Ever after (on my 13th anniversary)

There is a golden orb spider who lives just outside my door.
Her web
trails, expansive, sticky and strong, gleaming like spun wire in the light
around plant-pots and lavender, door-frame and old shoes.

Unlike all the other orb spiders
(they are legion, here, in this strange autumn)
she doesn't hide in plants or on rafters
waiting to scurry out to wrap prey in filaments of gossamer
the better to keep for later.

This one
sits in the middle of her web
just above eye-height when the door is opened
her legs neatly extended, her body
with its tattoos of white and grey
in repose, mostly
unless delicately wrapping a bee, or consuming a mosquito
(of which she's caught a great number).
She appears never to startle. Our comings and goings
do not concern her, there is no retreat
no fear of us.

My daughters have decided
that she guards our house, brings
peacefulness to we inside the door.
They believe her to be special, she
so beautiful, so spare in her design
inscrutable,
arachnid,
ancient-of-days.

Once, I would have killed her. A witch-hunter of spiders, I
in my fear
my toe-curling anxiety of all small scuttling things
would never have suffered her to live.

Now, I see her as she is
a small jewel of life
a little beneficence at my door
and I wonder why I ever thought otherwise.

And today, well, today
it is 13 years since I was wed.
Perhaps our lady of the door-way has come to remind me
that there is no luck other than the luck we make,
there are no forevers other than those we choose,
and sometimes not then.
Sometimes it all passes so fleetly

as will she, this red-legged girl,
not long now until her time is done, as the summer
becomes a memory.

But what then is the ever after
except to say, I choose it
for however long the days
for however thin the web
I choose it. Now
and 13 years ago
this is what I choose
this person, this life

and how I have been blessed in this choosing.

- Kathy, 7/3/11

Volunteering - the fuel of community?

I was reflecting yesterday on how my life this year, while calmer, less stressful and in greater harmony / balance, has not become any less busy with the end of my employment last December. My discretionary hours in the week have not increased at all, and in some ways have actually compressed as all three kids edge their bedtimes later (a trend that I'm sure will be reversed when the 2-year-old starts ditching her nap, a change of which there are already indications).

This struck me as strange until I realised that the reason is that I have several more Stuff & Things to do each week now than I did in 2010. Some of these are things like the toddler's Kinder Gym class, which is great fun for both of us; doing my own cleaning instead of having fortnightly cleaners; and my yoga class, which is proving to be a very good thing for me. Most, however, are things that are effectively volunteering jobs, big and small: from serving on school council to helping run the playgroup C and I attend; from helping out with school Breakfast Club once a fortnight to teaching Sunday School monthly; from spending two hours each Friday morning cutting up fruit for the school's Free Fruit Friday program to serving on another volunteer committee. Next term I'll be throwing two hours of fortnightly classroom reading help for my Prep child's class into the mix as well.

I don't think I'm particularly unusual in this; if anything, I think we as a family are pretty light-on in terms of what we do for all the organisations to which we belong. We do no volunteering at all for the community gymnastics club that all three girls attend (although we always participate in the fundraisers); we don't go to working bees, we don't help organise craft fairs or fundraising efforts or Bunnings sausage sizzles (although I will declare that I have become the unofficial onion-dicer for three separate organisations - because we don't help on the day, I have been tasked with preparing 9 - 12 kg on onions in advance. That's one heck of a lot of onions, I can tell you). I don't help with school cooking or do canteen shifts. There are lots and lots of things more we *could* do, without even moving outside of the school / church / community centre / gym club orbit we occupy regularly (let alone the many other opportunities to help out that abound in our area).

Nonetheless, we - or, actually, I, as volunteering falls to me in our division of marital labour - do what we can. Lots of people are like me, in all these places - helping out here and there, lending a hand, on a regular or ad hoc basis. And the bald truth is, without a quiet army of volunteers in all these areas, nothing could or would get done. Public schools and community centres are under-resourced to do the auxiliary work that raises funds and builds the richer web of connection and community that these places can foster. Churches are entirely "staffed", if you can call it that, by volunteers. Playgroups are run by parents and carers, gym clubs and other sporting clubs are administered, run and tirelessly supported by participants and their families. All these people, all these thousands and thousands of people, who just know that community can be found wherever you choose to build it, and that building it is everyone's responsibility.

I personally find it rewarding to volunteer, and am committed to continuing to buy in to the organisations with which I'm involved; in time, I'd like to offer my labour to other places that are desperate for help. I have no special expertise, but I have my hands and my mind and my willingness to join in. Oh yes, and I have my TupperChef Master thingy - so if you need a massive bucket of onions chopped, I am your girl ;-)

Spidey

Can anyone identify this fella for me?



The spider databases at Museum Victoria and CSIRO are being less helpful than usual with this one. We're stumped, and would appreciate any thoughts...

The spider is:

- about 2 - 2.5cm in diameter
- is living on a web ([presumbly that it built)
- is not sharing the web with any spider friends as far as we can tell
- appears to be smooth-bodied, not hairy-bodied
- is catching a megatonne of mosquitos in its perch near my front door

UPDATED: It appears to be a female juvenile golden orb spider.

Reading Notes - This month's Top 20

The big girls are into all sorts of books, and so is the toddler. At 2, naturally, she loves repetition, so although her exposure to different texts is very broad over time, within any given month we might read the same 20 or 30 books over and over again, rather than reading 100 different books (as would be truer of the picture-book habits of the 5-year-old).

It's interesting to me to see where her tastes lie as time progresses, and as I am One of Those Evil People Who Writes About The Mundanity of Their Entirely Uninteresting Life, Thereby Clearly Forcing Others to Read It, As They Are Incapable of Simply Looking Away, I thought, what the heck, I'll do a monthly Top 20 for toddler, as a record for me and her.

And if you don't have a toddler and / or are uninterested in children's picture books, move on. Nothing to see here.

So, Toddler's Top 20 for the month of February 2011:

1. Hairy Maclary, Sit! (Lynley Dodd)

2. Hairy Maclary and Zachary Quack (Lynley Dodd)

3. Schnitzel von Krumm's Basketwork (Lynley Dodd)

4. Slinky Malinki's Catflaps (Lynley Dodd)

5. Hairy Maclary, Shoo! (Lynley Dodd)

The top 5 positions all belong to Lynley Dodd and her wonderful, toddler-pleasing Hairy Maclary books. We've got about 15 of these books in total, but these five in particular are very dear to my 2-year-old's heart. She loves the rhyme and rhythm of the stories, the vibrant artwork, and the antics of Hairy and his posse so much.

6. The Willy-Willy and the Ant (Retold by Cecelia Egan)

7. Tiddalik, Or the Frog Who Wouldn't Laugh (Retold by Cecelia Egan)

The toddler is also very enamored at the moment of these two retellings of Aboriginal dreamtime stories - one about the whirlwind (willy willy), one about Tiddalik, the giant frog who swallowed all the fresh water in the world.

8. Mr Pusskins (A Love Story) (Sam Lloyd)

This is a total charmer of a book, featuring a very catly cat (ungrateful, disdainful and offhand, at least at the beginning). I can never read it without being reminded of the old axiom that while dogs have masters, cats have staff ;-)

9. My Many-Coloured Days (Dr Seuss)

Some days as yellow, some days are blue ... On different days I'm different too. The toddler, like both her sisters before her, is enchanted with this gentle riff on moods.

10. Peek-a-Baby! (Karen Katz)

11. Where Is Baby's Mommy? (Karen Katz)

C likes a good old lift-the-flap book as much as any self-respecting toddler, and Karen Katz's simple and colourful illustrations make these ones particular favourites.

12. Charlie & Lola - I am Not Sleepy and I Will Not Go to Bed (Lauren Child)

13. Charlie & Lola - I Will Not Ever, Never Eat a Tomato (Lauren Child)

14. Charlie & Lola - This is Actually My Party (Lauren Child)

Now, Charlie and Lola are an interesting phenomenon to me. All three of my kids have adored them in turn, although C has developed her attachment the earliest (she really seems to keep pace with the stories too, amazingly), but none of them have been too bothered about the TV series, and the elder two now are quite disinterested in the books. It also hasn't translated into any taste for Lauren Child's older offerings - my 7 year old tried, and disliked, one of her Clarice Bean books (it is one of the few things she's ever taken back to the library half-read).

For me, I find these books just a little grating after repeated readings. Charlie is just a bit *too* patient and mature, Lola a bit *too* predictably inconsiderate and childish (as opposed to childlike, which is a different trait and one that I highly value in storybook characters). Still, I know many adults who rave about them, so to each their own.

15. Doggies! (Sandra Boynton)

Well, Sandra Boynton is a classic of the preschool set, after all.

16. Bertie and the Bear (Pamela Allen)

The variety of noises that accompany this story make it a great read for toddlers, and, I have discovered, a great engager for multi-age playgroup storytime as well.

17. We're Going on a Bear Hunt (Michael Rosen)

C likes to do the action to this classic story - "Froo the grass! Swishy-swashy, Swishy-swashy!" she calls excitedly. I love that this is a story that can be played as much as read.

18. How Do Dinosaurs Say I Love You? (Mark Teague / Jane Yolen)

We have several of the excellent How Do Dinosaurs series, but this one is C's favourite of them all. She kisses the dinosaurs on each page ;-)

19. Time for Bed (Mem Fox)

C has this as a bedtime story, firmly choosing it over the toddler-night-routine tales of the older girls (my 7 year old was a Goodnight Moon kid, while the 5 year old was all about Owl Babies and nursery rhymes as bedtime). Like most Mem Fox books, it is beautiful.


20. Olga the Brolga (Rod Clement)

Again I think rhyme is the key to the engagement of this story - that and the beautiful illustrations. It's a fun one to read aloud too - even repetitively!

If you have toddlers, what books do yours go for? Does it change much month to month?

Wordless Wednesday: Grasshopper