Turning 60 and loving it
Without Prejudice
I have had to stay in all week because of the weirdest hayfever I have ever had. As soon as I step outside the door, I am red eyed and itching, my nose fills and swells on the inside making me feel like I am underwater. My ears block and my throat is dry and scratchy. If I flle back inside, and shut all the windows and doors it stops. Great excuse for writing and having some time to reflect on turning 60 and a Milestone Birthday.
To get the business end of things out of the way, I am having a rioutous birthday tea with just my girls and their kids and hopefully my Great Grandson, Andrej. That child is a delight! I am then surrounded by people I love and trust with my life. My most precious thing in the world, my family and friends. People that know me very well and continue to love me, even so.
So in my reflection I thought I would take a moment and tell you the things I am grateful for. Well of course, my family come number one and I guess they always have. I've raised or helped raise a lot of them. I'm a labrador dog, or a German Sheperd type of parent. I will watch them and herd them up and give them a smack, verbally, if they need it.
They do exactly the same to me. I have girls so close in age to me it's hard not to think of them as children. They are so elegant and wise and funny and beautiful. All out of the same factory and all so very different. But I am so proud of them and what they have been through I want to cry. They alone know what sadness we go through at times and pride in the things we do, for her, for their baby Sister and my daughter, Lauren Jade Hancock.
I'm not going to talk about her here as I will just cry and I have heaps of work to do. I try as Steven King says to write ten thousnad words a day. And though I follow all his rules from "On Writing" I figure he's a man. A woman can not just sit and write without doing other things. Writing is my second job my first job is was and always will be Mother.
Mother unlike Daddy who actually gets time to himself, is the person that opens the door for the cat that beats himself against it till heard. Who opens up the doors and lets the fat cat into the main house, so he will leave me alone. Who silently does a head count in each room to see which of the 7 males are "on board". Then I leave the house and go back to my unit. About 15 feet from the brick house, and trust me I don't hear a thing from the house. The car alarm, my car alarm, was going off at 2.30am and Yvette had to come and pound on my door till I woke up.
The unit is mine for life and I make it so beautiful. Deans' Auntie has one now after I grabbed one and she loves it. She has breast cancer, poor baby, and she can escape to her own lovely space to rest and reflect in quiet. Isn't that fantastic?
Hers has sun sails on the outside and puts me to shame for my outside but I figure I get a lot more interruptions. Usually the next tring to get in is a child, usually Cruz who at 2 is a bubbling ball of love energy. I can't resist him so I open the door, get a cuddle and kiss, a grin and a leap to the couch.
Then he wants to play and he knows his time is limited if I am working. So he points to things and says Wow a lot, and then looks for a snack, apples mostly, then I persuade him to take some apple to Acer, his 4 year old brother and he's off. God, I love him. Then I will get a child wanting a lift to School as Mum is "busy" .
I help out in that way, Yvette sure doesn't rely on me to do her work, but she's a single Mum of 7 boys, the exes are "Idiots" and both locked away at her Majesties Leisure and if Yvette had her way they would be there for ever. "Dead Beat Dads" is one of the kinder terms she uses. She says she didn't have 7 kids to raise them on her own and will use this complaint to her boys to keep them in line. She piles on the guilt as she figures they are all males and need to know Women are much better people.
Therefore she ould be treated with RESPECT. They are scared stiff of her, all 6 stone of her. Yvette is an interesting girl, she is the 2nd born, a major Rebel, she always has been and yet she Mothers with a tender compassion that takes my breath away. She knows she is no academic, she knows she is bad temepered and edgy, like a highly strung wire. She knows she is a pessimist and was supposedly jealous of her older sister.
She knows she gets a mild form of Bi Polar at times, is an insomniac and has battled Anorexia and triumphed over it. But she is one of the most amazing Mothers I have ever met. All of her boys without exception are polite, well mannered, caring almost shy boys. They are all a credit to her Mothering. Tall, good looking and intelligent. She has no idea where the intelligence comes from, it always shocks the hell out of her.
Believe it or not, 3 of her boys are Maths Champions, top of their class type champions. One is an army cadet and has just been made Cadet from recruit. He loves the Cadets with a passion and wants to join the Army when he is old enough. All of the older ones have been working part time for their other Nana since they were 12 and the oldest has been working since 10. He left school early as he wanted money, cars, a good life, the best of everything.
He now has a son, that is like the second coming of Christ and he's a stunning child. A great lady like Serbian Mother , who is tough and loving, so very loving to Andrej. He chose the right girl to have a child with, Mladenka is a stunning woman. And an exceptional Mother. Beutifully mannered and cultured, Andrej will never have the life his Father had.
Yvette always feels bad for being a Single Mum on a pension, but she wanted kids, 7 of, always, and expected the Fathers to be working, like her Dad did. Working hard for his Family. But she chose to "Boys" who have never grown up. Mention the word work and they run. So her sons now ork and pay taxes and that's her way of paying back any debt she feels she owes to Society for supporting her. She has given back to Society her sons, well parented and to do that she had to be at home.
The hideous creatures over our back fence have a working single Mum. This had a big impact on Yvette to stay home.She sees it as a JOB, her JOB, and don't ever get in her way re that. She will fight to the death defending that her staying home has made her boys who they are. She's worked as well and she loved it but she likes being a Mother at home.
Deb is the hardest working Mother in the outside world. She juggles job, two girls and a recalcitrant husband. Two dogs, ballet concerts and lessons, taxi for a gorgeous super model teen girl, fees for Ballet School for an extremely talented Dancer, Georgia. Georgia lives to dance at 12. She's tall like her Mum and willowy, eats the right food, exercises constantly. She is so in love with it that she twirls into a room, arcs her foot over her head and goes down into splits.
Georgia IS the dance, when she dances she is transported to another world, a world that lights up her face. In a line up all you see is Georgia's dazzling grin. She is incandescent in the dance and you know she is "good". She has the "bones" of a dancer. It's her muse for the moment as she is only 12, things can change but I hope it doesn't.
I could go on and on about my Grand kids as I guess most women can, I am blessed to have so many to love. And I wonder if the reaching of this milestone birthday has been a year in the making. It's over a year since I came back from Camp Eden. They made me set goals that I didn't think I could reach and followed me up on them. And I achieved them all within a year.
The 60th birthday, an anchoring point in m y life. The age old questions to be asked, where am I in life ? What have I done. ? What am I proud of? Who matters to me and who doesn't and needs to be eliminated ? Who is weighing me down and who is lifting me up ????
To be continued...............
I have had to stay in all week because of the weirdest hayfever I have ever had. As soon as I step outside the door, I am red eyed and itching, my nose fills and swells on the inside making me feel like I am underwater. My ears block and my throat is dry and scratchy. If I flle back inside, and shut all the windows and doors it stops. Great excuse for writing and having some time to reflect on turning 60 and a Milestone Birthday.
To get the business end of things out of the way, I am having a rioutous birthday tea with just my girls and their kids and hopefully my Great Grandson, Andrej. That child is a delight! I am then surrounded by people I love and trust with my life. My most precious thing in the world, my family and friends. People that know me very well and continue to love me, even so.
So in my reflection I thought I would take a moment and tell you the things I am grateful for. Well of course, my family come number one and I guess they always have. I've raised or helped raise a lot of them. I'm a labrador dog, or a German Sheperd type of parent. I will watch them and herd them up and give them a smack, verbally, if they need it.
They do exactly the same to me. I have girls so close in age to me it's hard not to think of them as children. They are so elegant and wise and funny and beautiful. All out of the same factory and all so very different. But I am so proud of them and what they have been through I want to cry. They alone know what sadness we go through at times and pride in the things we do, for her, for their baby Sister and my daughter, Lauren Jade Hancock.
I'm not going to talk about her here as I will just cry and I have heaps of work to do. I try as Steven King says to write ten thousnad words a day. And though I follow all his rules from "On Writing" I figure he's a man. A woman can not just sit and write without doing other things. Writing is my second job my first job is was and always will be Mother.
Mother unlike Daddy who actually gets time to himself, is the person that opens the door for the cat that beats himself against it till heard. Who opens up the doors and lets the fat cat into the main house, so he will leave me alone. Who silently does a head count in each room to see which of the 7 males are "on board". Then I leave the house and go back to my unit. About 15 feet from the brick house, and trust me I don't hear a thing from the house. The car alarm, my car alarm, was going off at 2.30am and Yvette had to come and pound on my door till I woke up.
The unit is mine for life and I make it so beautiful. Deans' Auntie has one now after I grabbed one and she loves it. She has breast cancer, poor baby, and she can escape to her own lovely space to rest and reflect in quiet. Isn't that fantastic?
Hers has sun sails on the outside and puts me to shame for my outside but I figure I get a lot more interruptions. Usually the next tring to get in is a child, usually Cruz who at 2 is a bubbling ball of love energy. I can't resist him so I open the door, get a cuddle and kiss, a grin and a leap to the couch.
Then he wants to play and he knows his time is limited if I am working. So he points to things and says Wow a lot, and then looks for a snack, apples mostly, then I persuade him to take some apple to Acer, his 4 year old brother and he's off. God, I love him. Then I will get a child wanting a lift to School as Mum is "busy" .
I help out in that way, Yvette sure doesn't rely on me to do her work, but she's a single Mum of 7 boys, the exes are "Idiots" and both locked away at her Majesties Leisure and if Yvette had her way they would be there for ever. "Dead Beat Dads" is one of the kinder terms she uses. She says she didn't have 7 kids to raise them on her own and will use this complaint to her boys to keep them in line. She piles on the guilt as she figures they are all males and need to know Women are much better people.
Therefore she ould be treated with RESPECT. They are scared stiff of her, all 6 stone of her. Yvette is an interesting girl, she is the 2nd born, a major Rebel, she always has been and yet she Mothers with a tender compassion that takes my breath away. She knows she is no academic, she knows she is bad temepered and edgy, like a highly strung wire. She knows she is a pessimist and was supposedly jealous of her older sister.
She knows she gets a mild form of Bi Polar at times, is an insomniac and has battled Anorexia and triumphed over it. But she is one of the most amazing Mothers I have ever met. All of her boys without exception are polite, well mannered, caring almost shy boys. They are all a credit to her Mothering. Tall, good looking and intelligent. She has no idea where the intelligence comes from, it always shocks the hell out of her.
Believe it or not, 3 of her boys are Maths Champions, top of their class type champions. One is an army cadet and has just been made Cadet from recruit. He loves the Cadets with a passion and wants to join the Army when he is old enough. All of the older ones have been working part time for their other Nana since they were 12 and the oldest has been working since 10. He left school early as he wanted money, cars, a good life, the best of everything.
He now has a son, that is like the second coming of Christ and he's a stunning child. A great lady like Serbian Mother , who is tough and loving, so very loving to Andrej. He chose the right girl to have a child with, Mladenka is a stunning woman. And an exceptional Mother. Beutifully mannered and cultured, Andrej will never have the life his Father had.
Yvette always feels bad for being a Single Mum on a pension, but she wanted kids, 7 of, always, and expected the Fathers to be working, like her Dad did. Working hard for his Family. But she chose to "Boys" who have never grown up. Mention the word work and they run. So her sons now ork and pay taxes and that's her way of paying back any debt she feels she owes to Society for supporting her. She has given back to Society her sons, well parented and to do that she had to be at home.
The hideous creatures over our back fence have a working single Mum. This had a big impact on Yvette to stay home.She sees it as a JOB, her JOB, and don't ever get in her way re that. She will fight to the death defending that her staying home has made her boys who they are. She's worked as well and she loved it but she likes being a Mother at home.
Deb is the hardest working Mother in the outside world. She juggles job, two girls and a recalcitrant husband. Two dogs, ballet concerts and lessons, taxi for a gorgeous super model teen girl, fees for Ballet School for an extremely talented Dancer, Georgia. Georgia lives to dance at 12. She's tall like her Mum and willowy, eats the right food, exercises constantly. She is so in love with it that she twirls into a room, arcs her foot over her head and goes down into splits.
Georgia IS the dance, when she dances she is transported to another world, a world that lights up her face. In a line up all you see is Georgia's dazzling grin. She is incandescent in the dance and you know she is "good". She has the "bones" of a dancer. It's her muse for the moment as she is only 12, things can change but I hope it doesn't.
I could go on and on about my Grand kids as I guess most women can, I am blessed to have so many to love. And I wonder if the reaching of this milestone birthday has been a year in the making. It's over a year since I came back from Camp Eden. They made me set goals that I didn't think I could reach and followed me up on them. And I achieved them all within a year.
The 60th birthday, an anchoring point in m y life. The age old questions to be asked, where am I in life ? What have I done. ? What am I proud of? Who matters to me and who doesn't and needs to be eliminated ? Who is weighing me down and who is lifting me up ????
To be continued...............
