Nature Experiments

Littletree borrowed a book from the library this week called “101 Nature Experiments”. It’s pretty much what it says it is – step-by-step instructions on doing fun experiments that are somewhat educational.

She’s taken to reading upside-down lately

We’ve been having fun going through the book and doing the experiments, and incidentally, Littletree is learning a lot from it.

Littletree has also been reading a lot to her dolls, which is very cute.

And we’re learning about architecture and form with a boxful of carpentry off-cuts we got from a neighbour – Littletree has been working on building castles for the faeries, which is loads of fun, and it’s great to see how she works out the logistics of fitting all the different shapes together and balancing them. Unlike regular kids blocks, they’re cut unevenly and have odd shapes.

Meanwhile, Purple and I are still hard at work improving the garden, here’s me mowing the lawn with my machete. It’s effective, good exercise and uses no fossil fuels :)

 

Garden

We’ve been working on our garden a lot lately, Purple has been building retaining rock walls and reinforcing the beds, and I’m starting a new herb patch with valerian, motherwort, skullcap, plantain, pennyroyal, sage, chamomile and room for more.

The garden is quite long and narrow, we have cassava,

Chilli, aloe vera, comfrey (and potatoes under the matting)

Pineapple, cherry tomatoes, mint

The frame I built for the spinach to climb up on is made with only natural materials – bamboo poles and cat’s claw vines to hold it together.

Littletree has her own flower bed that she takes care of

And a strawberry patch!

Littletree got to eat the first one yesterday!

I’ve also planted a few trees – a blueberry bush, a japoticaba, a red raspberry bush, a lemon myrtle, and a lemon tree.

Homebirth; Australia Spits on Human Rights

I’ve spent most of the last week since we got home from camp dealing with a nasty cold – Littletree was feeling pretty sick and feverish on the day we came home from camp, and spent most of the next 3 days in bed with a yucky, wet cough. But we took good care of her, and she got better, only for me to catch the cold. I came down with a sore throat, and lost my voice completely, so I wasn’t really up to blogging.

Not to mention, I find the topic on my mind somewhat depressing. Most every other birth-blogger in Australia already said something about this, so I can probably leave it alone, but it is on my mind, even though I have a tendency to procrastinate on thinking about it.

Essentially, the federal government is proposing new laws that will essentially make independent homebirth midwives illegal, and put women’s birthing choices securely in the hands of the medical institution.

Bruse Teakle at The Maternity Coalition put out this press-release, which pretty much sums it up:

Doctors to gain veto powers over midwives and birth choices

Doctors to gain veto powers over midwives and birth choices

On 5 November the Government announced that the “Medicare for midwives” Bills would be amended to require midwives to have “collaborative arrangements” with “medical practitioners” before being eligible for professional indemnity insurance or Medicare rebates.

Doctors must approve each midwife’s entry to private practice:

- Midwives will be required by Commonwealth law to have “collaborative arrangements” with “one or more medical practitioners” before being eligible for Commonwealth-subsidised professional indemnity insurance (PII).

- PII will be a prerequisite for a midwife to enter private practice, under new national registration laws, being enacted state by state.

- Doctors will be able to unilaterally withdrawal from collaborative agreements with a midwife, rendering her uninsured, and legally unable to practice in a private professional capacity.

- This legally mandates medical control over midwives’ ability to register and work in private practice.

- This will be set in Commonwealth law, which can only be changed by Commonwealth Parliament.

- These provisions are contained in the Health Legislation Amendment (Midwives and Nurse Practitioners) Bill 2009.

- Medical practitioners will control the registration status of midwives, despite their being a discrete, separately regulated profession.

- Medical professional organisations could set guidelines for collaborative arrangements, potentially forming defacto regulatory standards for midwifery endorsement and practice.

This gives doctors right of veto over women’s choices in birth care.

(this is an abbreviated quote, the full synopsis can be read HERE)

It basically means that no one can be a midwife; midwives have to have an agreement with a practicing doctor and all clients and births will have to be approved by the doctor and there’s pretty much no reason or incentive for doctors to ever approve anyone for a home birth, even if we thought we needed doctors’ approval. It means that women will not have the right to choose a homebirth without the approval, sanction and control of a doctor – which is hardly a choice at all.

This basically contravenes one of our most basic human rights. I’ve pointed out before that one of the Rights of Women as set out by the UN is that women have the right to have control over, and decide freely and responsibly on all matters relating to their sexual and reproductive health.

Which means that it is a human right for women to be able to make their own choices about how, where and with whom they birth. The Australian government is blatantly spitting in the face of the rights of women!

Oh, that’s right. Australia doesn’t have a bill of rights in its constitution. Which explains how the Australian Medical Association can get away with lobbying parliament to secretly make and pass laws that deny Australian women their human right to have control over their own bodies and their own birthing. Not to mention holding refugee children in detention centres for months on end, or the shocking treatment of Australia’s native peoples. And don’t lets forget that the whole of Australia’s federation was essentially based on wanting to push the White Australia policy, which is the crux of our nation’s love for abusing human rights.

Heck, Australia isn’t even a true democracy; it’s one of only a handful of nations where voting is compulsory. How is it democratic if you can’t even choose not to vote? Easy – you don’t have to actually cast a vote, you just have to show up on polling day and register that you voted. A clever way of controlling and keeping tabs on the population, indeed.

So complaining about the the crime of refusing rights and controlling birthing women is petty when you think about it.

Do I sound angry? Funny about that.

Puzzle

Purple got the idea to do a big puzzle; something fun to do together that isn’t watching DVDs. We found some good ones at the store and set to work.

The first step is spilling out all the pieces…

Then sorting them in to colour groups and edge pieces.

Start to get the edge all together and begin filling in the details (note Purple wearing the very appropriate XKCD t-shirt I got him for his birthday)

We got all the picture done, and then set to doing the sky, which is the hardest, since all the bits are just plain blue.

Littletree really enjoyed the project – it’s the first time she’s done a puzzle that isn’t meant for little kids

The finished product!

This was only 500 pieces, but now we’ve done that, we’ve got a 1000-piece puzzle to work on :)

Lush Liberated Learning Camp

This week Littletree and I were away at the Liberated Learning Camp – there was about a dozen families and around 30 kids all camping at Thunderbird Park on Mt Tambourine in southern Queensland.

It was awesome to see everyone, many of the people I only know from the forum, so it was cool to meet them “IRL”. It was also really cool to see how a big bunch of unschooled kids interact together. Ages ranged from 12 months to 15 years, and all the kids were playing and getting on really well, running around, riding bikes, throwing frisbees, climbing trees, swimming in the pool and in the creek, fossicking for crystals...

We spend a lot of time hanging around the campsite, chatting while the kids played

Here’s Littletree having a snuggle with some friends

There were a bunch of activities, someone brought a parachute

And dress-ups

And facepaints

Valleysprite spent hours and hours painting all the kids faces

They played twister and some other board games

Evening storytime

 

After the kids were asleep, the grown-ups hung around the campfire chatting about unschooling, life, the universe and everything

There was horseriding that Littletree loved

And we went on a few excursions around, including going into a mine to dig for thundereggs, and we went on a bushwalk to Curtis Falls, and the kids went into a glow-worm cave (while the adults went tasting at a local winery), I taught some Capoeira, we saw possums, and heaps more!

We had such a fantastic time, and can’t wait to do it again next year. A big thanks to Valleysprite for organising it! 

Seaworld!

Yesterday we went to Seaworld to celebrate the birthday of Littletree’s friend, Anasho. I was pretty reluctant to go – it’s a really far drive, and really expensive to get in, and I dislike being in crowds and overtly commercial stuff… but Littletree wanted to go and after all, they have loads of interesting aquariums and stuff Littletree is interested in learning.

So we got up really early, and drove up to Queensland. We timed it well and arrived just when the gates opened, though it still meant standing in the line for the better part of half an hour. but by the time we were through the entrance, the line up to get in had snaked through most of the carpark, so it was lucky we were there early!

First up we went to see a show, which was cute.

Then we went on some rides. Most of the rides involved getting splashed, with Littletree didn’t like so much, but she still had fun. Then we went to play in the waterpark section and go on waterslides. Littletree chickened out on the waterslide, but she had a great time swimming in the kiddie pool.

We went into the aquarium section, the kids got to pat (de-barbed) stingrays

And starfish

We went into the underwater viewing area, which was Littletree’s favourite – she chose to go back in there later as well, while Anasho was riding on the big roller-coasters.

We had a look at the baby penguins

And the Polar Bears,

It seems somewhat cruel to keep polar bears in a tropical place where it’s incredibly hot. They seemed bored, this one (in the photo) was continuously swimming at the wall, doing a backflip and kicking off again. But Littletree was fascinated.

We rushed off to see the Dolphin show, which was pretty cool.

There was one guy who did a trick of standing on the heads of two dolphins, which would jump high in the air, do a flip, and the guy would do a flip off them as well. I didn’t manage to get a really good photo of that though.

But it was a very cool show

Littletree’s favourite ride was one of the kiddie rides in the Sesame Street section – it just went up and down, but she really liked it – I think she was still a bit small to appreciate the big rides, even though she was tall enough for most of them.

Finally, exhausted, we took the skylift back to the gate to go home.

Here’s our final view of the park from the skylift.

It was a fun day, but I was totally beat by the time we got home!

They’re Back… Trick or Treat!

Littletree and Purple arrived home this morning! I was really starting to miss my little girl.

I picked them up at the airport and we came home to unpack – they brought home heaps of stuff.

Then Purple passed out from jet lag, and Littletree and I played together. We made a cubby house for her dolls in the great big washing machine box I got for her (well, actually, I had to buy a washing machine to get that box, but it’s a great box, and therefore worth it!)

Then Littletree wanted to go for a bike ride, so we went around the neighbourhood, and ran in to some of Littletree’s friends. Littletree invited her friends over to play with her new toys from Israel, and the kids were having fun.

After a while, some other kids came to the door and shouted “Trick or treat!”. Well, this might sound strange to those in North America, but this was the very first time someone has ever trick-or-treated me – we don’t really celebrate Hallowe’en in Australia much; never ever at all when I was a kid, but it seems these days, probably due to the influence of American TV and movies, it’s starting to become a bit of a thing.

Anyway, I didn’t have anything treat-worthy to give the kids, so I handed out oranges :) and Littletree and her friends got inspired to go out trick-or-treating as well.

I figured, why not, so the kids raided Littletree’s dress-up basket and off we went.

I was surprised to see a few other kids out treating – I’ve never heard of anyone doing that in Australia. We knocked at about 15 houses, only one of which was actually prepared to give out treats (as it turned out, the mother of a local child who was out trick-or-treating as well), but just about all the other houses, unprepared as I was, good-naturedly came up with something to give the kids, even if it was just a cookie or some fruit.

Most of all, the kids had a fantastic time, and we got to meet some of the neighbours we didn’t meet before.

Along the way we had lots of interesting talks about the history behind Hallowe’en, being All Hallows’ Eve and the traditions around the Day of the Dead, and Samhain, and how in Australia the seasons are opposite than in the northern hemisphere, and it’s actually Easter/ Beltane here, and many divergent topics.

At the end of it, Littletree had a huge bag of treats, mostly candy, chocolate and cookies, but also an apple. Funnily enough, she hasn’t touched any of the sweets, except to give some away, and the only thing she’s eaten was the apple LOL! No doubt that bag of candy will join the other bags of uneaten candy she has sitting on her shelf in the kitchen.

Most of all, it’s great to have her home :D

Birthwork

This week I spent four days living in my van down in Byron Bay, doing a 3-day Birthwork Workshop. The workshop was phenomenal, and my head is spinning with all I’ve learned. I can’t wait to work with these new techniques.

The workshop was held in a massive Ger (traditional Mongolian Yurt) – it’s the biggest Ger I’ve ever seen, and so beautifully decorated with crystals and altars.

This was the ceiling inside the Ger, which meant we had beautiful rainbow-speckled light and fresh breezes when they opened up the sunroof.

We learned a lot of techniques about breathing and relaxation, as well as traditional Mexican Rebozo practice. I’ve done a lot of work with rebozos before, but I added a lot to my knowledge.

 

This is a great one; I’m comfortably supporting the full weight of this woman – such a great trick for labour support!

I also learned a lot about the pelvis, and how to work with the bones and soft tissues to open up the space for the baby. I’m really excited about this stuff, since I focus a lot of my work on releasing past trauma, especially with abuse survivors.

We also practiced traditional Mexican closing ceremony for after the birth, which felt so divine :)

I had a great time, and made a lot of friends. It was wonderful to connect with other midwives and birth attendants, and feel a part of that community, as someone who has something to offer.

Here’s the group portrait at the end:

I also had a lot of fun hanging out around Byron with friends, and sleeping at the beach.