The challenge continues...

Well I have survived the first fortnight of being a full time working mum in a big city again. Although survived is a very loose term. Those things which I was most concerned about have all turned around to face me in headlong battles but we are making headway slowly.

Firstly and most importantly my cherubs, Miss A and Master X who have both found themselves in full time care for the first time ever have taught me, by far the greatest lesson yet. It only dawned on me recently - as I was struggling in the morning to have everyone dressed (including both shoes and obligatory ponies/dolls or teddy bears which must accompany us on each trip) , fed and me looking slightly less haggard then I felt; that time is such an amazingly critical factor in our lives. For something taken for granted, wasted and chased after so much in our lives - just a little of it can mean so much.

As I busily buzzed around the house one morning this week juggling lunches and lipstick I heard Miss A ask her brother to play ponies with her, to which he; at the tender age of seven replied "I'm just a little busy at the moment, I'll play later" It was then that I realised how many times in the past week or so I had said those words myself. I remember vividly being told similar words myself as I child and I vowed my children would never feel the insignificance and the frustration I felt. So I downed the tools and went and sat and played ponies, and listened to Master X recount the latest episode of Digimon to me and felt so much better. Just 10 minutes and everyone had relaxed and was smiling again. Did it really matter if I got to work on time 10 minutes later than I planned? No but it made such an amazing difference to our day.

Miss A is still struggling with the concept of daycare and the extended village care with family and friends. She is upset and acting out but at night when we snuggle into our family bed and when she wakes at night or in the morning calling out to us and we are there, I know each step is building her confidence in this new world for her.

The other challenge has, and will continue to be food - despite my best intentions, the sheer number of family BBQ's and most shamefully take way :-) has left both me and the kids often on a rollercoaster of highly strung emotions and kiddies hanging from the roof tops. I am completely over well meaning individuals asking me what my kids can eat and then grimacing with a "poor little things" look on their face just because I don't allow them to indulge in the abundance of artificially coloured, flavoured and preserved food. Or worse the rolled eyes and whithering stares when I produce alternatives which we use like magic cordial or preservative free bread. Seriously! I'm not out there to make their lives more difficult, just trying to preserve my sanity... but my resolve is weakening as the onslaught continues and more and more I'm hearing myself emit a "Oh whatever is fine" mumbling under my breath that I'll deal with the consequences later. Here's hoping for a better start to next week and a more organised and resolute me.

At work I faced the challenge of trying to keep my ideals alive and I am making progress slowly. In my induction week my heart soared when I heard about the amazing wealth of social justice programs available; educating and helping the poor and encouraging sustainability. On the coal face though I have found more hazards than I hoped for: my classroom has an overwhelming 'chemical' - new room smell that despite a week of airing has done nothing. I am also finding it hard to set up an online communication system rather than a paper one but the goal is there and we can work together. I am pleased to be able to instill in the minds of my students and perhaps their parents ideas on sustainability, environmental concern and consideration about the chemical environment we live in... but baby steps :-)

By far my most challenging concern is Where To Live. Gone are the days when my biggest concern was whether or not we had good water pressure and was there a bath tub. Now we are trying to balance community values and lifestyle, travel times and therefore the amount of time kids are spending in care and the stand out for me - chemical impact. Our current favourite, which fulfils all other requirements, has us with a highway literally in our backyard. The noise, while enough of an issue is not my biggest concern. The fact that the house is old and the building materials not the safest even I can deal with. I have even managed to come to terms with the fact that the owner decided to "self-treat"the termite infestation which left him "sick for days" - seriously... idiot use some protective clothing (shudder at what the house surfaces and surrounds are like so luckily it was 2 yrs ago). No the biggest sticking point was when my hubby and I started talking about the rainwater tanks. I am always saddened to see rainwater being wasted on gardens and flushing toilets when it is so beautiful to shower in and drink... until of course my ever thinking hubby said "Yeah but we wouldn't want to use this inside the house - think of all the grime and emissions that we will pick up from being so close to the road." BINGO - yuck my greatest adversary has me cornered in this house I love but a backyard that is full of chemical runoff and emission from the ever encroaching highway... ! Hmmm which is the lesser of the weavils????

Loving the pure stuff!

I have had such an indulgent week and have found some amazing products that I wanted to share with you all. Firstly, in all the moving I managed to forget a lot of my toiletries like; make up, shampoo, conditioner etc - you know just the basic essentials for someone heading back into the workplace after three years off. But this has given me a great opportunity to try some products I have been itching to get my hands on and just haven't taken the plunge.

Make up - I was looking for a natural, mineral based foundation and got lots of wonderful suggestions from friends however I was slightly desperate and needed to pick it up that day so it discounted a lot of the online places which was a shame. I don't wear make-up often and I have been wanting to try some of these chemical free mineral foundations for such a long time. The staff at Pure Indulgence at North Lakes Shopping Centre in Brisbane were very helpful. Honest about which brands and lines were chemical free and which weren't and I walked out with a gorgeous organic moisturiser as well as my mineral foundation. Both of which are unbelievably luscious and my skin has never looked better (both with and without the makeup). It feels so good knowing that the cream I am putting onto my skin is natural and organic and it smells Divine - not with man made perfumes but with natural essential oils. What a great way to start the day.

Shampoo and Conditioner - Although I have been using safer alternatives for about a year now they do cost quite a lot so I thought I would take the opportunity to try the "no poo" hair care routine and it is really growing on me. I am still fine tuning my routine and looking at a way to "pre make" it so that I don't have to be so organised in the shower. You can find lots of great info on the web especially at this site here.

I also stumbled across this site quite a few weeks ago now and have been meaning to check it out more. Pure Earth Noosa sells a range of chemical free and organic products. I recently purchased some BPA free water bottles from them which arrived today. Beautifully packaged with a little sample of organic baby shampoo and conditioner, washing liquid and regular shampoo and conditioner, all of which smell AMAZING! I tried the shampoo and conditioner on Miss A this evening and wow - it is a gorgeous product! No tears from Miss A plus it left her hair smelling beautifully fresh and shiny and it is wonderful to know that all the ingredients are natural and organic. I was also surprised to find a little package of samples and info from a collection of businesses called Connect2mums - all in all a great shopping experience! Highly recommended.

It is great to know that chemical free living is becoming more and more achievable with these businesses supplying products that make life easier and more enjoyable.

Fed up with food

Like my all-time hero, Sue Dengate, author of Fed Up and The Failsafe Cookbook; I am fed up. Not with my childrens behaviour (as in her book title) my little munchkins have been doing fabulously, but with the fact that I have to work so damn hard in this day and age to provide food for my family that isn't loaded with chemicals.

As I have written before we are doing a big move and although we have been FAILSAFE (free of additives, salicylates, amines and other food chemicals) for over a year now we decided to get back on the stricter elimination diet in the lead up to the big day. We know it makes an amazing difference to our ability to cope with change, long drives and each other in cramped conditions :-)... it's just the "doing" that has me fed up at the moment.

Being time poor with packing, cleaning and the myrid of other "things" that have to be done in the lead up to moving house it would be nice to not have to worry over meals for the family, however pick up a packet of anything today and you'll find it's loaded with so many numbers and long winded names your head will spin. How did we let things get this way! How on earth did we, as a society allow our food to be filled with so much junk and not once cry foul. The moment of true dispair came when I was re-reading Sue's book recently and found that tests were never carried out to evaluate the effects of food additives on learning and behaviour. How in an age where scientific learning is so valued and sprouted at us, espeically parents at every turn did we miss this. It makes you wonder what exactly the tests did check for, what is the passing grade for a food additive? - Doesn't cause death, blindness, seisures, so tick that one off the list and move on? If additives in our food are not being evaluated on their effects on the brain's development and learning abilities what hope have we for the other environmental chemicals we encounter every day!

There is a new resurgence out that that is focusing on eliminating food additives such as colours and MSG from food, more studies are showing that additives are effecting learning, behaviour and mood, however as quickly as one number is taken out, another one is introduced. A new name, new number... you may find me in the supermarket waiting patiently on my mobile for customer service at some food company to tell me eaxctly what colour is caramel IV today - which usually ends up being annanatto or 160(b) - one of the very nasty "natural" colours that skims through the "no artifical colours" labelling yet has my children swinging from the ceiling in an amazingly short amount of time.

The time has come for us to fight back against the war on food so that we can shop at our leisure without having to label search and interrogate customer service lines before taking home a tub of yogurt. There are many ways of effecting change but the biggest one is with your wallet and your pen (or keyboard). Email or wite to companies with additives and inform them of their error and the fact that you and your many online friends will not be purchasing their product until it is clear of garbage. In the meantime my kiddies and I will be bunkering down with our Brumbry's bread and golden syrup and feeling all the better for it.

For more info on food chemicals check here

New Years Challenge

I admit, I'm not big on making New years Resolutions. I never seem to be able to remember what they are even if I do manage to set them but this year I have a New Years Challenge this year for myself.

For the past 7 years, since I started this amazing parenting journey I have been lucky enough to be living in smaller regional towns and cities away from our family and well meaning friends. Now I say luckily in one respect only because we do of course miss our families and love spending time with them. However it has been glorious to embark on our parenting journey alone so that we have had time to find our own path without the well-meaning comments and ideas of others. Now don't get me wrong I am sure there are plenty of supportive families out there, and I'm sure my own family would have been supportive as well... however I also remember the many rolled eyes and comments that demand breast feeding, sling wearing and cosleeping were simply "making a rod for our own backs". It was indeed a luxury to be able to develop our own style and grow in confidence in our parenting choices together as a unit before we needed to defend our choices to well meaning family and friends.

However now we are about to embark on a great new adventure and challenge and I am quite frankly very nervous. We are returning "home" to the big city after such a long time away and I am confronted with the challenge of how to incorporate our "natural" living lifestyle into a 2 working parents, living in a big city situation?

Am I going to be able to give the same amount of time and effort into finding chemically free foods, organic produce and keeping our home chemical free when I am working full-time. Or will I slowly fall back into past habits, will I have no other choice, given the time restrictions. And ultimately what is more important... spending what time I have with the kids or trying to achieve these other aims???

Probably my biggest fear is how I, and the rest of the family will cope with a working mummy and all that it brings, daycare, afterschool care, added work pressures and the absence of having that one person at home who is there to do all the behind the scenes things that we never really think about. I know we can do it, I know thousands of families do it and do it beautifully every day... but will I???

Another concern I have is remaining authentic. My beliefs about chemicals in the environment, being eco-friendly and maintaining relationships that promote love, confidence and self assurance are so important to me. I could talk about them all day long but... will I be able to live these in my workplace?

So my New Years Challenge, after the packing of course; is how to assimilate our country lifestyle into the big city. It's certainly going to be an interesting journey but I am looking forward to refecting on it in 12mths time. I'm sure it will involve much deliberation, trial and error but hopefully we can find that magic "balance" and keep trying to acheive a more natural lifestyle for our family.

What about you? Any tips for me? What's your New Years Challenge this year??