Family

Emily, Elise, Sarah, Adonijah and Hayley

You may have read this before, but today I felt it was a message that was quite important for everyone everywhere. It is particularly pertinent to me, having had a few spats with my children the past couple of days. It brings home how important our families really are and how special.

A POEM I RECEIVED VIA EMAIL ABOUT "F A M I L Y"

I ran into a stranger as he passed by, 'Oh excuse me please' was my reply.
He said, 'Please excuse me too; I wasn't watching for you.'
We were very polite, this stranger and I.
We went on our way and we said goodbye.
But at home a different story is told,
How we treat our loved ones, young and old.
Later that day, cooking the evening meal,
My son stood beside me very still.
When I turned, I nearly knocked him down.
'Move out of the way,' I said with a frown.
He walked away, his little heart broken.
I didn't realize how harshly I'd spoken.
While I lay awake in bed,
God's still small voice came to me and said,
'While dealing with a stranger, common courtesy you use,
but the family you love, you seem to abuse.
Go and look on the kitchen floor,
You'll find some flowers there by the door.
Those are the flowers he brought for you.
He picked them himself: pink, yellow and blue.
He stood very quietly not to spoil the surprise,
you never saw the tears that filled his little eyes.'
By this time, I felt very small,
And now my tears began to fall.
I quietly went and knelt by his bed; '
Wake up, little one, wake up,' I said.
'Are these the flowers you picked for me?'
He smiled, 'I found 'em, out by the tree.
I picked 'em because they're pretty like you.
I knew you'd like 'em, especially the blue.'
I said, 'Son, I'm very sorry for the way I acted today;
I shouldn't have yelled at you that way.'
He said, 'Oh, Mom, that's okay.
I love you anyway.'
I said, 'Son, I love you too,
and I do like the flowers, especially the blue.'


FAMILY

Are you aware that if we died tomorrow, the company that we are working for could easily replace us in a matter of days. But the family we left behind will feel the loss for the rest of their lives.


And come to think of it, we pour ourselves more into work than into our own family, an unwise investment indeed, don't you think?


So what is behind the story?


Do you know what the word FAMILY means?

FAMILY = (F)ATHER (A)ND (M)OTHER (I) (L)OVE (Y)OU

A Message about Family from Hayley Solich


Last weekend I felt to lay a table in honour of my family. I am currently temporarily separated from my husband and the children had been with him for the weekend. So when they arrived home it was to a table that was set with some party stuff and special note for each person. I took a lot of care in the presentation of the table and I cooked a beautiful roast meal. As I was sitting at the table my children said to me, "Mum, what's the party for?" Their little faces were so excited and they couldn't work out why I'd done it. I started to get teary and I said, "It is in celebration of our family." They were all so excited and my husband just looked at me with a grateful light in his eye, because in the note I'd placed in front of him I had asked for forgiveness for not understanding him better, not trying harder and not being there for him when he needed me most.


The point is, family is important. It's the most important part of our lives and for many years I have put other things first - my career, my latest project, my friends, my hobbies, but I realise that I have four young lives that are looking to me for an example.


Since the luncheon, I've been into two of my children's classrooms as a helper. I didn't realise just how much this would mean to them. My daughter was so excited, she kept coming up to me in the classroom and kissing me. It was a precious moment and only cost me an hour or two of my time. Just think of the opportunities I have been missing by being too busy doing my own thing. I plan to make more time for creating special memories with my children.

Women can do anything - but do we really want to????

Today, after dropping my children at school in the pouring rain, I sped down to the shops to grab a few things, hoping to get back home before my sick 9 year old realised how long I'd been.

I rushed into the shops and endured the usual shopping dramas. Declined card...no probs, just reached further into the wallet and pulled out the credit card. Baby screaming...just assumed my "screen-out-child-noises" mother's ears and didn't even hear the child anymore. Grabbing my few purchases I raced out into the gale force winds and horizontal rainfall.

Reaching the car, I jumped in and yanked the door shut. Gunning the engine, I released the clutch and the car hesitantly crawled forward. It felt a bit strange but I had the music blaring and didn't realise at this point that I had a flat tyre. It was as I was about to exit the car park that I heard the thump thump thump above the blaring music and pulled over, jumped out and saw the completely flat tyre. At that point, I could of used a few choice words but instead, being the woman that I am, totally used to crisis, I calmly pulled the car into a side bay and sat for a few minutes deciding what to do as I watched the rivers of water running down my windscreen.

Fishing my mobile out of my bag, I phoned the RAC (Roadside Assistance), as for the first time in over 10 years I'd decided to take our membership!

The young woman on the phone asked me a series of standard questions. "What is the number plate of the car?" I dumbly said, "I don't know. It's raining and the number plate is on the outside of the vehicle." Then she asked me, "What street are you on?" Once again, feeling a little stupid I responded, "I don't know. I'm only new to the area." I heard her take a deep breath then ask me, "Do you have a spare tyre with you?" This time I felt the size of an ant and responded, "I don't know. It's a borrowed vehicle." A long pause ensued, then she said, "No problem." I could almost hear her thinking aloud, "Yep, got one of those week, wishy-washy women here who don't know one end of a car from the other and are hopeless at managing their lives?"Eventually she let me know someone would be out within the hour and hung up.

Being the impatient person that I am, all I could think of was my poor sick child at home alone and this was my fretty child who would be upset at having been abandoned. The next thought was, what are you doing, Hayley? Aren't you the Chairperson of Women Can? Why don't you get out of the car into the torrential rain and change the blasted tyre yourself? Why are you going to sit there and wait for God knows how long when you can probably do this yourself?So, for some stupid reason, I decided to prove to the world (but mostly to myself) that I was not some poor defenseless woman who needed a man to do everything for them.

I got out of the car in the pouring rain, went to the boot and lifted the lid. I found the wheel, which was bolted in place. It took me some time but I eventually located the tool to unscrew it. The whole time the rain is pelting my back and I started to feel cold, as I was totally unprepared for wet weather.

Eventually I got the tyre out and found the jack. I wheeled the tyre to the side of the vehicle and stood looking at the jack and lever. I had only ever seen my husband and father change a tyre, so I had some idea but not much of what to do. I looked under the car and at the jack and under the car and at the jack again. I decided it had to hit something solid, so placed it carefully some way under the car. Then I attached the lever and started to turn. It was so hard going, that I found it really hard to turn, but managed to start to lift the car.

I had gotten the car high enough to take the pressure off the wheels, but low enough so that I could untighten the nuts before lifting it right off the ground. It was then that I discovered that a tyre has a hub cap thingy and I had no idea how to get it off.Temporarily challenged, I went back to the boot and realised that the water had saturated my work things which I had stashed in the boot because I had not thought to close the lid! DOH!

Sighing, I searched frantically for something to take off the hubcap. Eventually I found a tool with a flat end and decided to take a few minutes break out of the rain under the shelter of the shopping complex awning.

All the time I was doing this I kept telling myself, "Hayley, you are the Chairperson of Women Can. You can do anything!" While internally a small voice was saying, "But didn't you join the RAC so that they could take care of things like this?" I quickly silenced that wise inner voice - after all, I was a woman on a mission!

It was as I was standing there contemplating what to do next that I saw a flash of yellow out of the corner of my eye. I have never been so grateful to see an RAC van in my life! The guy hopped out and met me at the car. When he saw my handiwork he turned to me with a smile and congratulated me on getting this far as I'd done everything correctly. Internally I warmed a few degrees, but assumed the weak female position for his benefit, saying, "Thanks, I ran out of steam."

He took about 2 minutes to have that tyre off and a new one on, which he had to pump up using his machine in his van. Imagine if you will how I would have been had I got that blasted tyre on and then realised it too was flat!

Suffice to say, as I watched him easily wind the jack lever and I looked down at my hands which were now black from the brake pads powder from the inside of the tyre I had lifted into the boot, in that moment I decided that I'm glad I'm not a man and that they can have all that goes with the practicalities of maintaining a car! After all, women can do anything they set their heart to, but in some instances it pays to choose not to! As the saying goes, why have a dog and bark yourself?

Preparing for the rain

If you know that it is going to rain, you prepare for it. You do your washing, you do your gardening, you pack away everything that might get ruined in the downpour. Why is it that when you know there is going to be a deluge of activity in our lives we are less diligent in preparing for it and are often caught out in the rain?

I have spent most of my early evening, contemplating the thunder storm that they have forecast for tomorrow afternoon. As I was hanging out the washing in the early afternoon, I was remembering how yesterday had been a really sunny day and I could have easily done all my washing yesterday and would have been pulling in dry clothes, instead of hanging out wet ones in such conditions.

As I saw the clouds slowly start to roll across the sky, I was internally berating myself. Procrastination - an old friend - had rendered me ineffective again. However, when I realised the weather report, the threat of impending doom motivated me to action.

Isn't our lives sometimes like this? We are forever looking back at the good old days and wondering what happened. We see our now sagging breasts, spreading middle and hips and are left wondering why we didn't make the most of the golden days of independence when our bodies were up to the challenge. Or we only get our act together when we are faced with the negative consequences of our procrastination.

I guess the rain must fall in all our lives. The question is, do we have to wait for an impending deluge to get ourselves motivated? I think not. We have choices. We can take action today to secure a happier tomorrow.

It bears thinking about!

So many new beginnings...

When you take a drastic step, like leaving your husband, for however long, you expect that there will be a period of adjustment. However, as you are walking through that period, you don't really perceive how great the adjustment is until you take the time out to reflect. This is also true of everything that we do in life!

I recently had to do an audit of my hours that I worked for TAFE over the past nine months because there was a pay discrepancy and there in black and white was the evidence of my tumultuous past six months.

Starting the job in September, there was a consistent weekly jaunt down to the factory where I support 25 workers in their learning and development needs. Then the ill-fated separation in December occured and the past six months there are so many gaps in my attendance to work that it shocked me.

Sure, there were reasons outside of my control for my lack of attendance at site. The factory didn't need me in January, as it was their slow month and they had new staff. Then there was my car running badly in February-May, which meant I couldn't physically get to work. My children fell sick on the day I was supposed to go to work several times. With no-one to look after them, I simply had to cancel work.

Overriding all these circumstances was the heartbreaking knowledge that my credibility was somehow hanging in the balance. Where I had felt I had been very strong and coped well, I realised that I had just been going through the motions, completing whatever I could no longer evade.

I guess as a woman we all struggle with accepting those parts of our nature that are not perfect. Certainly, when life gives us feedback, it's sometimes a bitter pill to swallow. The more that I hear, not just listen to, my husband's heart, his emotions and his issues with my past performance, the clearer I am seeing a picture of me that I would rather not have known about but must respond to!

So here I am - on my own, for however long - and I can no longer blame anyone for my life, for my circumstances, for what is happening. I am responsible. So, I ask myself, what am I going to do with that newfound responsibility? Am I going to return to the diligent, reliable, strong person that I once was or am I going to cave in to the pressures and retreat into the shell that was my existance as a mother?

I know that I am of greater stuff than the retreating type.

I know that where I could have been moving in a negative direction I have chosen to move forward. I know that there is nothing I would prefer more than to achieve my dreams. So with all my many new beginnings I am making one more. The beginning of loving myself, despite my failings.

Balancing Being a Mum with Earning an Income

First rule of mothering: You come first. If you are tired, unhappy, depressed, worn out, despondent or just plain stressed, the rest of your world is going to be all over the place! Solution: Take care of number one at all costs. But how?

This is the kind of thinking that the modern mother is being encouraged to embrace as she battles to contend with her lot of breadwinner and child carer, with both occupations screaming out for her full-time attention. She leaves the home after battling with the brat pack, to get them dressed, fed, bags packed and ready for school, rushes them off, either waving them goodbye and saying a silent prayer that they make it safely to school, or pushing them out of the car at the front gate because she is now late for the oh so important job and doesn't have time to walk them to their classes, which she has been advised leavese them feeling abandoned, causing multiple issues - a whole another blog!

As a mother of four, currently going solo, I can verify that it is tremendously
stressful trying to balance occupations. Where does the mothering role end and
the working role begin? And how do I manage my life so that I get the time that
I need, whilst not neglecting my responsibilities?

Take for example my day today. It started at 7:00am, when I crawled out of bed, after going to be after midnight due to trying to squeeze a few hours of "my time" in after the kids went to bed. Incidentally, my planned 5 hours of sleep was interrupted by a child who had a bad dream, so my day was taxed before it began! I manage to get them all ready ahead of schedule, as I want to be at work on time, then make them promise to walk together all the way to school and behave, as I no longer have time to get them there by car and be at the class I teach on time.

As I drive away my heart is torn. My five year old son can be a handful and I am hopeful that he will cooperate with his older sisters and walk the short 10 minutes to school without incident. However, the mobile phone rings mid morning and it is the school principal. My son has sat down on the side of the road and refused to budge a few short metres from school. In desperation, his older sister has left him and gone for help. In the meantime, he has crossed the road unattended and then was found walking through the middle of the car park - an out of bounds zone! And to top it all off, he no longer had the lunch I packed for him in his bag!

When I got that call my heart sank, for deep down I knew that I had once again failed him. I pondered the "Why?" question, in relation to trying to earn an income when I have children that are requiring the loving care of a "present" mother. "Why was I putting myself through this heart wrenching, soul destroying process of trying to serve two masters?" "Why didn't someone somewhere understand my struggle and come to my rescue?" "How could I do everything?"

Fortunately, the Principal was having a good day and offered me an olive branch after I explained to her that I had not dropped them off because I was concerned that he would wander off, as his teacher had already complained about him not going to class when I drop him off on time, let alone having 30 minutes to himself on the school grounds without supervision. She understood my plight and agreed that the girls could walk, as they had demonstrated their reliability and enjoyed the walk, but I was to drop the boy off to the office and they would make him sit in a chair and wait for school to start, then walk him to his class. The relief I felt was massive. But the questions remain, "Why?"

As I ponder this I am torn. My employers need reliabilty, flexibiliy and
availability. I need to be a mother. Can there ever be a win:win when the odds
are so loaded? Should I just give up the desire to provide a little extra so
they can go on the excursions and have new clothes instead of the hand me downs
we've survived on for years? Perhaps I am just pushing a barrow up hill that was
never meant to go there.

I'd love to hear how other mothers balance their work, families and social lives. Please post your comments.