau in the next three years was pretty palpable.  I will have to have the fortitude of an ox and its herd to get throught the cuts we know are coming, and the thousands of members it will affect.  Our strategies will be many, our hearts will be big, the mountain not completely unassailable I hope.  Policies derived from a National, United and ACT line-up for my whanau will only be bad news.
  
I didn't want to come on here and blabber on about politics, and the piece is written from my heart and not from any evidential or factual reading of anything, so if you wanted to pick at the facts I haven't got right well go on, make your day.  On a personal front, I have decided that I need to be a part of the Maori Party, not as a candidate (lol hell no!), but I need to find some way to contribute to growing the the strength I believe is still there.  I have chosen this party as best able to represent my whanau needs in the years to come.  Just know I feel incredibly sad today, and feeling much love for Aotearoa and our people.

*Once again, I wrote from the heart, didn't consult anybody and have no idea to the real truth of any fact that might be in this post. 

The Basics.

Waxing lyrical about all the big plans I have for my new-look whanau count for nothing if you don't get the basics right.  I know I have spoken of rules, and routines are almost as important. I have been pretty exhausted in the past few days so routines and home cooked dinners were out the window (thank goodness cereal is so nutritious and the kids love it!).  It doesn't take much for disorder to reign and chaos to take over.  I have a pretty stressful job and there is no time really to de-zone my work head and get into Mum-space.  I have to hit the ground running when I get home to maximise the 3-4 hours contact time with my kids at the end of a work day.  Ideally that is, but lately I have just been hitting the ground.

My kids are pretty normal kids, like most of the nations children.  Angelic, no-ears (or partially working ones), big-mouths, ego-centric pains in the butt, and their individual needs are paramount and demand my attention as soon as I get home.  I barely make it through the door - of the car that is, and my five year old launches himself at me like I have been away for months, the younger girls are all smiley faced and clutching for free hands to hold or checking for treats, the oldest boy complains I forgot something and the eldest bless her cotton-socks just rolls her "oh yay Mum's back haha not" eyes at me.  Kura pānui, homework books, new schoolground scrapes, lost property inventories, food shopping lists, personal shopping lists, staying at friends' houses requests, friends staying at our house requests, the always innovative new ways to get more money from me requests (x5)...all that plus so much more is shoved at me while I walk from the car to the house.  Once I'm in the house the "what's for dinner Mum" chorus begins.  I think the time between turning the car into the driveway and turning the car off is my new 'Mum time'.

But seriously, that routine business is Gold.  I need a Mum-planner from hell and whoever can nail that sh*t and bundle it into an app for Android phones (yes, Android, iPhone schmiPhone!!) will make mega-bucks.  I have read all the books, of course.  And I have tried all sorts of routines and strategies with varying success.  The sticker reward chart.  The umm.  Okay, I've only tried one.  But I did try that various ways!  Routines are more than just providing sanity for me, it gives kids structure, provides rules, is hopefully underpinned by whanau values, and teaches responsibility and consequences for actions and behaviours.  But it takes up soo much time.  Being a solo Mum and time do not exist on the same plane.

There is a sense of what everybody needs to do already - we all have jobs, and heavens I have enough kids for them to be able to share the workload.  And there is a routine of sorts - I yell till everything is done. And I do that consistently.  But I am woeful in handing out consequences when things are not done.  Bellowing at kids is not giving them consequences, and they soone enough learn to ignore that.  But routines are not just about working around the home.  There is the bath, book, karakia routine that I used religiously (pardon the pun) for the first year after the split.  It was something their father and I shared in our former lives, and something I clung to for the kids to provide consistency and a sense of stability in that first year as a new whanau.  It was a great way to reconnect with my kids at the end of each day, and I found I needed it as much as they did.  I could monitor and gauge emotions, check well-being at Kura, and listen to their little voices.  Strangely that has dropped off our daily routine, I guess the kids are stronger and more settled, and maybe I am too. 

These days I talk to my kids as much as I can, make mental notes about where I think they are on a scale of sad to happy, help with the big homework stuff and delegate the little things to the older kids.  I give heaps of kisses and cuddles, and try and laugh as much as I can with them.  The basics.  The housework stuff - thats a work in progress. 

Snap.

The full realisation of some dreams not reaching fruition the way I had imagined is starting to hit.  And for me it means  I have to be the ‘Māori Mum’.  You know, the tūturu, hoki ki te kāinga (as in tūrangawaeawae) kōrero Māori i ngā wā katoa Mum.  I have to be that Mum.  I have skated along on my urban Māori status for most of my life and left all responsibility for Māorifying my kids up to their Pāpā.  We shared the vision, I just hadn’t bothered taking an active part in fulfilling it.  I didn't need to, the ex was happy to, and I let him.

So I have quite frankly been a cabbage when it comes to passing on te reo Māori me ōna tikanga to my kids.  Of course that would assume I have it to pass on!  I mean I did te reo at varsity, started Ranginui’s (wonder who does that now?) “Intro to Māori Society” paper...twice.  Never finished it, I withdrew from the paper both times.  Bored me.  My thing was Māori Ed, still is.  But now that Mr Māori Studies has departed and left the raising of the children to me its well, like a blank canvas!  Not in terms of my kids mind you, in terms of my ownself.   I am going to have to be the passer-onner of the Māori stuff.  Where do you start with that?

I shouldn't be so flippant.  I do have a strong sense of my whakapapa, at least the Northern part of my whakapapa.   My grandmother was very Te Aupōuri and very Te Rārawa.  And my grandfather (whom I never knew) was very Ngāti Kahu.  I'm worried though that it is a superficial sense.  My lived reality was as a Māori urbanite, and, as it so often happened with urban Māori, my Nana’s homestead on Hunua Road,  Papakura became our ‘Marae’.  The whole urban thing I know is a valid form of expression of Māoritanga, and forms a solid part of my identity.  I’ll pass that onto my kids too.  And there is my Waikato side.  That is a journey I have long needed to undertake, and with some urgency now.  He piko he taniwha.

There is so much more.  I want the full picture for them, the 'Māori world view'.  I think the Kura they attend does a fabulous job of growing that.  My 7 year old daughter was at the beach with me the other day and we were getting pipis.  We weren’t having much luck and she suddenly remembers the karakia her kaiako had taught her class for Tangaroa.   Karakia mai, I said and she gave her karakia.  Of course not long after her karakia we hit a really good pipi bed and gathered enough for a kai, reinforcing her understanding of the importance of karakia.  The connections she made between karakia, the domain of Tangaroa,  gathering kai, and the ‘rightness’ of doing it in this way is just special.  That is Kaupapa Māori Education right there.

So some personal plans.  Definitely improve my reo, the kids are way past the Kohanga level of reo that I practise.  My understanding sits higher than that, but I lack the confidence to talk.  I am changing that!  No more Shane Jones kōrero under the influence of alcohol for me.  Gunna own it!  And the history and whakapapa?  Gunna own that too.  You heard it here first.  Or read.  So yep, my life becomes fuller and I grow my ideas all the time and my job description gets yet another layer.  Full-time Mum, full-time Analyst, full-time tradition establisher and now full-time Māori world view developer.  What?  Is that all you got universe? 

*You'll have to email me for translations of any Māori above, or Google it.  Love you Google :-)

It's moments like these...

Will turn this into a page sometime, somewhere!  All the moments that are simple and make life great :)

#1  Waiting for Miss seven to finish her karakia before getting pipis from Tangaroa.

The End of Year School Trip

One thing I have come to rely on quite heavily while raising my whanau on my own is the whole notion of Tuakana-teina (older - younger).  I learnt this term as a fresh-faced Uni student studying Māori Education and understand it to form quite an important part of the philosophy that underpins Kohanga and Kura.  It just seems both natural and logical that the older you get, the more is expected of you, especially in relation to younger siblings.  So yes, I rely heavily on my older kids to pull a fair bit of weight around the home.  

It is actually quite a beneficial relationship (should check that with the kids really shouldn't I) from my observations.  The youngest 'Princess' of the family naturally gravitates toward her big sister for cuddles, homework help, hair straightening, etc when her Mother is too busy.  And if she gets a growling from Mum, she will seek solace from her big sister too.  I feel totally ganged up on when the two of them shoot dagger eyes at me.  And of course my 5 year old baby boy turns to any of the other four for all of the above too (yes, even the hair straightening).  He never goes to the same sibling twice, he likes to share the love.  He does have a special relationship with his tough 10 year old sister.  Those two are tight.  I expect the older kids to help look after the younger kids.  Tuakana-teina really is a simple, built-in, enduring, ages-old whanau support system that I highly recommend.  And its free!

It does come with its problems though.  You can set the system up, borning the kids and all, and you can set it to run at given times, but you have to programme it with care.  See if you dont lay down the tikanga (rules) just right, you'll get dramas!  Tuakana-teina must be understood by all whanau members as a relationship that is intended to nurture and guide. Bahahahaha!  For the first five minutes maybe!!  My kids will turn on each other faster than a speeding bullet.  "Haere ki te mahi!" - "Nah! You aint the boss of me!".  Bloody hell.  That must be an eternal sibling statement that one!  The system is reliant on sound rationale and firm expectations.  And I suppose I really should articulate that to the kids.  And once I know what that looks like - I probably will!  But for now we're winging it and the Tuakana-teina system at the moment is nothing more than a reactive system, an emergency response system for when I literally have my hands full.  I am wanting to grow its functions but until I can spend time getting the underpinning processes and procedures sussed, it continues to be a last resort back-up.

And the point of all this waffle?  The kids are off on their end of year school trip and they're all pretty excited.  I was keen to join them and I had originally intended to go as Parent-help, but I have another commitment and so I am staying back now.  The dilemma?  Mr 5 - thats him in the profile pic.  I wont let him go on the trip.  He is the product of an over-worked guilty mother, and the potiki (youngest child) to boot.  If he wants something, and it will bring me peace, I am ashamed to say he gets it.  I have created a behavioural monster.  I thought I should let him go, and trust in the Tuakana-teina system to look out for him.  But that wouldn't be fair to his Tuakana or to my baby.  That is a huge responsibility for all four of my kids to watch the baby for 8 days.  And they need time to just be kids, chill and hang with their friends after a productive year at school.  I know there'll be teachers and other adults that would be able to help them etc.  But his delightful mannerisms - anger outbursts, giving the one-finger salute, and hurling missiles, which look so cute at home, and so wrong in public need constant management at the moment.  And he has a foul mouth - I swear its not from me (pardon the pun)!  The school trip is not the time or place to run the Tuakana-teina system.  It requires Mum.  

So, the kids will head south on their well-earned school trip and I will be home alone with a 5 year old who totally has my number - and who doesn't know yet that he is not going on the trip.  Pray for me.   

Tradition

Traipsed into Wellies on Saturday night to watch a few thousand dollars worth of Fireworks for the Guy Fawkes celebrations.  Significant for a few reasons.  The least or most (depending on your own outlook) was my birthday haha.  Happy birthday to me!  Driving and parking for me is pretty damn significant too.  But the main reason?  To start establishing some 'traditions'.  Birthdays, Christmas, School Holidays, traditions, memories.  Laying in more of our whanau foundations.  I want my kids to look back on their childhood and reminisce, just like I do now.  And I want them to continue the traditions, with their own whanau.  I am scared about making new traditions, because it means in some way that I must let go of others.  I find it incredibly sad to have to let go of the old, but am excited about exploring the new. 

Right, let's just get the driving issue dealt to.  I have been a Miss Daisy most of my life and have been pretty much driven everywhere.  Exit driver, enter Miss Daisy-Dangerous-Driver.  I am pretty much self-taught, with comments and training from whoever has dared to carpool with me lol.  There have been some near-misses on those crazy Wellington motorways with me behind the wheel!  Thanks to the carpoolers, I now know that my mirrors are functional (not just for make-up), you should look behind when reversing - or should at least look in the direction the car is going, flashing oil lamp lights are serious, and when the thingy goes past H, STOP the car (when the other thingy goes past E - FILL the car). And because of My Miss Daisy status, carparking for me has caused nothing but panic attacks.  Parallel parking and me will never be friends.  It is an evil, evil thing!!  I have a carpark in town so there it was.  On Saturday night I DROVE the kids myself and PARKED in the carpark.  Well, I did scour the carpark building for a totally vacant floor so that I could reverse in without taking out any other cars (getting some practise) and I got it in three little re-wriggle moves!  Yay me :).

And then we were off to the waterfront.  My kids don't have the street smarts I reckon I have (being raised in South Aucks).  So I was all cautious Mama and pointing out significant landmarks in case we got split up.  The lost kid contingency plan?  I would text them if I lost them and they would meet me at such and such a spot.  Brilliant!  Sorted.  Didn't even need it, my little pauas stayed close to me, barely ventured more than a metre from my side and were keen to voice "MUM!" at the top of their lungs if I moved from their line of sight haha.  Bumpkins all of them!!  Plus I held on to them the whole time anyway lol.  We had snacks, we had the coolest spot on the waterfront and the kids and I were ready.  The fireworks were pretty special :-).  I am all about building traditions right now, creating memories building and adding to our whanau foundations.  I believe we have got the first one underway.  Now, what will we do for Christmas? 

Political neutrality.

Had an interesting conversation in a meeting at work today.  Discussing issues around Union matters and the subject of political neutrality raises its head.  You'll probably guess, if you don't know me, that I am a very hardworking Public Servant.  No.  That is not a juxtaposition, the two terms should never be seperated.  I have been thinking about this subject since well, since I started working there.  Recently I have been tiptoeing around and maintaining a safe distance from 'political speak' and trying to be as neutral as possible.

Part of the reason I tiptoe is because I am petrified of losing my job - I have kids and my natural fear is that I wont be able to care for them.  But last night was different.  I was commenting on Facebook and had absolutely no problems owning my beliefs, and putting myself out there.  I was all for Pita Sharples, and Tariana Turia.  I wasn't on any national stage trumpeting the benefits of this, that and the other.  Not by a longshot, just chatting.  Nothing too public on Facebook (okay, that is a juxtaposition), and no big stakes in it but I was pretty passionate and vehement about my beliefs.  I know that is the point of being political, but you need to understand what a chicken shit I am.

When you start working as a Public Servant they drum that political neutrality into you.  And it freaked the bejeebers out of me.  As a naturally conservative and reserved person (don't laugh friends and whanau, the big mouth is a cover) political neutrality suited me fine!  But I think I have allowed myself to become politically invisible.  But throughout this year, little things have started stirring.  I have wanted to be more proactive as a Union rep at work,  I have wanted to stand for something, I have wanted my own platform, know who I am, know what I am.  I have spent years knowing who the ex was, knowing what he stood for and supporting that.  I forgot myself in the process. 

But I have started laying the foundations, and going with my gut!  I pursued and have taken up a National role with the Union.  I have wanted this.  I am doing this.  And I am remembering to trust my instincts.  You know, the one where youknow something just does not feel right.  At one time in my life I knew how to articulate that feeling.  But it wasn't based on an idea of who I was, it was based on learned responses from studies, lectures, media coverage, the ex, others.  Nothing wrong with reiterating what others say, especially when it resonates, right?  But, I have my own mind, I trust that I speak for my whanau, I know what I want for us.  That is my political voice. 

To be, or not to be...political.

I have been trying to keep my blog simple, and explore notions of whanau.  Whanau is where its at for me these days, out of necessity and because I want to build a formidable sense of it for my kids.  Not in the mafioso sense, in a values-based, strength-based, positive sense.  And today I built on more of that.  Found myself home early from work, which sadly is rare, and I only had one child, which is even rarer!  So there we were, the potiki and I, bonding over jet planes (orange for him, green for me); watching a bit of Ben 10; chatting about Kura and the roasting of marshmallows at the beach on his trip that day.  Its the simple things in life that matter when you're one on one with a five year old.  The others were all out at Touch training and Waka Ama training.  Sports and kids are like a no brainer right?  Discipline, responsibility, team work, fitness, fun, and (costs aside) relatively pain-free!  And I don't have to do anything.  Great stuff. 

But well, maybe I need to get writing about other stuff, get a bit more political.  You see I've latched onto another blog and I usually don't comment on them.  But I started commenting on this other blog and I bloody couldn't shut up!  I managed to contain myself - barely, and so now I think I need to extend my writing.  I have strong ideas about Māori Education, of course, that's my background.  And I have some unionist perspectives on stuff, which I'm keen to explore too.  And the political stuff is pretty hot right now.  So, maybe my first official outblog could cover some of that, or all of that!  Or alternatively, I could keep bombing other blog's!

Actually, I think the habit of writing has to gain momentum first.  Regular and often.  I love writing, that's not a problem.  Writing has always been a passion, and comes easy to me.  I love words.  I remember sitting on the Capital Connection one time trying to argue with an artist that the view of Raukawa Moana and Kapiti Island that day could be better described with my words than with her paints.  Threatening, dark, moody, anxious and foreboding versus shades of grey, and hues of purple, blue and tinges of black?  I think on some level we were 'speaking' the same thing, just through different mediums.  Time of course is an issue.  Cant blog about my whanau all the time, or it will take me away from them!  And I am healing through writing which of course was the covert reason for setting up the blog.  I took an emotional battering and thought I could blog about that for a wee while.  I am pleasantly surprised that I don't want to write as much about that as I thought.  It will rise up every now and then no doubt on my epic journey, but I think maybe I've made my way around a bend, and the road is getting easier.  

Like mother, like son?

My son made lunch for me yesterday.  Not a monumental act normally.  But he volunteered to make it.  Today he made breafast.  A full on, hot, cooked breakfast.  Again, not monumental, but totally unsolicited.  He asked if he could make a steamed pudding for dessert this evening.  The traditional burnt sugar type.  Lord help me the child is barely twelve.  Many amongst us would claim this is 'great'!  And I definitely dont disagree.  But I am raising a young man, and I am slightly worried.

I love that he loves to cook, and given the size and height he is currently, he will definitely need to learn how to cook to keep up with the monstrous appetite I am anticipating will hit at any moment now.  He is the most ordered of my children and prefers his life to be very structured.  He sticks close to those he knows and loves, especially me.  He is pretty reserved but does have a wicked sense of humour.  He is an excellent and very caring big brother to his little brother, the baby of our whanau.  And while he fights non-stop with his three sisters (which drives me nuts), nothing makes me smile more than to see him rolling on the ground laughing hysterically with them.  Most of the time I let him get on with his life, he's twelve!

But I have fears.  Some solo mums agonise (I googled) over the young men they are raising.  Appropriate role models, boy issues, sports stuff, man stuff, the inside scoop on the male gender stuff.  How would I know about that?!  I'm a 'dumb girl', as my son would say.  Sure, my son has great men around him.  Awesome teachers, an awesome big brother, awesome uncles.  Great men, great role models.  That is supposed to be enough, by all measures on Google and the two books I read on the topic.  And to be fair, my son still has his father, who he sees most school holidays for a week.  I cant tell his story here, but in brief my children have a great father that they love very much. 

One of the most persistent themes I have come across on my solo mum journey is the need for consistency and constancy (I know that's not a word) in his world.  If I want my son to be strong, then I have to model strong.  If I want him to be caring, then its me that has to model that.  I have to be the absolute epitome of everything that I want my son - and indeed all my children to become.  Am I scared?  Hell yes. Friggn petrified.   Am I capable of doing it.   Hell yes!  The rock.  That's me.  It has to be!  I know many solo women who have raised great men.  My sister.  My friends.  My aunties.  My personal role models.  My children's grandmother raised a great man too.  I hope I can do as good a job! 

Fake it till ya make it!

Blogging about blogging?  Not very original I know.  But I'm going to do it anyway.  You may recall back at this blog Here come the disclaimers! I wanted to build a series of blogs so that I could link them all yahda yahda.  Well this is the Amateur Blogger blog.


Did you notice that I have a link in here!  What about the share this with Facebook gadget?  I'm too cool :D.  Seriously though I Googled all of this info first 'how to do...' and after three or four weeks of adding HTML scripts that didn't work to various editing places on my blog, I went to the actual help options on Blogspot and it blinkn had 'click here' options for everything I wanted.  Doh.  Should've known that!  The point is, Blogspot appears to be a good place to randomly decide to create your own blog.  So far.


I'll explore more and get my blog on and the posts will get more sophisticated and flashed up - if I do say so myself!  And just because I want to maintain my whanau4life theme, I am going to grow a blogging whanau.  It wont happen overnight but, well don't wanna get fined by that shampoo company for stealing their mad lines now either!  But I expect it will happen.  Haha!    

House of cards

So holiday time has been and gone and we had a house full of kids on the not so sunny North Shore.  The humble deck of cards, believe it or not, actually featured prominently in most of our holidays.  There are card games for all age ranges in the house, and at two bucks a pop from the two-dollar shop, its a winner!!


My youngest son is currently 'King' of Fish, Memory and Snap.  He has all his older siblings and his older cousins to play with.  And occasionally I will go a round or two with him.  Its pretty special really, you get to see the older, eldest kids letting him win, allowing a little bit of cheating.  And then you get to see the older, youngest kids who play and wont let him get away with any cheating at all.  All in the name of fun but always the rules of life at play.


The older youngest kids are into Last Card, Speed and Donkey.  Man.  Some pretty vicious encounters ensue!!  Cousin vs cousin, sister vs sister, sister vs brother.  Tense times.  Every now and then I get down on the floor and challenge someone to a game of speed.  There is not much that seperates me and the kids anymore!  I used to adjust my speed to allow them to win, but they are at the outer edge of this age group so they're pretty damn skilled now.  Its just sheer luck if I win a game these days!  Awesome to see their competitive spirits.


Last card is such an eternal game and I like to play the kids at this too.  They keep inventing new rules.  I know what the ten, the ace, the five and the two mean, but the king, the jack and the three are millenium kid rules I think.  I never know what they mean!!  Never count me out though, I have some tricks still, and I do emerge the winner every now and then.  My sister out of necessity has invented 'silent' Donkey.  I dont know how its played but I like the sound of silence aspect!


The eldest kids are stepping up to the pre-Adults table and are currently being schooled in President, and Black Lady (B*tch when its all adults playing!), by their parents/aunties/uncles.  We have a beginner and mid-skilled teens and pre-teens.  They are surprisingly holding their own.  There is a degree of coaching there but its no holds barred in terms of tactics and strategy!  The winners and losers shift regularly so its pretty interesting.  I am looking forward to the big games (well big in our household).  Euchre and 500.  Maybe this Christmas they'll get their first lessons.  That's when the real card playing begins, and a whole 'nother level of whanau becomes theirs to experience.  Playing against the real old schools.  All their training leads to that. Haha, call me old skool but back in the day, that's what kept our whanau4life connections strong!!

Holiday Mayhem

How do you holiday when you’re a solo Mum of five?  With great bloody difficulty!  The logistics alone in terms of juggling 20 days of Annual Leave and 84+ school holiday days - mind boggling.  We are about to head off for another ‘holiday’.  That means we travel to the other end of the country where the kids get to spend time with whanau they love and adore and I get to work from conveniently located offices nearby.  Solo parenting is all about making the most of what you have!  The fact that we travel cross country gives the kids a sense of going away.  And they can ‘holiday’ while I work.  Working in a different part of the country helps me to see my job from a different perspective, and meet people in our organisation I might otherwise never meet.  It helps that they’re a great group of people too.  Win-win?  So far.

I try to make sure of course that I do spend actual time with the kids doing proper holiday stuff.  There is the obligatory shopping trip with the daughters, while the boys carry the bags.  You would think!  ALL five of my kids LOVE shopping.  And they all have million dollar shopping lists that are grossly mismatched to their mother’s something thousand dollar salary.  Shopping with sons vs. shopping with daughters?  I swear there’s a whole ‘nother outblog waiting to be explored there!  And we have developed a movie day/night.  Day for the young ones with their young cousins.  And night for the older kids.  And one other big outing.  All about mixing it up!

I get a bit stressed taking the kids to ‘holiday attractions’.  Everything is about ‘whanau/family’ in the holidays.  Family meal deals, family concession passes, family specials.  You can feel pretty self-conscious of your reality when you see families all around you.  It is hard.  And sad.  I know I feel the loss more than the kids and I try to wo-man up and be brave so my kids see strength.  And I mostly get away with it.  But there are signals, shifts, nuances and my kids know my sadness.  They have learnt from my reactions, their reality and experience and smile politely at the nice hospitable people who speak as if ‘Dad’ is a part of the equation. 

And speaking of Dad.  I have accepted that I cannot say how holidays should look for him and the kids.  I spent a fair few sets of holidays planning and booking time for the kids to be with the Dad.  Pick them up here, on this day, at this time.  Do this, do that, none of this, none of that. Threats.  Emotional blackmail.  Not my finest moments.  Caused me nothing but stress.  In retrospect, I realise how much of that was me trying to maintain control.  Now I let him know the holiday dates and if there is an offer from him to spend time with the kids, I pack their bags, take them to the pick up point and wave them goodbye.  And if there is no offer, no worries.  I live and learn.  That goes for his whanau too.  I put the offer out there and if they want to see the kids, that gets worked into holidays too.  I cant be evil and keep my kids from them.  Only in my alternate world lol. 

Holidays should be all about whanau.  And there is one special whanau that no matter what, no matter how late the planning, how last minute the phonecall will always put us up every holiday.  The pot is always on when we get there, the beds are always made, and it always feel like home.  I hope everybody has a whanau like that.  What would we do without the Widdicombe Whanau - whanau4life.

Here come the disclaimers!

I do plan to have this blog be about my whanau4life.  And I hope by now you get a sense that whanau in our world is bigger than just my kids and I.  There are so many things that interweave in our immediate lives, and things that happen on the periphery that affect us all the time.  If I really intend to be a shameless capitalist and make gazillions off this blog then I have to post about as many of these connections as possible.

The hub of this blog is my kids and I, you'll meet them soon.  We are the centre of the network.    And yes, if you’ve noticed my blog-speak, I have been googling ‘how to blog’ and apparently I can have more than one blog and it should stem from the hub.  Kind of like the spokes of a wheel on a bike (that is directly ripped off of someone elses blog, I may have to pay for that!).  There will be a blog at the end of each spoke, an outblog.  Thus forming my own network of blogs.  Perhaps one of these outblogs can narrate the journey I’ve taken.  Who knows.

Now for the disclaimers.  This blog wont be a man-hate-fest aimed at the ex.  That will be reserved for one of my R-18 outblogs!  You will most definitely have to subscribe to that one because it will be worth the money haha.  It wont be a soul–searching hunt for the real me either.  Though I believe that is bloggable, the truth is every post will reveal something about the real me.  And my language.  I can gangsta it up if I have to,  but in my (second year) seventh form history class, my teacher taught me to embrace my knowledge of the language and not be ashamed to use my big words.  What can I say, I read so much as a kid that I’m just an out-and-out nerd.  So take me, take my language.

The last disclaimer?  The rawness.  I cant or wont change the way I write.  It has to be real.  Its who I am.  I did worry about the level of pain that my kids could read about, but they know I hide nothing from them.  They have seen me at my lowest and cried too.  But they wont let me stay there.  Nothing gets me out of a sook session faster than their need for me to get over myself and cook/clean/pay/play/drive...live.  They're quite simply the best kids - I cant wait to introduce them to you!

This blog will be about the things I have learnt, the fears I have faced and conquered, and the joys of being a mum, a solo mum.  Awww, cant get better than that!  It took me ages to accept that label.  Solo mum.  And I know my story isn’t unique, how many of us know a woman currently raising kids on her own?  I am not the first woman to do this, and sadly I wont be the last.  This blog is about acknowledging all the people I have met, and the people I will meet, who have helped shape my new life, my new look  whanau.  My strength is my whanau, whanau is my strength.  Ohh, maybe I can outblog about cheesy oneliners!

When the dust settled.

Chaos.  Five months in Christchurch, a beautiful city I have been told, but for me the City holds horrible and ugly secrets.  Lies.  Mess.  Pain.  Grief.  Chaos.  The end of 14 years, and the end of the whanau that I believed my kids would be a part of well, forever.  Thats what I wanted for them.  Thats what I couldn’t give them.  I was devastated.  We left Christchurch as fast as we could. 

We hit Otaki, where our whanau home is, in the middle of the night and I curled up on the floor and symbolically died.  The very next day without missing a beat my kids all returned to the kura that knew them as whanau and the kohanga that knew its moko, and they were welcomed and reabsorbed like they hadn’t been away for five months.  Not many people in New Zealand would proclaim this but the New Zealand education system saved our lives.  As a Māori Educationalist I may yet live to reflect on that statement many times over.  But at the time, I was grateful for education.  More precisely, Te Kura-a-Iwi o Whakatupuranga Rua Mano (WRM) and Turoa Kohanga Reo (TKR).  In simple terms WRM is a Composite School in NZ for ages 5-18 and TKR is an Early Childhood Centre for under 5’s.  Both WRM and TKR are underpinned by Maori Pedagogies and philosophies of which the notion of whanau is a central tenet.  The principal language of instruction is Te Reo Māori.

I trudged back and forth between Wellington and Otaki, an hour each way, to a job I loved (I may reflect on that later in life too)  and ultimately needed and, surprisingly, to a whanau that I never knew existed.  Wake.  Wellington.  Work.  Otaki.  Sleep.  That routine was to be the saviour of my sanity, for almost a year.  While I was on zombie survival mode, my work whanau looked out for me and the Kura and Kohanga nurtured and raised my kids, because I could not.  I am usually a very engaged parent and care much about the doings at Kura and Kohanga, especially when it relates to my kids.  I like to invest time into both Kura and Kohanga because I believe so strongly in the kaupapa (cause, philosophy) and the system works best when whanau give back in kind.  I was so emotionally messed up that I couldn’t give.    I feel pretty bad about not giving to them.  But there will be a right  time for me to give back to the Kura and the Kohanga.  I only hope it will be in a manner equal to that which we have received.

We found another special whanau to support us during that first tough year.  A strong woman and her beautiful children.  They were always there.  How many tears did she witness - mine, my childrens?  So many.  Each tear carried grief and pain, and healing too as they dried.  How could a woman who had so much of her own pain give so much to my children and I?  Open home, open heart.  She was meant to be in my life, I truely believe that.  And I am so very thankful for her friendship and support.  He wahine purotu, he wahine toa. 

I barely kept it together that year. I know I fed my kids.  Clothed them.  Laughed and cried with them. But I was grieving for the whanau I should have had.  Grieving because I felt like I had failed to provide that for my kids.  I was very numb and dazed.  How was I going to do this?  Why did I have to do this?  Many tormented hours wondering about what whanau meant.   Were we a whanau?  Of course we were.  A rejigged, reformed, redefined whanau.  I symbolically took back my life.

Whanau takes on a whole new meaning and so many different forms when you go through a break up.  When the dust settled, I was the head of a new whanau, and more importantly my kids and I had found a support network of new whanau.  Only they weren’t really new, they were always there.  Whanau at Kura.  Whanau at Kohanga.  Whanau at work. Whanau right next door.  And I haven’t forgotten the strengths of the women in my life who gave so much to me, in subtle ways and more direct ways.  My Wahine Toa Whanau.  My two beautiful sisters, my friend in Otaki, my empathetic 'see right through me' friend at work, my Varsity friends, and so many more.  He mihi.  Wonderful, powerful women who are indeed whanau.  All of these people, our  Whanau4life. 

Introducing...the chaos

In the beginning there was a girl.  And she met a guy.  They had five kids together.  He met another girl.  And left.  Then the chaos began.


Me
Five kids 
Raising five kids
Me Raising five kids
Me raising five kids alone!


Nothing prepares you for that moment, the moment when you fully realise that you have to raise five kids on your own.  And raising kids waits for nobody.  No time for an indulgent emotional recovery.  No paid time off work to cope with change.  Nope.  Nothing.  Just total chaos.


I have five kids for life.  I have a fulltime job, and I am all alone. 


Welcome to our life, whanau4life.