Cleaning

My biggest downfall as a daughter was my inability to clean up after myself. I think my sister would agree that this was her biggest downfall as well. It certainly wasn't intentionally out of a lack of respect for our mother, more a lack of respect for the act of cleaning. I just could never understand why bother cleaning something if you were just going to mess it up again.

I remember when Claire and I would hear our mother's car in the driveway there would be a mad dash to put dirty plates into the kitchen sink and move school books to the bottom of the stairs to avoid being yelled at.

It's only recently that I've got a bit better at cleaning and especially with the addition of Eloise there is a certain level of hygiene I try and maintain for her safety. But there's a lot of cleaning tasks that I am still rubbish (ha!) at.

When my mom would tell me to clean my room, a hot rage would burn in my stomach. It wasn't so much that I minded cleaning my room. If I was in the right mood and with the right "cleaning" music, I could actually quite enjoy it, and certainly enjoyed the satisfaction of having a clean room. But something about being told to clean up would make me seethe.

These pictures have nothing to do with the post. But someone needs to knit me that sweater in a mom large.

I know my sister's and my inability to pick up after ourselves drove my mom crazy. And who can blame her. Single mother, working hard, and her two intelligent, thoughtful daughters can't muster up the energy to keep their mess in check. I'm impressed all she did was yell.

I want to do whatever I can to avoid this struggle for cleanliness between Eloise and me. So I've made a point of singing songs* as I clean-up small messes, or putting on good music to clean a whole room. I'll use the vacuum to suck up her shirt to make her laugh. I read a tip saying that when your baby is old enough, get them to help with the cleaning. If they throw all their food on the floor - no problem, but when you're done with the meal, get the kid down there with you helping to sweep up.

I don't know if what I'm doing is going to have any impact in the long run, but this past week Eloise has snuck baby wipes behind my back and started wiping whatever surfaces she could find. The other day while I was wiping the food that missed her mouth off of her highchair, I turned around to find her wiping my chair clean with a baby wipe. And you better believe I praised the shit out of that behavior. My voice shot up 8 octaves "Good Girl! Are you cleaning? You are so clever! Mama's little helper! That is some REALLY GOOD CLEANING ELOISE".

So of course now that she has shown an interest in wiping down surfaces I am doing what I can to show my support as a mother in what my daughter enjoys. Which lead me to what happened yesterday when I found myself sitting on my fat ass with my feet propped up drinking a cup of coffee while my child was on her knees below me mopping the floor with her own toilet paper.

*Does anyone know of any good clean-up songs apart from that horrible "Clean-up, clean-up, everybody everywhere.." that makes me want to punch myself in the head?

Let a Child Learn

Update: In what must surely be unprecedented speed in charity raising without the use of a celebrity my sister Claire has raised ALL the money required to build a new pre-school for her young students in Mozambique. The speed in which this was accomplished indicates not only how easy it is to follow a person as passionate, open, courageous and exciting as my sister but what an incredible project she chose to assist in Mozambique. My sincere thanks go to everyone who came here, read this piece and went to donate. Or spread the word to others. You have helped a group of young kids to get one step closer to whatever it is their heart desires to be.

To quote my sister: THANK YOU THANK YOU THANK YOU PROGRESS STARTS FROM THE BOTTOM UP HELL YEAH!

The university a few blocks away always puts on an incredible fireworks display for Chinese New Year. This year we decided to let Eloise stay up a bit later than usual, strapped her in her bear suit and walked over. We made it just in time and were racing through the courtyard to get to the top of the hill when the first explosions went off resonating off the University walls.

When we found a space on the green I held her in my arms and watched her watching the sky explode into fire and sound. She had a very worried look on her face. She didn’t cry, but she seemed to be thinking about it. I put my hand against her head to try and deaden the sound.

I looked at her worried face and told her that it was only fireworks.

I was suddenly struck with the image of all the mothers in this world who had ever had to cushion the sound of falling bombs from their baby’s ears. Mothers who tried to convince their children that the sound of rapid gunfire was “only fireworks”. And then I started to silently shed tears.

As a young teenager I used to wear my heart on my sleeve. I used to be passionate and enraged at injustice. Shocked at war.

Then I moved to Europe and my bleeding heart slowly retreated back into place. I became complacent and perhaps not a little lazy. With Eloise my passion has resurfaced but now it is all directed towards her – and whatever could possibly affect her.

My younger sister Claire has managed to not only hold on to her “bleeding heart” but has used it to try and put the world to right. She has devoted 2 years of her life to being a volunteer for the U.S. Peace Corps in Mozambique.

Claire (known in some circles as the toddler whisperer) is working with THE ONLY PRE-SCHOOL IN THE COUNTRY. Mozambique does not start education until the age of 5. These young children are often left running around their village, looking after even younger siblings. If you can walk – you’re old enough to carry a baby who can’t. My sister has joined forces with a Mozambican couple that have set up a rudimentary school for children aged 2 – 5. I love hearing the stories about these kids - not just because they sound like funny, unspoiled, loving children – but because my sister’s voice fills with light when she talks about them. These kids have little, and my sister and the other people who run this school often go without a salary to keep it running (food and security are the main costs). Through the Peace Corps my sister is trying to raise money so that by the time she leaves these children have a proper learning environment to create the building blocks for the rest of their education. For the rest of their lives.

I often joke that I do not need to be a philanthropist because my sister is doing it for both of us.

A recent email from my sister about the smiley boy nicknamed Zee in this photo: We celebrated zees birthday at preschool and it was amazing in a different way, we painted all the kids with face paint, zee wore a suit and a crown we made and walked into the room where everyone was sitting and singing, i put him up on a thrown we had made, he was completely overwhelmed by it and put his head in my chest and cried silenltly and refused to answer questions, we cut his cake together and shared it with everyone, he was so adorable.

Impromptu class photo. Too cute.

The four oldest girls at the pre-school.

But what I can do is use this blog as a space to urge anyone reading to donate to my sister’s program.

Please visit this link and read more. Donating is really easy – you get a confirmation email straight away and the Peace Corps site accepts all major credit cards – regardless of country of origin.

Please give whatever you can.

Comforting Eloise during the Firework display made me realize how insanely blessed my life is. How easy it is. It will be decades before a child born in Mozambique will have the same ease handed to them that my Eloise has. My sister is trying to change that. Please help her.

I guess this means I'm officially a Mommy Blogger

There is a 4 and a half year age gap between my sister and me. I always thought a 4 year age gap between kids seemed like a good idea. A 4 year old is out of diapers, able to help out in their own little way, and can at the very least sit still long enough for you to explain that they’re going to be a big brother/sister.

Then we had Eloise. Within a week I told the Frenchman that I didn’t think I could wait 4 years for another one. He agreed.

Too cute. Must. Make. MORE.

So we said, well, lets wait and see what kind of a 2 year old Eloise is and maybe go for a second kid.

Sarah at BecomingSarah.com wrote a post about how she only needed 6 months to decide that she was ready to try and make another baby. When I read that, I thought well, to each their own and all but that’s cuhrazy talk.

Then Eloise started growing up. It was a small moment. She waved her hand at me. Very slowly and deliberately and I realized that sooner than I would like she would no longer be a baby but a full blown kid. And I am just not ready to live my life without a baby in it.

Now I still need to get The Frenchman on board with the idea of keeping our lives filled with dirty nappies and 3am wake-ups at a continual pace, but reading Sarah’s post was comforting to know that I was not alone in the desire to have more babies sooner rather than later.

But I don't want to share you Mama!

Sarah’s adorable daughter Charlotte is only a couple days younger than Eloise so I have been able to relate to a lot of her posts - we both certainly did our fair share of complaining about the havoc our bodies were putting us through while pregnant.

She has an awesome blog. Killer design. Jealous inducing photos. Great writing.

She is doing a wonderful thing at the moment - encouraging literacy and urging parents to read to/with their children from a young age. This includes giving away children’s books – so get on over there and try and start or increase your children’s book collection.

She also has happened to do a feature on little ole me. I know! Her blog is like super famous now and I’m on it! Check out my interview here.

If you’ve just found my little corner of the intermaweb from Sarah’s site – Hi! If I could I would give you an awkward* fist bump and a big old goofy smile for stopping by.

*not because it is awkward "meeting" new people (yay new people!) but because I'm just not sure I can pull off the fist bump without looking like I'm trying too hard. The big goofy smile I have no problem with.