Growing Family

Antique Shopping in Bowral

I love antique shopping, and scouring markets, garage sales, and op shops for treasures. I think most of you know that about me by now. My dad ran an antique restoration and sales business when I was little, and is always working on some project. I think finding dusty treasures and bringing them to glory is just in my genes. I'm at least a fourth generation bower-bird.

Earlier this year, Finch and I were finally getting into the routine of going on some regular treasure hunts, but that became impractical when little B arrived. He likes to make a big impression - and not the right kind of impression for shops loaded with crystal and breakables!

Imagine my sheer delight when I found myself with five other women who enjoy browsing through shops! We were advised that Dirty Jane's Emporium was a must see, and it was fantastic! The front showroom was all French Provencial (not my thing), and things with four digit price tags. Out back was a warehouse with heaps of vendors and lots of industrial antiques (absolutely my thing!). 

I loved this vendor's displays on tea trolleys painted in pastels. I am on the hunt for one such tea trolley, although I won't be putting it on the wall.

I love the joy and the pops of colour in the Kodak print. I especially like the pairing with the yellow lamp, although I think the shade drags it down a bit.

I would put these antique folding chairs in my office just as they are! And that sweet spindle back white chair had a kangaroo etched in the backrest (I think it was that one).

I have a weakness of big industrial lighting. If they didn't cost about a million dollars I would put them all over my house!

This metal-topped table was displayed by a local artist that does custom work. I love this idea for a large family table or counter/benchtops.

In my wildest dreams I have a soaking tub in my backyard. This could be a rustic start in that direction. 

On my yellow stripe wall, I intend to install a grouping of antique mirrors. These three would do the trick!

I like how this vendor displayed their lampshades hung from a tree!

Another noteworthy stop was The Country Flower Shop and the adjoining antique store. 

"I love colour!" I exclaimed. My new friend responded drily "I would never have guessed." raising her eyebrows at my brightly patterned dress and my fuschia pony hair cuff. Do what makes you happy, is my motto!

Like this green display space. It was just so much green!

I don't even know what this piece was, but the crazy color combo and the gorgeous flower cut-out made me laugh.

In a new homewares shop I loved this idea - a bicycle wheel covered in ribbon and hung with silver ornaments!

And lastly, we just about passed out at the Elephant Boy Cafe. The styling was very Afro-Colonial with heavy wood tones, and walls and walls of built in bookshelves. The proprietess was stunning, and I'd love to know the story behind the place. 

So that was our day shopping on Bong Bong Street in Bowral. I hope you get to go there sometime. It was so much fun!

PS-sorry for how wonky the text and photos are. Hey Typepad! improve your platform for text and photo manipulation!

A Weekend Away

So it may or may not contradict what I said in my last post but I was fist-pumping excited to receive this in the mail this week...

I need to participate in a swearing-in ceremony and then I will be a proud Australian-American! Somehow I feel like I AM (or will be very soon) Australian, yet I feel like even a passport couldn't make me Dutch. I think this is because most of my friends here are Australian AND Something. Being 100% Australian, and 100% Something Else does not seem to be a problem.

This weekend I was away with five other women for a girl's weekend. At one point we looked around and had a giggle that there were no two people of the same ethnicity in our group, but we were all Australian (at least I almost am). There were moments during the trip where things had to be clarified for those of us who didn't grow up here, or where we referenced our cultural background to explain our point view. It was so seamless and...not a big deal.

Going away for a whole weekend away of Girl Time was a BIG DEAL for me! Several months ago a mom from Small Sun's class at school sent out an email to see if anyone was interested, and even though I didn't really have a relationship with any of the women interested in going, I said yes. It has been just about a year since my last weekend away from the kids, and I think I was due for another!

The dynamic of six women, all aquantainces, made for a really fun and interesting trip. We went to Bundanoon, in the Southern Highlands of New South Wales, about a two hour drive from Sydney. 

How fun to discover that we all like antique shopping, and that there were some fabulous small town markets and antique shops nearby!

We stayed at Old Cedars, a stunning five-bedroom modern country house, nestled amongst gorgeous gardens. As soon as we turned off of the Hume Highway, into the Highlands, my soul started to stir. While most of New South Wales is characterized by silver-grey eucalyptus trees, and sandstone boulders, the Southern Highlands feature rolling green hills dotted with grazing cattle, and during springtime, plentiful "blossom trees", as The Sprout calls them.

I feel refreshed on a near-cellular level, in the presence of green, and this weekend brought me alive in ways I hadn't realized I was dying.

The house was amazingly well-appointed and we were encouraged to enjoy everything!

The breakfast nook with double french doors, opening onto one of many verandahs and courtyards, let in wonderful afternoon sun.

In this fountain lived a frog that nearly drove on of the girls insane. We even went out hunting it at night, with a flashlight and tupperware container at the ready, but he was too smart for us and stopped croaking when we got close to capture.

This was my room. I chose it for the garden view. I even got to lie in bed to read a magazine and take an afternoon siesta, and stayed up nights scribbling poems into my diary.

The view from my wonderful, crisply made up bed.

The front door, from an 18th century Spanish Castle.

The road less travelled, which we found ourselves on thanks to a tempermental GPS, ended up being on of my happiest moments. We passed lovely stone farmhouses tucked into hillsides, wealthy farms with formal hedges and gravelled drives, and eventually we arrived here...

where we decided to turn back and find the highway by another route that didn't require creek-driving. 

I cried a bit, crouching down to photograph this creek, while the other girls consulted their iPhone maps, and GPS. I flung my arms open, feeling so renewed. This looks like my precious home-land. This looks like my happiest childhood memories. In a wonderful weekend of food, laughter, heartfelt encouragement, shopping, and luxury, it was this electric green that made my heart sing most, because it felt the most like home.

Transcultural Parenting - What is Success?

Between five and ten years ago I felt so international, so multicultural, so accepting and embracing of other cultures. I'd lived abroad, travelled to over 15 countries, studied several languages, and invested time "over the tracks" in my own backyard. I was (and am) in an intercultural marriage and pretty much felt like I was so connected to the world, and I could bridge any cultural barriers I came across. I had some apprehensions about my ability to successfully parent a child from a different ethnic background than mine, but I imagined that if I applied myself, I would be able to do a good job.

At that time, I feel like I had a hyper focus on culture, nationality, and ethnicity. I was interested in a positive way, and very focused on facilitating my own child's connection to his African American heritage.

Now, twelve years into my intercultural marriage, and four+ years into my third stint of living abroad, so much has changed. 

First of all, I have completely given up on the idea that I can ever become Dutch like my husband. I will never be Dutch. I could live in Holland, I could study to gain a Dutch passport, I could grow in my understanding of Dutch culture, but I will always be an American Girl. The more time I spend in Holland, the more American I feel. I love Holland, and I love my Dutch family, but that doesn't make me Dutch. I never will be. 

Coming to this realization, this understanding that I can have a personal and intimate guide into another culture, the ultimate "in", and still not fit, or gain credibility by osmosis, has really made me rethink my entire perception of multiculturalism. I really thought that I would eventually be part Dutch by association, but I'm not.

I have Dutch loyalties, and interests, and I consider my children to be half Dutch, but I am American.

This has really impacted my perspective on transcultural parenting. I no longer believe that I can contribute to my children's Dutchness in any significant way, other than to value it as part of who they are, and reinforce my belief that they get to choose their identities. If they identify as Dutch, they are, and no one can take that from them. They have the passports to prove it.

I tend to be a person who sees things in stark black and white, and my measurements for success are so rigid, they are most likely not realistic. 

When it comes to parenting my transracially adopted son, I have an extensive list of expectations for myself as his parent that I am currently failing at. Somehow because he is African American, and I am American, I don't hold my husband to these same expectations. I feel that it is my job, as one who shares this national history with my son's ancestors, to carry the weight of helping him successfully gain an identity as a African American man. 

When I imagine what success looks like, I imagine that a transracially adopted adult should

-be a walking encyclopedia of their birth culture's history and important people

-be completely comfortable in their birth AND adopted cultures, in settings that span class and socioeconomics

-be completely fluent in his or her birth language, or be able to navigate linguistic differences that exist in english

-be able to maintain a dual national identity if born in a country outside the one they are adopted to

The list of things that indicate success go on and on in my head, and is largely based on what I've read adult transracial adoptees describe as what they wish they had, but based on my own ability to achieve the kind of cultural fluency I want for my son, I don't really think such a thing is possible any more. 

I am still thinking about adopting from Ethiopia. Last night I asked my husband, "do you think it would be wrong to adopt from Ethiopia if I don't know if I can maintain a permanent dedication and connection to the country?" "Are you permanently dedicated and connected to [the state our son was born in]?" he replied.

Always so matter-of-fact. So Dutch.

Here's the thing. In reality, living in Sydney is affording me a much more diverse and culturally connected life than I've ever had. My friends come in many hues, and hail from many countries. But ethnicity and "culture" has never mattered to me less than it does now. These are just my friends. Sometimes we get together and share food from our homelands, or once in awhile we discuss the way our heritage impacts our life or decisions, but mostly we just get on with living life and being friends.  

I used to think about "my Malaysian friend" or "my Sri Lankan friend", but those mental descriptors fell away a long time ago, and now these are just the people that I do life with. 

In the same way, when I look at my son, I see the to-do list of perfect transracial parenting superimposed over our interactions less and less, and just see him.

Is he doing well? Does he feel confident in his skin? Does he know he is capable and kind, and able to achieve? Does he know he is handsome, and loved, and that he belongs wherever he is?

More and more discussions of his ancestors, and his/our heritage are naturally entering our conversations at his initiation. The more I give up on my expectations of what I think I should be doing, the more free I am to focus on where life has actually brought us, and how free we are to just be more, and define less. 

We are Americans, caramel and vanilla, we are Dutch, we are Aussie. As my three-year old Finch said with a grin, "we're all mixed up!". All mixed up, and so proud of all the pieces.

 

 

How is it October?

Today is the last day of the Term 3 school holidays, and tomorrow Small Sun and Sprout will put on their uniforms, and head back to school for Term 4. Term 4 will be rather short, so we are on the downhill stretch of the year. I imagine us on a billy cart, coasting down a steepening hill, losing control, and falling, headlong, into the summer holidays. Then we can clean up the mess we made on the way down. Then we can recover from the ride. Then we will spend days in the sun, recovering from the year, and ready to start another.

I was thinking this morning about something I felt God speak to my heart about two years ago. I saw a picture like a road sign, indicating an upcoming sharp bend in the road. The Lord was speaking to me about being courageous, and pressing forward, even when I didn't know the way.

I wondered at those words all that year, looking for the turn in the bend, and wondering what I would need courage for.

Now I am not hearing fresh and new "notes from God". At the moment I feel like I have my fingers in my ears saying "la la la!" because I just can't handle anything else! I am struggling.

Last weekend we went camping with friends. In a mix-up with a borrowed tent, we ended up four hours from home, with four road-weary children, and a tent with no poles. It was one of those moments where everyone is ready to start the holiday and have fun, so there just wasn't time to get upset over it. We discussed buying a tent, or trying to book a cabin. We ended up in a vintage caravan, where the kids were overjoyed to sleep in built-in bunks, and I was overjoyed to have a little kitchen and our own bathroom. It was like my Boxcar Children fantasies come true!

The Captain took the kids with him and I had an hour of playing house, setting up our caravan for the weekend. It was so much fun.

We were there with one of Small Sun's best mates from school, and his family, who have become good friends. Small Sun and H spent most of every day riding around the campground on their bikes. They even swam in the freezing pool one day (don't you think Small Sun's diving style is noteworthy?). 

Sprout and H's little sister, with Finch tagging along behind, spent hours in the playground, digging in the dirt, drawing and painting, and playing pretend.

Driving up, I was just so excited to have four! whole! days! with my husband and my kids. Four unstructured days! We spent hours sitting around in our camp chairs with our friends, eating, chatting, and enjoying the sunshine. It was so refreshing.

One day we took a long walk to the edge of the land we were camping on, to see the lake. B fell asleep on The Captain's back in a matter of minutes, and when Finch grew tired, The Captain carried him as well. 

One major component in this weekend was that B was happy most of the time! He loved being outdoors, playing on the playground, going to the beach, he loved it all! He was fun, and cute and we enjoyed him. We enjoyed him.

I feel like our happy little family has been hijacked by this two year old. On one hand I can have so much empathy for all that he's been through, and just want to love him through it. On the other hand I feel upset that I am stretched so thin in that caring, that I am not mothering with the qualities I want, and my kids are feeling the stretch.

These two and a half months have been SO HARD, but this weekend was SO FUN.

I mentioned to The Captain that I have been so focused on helping B attach to us, that I forgot that we could attach to him! I've just been in "fake it till you make it" mode, but the weekend held some really sweet moments.

We are getting a clear indication of the time line this case will follow, and what some possible outcomes may be. Having an end-date in sight (even if it months away), is helping me dig deep to try to do the best that I can, while B is with us.

I don't feel strong or successful, or "called" or like I am "making a difference". I feel fatigued, and stressed, and like a failure. 

This morning at church someone asked how B is doing on his new medication and they said "he seems so happy!". I felt invisible, having just sat several meters away from them as B hit and kicked me, and I struggled to hold him while he flailed. 

We're in the downhill stretch. Things are easier this month than we were last month. We will make it. This may be a "thin" season, but fat seasons will follow. Before we know it there will be Sprout's birthday! and Thanksgiving! and Christmas! and a giant road trip to Melbourne! and summer and all that holds in our wonderful Sydney.

We can do this.